[Unknown Target]

To the floor no, in a committee maybe but highly unlikely. Reaching a consensus on every item in the budget one item at a time would take over a decade if it ever got done at all.

But if the people want it and the people agree to it, then it seems like the obstacle becomes the government refusing to agree in order not to follow the people's will?

[General Battuta]

To the floor no, in a committee maybe but highly unlikely. Reaching a consensus on every item in the budget one item at a time would take over a decade if it ever got done at all.

But if the people want it and the people agree to it, then it seems like the obstacle becomes the government refusing to agree in order not to follow the people's will?

How do you know the people want it and the people agree to it?

Perhaps a system could be employed where the people elected speakers to tell the government what they wanted. Would that be agreeable to you?

[BrotherBryon]

It would be a procedural nightmare, there are reasons why things get put together in committee and then brought to the floor for discussion. And when have Representatives always followed the will of their constituents and not their own political agenda especially when it comes down to following party lines. A lot of times when it comes down to picking some one for congress one is forced to try to determine the lesser of two evils. Just because the people elected them doesn't always mean the people agree with them.

[StargateSpankyHam]

Here's a monumental, grand master plan - and it boils down simply to the following: grow a pair, slash spending, and slash deep. It's clear that the system is broken, so let's just re-engineer it. I've even got a decent blueprint for it. (No TLDR's, please)

Pensions went the way of the dinosaurs and the dodo bird because companies could not afford to pay people that were not working for them. The vast majority of social security is just a government-mandated pension system, paid by the american taxpayer. The US government is not impervious to the basic laws of accounting - and as such, the present system is not stable in the long run.

Newsflash: Retirement is not free. There's only one way out of this without pissing off everyone in the US to the point of insurrection. Give back all the money taken for social security retirement - and cut all age-based entitlements from it. You want to retire? Go do it yourself - and quit expecting the government to do it for you. There are a buttload of private-sector companies that are more than willing to help you retire, any one of which can do it better than the government can.

The narrow sliver of people on social security that actually NEED to be on social security (the severely mentally and physically disabled)...I'm fine with paying for that. Although the government would get far better results by outsourcing to a private charity, and contracting with them to care for the mentally and physically disabled. This includes assisted living facilities.

Welfare? Unemployment? Here's an idea: mandatory enrollment in job placement (outsourced to private industry to preserve efficiency). Oh, and the people on social security that need caring for? Here's your workforce to take care of them.

Running prisons is also getting expensive - that needs restructuring too. Governments need to turn a profit on prisoners - or at the very least, break even. Is it somehow morally reprehensible to require inmates to do some kind of work, to pay for the cost of housing and feeding them? How about electric power generation? Put a hamster wheel (or something similar) in each cell, and pay them for the power generated. This way, they can rent nicer cells, and pay for food (beyond the absolute bare minimum to keep someone alive).

National defense - again, outsourcing to private industry could be quite advantageous. Maybe they wouldn't use such exotic, bizarre, and extraordinarily expensive weapons in wartime. It's like a RTS game - build what's cheap, build what works, build lots of it, and fight on a budget. All gamers know this, and all entrepreneurs could make this work.

In times of economic recession, just do the following: announce that any small business (less than say, 500 employees) is tax-free for the next five years, and let the federal reserve begin investment-lending to said businesses. Kaboom - overnight solution to economic recession. Let the huge banks fail, and pave the way for brand new ones to open up the very same hour.

Education - let's face it, current public schooling is just government-run daycare. Outsource it to the private sector, paid for by parents (or the government, if they can't afford it). Require students to learn - and heck, even pay them based on performance.

Infrastructure construction and maintenance: outsource completely to private sector. See the following: http://www.creators.com/opinion/john-stossel/private-enterprise-does-it-better.html

Also, for the senate and congress - they need to speed things up. They get paid very well to do very little. Maybe they should be required to actually get things done. Lock them in a room, send them food and water, and don't let them out until they find a resolution to laws and such. Even the most complicated of issues could probably be hammered out in a few days, rather than taking years.

The same "You don't leave until the job is done" approach could be applied to many exceedingly slow-moving government structures.

Yeah, the government should do something about healthcare - but healthcare is a complex issue. It costs so much because doctors pay a lot of money for medical school, and have to charge high prices to pay back what they owe. Health insurance suffers from a blatant lack of competition - and the inherent problem that profit = how much you can rip people off. One solution: private, non-profit insurance. In fact, any insurance that's not a non-profit could be made illegal. This would greatly reduce the cost of healthcare.

Once the US government turns a profit per person, there is no reason to not open up the borders, and turn incoming immigrants into money.

Also, my two cents on the 1.2 trillion dollar stimulus package:

The VASMIR plasma drive would be finished. The international space station would be finished. We would have orbital shipyards. We would have working fusion power plants, with Helium-3 fuel being shipped in from the moon. We would have people on Mars, at this very moment - thanks to the VASMIR drive taking the trip down to thirty-something days. Then, legalize drugs, at very high tax rates...and use the money we gain to begin building our first colony spaceships. A positive future for humanity requires expansion into the cosmos.

This strikes me as a far wiser investment, since the aforementioned 'tax free' small business solution would have cost a microscopic sliver of what the bailout did - and would have worked much better.

/endrant

[Grizzly]

Simple - grow a pair, slash spending, and slash deep.

How about raising taxes?

Newsflash: Retirement is not free. There's only one way out of this without pissing off everyone in the US to the point of insurrection. Give back all the money taken for social security retirement - and cut all age-based entitlements from it. You want to retire? Go do it yourself - and quit expecting the government to do it for you. There are a buttload of private-sector companies that are more than willing to help you retire, any one of which can do it better than the government can.

They will also be rigiriously more expensive, thus working those who do not get far on the income ladder to working untill they die.

The narrow sliver of people on social security that actually NEED to be on social security (the severely mentally and physically disabled)...I'm fine with paying for that. Although the government would get far better results by outsourcing to a private charity, and contracting with them to care for the mentally and physically disabled.

And in term, have less control over what actually happens there. More expensive does not automatically mean higher quality. If a need for a service is dire, it tends to go the other way around due to cartelling.

Welfare? Unemployment? Here's an idea: mandatory enrollment in job placement (outsourced to private industry to preserve efficiency). Oh, and the people on social security that need caring for? There's a massive, desperate, awaiting workforce there.

Yes. Exactly. The problem is that the desperately awaiting workforce simply can not get any jobs because nobody wants to hire them, due to economic problems. The only employer you can do that with is the army.

Running prisons is also getting expensive - that needs restructuring too. Governments need to turn a profit on prisoners - or at the very least, break even. Is it somehow morally reprehensible to require inmates to do some kind of work, to pay for the cost of housing and feeding them? How about electric power generation? Put a hamster wheel (or something similar) in each cell, and pay them for the power generated. This way, they can rent nicer cells, and pay for food (beyond the absolute bare minimum to keep someone alive).

In the Netherlands, inmates have to work to pay for the cells. I am quite sure that the americans already have a similar system.

[quoe]
National defense - again, outsourcing to private industry could be quite advantageous. Maybe they wouldn't use such exotic, bizarre, and extraordinarily expensive weapons in wartime. It's like a RTS game - build what's cheap, build what works, build lots of it, and fight on a budget.
[/quote]

Ever heard of a PMC? Yes. the PMC. The Americans are already doing that, and geuss: it is not working very well, as the PMC's are not held accountable for their actions.

In times of economic recession, just do the following: announce that any small business (less than say, 500 employees) is tax-free for the next five years, and let the federal reserve begin investment-lending to said businesses. Kaboom - overnight solution to economic recession. Let the huge banks fail, and pave the way for brand new ones to open up the very same hour.

Right. There goes all your money. The big banks falling means that many small businesses can no longer acces their funds the goverment gave them, because it was on said banks. Since they are dependent on that money to pay for their investments the goverment wanted them to make... You just dropped an Atomic Bomb on the economy right there.
Also... Where is this in slashing spending?

Education - let's face it, current public schooling is just government-run daycare. Outsource it to the private sector, paid for by parents (or the government, if they can't afford it). Require students to learn - and heck, even pay them based on performance.

Right. That is not going to work, since then the schools will jsut do everything to increase percieved performance instead of actually learning people stuff.

Also, for the senate and congress - they need to speed things up. They get paid very well to do very little. Maybe they should be required to actually get things done. Lock them in a room, send them food and water, and don't let them out until they find a resolution to laws and such. Even the most complicated of issues could probably be hammered out in a few days, rather than taking years.

Which would then be rushed solutions which barely hold together. Decision making takes time. The main problem with the US senate is that people are fighting over slightly-differenting ideology instead of thinking about actual problems.

The same "You don't leave until the job is done" approach could be applied to many exceedingly slow-moving government structures.

Did you not just out source them?

Then, once the US government turns a profit per person, there is no reason to not open up the borders, and turn incoming immigrants into money.

Once the US goverment turns a profit, it would be slashed down as COMMUNISM!.

Also, my two cents on the 1.2 trillion dollar stimulus package:

The VASMIR plasma drive would be finished. The international space station would be finished. We would have orbital shipyards. We would have working fusion power plants, with Helium-3 fuel being shipped in from the moon. We would have people on Mars, at this very moment - thanks to the VASMIR drive taking the trip down to thirty-something days.

Which would cost the US even more money with only marginal benefits.

/endrant

/endcounter

I do not really get why you want to outsource everything to private firms. It reduces tranpsaracy, and they might decide to make even more money of the goverment, thus turning more expensive then when the goverment did it themselves. We already outsourced quite a few things here in the Netherlands, and it did not really do the quality of said services (such as public transport) any good.

[Nuclear1]

National defense - again, outsourcing to private industry could be quite advantageous. Maybe they wouldn't use such exotic, bizarre, and extraordinarily expensive weapons in wartime. It's like a RTS game - build what's cheap, build what works, build lots of it, and fight on a budget. All gamers know this, and all entrepreneurs could make this work.

No.

I'm sorry, just no.

I've worked alongside people from PMCs before, and they are some of the worst people on the planet--the types whose entire job requires that there be some sort of conflict going on.

Plus, we've already outsourced national defense to the private sector in more ways than PMCs already, and it's killing our democracy one day at a time.

[mxlm]

Pensions went the way of the dinosaurs and the dodo bird because companies could not afford to pay people that were not working for them. The vast majority of social security is just a government-mandated pension system, paid by the american taxpayer. The US government is not impervious to the basic laws of accounting - and as such, the present system is not stable in the long run.

Social Security is basically fine. You get a blip with the boomers, but after that we're golden. Medicare/caid are emphatically not, but they're not fine because the trend for healthcare spending--public and private--is beyond ****ed.

But we've already seen just how effectively the people and organizations benefiting from the status quo are able to hobble reform even when conditions are as good as they could be for reform. My guess is nothing gets done until health spending does as much damage as those mother****ers in the banks did a couple years back. If then. After all, the financial sector wasn't exactly saddled with regulations after they, um, brought down the world's economy.

[Kosh]

No.

I'm sorry, just no.

I've worked alongside people from PMCs before, and they are some of the worst people on the planet--the types whose entire job requires that there be some sort of conflict going on.

Plus, we've already outsourced national defense to the private sector in more ways than PMCs already, and it's killing our democracy one day at a time.

Not to mention the $100+ million in overcharges (that we know about) that just one company managed to bilk from the government, now imagine that there's even more of that going on with more outsourcing. Isn't corporate welfare wonderful?

Which would cost the US even more money with only marginal benefits.

Forget the environmentalists and doomsayers going on and on about how we're imminently going to run out of resources, in space there's an unbelievable wealth just waiting to be plundered.

[mxlm]

Forget the environmentalists and doomsayers going on and on about how we're imminently going to run out of resources, in space there's an unbelievable wealth just waiting to be plundered.

This is satire, right?

[Kosh]

Which part? The part about the doomsaying or the part about Sol being rich in resources?

[mxlm]

The part where anything in space is just waiting to be plundered, as easy as your date on prom night.

[Kosh]

Once you get out of Earth's gravity well it is. The real problem is there is an upfront capital investment in spaceborne infrastructure, which has not yet been made to any significant amount unfortunately.

[666maslo666]

Substantiate the claim that there's no motivation for poorer people to better themselves. jr2 was unable to substantiate it so he gave up and left. Can you do better?

Well it has been already substantiated here. If you receive x money, benefits and so on without working, and once you start to work you receive at best the same x (in some cases even lower), BUT you have to work in addition to that, and even lose some necessary benefits like health insurance its obvious its better to stay on welfare for any rationally acting person (and maybe work illegally alongside that).

Now I am not saying there is NO motivation at all, someone might work even when he gets less or the same because he enjoys it, or wants to advance to better payed job afterwards. I am saying there is no motivation from the welfare system, instead, there is demotivation. And considering its easily fixable with elegant NIT based welfare system, where you ALWAYS have more net income when you work than when you dont work (even if you work for fraction of minimum wage, which should be abolished after reform because its simply not needed with NIT), I simply cannot see a reason why continue with current status quo other than incompetence and inertia of the government.

Dont know how huge is welfare abuse and welfare moms problem in the US, but here it is substantial, thats why there is hopefully going to be BI + NIT welfare reform (along with limiting child benefits to first 2 children to not encourage endless procreation for money, which should have been done long ago).

[Nuclear1]

Well it has been already substantiated here. If you receive x money, benefits and so on without working, and once you start to work you receive at best the same x (in some cases even lower), BUT you have to work in addition to that, and even lose some necessary benefits like health insurance its obvious its better to stay on welfare for any rationally acting person (and maybe work illegally alongside that).

Hardly.  Unemployment benefits and food stamps, despite what the anti-welfare crowd would have you believe, is not something you can live on for more than a few months.  As in, it's simply impossible.

And unless I read that sentence wrong, I'm going to call bull**** on the health insurance statement as well.  The thing with being unemployed and why companies offer health insurance plans as perks is because you can't afford insurance when you're unemployed.  I got lucky because under the new health bill, I'm able to stay on my parents' plan, but with very few exceptions, there's no "health welfare" that people lose when they get employed. 

And I'll say it again, since this seems to be utterly ignored by everyone making a case against welfare--in the United States, you are ineligible for unemployment benefits, food stamps, and other welfare programs if you can't prove you are actively looking for a job.[/i]  As far as economic statistics go, the lazy people that the anti-welfare crowd is talking about aren't counted in unemployment numbers.

I don't know what everyone's situation is here, but it's my absolute firm belief that you shouldn't be speaking about welfare if you haven't been on it or if you don't represent a hell of a lot of people who are on it.  A few people game the system, I know, but I'm really sick of seeing children starve because their parents are A) too proud to apply for welfare programs or B) are afraid of being called "welfare queens" and the like by people who haven't had a moment of financial hardship in their lives.  The anti-welfare crowd likes to cherry-pick the few examples of people who abuse the system to take those benefits away from people who would starve or lose the roof over the heads without it.

People are confused about what causes people to not look for jobs or not improve themselves--it's not welfare, it's the situation that puts them on welfare.  Being unable to find jobs, for example, just destroys people's will. 

[BrotherBryon]

I don't see where you are getting that people are attacking those specific programs. Foodstamps and Unemployment are some of the better run social programs though they too could use some tweeking. Those programs are designed more to help those who fall short of being able to provide for themselves when hard times fall on them. It's other programs such as government subsidized housing where the real problems reside. When people don't have to earn things for themselves they tend not to respect what is given them or care about it's upkeep. I like the habitat for humanity approach to that very problem where participants have to earn the benefits of the program by volunteering with the program. Not sure if it could be adapted on such a large scale but surely something similar can be done.

[Unknown Target]

Cut everything to zero. Pay the soldiers. Redo the taxes so that they're fair and reasonable. Tax others. Get a decent idea of how much income we actually have for governmental operations.

[General Battuta]

Cut everything to zero. Pay the soldiers. Redo the taxes so that they're fair and reasonable. Tax others. Get a decent idea of how much income we actually have for governmental operations.

Interesting plan. How do you decide what's fair and reasonable? How do you decide what programs to reinstate?

[General Battuta]

Haha, from a pull I just dug up from 1939:

AT PRESENT, THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS SPENDING SEVERAL BILLION DOLLARS MORE THAN IT TAKES IN EACH YEAR. IF THE REPUBLICANS WIN THE NEXT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, DO YOU THINK THEY WILL MAKE THE GOVERNMENT'S INCOME EQUAL EXPENSES WITHIN TWO YEARS?

[Unknown Target]

Cut everything to zero. Pay the soldiers. Redo the taxes so that they're fair and reasonable. Tax others. Get a decent idea of how much income we actually have for governmental operations.

Interesting plan. How do you decide what's fair and reasonable? How do you decide what programs to reinstate?

Why don't you try it and see?

[General Battuta]

Cut everything to zero. Pay the soldiers. Redo the taxes so that they're fair and reasonable. Tax others. Get a decent idea of how much income we actually have for governmental operations.

Interesting plan. How do you decide what's fair and reasonable? How do you decide what programs to reinstate?

Why don't you try it and see?

If you mean myself, personally? I've done it. Rebuilt the federal budget from the ground up, in conference and solo.

Or are you asking the government to do it?