politisal

politisal 9 months ago

I objected to what I think was the first "czar", the "drug czar" from a much earlier administration. The number of "czar"s is not the question, the constitutionality is. Yes, I was an Obama voter (primary as well as general election), and one of the main reasons for that choice was to check the ever-expanding Executive-Branch powers (which I didn't trust the Clintons to do). Instead, this administration seems intent on consolidating those illegal powers. INformal advisors are one thing; the president can have as many as he or she wants, but not appointments to make policy or oversee government agencies.
This is so much more important than the birth-certificate issue that takes up so much space on this site!

politisal 9 months ago

This certainly doesn't look good, but what is the corporation headed by the inspector in question? HOw can it be independent and yet have the government able to fire its officers?
I certainly think that it should be further investigated; I'd like to hear both sides of the story. I note that he is suspended for 30 days before firing. so probably in technical compliance, but I would like to see the relevant committee look into this and approve or disapprove of the intended firing.

politisal 9 months ago

The president's salary is $400,000; about the equivalent of what other presidents have received in dollars of the day. I'm not sure what expensed are covered (other than, or course, health insurance ;) ), so comparing compensation packages is difficult without further research.
CEOs of large public corporations, from the annual reports I have read, seem to have salaries in the high six figures; stock options, grants, bonuses, etc., bring the whole packages to between $1,000,000 and $25,000,000; some higher (sometimes including an amount to compensate for income-tax effect of compensation [wish we could all get that; I don't think even the president does).
Capping salaries will just let the creative accounts find other ways of compensating greedy CEOs. Warren Buffett gets a reasonable $100,000; no bonuses and few if any other expensive perks; 80 or 90% of his personal wealth is in Berkshire-Hathaway stock (not from compensation options or grants), so he has a complete incentive to do the best he can for his corporation. Would that all CEOs were so.

politisal 9 months ago

This is indeed a complex barrel of worms, but should be addressed. It is also a safety issue if drivers are doing long hours, particularly at high speeds. Road use is paid for by truckers on the theory that the heavy trucks are responsible for the need for more upkeep. I would like to see more emphasis on railroads for long-distance freight, and shorter runs for truckers from rail depot to delivery destinations. I have no time to think this through further now; I shall return.

politisal 9 months ago

I voted for this, although I am not sure. Many long-term Sens. and Reps. have served well, and I am sure that it takes a long time to learn the ropes. OTOH, the positive effects of incumbency are too great when running for reelection. I'm not sure what the solution is, but this looks creative and worth exploring.

politisal 9 months ago

ls072456, I couldn't have said it better. We're in the middle of socializing losses in the finanical industry while leaving the gain in private hands. A single-payer healthcare system with public funding and private delivery is no more socialism than municipal policing, road maintenance, or public libraries. Some things are best done collectively, and when for-profit businesses stop interfering with doctor/patient relationships, we may just get healthier. We also have to move away from illness-based medicine to prevention and healthier living if we are going to reverse the trend of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

politisal 9 months ago

The Congressional Budget Office does a cost analysis on many programs, and their data is generally taken to be unbiased. For which programs they provide estimates, and for what portion of the many pieces of proposed legislation, I'm not sure, but they have a good Web site, www.cbo.gov. We should be making more citizens aware of this information.

politisal 9 months ago

This should be a no-brainer for any office building, public or private. It's something we were all taught growing up: turn off the light when you leave the room; don't overheat or overcool. I'm surprised there have been so few votes on this.

politisal 9 months ago

In defense of IRS auditors (not a popular position, generally) my family's accountant (now retired) started as an IRS auditor before going into private practice. Knowing him personally I'm sure he was fair, respectful, and honest. That being said, he's of an older generation, and a lot then was more fair, respectful, and honest. However, our accountant's son has taken over the business and is just as good—he was brought up by good parents. On the whole, however, the IRS is a typical, probably worse than average, bureaucracy, which is less helpful than it could be, to say the least, and definitely use intimidation. It certainly needs oversight.

politisal 9 months ago

Well, I voted this idea down, but the count went up: I hope two people were voting for it while I was voting against. . .

politisal 9 months ago

Project Vote Smart is a good site, too: www.votesmart.org
We don't need to expand government to do this.

politisal 9 months ago

Having read the comments so far, I agree, as I have long held, that Election Day should be a national holiday. The problem with holding elections over multiple days, as we saw in the 2008 election, is that we seem to have abandoned not reporting results until the polls close. Early-voting returns (not even early in the day, but reports before election day) were reported, which I found disturbing; whether your chosen candidate is doing well or poorly, this adds a factor to your decision to go to the polls—"Is my vote needed? Will it count?"
In my state, absentee ballots aren't counted unless there are more of them than the difference between the two leading candidates, and I also like the absolute privacy of the voting booth for anyone who can get there (call me old-fashioned [grin]). Yes, scanned paper ballots are probably the best answer to keeping elections honest. I can't imagine traffic jams being that big a problem if we had a national holiday: there would be many fewer voters crammed into the traditional "voting on the way to or from work" hours. And a fine for missing an election is regressive, falling heaviest on the poorest, unless it is a percent of income, and even then those with largest incomes can afford to give up a greater percentage than those with smallest incomes, as the BASIC cost of living differs little for particular individuals (a gallon of milk costs a set price no matter who buys it).

politisal 9 months ago

Yes, I'm against commercializing data—but I'm also against the government collecting so much personally identifiable data. Privacy doesn't really exist any more, but it should be brought back if we can do it.

politisal 9 months ago

Debates should certainly be opened up; it could force the major-party candidates to discuss issues in more detail if they knew challenges were going to come from third-party candidates. And instant runoff voting, in which voters rank multiple candidates in order of preference, with votes redistributed according to voter preference until a majority is reached, would help ensure that no extreme minority is over-represented. Even leaving the election system as it is, more debaters would open up the after-debate discussions, which would be a good thing.

politisal 9 months ago

We have a uniquely American government-funded healthcare system that has worked since it was introduced in the 1960s, when it was considered incipient socialism: Medicare. As Dr. Lapp's comment suggests, the red tape of private insurance companies that do everything possible to deny claims steals time from healthcare provider staff who could be educating patients on prevention of illness, doing lab work if qualified, maintaining personal contact with patients, and, in general, doing what they were trained to do, not spend the majority of time filing, refiling, and negotiating claims.
We can't afford NOT to have single-payer health care: privately delivered, publicly funded. It's the only way the cost of an individual's lifetime health care can be amortized by one agency over his or her whole life (the only pre-existing condition would be a congenital defect), so that payments "on behalf of" a single citizen average out, rather than the public system being left with only the elderly, disabled, and those too ill to work, as Medicare is now.

politisal 9 months ago

Edcward,
I think your points have some validity, although I suspect overcrowding has a lot to do with incivility. And I think that having senators and representatives spend more time in their home district is a good idea, and conference calls/Internet meetings would facilitate this. Perhaps the 8 months home, 4 in Washington is too big a change, and will be too inefficient, but I would like to see this idea explored. A conference call that is well-moderated or a video conference is not the same as posting to an anonymous blog, or sending a text message. Comments I've read on this site have generally been civil, so it can't be just technology that has made us so partisan and nasty: I attribute it more to advertising (especially political ads), reliance on polls rather than debate (which I think allows for too many "instant answers" and action taken on data results rather than on conviction), and a lack of empathy with many causes: overscheduling and resultant pressure, competition and search for a win/lose outcome rather than a win/win, valuing expensive things over enriching experiences, etc. I'd like to see how we can use technology to advance those universal values on which we all agree (if we can still find any [grin]).

politisal 9 months ago

I'm not sure I really understand this post, so I will refrain from voting until someone comments and makes it clearer. See my post under "Clear and Simple", above.

politisal 9 months ago

I'm surprised that there are so many negative votes on this. Ballot questions in particular are hard to read, even with advance mailing. I consider myself fairly sophisticated, a college graduate with an English minor, yet I recently voted opposite the position I wanted to in a ballot question because I misread it. Yes, I probably could have done more advance research, but should I have to? And what about someone who has less formal education than I and reads at a lower grade level? Shouldn't that person be able to understand questions clearly, or do we want to continue hiding the meanings in confusing language?

politisal 9 months ago

Why on purchases only, not on sales?

politisal 9 months ago

I love This Land Is Your Land, but there's too much historical significance in The Star-Spangled Banner to replace it, IMHO. Yes, it's hard to sing, but it's stirring.

politisal 9 months ago

What I would really like to see are instant runoff elections, as are held in some areas (possibly in the U.S.? maine comes to mind for local elections, but I could be wrong).
Instant runoffs mean that when voting, you don't make just one choice, you rank the candidates for office in order of preference, so that no candidate gets a majority, the votes from candidate with the lowest number of votes goes to the second-choice candidates of those voters, and so on until there is a clear majority winner.
With current technology, and paper balloting to ensure accuracy of counting, this should be able to be done, and relatively quickly (although we waited a long time for the Bush-Gore "election results", and I thought we should have waited longer—accuracy is more important than instant, IMHO).

politisal 9 months ago

I read an article in Freethought Today, the Freedom from Religion Foundation newspaper, about a three-star general defending religious freedom in the military, but witihout enough knowledge of the Constitution to discuss the Establishment clause, instead referring the questioner to others. I just went to www.ffrf.org to find the details, but that article is not online at this time. If I can find it, I shall return, as another general once said.

politisal 9 months ago

Certainly creative; maybe even possible. OTOH, what happens the next time we get in this mess?

politisal 9 months ago

It is an interesting idea, but I think it has to be done voluntarily. Gov. Corzine (NJ) works for $1/year, as does Mayor Bloomberg (NYC). The term "dollar-a-year-man" came from the practice of the wealthy taking a $1/year salary. However, living expenses might be a lot more than this amount, so be careful. . . . I'm not sure what portion of the First Family's expenses are publicly paid and what is private; openness in this area would help this discussion along. In some ways this comes down to an integrity vs. greed issue, which may not be amenable to legislation.

politisal 9 months ago

All well and good, but not at the expense of literacy!

politisal 9 months ago

I do like this idea, but realiize that not everyone has access to the Internet or is sophisticated about using it. Unlike a previous commentator, I do not trust my money to the Internet and do no financial transactions by computer (aside from some credit-card purchases on well-verified sites), but never online banking or investment transactions—too dangerous, IMHO.
Also, I like personal access to my representative; he or she is the person that was elected by MY district, not the nation.
On the other hand, I realize that an OPTIONAL streamlining porcess can help; just don't want us to go overboard and limit what little personal access the average citizen has—the lobbyists already have more than their fair share.

politisal 9 months ago

I have read (forgotten the source, but can find it if anyone wants it) that mass-transit construction projects create more jobs (and more long=term jobs) than do highway-building projects. So it's good for the economy as well as reducing congestion and having beneficial environmental effects. Win-win-win!

politisal 9 months ago

So far, teh SEC docs that I have looked for, I have found in PDF and EDGAR versions. this seems adequate to me.

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