[tomder55]

wow ,when I add to that the gas tax that NY charges...... already it pays for me to drive across the border into NJ . I pay on average $ 0.30/gal.less for full service compared to NY self serve. The reason they want to increase it is of course because fuel efficiency has eroded their share .
It gets better ......Just wait and see how they manage to tax you with EZPass technology.

[speechlesstx]

wow ,when I add to that the gas tax that NY charges...... already it pays for me to drive across the border into NJ . I pay on average $ 0.30/gal.less for full service compared to NY self serve. The reason they want to increase it is of course because fuel efficiency has eroded their share .
It gets better ......Just wait and see how they manage to tax you with EZPass technology.

Let 'em tax those expensive electric vehicles they're pushing instead of subsidizing them and putting a greater share of the burden on those who can least afford it. Sounds like a war on poor people to me.

[Tuttyd]

I said 'equality of opportunity' not 'equal opportunity' .
In some cases it is an interchangable phrase ;but not exactly . Equality of opportunity is aspirational in that we are trying to acheive a society where equality of opportunity exists.

Or as Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner put it ;“The ....goal is equal opportunity, not equal results. But equality of opportunity is not a natural state; it is a social achievement, for which government shares some responsibility. The proper reaction to egalitarianism is not indifference. It is the promotion of a fluid society in which aspiration is honored and rewarded.”
« How to Save the Republican Party Commentary Magazine
Individual liberty as the key driver of equal opportunity ,not government trying to force results

This is the usual false dichotomy we have become used to. The answer is obviously both. It is equality of opportunity and the attention to results.

[tomder55]

no it isn't ... pursuing equality of opportunity and outcome are 2 distinct things. Pursuing equality of outcomes means an almost certain discrimination to get the results desired .You also sacrifice meritocracy and probably equal treatment under the law as you attempt to create 'remedies ' for different outcomes. It also necessitates a redistributive society and coercion by the government .
Whereas if we pursue equality of opportunity you necessarily have to assume and accept that results will differ .

[tomder55]

Hello again, tom:

I like the Warthog too. Let's curb the NSA back to what the Constitution says, and I'll give you DOE.

I'll give you one even better . I have never said that the DOD was immune to huge cuts in spending .... Here is an article in the Wall Street Journal by John Lehman ;former Sec Navy under Reagan ;and member of the 9-11 commission.

As we lament the lack of strategic direction in American foreign policy, it is useful to remember the classic aphorism that diplomatic power is the shadow cast by military power. The many failures and disappointments of American policy in recent years, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Russia and Iran are symptoms of the steady shrinkage of the shadow cast by American military power and the fading credibility and deterrence that depends on it.

Although current U.S. spending on defense adjusted for inflation has been higher than at the height of the Reagan administration, it has been producing less than half of the forces and capabilities of those years. Instead of a 600-ship Navy, we now have a 280-ship Navy, although the world's seas have not shrunk and our global dependence has grown. Instead of Reagan's 20-division Army, we have only 10-division equivalents. The Air Force has fewer than half the number of fighters and bombers it had 30 years ago.

Apologists for the shrinkage argue that today's ships and aircraft are far more capable than those of the '80s and '90s. That is as true as "you can keep your health insurance."

While today's LCSs—the littoral-class ships that operate close to shore—have their uses, they are far less capable than the Perry-class frigates that they replace. Our newest Aegis ships have been upgraded to keep pace with the newest potential missile threats, but their capability against modern submarines has slipped.

Air Force fighter planes today average 28 years old. Although they have been upgraded to keep pace with the latest aircraft of their potential adversaries, they have no greater relative advantage than they had when they were new. There are merely far fewer of them in relation to the potential threat. In deterrence, quantity has a quality all its own.

There is one great numerical advantage the U.S. has against potential adversaries, however. That is the size of our defense bureaucracy. While the fighting forces have steadily shrunk by more than half since the early 1990s, the civilian and uniformed bureaucracy has more than doubled. According to the latest figures, there are currently more than 1,500,000 full-time civilian employees in the Defense Department—800,000 civil servants and 700,000 contract employees. Today, more than half of our active-duty servicemen and women serve in offices on staffs. The number of various Joint Task Force staffs, for instance, has grown since 1987 from seven to more than 250, according to the Defense Business Board.

The constant growth of the bureaucracy has resulted from reform initiatives from Congress and by executive order, each of which established a new office or expanded an existing one. These new layers have accumulated every year since the founding of the Department of Defense in 1947. Unlike private businesses—disciplined by the market—which require constant pruning and overhead reduction to stay profitable, each expansion of the bureaucracy is, to paraphrase President Reagan, the nearest thing to eternal life to be found on earth.

The Pentagon, like Marley's ghost, must drag this ever-growing burden of chains without relief. As a result something close to paralysis is approaching. The suffocating bloat of overstaffing in an overly centralized web of bureaucracies drives runaway cost growth in weapons systems great and small. Whereas the immensely complex Polaris missile and submarine system took four years from a draft requirement until its first operational patrol in February 1960, today the average time for all weapons procured under Defense Department acquisition regulations is 22 years.
The latest Government Accountability Office report, released in October, estimates that there is $411 billion of unfunded cost growth in current Pentagon programs, almost as much as the entire 10 years of sequester cuts if they continue. The result has been unilateral disarmament.

What is to be done? As with most great issues, the solution is simple, the execution difficult. First, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel must be supported in his announced intention to cut the bureaucracy of uniformed and civilian by at least 20%. Each 7,000 civilian reductions saves at least $5 billion over five years. Second, clear lines of authority and accountability, now dissipated through many bureaucratic entities, must be restored to a defined hierarchy of human beings with names. Third, real competition for production contracts must be re-established as the rule not the exception. Fourth, weapons programs must be designed to meet an established cost and canceled if they begin to exceed it.

While sequester is an act of desperation that adds more uncertainty to an already dysfunctional system, it does seem to be acting as a spur to focus Congress on the urgent need to stop our unilateral disarmament by making deep cuts in bureaucratic overhead throughout the Pentagon, uniformed and civilian.

The way forward for Republicans is not to default to their traditional solution, which is simply to fight sequester cuts and increase the defense budget. Instead, Republicans should concentrate on slashing and restructuring our dysfunctional and bloated defense bureaucracy. With strong defense chairmen on House and Senate committees already sympathetic to the overhead issue, and a willing secretary of defense, this Congress can do it. That will place the blame for the consequences of sequester and the earlier $500 billion Obama cuts squarely where it belongs, on the president and the Democrats.

The way will thereby be prepared for Republican victory in the 2016 elections based on a Reagan-like rebuilding mandate that can actually be carried out by a newly streamlined and more agile Defense Department.

John Lehman: More Bureaucrats, Fewer Jets and Ships - WSJ.com

[paraclete]

The way forward for Republicans is not to default to their traditional solution, which is simply to fight sequester cuts and increase the defense budget. Instead, Republicans should concentrate on slashing and restructuring our dysfunctional and bloated defense bureaucracy

Now that sounds like a foward thinking policy. I was wondering what ever happened to the sequester, did the sky fall?

[talaniman]

The Costs of the Government Shutdown - ABC News

The 16-day government shutdown is over, but the country has taken at least a $24 billion hit along the way...............“The bottom line is the government shutdown has hurt the U.S. economy,” Standard & Poor's said in a statement. “In September, we expected 3 percent annualized growth in the fourth quarter because we thought politicians would have learned from 2011 and taken steps to avoid things like a government shutdown and the possibility of a sovereign default. Since our forecast didn't hold, we now have to lower our fourth-quarter growth estimate to closer to 2 percent.”

Moody's Analytics reported a similar number Wednesday, saying by the end of the day the shutdown will cause a $23 billion hit to U.S. GDP or $1.4375 billion per day................
- $3.1 billion in lost government services. Although furloughed workers will get their back pay, taxpayers won't see the products. (Source: I.H.S.)

- According to the U.S. Travel Association: There has been $152 million per day in all spending related to travel lost because of the shutdown. As many as 450,000 American workers supported by travel may be affected.

- According to the National Park Service: They welcome more than 700,000 people per day usually in October and visitors spend an estimated $32 million per day impact in communities near national parks and contribute $76 million each day to the national economy. Those revenues were lost.

- According to Destination D.C., the official tourism corporation of D.C.: There is a 9 percent decrease in hotel occupancy from the last week in September before the shutdown to the first week of October during the shutdown. This year, hotel occupancy was down 74.4 percent for the week Sept. 29 to Oct. 5 compared to the 2012 numbers. (Source: Smith Travel Research, Inc.) In 2012, an estimated $6.2 billion of visitor spending supported more than 75,300 jobs.

That's what you guys did. But this was the outcome of what Obama did,

Treasury closes the book on GM bailout with final stock sale - Dec. 9, 2013

The Treasury Department has sold its final stake in General Motors, closing the book on its 2009 bailout of the auto industry. GM has been revived and is now profitable, but taxpayers are out more than $10 billion dollars................Lew said that if both companies had gone out of business, which was a serious risk in 2009, it would likely have caused widespread business failures among suppliers across the country. Experts said that it could have even forced other automakers such as Ford Motor (F, Fortune 500) into bankruptcy, due to a lack of auto parts.

Lew said the government also would have been on the hook for pension payments for retired autoworkers that were backed by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., a federal agency.

The failure of GM and Chrysler would have cost the federal government between $39 billion to $105 billion in lost tax revenues as well as assistance to the unemployed, according to a study released Monday by the Center for Automotive Research, a Michigan think tank.

"Our goal was never to make a profit but to stabilize the auto industry," said one Treasury official speaking to reporters on background Monday. "By any measure, we succeeded."

Which one was the better deal, and which one saved hardworking Americans their jobs?

Just sayin'!

[tomder55]

Now that sounds like a foward thinking policy. I was wondering what ever happened to the sequester, did the sky fall?

the sequester cuts work .

[tomder55]

I notice that with all the belly aching about the shut down ... the unemployment rate improved in the period in question. I have yet to hear evidence that the cost of the shutdown that is claimed is real ...or if it came about because of attempts by the emperor to punish the people with silly games like shutting down memorials .

[talaniman]

Who can I quote that you would believe Tom, or how much pain can you visit on the least to protect the rich?

Budget deal aims to avert another shutdown - CNN.com

Ryan and Murray have spent the past two months working on an agreement that would set government spending levels and replace the next round of deep automatic cuts -- known as sequester.

[paraclete]

Employment growth, seems the sequester was a good thing, who would have thought or maybe it's just you can't keep a good economy down.

I remember when we used to depict our economy as a bloated python with people beating it to death with baseball bats, can't find an image but I wonder could that picture apply. Now if you could just get rid of all those public servants in the military/economic complex think what employment you could create I hear you have more bureaucrats than soldiers in the military

[tomder55]

Ryan and Murray have spent the past two months working on an agreement that would set government spending levels and replace the next round of deep automatic cuts -- known as sequester.

fine ;good for them . I have no doubt that the majority in the House will pass a bill resembling their framework... Then it will either sit on Reid's shelf ;or in the unlikely event that it makes it to the emperor's desk ,he'll veto it . He plans on governing the rest of his term through executive fiat. That's why he has hired the Clintoon impeachment consigliore John Podesta as a special advisor to his Chief of Staff Denis McDonough.
No one likes the sequesters but they forced the government to trim a teeny tiny bit of fat .
There are $billions more where that came from ...even without addressing the unsustainable unfunded liabilities from entitlements .

[tomder55]

Employment growth, seems the sequester was a good thing, who would have thought or maybe it's just you can't keep a good economy down.

I remember when we used to depict our economy as a bloated python with people beating it to death with baseball bats, can't find an image but I wonder could that picture apply. Now if you could just get rid of all those public servants in the military/economic complex think what employment you could create I hear you have more bureaucrats than soldiers in the military

the article I sourced dealt with that . I'm no fan of wasteful public spending ,no matter which agency does it.

[talaniman]

Of course you think balancing the budget on the backs of the poor is great, while refusing to raise taxes on the rich who have weathered the recession rather well.

When its spent on ordinary citizens then its waste, when its spent on tanks its security, and when its spent on rich guys its to create jobs? I know the elderly are to lazy to get their own meals so cut Meal on Wheels.

The Next Sequester: Head Start and Meals on Wheels Likely to Be Cut - Stateline

Another round of sequestration would reduce federal spending on everything from Meals on Wheels to Head Start, according to Federal Funds Information for States. FFIS is a Washington group that helps states manage their federal money.

On average, the federal budget accounts for about 30 percent of state revenues, making it the largest single source of money for many states. About 90 percent of the federal dollars come in the form of grants. About three-quarters of those grant programs would be subject to sequestration, according to an FFIS report.

Preliminary estimates by FFIS are that a second round of sequestration cuts would reduce domestic federal spending by $4.2 billion for the 2014 fiscal year starting Oct. 1. Budget analysts are in the process of estimating how much states would lose.



Federal Grants to States

Roughly a third of states' budgets come from federal funds. This chart shows the percentage of each state's budget that came from federal grants in fiscal year 2012, ranging from a high of 53.47% in MS to a low of 9.53% in CT.
Alabama 39.84%
Alaska 26.38%
Arizona 40.90%
Arkansas 30.44%
California 36.67%
Colorado 27.14%
Connecticut 9.53%
Delaware 19.87%
Florida 36.20%
Georgia 28.15%
Hawaii 16.96%
Idaho 39.00%
Illinois 19.35%
Indiana 35.25%
Iowa 34.06%
Kansas 26.41%
Kentucky 33.87%
Louisiana 36.24%
Maine 32.68%
Maryland 26.36%
Massachusetts 21.53%
Michigan 40.20%
Minnesota 27.57%
Mississippi 53.47%
Missouri 32.27%
Montana 36.00%
Nebraska 30.25%
Nevada 29.58%
New Hampshire 32.26%
New Jersey 24.85%
New Mexico 37.24%
New York 30.19%
North Carolina 33.56%
North Dakota 31.98%
Ohio 22.70%
Oklahoma 39.46%
Oregon 24.76%
Pennsylvania 37.20%
Rhode Island 34.49%
South Carolina 42.57%
South Dakota 40.24%
Tennessee 42.23%
Texas 33.06%
Utah 27.50%
Vermont 35.90%
Virginia 21.24%
Washington 20.81%
West Virginia 19.55%
Wisconsin 25.58%
Wyoming 25.24%
Average 31.20%

Congressional Research Service and NASBO.

Some of the areas to be cut include: Public housing assistance, money for schools with low-income students, food inspection, scientific research grants, and environmental protection programs.

[tomder55]

like the states have a choice but to accept money the Federal Government pulls from the states .Of course before the progressive 16th amendment was passed ,the constitution in Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 required a proportional allocation of direct taxes. Since the 16th ,the Federal government can bribe and blackmail states with revenues. (or at least that's how the progressives interpret this power of confiscation and redistribution.

[talaniman]

So what happens to states that get more federal money than they actually pay? What if they pay more than they actually get?

How Blue America Subsidizes Red America

Economist's View: "Red States, Blue States and the Distribution of Federal Spending"

It will come as a surprise to some, but not to others, that there is a fairly strong statistical relationship, but that the direction is the opposite from what you would think if you were listening to rhetoric from Republican conservatives: The red states ... generally receive more subsidies from the federal government than they pay in taxes; in other words they are further to the right in the graph. It is the other way around with the blue states...

One reason is that the red states on average have lower population; thus their two Senators give them higher per capita representation in Washington than the blue states get, which translates into more federal handouts. The top ten feeders at the federal trough in 2005 were: New Mexico, Mississippi, Alaska, Louisiana, West Virginia, North Dakota, Alabama, South Dakota, Kentucky and Virginia. (Sarah Palin's home state of Alaska ranks number one if measured in terms of federal spending per capita. Alabama Senator Shelby evidently gets goodies for his state, ranked 7, by indiscriminately holding up votes on administration appointments.) The top ten milk cows were: New Jersey, Nevada, Connecticut, Minnesota, Illinois, Delaware, California, New York, and Colorado.

Perhaps in determining how the federal government redistributes income across states one should view its role more expansively than is captured in the budget numbers. ... The four congressional districts that receive the most in farm subsidies are all represented by “conservative” Republicans, located in Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, and Texas. (Michele Bachmann's family farm apparently received $250,000 in such farm payments between 1995 and 2006.)

The most commonly ignored area of geographical redistribution is the federal government's permanent policy of “universal service” in postal delivery, phone service and other utilities (electricity; perhaps now broadband…). Universal service means subsidizing those who choose to live in remote places like Alaska, where the cost of supplying these services is much higher than in the coastal cities. Perhaps they should move…

Older stats but you can follow the trend and see we try so hard to pull you guys from the track,kicking and screaming, before they train runs you over. Need more recent stats?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/0...ed-state-votes

Obviously, economics and taxes aren't the only issues people vote on, so there is more to it than proving to people how they actually benefit from the programs that many of them don't even know they are helped by. But there will always be hold-outs not unlike my step-grandmother. She lived the final 30 years of her life on Social Security with doctor visits paid out of Medicare while railing about how "the Democrats never did anything for me." Some people are presumably more flexible than she.

"Shrink government but keep your hands off my Social Security, and Medicare!"- TParty

[paraclete]

So let me see if I get this right, you are borrowing money to prop up the states in various ways? I understand this makes sense in various ways but a range of 53% to 17% means there is a great deal of opportunity for improvement. Let me guess that in the days when support was tied to taxes raised, the poor areas just got poorer? Now I see that Tom, the arch conservative voice in our midst, is advocating a return to beggering the poor for the benefit of the rich. Obviously his state, being the home of the biggest city and the financial hub, would benefit most. So much for yankee largesse, Tom, the last carpetbagger, rides again

[Tuttyd]

no it isn't ... pursuing equality of opportunity and outcome are 2 distinct things. Pursuing equality of outcomes means an almost certain discrimination to get the results desired .You also sacrifice meritocracy and probably equal treatment under the law as you attempt to create 'remedies ' for different outcomes. It also necessitates a redistributive society and coercion by the government .
Whereas if we pursue equality of opportunity you necessarily have to assume and accept that results will differ .

Yes, we accept the results will differ. Of course results will differ. Any group of people who are given the same opportunity will show varying results. We are not all created equal. However, this is not an argument for not doing anything about it.

This is why results are monitored in order to identify individuals and groups that are less successful when given the same opportunities.

And no, being lazy is not a valid reason for being less successful.

[paraclete]

ah shucks you expect folks to get off their proverbal and do well because you throw some incentive their way. Don't work like that son! What you have to do is give them a long term view, called faith in the future. now you are a little short on that right now!

Ah hope this little down home lesson isn't lost on you. Don't you have any preachers left in that land or did you shoot the last one? I'm goin to give youse a prophesy because I'm a prophet. The end is neigh, you has ateall the potatas and all you got left is... well I don't know what it is, but it ain't nice, so get offen your buts and start cooperatin or down you go.

[speechlesstx]

Democrats want to double the gas tax while subsidizing electric vehicles that only the rich can afford, I'm sure the irony of Tal's complaint is lost on him.