State Of The UNION!

[RDU Irish]

Bad drivers pay more for car insurance, it is a complete tragedy. Thank god 600 pound smokers pay the same as everyone else for health insurance now. It is only fair.

 

[connor_in]

Bad drivers pay more for car insurance, it is a complete tragedy. Thank god 600 pound smokers pay the same as everyone else for health insurance now. It is only fair.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/4rASq52zRFs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[GoldenDome]

By the same logic we should outlaw ATMs because they put bank tellers out of work.

I still can't fathom the hang up with Keystone. Is it really that different from the thousands of miles of pipelines already in use and development today? Same with ANWAR, the opponent arguments make no sense to anyone with any level of intellectual honesty.

I was actually criticizing the people who argue it creates jobs. The point is that people who argue it creates jobs use fallacious half truths as their arguments only to deceive and conceal the whole truth.

 

[Ultimate Penn St. Hater]

By the same logic we should outlaw ATMs because they put bank tellers out of work.

I still can't fathom the hang up with Keystone. Is it really that different from the thousands of miles of pipelines already in use and development today? Same with ANWAR, the opponent arguments make no sense to anyone with any level of intellectual honesty.

After oil spilled in Yellowstone River, residents told not to drink water - CNN.com

These issues are my hang up with Keystone and other pipelines. Every one of them leak.

 

[GoIrish41]

By the same logic we should outlaw ATMs because they put bank tellers out of work.

I still can't fathom the hang up with Keystone. Is it really that different from the thousands of miles of pipelines already in use and development today? Same with ANWAR, the opponent arguments make no sense to anyone with any level of intellectual honesty.

Canada is extracting very dirty oil from the sand using techniques that are far worse that those used traditionally. This is happening as we are coming to grips with the notion that our behaviors are causing the globe to heat up to record levels. And who benefits? Canada and oil companies. Almost nobody else in the long term. So the hangup is that quickening potentially devestating changes to our planet so corporations can grow in wealth and influence.

 

[pkt77242]

Canada is extracting very dirty oil from the sand using techniques that are far worse that those used traditionally. This is happening as we are coming to grips with the notion that our behaviors are causing the globe to heat up to record levels. And who benefits? Canada and oil companies. Almost nobody else in the long term. So the hangup is that quickening potentially devestating changes to our planet so corporations can grow in wealth and influence.

To be fair that oil is already getting here one way or the other, either through existing pipelines or trucks.

After oil spilled in Yellowstone River, residents told not to drink water - CNN.com

These issues are my hang up with Keystone and other pipelines. Every one of them leak.

This is more of my worry, I would like to see stiffer fines for oil spills passed (and maybe better monitoring of existing pipelines by our government and better maintenance by the companies as well) before building the pipeline.

This is a great example. Yes they had to pay for the cost of cleaning it up but their fine is 3.7 million, chump change.
Record Fine Against Enbridge for Michigan Oil Pipeline Spill | InsideClimate News

 

[RDU Irish]

I really wish fossil fuels had never been discovered so we could all live clean, healthy lives like we did in the 1700s.

 

[scUM Hater]

I really wish fossil fuels had never been discovered so we could all live clean, healthy lives like we did in the 1700s.

See ya, go off the grid.

 

[phgreek]

To be fair that oil is already getting here one way or the other, either through existing pipelines or trucks.



This is more of my worry, I would like to see stiffer fines for oil spills passed (and maybe better monitoring of existing pipelines by our government and better maintenance by the companies as well) before building the pipeline.

This is a great example. Yes they had to pay for the cost of cleaning it up but their fine is 3.7 million, chump change.
Record Fine Against Enbridge for Michigan Oil Pipeline Spill | InsideClimate News

Yea at some point they all fail. I think you'll see better technology help deal with that. As it stands people run failure estimates, and perform maintenance accordingly. With the type of sensor technology that is available, it won't be long before pipelines can be managed based on feedback coming from sensors right on the physical structures. When all the engineering is established, and those systems become the standard of care, then I'd feel better about pipelines...even then that does not account for failures due to natural or man made "disasters". Until the sensor technology is the standard of care, where conditions leading to leaks can be detected BEFORE the leak, in a reliable fashion, I see no choice but to have vigorous requirements for routine/preventative maintenance, heavy oversight, and stiff fines.

I recognize the failure rate is very low on pipelines, but when they do blow, it screws over alot of people and places. Buried pipelines are spooky because slow leaks can happen. I'd rather have a blow out, because there is no doubt, and resources are applied immediately to fix it. Slow leaks that go on and on that find their way out of containment, and aren't detected...that scenario worries me.

For leaks that are found...Yes folks can throw bugs on the ground to eat the oil, but the salts many leave behind aren't a walk in the park to deal with either. Things may look the same at some point but there is never an oil spill w/o a "scar" left behind.

 

[connor_in]

See ya, go off the grid.

WE'RE GOING OOOOOOOOOOOOOFFFFFFFFFFFFFF THE GRID

 

[marv81s]

I too would like you to elaborate.

Also, out of curiosity for someone using Marxism as a pejorative...how much Marx have you read? Obama is a lot of things, but he's not a Marxist.

I have read communist manifesto and Das Kapital and some of his other gibberish that we were required to read while going to college and I have also read other books by the likes of Saul Alinsky and other works by Cloward and Piven and there is no doubt that the president is a marxist. I know the drones don't want to admit it, I don't know why. The democratic party is so far left that it shouldn't be something hard to admit.

I know those that will defend him say his actions say otherwise. Thankfully, what is left of our Constitution restrain him from fully implementing the Marxist model, but it is so obvious that he is a Marxist when you listen, really listen to his rhetoric. When you listen to his rhetoric, it is unvaryingly drawn directly from Saul Alinsky. Alinsky was a very intelligent individual with no compunction about exploiting popular sentiment to achieve his ends. One of his favorite methodologies was to use America’s founders/framers to back his own Marxism. Sound familiar? While championing ‘freedom,’ – Alinsky hated the idea of individual freedom the Founders/Framers loved – Alinsky pushed for ‘communal freedom,’ which is to say tyranny led by the government. Easy to see several on here do not see a big federal government as a threat to our individual freedoms or as a form of tyranny. I do.

Obama was raised in the Alinsky tradition, and he speaks quite well using Alinsky’s forked tongue, a lot. For example, during one of his speeches early in his presidency, a speech where he was talking about our deficit, he opened his speech by stating that Americans have historically “put our faith in free markets and free enterprise as the engine of America’s wealth and prosperity … we are rugged individualists, a self-reliant people with a healthy skepticism of too much government.” Hey, not bad, but then he states “But there has always been another thread running throughout our history – a belief that we are all connected; and that there are some things we can only do together, as a nation.” This is un-American, and it is a lie. American unity doesn’t occur in opposition to free markets, but in defense of them.

That is textbook Alinsky. He's intentionally confusing principled individualism with principled communitarianism (collectivism, statism, marxism, however you want to state it), suggesting that Americans are characterized by both, Obama begins the slow march to fascism. Other presidents before him started this move towards fascism, so it isn't all on Obama, he is just doing it at a much faster pace. So, getting back to that speech, just in that one section of that speech, he essentially turned Americans into corporatists – free marketeers ready, willing, and able to turn over that free market to a well-organized state. This is his economic speeches in a nutshell. Even last nights state of delusion speech. It’s a pattern that has marked his presidency. He consistently rails about “false choices” between two obviously incompatible ideas, which he, as the Great Uniter, then bridges.

His constant attacks on individualism is pure Marxist rhetoric. Think back to his line during his reelection campaign when he said "you didn't build that". Yes, I know, downplay that and give me the line that it is taken out of context or he is right. Either one is straight up nonsense. So in his world the individual is important, but they are nothing more than a mere cog in the larger wheel that forms the collectivist line that supplies our goods and services, pioneers medical research, builds skyscrapers, advances new and imaginative technologies – and on and on. It is that philosophy that is at the heart of Marxist socialist ideology and is the basis for all collectivist/statist calls to redistribute the wealth of those who have to those who have less. In Obama’s world, as in the world view of all Marxists, it is the fair thing to do, which is why his speeches are underpinned with repeated calls for “fairness”. I'll go as far to say that only a Marxist actually views the world of collectivist redistribution as fair. Everyone else who has even a speck of knowledge of history knows that it is uninformed agitation such as this that has fueled countless violent revolutions around the world.

I don't care how rich a person is, if they did it in a legal way, it is their wealth. I am against cronyism, I don't like the government picking and choosing winners or losers or setting up rules and/or regulations that favor certain players in an industry and hurt others. That is cronyism and/or corporatism. Neither is capitalism. That I am against, but I am also against a government taking a person's wealth and redistributing that to others in the name of fairness. That isn't the governments job.

People refuse to look back in his childhood and see what kind of people his dad, mom and grand parents were and their beliefs, or his mentor that played a huge part of his life. Or the professor that he praised back in Harvard. Nah, we are suppose to ignore that stuff, or it is downplayed. Class envy and redistribution of wealth based on “fairness” as the Libs/Progressives/Democrats see it, is always a big issue during election campaigns, because the dems truly believe the republicans are too timid and/or flat out stupid (and they are pretty much correct), to point out to the American public the ideology that has become the underpinning of the new Democratic party: Marxism. Marxism spells the end of our democracy. It spells the end of free enterprise. It spells the end of innovation. It spells the end of incentives to succeed and invent and produce. It spells the end of all the medical and technological advances out nation has made throughout the centuries. It spells the end of social peace and unity and portends the beginning of a new revolution fed by envy, anger and resentment.

Take a look around the country and honestly tell me none of those things are happening our country because if you honestly believe that, you aren't paying close enough attention or are a drone.

 

[GoldenDome]

I have read communist manifesto and Das Kapital and some of his other gibberish that we were required to read while going to college and I have also read other books by the likes of Saul Alinsky and other works by Cloward and Piven and there is no doubt that the president is a marxist. I know the drones don't want to admit it, I don't know why. The democratic party is so far left that it shouldn't be something hard to admit.

I know those that will defend him say his actions say otherwise. Thankfully, what is left of our Constitution restrain him from fully implementing the Marxist model, but it is so obvious that he is a Marxist when you listen, really listen to his rhetoric. When you listen to his rhetoric, it is unvaryingly drawn directly from Saul Alinsky. Alinsky was a very intelligent individual with no compunction about exploiting popular sentiment to achieve his ends. One of his favorite methodologies was to use America’s founders/framers to back his own Marxism. Sound familiar? While championing ‘freedom,’ – Alinsky hated the idea of individual freedom the Founders/Framers loved – Alinsky pushed for ‘communal freedom,’ which is to say tyranny led by the government. Easy to see several on here do not see a big federal government as a threat to our individual freedoms or as a form of tyranny. I do.

Obama was raised in the Alinsky tradition, and he speaks quite well using Alinsky’s forked tongue, a lot. For example, during one of his speeches early in his presidency, a speech where he was talking about our deficit, he opened his speech by stating that Americans have historically “put our faith in free markets and free enterprise as the engine of America’s wealth and prosperity … we are rugged individualists, a self-reliant people with a healthy skepticism of too much government.” Hey, not bad, but then he states “But there has always been another thread running throughout our history – a belief that we are all connected; and that there are some things we can only do together, as a nation.” This is un-American, and it is a lie. American unity doesn’t occur in opposition to free markets, but in defense of them.

That is textbook Alinsky. He's intentionally confusing principled individualism with principled communitarianism (collectivism, statism, marxism, however you want to state it), suggesting that Americans are characterized by both, Obama begins the slow march to fascism. Other presidents before him started this move towards fascism, so it isn't all on Obama, he is just doing it at a much faster pace. So, getting back to that speech, just in that one section of that speech, he essentially turned Americans into corporatists – free marketeers ready, willing, and able to turn over that free market to a well-organized state. This is his economic speeches in a nutshell. Even last nights state of delusion speech. It’s a pattern that has marked his presidency. He consistently rails about “false choices” between two obviously incompatible ideas, which he, as the Great Uniter, then bridges.

His constant attacks on individualism is pure Marxist rhetoric. Think back to his line during his reelection campaign when he said "you didn't build that". Yes, I know, downplay that and give me the line that it is taken out of context or he is right. Either one is straight up nonsense. So in his world the individual is important, but they are nothing more than a mere cog in the larger wheel that forms the collectivist line that supplies our goods and services, pioneers medical research, builds skyscrapers, advances new and imaginative technologies – and on and on. It is that philosophy that is at the heart of Marxist socialist ideology and is the basis for all collectivist/statist calls to redistribute the wealth of those who have to those who have less. In Obama’s world, as in the world view of all Marxists, it is the fair thing to do, which is why his speeches are underpinned with repeated calls for “fairness”. I'll go as far to say that only a Marxist actually views the world of collectivist redistribution as fair. Everyone else who has even a speck of knowledge of history knows that it is uninformed agitation such as this that has fueled countless violent revolutions around the world.

I don't care how rich a person is, if they did it in a legal way, it is their wealth. I am against cronyism, I don't like the government picking and choosing winners or losers or setting up rules and/or regulations that favor certain players in an industry and hurt others. That is cronyism and/or corporatism. Neither is capitalism. That I am against, but I am also against a government taking a person's wealth and redistributing that to others in the name of fairness. That isn't the governments job.

People refuse to look back in his childhood and see what kind of people his dad, mom and grand parents were and their beliefs, or his mentor that played a huge part of his life. Or the professor that he praised back in Harvard. Nah, we are suppose to ignore that stuff, or it is downplayed. Class envy and redistribution of wealth based on “fairness” as the Libs/Progressives/Democrats see it, is always a big issue during election campaigns, because the dems truly believe the republicans are too timid and/or flat out stupid (and they are pretty much correct), to point out to the American public the ideology that has become the underpinning of the new Democratic party: Marxism. Marxism spells the end of our democracy. It spells the end of free enterprise. It spells the end of innovation. It spells the end of incentives to succeed and invent and produce. It spells the end of all the medical and technological advances out nation has made throughout the centuries. It spells the end of social peace and unity and portends the beginning of a new revolution fed by envy, anger and resentment.

Take a look around the country and honestly tell me none of those things are happening our country because if you honestly believe that, you aren't paying close enough attention or are a drone.

Lindsey Graham is that you?

 

[GoldenDome]

I like how the Republican Party has now changed the Keystone Energy pipeline to the Keystone Jobs pipeline. Could it be perhaps they are losing support do to low gas prices?

 

[BGIF]

I really wish fossil fuels had never been discovered so we could all live clean, healthy lives like we did in the 1700s.

When the life expectancy was 30.

No surburbs ruining the tax base and pissing Buster off.

No tax base.

Imagine food and clothing shipped to market for 330 million people by horse drawn wagons.

That's a lot of horseshit.

 

[BGIF]

I like how the Republican Party has now changed the Keystone Energy pipeline to the Keystone Jobs pipeline. Could it be perhaps they are losing support do to low gas prices?

Could they be reaching across to the aisle to those Democrats listening to their Union base scream about construction jobs and Davis Bacon?

 

[Buster Bluth]

I have read communist manifesto and Das Kapital and some of his other gibberish that we were required to read while going to college and I have also read other books by the likes of Saul Alinsky and other works by Cloward and Piven and there is no doubt that the president is a marxist. I know the drones don't want to admit it, I don't know why. The democratic party is so far left that it shouldn't be something hard to admit.

I know those that will defend him say his actions say otherwise. Thankfully, what is left of our Constitution restrain him from fully implementing the Marxist model, but it is so obvious that he is a Marxist when you listen, really listen to his rhetoric. When you listen to his rhetoric, it is unvaryingly drawn directly from Saul Alinsky. Alinsky was a very intelligent individual with no compunction about exploiting popular sentiment to achieve his ends. One of his favorite methodologies was to use America’s founders/framers to back his own Marxism. Sound familiar? While championing ‘freedom,’ – Alinsky hated the idea of individual freedom the Founders/Framers loved – Alinsky pushed for ‘communal freedom,’ which is to say tyranny led by the government. Easy to see several on here do not see a big federal government as a threat to our individual freedoms or as a form of tyranny. I do.

Obama was raised in the Alinsky tradition, and he speaks quite well using Alinsky’s forked tongue, a lot. For example, during one of his speeches early in his presidency, a speech where he was talking about our deficit, he opened his speech by stating that Americans have historically “put our faith in free markets and free enterprise as the engine of America’s wealth and prosperity … we are rugged individualists, a self-reliant people with a healthy skepticism of too much government.” Hey, not bad, but then he states “But there has always been another thread running throughout our history – a belief that we are all connected; and that there are some things we can only do together, as a nation.” This is un-American, and it is a lie. American unity doesn’t occur in opposition to free markets, but in defense of them.

That is textbook Alinsky. He's intentionally confusing principled individualism with principled communitarianism (collectivism, statism, marxism, however you want to state it), suggesting that Americans are characterized by both, Obama begins the slow march to fascism. Other presidents before him started this move towards fascism, so it isn't all on Obama, he is just doing it at a much faster pace. So, getting back to that speech, just in that one section of that speech, he essentially turned Americans into corporatists – free marketeers ready, willing, and able to turn over that free market to a well-organized state. This is his economic speeches in a nutshell. Even last nights state of delusion speech. It’s a pattern that has marked his presidency. He consistently rails about “false choices” between two obviously incompatible ideas, which he, as the Great Uniter, then bridges.

His constant attacks on individualism is pure Marxist rhetoric. Think back to his line during his reelection campaign when he said "you didn't build that". Yes, I know, downplay that and give me the line that it is taken out of context or he is right. Either one is straight up nonsense. So in his world the individual is important, but they are nothing more than a mere cog in the larger wheel that forms the collectivist line that supplies our goods and services, pioneers medical research, builds skyscrapers, advances new and imaginative technologies – and on and on. It is that philosophy that is at the heart of Marxist socialist ideology and is the basis for all collectivist/statist calls to redistribute the wealth of those who have to those who have less. In Obama’s world, as in the world view of all Marxists, it is the fair thing to do, which is why his speeches are underpinned with repeated calls for “fairness”. I'll go as far to say that only a Marxist actually views the world of collectivist redistribution as fair. Everyone else who has even a speck of knowledge of history knows that it is uninformed agitation such as this that has fueled countless violent revolutions around the world.

I don't care how rich a person is, if they did it in a legal way, it is their wealth. I am against cronyism, I don't like the government picking and choosing winners or losers or setting up rules and/or regulations that favor certain players in an industry and hurt others. That is cronyism and/or corporatism. Neither is capitalism. That I am against, but I am also against a government taking a person's wealth and redistributing that to others in the name of fairness. That isn't the governments job.

People refuse to look back in his childhood and see what kind of people his dad, mom and grand parents were and their beliefs, or his mentor that played a huge part of his life. Or the professor that he praised back in Harvard. Nah, we are suppose to ignore that stuff, or it is downplayed. Class envy and redistribution of wealth based on “fairness” as the Libs/Progressives/Democrats see it, is always a big issue during election campaigns, because the dems truly believe the republicans are too timid and/or flat out stupid (and they are pretty much correct), to point out to the American public the ideology that has become the underpinning of the new Democratic party: Marxism. Marxism spells the end of our democracy. It spells the end of free enterprise. It spells the end of innovation. It spells the end of incentives to succeed and invent and produce. It spells the end of all the medical and technological advances out nation has made throughout the centuries. It spells the end of social peace and unity and portends the beginning of a new revolution fed by envy, anger and resentment.

Take a look around the country and honestly tell me none of those things are happening our country because if you honestly believe that, you aren't paying close enough attention or are a drone.

 

[luckathe1]

Free junior college.
Tab picked up by Gov. and added to National Debt.
U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time
So after Gov. takes over paying for JC, how long before they mandate a curriculum?
Oh wait, its the Gov., that wont happen. After all those bureaucrats and politicians, well lets face it, they only have our best interest in mind.
It constantly amazes me how many people want more and more Gov. control over their lives.
Very Scary and Very Sad

 

[nsideirish]

Watch this and tell me there isn't a problem with wealth distribution in America.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/QPKKQnijnsM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[MJ12666]

Interesting Op-Ed in the NY Times written by Glenn Hubbard.

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S economic proposals in Tuesday’s State of the Union address were a disappointment. His ideas — free community college, an enhanced tax credit for child care and higher taxes on high-income earners and large financial institutions — failed to go beyond mere talking points. With no chance of engaging the Republicans, they will surely die without a hearing.

But the president’s proposals do invite a case for a comprehensive tax and entitlement reform, one based not on redistribution but on growth, work and opportunity.

Our unwillingness to confront mounting inefficiencies in the nation’s tax code and growing obligations in entitlement programs has led to increasingly limited options. Corporate tax reform is held hostage to the misguided idea that tax cuts and tax increases must be balanced within the corporate sector alone, and to the faulty assumption that beneficial tax reform will not raise economic activity.

Piling up child tax credits and subsidies for health care over narrow household income ranges, as the president proposes, leads to high rates of taxation on earnings from work as assistance is phased out. Likewise, raising marginal tax rates on investment by the well-to-do reduces asset prices and is a threat to continued economic expansion.

So how can we enhance growth, work and opportunity? Four steps can help get us there.

The first is to move to a simple business tax system, with a lower marginal tax rate and no special industry preferences. There would be no separate corporate tax, only a single business income tax for all businesses. Ideally, investment would be expensed, and its cost deducted in the year it was made, rather than deducted gradually. Businesses would be able to bring back overseas profits free of additional United States taxes. A one-time modest tax on current overseas earning could be used to help finance reform. Such a business income tax would encourage both growth and investment opportunities in the United States, while offering more jobs and higher wages to American workers.

The second step is to use the individual income tax to better reward work. The top tax rate for most Americans would be the same as the business income tax rate. To maintain progressivity, a surtax on wages would be collected on very high earners. To make work more attractive, low-income workers, including single workers, would receive an expanded earned-income tax credit and a tax credit to buy health insurance (as opposed to the more complex subsidies that exist under the Affordable Care Act). The earned-income tax credit would be phased out gradually.

Workers would have the choice of switching to options available under current law for employer-provided health insurance and a health savings account, or a tax deduction for their own health insurance and health savings account as incomes rise. Reductions in marginal tax rates to support work would be paid for by limits on tax deductions for more affluent households.

The third step focuses on education and training. Like investment in technology and machines, investment in human capital should be deductible from income. Out-of-pocket educational expenses for bona fide schooling and vocational training could be tax deductible for all but affluent households. Personal re-employment accounts could be made available to all individuals facing more than temporary unemployment, with individual financial support for training and a bonus for re-employment.

The fourth step is to strengthen retirement security, while acknowledging the need for fiscal consolidation in entitlement spending. Minimum benefits for Social Security and Medicare could be strengthened to ensure that people with low lifetime incomes avoid poverty in old age. To reduce future deficits in these programs and to free up funds to support work and opportunity for younger workers in the future, Social Security benefit growth would be slowed for more affluent individuals.

In the same spirit, changing Medicare so that individuals would purchase insurance from one of a number of competing plans, with the federal government paying part of the cost, could focus the largest subsidies for health insurance on those with low lifetime incomes. Converting Medicaid to a block grant — in which federal support would be turned over to states — would give governors the flexibility to support health insurance tax credits for low-income residents, community health centers or other experiments in health insurance and delivery at the state level.

These four steps offer a road map for growth, work and opportunity without sacrificing income security. Other policies, including free trade, open competition and immigration reform, are also important. But these four steps can take place in a budget discussion, and congressional leaders and the White House have both emphasized the need for a more timely budget resolution.

While the reforms I sketched are comprehensive, they can be implemented in discrete steps — no “grand bargain” is required. And realistic proposals to advance growth, work and opportunity, not ideological talking points, are what we need right now.

 

[Bluto]

I really wish fossil fuels had never been discovered so we could all live clean, healthy lives like we did in the 1700s.

We could just pull our heads out of our collective butts and use what supposedly separates us from slugs to develop other fuel sources. Considering we develop new tech that allows us to do stuff like send a missile guided from a desk in Virginia to blow up some dude on the other side of the planet I find it perplexing that we are supposedly stymied with harnessing the power of a giant ball of energy in the sky.

It's also strange to me that "conservatives" seem to want to keep plowing ahead with our current development models despite all of the warning signs pointing to this being a disaster in the making. When species begin dying off in massive numbers, ocean ph begins to change, desertification and deforestation accelerate at alarming rates and the polar ice caps begin to melt one would think that the "conservative" thing to do would be to pump the brakes and look long and hard at our development models and how our behavior as a species might just push us back to the Stone Age. It's happened before to a number of societies that were just as much hot shit in their minds as we think we are today.

 

[phgreek]

We could just pull our heads out of our collective butts and use what supposedly separates us from slugs to develop other fuel sources. Considering we develop new tech that allows us to do stuff like send a missile guided from a desk in Virginia to blow up some dude on the other side of the planet I find it perplexing that we are supposedly stymied with harnessing the power of a giant ball of energy in the sky.

It's also strange to me that "conservatives" seem to want to keep plowing ahead with our current development models despite all of the warning signs pointing to this being a disaster in the making. When species begin dying off in massive numbers, ocean ph begins to change, desertification and deforestation accelerate at alarming rates and the polar ice caps begin to melt one would think that the "conservative" thing to do would be to pump the brakes and look long and hard at our development models and how our behavior as a species might just push us back to the Stone Age. It's happened before to a number of societies that were just as much hot shit in their minds as we think we are today.

I'm a conservative in many ways. I also believe that the correct approach to climate change is to develop viable solutions to replace emitters specifically, and currently, impacting human health. We should NOT, shut down emitters and scramble to replace them. This is a fools errand when you look around at China and others. While they talk about dealing with their emitter problems, and approach making investments, they are not going to shut shit down until they have a suitable solution to replace the emitters. And no I'm not sold on the tempo/severity of climate change, but regardless, pursuit of better/cleaner energy is a smart thing to do from a micro kinda human health perspective. Re-focusing on solving those problems benefits any climate change model, and I don't think many folks argue human health affects in this country's worst Smog/inversion regions...and solutions motivated by immediate health affects are likely directly applicable, or further the science associated with climate change...Feds and non-profit benefactors really should refocus funding and adopt more immediate human health concerns...JMHO. Just sells better...at least for me...

 

[NDBoiler]

Hilarious that he states that community college can be "free"...pretty sure somebody has to pay for it.

I beleive it is being funded at least in part by taxing 529 plan earnings. I dislike the idea of taxing one's college savings that was previously tax free in order to allow the govt to provide you access to community college. One of those things I wish that ya know, kinda would be MY decision how that would be done since, ya know, it's MY children's education.

Here's a couple related articles from Forbes that touch on the subject:

Obama's 529 College Savings Plan Tax Hike Is An Assault On The American Dream - Forbes

Obama's New State Of The Union Tax Hike On Middle Class 529 College Savers - Forbes

 

[IRISHDODGER]

Lindsey Graham is that you?

No, b/c outside of a strong military, Graham wouldn't dare point any of that out that marv just outlined. Career pols are career pols regardless of what letter comes after their name.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

I always found the proposition that health insurance be tied to your employment strange. The US seems to be unique in this regard. What is the rationale? Car insurance isn't. Home insurance isn't. Etc.

This came out of WWII. At the end of the war, companies were actually competing for workers. One way to entice a worker was to throw in health insurance coverage. It went from a fringe benefit to an entitlement over time. One day, it'll be cell phones...just wait.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

Free junior college.
Tab picked up by Gov. and added to National Debt.
U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time
So after Gov. takes over paying for JC, how long before they mandate a curriculum?
Oh wait, its the Gov., that wont happen. After all those bureaucrats and politicians, well lets face it, they only have our best interest in mind.
It constantly amazes me how many people want more and more Gov. control over their lives.
Very Scary and Very Sad

Maybe more families could afford to send their kids to tradtional four-year state colleges if they didn't raise tution seemingly 10x the rate of inflation every damn year. We could be going thru another Great Depression & you can bet that tuition at a state college would still see a substantial hike in tuition. I'm sure it has nothing to do w/ those gov't backed student loans.

 

[IrishinSyria]

I beleive it is being funded at least in part by taxing 529 plan earnings. I dislike the idea of taxing one's college savings that was previously tax free in order to allow the govt to provide you access to community college. One of those things I wish that ya know, kinda would be MY decision how that would be done since, ya know, it's MY children's education.

Here's a couple related articles from Forbes that touch on the subject:

Obama's 529 College Savings Plan Tax Hike Is An Assault On The American Dream - Forbes

Obama's New State Of The Union Tax Hike On Middle Class 529 College Savers - Forbes

The gist of that first article was

That romantic, value-based narrative is what the Obama 529 plan tax hike attacks

which I read as... "yes, there's an abundance of evidence that 529s benefit the very people who need it the least and exacerbate, rather than reduce, problems of inequality. But we pretend that they don't, and that's what really matters."

Not the most convincing argument in the world.

Side note: for all the conservatives/keystone supporters on the board. The keystone project as planned requires the use of eminent domain to support a private project on a massive scale. Think Kelo x1000. What is the conservative justification for such a massive expansion of the government's power to take private property?