Trumps record breaking Presidency
- Thread starter Xavier
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You think a corporation can run, in this example, a prison, and have better results for the prisoners, the employees, and the community, all while making a profit. Gotcha. Here in reality, the MO of corporations is to reduce quality to improve their bottom line. Sometimes they can thread that needle. Luxury brands, for example, have teams that find the cheapest materials and production methods that are right at the threshold that their customers will accept. A lot of brands pass that threshold, and yet people keep buying. Does that make it right? Should this type of behavior and lack of accountability apply to prisons?
Hahaha holy shit, dude. Service-based government? You're a joke, man. "Yeah, I'll take a First Amendment burger and a side of Freedom Fries, please! No drink though -- I know that's the lithium delivery mechanism."
I haven't decided that the Grand Canyon is "worth it to me" and therefore want others to contribute because I'm not an individualistic prick. And, as I mentioned earlier, I do have to pay to go there, exclusive of federal taxes (less than $5). In fact, I have to pay for the gas to get there. I have to pay for hotels along the way. I have to pay for food along the way. I have to pay for whatever else I do along the way. And once I get there, I have to pay for a hotel, for a donkey, for food, for water, etc. So by my math, The Grand Canyon is generating benefits at several points along the way, not just at the site itself. In fact, even if we take the (peer reviewed) stats with a grain of salt, visitors spend about $30 billion a year on trips to US national parks. To put that into perspective, the entire world spends about $43 billion on music entertainment per year. And that's not even taking into account what is, apparently in your mind, not self-evident: preservation of nature is good regardless of the ability to exploit it for profits. All that is to say, again, no, I didn't decide that the Grand Canyon is worth it to me. I'm not looking for a handout. I've come to the conclusion that it's worth it to a lot of people and the country as a whole. You might say, "Who are you to decide for others." I'm no one. I don't make the rules. I've made my decision and I'll support the parks.
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Dude. Do you want people even dumber than the ones we have now running the country when you're an old man. Public schools aren't just an investment in some other guy's kids. They're an investment in your own future and the future of the country.
What are you even talking about? You're just pulling this out of your ass, aren't you? Do you think that states can magically offload parks to the feds? Do you think they don't get tax supports at a state level before handing it over to the government?
Lithy, I know you've mentioned recently your wonder at why people think you're a Trump supporter or a Republican. Take a step back, because a lot of the dumb stuff you're saying is Republican bullshit with a faux intellectual twist put on, thin as Jr.'s dental veneers.
You said all the federal workers would get paid. When I told you my wife is a federal worker (without mentioning what area), how much or little she’s usually paid, or any other details, and wasn’t going to get paid, you said federal contractors can suck your dick, with the exception of my wife.
It’s pretty clear you don’t care about the truth. You’re just an angry loser.
If you don’t want the country you live in to afford the people services and protections, try visiting other countries that operate exactly the way you’ve been promoting, like Turkmenistan or Kyrgizstan.
You're right wasabi, I wasn't clear because I was responding to Poppy's anecdote about his neighbor who was 'working without a paycheck'. He will get paid, but I somewhat overgeneralized.
But you said your wife was a federal contractor, by which I assumed you meant to differentiate from a federal employee. Maybe I misunderstood you but I took you to mean that she is currently not working and will not get back pay because she is ostensibly employed privately but relies on public funding which has stopped.
So here is a layout.
Federal employees that are currently working without pay will receive back pay. (This is a simple fact that I don't think can be contested.)
Federal employees that are furlouged are likely to receive back pay EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE NOT WORKED (if I am up to date, legislation needs a Trump signature to be finalized.)
If there are contractors for the federal government, they may not be working because funding is currently on hold. This would depend on a case to case basis. If you feel like detailing your wife's work , I suppose you could tell me, but in general I don't think it matters because my opinion is that to some degree the pervasiveness of contractor that solely exist to do work for the federal government are as much of a leech as those directly employed by them.
So if there are no disagreements on the above, maybe someone can tell me who I should feel bad for in the this situation.
fakeXsound, sorry I will respond to your post tomorrow, I don't want to make the effort to try to break up a quote from my phone.
But you said your wife was a federal contractor, by which I assumed you meant to differentiate from a federal employee. Maybe I misunderstood you but I took you to mean that she is currently not working and will not get back pay because she is ostensibly employed privately but relies on public funding which has stopped.
So here is a layout.
Federal employees that are currently working without pay will receive back pay. (This is a simple fact that I don't think can be contested.)
Federal employees that are furlouged are likely to receive back pay EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE NOT WORKED (if I am up to date, legislation needs a Trump signature to be finalized.)
If there are contractors for the federal government, they may not be working because funding is currently on hold. This would depend on a case to case basis. If you feel like detailing your wife's work , I suppose you could tell me, but in general I don't think it matters because my opinion is that to some degree the pervasiveness of contractor that solely exist to do work for the federal government are as much of a leech as those directly employed by them.
So if there are no disagreements on the above, maybe someone can tell me who I should feel bad for in the this situation.
fakeXsound, sorry I will respond to your post tomorrow, I don't want to make the effort to try to break up a quote from my phone.
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She works for the smithsonian, it’s her dream job. Not many smithsonian workers are essential or full timers because the government isn’t trying to hire on people that it can’t fire.
The polls aren’t favoring Trump on this front, and he’s losing the GOP support here.
If your goal here is to see the American political system destroyed, you really need to visit Russia and talk to young people there about their government. You have a lot of Trumps there.
The prison issue is really a tough example because the causes are extremely convoluted but in my mind they start with things like federal drug policy. So in order to unfuck all of the problems with them, my preference is to start at the high level issues. It seems like you and poppy prefer to start with the low level issues of companies operating a for profit prison. My only example there is to say that the government sets the contractor standards and the contractor bids the job. If there are 'quality' issues to address, they can be addressed in the bid document. So yes, a company will do the least to reap the most benefit, but that can be curtailed easily and still goes back on the administrator of the program, not the contractor. (in my opinion)
So in short, at least for this example, I am less concerned about for profit prisons and more concerned about for profit policing and overcriminilization which overpopulates the systems (prison, court, police, parole, welfare, transition services, and so and and so on.)
Service based government just means that the government provides services for a cost that covers the cost of the service. In the case of national parks that means that to the extent they exist at all (my preference is known of course), they should operate on a balanced budget, funded by fees paid by visitors, and not through a part of the larger budget of the federal government because that means people who do not currently or may never use any given service (in this case a park) are not asked to contribute to supporting that service.
Again, if they are as universally beloved as you suggest, they should have no problem doing this, they will likely cost more though, and some parks (Grand Canyon is obviously a top 5 park, there are almost 200 parks and monuments) might not be 'worth it'.
So again, with such numbers, why do people seem to think that if the federal government stopped park administration that the first thing that would happen is that Giant Sequoia would be clear cut or Grand Canyon would be filled in for a parking lot?
You note that these parks have ancillary economic benefits, maybe those benefits are enough to sustain a park still being a park.
I could have been clearer before, here I am discussing federal funding only for public schools.
The rate of private schools for members of our most recent congress was 2.5x the national rate, so it seems like public schools are already not producing the leaders of today.
Public schools are failing in this country to do what they purport to do (democratize education). Just like the push in the last 20 years to send everyone to college, it is possible that a standardized education isn't a one size fits all solution.
And communities would still fund public schools anyway, just not the federal government. Its an issue for state and local municipalities.
Sorry, this was stated backwards in the case of land and wasn't a great example. The states don't want land that they could make use of because they realize the incredible cost associated with administering it. So instead, they leave it in the hands of the federal government with Bureau of Land Management or for lands already owned by states they might apply for funding assistance to cover funding shortfalls. This goes back to my point about service based government. The state parks are funded largely out of general funds and any fees collected go back to the general fund. They don't have any relation to the service they are providing.
But the larger point I was driving at I guess is that when people find something they want, they tend to see the federal government as the source of funding for a solution. My personal view is that the federal government has long exceeded the purposes for which it was designed.
An incredible amount of money goes first to the federal government, then is filtered to the states, then from the states through grants and various methods down to the local municipality.
I just think that this money would be better used from the bottom up. The only thing you get with a top down approach is the feds using things like federal highway funds as a stick to make states comply with speed limits and standardized BACs for drunk driving. Or education funding to demand No Child Left Behind conformity.
The further all of this gets away from direct governance, the more is lost to a bloated staff of workers to administer those funds, the further it gets from a citizen to view the direct effect of their tax money, and the more likely they are to feel that 'their money' is going to something they don't want to support.
And lastly, with a system set up this way, you end up in a situation where ALL services provided by the federal government are unavailable to the public during a shut down. Illinois had a budget stalemate that closed services like state parks a couple years ago, but Indiana's parks stayed open. Isn't that at least somewhat more beneficial to the public?
Holy fuck that was long, sorry about that.
Maybe you're right, I'll reap what I sow, but for now, we are so far from my view of a federal government and I don't think what we have is working, so I'm ok with a change and will deal with the consequences if and when they arrive.
Maybe you're right, I'll reap what I sow, but for now, we are so far from my view of a federal government and I don't think what we have is working, so I'm ok with a change and will deal with the consequences if and when they arrive.
Yeah im done.
He's sperging too hard to even talk to.
"Wahhhh i shouldnt have to contribute mere cents to the national park system!! I wanna give my tax dollar to something else!!!!"
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Hey lithy, I'm being 100% serious here when I say I hope everything is going okay for you. When I think about the times in my life that I felt that basically any change to the status quo must be an improvement, it turns out that those feelings were more to do with my situation at the time than the thing that needed changing. I think a lot of frustrated people looking to change something, anything, helped to get the country into the current mess, and I think that because those frustrations are still there things stand to get a hell of a lot worse. The falcon cannot hear the falconer, you dig?
RE: Prisons
I disagree - I don't think these things can be "curtailed easily" when it comes to private corporations running prisons, etc.
RE: Parks
You're right - there are points where national parks could easily go upside down if they were run by private corporations. But when that happens, what's next? It's a slippery slope; even if they're sold to some other corporation and kept as a park, it's only a matter of time until they're razed or fucked up in some manner.
RE: Schools
Fair enough - public schools are fucked, and the people blaming underpaid teachers (Republicans) aren't helping. But it sounded like you were against paying for things you don't lose...like public schools. So, even if you say you're only against federal funding, I'm not sold that you're disgruntled at having to pay state or city taxes for anything related to schools.
RE: The last bit
I dunno man. My big problem with taxes, and in my opinion the bigger problem, is the waste. It reminds me of the medical industry; an absurd amount of your money is going to administration or is getting lost in the shuffle.
I disagree - I don't think these things can be "curtailed easily" when it comes to private corporations running prisons, etc.
RE: Parks
You're right - there are points where national parks could easily go upside down if they were run by private corporations. But when that happens, what's next? It's a slippery slope; even if they're sold to some other corporation and kept as a park, it's only a matter of time until they're razed or fucked up in some manner.
RE: Schools
Fair enough - public schools are fucked, and the people blaming underpaid teachers (Republicans) aren't helping. But it sounded like you were against paying for things you don't lose...like public schools. So, even if you say you're only against federal funding, I'm not sold that you're disgruntled at having to pay state or city taxes for anything related to schools.
RE: The last bit
I dunno man. My big problem with taxes, and in my opinion the bigger problem, is the waste. It reminds me of the medical industry; an absurd amount of your money is going to administration or is getting lost in the shuffle.
I appreciate the concern (seriously! honestly!), but I genuinely think I'm fine (could always be wrong of course).
This all may come across more desperate in my walls of text but honestly it is my only outlet to talk politics. I usually don't care enough to engage people in person and I ultimately understand that this stuff truly does affect very little in my day to day life (much the same reason I think most people find the things I dislike so palatable).
Removing protections from parks creates some irreversible effects. Obviously some parks aren’t interesting and yes, we can rank the parks and say The Grand Canyon is top 5. But this is misrepresentative of parks. It’s not a Trump beauty pageant where you want to grab parks by the pussy, because you love parks, almost as much as you love hamberders and covfefe. More than shitty parks, we have shitty parts of cities and towns, residential districts, privately owned that look horrible, the soil is bad, because the owners don’t give a shit. Basically, that’s your upside in selling the parks to private ownership. Turning the parks into a shittier eyesore than you could imagine.
Department of the Interior is one of the better agencies out there. It’s the one that makes America’s standard of life better. Not defense, which has made us the heel of the world next to Russia and China. Not education, with Betsy DeVos exploring ways to shift students into Eric Prince’s blackwater child cages for maximum profit. Nor the Department or Energy, run by “D in Meat”. Those other agencies are lost causes, but don’t try to destroy the Department of Interior.
lithy will probably never go to Yosemite
lithy will most certainly never apply for, nor get a permit to camp in the enchantments area of the cascade mountains
But really, we should all pay a private company to provide us access to the national parks - funding based on which ones we as citizens and tourists want to go to.
Those people won't turn the unorofitable parks into profitable industrial assets, will they lithy?
lithy will most certainly never apply for, nor get a permit to camp in the enchantments area of the cascade mountains
But really, we should all pay a private company to provide us access to the national parks - funding based on which ones we as citizens and tourists want to go to.
Those people won't turn the unorofitable parks into profitable industrial assets, will they lithy?
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Ha... like they won’t just tear down the forests to give us a town center. Artisanal coffee shops on the ground level, high end condos upstairs.
Historic Sodasopa or Shitypatown
I disagree with lithy but not all of his concerns are without validation.
If the national parks weren't federalized, there would be more jobs for people. And in the end, that is truly what every man cares about who is without a job.
Again, love lithy and everyone else here.
If the national parks weren't federalized, there would be more jobs for people. And in the end, that is truly what every man cares about who is without a job.
Again, love lithy and everyone else here.
I mean i guess all the putt putt golf attendants and go kart mechincs.
Seriously though, wtf are you talking about?
Unemployment is at records lows. People are working. If your area shows record lows and you don't have a job, who is to blame? The government for not ceding territory to some rich people to possibly make more jobs?
There are plenty of pissheads like Robert Mercer who would love to see the federal government relinquish control over parks so that they could turn the public bathrooms into DNA collection centers.