To the Economic Minded Type Political People.

[Conager]

That's not what you said.

It was what I was attempting to imply. The reason why the feds have to do that (Davis bacon) is not the point. The point is the feds shouldn't have to pay more than the going rate.

They also shouldn't have to locate defense department plants in inexpensive labor markets simply to get the money through the House and Senate. We should be able to build fighters, submarines and tomahawks in locales with the most reasonable cost of production. Admittedly building submarines in Des Moines might be a bad idea.

That also is never going to happen because the entire reason that the military-industrial complex is so very well-funded is because it provides employment in key States.

No different than what a boondoggle the farm bill is.

A lot of horse trading going on between Senators with the farm bill and defense appropriation bills... you give a little here I'll give a little there. The whole thing is just one big feeding trough. Specifically a 4 trillion dollar a year feeding trough. Frankly as a country we kind of depend on four trillion dollars a year in spending. Just seems sort of silly to spend for the sake of spending instead of spending for value.

That presupposes that the very things that we are buying for example for the defense department are things that we need to buy. Sounds to me like the F-35 was a bad idea. Course they say that about every new weapons system until they finally get the Kinks out and get the production lines rolling. Maybe it'll be great maybe we'll actually needed in the future. I have no idea.

Then we have to consider what we want to do in the world and whether what we're doing the world actually makes sense. The geo- politics of that is far above what I actually understand. I've got my ideas about it and probably lean closer to isolationism but I realize that that is naive.

 

[Beco]

I'll toss out Christmas in favor of Festivus if it is guaranteed to invole a healthy amount of pagan debauchery.

speaking of that, I need to air my grievances!

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

"So.

How DO we fix it and where do we get the money because we are probably going to have to raise taxes even after we rearrange a few things."

Good analysis, bad conclusion that calls for throwing good money after bad.

To begin with, infrastructure and education are local affairs. The problem is that for too many decades and too many generations now we have tried to solve all problems as the Soviet Union did, top down. The only difference between the two models is that the Russian Socialists seized control of the government at the onset, while ours have boiled the frog slowly, so to speak. This is why we have this mentality of how important it is to have your guy as president and not the other guy who is the enemy, the equivalent of Hitler. It will not end well if Chicago and California keep demanding that the Federal Government uses the resources of a nation to fix the problems that they created, problems that will never be fixed as long as someone else is paying the price. They won't stop demanding more government intervention until they have broken not just their bank, but our bank...

 

[OldJourno]

Since 1968 we've taught out kids to be niggers. If you cant raise a nigger up, bring the whites down,

Did 1968 just pop out of that cesspit of a brain or is there a reason you named the year?