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Total Members Voted: 11

Voting closed: February 15, 2022, 10:51:36 AM

[bambu.]

If only Hunter had taken Harmony the robot lady as his special friend.

[Hamilton Samuels]

If you are revitalizing infrastructure, and as a small fraction of that investment you can correct engineering decisions that perpetrate immense tragic societal ills, you do it both morally and fiscally. Rebuilding cities to better suit the understood needs of their populations every few generations is a hallmark of civilizations that haven’t collapsed. If rerouting certain roads reduces hospitalization and incarceration in densely populated areas, spend big now so those savings can be realized going forward all the time until you need to do it again.

If you are hiring to revitalize infrastructure, you are managing streams of wealth and income to get it done. If you recognize systemic factors leading to de facto racial preferences in contracting, making it you policy to counteract that in your contracting choices is both good politics and good policy.

Austerity, denial of racism, sexism, insurrection, and anti-vaccine propaganda are all one great circle under Koch.

If one believes in true equality, let the best bid win---don't base it on the race of the bidder, simply because decisions based upon race are inherently racist.

I have no issues with how the roads are built as far as where they go, or how the local neighborhoods that will be effected are compensated for their inconveniences---as traditionally Eminent Domain comes into play.


 I have no comment on the rest of your off-topic screed.

[Hamilton Samuels]

I didn’t think anyone could annoy me as much as Joe Manchin... then along came Gottheimer.

Damned if these “Moderates” aren’t doing their best to fuck things up.

They won’t succeed but sheesh! At least act like you give a damn about the voters that put you in the majority.

And you'd rather just keep printing Monopoly money.

Got it.

Nope.

It’s called investing in America’s future.

Not if you can't pay for it. Fixing roads and bridges and tunnels is a great thing. Still, one should only invest with money one has., or with what can reasonably earn back to pay.  There are always ways to leverage debt, of course, but there is also something called "too much debt".

Joe Manchin and others are right to question to the level of that debt.

Your view seems to indicate that you would call a credit card use an investment, it seems.

[josh]

The time for stealing elections is at hand:
https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2021/08/12/redistricting-census-data-503994

Goin both ways

Democrats will pore over data to examine whether they can successfully push for majority-minority districts, especially in southern states.  Possible candidates for additional oportunity districts in the South include Louisiana, Alabama and Georgia

No, because in each of those states, the GOP must agree to it before it happens.

Good try.

Stick to Maryland.

[LarryBnDC]

I didn’t think anyone could annoy me as much as Joe Manchin... then along came Gottheimer.

Damned if these “Moderates” aren’t doing their best to fuck things up.

They won’t succeed but sheesh! At least act like you give a damn about the voters that put you in the majority.

And you'd rather just keep printing Monopoly money.

Got it.

Nope.

It’s called investing in America’s future.

Not if you can't pay for it. Fixing roads and bridges and tunnels is a great thing. Still, one should only invest with money one has., or with what can reasonably earn back to pay.  There are always ways to leverage debt, of course, but there is also something called "too much debt".

Joe Manchin and others are right to question to the level of that debt.

Your view seems to indicate that you would call a credit card use an investment, it seems.

I wouldn’t because i am not a national government.

That you compare the federal budget to sting around the kitchen table (so to speak) and using a credit card... well.

[josh]

No you don’t.

The cost of these programs is easily covered by even a remotely responsible tax code and endorsement regime, part and parcel of better budget, which Smokey Joe Manchin needs to get his ass behind.

No. They're not.

Oh boy! This is one of those hot, well reasoned debates that Piggy always claims to want. Somebody makes a claim asserting something is true and Piggy says "No," without a basis.

Fac, for my sake, not Piggy's, what would an example of a remotely responsible tax code (etc.) be to cover these programs.

Piggy, what underlies your claim that there is no remotely responsible tax code that could cover it?

[Hamilton Samuels]

http://theweek.com/politics/1003600/anti-vaxxers-coddling

Good policy and good politics to squash these fucks.

Agree.

But libs need to kick POC'S asses into gear, too.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/black-people-remain-undervaccinated-may-180000759.html

‘Blame (whitey) black people, that’s what you do.”

LOL

Behave as expected. From that piece on yahoo, "According to USA Today, Black people count for 15 percent of those vaccinated in the United States."

Go ahead and defend that response. Oh, that's right. You can't. Yet, you imply racism for mentioning the facts. There is no way that 85% of black folks are not vaxed due to  "inaccessibility".

And only 28% of black New York City residents are vaxed. 

A construction site safety manager in Queens said that as a Black man, he was more worried about the prospect of being stopped by the police than he was about getting Covid-19.

A graduate student in the Bronx who had not gotten vaccinated said her worst fears seemed confirmed when a vaccine that the government was directing to Black and poorer neighborhoods was briefly suspended over a small number of dangerous blood clots.

And a civil rights activist in the Bronx said he grew suspicious when he heard last year that politicians were prioritizing minority neighborhoods for coronavirus vaccinations.

“Since when does America give anything good to Black people first?” said the activist, Hawk Newsome, a 44-year-old Black Lives Matter leader who is unvaccinated.

Young Black New Yorkers are especially reluctant to get vaccinated, even as the Delta variant is rapidly spreading among their ranks. City data shows that only 28 percent of Black New Yorkers ages 18 to 44 years are fully vaccinated, compared with 48 percent of Latino residents and 52 percent of white residents in that age group.

This vaccination gap is emerging as the latest stark racial disparity in an epidemic full of them. Epidemiologists say they expect this third wave will hit Black New Yorkers especially hard.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/nyregion/covid-vaccine-black-young-new-yorkers.html?smid=url-share


From that NYT piece, it certainly does appear that "blame whitey" is in play. So, when your cousins die, Larry, we already know who's fault it will be.

[josh]

Infrastructure racism. Two views.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58106414


And...https://nypost.com/2021/08/11/bidens-infrastructure-bill-is-chock-full-of-anti-white-racism/

The solution is a problem, and the problem needs a solution.

The problem is that the journalists who write for the BBC and the creepy fucking morons hired by the post to lie badly in their publications are put on the same level by feckless idiots on the internet and elsewhere.

How do you propose to solve this problem, oh Great Cheez Whiz Hamster?

Two views. Neither endorsed. The Left Coast leftist doesn't tolerate different views.

Your intolerant nature defines your ardent philosophy.

He didn't claim you endorsed it. He asked you how you would solve the problem, in response to your saying "The solution is a problem, and the problem needs a solution."

[Hamilton Samuels]

I didn’t think anyone could annoy me as much as Joe Manchin... then along came Gottheimer.

Damned if these “Moderates” aren’t doing their best to fuck things up.

They won’t succeed but sheesh! At least act like you give a damn about the voters that put you in the majority.

And you'd rather just keep printing Monopoly money.

Got it.

Nope.

It’s called investing in America’s future.

Not if you can't pay for it. Fixing roads and bridges and tunnels is a great thing. Still, one should only invest with money one has., or with what can reasonably earn back to pay.  There are always ways to leverage debt, of course, but there is also something called "too much debt".

Joe Manchin and others are right to question to the level of that debt.

Your view seems to indicate that you would call a credit card use an investment, it seems.

I wouldn’t because i am not a national government.

That you compare the federal budget to sting around the kitchen table (so to speak) and using a credit card... well.

That you don't grasp that debt is a problem for any entity, is...well...a reflection of your own economic ignorance. 

[josh]

If one believes in true equality, let the best bid win---don't base it on the race of the bidder, simply because decisions based upon race are inherently racist.

Decisions that ignore the inherent inequality of our current existence are inherently racist.

"True equality" doesn't exist in a world in which people are disinclined to offer jobs purely on the basis of the names of applicants without regard to resumes and to offer high quality apartments again because of "non-white" names.

If we had a trustworthy way to do blind reviews it would be worth considering, but mostly we don't.

[Yankguy1]

I don't believe Joe Manchin said a  word about debt during Trump's "presidency".   

[josh]

I didn’t think anyone could annoy me as much as Joe Manchin... then along came Gottheimer.

Damned if these “Moderates” aren’t doing their best to fuck things up.

They won’t succeed but sheesh! At least act like you give a damn about the voters that put you in the majority.

And you'd rather just keep printing Monopoly money.

Got it.

Nope.

It’s called investing in America’s future.

Not if you can't pay for it. Fixing roads and bridges and tunnels is a great thing. Still, one should only invest with money one has., or with what can reasonably earn back to pay.  There are always ways to leverage debt, of course, but there is also something called "too much debt".

Joe Manchin and others are right to question to the level of that debt.

Your view seems to indicate that you would call a credit card use an investment, it seems.

Except that the majority of folks questioning the level of debt gave Trump Carte Blanche. They don't care about debt, they care that a Democratic Party President would get credit for the achievement.

And borrowing money to use as an investment is a time-honored method, says the man about to make home repairs on that basis and perhaps buy a property, too.

Credit card is a bad comparison. Loan is on target.

[facilitatorn]

If you are revitalizing infrastructure, and as a small fraction of that investment you can correct engineering decisions that perpetrate immense tragic societal ills, you do it both morally and fiscally. Rebuilding cities to better suit the understood needs of their populations every few generations is a hallmark of civilizations that haven’t collapsed. If rerouting certain roads reduces hospitalization and incarceration in densely populated areas, spend big now so those savings can be realized going forward all the time until you need to do it again.

If you are hiring to revitalize infrastructure, you are managing streams of wealth and income to get it done. If you recognize systemic factors leading to de facto racial preferences in contracting, making it you policy to counteract that in your contracting choices is both good politics and good policy.

Austerity, denial of racism, sexism, insurrection, and anti-vaccine propaganda are all one great circle under Koch.

If one believes in true equality, let the best bid win---don't base it on the race of the bidder, simply because decisions based upon race are inherently racist.

I have no issues with how the roads are built as far as where they go, or how the local neighborhoods that will be effected are compensated for their inconveniences---as traditionally Eminent Domain comes into play.


 I have no comment on the rest of your off-topic screed.

Install a 20% wealth tax and keep it going for a generation or two and use the proceeds to raise, equalize, and stabilize EVERYONE’s starting point, and this true equality you are talking about would be worth a try.

Now under the present circumstances, true equality sits in the space between pure abstraction and a figment of your imagination.

[josh]

http://theweek.com/politics/1003600/anti-vaxxers-coddling

Good policy and good politics to squash these fucks.

Agree.

But libs need to kick POC'S asses into gear, too.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/black-people-remain-undervaccinated-may-180000759.html

‘Blame (whitey) black people, that’s what you do.”

LOL

Behave as expected. From that piece on yahoo, "According to USA Today, Black people count for 15 percent of those vaccinated in the United States."

Go ahead and defend that response. Oh, that's right. You can't. Yet, you imply racism for mentioning the facts. There is no way that 85% of black folks are not vaxed due to  "inaccessibility".

Piggy, the article says that 15% of those vaccinated are Black people.

It doesn't say only 15% of Blacks are vaccinated.

And 15% of Black people is slightly higher than their percent of the population in the US.

The Black population of the United States is growing. In 2019, there were 46.8 million people who self-identified as Black, making up roughly 14% of the country’s population. This marks a 29% increase since 2000, when there were roughly 36.2 million Black Americans.

[Hamilton Samuels]

No you don’t.

The cost of these programs is easily covered by even a remotely responsible tax code and endorsement regime, part and parcel of better budget, which Smokey Joe Manchin needs to get his ass behind.

No. They're not.

Oh boy! This is one of those hot, well reasoned debates that Piggy always claims to want. Somebody makes a claim asserting something is true and Piggy says "No," without a basis.

Fac, for my sake, not Piggy's, what would an example of a remotely responsible tax code (etc.) be to cover these programs.

Piggy, what underlies your claim that there is no remotely responsible tax code that could cover it?

“The framework claims $491 billion of offsets, and an additional $56 billion of savings from dynamic scoring, to pay for the bill,” the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget writes in a post on its website. “However, many of these pay-fors count savings that have already occurred. We estimate actual offsets will total roughly $200 billion before dynamic scoring.”

Dynamic scoring factors in the impact of economic effects.

Penn Wharton Budget Model Senior Economist Jon Huntley told us whether or not the legislation covers the cost of the new spending “depends on how you define ‘paid for.'”...

...The biggest sticking point is the $210 billion in repurposed COVID-19 relief funds, which CRFB says amount to just $40 billion to $50 billion in actual offsets. The bill claims another $53 billion in unused unemployment insurance funds; CRFB says that amounts to zero savings. And the $87 billion in the sale of wireless spectrum frequencies is really $20 billion in offsets for the bill, because the senators’ figure includes money from sales that already happened.

Goldwein told us there were two problems with counting savings from policies that ended up costing less than originally anticipated.

One, it’s not a valid way of budgeting. Determining how much a bill costs involves looking at how much the legislation will change the federal budget compared with not having the legislation. For the COVID-19 relief, unemployment insurance and spectrum sales, “for the most part, the answer is the legislation will do nothing.”

The bill doesn’t generate the money claimed by the senators. “None of these is actual savings,” Goldwein said.

Two, the method used by the senators amounts to cherry-picking, Goldwein said. Some parts of the COVID-19 relief bills cost less than anticipated, but others cost more. Overall, the relief acts will “end up costing more than the initial scores, not less.”

So, only counting the parts with savings is cherry-picking.



https://www.factcheck.org/2021/08/senators-claim-infrastructure-bill-is-paid-for-experts-disagree/


The Congressional Budget Office estimates that over the 2021-2031 period, enacting Senate Amendment 2137 to H.R. 3684 would decrease direct spending by $110 billion, increase revenues by $50 billion, and increase discretionary spending by $415 billion. On net, the legislation would add $256 billion to projected deficits over that period.


https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57406

Sorry, but I opposed deficit spending when it became popular under Reagan, and under W, and under Obama, so at least I am consistent on the matter. Only Bubba Clinton knew what he was doing, and we saw what happened to the "lockbox" idea that Gore wanted.