Paul Ryan's Record On Science and Government 543
sciencehabit writes "U.S. Representatives Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) don't have much in common when it comes to politics. Kucinich is a very liberal Democrat who's leaving Congress this January after being defeated in a primary election by a more moderate colleague. Ryan is a conservative leader and now the Republican Party's presumptive candidate for vice president. A dozen years ago, however, the two men found one thing they could agree on—killing the National Ignition Facility, a multibillion dollar laser fusion project at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. The article goes on to explore other impacts Ryan could have on science as VP."
Re:I visited the National Ignition Facility this y (Score:5, Informative)
Nearly everything our government does is important to someone but it's clear from our high taxes and massive deficit that we just can't afford it all.
What're you, poor or middle class?
All sardonic social commentary aside, tax rates, at least on the wealthiest of Americans (that's not you nor I, BTW), is the lowest it's been in over half a century. [politifact.com]
Not to say the government of today isn't chock-full of waste and bloat, just pointing out facts.
Not really surprising about Dennis Kucinich (Score:4, Informative)
I'm from Kucinich's district, and I'm hardly surprised he worked with Paul Ryan. For instance, he worked a lot with Ron Paul trying to cut back military spending and Iraq War funding, because the two of them arrived to the same conclusion for completely different reasons.
For the most part, it's been a record of futility, though: His own party's leadership hates him because he doesn't toe the party line on issues like health care (he once kicked Nancy Pelosi out of his office when she tried to force his hand). And of course John Boehner and friends hate him for being a Democrat. So none of his bills or resolutions make it anywhere unless he has support from other backbenchers, hence the strange bedfellows.
Who again? (Score:1, Informative)
When one has a Presidential candidate who waffles, flip-flops and simply doesn't state his policy goals like...
Obama?
That sentence certainly describes Obama more than it does Romney. Gitmo, support for drone strikes, economic stimulus, etc. etc. etc.
Romney has a clearly laid out plan for what he wants to do. You may not like the plan, but he has one.
Meanwhile Obama and Democrats in general have failed to produce a budget for THREE FUCKING YEARS. How can you vote for that kind of nonsense?
At this point we just need someone that will pick a direction and go there. Right now it seems far more likely Romney will do so than Obama, especially based on past history. Romney inherited a badly run Olympics and made it work; Obama inherited a bad economy and made it worse.
Re:Taxes much higher than you think (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Taxes much higher than you think (Score:5, Informative)
So what you're saying is that the tax rates in the 90's, one of the more prosperous times in this country's history was what? Last I checked our economy has grown since then. During that time not only could we afford most of these programs but we had projected surpluses had we stayed on target. It doesn't take a genius to realize that when times are really tough and you're too far in the whole simply cutting back isn't enough, you'll need a second job until you recover.
Let's also probably not mention that companies can write off expansion expenses negating the tax burden. At 39.2% according to your own link, that would be pretty high, care to see how much taxes corporations actually pay? Tax rates [huffingtonpost.com] are manipulated so much in the political landscape that its no wonder it makes most people's heads spin.
Consider Japan, they lowered their corporate tax rate but use value added taxes to make up the difference. There are incredibly few businesses that actually pay 39.2% in taxes.
Cuts are indeed necessary, but they need not be nearly as severe as the Republican party would have you believe. When asking for sacrifice you should probably make sure that everybody is sacrificing instead of young women who no longer have access to planned parenthood to get birth control pills because they have had so much of their funding taken away that they are only open a few hours a week if at all in certain states. These types of cuts only cause additional problems and more importantly expenses as you then have more women getting pregnant and needing assistance in other ways since they don't have health insurance that covers birth control.
Look at California for trying this method. They have vote mandated spending and their constitution requires that taxes can only be increased through a voter iniative. So people vote for a program and then when it comes time to pay for it they opt out and then you run out of money. The programs would not have been proposed to begin with if there wasn't some problem that needed to be solved. So the answer is to raise taxes and pay for the programs that fix the problems that ravaged this country at the start of the 20th century. All the assistance programs out there were created for reasons, all the regulatory bodies were created for certain reasons. If they aren't working then the answer most often isn't to throw them out entirely, it's to fix the process so that it actually accomplishes the stated goals. Cutting food assistance programs isn't going save the country any money, people need to eat, what is someone that is starving going to do when they can't afford any food? We are seeing already with crime increasing in almost every part of the country.
There is a difference between being a bleeding heart liberal that wants rainbows to shoot out of everyone's butts and a compassionate person that understands that we are all part of a community and that you can help the people in your community and all prosper or leave people to their own devices and end up needing a police state to keep those like myself with means safe.
Re:Taxes much higher than you think (Score:4, Informative)
What you've highlighted is proof of the injustice in the corporate tax code.
The lowest US corporate tax bracket is 15%, yet your chart shows 13.4%. How is that possible?
By giving large business tax breaks and loopholes that no small business could ever take advantage of.
It's destroying small businesses. Just one more way of ensuring small businesses cannot compete with large companies.
If 13.4% is really all we collect, then we should wipe the slate clean. Get rid of all of the tax loopholes, and let everyone pay 13.4% or create new brackets without any loopholes that average out to 13.4% (or even 15%, or 18%... this is still less than what small businesses pay).
Because otherwise, we're just taking from the individuals who are trying to build something for themselves/community/etc.. while giving away money to companies that offshore jobs and layoff workers, to give the CEO and executives a bonus on top of their extravagant salaries.
Re:I visited the National Ignition Facility this y (Score:5, Informative)
Every branch of government and every government funded project wastes money
The same can largely be said of the private sector as well.
Re:I visited the National Ignition Facility this y (Score:2, Informative)
Nobody is forced at gunpoint to invest in any given business
And the same is said of government. You are free to leave the country and go find another.
Re:Something more recent and positive? (Score:4, Informative)
What are the alternatives to Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security? Let the old, poor and jobless just die? Are you comfortable with this?
The parent offered one solution right off the bat: economic growth. Guess you missed that. There are damn few problems in the US that wouldn't be fixed by some actual wealth creation. Here are some others ideas:
2. Means test Social Security. Most recipients are fully enfranchised members of the wealthiest class of humans in the history of the species — the US elderly. Those SS checks are icing on their cake and they don't actually need as much as their getting, regardless of what they pay the AARP to tell your representatives.
3. Stop the crazy fast growth in medical costs. There are no solutions when the problem keeps growing 8% a year. AMA regulatory capture, trial lawyers and academic monopoly are the biggest parts of this.
4. Reform the tax code. You can't fund benefits when nobody is paying taxes. The lower half of the income histogram is paying nothing to the Treasury. The corps and the rich are skating by as well with byzantine tax law written by tax attorneys for tax evasion.. Lower rates and eliminate most of the deductions and exemptions with a net result of a few percent higher net revenue.
Do those four things and the problem is solved, assuming the saved/collected revenue isn't then used to buy votes with other new programs.