President's job speech?

[wmw999 2,122]

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If the government just got out of our way, we could do it

Because, after all, America was so much more efficient, and everyone was so much better off financially, back in the 19th century before most of those nasty controlling laws took effect.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[rushmc 18]

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If the government just got out of our way, we could do it

Because, after all, America was so much more efficient, and everyone was so much better off financially, back in the 19th century before most of those nasty controlling laws took effect.

Wendy P.

You really think this is a good comparison?

Come on Wendy
You usually do better

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[jgoose71 0]

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If the government just got out of our way, we could do it

Because, after all, America was so much more efficient, and everyone was so much better off financially, back in the 19th century before most of those nasty controlling laws took effect.

Wendy P.

Seriously, what Rush said. Why does it have to be one extreme or the other?

"There is an art, it says, or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
Life, the Universe, and Everything

[jgoose71 0]

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OK, so next time you fly you'll insist the pilot have no interaction with ATC, them being "government family" and all. Everyone can just take off/land/fly wherever and it'll all work out I'm sure, all that "traffic control" is just "the man" taking away your freedom. Next time you have a steak, no doubt you'll go to your own personal basement lab and check it for mad cow/E. coli/Listeria etc. No need for those intrusive USDA inspectors, they just get in the way of business. Every individual consumer can just do their own testing, or maybe just decide to take a chance they won't end up with food poisoning.

Or, maybe you meant we should just get rid of government programs that help other people, but keep the ones you use?

Don

Just like Wendy, why one extreme or the other? I think it would be really easy to figure out what programs need to stay and which ones need to go...... After you get rid of the lobbyist money.

And then the programs will have to stand on there own merrit.

"There is an art, it says, or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
Life, the Universe, and Everything

[GeorgiaDon 340]

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OK, so next time you fly you'll insist the pilot have no interaction with ATC, them being "government family" and all. Everyone can just take off/land/fly wherever and it'll all work out I'm sure, all that "traffic control" is just "the man" taking away your freedom. Next time you have a steak, no doubt you'll go to your own personal basement lab and check it for mad cow/E. coli/Listeria etc. No need for those intrusive USDA inspectors, they just get in the way of business. Every individual consumer can just do their own testing, or maybe just decide to take a chance they won't end up with food poisoning.

Or, maybe you meant we should just get rid of government programs that help other people, but keep the ones you use?

Don

Just like Wendy, why one extreme or the other? I think it would be really easy to figure out what programs need to stay and which ones need to go...... After you get rid of the lobbyist money.

And then the programs will have to stand on there own merrit.

Well in fairness I interpreted your statement about not relying on the government for anything to be one extreme: get rid of everything. If you admit some programs need to stay and some to go we are in agreement, but I don't agree it will always be easy to figure out which is which, lobbyists or no lobbyists.

It takes a fair amount of work to figure out the cost/benefit return of many programs. As an example, the USDA, and especially the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), are routinely targeted for severe budget cuts. Now consider the farmer who, in the days before ARS and extension services (USDA and land grant university personnel who provide state-of-the-art advice to farmers), the farmer had one source of information about how much and how frequently to apply pesticides (insecticides and herbicides) and fertilizers to his (or her) crop, and that source was the chemical company who was trying to sell him their product. Not surprisingly, their advice (basically marketing) led to massive overuse of these chemicals, which are expensive, leading to higher production costs and more expensive food. The high up-front costs, which have to be put in before the farmer can get paid when the crop is harvested, resulted in many farmers being wiped out by a late season frost, flood, or hailstorm; the result was that only the biggest companies had the resources to survive such an event, and agriculture has come to be dominated by a few large companies and marketplace competition is adversely affected. Finally the overuse of chemicals led to serious environmental contamination issues. But what is the farmer to do? They can't afford to experiment with their livelihood, they have to get a crop harvested to stay in business so they just had to rely on the chemical companies and their biased marketing.

The solution was the ARS, who can experiment with different crop varieties, amounts and scheduling of pesticide and fertilizer use, need for irrigation etc. They don't have to worry about selling the harvest to make a living, so they are free to experiment with all these factors, and then (through extension services) provide information to farmers about the most cost effective farming practices. The result is more cost effective food production and less environmental contamination. So we all benefit, not just the farmers, and it seems to me to be fair that we all pay for it.

Politicians who advocate slash-and-burn approaches to the budget never think things through on any level beyond how it sounds as a campaign slogan. Any serious approach to budget cutting will have to include examination of costs and benefits, and then I think you will find that the majority of government programs are well justified (BATFE excepted).

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

[wmw999 2,122]

What he said

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[CanuckInUSA 0]

I think it is pretty apparent that businesses have no confidence in Obama. As long as there is no confidence, there will be no jobs recovery. No amount of "Hope and Change" speeches from the Hollywood created Messiah Superhero Savior of the Universe can change this. Even though businesses do not trust Obama does not mean the Republicans get a "Get out of jail for free" card. But one has to wonder, would unemployment be as bad as it is if Billary had won the Democratic nomination. My guess is that the American recovery would still not be firing on all cylinders (face it the Donkeys and the Elephants have both made a mess with their respective reckless spending), but I would be willing to bet that businesses would have more confidence in Billary than they do with Obummer.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[fossg 0]

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the real question should be whether any of us expect him to announce a real 'plan' vs just more fail 'stimulus'

The President has never hesitated to announce a plan. His plans are usually planning to announce a plan on how to plan the plans and planning to plan out the plans for the planners who will plan out the planners and plan the planning, thus planning to plan a plan that the planners plan to plan out, resulting in a final plan to plan the initial steps of the plans.

[Amazon 7]

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OK, so next time you fly you'll insist the pilot have no interaction with ATC, them being "government family" and all. Everyone can just take off/land/fly wherever and it'll all work out I'm sure, all that "traffic control" is just "the man" taking away your freedom. Next time you have a steak, no doubt you'll go to your own personal basement lab and check it for mad cow/E. coli/Listeria etc. No need for those intrusive USDA inspectors, they just get in the way of business. Every individual consumer can just do their own testing, or maybe just decide to take a chance they won't end up with food poisoning.

Or, maybe you meant we should just get rid of government programs that help other people, but keep the ones you use?

Don

Just like Wendy, why one extreme or the other? I think it would be really easy to figure out what programs need to stay and which ones need to go...... After you get rid of the lobbyist money.

And then the programs will have to stand on there own merrit.

RIIIIGHT.. so why is the fucking right wing has all those corporations up their collective asses with the Citizens United decision... oh thats right.. they love that action from their lords and masters.. of any corporate owners.

[Amazon 7]

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If the government just got out of our way, we could do it

Because, after all, America was so much more efficient, and everyone was so much better off financially, back in the 19th century before most of those nasty controlling laws took effect.

Wendy P.

Ever wonder what the cancer rate was back in the Gilded Age... when the robber barons could do anything they wanted???

They were mere pikers compared to the people the right wing bends over for today.

[DougH 270]

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RIIIIGHT.. so why is the fucking right wing has all those corporations up their collective asses with the Citizens United decision... oh thats right.. they love that action from their lords and masters.. of any corporate owners.

Or in the real world we would acknowledge that corporate donations tend to be pretty equally distributed between both parties.

Usually corporations don't care about party lines, they care about giving both sides support, so they can "win" favor with both.

If you are going to claim that Republicans get the majority of Corporate contributions you are going to have to back that up, good luck!

"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

[mirage62 0]

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If you are going to claim that Republicans get the majority of Corporate contributions you are going to have to back that up, good luck!

Your playing with the goat fucker, she won't back up anything

Kevin Keenan is my hero, a double FUP, he does so much with so little

[normiss 622]

I thought that's what the name calling and cursing was.
Huh.

[lawrocket 3]

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If the government just got out of our way, we could do it

Because, after all, America was so much more efficient, and everyone was so much better off financially, back in the 19th century before most of those nasty controlling laws took effect.

Wendy P.

Ever wonder what the cancer rate was back in the Gilded Age... when the robber barons could do anything they wanted???

They were mere pikers compared to the people the right wing bends over for today.

Sometime try asking Native Americans what they think of 19th Century federal government beneficence. Let's compare the robber barons to "we the people."

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[ECVZZ 0]

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To sum up. I will not depend on the government family to help, take care, fix, nurse, etc.--my life.

The government are not necessarily family; they are however, dependents. I do believe it's time to "cut the apron strings."

G. Jones

"I've never been quarantined. But the more I look around, the more I think it might not be a bad idea."

[GeorgiaDon 340]

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To sum up. I will not depend on the government family to help, take care, fix, nurse, etc.--my life.

The government are not necessarily family; they are however, dependents. I do believe it's time to "cut the apron strings."

Nice bumper sticker slogan. So what, specifically, would you get rid of? The Border Patrol? FBI? Air Force? CDC? NIH? FAA? Actually naming names takes more thought. Are you up to it, or does parroting Tea Party slogans define the extent of your capabilities?

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

[mnealtx 0]

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To sum up. I will not depend on the government family to help, take care, fix, nurse, etc.--my life.

The government are not necessarily family; they are however, dependents. I do believe it's time to "cut the apron strings."

Nice bumper sticker slogan. So what, specifically, would you get rid of? The Border Patrol? FBI? Air Force? CDC? NIH? FAA? Actually naming names takes more thought. Are you up to it, or does parroting Tea Party slogans define the extent of your capabilities?

Don

I didn't see him mention getting rid of anything - parroting a few slogans, yourself?

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[CanuckInUSA 0]

Will governments ever balance their budgets?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzxOif-w7mE&NR=1

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[jgoose71 0]

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To sum up. I will not depend on the government family to help, take care, fix, nurse, etc.--my life.

The government are not necessarily family; they are however, dependents. I do believe it's time to "cut the apron strings."

Nice bumper sticker slogan. So what, specifically, would you get rid of? The Border Patrol? FBI? Air Force? CDC? NIH? FAA? Actually naming names takes more thought. Are you up to it, or does parroting Tea Party slogans define the extent of your capabilities?

Don

Why do you immediately go for the big things you know the county needs? You do realize that there are other options to spending cuts than "cut Medicare?"

I would start with going down the list of subsidies, freeze government growth where it's at rather than let it continue to grow at the 7% rate that it has taken off at, start closing loop holes in the tax code...

and oh, ya, fix the thing that is driving up medical costs faster than anything else, and implement tort reform. That will save the government all kinds of money in medical cost.

Wait a minute, this is just some of the ideas in the "Ryan Plan" Oh my.....

"There is an art, it says, or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
Life, the Universe, and Everything

[GeorgiaDon 340]

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Why do you immediately go for the big things you know the county needs? You do realize that there are other options to spending cuts than "cut Medicare?"

Indeed I do. I'm not sure the "tea party" types do, though. Everyone agrees cuts have to be made, just saying "cut government" isn't very helpful though. Naming specific programs to target is essential, but much more difficult and much more political, which is why not one of the current Republican candidates except Ron Paul will do it.

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and oh, ya, fix the thing that is driving up medical costs faster than anything else, and implement tort reform. That will save the government all kinds of money in medical cost.

This is a commonly held belief, but it is totally untrue. The total cost of the legal costs and payouts from malpractice lawsuits amounts to about one half of one percent of the money spent annually on health care in the US. Here in Georgia the state implemented caps on payouts in malpractice suits. The only impact was to reduce the number of people who could find a lawyer to represent them even when they had suffered real damage, as the caps were insufficient to cover the cost of bringing the case to court unless the victim could also prove large loss of future earnings, which left retirees and low income workers out in the cold. Despite this, malpractice premiums did not decrease and medical costs were not reduced, as there was nothing in the legislation requiring insurance companies to adjust their rates. Only a handful of insurers handle malpractice coverage, and although you might expect someone to start the competitive ball rolling and reduce their rates none of them did. Ultimately the state supreme court overturned the caps as unconstitutional, as they effectively negated the constitutionally mandated role of the jury in assessing damages.

So, three problems with tort reform:
1) Capping malpractice awards won't significantly reduce medical care costs, as they amount to only 0.5% of those costs anyway.
2) Tort reform is a State, not a Federal responsibility,
3) At the State level, tort reform requires a constitutional amendment that strips people of their right to a jury trial in malpractice cases.

A better approach would be to reduce the need for doctors to practice defensive medicine, which is the practice of ordering every expensive test in the book, on the grounds that even if the chance that a particular test will be informative is microscopically small, if they don't do it and the patient has a poor outcome some lawyer will use the failure to perform the test against them. It would be better to compile a list of "best practices" based on evidence-based medicine, that doctors could point to and prove they had done things "by the book" and head off unwarranted lawsuits. However conservatives railed against evidence-based medicine as "an intrusion on doctor's right to decide for themselves what might be best for their patient". So, we're stuck with defensive medicine.

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I would start with going down the list of subsidies, freeze government growth where it's at rather than let it continue to grow at the 7% rate that it has taken off at, start closing loop holes in the tax code...

Generally agreed. Of course that includes the military. Also there should be some recognition that the need for some government functions will grow as the population/economy grow.

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)