US Open Government Sites To Close 385
SEWilco writes "US government sites which promote open government are going to shut down soon due to not enough funding being directed at them."
After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed.
But it's a good idea... (Score:5, Interesting)
Can we donate? I'm serious.
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:2)
No need, there's already this site called wikileaks...
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:4, Informative)
OK here's a deal, I'll give you 144 USD (12 usd/month as per your link) one year after you fund and operate a similar site doing the same thing:
1) One that produces reports like this:
http://www.usaspending.gov/search?query=&searchtype=&formFields=eyJOYXRpb25hbEludGVyZXN0QWN0aW9uIjpbIkd1bGYgT2lsIFNwaWxsIDA0MTAiXX0= [usaspending.gov]
(and the other reports the original site provides).
FYI: that page is about spending related to the recent Gulf Oil Spill.
2) The data+reports have to be reasonably accurate and updated in a timely manner (from the various entities required, some potentially uncooperative or even hostile).
3) the site has to cope with the load when linked to by Slashdot or mainstream media. And have similar performance to the original site.
4) the site should be about as hard to hack/deface as a similar gov site (e.g. probably possible, but not too easy).
For comparison here's the Wikimedia annual report:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/AR_web_all-spreads_24mar11_72_FINAL.pdf [wikimedia.org]
Summary their expenses are about USD10 million. 3.5 million in salaries/wages.
While that's for multiple wikimedia sites do remember that much wikipedia content is created by volunteers for free.
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure these are some of the same sites we donated $18m and $40m for, to pay for "drupal installations". And by "donate", I mean "paid taxes for". And have you seen a lot of these sites? Broken links. Meaningless data. Often slow updates. These were empty gestures and big cash handouts.
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:3)
Bingo.
Cash grab, like many other "programs" and if you "cut" them, they will roll out some poor soul who was "helped" by the program, as if anecdotal evidence is proof that the program is needed.
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:5, Informative)
Sadly, that's not a joke. [pay.gov]
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
I would happily pay my income adjusted contribution if it meant I wouldn't have to listen to people bitch about it anymore and stop cutting important social programs like nutrition assistance.
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:3, Insightful)
By "cutting" you mean "not increasing". What I'd like is a top to bottom review of ALL government spending and ALL programs having to justify themselves, and with more than anecdotal evidence of some grandma eating dog food. And in case you're wondering, I have a hard time wanting to justify some of the very programs you're probably supportive of. How about this, Nutrition Assistance based on not being "fat". I see the "Free food" kids at school who are fat. And I don't mean "chubby", I mean barely able to walk, waddle like penguins ... fat.
And you're gonna tell me that they are poor (sure) and are fat because lack of some education at home where the parents are too stupid to not eat at McDonalds every day ... or something. Great, how about you drag mom AND dad down to the local "re-education" center and get them educated BEFORE they can participate in "free and reduced" food (breakfast AND lunch now).
Never mind that now that the parents only have to find one fat filled meal instead of three, they can now drink an extra sixpack of bud or fifth of vodka.
Look, I don't mind helping people who need it. But I'm sick of people who don't need it, milking the system so they can drink (or smoke dope, or crank, or pop Oxycontin). You know, I've had to tighten my belt over the years because I'm not making any more, and the government it taking more, and things just cost more. How about ... for a change ... government do the same thing?
So, lets cut (as in not increase) all government spending for a while. No new programs unless you're willing to cut two old ones. Let us review each program's effectiveness and see if we can't be more productive with the tax payers hard earned money. I know, novel idea for government to justify its existence, we should try it as the other option isn't working any longer.
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:3)
From a budget perspective, these programs appear to account for 14% of the budget, [cbpp.org] money well spent IMHO. There are some child health care costs rolled up in the 21% on that page for medicaid, but 25% of the 21% is spent in the last year of life [healthaffairs.org]. So the spending on older Americans who may or may not need a social program dwarfs the spending on children.
Children are a national treasure.
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:3)
From your views, you seem to be libertarian. But...forced sterilization? Yes, that seems like a reasonable and well-thought-out solution, and not totalitarian at all.
Back in the day, shame and pride kept people from taking government assistance unless they absolutely needed it.
Hahaha, what day was this? I grew up on government assistance, and saw plenty of families abusing the system. Freeloading isn't some new thing that the damn kids today invented.
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:3)
So you'd rather them be forced to resort to theft, and other crimes? That seems like such a better solution. Worked great for Napoleon.
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:3)
i guess that means free/reduced school lunches, WIC, food stamps, etc. yeah by all means we must continue to guarantee peoples right to have a bunch of kids they can't afford. that's real great for society and helps instill realism and personal responsibility, yeah right.
My issue with all of those programs is that they're treating small symptoms and ignoring the root problem - minimum wage doesn't pay enough to live on. Giving kids a hot meal is a great idea, and makes for warm and fuzzy photo-ops. However, I'd argue that money would be better spent helping the kid's parents make enough money to pay for their own kid's lunch. Yeah, it doesn't lend itself to oversized cheques and the like, but it's a better use of public funds.
While the stereotype is "poor people sitting on their fat asses leeching from the public purse", my experience has been that most of them do so because they can't get a job that pays as well as the government support. And since benefits get clawed back at 1:1 or worse, that removes any incentive to get into the workforce - why work and get paid *less* than if you stay home?
(Yes, yes, there are lazy sacks that do nothing as well. File under "exception that proves the rule" - there are lazy rich people too.)
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's because they only usually think taxes are too low for *other* people.
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:5, Informative)
Don't know about that, the limousine liberals who right-wingers and slashdotters like to excoriate frequently are advocating for tax increases for their own tax bracket.
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, so far in FY 2011 [treasurydirect.gov], they've gotten $530,856.55.
And the old joke is true: they all gave 55 cents.
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:2)
We print money and leave China holding worthless bonds.
Not a great choice. The only thing that could save us is if the Euro crashes first and the dollar is the only place for the worlds capital to go. So as an American I am cheering for the most unreasonable factions among the PIGS. Come on loonies, print and spend those Euros.
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:3)
But of all departments of our government, Department of Education should flat out be available for donations.
Just stop by your local school - they're *always* fundraising for something or other. You can tell how well-off your neighborhood is by what they're fundraising *for*. The rich schools are getting new scoreboards. The average schools are getting new computers for the lab, or maybe replacing some worn out equipment. The poor schools will be thrilled if you show up with a few boxes of copier paper.
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
slander stated as fact with unfounded assertions for a rather uncreative run of the mill troll. shame on the fools who modded you up -- please mod up new and interesting trolls for us to enjoy, not the old tired ones; nostalgia not withstanding.
and just in case you were actually serious, we also had less countries with the bomb in '79. (hey, at least my metric is verifiable) That must be the DoEd's fault too according to your logic? A rather lot has changed since then, and you can really ignore all the other changes in society and tie the causation to the management of this afterthought of a gov't dept? really?
Sagan is dead. Long live Sagan.
http://www.xenu.net/archive/baloney_detection.html [xenu.net]
Re:But it's a good idea... (Score:4, Interesting)
We're now spending 3 times as much on education, adjusted, as 25 years ago, yet the results are no better. Perhaps we should put more effort into insisting on quality outputs rather than increasing inputs -- tossing more money -- into the edu operation...
Who is "we"? Do you mean federal, state, local government? Are you talking about pre-college education, or college/university/vocational education?
Without any of that information, I don't understand your assertion or proposoal at all.
Bitter Irony (Score:5, Interesting)
We need at least another $4 million just to keep USASpending.gov operating this year.
$4mil to keep a website going for one year? Think if I called them up and offered to do it for 3 they'd take it?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bitter Irony (Score:5, Informative)
An investment firm is hiring mathematicians. After the first round of interviews, three hopeful recent graduates - a pure mathematician, an applied mathematician, and a graduate in mathematical finance - are asked what starting salary they are expecting. The pure mathematician: "Would $30,000 be too much?" The applied mathematician: "I think $60,000 would be OK." The math finance person: "What about $300,000?" The personnel officer is flabberghasted: "Do you know that we have a graduate in pure mathematics who is willing to do the same work for a tenth of what you are demanding!?" "Well, I thought of $135,000 for me, $135,000 for you - and $30,000 for the pure mathematician who will do the work."
Same principle applies here, I suppose.
Re:Bitter Irony (Score:2)
An investment firm is hiring mathematicians. After the first round of interviews, three hopeful recent graduates - a pure mathematician, an applied mathematician, and a graduate in mathematical finance - are asked what starting salary they are expecting.
The pure mathematician: "Would $30,000 be too much?"
The applied mathematician: "I think $60,000 would be OK."
The math finance person: "What about $300,000?"
The personnel officer is flabberghasted: "Do you know that we have a graduate in pure mathematics who is willing to do the same work for a tenth of what you are demanding!?"
"Well, I thought of $135,000 for me, $135,000 for you - and $30,000 for the pure mathematician who will do the work."
Same principle applies here, I suppose.
It's staggering to consider how accurate that really is. It's rare for a compact post to contain so much real-world truth. This neatly explains much of both government and large corporations.
Well done, sir!
yes, but (Score:5, Insightful)
this is precisely what republicanism and "shrinking the government" is all about. Of course, they are even more clever by slipping in all their favorite kickback schemes into the defense budget that no one dares touch for fear of being labeled anti-American. Its the perfect scam. No or a shrinking government lets them get away with anything they want and you and I get to pay for it in further reductions in regulations and services that may potentially save the lives of millions. Republicans are good at recognizing that millions can starve or die as long as they get their millions.
Re:yes, but (Score:3, Insightful)
War (Score:5, Informative)
$4 million is what. 20 minutes in Iraq/Afghanistan? A day in the "War on Drugs"?
Re:War (Score:3)
What is it good fo'?
Corporations' profit -- say it again!
Re:Bitter Irony (Score:3)
And constantly updating it? Data doesn't feed itself.
Re:Bitter Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:2)
Re:Bitter Irony (Score:3)
When they first rolled out the ridiculously expensive series of drupal sites (of which recovery.gov was one and so was the federal IT spending site), they claimed they needed something like $10m per year just to run it. (JUST recovery.gov, I believe).
I guess they had to pay all those expensive Drupal licensing fees, huh?
Re:Bitter Irony (Score:3)
Given all the regulations regarding government procurement your figure of 20K for hundreds of thousands of offices that must communicate the information for release is remarkably low. Likewise you only have 1 person handling content. That would be like asking someone to drink from a firehose. I would imagine a staff of about 20 would cover it for coordinating data input from so many agencies and inputs around the country.
It is always remarkable how people think they can expect a major project on a shoestring and then complain when it fails. Nonetheless, I like your basic premise. Democrats could gain a lot by farming this work out to open-government advocates, who would be willing to do it on a shoestring just to see it happen.
Re:Bitter Irony (Score:4, Insightful)
Data.gov probably uses more money gathering and curating the tons of data they offer than with hosting.
Re:Bitter Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
4 million dollars would pay 30-40 people. That's not a whole lot, considering all of the data that has to be collected, checked, massaged into the right format, made compliant with accessibility rules, press dealings, server support, IT support for staff, and so on. I'm not an american so I'm not all that familiar with how funding is allocated in detail, but the site seems to spend a lot of time on awards, and sub award reporting. Presumably 'awards' could be easily extracted from regular budget documents but sub awards can't? There's seems to be a lot of time devoted to analysis of the data as well (which could drive costs up a lot if you have a few PhD's in stats or econ doing the analysis), in addition to building the flash visualization stuff.
On top of all of the sort of obvious stuff I'm sure there's a lot of legal there too. You can't always just go and blab what contractors you're giving money to, or if you can you need to verify the information you're going to say about the company. There can be a big difference between a deal with a company that is myurl.net and myurl.com, and you don't want to say they got 10 million dollars when they got 1, or 100.
As with all any large outfit, the more money you spend accounting for the money you're spending, the less is available for the actually things you're trying to do. It becomes a balance between the legitimate need to know where money is going, and the equally legitimate need to not waste 50 cents on every dollar documenting where you spent the other 50 cents. It seems like most everything on this website is available elsewhere, not necessarily easily. Whether or not a few millions of dollars in data aggregation on top of billions in accounting for trillions in spending is providing good value, especially when it's not my money, is beyond me.
Re:Bitter Irony (Score:2)
I think you've hit the nail on the head here. What this project sought to do was a colossal undertaking, and it's not clear that the right people were found for the job.
I could see the framework for a project like this easily taking a decade to set up, and that wouldn't (and probably shouldn't IMO) include a frontend. For example, we don't need a brand new organization to massage data, we need to pass laws requiring the originators to conform to a set format.
(...I wonder at what point the devs started thinking that it would be easier to rebuild our political machine than sort through centuries of spaghetti law.)
Re:Bitter Irony (Score:2)
Don't forget to include benefits. Pretty much consider your benefits to match your salary. At 60k/yr salary you may cost the company a total of 120k, for example.
Re:Bitter Irony (Score:2, Insightful)
From the article:
We need at least another $4 million just to keep USASpending.gov operating this year.
$4mil to keep a website going for one year? Think if I called them up and offered to do it for 3 they'd take it?
Depends. Are you going to do all the data collection, tabulations, etc? That $4-million figure wasn't just to run some Apache server stuff in the corner. It's the entire program that's being cut. It's no real great loss since traffic to these servers was negligible anyway. In the long run, it's actually cheaper to respond to FOIA requests than the maintain the full-disclosure types of websites.
Keep in mind these were the half-assed answers to political campaign promises about open govt. They were never intended to fully funded or maintained.
Huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ironic. Shut down the websites that watchdog government spending due to lack of funding. I'm shocked.
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
with apologies to R.J. Hanlon
This Is Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
The few million dollars these sites cost to run is a drop in the bucket compared to those three programs.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:2)
There are three giant money-sucking programs that need drastic cuts if we want to do anything about the budget: Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, and Defense.
The few million dollars these sites cost to run is a drop in the bucket compared to those three programs.
It's something of a myth that government is incompetent or can't get a job done well. It's just that their priorities are quite different from ours. Those first two programs you mention are very good at accomplishing their primary purpose which is to buy votes. They fail miserably at other things such as solvency but that's no concern to the politicians as long as the primary purpose fulfilled.
Retirees tend to vote, consistently, and in very large homogeneous blocs. No legislator who wants to be re-elected would dare touch either Medicaid or Social Security no matter how bankrupt they become. Like the majority of retirees, most legislators are old enough and selfish enough that the insurmountable debt they're leaving future generations is of no personal concern to them. They won't be around to see it collapse, they won't have to pick up the pieces and to them that makes it okay. Then there's the scope creep effect. The bigger and more expensive these programs become, the more bureaucracy it takes to manage them. Once that is in place, it will inevitably be declared indispensable.
Social Security wouldn't be difficult to overhaul in any practical sense, even if that's nearly impossible in any political sense. I'd rather the money taken out of my paycheck for Social Security be placed into a fund of some kind, with my name on it, that I own. The fund could be like a 401(k) in which all monies are placed into a "guaranteed fund", or it could be invested into long-term government bonds. Almost everyone could retire as a multimillionaire with such an arrangement even with a modest income. This system wouldn't ever depend on future generations to pay current debts since you own the account and you get out what you put in, plus interest. The only cost to the taxpayers would be the small overhead of managing the accounts, similar to that of private employers who offer IRAs.
Of course that won't happen for another reason. That would make people more independent and less needy of government to take care of them. Politicians really don't like that idea. They need to be needed and fear irrelevancy. If the average retiree were a financially secure multimillionaire they would quickly run out of retirement and health care crises to solve. This has the added undesirable (to the politicians) side effect of limiting the expansion of government, since a crisis is easily the most efficient way to do that. It's certainly easier than convincing everyone that your proposal is a truly sound and sustainable idea in the absence of a crisis.
Defense would be easy to cut. That one is ridiculously simple: stop trying to be the world's police, stick to using military force primarily against nations which launch unprovoked attacks against us, and reduce our weaponry to only 3-5 times the world's second-best military. Note that "using our secret agencies to overthrow their democratically elected leaders and replacing them with dictators who play ball" as we like to do in the Middle East and South America does not count as "unprovoked". If our standing army starts getting bored they can be put to work patrolling the border with Mexico. Cue the brainwashed idiots who think that wanting immigrants to respect our laws is the exact same thing as being anti-immigrant.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:2)
Almost everyone could retire as a multimillionaire with such an arrangement even with a modest income.
Where would that money come from? If everyone started investing with such plans, wouldn't they pay much, much less?
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:2)
I'd be interested in knowing the reason for the contribution limits. I cannot, but if I could afford to put 90% of my income into a 401(k) what's the rationale behind stopping me? Who would be harmed by that?
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:2)
No, the Libertarian call is "If you want to get yours, get it. But don't cry about wanting mine because you couldn't be bothered to get yours."
If you are too fucking stupid to save up for retirement and you were too busy spending money to go on vacations or buy a boat to put money aside to retire on, then that's your fucking problem.
Thanks, I tend to be verbose so you saved me a reply to this cookie-cutter stereotype. It reminds me of that saying, "the fear of libertarianism is the terror the mediocre feel at the possibility of being judged on their merits."
I am by no means rich but the math here is very simple. If I start at a young age and put aside a rather small percentage of my income, placing it into interest-bearing accounts, then by the time I reach retirement age I will have a healthy nest-egg. It's called compound interest. I for one can figure out on my own that, barring some fatal accident that prematurely ends my life, I will one day grow old and wish to retire. The time to start preparing for that is right now. I have no idea why that realization is so difficult for so many because it's bleedin' obvious to me.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:3)
So you'd be happy leaving old people that hadn't figured this out to starve and rot in the streets?
Because it turns out that a lot of people are stupid, and a lot of people don't prepare. Or they lose it all defending a frivolous lawsuit, of get screwed over by a spouse in a divorce, or see repeated periodic market crashes when their investments mature, or... a million and one other things that leave them needing help.
I do not fear libertarianism. I revile it as the sick and selfish philosophy it truly is.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:4, Informative)
More libertarian lies and fantasies.
Yes, you got where you are all by yourself, with no contribution from the society around you, you big strong independent libertarian you. You'd have done just as well living in a cave on your own, I bet. To address your points -
Voluntary giving suffers from resources being squandered by many charities, it also suffers from funds only going to those whom are either currently in the spotlight or whom are considered moral/worthy by others, not necessarily those in most need. Government is not perfect by a long way, especially when it comes to efficiency, but it is generally consistent and tries to be blind.
And you genuinely think that giving people a reasonable safety net, providing for health and basic food, makes them grow up lazy and dependant? That if we just whipped that out from under those most in need they'd suddenly pull themselves up by their bootstraps?
And someone who suffers due to their own bad decision-making thinks that entitles them to take my property away from me, but that is not selfish? Why?
And someone who benefits immensely from the society around them thinks that entitles them to keep every red cent and fuck the rest of you, that's not selfish and childlike in your eyes?
In closing, don't lecture me about selfishness because that's your favorite talking point. You just make yourself look like a presumptious ass. The next time you want to do that, learn something about the person you're talking to and you'll wind up with a lot less egg on your face.
Funny, I don't feel any egg there. Nor do I believe for a second your claims about your many virtues, or that those values are widely held amongst libertarians.
Relying on the vagaries of charity in order to help the poor does not work. We have a lot of history to show this.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
If you put all of the FICA taxes and T-bills owned by the Social Security Administration towards what they're supposed to be going for, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, are doing collectively just fine right now, and will continue to be more-or-less just fine for decades.
The problem is that instead the significant surpluses in FICA were used to cover up even-more-massive deficits in the general treasury. And where and when those deficits came isn't a mystery: In short, blame can be laid pretty squarely at the feet of Ronald Reagan [wikimedia.org] (notice the huge inflection point between 1945 and 2010).
Basically, Reagan claimed he could cut taxes without affecting revenue. The effect of trying this was that he effectively proved that this was utter nonsense. But everybody likes paying less in taxes, so people who pointed out that it was nonsense were effectively told "Shhhh! Don't give the game away".
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:2, Informative)
If you put all of the FICA taxes and T-bills owned by the Social Security Administration towards what they're supposed to be going for, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, are doing collectively just fine right now, and will continue to be more-or-less just fine for decades.
Not true.First, the T-bills are a legal fiction. Second, the medical care programs and to a lesser extent Social Security all have rapidly expanding costs.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:3, Informative)
If you put all of the FICA taxes and T-bills owned by the Social Security Administration towards what they're supposed to be going for, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, are doing collectively just fine right now, and will continue to be more-or-less just fine for decades.
In 1967, a Democratic Congress (247-187 House, 64-36 Senate) passed legislation (an amendment to the Social Security Act) that was signed by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, which declared that any government program running a surplus would transfer that surplus to the general fund with a promise that the general fund would repay the program in years that the program was running a deficit.
Those brand new Great Society entitlement programs had vastly exceeded their projections within two years and combined with the escalation in Vietnam meant that the US was going to be racking up huge deficits and the people in power wanted to paper over their mistakes so they could get re-elected (by not calling them mistakes and screwing over future generations, whom wouldn't be able to retaliate against some either already retired or dead politician in the future). In 1971, entitlement spending passed military spending, despite being in the middle of a war, and has vastly outgrown military spending ever since.
But by all means, blame Reagan and only Reagan even though as far back as the early 60s, he was warning us about the future insolvency of the entitlement system.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:2)
Do we need to cut anything? Think hard about where money comes from - under the fractional reserve system, banks can multiply deposits by 10. Why shouldn't govt do the same?
The economic problem is not the central problem of mankind. The advance of knowledge and innovation is. How can we encourage the natural curiosity and sense of wonder that leads to creative solutions? The mentality of "Katie bar the door" is not conducive to invention.
What govt should do is provide a basic income (as founding father Tom Paine proposed in 1795's "Agrarian Justice") and stimulate innovation through challenges (of course private businesses such as Google, Netflix etc. can hold challenges too).
In conclusion, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter, Alexander Hamilton held that debt is a blessing, Lincoln printed over $400 million greenbacks, and the Panic of 1837 followed Jackson's paying off the national debt.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
They are doing that. It's called inflation and it's the biggest hidden tax of them all. For those who consider this a top priority, it's also an incredibly regressive tax. That's because most wealthy people have their money tied up in appreciating assets that scale with inflation. Most everyone else has their money in bank accounts. It's hard to live within your means, slowly build wealth, and move up when the money you are saving is constantly devalued. It's one of many forces that help to limit upward mobility and ensure that those who work hard and are not currently wealthy are unlikely to become wealthy.
The problem with that is that when a nation starts going bankrupt, the majority population becomes so busy trying to do things like avoid starvation that there remains little time and energy to advance knowledge and invent new things.
If it would work that would be nice. There are a few problems that quickly come to mind and there are likely more than that. One is that this would require a huge investment of trust in the government. Providing a realistic income to every last adult in the nation would require a government even larger and more powerful (legally and economically) than the one we have now. I look at the assholes in power and I see little more than incompetence and insatiable hunger for power. If we are going to put this much more trust in our politicians then we need better politicians.
The other problem is that very large systems based on extremely centralized micromanagement of human behavior tend not to work out. The only reason corporations can pull that off is because they are dictatorships and each member is relatively easy to eliminate and replace. Then consider that the only challenges that would receive funding are those you can get large, bureaucratic committees staffed with politicians to agree with and support. Proposals involving a scientific discipline are exceedingly unlikely to be reviewed and approved by people who actually understand the science. Then you'd still have all the usual problems of cronyism in which the politicians' buddies and supporters have an easier time getting a challenge approved.
Reagan proved that most corporations who are given generous tax breaks would rather give that money to their shareholders than the rank-and-file employees actually performing the work. Hamilton was a supporter of centralized banks and fiat currency and debt is an integral and unavoidable component of that arrangement. Lincoln's greenbacks were interest-free currency because Lincoln was wise enough to foresee the inevitable collapse of a system in which money has interest attached at the moment it is created, namely because there is never enough money in circulation to pay back the debt.
The Panice of 1837 wasn't caused by Jackson paying off the national debt. The Panic was caused by drastic inflation that happened over a length of time that was followed by sudden intense defla
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
three giant money-sucking programs that need drastic cuts if we want to do anything about the budget: Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, and Defense
Mmm, because a disease-racked, starving underclass is the perfect foundation for a stable and prosperous democratic society. But if we at least fund the military, the desperatly hungry, plague-ridden rabble with no jobs and no future will at least be well-trained in modern urban combat and the overthrow of oppressive (or just annoying) regimes.
Nothing about this bold social plan could ever possibly go wrong!
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:2)
Mmm, because a disease-racked, starving underclass is the perfect foundation for a stable and prosperous democratic society.
Obviously it's not ideal, but we have a fifteen TRILLION dollar deficit. There need to be sacrifices made, either by cutting spending, increasing taxes, or both.
But if we at least fund the military, the desperatly hungry, plague-ridden rabble with no jobs and no future will at least be well-trained in modern urban combat and the overthrow of oppressive (or just annoying) regimes.
I was advocating CUTTING the defense budget.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:4, Insightful)
The rest of the western world has more government-provided services, generally has less government intrusion and, interestingly, spends less doing so. All of this is because they don't have a pathological fear of government that forces everything to be done below-board and half-assed.
To put it succinctly, America has the government is citizens deserve.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, America could implement, say, the kind of health care plan that any other western nation has and probably cut Medicare expenses (and overall health spending, public and private) and still come out ahead, or at least be able to fund social security in a sustainable fashion. But of course, you can't have a single-payer system that comprehensively covers all your citizens. Oh, no. That's socialism, and we can't have that! It's wrong for the government to employ a bunch of doctors and nurses and have themgo around and heal people!
You can, mind you, have the government employ a huge, well-armed and trained military force to kill people. That's perfectly ok.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:2)
Sadly, this is utterly unrealistic. If you think we could do it cheaper if the government was the sole health care provider and paid all the bills, you aren't living in America.
The first problem is the people. In no other country on Earth are the people utterly addicted to junk food and also demanding the best outcomes in health care. You visit any hospital outside the US and you find people of all ages. Go in nearly any hospital in the US and you will find old people clinging to the last few days of life.
Nowhere else on Earth is the proportion of health care spending so skewed. In the US over 90% of health care spending is for the last year of life.
The second problem is the way health care is viewed by people. Instead of being a "maintenance plan" it is an emergency service. You go to the hospital when you have a heart attack. Whereas in a lot of other places people are going to doctors to prevent them. The plans that stress a healthy lifestyle and regular checkups are ignored and underutilized in the US.
A confirmation of this is the number of old rich people that come to the US every year for treatment. Are they coming because nobody else wants them or is it because the US happens to be very good at dealing with old people whereas in other countries they would just be told it is their time and to not fret about it.
Sure, you could wave a wand and change how health care is paid for overnight. Except that doesn't change how it is used and how it is viewed. It would turn into a massive "lets kill granny" program because that is where the spending is, or it would just cost a lot more.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:3)
I'd prefer to live in Sweden or other similar 'socialist' European country. If we're just throwing out examples of governance gone wrong then I guess my counterpoint is the fine country of Somalia.
Face it: there are retards out there. You can either support them through programmes such as Social Security, or you can live in a society with a desperate underclass that will do anything to survive.
I much prefer living in my society where I don't fear walking down the street at night, because even the lowest scum can get government provided healthcare and housing. Yeah, I probably pay higher taxes than you, but for me personally it's a great trade-off.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
There are three giant money-sucking programs that need drastic cuts if we want to do anything about the budget: Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, and Defense. The few million dollars these sites cost to run is a drop in the bucket compared to those three programs.
At least Medicare and Social Security are doing something for American citizens.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:2)
Only in the sense of a surplus = more money taken in right now then going out the door. The "Social Security has a surplus" idea totally ignores future commitments made. If you're an accountant (and, I'd hope that good accounting is a part of government, even though I know better), your balance sheet includes any accumulated liabilities in any calculation. And, future SS liabilities are skyrocketing, while future projected revenue is plummeting, presuming we don't change anything.
We'll have to means-test SS. Probably severely (as in, cut off payments to anyone making over $50k). And do a bunch of other things to fix it in the long run. And the sooner we do it (while we still have a "surplus"), the less drastic action we have to take.
I expect us to fix Medicare/Medicaid with a National Health system sometime around 2030, right after we become so desperate that it's bankrupting the country (as in, probably right about the time we either default on the debt, or avoid that only by the skin of our teeth) that even the most blind right-wing nutjob recognizes that NH is the only solution, and health insurance should never be run by private, for-profit entities (and, that malpractice suits are the absolutely wrong way to handle medical mistakes).
-Erik
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
No, we should eliminate the cap on Social Security taxes that are currently at about $100K. People who make over $100K a year have more to spare than people making less - the cap is exactly backwards to sanity. Once the cap is gone, there'll be plenty of money for everyone to ensure nobody starves to death when we stop working at 65. Keep in mind that lots of us used to starve to death before SS. Lots of us used to starve to death.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:2)
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:2)
Means test it and it will wind up as well funded as every other welfare program.
Which is fine by me.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:2)
Actually, the way it's being robbed, it doesn't show a deficit because of that, but it's very insidious: it should never have been allowed to have a surplus.
Here's the scam:
They collect 14% of your pay, using the major portion of that to pay for the current benefits (this is the part that everyone calls a "ponzi" scheme: it uses current receitpts to pay current liabilities, with no genuine planning for future liabliities..)
The rest is what goes into the "lock box" but it doesn't stay there. It's "invested" in "safe" investments. And what's safer than Treasury notes? Of course, that leaves out the little detail of who's backing the treasury notes: taxpayers.
In other words. They've used money that they collected from you to incur a debt that you are obligated to pay back. And they get to spend the money....
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:3)
Social Security isn't being robbed. The money the Federal government borrows from SS is repaid, plus about 50% extra, because it's immediately invested in Federal bonds. That's how the Federal government borrows money. SS is invested in the lowest risk investment possible.
It's no ponzi scheme. A ponzi scheme doesn't return any gain on the investment. It only uses new money to pay out some return to earlier investments. Social Security is a legitimate investment.
Of course the taxpayers pay it back. The money borrowed is invested in the US economy, both directly and in managing it properly. The problem is that too much is invested in bad projects, like the killing, destruction and plain waste that is the "Defense" Department and the "intelligence" agencies. And the constant cutback in tax collection from those who benefit most from the public investments: corporations and the rich people who own them.
The scam is quite different from the one you say it is. The scam you describe is the product of the very same corporations, rich people, and "Conservative" politicians who are getting fat from the real scam.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:2)
While thats true, they bought government bonds with the money we gave them, we used that money to fund all the things the government does, and now we're on the line to pay back the fund. That money has to come from somewhere.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:3)
"Yes, because none of them are anything important, and can be cut on a whim, without any thought, because it won't cause any harm."
Without any thought? No. But why, pray tell, must the US pay more for "defense" than the next six countries in the world, including China... combined?
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually federal spending as a percentage of the GDP is not significantly different now than it has been historically. The tax burden has shifted quite a bit though. Corporations used to account for about 30% of federal income tax receipts and the wealthy used use to have a top marginal rate well over 50%. Now the burden has shifted toward the middle class. After all, Bill Clinton balanced the budget and had a surplus when he left office and that was only with an extra 4 or 5% tax on high income earners. But then we had a major commitment of our military without raising taxes to help pay for it as we have in past wars. 3/4's of the federal debt was accumulated under Republican's because all they want to do is cut taxes but they're afraid to cut the spending by a commensurate amount because they know they'd be out on their asses at the next election if they did. Cheney said "Deficits don't matter." but what the Republican's really mean is they only matter when there's a Democratic president so they can make political hay out of them.
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:2)
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:2)
It's funny how tea partiers take govt money like Mary Rakovich taking Medicare and Joe Miller's wife getting unemployment when he campaigned saying unemployment insurance was unconstitutional.
Sources: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1010/30/se.02.html [cnn.com]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alaskadispatchcom/joe-millers-wife-took-une_b_751529.html [huffingtonpost.com]
Re:This Is Pointless (Score:2)
It's funny how tea partiers take govt money like Mary Rakovich taking Medicare and Joe Miller's wife getting unemployment when he campaigned saying unemployment insurance was unconstitutional
If an idiot is handing out free money, take the money and run. Especially when you know the idiot will have to be back to collect 10x the amount later to make up for the free money they gave out.
It's perfectly fine to point out stupidity while taking advantage of it.
Not if your goal is to reduce the overall amount of stupidity. Not if you're among those who will have to pay the 10x collection, much of which will happen in the form of inflation (the most regressive tax of them all).
But there's plenty of money (Score:3, Insightful)
for social media propaganda and sockpuppet accounts... Eh.. whatever. The whole thing is such bullshit
Who needs to fund Open Government initatives (Score:5, Interesting)
When sites like WikiLeaks do that for you for free?
Re:Who needs to fund Open Government initatives (Score:3, Insightful)
Heard of them recently? Gone really quiet all of a sudden...
Less non-corporate info (Score:5, Insightful)
Special interest groups own Washington. Consistent, open data and an informed public are usually at odds with these special interest groups. It was a milestone to get these initiatives started in the first place, but in this climate? I mean, NPR got cut, and while that might not sound like much, decent radio as we know it just DIED across most of rural America; and its the radio that often tied whole communities together.
There's a reason America has the best government money can buy.
No one should be immune to cuts. But should such information programs be killed off with nothing to replace them with? If nothing else, such websites help dispute so much of the opinionated pundit talk that Fox 'News' airs for hours and hours during Prime Time. There's those medical Death Squad panels you hear about, looking to save money by cutting medical support for old people, and then there's the facts.
Re:Less non-corporate info (Score:2)
um no. The House voted to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), from which NPR gets some but not all of its money. The provision won't make it out of the Senate, and even if it does the President still has to sign it into law, and even if he does NPR still gets revenue from user donations and from local stations subscribing to its content.
It's a damn shame that House Republicans are playing games like this when they promised to make this legislative session all about job creation, and I donated my sixty bucks to NPR as soon as I heard of this happening, but let's not distort the facts here. That makes you just as untrustworthy as Fox News.
Re:Less non-corporate info (Score:2)
To back up what I said about the pain felt by small rural radio stations, “The truth about the NPR issue is that zeroing out the funding for CPB will only hurt public broadcasting stations, not NPR. NPR charges us for programming and will continue to do so regardless of our budget issues,” said Ferro. “The real hit will be absorbed by local stations like KCRW who employ local people and have an important relationship with local communities.”
http://ngawronsky.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/kcrw-may-lose-needed-federal-funding [wordpress.com] (I quoted the summary point of the essay)
Re:Less non-corporate info (Score:2)
Part of that bill included not allowing local public radio and television stations to spend money they get from the Feds on programming from the CPB. Since a large share of their programming comes from the CPB this would hurt the local affiliates immensely.
Re:Less non-corporate info (Score:3)
those medical Death Squad panels you hear about, looking to save money by cutting medical support for old people
Ah yes. We call those "private health insurers".
Re:Less non-corporate info (Score:2)
Ultimately it may be necessary for ordinary citizens to set up workgroups and consistently monitor, file freedom of information requests, obtain data from their friends who work in the government on an unofficial basis, just so that the citizenry can keep track of what the republicans are really up to. Personally, I'm not at all excited about their efforts to hide what they are doing, drastically slashing our rights to know, as well as our ability to act collectively, such as the plan to allow children under 16 to work during school hours for lower pay than adults just so that they can provide cheap labor to corporations and undercut worker's ability to bargain collectively. This is the kind of stuff they used to do in the old Soviet Union that all these so-called conservatives used to be heard complaining about, but are now silent because uncle Joe is now a capitalist.
The link read "Read 31 more comments" (Score:2)
At this point, there are only 12 comments visible. Why?
Re:The link read "Read 31 more comments" (Score:2)
At this point, there are only 12 comments visible. Why?
See the "neuralizer" thread?
Not profitable enough (Score:3)
The Libya investment costed so far at least 186 millons [americanindependent.com], but having a friendly government there willing to share their oil with US corporations will return that investment several times in the next years.
Also investing in something like that, after all the money they invested in discrediting Wikileaks and anything they published, looks like a waste.
You've got the wrong department... ;) (Score:3)
More like from the "We don't really want you watching and we're not really open and want to make it more difficult for you to monitor unecessary government spending department."
GC
New boss. (Score:2)
Same as old.
They can't be closed (Score:2)
They're open. Duh.
More hope, more change, more broken promises (Score:5, Informative)
Every fucking politician is a lying duplicitous scumbag, and we should be able to sue their asses when they break their promises.
Verbal contracts are binding in my state, I think campaign promises should fall under those rules.
awwwwwww (Score:2)
And Drupal was a rousing success for that one site. Well except it took 20 minutes to display data. IT Dashboard for sure.
Priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet somehow there's always funding to rain $600,000 missles down on some 3rd world nation. Oh, well. I guess they fund what matters to them.
If it wasn't funding (Score:3)
they'd find another "reason" to shut it down. I'd try to blame the Republicans, but Obama probably supports closing down such sites just as much. He's been following in Bush's shoes when it comes to accumulating power and using the cloak of "security" for justifying all sorts of b.s.
Re:$4 million divided by $2 trillion (Score:2)
$4 million is pocket change for the Federal Government. It'll be pocket change for all of us if we keep collecting wars like they were action figures.
Unfortunately we take the out of the box so they aren't worth what we spent on them anymore.
Re:As a kiwi. (Score:4, Informative)
The specific people who are responsible for funding the Open Government sites are the members of teh majority of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Those are the people who have "given up". They haven't given up on protecting their friends from being taxed, though. "Open Government" is for dirty hippies, anyway, so why should they care, right?
Re:Dumb Cunts (Score:4, Insightful)
That's because people like you hate reason, are driven by emotion...
Rage is an emotion. It's that feeling you have when someone has offended you beyond your ability to understand. It often manifests as an intense desire to cause physical harm to the offending person(s), with little to no concern for any mitigating circumstances.
Perhaps the woman in question has a vision or coordination problem. Perhaps she's distracted thinking about other things. Perhaps you should have been a proper gentleman and made sure you were well out of her path, that she may go any way she likes. Perhaps, for a few fleeting moments, you could let a trivial inconvenience pass by you, and not demonize someone you know remarkably little about.
What moral principle says that someone should be so privileged that they can risk injuring others without even trying to be responsible and should never ever suffer any consequence of that?
That's a very good question. Why should anyone be given the ability to risk injuring anyone else, especially around the face, which is of high social importance?
Given that you've shown you know nothing about the other side of the story, and appear unable to empathize, why should you be the sole judge of who should be injured and who shouldn't?
Re:the end of Obama (Score:2)
Sometimes I think he's determined to be the last black president....
Re:the end of Obama (Score:2)
Sure! His people have a long list of items he's accomplished this term. I can only remember one of them. Women can now sue after they find out they were not paid as much as other people.
I know!
Re:the end of Obama (Score:2)
Wait, what were all these things that he tried to push in his first term, other than health care (which, of course, wasn't a real health care solution but a way to force Americans to put more cash in the pockets of the health care industry)?
He promised that the first thing he would do is get us out of Iraq. He said "you can take that to the bank". Today, we're still in Iraq. And Afghanistan. And Libya. And tensions are brewing elsewhere.
He promised that there would be no more closed door negotiations, but he has had countless of them. Remember how he was going to let everything be viewed on CSPAN or whatever? Yeah, never happened.
He promised no more revolving doors. His administration wouldn't be the place government employees leveraged their positions to go get huge corporate payout gigs or for corporate execs to come to and do the bidding of industry under the guise of being the czar of one thing or another. And that's happened too many times to count, now.
Then there's the whole continuation of the idiotic Bush stimulus handouts. Wasn't one of the first things he did was sign a trillion dollar stimulus giveaway?
He's done very little and attempted very little. Why anyone expected something different, I don't know. It absolutely baffles me how all of these fucking morons come around every four years and say "so we've had 43 pieces of shit fuck things up . . . but THIS TIME it will be TOTALLY DIFFERENT and my vote is going to CHANGE THE FUCKING WORLD!".
No. The next president will be about the same. And the one after. And the one after. *shrug*.
Not so fast... or so simple (Score:3)
I wasn't an Obama supporter; however, I have seen him do much more good than harm while having to take the blame for things beyond his control. I'm not just talking about the economic mess (which was years in the making and more in the fixing) but the OVERWHELMING CORRUPTION. Obama will probably sell the farm rather than let the republicans shut down government -- which is too bad because they are more nutty now than they were last time.... Now days we actually have some congressmen who believe the PR lies as truth (for example: Bachmann, MN -- and most the right has an open hatred for the other side and its hard to ignore so one expects some return hate...) You can't be a republican today without being apeshit or stupid.
The reason Bush was closer to a dictator was because he went with the flow. Obama is tacking against the flow and getting a little progress while moving mostly sideways and in some areas completely losing ground. One simply can not move in all directions at once. Especially if he is all alone-- his staff is not so hot either - I won't go into where he is just flat out wrong if not bought off. Healthcare was almost entirely him, his staff gave up and that says something good about him. He wouldn't have been allowed to get in if he was going to be a real threat... ANYBODY post-bush was going to be a fall guy, its just how it works (you think Rove and the smart guys really wanted/cared if McSame won? ever hear of a sacrifice?)
REAL Politics is about how to look like you enjoy eating shit while covertly tossing as much of it as you can onto your predecessor's pile.
You can be powerful if you have the powerful behind you; otherwise you are lucky to survive when they plow over you. A Taoist approach of using their power against them only works to an extent - even in martial arts, a powerful enough foe is going to fuck you up no matter how much you try to redirect and deflect their power. In these corporatist times that approach seems (to me) like just a stalling tactic at best. A serious fight is coming and absent a political forum it will become violent.... Unless they can continue to sucker people forever... like 1984; except we're always at multiple "wars", including between the 2 parties.
All we have now is the GOP completely playing politics to the point where they are purposely trying to ruin everything even their own ideas - just to harm Obama; they hate him more than Clinton (must be the skin color.) Its a false political war distracting from the real problems and Obama has openly been trying to stop it and failing to do so; he doesn't seem to realize no president that allows this propaganda warfare to continue can get us back on track. The corporations are raping us while this ship sinks and any disaster or infighting is to their benefit.
In my state, the idiot GOP is fighting to cut all the walnut trees down in the state parks to raise money! (naturally sold at a cheap price to donor who also is "over-regulated" as if this would do any real good.) They are also fighting on nearly every front to make us mirror 3rd world states like Georgia (US state; however, I wouldn't be surprised if that nation was in better shape.) - in many cases repeating the same policies that worked so well down south in all those welfare states. It has little to do with ideology and much more to do with the corps buying them off. The dems just play weak while the other side openly fights for some of the most blatant corruption in generations. Sometimes I wonder if democrats would be as stupid if their party was hijacked... I won't need to wonder for long, its been gradually happening for some time.
If you wanted an honest guy with no-compromise for corruption you are just asking for another martyr.
There is no hope for people who read/watch mainstream "press" in the USA. Turn off your telescreen.
Re:The open government president! (Score:3)
No, you don't realize that all it takes to defund a programme is for the House to refuse to fund it.
FTFA:
You should notice that the House Republicans are busy shutting down the government, again, by refusing to govern.