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American Politics MDCLXVIII - Warning! May contain non SB1070 posts


lokisnow

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Rep. Alan Grayson introduces the "War is Making you Poor" act which forces the DoD to fund the wars out of its regular budget, then takes the amount used for "emergency spending" used to fund the war and uses it to pay down the deficit 16 billion and make the first 35,000 in income earned tax free (70,000 for couples).

this would mean the DoD would have to 'take it out of the hide' of their contractors.

Grayson points out that people have a hissy fit over the cost of entitlement programs, but not over the costs of wars, and cites someone who says that 91% of our long term deficits in this country are due to defense spending from WWI onward.

Good stuff all around.

http://www.alternet.org/story/146973/rep._alan_grayson_introduces_the_%22war_is_making_you_poor%22_act/

im honestly in love with grayson. why the hell couldn't the entire house and senate be like him.

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Potentially, any parts that require some discretionary spending to function. But just as one example, they could refuse funding for any personnel whose job duties include setting up the exchanges. Without the exchanges, the core of the plan is gone. If you don't think that's possible, fine. That's more of a factual/legal disagreement rather than a disagreement on policy, so we can just wait to see how it plays out. And if Democrats retain control of the House, none of that will matter anyway.

Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't the exchanges run by individual states under a federal mandate? If that's the case (and someone please point out and cite if it isn't), then defunding doesn't destroy the exchanges but simply sticks the states with the bill.

Edited to add: I think I'm right; the states will operate the exchanges. So if a Republican House feels the need to stick the states with the bill...well, they can do that, but they can't get rid of the mandate without a change in federal law. That, if I am not mistaken, will require the cooperation of the Senate and the approval of the president.

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lordofavalon,

im honestly in love with grayson. why the hell couldn't the entire house and senate be like him.

How does the "taking it out of the contractors' hides" work? Why wouldn't this just result in crappy hardware and rations and God knows what else, and therefore lives lost?

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lordofavalon,

How does the "taking it out of the contractors' hides" work? Why wouldn't this just result in crappy hardware and rations and God knows what else, and therefore lives lost?

Because the military contractors actually don't DO any of that shit. 99.999% of the time.

Most of them are money pits that spend most of their time making CGI advertisement videos of stuff straight out of Star Wars designed to give the old men Senators they show them too a sci-fi-geek-weapon stiffy in their wrinkly fucking crotches.

Implying bad shit would happen assumes that the US Military Industrial Complex isn't a fucking cesspool right now.

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lordofavalon,

How does the "taking it out of the contractors' hides" work? Why wouldn't this just result in crappy hardware and rations and God knows what else, and therefore lives lost?

because suppliers to the military rip off the government like crazy. i was watching on american greed about these 2 sisters who would sell simple items to the dod for the troops in iraq.

they would sell a lugnut for 99 cents and then charge $900k for it. they got away with it for over 5 years.

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and we should take it out of the contractors hides because I have an ex who works for them. Bitch got a big raise this year and worked a lot of overtime on top of it. Not that her project is on schedule the overtime was just a good faith 'show' to try to attempt to be on schedule.

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The Democrats actually controlled the Senate in 2007, not the Republicans. But it's true there was a split on both the right and left over that bill.

Yes, I'm aware. :)

Also, I simply don't see how blaming Democrats for being intractable is fair. If I recall correctly, you have said you think the line in the sand for the GOP on this issue is no amnesty, currently. How is that any better than being pro-amnesty in terms of holding reform hostage? Arguably that's just the other side of the same coin, not letting Democrats play heroes to the Latino voting block.

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I wasn't talking about repeal, which would be impossible any time in the next couple of years.

Yes, and by then people may actually like it. Repealing it would be political suicide. There's a reason even the Republicans won't repeal Medicare, you know.

I was talking about a refusal to pass an appropriations bill that included money for HCR, which is a different thing entirely.

That's just dumb. They're going to let sick little kids suffer just to make a point?

Oh, wait, it's not their kids who will suffer. No one cares about those little gutter rats anyway.

But if you think the legislation is popular, and that this will backfire on Republicans, then you should be happy to see the GOP self-destruct if it gets control of the House. Personally, I think an action predicated on NOT spending money is likely to resonate with a majority of voters, but you could very well be correct.

Fine, then let's not spend money on two wars. The reason I voted for Obama over McCain is simple: if we're going to run up the deficit, I'd rather that money be spent on programs here at home and not spent on picking fights with everyone in the Middle East, which isn't working out so well for us and isn't going to in the future.

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Yes, I'm aware. :)

Also, I simply don't see how blaming Democrats for being intractable is fair. If I recall correctly, you have said you think the line in the sand for the GOP on this issue is no amnesty, currently. How is that any better than being pro-amnesty in terms of holding reform hostage? Arguably that's just the other side of the same coin, not letting Democrats play heroes to the Latino voting block.

It is the enforcement of laws already on the books that is being held hostage.

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Yes, and by then people may actually like it. Repealing it would be political suicide.

Although as Peter points out, the vast majority of the benefits don't kick in until 2014, which means that repeal wouldn't be depriving most people of the benefits of an existing program.

But you may be right -- maybe they won't repeal or defund anything. We'll have to wait and see.

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Fine, then let's not spend money on two wars. The reason I voted for Obama over McCain is simple: if we're going to run up the deficit, I'd rather that money be spent on programs here at home and not spent on picking fights with everyone in the Middle East, which isn't working out so well for us and isn't going to in the future.

That's something that's been on my mind for ages. We could find a deficit-busting $1 trillion to dump into Iraq, but a $700 billion deficit-reducing health insurance reform plan is just fiscal insanity. Even if one holds that invading Iraq actually helped fight terrorism in general (ha!), lots more Americans die of lack of health care than of terrorist attacks. Boiling it down to numbers, it's far more cost-effective to guarantee universal coverage than to chase terrorists around the Middle East.

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Tracker that's crazy talk! Reforming healthcare would only help poor people, while invading Iraq would give you tons of opportunity to bomb the crap out of crazy brown people.

You mean crazy poor brown people. Not only are our poor neglected the preventative coverage and care that may save their lives but we get to outright kill other poor people half the globe away. It's win-win!

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Tracker that's crazy talk! Reforming healthcare would only help poor people, while invading Iraq would give you tons of opportunity to bomb the crap out of crazy brown people.

And provides trillions to poor defense contractors whose businesses were languishing on the verge of utter bankruptcy due to the Clinton balanced budget!

Oh evil Clinton, why do you hate America's safety?

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It is the enforcement of laws already on the books that is being held hostage.

Ah, yes. Well sure, it's possible. In fact, I am brought to mind of this classic scene:

Mayor: Enough! I get the point! And what if you're wrong?

Dr. Peter Venkman: If we're wrong, then nothing happens. We go to jail. Peacefully. Quietly. We'll enjoy it. But if we're right, and we can stop this thing, Lenny... [The mayor looks at him incredulously.] you will have saved the lives of millions of registered voters.

Mayor smiles.

I have to say, your comments also make me wonder what was stopping Republicans from enforcing said laws previously. Obviously it's not a new problem and all. I guess Bush *was* doing all right winning the Latino vote... ;p

Seriously, I don't mind the dim view; they are political parties and we are talking votes. If you want to single out your opposition, well I reckon that happens all the time when people talk politics.

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lordofavalon,

How does the "taking it out of the contractors' hides" work? Why wouldn't this just result in crappy hardware and rations and God knows what else, and therefore lives lost?

The entire military contractor system is bloated, innefficient, and generally really, really corrupt.

Stuff like weapons and hardware is decent, but for the regular butter stuff, clothing, booots, foodstuffs, etc. etc. the military pays VAST sums above what is probably reasonable, for very little efficiency increases.

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I have to say, your comments also make me wonder what was stopping Republicans from enforcing said laws previously.

They didn't have control of Congress and the Presidency until Bush. When they did, they passed legislation to double the number of border agents and start construction of the fence on the southern border.

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Stuff like weapons and hardware is decent, but for the regular butter stuff, clothing, boots, foodstuffs, etc. etc. the military pays VAST sums above what is probably reasonable, for very little efficiency increases.

One major issue is that the milspecs for a lot of seemingly routine items are pretty stringent. They address things like durability, field stability, environmental suitability, etc., that aren't applicable to civilian items that look very similar on the surface. Making things that will work and last in the extreme heat and dryness of desert conditions as well as in arctic conditions is sometimes expensive. And the expiration date for some of the food items....

That being said, there are still a ton of inefficiencies, as with anything involving the government.

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Okay, so then the theory is that when there's significantly less money with which to dink around, the contractors are still going to want to keep up sales with their main (or only) buyer, and will have to drop their prices to compensate. Are we not concerned that the money-lusting CEOs and boards will cut quality controls or even production in order to keep at least a portion of their inflated profit margins?

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Okay, so then the theory is that when there's significantly less money with which to dink around, the contractors are still going to want to keep up sales with their main (or only) buyer, and will have to drop their prices to compensate.

Just out of curiousity, does anyone have a listing of the biggest government contractors and their profit margins?

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