U.S. Budget problem

Well whatever political influence peddling that unions do, it can be easily resolved with banning all donations except for private ones and restricting that to like $500 or less. Also, make it illegal for a corporation to suggest to its employees to donate to any political party. The less money wasted on election campaigns and the like, the more money that can be used for something useful.

The union contributions are fully transparent, unlike the PAC's such as Americans for prosperity. I suggested such a thing to someone else and they referred to it as the Incumbent Protection plan, since the most visible person in the election would be the incumbent, since news about them has been going on for months stroke years up to that point, but the new contender would barely have any visibility.

Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry

Illegal doesn't go far enough. Overturn the law that makes them people, change their charters so they are banned from involvement in politics at all. On pain of forced dissolution.

the thing about the Citizens united is that the corporations in question can now go "You know, if you don't do what we want, we're going to run ads for your opponent." Thus, yes, amend against Citizens united.

Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry

One very important point in this debate, from http://www.eschatonblog.com/2011/04/it-wasnt-that-long-ago.html

This is the core of the matter, and it's why there can't be a grand compromise. (And to be honest this probably goes for most issues)

Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve

Unions will give up political funding when plutocrats and their pet corporations do, fair's fair after all.

As I noted, that's not true at all, given the hilarious amounts of waste outside social services, cut them first, cut useful things afterward if needed. Even if that were true, how does cutting funding on something that saves you money save you money? It's illogical.

They are for direct fights between superpowers. Remember that I was responding to discussions about hypothetical invasions of Chinese or US soil, the exact thing MAD has made utterly impossible since the dawn of the atomic age, as the first jackboot to touch down in Shanghai or San Francisco would bring down the plutonium-boosted wrath of the almighty in short order.

This Just This

Lolwrong. See here (table 1) and you'll notice the 2008 figure for the top 5%'s income was $3 trillion, look at this chart and you'll notice there's plenty of room for expansion, that's JUST personal income.

Keep in mind the deficit in Obama's proposed budget is only $1.6 trillion. Want to tackle the $14.26 trillion national debt instead? Then you'd merely have to bite into the $30.8 trillion in personal wealth the top 1% are sitting on.

Except that chart's only using the DoD budget, rather than our entire $1-1.5 trillion estimated military budget. Keep in mind that the next guy up the ladder, China, spends about 0.1 trillion.

Really, I'm mostly reiterating my last post here.

The fraction of the military budget being spent on useful stuff like troop pay is astonishingly tiny, most of it is useless appropriations and outdated Cold War nonsense. Take the much vaunted base budget, for instance*

^{From the bases thread: “Looking over this document (1.1MB PDF) the vast majority of foreign bases are located in what are now peaceful 1st world regions with large domestic militaries of their own, such as western Europe. Of course, only 12.8% of bases are foreign, the remaining 87.1% are domestic, and seeing as how it's rather unlikely we'll be invaded in the foreseeable future, nearly all of these can be shut down with no influence on force projection.”}

.

It certainly does speak volumes, volumes on the $3+ trillion sinkhole that's already cost us $.7 trillion in Iraq, and other places like Afghanistan.

Of course, there's also the possibility it's been sent overseas or handed to an H-1B. The whole “new economy” thing is an outrageous lie, and things will only turn around when people start paying decent prices for American labor again and stop exporting slavery to the 3rd world.

1st & 2nd worlds aside, we also had a rock solid protectionist regime of high import tariffs and low immigration quotas to keep American jobs safe from the 3rd world.

Except for, y'know, the whole robber-barons-hiring-Pinkertons-to-machinegun-union-uprisings-during-the-gilded-age thing.

@breadloaf (post 374): Made Of Win.

Eric,

edited 22nd Apr '11 11:52:17 AM by EricDVH

BTW the whole "experience" thing? Yeah. That's often done on purpose. They don't intend to ever find a qualified, available candidate with the experience they're looking for. A lot of the time they're trying to grease the skids for a H-1B visa. The other thing is that Western nations are getting to the point where we're overeducated in a lot of fields, and computers is one of those fields. What I mean by that is that we have more than enough educated to do the jobs that employers can be picky about who they hire as well as offer lower wages.

Eventually we'll get there for more and more fields. The question is what the hell are we going to do about it. I actually can see the day where a janitor makes more than the guy whose office he's cleaning.

Edit: This is a major issue in terms of the current deficit, and future budgets even more so. It means less wages which means a much smaller tax base AND higher reliance on public welfare. In short, it's going in the wrong direction in every conceivable way.

edited 22nd Apr '11 12:31:34 PM by Karmakin

Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve

"I actually can see the day where a janitor makes more than the guy whose office he's cleaning."

We're already there in some ways. Many custodial workers make more than college professors, but the catch is that they are physical laborers who operate in less-than-ideal conditions. In other to mitigate the budget problem, we need to look at the value systems and prestige we attach to different professions. I can make a lot more money as an infantryman than I would as a graduate student, but as a graduate student, I get to work in an air conditioned environment. As a soldier, I'm putting my life in danger. Our current spending habits reflect the imbalance we attribute to different professions, and while I'm not advocating professional equality, studying this trend may expose key factors that are affecting job growth and standards of education that influence long-term economic survivability.

Edit: You deleted the original quote, so...well, my original point still works as is. You get what I'm saying.

No, wait. The quote is still there. I need to get my eyes checked. Sorry.

edited 22nd Apr '11 12:39:04 PM by Aprilla

This is somewhat old news, but 11 days ago, the budget got to Obama's desk and he signed it (see it and a number of analytic documents right here.) However, even as they passed a budget, Republicans refused to increase the debt limit (note that the two aren't strictly related issues, as while the new budget's $479 billion deficit increase over last year's accelerates things slightly, the debt limit still would've been breached even if a shutdown had occurred during the budget impasse.)

Instead, they've apparently decided to hold their breath until either the Treasury implodes or the Democrats give them a pony. I mean, just look at this debauchery:

Eric,

The republican party throwing a tantrum and screaming into the pillow and kicking the walls until they get their way like children.

Nothing new.

Realistically most of the current bickering is completely pointless IMHO, because any truly dramatic budget reductions Republicans might make, that would actually impact the deficit, will just be vetoed, either by the President, Senate, or Republican defectors. It's all to score political points.

edited 26th Apr '11 10:59:51 AM by FrodoGoofballCoTV

About that (The political points part of it, I mean): The republicans tried to pass a "symbolic" act about 2-3 weeks ago, which was just about the worst thing they could have done, since it gave so many tax cuts to the rich and did some more incredibly partisan things, but it was put through to act as a beacon of light and show the dems for being the obstructionist people they are. Democrats saw it for what it was, and instead of voting, they just voted "Present" so that they were there but not voting either way. all but a dozen voted this way, and the budget, which was political Chernobyl, nearly passed, by less than 20 votes. Can't find the link, though...

edited 26th Apr '11 11:01:54 AM by Enkufka

Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry

Look for Republicans vote against their own bill, or procedural move by democrats, it should come up.

I still can't get over that time the democrats trolled the republicans by voting present instead of no and all the republicans changing their vote to no on a bill they SAID they supported but knew was full of shit.

In good news, I heard that the Pentagon issued a stop-work order on some F35 extra engine prototype work that was costing a million bucks a day (or three and a half billion a year, thereabouts). Rolls Royce isn't happy, but meh. Those defense corporation lobbyists are pretty powerful.

That's a nice bit of pocket change...

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

There's definite indications of Pentagon blood in the political water now, though I doubt anyone will go for the trillion-a-year-plus cut overdue since The Great Politics Messup, $100-$300 billion actually seems like a realistic hope.

On a related note (since the DoD is largely their embezzlement scheme,) it seems likely that top-end tax hikes are very popular now, which might even make it a central issue of the next political cycle.

^^Here's the thread.

Eric,

edited 26th Apr '11 12:27:18 PM by EricDVH

^ Eww Daily Kos. Anything they propose is best left ignored.

I actually sort of agree with tom... I didn't read through the article fully, but I have noticed a tendency towards rhetoric and less towards facts on the site. But they have broke one or two stories not covered by other places, such as... moment, editing...

..one for tom...

84% of voters in Madison vote against Citizens United.

edited 26th Apr '11 1:35:09 PM by Enkufka

Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry

Yeah, that was pretty stupid, but it was just an empty gesture, the Republicans talk like they really WOULD do it.

^^They weren't proposing $1+ trillion annual military cuts, I was. They were just talking about the cheesy little $0.1-0.2 trillion cuts, which would still be nice.

Eric,

edited 26th Apr '11 2:36:01 PM by EricDVH

@Deboss: I find it absolutely hilarious how you try to basically sneak your undending, irrational hatred of the humanities into any topic you post in.

Which post are you referring to?

Also, Major Tom, I'm still awaiting evidence of the tapes of Obama "promising" 8% unemployment.

edited 27th Apr '11 6:32:22 AM by storyyeller

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

^ The politifact article mentions it explicitly. Otherwise just search for it from news agencies or You Tube, are you really that lazy?

I'm sorry for being lazy, but if this finding is what you're referring to, you couldn't be more misleading or wrong.

At least based on this, Obama never "promised" 8% unemployment; instead, the predictions they used estimated that unemployment would peak around 8.5%, and they were using those predictions when planning the stimulus.

Joe Biden even apologised for the inaccuracies in their prediction, but unfortunately followed it with a reference to "inheriting" an economy that was even worse than they believed. He did go on to say that he didn't intend to blame anyone, but frankly, throwing an allegation like that in the air and pretending that you didn't mean it to stick or be taken as an attack is just the kind of stuff Fox News is famous for, and definitely something that a politician should never do.

Actually, I'll quote a couple of parts of this:

edited 27th Apr '11 7:16:32 AM by BestOf

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

Long story short, they underestimated how much businesses would use the financial meltdown as an excuse to cash in on productivity gains over the last decade or so.

Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve

Here's the rest of the final conclusion of the PolitiFact investigation. If you can read, you should know better than to throw the 8% figure around as a "promise" made by the Obama campaign, and anyone who does that - especially in media and politics - is extremely dishonest.

edited 27th Apr '11 7:25:11 AM by BestOf

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.