How long will it take the up front cost to be absorbed by the savings?
Irrelevant accounting speak, it has to be done, so just do it.
Not really. If it's going to cost $200 billion to do, and take 150 years to recover the cost, it's probably not worth doing.
Note that above figures were pulled out of my ass, and are not intended in any way to be realistic. Though US Government policies will tend to make the process far more expensive than you might expect, and cost recovery times far longer than you might expect.
Not true, unfortunately. How many wars have started based on false information? Off the top of my head:
* The Spanish-American War: Remember that the Maine sunk by accident
It's probably not widely known in the USA, but after the Maine blew up (and completely irrelevant to it), Spain declared war on the USA before we could get around to declaring war on them.
* The Vietnam War: The Gulf of Tonkin
One real attack on a US warship, one (most likely) imaginary one. No declaration of war by the USA.
BLOCKQUOTE> * The Iraq War: No WMDs and no connection to Al Queda.
No connection to Al Quaeda, but real WMD's. Remember, chemical weapons are WMD's. No declaration of war by the USA.
Techincally, without a declaration of war, it's not a war (at least by US definitions). Which is why diverse Presidents could get away with attacking everything from Nicaragua to Libya in the last 100 years....
Terrorists are not planning to wipe the human population, they want to instill fear and have the opponent on their toes and destroy them from within by letting panic and paranoia drive the opponents actions (such as 9/11 did to the US).
It might be useful to remember that religious fanatics, or whatever stripe, are the kind of people who can believe that something like this canl destroy the majority of humanity, but NOT destroy the "true believers"...
It is fully decentralized, all users of the search engine network are equal, the network does not store user search requests and it is not possible for anyone to censor the content of the shared index.
And we all know that noone will ever modify their portion of the decentralized system to do any of these awful things....
Without government, there can be no corporations, since the corporation is a creation of the government (granted such fun things as limited liability by government fiat)....
And then modified under the Obama Administration so that the private investors (the ones contributing to Obama) got first grabs in case of failure. The US Gov is second behind them.
If the nuclear industry were willing to retire more of these T-Rex reactors before they blow up, people might be less resistant to letting them build new ones. But they aren't.
If the nuclear industry could get regulatory approval to build a new plant without the anti-nuke nutjobs screaming and suing, perhaps they'd be able to actually build new plants.
And note that if you turn off the old plant before the new one is built, you're looking at a lot more coal being burnt for a decade (or two, including lawsuits) while the new plant is built (or not, including lawsuits).
Let's try an alternate method - build a new plant, shut an old one down as soon as the new one goes online.
Or an even better one - build three new plants, shut two old plants plus one coal plant down as soon as the three new ones go online. Lather, rinse, repeat.
If you're in an organisatin with a management/reporting structure you're unhappy with, you can either try to change it, or leave. Otherwise you just have to accept that that's how the organisation works.
And, in accordance with my First Amendment Rights, I may also:
A) Bitch about it at every opportunity,
B) Make if fun of it at every opportunity.
Cigarettes and Alcohol are facing increased tax to fund the medical care need by their abuse,
No, they're facing increased taxes because we've managed to convince more and more people not to use the stuff, and the governments had been counting on tobacco and alcohol tax revenues to pay the bills.
So, less use means less taxes, unless you raise the taxes. Which they've done, repeatedly.
That said, Trademark only applies in a specific field. If whoever it is has a Trademark for anything other than a library, his trademark in no way impacts the small library in question...
"Each State's contribution is calculated on the basis of its share of the world economy."
Umm, no.
That was true back when the UN was founded, it's no longer true. Or do you seriously believe that China's economy is only 1/12th as large as the USA's economy?
A quick check, by the by, shows the Chinese economy as about 1/3 the size of the USA's economy., and the EU's economy is slightly larger than the USA's.
Somehow, I don't see any evidence that the UN dues are related to the current economies of anyone....
Umm, no. The Congresscritters bring their own staffs with them. A Democratic Senator is not obliged to use the staff of his Republican predecessor, or vice versa.
You do have a point about lobbyists, and (by implication) the civil service.
Nonetheless, nothing will get better till we get some Congressmen who won't stand on their hind legs and ask questions of ALL sides of a debate before making up his/her mind.
Oh, and it would be nice if the answer they come up with isn't "gee, thanks for the hundred grand in campaign funds!"....
The only answer is to cut every single department by the same percentage.
Won't happen. Even assuming the law that required those cuts was written that way (it wasn't), the budget next year is a new law, which automatically supersedes previous law. So if next year's Congress just doesn't do those cuts in the budget, they're doing nothing illegal, just immoral.
The founding fathers espoused compromise and working together
Well, no. The Founding Fathers espoused limited Federal Government, and not spending money that you don't have. Which is pretty much what the Tea Party espouses.
Problem is that we've gotten so far from "limited Federal government" that we'd need a revolution to put things back the way they were.
And we're even farther from "not spending money we don't have". Note that we've spent money we don't have for every year of my life. And I'm in my 50's....
gnoring that whole ridiculous impeachment thing (personally, I'm happier when the President is known to be getting some.)
Note that Cliinton wasn't impeached for "getting some", but for "perjury".
Note that if YOU had committed perjury and been caught out, you'd not have been impeached, you'd have gone to jail.
You should also look at Supreme Court rulings relevant to Sexual Harrassment that had happened shortly before Bill started doing the perjury thing to see why he did the perjury thing.
Note that tax increases accompanied by spending cuts are never a fair trade. Tax increases are generally permanent, and spending cuts are only meaningful till next year's budget is written.
Now, if we could make an agreement that went something like this "We'll all agree to a tax increase as long as the tax increase has a one-year sunset and has to be renewed by both House and Senate annually AFTER the budget is written. In exchange, we'll all agree to cut real spending by 5% (or 10%, whatever) per year, based on the previous year's baseline. This process will continue till the budget is showing a surplus of greater than 5% per year, which will be used to pay down the National Debt." we might make some progress.
Because that agreement would require that the spending cuts be made every year before the tax increases are made for that year. The Reps get real spending cuts, and the Dems get real tax increases (if they agree to the spending cuts, of course).
Alternatively, if you don't like the spending cuts coming first, make the tax increase renewals part of the Budget Bill.
Of course, we'd have to HAVE a budget. We haven't since 2008, and don't look to have one again while Obama is President.
And, the more I think about it, the more likely it is that we'll NEVER have one again without a severe shakeup in Washington - the government has figured out that they can get away with no budget, and the political advantages of concealing the deficit by not having a budget are too great.
Finally, an idea I can agree with 100%. Vote them all out.
If you're absolutely wedded to voting only for your Party Of Choice, then vote the incumbent out in the Party Primary, and then vote your Party of choice. But get rid of ALL the incumbents. Including Obama (yes, I know the last isn't really possible, since the odds are good that no Dems will run against him in the Primaries, but I'd even take Hillary over Obama right now).
So they hate raising taxes. We get it. These assholes still can't accept a proposal that goes in their favor 11 to 1? They reject it out of hand before even talking about what the spending cuts would be? Are they joking?!??!?
Tax increases have to be repealed. Note that noone ever write a tax increase with a built-in expiration date.
Spending cuts are only meaningful for this year's budget. Future congresses are in no way obligated to honor an agreement to cut spending made last year. Hell, they're not even obligated to honor an agreement to cut spending made by THEM THIS YEAR.
And finally, note that we've not had a Federal Budget for the entire Obama Presidency. Just a series of continuing resolutions. The Dems in the Senate stopped doing budget in 2008 so they wouldn't be hammered by their budget in the 2008 elections. And they've pretty much kept it up since then. The Republican House does a budget, sends it to the Senate, the Senate ignores it.
Without a real Federal Budget, we're not going to actually get ANY spending cuts, even if both Parties agree to them.
Who the fuck supports a platform, for a major party in a democratic republic, that says: "We get every single thing we want and you get nothing you want. If you don't comply, we'll watch it all burn until you give it."
Sounds like the Dems, alright. Oh, you meant the Reps? Alas, both Parties are dancing to that tune right now. Don't put all the blame on the one side unless you're trying to show which Party you support.
And note that by putting all the blame on the OTHER Party, you just convince everyone to who doesn't already support YOUR Party that your arguments are meaningless.
The committee's mandate was to look at both where taxes could be raised, and spending cut.
Alas, part of the problem is that Obama has no real interest in raising taxes, since one obvious tax increase would be to repeal Obama's tax cut along with Bush's tax cut.
Remember, an election is coming up, and raising taxes is bad just before an election. Which was why, when Obama renewed the Bush tax cuts, he set it to expire just AFTER his next election.
By the same token, everyone can agree that spending cuts are necessary. Except the Dems of course. Note that the biggest proponent of NOT cutting Defense Spending is Obama's Secretary of Defense, not the Republicans.
That said, the nasty part of "spending cuts" as a solution is that they're meaningless.
This Congress could vote to reduce real spending by 5% per year for the next ten years (which would just about balance the budget), but budgets are written annually.
And next year's budget, being a law, and automatically overriding previous contradictory laws, can be written with a 5% INCREASE in spending even after an agreement is made to reduce spending. And there will be no ill-effects.
Note that this was what happened when Reagan raised taxes in exchange for spending cuts. Taxes went up, and the spending cuts never happened. Ditto Bush Sr. And this is what will happen to any deficit solution that involves spending cuts - the spending cuts will be ignored by future congresses who need to bribe voters with the public treasury, and we'll be back where we were.
Slashdot Mirror
You must have mistaken me for someone who wants to leave the world a better place than I found it.
Hint: I have no such intentions. I lost any such intentions at the end of the Apollo era.
Not really. If it's going to cost $200 billion to do, and take 150 years to recover the cost, it's probably not worth doing.
Note that above figures were pulled out of my ass, and are not intended in any way to be realistic. Though US Government policies will tend to make the process far more expensive than you might expect, and cost recovery times far longer than you might expect.
I'm assuming this was supposed to be sarcastic?
It's probably not widely known in the USA, but after the Maine blew up (and completely irrelevant to it), Spain declared war on the USA before we could get around to declaring war on them.
One real attack on a US warship, one (most likely) imaginary one. No declaration of war by the USA.
BLOCKQUOTE> * The Iraq War: No WMDs and no connection to Al Queda.
No connection to Al Quaeda, but real WMD's. Remember, chemical weapons are WMD's. No declaration of war by the USA.
Techincally, without a declaration of war, it's not a war (at least by US definitions). Which is why diverse Presidents could get away with attacking everything from Nicaragua to Libya in the last 100 years....
It might be useful to remember that religious fanatics, or whatever stripe, are the kind of people who can believe that something like this canl destroy the majority of humanity, but NOT destroy the "true believers"...
And we all know that noone will ever modify their portion of the decentralized system to do any of these awful things....
Without government, there can be no corporations, since the corporation is a creation of the government (granted such fun things as limited liability by government fiat)....
And then modified under the Obama Administration so that the private investors (the ones contributing to Obama) got first grabs in case of failure. The US Gov is second behind them.
Wow! That was really serious. 214 people affected nationwide! Almost an epic national disaster.
Note that wasn't 214 people dead, or sterilized, it was 214 people who got the measles. A subset of them would have been permanently affected.
Perhaps as many as were affected by the last airline crash....
If the nuclear industry could get regulatory approval to build a new plant without the anti-nuke nutjobs screaming and suing, perhaps they'd be able to actually build new plants.
And note that if you turn off the old plant before the new one is built, you're looking at a lot more coal being burnt for a decade (or two, including lawsuits) while the new plant is built (or not, including lawsuits).
Let's try an alternate method - build a new plant, shut an old one down as soon as the new one goes online.
Or an even better one - build three new plants, shut two old plants plus one coal plant down as soon as the three new ones go online. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Of course, absent some underlying health issues (CKD for example), necking down a lot of water regularly will pretty much prevent dehydration....
And, in accordance with my First Amendment Rights, I may also:
A) Bitch about it at every opportunity,
B) Make if fun of it at every opportunity.
No, they're facing increased taxes because we've managed to convince more and more people not to use the stuff, and the governments had been counting on tobacco and alcohol tax revenues to pay the bills.
So, less use means less taxes, unless you raise the taxes. Which they've done, repeatedly.
Am I confused today, or did you mispell Maori?
That said, Trademark only applies in a specific field. If whoever it is has a Trademark for anything other than a library, his trademark in no way impacts the small library in question...
Umm, no.
That was true back when the UN was founded, it's no longer true. Or do you seriously believe that China's economy is only 1/12th as large as the USA's economy?
A quick check, by the by, shows the Chinese economy as about 1/3 the size of the USA's economy., and the EU's economy is slightly larger than the USA's.
Somehow, I don't see any evidence that the UN dues are related to the current economies of anyone....
That would be probably be because the USA and the EU don't contribute the overwhelming majority of CO2 to the atmosphere.
And the other major emitters (China, India) have already said they're not going to play that game....
Umm, no. The Congresscritters bring their own staffs with them. A Democratic Senator is not obliged to use the staff of his Republican predecessor, or vice versa.
You do have a point about lobbyists, and (by implication) the civil service.
Nonetheless, nothing will get better till we get some Congressmen who won't stand on their hind legs and ask questions of ALL sides of a debate before making up his/her mind.
Oh, and it would be nice if the answer they come up with isn't "gee, thanks for the hundred grand in campaign funds!"....
Why would you not expect this in South Africa? Are black-majority governments inherently more honest than those dominated by other races?
Won't happen. Even assuming the law that required those cuts was written that way (it wasn't), the budget next year is a new law, which automatically supersedes previous law. So if next year's Congress just doesn't do those cuts in the budget, they're doing nothing illegal, just immoral.
Well, no. The Founding Fathers espoused limited Federal Government, and not spending money that you don't have. Which is pretty much what the Tea Party espouses.
Problem is that we've gotten so far from "limited Federal government" that we'd need a revolution to put things back the way they were.
And we're even farther from "not spending money we don't have". Note that we've spent money we don't have for every year of my life. And I'm in my 50's....
Note that Cliinton wasn't impeached for "getting some", but for "perjury".
Note that if YOU had committed perjury and been caught out, you'd not have been impeached, you'd have gone to jail.
You should also look at Supreme Court rulings relevant to Sexual Harrassment that had happened shortly before Bill started doing the perjury thing to see why he did the perjury thing.
Note that tax increases accompanied by spending cuts are never a fair trade. Tax increases are generally permanent, and spending cuts are only meaningful till next year's budget is written.
Now, if we could make an agreement that went something like this "We'll all agree to a tax increase as long as the tax increase has a one-year sunset and has to be renewed by both House and Senate annually AFTER the budget is written. In exchange, we'll all agree to cut real spending by 5% (or 10%, whatever) per year, based on the previous year's baseline. This process will continue till the budget is showing a surplus of greater than 5% per year, which will be used to pay down the National Debt." we might make some progress.
Because that agreement would require that the spending cuts be made every year before the tax increases are made for that year. The Reps get real spending cuts, and the Dems get real tax increases (if they agree to the spending cuts, of course).
Alternatively, if you don't like the spending cuts coming first, make the tax increase renewals part of the Budget Bill.
Of course, we'd have to HAVE a budget. We haven't since 2008, and don't look to have one again while Obama is President.
And, the more I think about it, the more likely it is that we'll NEVER have one again without a severe shakeup in Washington - the government has figured out that they can get away with no budget, and the political advantages of concealing the deficit by not having a budget are too great.
Finally, an idea I can agree with 100%. Vote them all out.
If you're absolutely wedded to voting only for your Party Of Choice, then vote the incumbent out in the Party Primary, and then vote your Party of choice. But get rid of ALL the incumbents. Including Obama (yes, I know the last isn't really possible, since the odds are good that no Dems will run against him in the Primaries, but I'd even take Hillary over Obama right now).
Tax increases have to be repealed. Note that noone ever write a tax increase with a built-in expiration date.
Spending cuts are only meaningful for this year's budget. Future congresses are in no way obligated to honor an agreement to cut spending made last year. Hell, they're not even obligated to honor an agreement to cut spending made by THEM THIS YEAR.
And finally, note that we've not had a Federal Budget for the entire Obama Presidency. Just a series of continuing resolutions. The Dems in the Senate stopped doing budget in 2008 so they wouldn't be hammered by their budget in the 2008 elections. And they've pretty much kept it up since then. The Republican House does a budget, sends it to the Senate, the Senate ignores it.
Without a real Federal Budget, we're not going to actually get ANY spending cuts, even if both Parties agree to them.
Who the fuck supports a platform, for a major party in a democratic republic, that says: "We get every single thing we want and you get nothing you want. If you don't comply, we'll watch it all burn until you give it."
Sounds like the Dems, alright. Oh, you meant the Reps? Alas, both Parties are dancing to that tune right now. Don't put all the blame on the one side unless you're trying to show which Party you support.
And note that by putting all the blame on the OTHER Party, you just convince everyone to who doesn't already support YOUR Party that your arguments are meaningless.
Alas, part of the problem is that Obama has no real interest in raising taxes, since one obvious tax increase would be to repeal Obama's tax cut along with Bush's tax cut.
Remember, an election is coming up, and raising taxes is bad just before an election. Which was why, when Obama renewed the Bush tax cuts, he set it to expire just AFTER his next election.
By the same token, everyone can agree that spending cuts are necessary. Except the Dems of course. Note that the biggest proponent of NOT cutting Defense Spending is Obama's Secretary of Defense, not the Republicans.
That said, the nasty part of "spending cuts" as a solution is that they're meaningless.
This Congress could vote to reduce real spending by 5% per year for the next ten years (which would just about balance the budget), but budgets are written annually.
And next year's budget, being a law, and automatically overriding previous contradictory laws, can be written with a 5% INCREASE in spending even after an agreement is made to reduce spending. And there will be no ill-effects.
Note that this was what happened when Reagan raised taxes in exchange for spending cuts. Taxes went up, and the spending cuts never happened. Ditto Bush Sr. And this is what will happen to any deficit solution that involves spending cuts - the spending cuts will be ignored by future congresses who need to bribe voters with the public treasury, and we'll be back where we were.