Reasonable Questions for Unreasonable Times

[veritas]

8. Was the cash-for-clunkers program meant to save the earth or the economy? Did it accomplish either?

Save the earth? I don't know about all that. Reduce emissions maybe. [Maybe not, how much energy it takes to produce a lower emissions car, and crush and recycle the clunker versus how much a clunker might use in the rest of of its useful life is debatable.] It did get some people back to work.

 

[garyd]

More bogus crap.

We needed tarp like we needed a bullet in the brain. What we really needed was a government that was allowed to enforce it already extensive rulles and regulation on Fannie and Freddie not just the Banking institutions that made the mistake of buying debt instruments that weren't worth the paper they were printed on that our government said were fine including ole Barn and C. Dodd.

 

[veritas]

9. How did Van Jones, a self-proclaimed communist become a special advisor to the president?

When Jones' book, The Green Collar Economy went viral and made the NYT Best Seller list he got nationwide attention. Time magazine included him as one their "Most Influential People" of 2009. He's an environmental activist and lawyer.

Van Jones is White House Council on Environmental Quality's Special Advisor for Green Jobs.

And actually, he was for a socialist green Utopia, not communism.

 

[veritas]

10. Did President Obama know of Van Jones’ radical political beliefs when he named him special advisor?

You'd have to ask Obama. And socialist green utopianism isn't that radical........not like he was a goth or something.......

 

[veritas]

11. The Apollo Alliance claimed credit for writing the stimulus bill—why was this group allowed to write any portion of this bill?

Maybe they did. Not unlike Cheney and his closed door BS with the energy companies back in the day, but the Apollo Alliance has all of their goals/policies online, so it shouldn't be that scary. The only persons that could have allowed AA to write the portion to which you are referring would be the sponsors of the bill. Ask them.

 

[veritas]

12. If politicians aren’t writing the bills and aren’t reading the bills, do they have any idea what these 1000 page plus bills actually impose on the American people?

I don't know that they aren't writing or reading the bills. I assume not all of them are reading all of the bills. I also assume staff writes bills and does all the necessary research to make sure they conform to acceptable forms and existing code already on the books. Most of congress is not qualified to "write" proposed code anyway. There are no requirements for running for office that include education. If you get enough votes, you're in, even if you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground.......as per obvious.

 

[veritas]

13. If the ‘public option’ health care plan is so good why won’t politicians agree to have that as their plan?

Some have. Others haven't. Ask them.

14. If town hall meetings are intended for the politicians to learn what’s on our mind—why do they spend so much time talking instead of listening?

I have actually participated in town meetings, on the presenting side. From what I have seen on TV lately, these meetings don't resemble anything I am used to. Basically put, the Senators/Reps are having to be engaged in reteaching the attendees about what the intentions and positions are. There is so much disinformation and pure bullshit that has to be gotten out of the way first before any reasonable conversation can take place.

The town meetings I consulted on were way more complicated than the healthcare debate and highly technical and we went out of our way to answer questions and educate people so they could ask more questions after they understood what the basic concepts were. The more info they got, the better the questions were. [Incidentally this included/involved some cap and trade type of transactions as I mentioned in my earlier post]. Citizen input is good. People come up with things you never thought of, when they have the facts.

People that are obviously idiots spouting something they heard on talk radio or TV in these latest examples are not what town halls look like in the normal world. A normal person would be too embarrassed to act like an idiot with no more knowledge on what they were trying to argue than a thumbtack. Like Katie Abram and the Marine and other ridiculous examples. They have not done their homework, they are there to make a scene. In a regular setting they would be escorted out of the building and told to go home.

 

[Chris]

ACORN didn't receive any stimulus money.

I take it on faith that the rest of your points are also lies.

That is one thing you can have faith in.

The lies of the right.

 

[garyd]

And of course the old saying is that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and the current health care bill is a case in point.

 

[veritas]

15. Politicians are refusing to attend town hall meetings complaining, without evidence, that they are scripted. Does that mean we shouldn’t come out and vote for you since every campaign stop, baby kiss and speech you give is scripted?

I haven't heard any politician yet complain about scripting. I do know that most town hall meetings have a format and usually the format includes a sign in sheet and the particular area of inquiry and sometimes the exact question to be posed.

 

[Chris]

And of course the old saying is that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and the current health care bill is a case in point.

Ever heard of the phrase "pre-existing conditions?"

 

[veritas]

16. Why would you want to overwhelm the system with a rush of multiple 1000 page bills and debt?

Most bills are lengthy. They try to cover every possible situation and the process that supports what they want to do. Very many times, when put into practice, gaps appear and laws have to be amended to account for things that were not considered. By and large the track record is pretty good.

A lot of bills refer to existing code, cross reference it and or replace or repeal items within. So there's a lot more to it, and less to it, except you need to be able to navigate around the arrangement of the provisions. Then there are supporting documentation and appendices and studies, statistics, and indices than can be referred to, updated, redacted and so on and so forth. All of these things are mentioned and follow a certain format.

The state legislation I worked on included 2000 page hydrology reports, maps, flow data, soil composition testing, discharge permitting, emissions reports, EPA laws, state EPA laws.......way more than 1000 pages. The law was way shorter but depended on all sorts of ancillary data. Somebody had to read it and understand it and be able to answer questions about it. I was one of those. I'm sure the state senators didn't have a clue. So they got briefed on the short version and the intent. The EPA concurred and managed all the submitted data and reported back to the pols. That's the way it is supposed to work.

 

[veritas]

17. Is using the economic crises to rush legislation through congress what Rahm Emanuel meant when he talked about not letting a crises go to waste?

I don't know about what Rahm Emanuel said about crises. It stands to reason that it would be easier to get any legislation done if you weren't concerned with a ton of other things falling apart around you, like the economy and the wars and everything else.

18. What are the czars paid? What is the budget for their staffs/offices?

This is a good question. Here is a link to a list:

List of Obama’s Czars

In addition to those there are state stimulus Czars. I haven't found a complete list for those yet though and not sure if the Federal list is complete either and some of the salaries are unknown.

 

[veritas]

1. Our unfunded liability for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is close to $100 trillion. Is there any way to pay for these programs without bankrupting America?

Oh really? Where'd you get that figure, a comic book?

Come back when you have a closer figure.

Hint: that's the GDP for the entire planet.

oops, I missed the part where it was Glenn Beck that posed these questions.

I thought these were your own questions Avatar and written on the fly and no edit........

eek, Glenn Beck is more of a lazy hack than even previously thought.......

At any rate, 100T is just about the GDP for the entire planet and would fund medicare for the next 100 years and cover everybody in the US and everybody's pets in perpetuity and pay for a college education for everybody as well. Our present GDP is hovering near 14T and China is poised to nose us out very shortly as they chug along, but they have at least a billion more people than we do. We are at something like 300M+ and they have 1.3B+.

That's a lot of peeps.

 

[Ravi]

you can prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt?

What a bozo statement, Avie. You didn't give any acceptable proof at all that ACORN got federal stimulus money. The burden of proof is on you. An eight-grade classe of beginning debaters would take you out in Lincoln-Douglas cross-ex.

The headache is getting worse, isn't it?

again they are QUESTIONS that our elected Officials should answer.

Student: Oh Teacher I have a Question
Teacher: Provide documentation to your question

LOL Ok bozo.

Why did Sarah Palin have sex with those twelve year old twins?

 

[del]

What a bozo statement, Avie. You didn't give any acceptable proof at all that ACORN got federal stimulus money. The burden of proof is on you. An eight-grade classe of beginning debaters would take you out in Lincoln-Douglas cross-ex.

The headache is getting worse, isn't it?

again they are QUESTIONS that our elected Officials should answer.

Student: Oh Teacher I have a Question
Teacher: Provide documentation to your question

LOL Ok bozo.

Why did Sarah Palin have sex with those twelve year old twins?

she's hoping to become a school teacher in florida

 

[pete]

10. Did President Obama know of Van Jones’ radical political beliefs when he named him special advisor?

If he didn't which I doubt the man doesn't deserve the position hes in and has no ground to talk about anyone else!

What a group of racist including the shit stain in office!

And So it Goes in Shreveport: Glenn Beck's Video Biography of Van Jones

 

[Polk]

16. Why would you want to overwhelm the system with a rush of multiple 1000 page bills and debt?

Most bills are lengthy. They try to cover every possible situation and the process that supports what they want to do. Very many times, when put into practice, gaps appear and laws have to be amended to account for things that were not considered. By and large the track record is pretty good.

A lot of bills refer to existing code, cross reference it and or replace or repeal items within. So there's a lot more to it, and less to it, except you need to be able to navigate around the arrangement of the provisions. Then there are supporting documentation and appendices and studies, statistics, and indices than can be referred to, updated, redacted and so on and so forth. All of these things are mentioned and follow a certain format.

The state legislation I worked on included 2000 page hydrology reports, maps, flow data, soil composition testing, discharge permitting, emissions reports, EPA laws, state EPA laws.......way more than 1000 pages. The law was way shorter but depended on all sorts of ancillary data. Somebody had to read it and understand it and be able to answer questions about it. I was one of those. I'm sure the state senators didn't have a clue. So they got briefed on the short version and the intent. The EPA concurred and managed all the submitted data and reported back to the pols. That's the way it is supposed to work.

Also, these things are double-spaced with huge margins. You put it in standard formatting and it gets a lot smaller.

 

[Polk]

1. Our unfunded liability for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is close to $100 trillion. Is there any way to pay for these programs without bankrupting America?

That number is not as drastic as it sounds on the surface. One hundred trillion dollars is a lot of money, but that's over a 75 year span. So what we're talking about is an average of 1.33 trillion a year. That's a sizable sum, but not unmanageable when you consider the cost is not split equally across the range. Most of that figure is clustered in the later years. Consider the following. For the calculation, assume GDP growth will average two percent over the next 30 years. What would GDP be in 2039? About 25 trillion. 1.3 trillion would be roughly five percent of total output. A sizable increase, but not exactly a world-ending one.

 

[Polk]

2. We are in so much debt, why spend more borrowed money on cap-and-trade and healthcare programs before we stop the flow of red-ink?

Those are really separate questions. On environmental regulation, if they're structured properly, they'd actually reduce the debt picture by increasing revenue. On healthcare, the biggest cause of the long-run cost of Medicare and Medicaid doesn't come from the Baby Boomers, it comes from the exploding cost of health care. Therefore, measures that would reduce cost growth in the health care sector have so up-front expense, but save money in the long-run.