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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
Cohn's analogy makes slightly more sense if you rephrase it as "allowing you to sell unhealthy food without telling people it's unhealthy as long as it's profitable for you." At least he tried, though.
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On February 10 2017 00:20 Mohdoo wrote:
What's everyone's thoughts on Perez?
This piece provides a great overview of how competent and dedicated a public servant he is.
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United States42691 Posts
Obama's fiduciary rule is one of those things where you just think "wait, how was that not already a thing?!?"
The medical equivalent would be "your doctor must not accept money from a guy who needs a heart transplant who happens to be a match for your heart in exchange for changing your treatment plan". It's crazy that it even needed saying, the fact that they want to undo it is even more crazy. Lame duck Obama's EOs were generally really good.
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On February 10 2017 00:53 biology]major wrote:
Glad to see someone who is pro-life on this board, the modern democratic platform is very extreme regarding this topic and alienates a lot of people who lean on the side of pro-life and would prefer abortions (imo after first trimester)not be used unless the most dire circumstances (rape, medical consequence to mom or fetus).
to clarify, is your opinion that in the first trimester abortion be legal regardless of the motivation?
is that not precisely the democrats opinion on the matter?
my bad in advance if i'm wrong on either matter.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On February 10 2017 00:41 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2017 00:38 LegalLord wrote:On February 10 2017 00:31 KwarK wrote:On February 10 2017 00:16 LegalLord wrote:On February 10 2017 00:02 Sermokala wrote:On February 09 2017 23:50 LegalLord wrote:On February 09 2017 23:35 Sermokala wrote:On February 09 2017 23:27 LegalLord wrote:On February 09 2017 19:33 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:The Trump administration is considering a bold and controversial vision for the U.S. space program that calls for a "rapid and affordable" return to the moon by 2020, the construction of privately operated space stations and the redirection of NASA's mission to "the large-scale economic development of space," according to internal documents obtained by POLITICO.
The proposed strategy, whose potential for igniting a new industry appeals to Trump’s business background and job-creation pledges, is influencing the White House’s search for leaders to run the space agency. And it is setting off a struggle for supremacy between traditional aerospace contractors and the tech billionaires who have put big money into private space ventures.
"It is a big fight," said former Republican Rep. Robert Walker of Pennsylvania, who drafted the Trump campaign's space policy and remains involved in the deliberations. "There are billions of dollars at stake. It has come to a head now when it has become clear to the space community that the real innovative work is being done outside of NASA."
The early indications are that private rocket firms like Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and their supporters have a clear upper hand in what Trump's transition advisers portrayed as a race between "Old Space" and "New Space," according to emails among key players inside the administration. Trump has met with Bezos and Musk, while tech investor Peter Thiel, a close confidant, has lobbied the president to look at using NASA to help grow the private space industry.
Charles Miller, a former NASA official who served on Trump's NASA transition team after running a commercial space cargo firm, is pushing for the White House to nominate a deputy administrator who foremost "shares the same goal/overall vision of transforming NASA by leveraging commercial space partnerships," according to a Jan. 23 communication. That deputy would run the space program’s day-to-day operations.
Trump has yet to name a NASA director, but the documents confirm that Rep. Jim Bridenstine, a Republican from Oklahoma and former Navy pilot who ran the Tulsa Air and Space Museum, is a top contender.
"Fingers crossed," Miller writes of Bridenstine’s candidacy, according to a one email.
he White House and Miller did not respond to requests for comment.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, another commercial space evangelist with close ties to Trump, is also pushing the White House to embark on a major effort to privatize U.S. space efforts.
"A good part of the Trump administration would like a lot more aggressive, risk-taking, competitive entrepreneurial approach to space," Gingrich said in an interview. "A smaller but still powerful faction represents Boeing and the expensive old contractors who have soaked up money with minimum results.
"No NASA program dominated by bureaucrats could take the risks, accept the failures and create a learning curve comparable to an entrepreneurial approach," he added. "Just think of the Wright brothers’ 500 failures in five summers at $1 per failure. Ask how long NASA would have taken and how much it would have cost."
The more ambitious administration vision could include new moon landings that "see private American astronauts, on private space ships, circling the Moon by 2020; and private lunar landers staking out de facto 'property rights' for American on the Moon, by 2020 as well," according to a summary of an "agency action plan" that the transition drew up for NASA late last month. Source This is troubling. It seems to put the interests of a few key confidants ahead of reality. It almost reminds me of a monarch's court, where the nobles come to curry favor with the president, and get a grant that benefits them at the cost of everyone else. I'm with you on the comparison but I don't think its necessarily a bad thing. Coordination between corporate and state interests is going to become a critical thing with space exploration and exploration. The last thing we need is corporations getting uppity and thinking that they can form their own nations in space. Getting all the ducks swimming in the same direction to get to mars would speed up the process of getting there by a decade at least. especially without the will to fund it publicly. The problem is that he's (allegedly) basically throwing caution and reliability out the window in favor of supporting a group whose major selling point is essentially that they can reduce prices better than anyone else. For a field where a minor error means that you lose the cargo and in the case of a human flight, everybody dies, such a cavalier approach is most likely simply to yield poorly conceived rush jobs. Well isn't this what the government does anyway for a ton of its procurement? How many rockets and various parts therein were supplied by the lowest bidder? The difference is now that working with these corporations the risk is transferred off to the corporation and thus the blame. I can forsee problems if we built out the space station to the orbital dock it should always have been planned for but i'm sure that the government will enforce a series of standards if they want to be able to use assets like that. The "entrepreneurial" contractors are notorious for being very mediocre at complying with government inspections, seeing them as a bother that slows things down (well, they do, but it's for a good reason). The result may very well be that you get what you pay for: lower prices, lower quality. And let's just say that saving a little money on the launch of a project as big as the ISS (~$150 billion total worth) isn't worth the risk of failure from shoddy quality. Bottom line, price wars are good for some things, not others, and the "old space" just happens to be all the organizations that value reliability over cost. Focusing on "tech entrepreneurs" at the expense of those groups is good for reducing costs and making it more feasible to do a lot of lower-priority launches, but the "old space" folk absolutely exist for a reason. Doesn't NASA accept the lowest viable bidder on all its contracts? You seem to be suggesting that entrepreneurs are cost cutters unlike the government, but entrepreneurs have far more freedom to buy more expensive parts than government agencies. I'm not really sure what you're saying. The problem I have is that Trump seems to want to expand the scope of what the low-cost, low-to-moderate reliability "tech entrepreneur" folks do, at the cost of NASA and aerospace folk, who don't do it cheaply but do it with a greater reliability. Much of the reason the tech people are cheaper is a lower attention to safety concerns, mind you. Thats highly debatable. Smaller, younger organizations have far less overhead and have a greater propensity for technological agility and adaptation. The reason why tech people are cheaper could be that they use better tech.
That's a rather fantastical description that just doesn't really capture the real reason that they have cheaper rockets. Cost savings don't come out of nowhere.
There are a few reasons their costs are lower - cutting out contractors where it's appropriate, using hype to convince less expensive younguns to work twice as long, involving safety inspectors less, driving their asking price low enough that they probably don't make a profit off the launches, cutting corners in ways that compromise safety but reduce price, and so on. Your idea that "maybe they're just better technologists" reminds me of Mark Zuckerberg's "young people are just smarter" in its inability to capture the reality of the reasons behind the situation.
Though if you want to say that the "tech entrepreneur companies" have better software... you'd be right. They very much do.
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On February 10 2017 00:53 biology]major wrote:
Glad to see someone who is pro-life on this board, the modern democratic platform is very extreme regarding this topic and alienates a lot of people who lean on the side of pro-life and would prefer abortions not be used unless the most dire circumstances (rape, medical consequence to mom or fetus).
I consider myself pro-choice but would still prefer to see abortions only used in dire circumstances (doesn't include just not wanting an accidental child). But we have to recognize the Republican position untenable. If Republicans actually want to reduce abortions (or talk about the left's position regarding abortion) they can't keep preaching abstinence only and the related ridiculous sex ed/family planning stuff
On February 10 2017 01:01 kwizach wrote:This piece provides a great overview of how competent and dedicated a public servant he is.
Did you miss my question about his statement?
We heard loudly and clearly yesterday from Bernie supporters that the process was rigged and it was. And you’ve got to be honest about it. That’s why we need a chair who is transparent.
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On February 10 2017 01:03 brian wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2017 00:53 biology]major wrote:
Glad to see someone who is pro-life on this board, the modern democratic platform is very extreme regarding this topic and alienates a lot of people who lean on the side of pro-life and would prefer abortions (imo after first trimester)not be used unless the most dire circumstances (rape, medical consequence to mom or fetus). to clarify, is your opinion that in the first trimester abortion be legal regardless of the motivation? is that not precisely the democrats opinion on the matter?
The problem is with planned parenthood, a politically charged organization that has radical views on abortion rights. As long as the democratic party aligns itself with PP, their view doesn't matter, because PP is responsible for half the abortions that occur. It's the slippery slope argument, I am absolutely against abortion after the first trimester, but that doesn't mean an abortion at 10 weeks is easily justified either. A fetus at 12 weeks has ears, eyes, a nose, mouth, fingers, heart, and developing organs and nervous system.
Also the law that prevents PP from not using federal funds (probably half a billion dollars) to not fund their abortions is also suspsect. How are we supposed to account for that?
GH: The republicans are so backwards and wrong on this issue because they are blinded by religion. You can have access to contraceptives, sex education, maybe even federal support for cheap/free birth control and adoption services, but still restrict abortion.
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A former top official under President Obama is accusing White House counselor Kellyanne Conway of breaking the law by telling people to buy President Trump's daughter's clothing line in a TV interview.
Chris Lu, former deputy secretary of labor, on Thursday tweeted a screenshot of the federal ethics law he believes Conway was breaking.
"This is the federal ethics law that @KellyannePolls just violated," Lu tweeted, tagging the U.S. Office of Government Ethics and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Lu highlighted a portion which says: "An employee shall not use his public office for his own private gain, for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives."
The law applies to employees of an "agency," which is defined as "an Executive department, a Government corporation, and an independent establishment."
During an appearance Thursday on "Fox & Friends," Conway promoted Ivanka Trump's line of clothing and accessories.
"Go buy Ivanka's stuff, is what I would tell you," Conway said. "I hate shopping but I'm going to go get some for myself today."
"I'm going to give it a free commercial here, go buy it today," she said.
President Trump on Wednesday lashed out at Nordstrom for dropping his daughter's clothing line.
"My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person — always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!" he tweeted.
Nordstrom said Wednesday its decision to drop the clothing line was because of the brand's performance.
Source
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On February 10 2017 01:11 biology]major wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2017 01:03 brian wrote:On February 10 2017 00:53 biology]major wrote:
Glad to see someone who is pro-life on this board, the modern democratic platform is very extreme regarding this topic and alienates a lot of people who lean on the side of pro-life and would prefer abortions (imo after first trimester)not be used unless the most dire circumstances (rape, medical consequence to mom or fetus). to clarify, is your opinion that in the first trimester abortion be legal regardless of the motivation? is that not precisely the democrats opinion on the matter? The problem is with planned parenthood, a politically charged organization that has radical views on abortion rights. As long as the democratic party aligns itself with PP, their view doesn't matter, because PP is responsible for half the abortions that occur. It's the slippery slope argument, I am absolutely against abortion after the first trimester, but that doesn't mean an abortion at 10 weeks is easily justified either. A fetus at 12 weeks has ears, eyes, a nose, mouth, fingers, heart, and developing organs and nervous system. Also the law that prevents PP from not using federal funds (probably half a billion dollars) to not fund their abortions is also suspsect. How are we supposed to account for that? GH: The republicans are so backwards and wrong on this issue because they are blinded by religion. You can have access to contraceptives, sex education, maybe even federal support for cheap/free birth control and adoption services, but still restrict abortion.
You don't see the hipocracy of horse trading on when you feel its appropriate to take away a womans ability to have an abortion?
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United States42691 Posts
On February 10 2017 01:11 biology]major wrote:
Also the law that prevents PP from not using federal funds (probably half a billion dollars) to not fund their abortions is also suspsect. How are we supposed to account for that?
What you're thinking of is called Restricted Accounting. It's pretty common in public organizations and I do a lot of it when I'm not reading tl. Direct costs will either be clearly for abortion services or clearly for non abortion services. The salary of the abortion doctor, abortion. The cost of the pap smears, non abortion. Indirect costs could be both, and a management accountant will need to assign them, and provide justification for those. If 20% of the people who come in are coming in for abortion services then up to 80% of the salary of the receptionist could be paid with restricted funds, for example. If 30% of the square footage of the facility was the abortion clinic then 70% of the rent could be paid with the restricted funds.
In real terms if you have a lot of unrestricted funds which were generally (but not specifically) intended to pay for everything and then some restricted funds then the restriction is pretty irrelevant because money is fungible. You specifically allocate the restricted funds to things that meet their criteria, and in doing so you free up unrestricted funds which were previously used to pay for that, and you use them on abortions.
TLDR: Restricted accounting exists and it's totally a thing. But money is still fungible and when costs are shared between restricted and unrestricted accounts then you still end up with more money available for abortion when you fund cancer screening (assuming that money that was previously being split between cancer screening and abortion can now be redirected).
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On February 10 2017 01:17 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2017 01:11 biology]major wrote:On February 10 2017 01:03 brian wrote:On February 10 2017 00:53 biology]major wrote:
Glad to see someone who is pro-life on this board, the modern democratic platform is very extreme regarding this topic and alienates a lot of people who lean on the side of pro-life and would prefer abortions (imo after first trimester)not be used unless the most dire circumstances (rape, medical consequence to mom or fetus). to clarify, is your opinion that in the first trimester abortion be legal regardless of the motivation? is that not precisely the democrats opinion on the matter? The problem is with planned parenthood, a politically charged organization that has radical views on abortion rights. As long as the democratic party aligns itself with PP, their view doesn't matter, because PP is responsible for half the abortions that occur. It's the slippery slope argument, I am absolutely against abortion after the first trimester, but that doesn't mean an abortion at 10 weeks is easily justified either. A fetus at 12 weeks has ears, eyes, a nose, mouth, fingers, heart, and developing organs and nervous system. Also the law that prevents PP from not using federal funds (probably half a billion dollars) to not fund their abortions is also suspsect. How are we supposed to account for that? GH: The republicans are so backwards and wrong on this issue because they are blinded by religion. You can have access to contraceptives, sex education, maybe even federal support for cheap/free birth control and adoption services, but still restrict abortion. You don't see the hipocracy of horse trading on when you feel its appropriate to take away a womans ability to have an abortion?
The woman chose to get pregnant (outside of extreme scenarios), there is a responsibility element here. A baby didn't just instantly pop into her belly out of thin air due to random chance that she is now forced to carry. In that hypothetical situation I would say autonomy over your own body >= right to life by fetus. Buuuut its 2017, and there are plenty of contraceptive options, education with simple internet click and so on. If you are so poor that you can't afford any of this, then it's on you to avoid a pregnancy that you don't want. If that is too high of a expectation of people, so be it.
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On February 09 2017 15:52 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2017 14:45 WolfintheSheep wrote:On February 09 2017 14:29 cLutZ wrote:
I am making a value judgement, and I already think that, while overall medical spending in the US and EU is too high, the spending also directed way too much towards the routine and not R&D. This is because all of the systems encourage a kind of "factory" model for care, and obviously the EU systems are heavily focused on providing a baseline level of care that is standardized (basically the opposite of a normal market with high-cost first entries for the elite that trickle down to become standard ala cell phones).
That is actually a main feature of socialist healthcare systems. They are probably ideal if you think we are at or near the end of medical innovation, but if you don't they actually will make life expectancy for the world, long term, worse off. Which paints a completely inaccurate picture of the US being the sole source of medical innovation at present time. Hard to find R&D expenditure numbers that are solely isolated to medicine and healthcare, but the US' percentage contribution of total GDP to medical research seems about on par with other 1st world nations...including countries with "socialist healthcare". The US is by far the largest contributor, but that isn't because of ideology or capitalist practices, it's just total national finance. No. It greatly exceeds our national finance. Beware, linkstorm follows. 40% of drug company revenues and the overwhelming majority of their profits come from the U.S. market. [We are not 40% of even 1st world consumers] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hava-volterra/we-should-stop-subsidizin_b_999339.htmlEx-FDA President Similar Sentiments ("Even firms that are technically European are moving their most essential operations to the United States. http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Speeches/ucm053614.htmPfizer http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pfizer-europe-idUSBRE82C04J20120313"The American government could use its size, or use the law, to bargain down health care prices, as many European governments have done. In the short run, this would save money but in the longer run it would cost lives." http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/business/05scene.html?_r=0Howard Dean, for the lulz https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/19/opinion/impose-price-controls-on-drugs.html?_r=0
Again, measured by $ per capita, the US spends a lot more than the rest of the world:
But when compared to the GDP per capita, the US is still among the highest, but the percentage is about the same (slightly higher or lower) than countries such as Germany, Canada, Japan and South Korea, all of which have some form of national healthcare system (with varying implementation).
R&D expenditure in the US probably would drop, but it would be a slowdown, not a full drop off a cliff.
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On February 10 2017 01:24 biology]major wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2017 01:17 Sermokala wrote:On February 10 2017 01:11 biology]major wrote:On February 10 2017 01:03 brian wrote:On February 10 2017 00:53 biology]major wrote:
Glad to see someone who is pro-life on this board, the modern democratic platform is very extreme regarding this topic and alienates a lot of people who lean on the side of pro-life and would prefer abortions (imo after first trimester)not be used unless the most dire circumstances (rape, medical consequence to mom or fetus). to clarify, is your opinion that in the first trimester abortion be legal regardless of the motivation? is that not precisely the democrats opinion on the matter? The problem is with planned parenthood, a politically charged organization that has radical views on abortion rights. As long as the democratic party aligns itself with PP, their view doesn't matter, because PP is responsible for half the abortions that occur. It's the slippery slope argument, I am absolutely against abortion after the first trimester, but that doesn't mean an abortion at 10 weeks is easily justified either. A fetus at 12 weeks has ears, eyes, a nose, mouth, fingers, heart, and developing organs and nervous system. Also the law that prevents PP from not using federal funds (probably half a billion dollars) to not fund their abortions is also suspsect. How are we supposed to account for that? GH: The republicans are so backwards and wrong on this issue because they are blinded by religion. You can have access to contraceptives, sex education, maybe even federal support for cheap/free birth control and adoption services, but still restrict abortion. You don't see the hipocracy of horse trading on when you feel its appropriate to take away a womans ability to have an abortion? The woman chose to get pregnant (outside of extreme scenarios), there is a responsibility element here. A baby didn't just instantly pop into her belly out of thin air due to random chance that she is now forced to carry. In that hypothetical situation I would say autonomy over your own body >= right to life by fetus. Buuuut its 2017, and there are plenty of contraceptive options, education with simple internet click and so on. If you are so poor that you can't afford any of this, then it's on you to avoid a pregnancy that you don't want. If that is too high of a expectation of people, so be it.
Think about what you just said...
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On February 10 2017 01:21 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2017 01:11 biology]major wrote:
Also the law that prevents PP from not using federal funds (probably half a billion dollars) to not fund their abortions is also suspsect. How are we supposed to account for that? What you're thinking of is called Restricted Accounting. It's pretty common in public organizations and I do a lot of it when I'm not reading tl. Direct costs will either be clearly for abortion services or clearly for non abortion services. The salary of the abortion doctor, abortion. The cost of the pap smears, non abortion. Indirect costs could be both, and a management accountant will need to assign them, and provide justification for those. If 20% of the people who come in are coming in for abortion services then up to 80% of the salary of the receptionist could be paid with restricted funds, for example. If 30% of the square footage of the facility was the abortion clinic then 70% of the rent could be paid with the restricted funds. In real terms if you have a lot of unrestricted funds which were generally (but not specifically) intended to pay for everything and then some restricted funds then the restriction is pretty irrelevant because money is fungible. You specifically allocate the restricted funds to things that meet their criteria, and in doing so you free up unrestricted funds which were previously used to pay for that, and you use them on abortions. TLDR: Restricted accounting exists and it's totally a thing. But money is still fungible and when costs are shared between restricted and unrestricted accounts then you still end up with more money available for abortion when you fund cancer screening (assuming that money that was previously being split between cancer screening and abortion can now be redirected).
So what's the point? If unrestricted funds are now readily available to transferred to other services (abortions included)? It seems like this law was just a way for republicans to not feel any moral guilt, but it doesn't actually do anything in reality.
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On February 10 2017 01:26 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2017 01:24 biology]major wrote:On February 10 2017 01:17 Sermokala wrote:On February 10 2017 01:11 biology]major wrote:On February 10 2017 01:03 brian wrote:On February 10 2017 00:53 biology]major wrote:
Glad to see someone who is pro-life on this board, the modern democratic platform is very extreme regarding this topic and alienates a lot of people who lean on the side of pro-life and would prefer abortions (imo after first trimester)not be used unless the most dire circumstances (rape, medical consequence to mom or fetus). to clarify, is your opinion that in the first trimester abortion be legal regardless of the motivation? is that not precisely the democrats opinion on the matter? The problem is with planned parenthood, a politically charged organization that has radical views on abortion rights. As long as the democratic party aligns itself with PP, their view doesn't matter, because PP is responsible for half the abortions that occur. It's the slippery slope argument, I am absolutely against abortion after the first trimester, but that doesn't mean an abortion at 10 weeks is easily justified either. A fetus at 12 weeks has ears, eyes, a nose, mouth, fingers, heart, and developing organs and nervous system. Also the law that prevents PP from not using federal funds (probably half a billion dollars) to not fund their abortions is also suspsect. How are we supposed to account for that? GH: The republicans are so backwards and wrong on this issue because they are blinded by religion. You can have access to contraceptives, sex education, maybe even federal support for cheap/free birth control and adoption services, but still restrict abortion. You don't see the hipocracy of horse trading on when you feel its appropriate to take away a womans ability to have an abortion? The woman chose to get pregnant (outside of extreme scenarios), there is a responsibility element here. A baby didn't just instantly pop into her belly out of thin air due to random chance that she is now forced to carry. In that hypothetical situation I would say autonomy over your own body >= right to life by fetus. Buuuut its 2017, and there are plenty of contraceptive options, education with simple internet click and so on. If you are so poor that you can't afford any of this, then it's on you to avoid a pregnancy that you don't want. If that is too high of a expectation of people, so be it. Think about what you just said...
Sorry I meant chose to accept the risk of getting pregnant. Same thing in my mind.
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On February 10 2017 01:29 biology]major wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2017 01:21 KwarK wrote:On February 10 2017 01:11 biology]major wrote:
Also the law that prevents PP from not using federal funds (probably half a billion dollars) to not fund their abortions is also suspsect. How are we supposed to account for that? What you're thinking of is called Restricted Accounting. It's pretty common in public organizations and I do a lot of it when I'm not reading tl. Direct costs will either be clearly for abortion services or clearly for non abortion services. The salary of the abortion doctor, abortion. The cost of the pap smears, non abortion. Indirect costs could be both, and a management accountant will need to assign them, and provide justification for those. If 20% of the people who come in are coming in for abortion services then up to 80% of the salary of the receptionist could be paid with restricted funds, for example. If 30% of the square footage of the facility was the abortion clinic then 70% of the rent could be paid with the restricted funds. In real terms if you have a lot of unrestricted funds which were generally (but not specifically) intended to pay for everything and then some restricted funds then the restriction is pretty irrelevant because money is fungible. You specifically allocate the restricted funds to things that meet their criteria, and in doing so you free up unrestricted funds which were previously used to pay for that, and you use them on abortions. TLDR: Restricted accounting exists and it's totally a thing. But money is still fungible and when costs are shared between restricted and unrestricted accounts then you still end up with more money available for abortion when you fund cancer screening (assuming that money that was previously being split between cancer screening and abortion can now be redirected). So what's the point? If unrestricted funds are now readily available to transferred to other services (abortions included)? It seems like this law was just a way for republicans to not feel any moral guilt, but it doesn't actually do anything in reality.
You're completely missing the point. The money spent by PP that has anything to do with abortions comes from non federal sources. At the least it comes from the controversy created by PP about abortion. But this still means that there isn't anything to support federal money going to abortion related activities.
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United States42691 Posts
On February 10 2017 01:29 biology]major wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2017 01:21 KwarK wrote:On February 10 2017 01:11 biology]major wrote:
Also the law that prevents PP from not using federal funds (probably half a billion dollars) to not fund their abortions is also suspsect. How are we supposed to account for that? What you're thinking of is called Restricted Accounting. It's pretty common in public organizations and I do a lot of it when I'm not reading tl. Direct costs will either be clearly for abortion services or clearly for non abortion services. The salary of the abortion doctor, abortion. The cost of the pap smears, non abortion. Indirect costs could be both, and a management accountant will need to assign them, and provide justification for those. If 20% of the people who come in are coming in for abortion services then up to 80% of the salary of the receptionist could be paid with restricted funds, for example. If 30% of the square footage of the facility was the abortion clinic then 70% of the rent could be paid with the restricted funds. In real terms if you have a lot of unrestricted funds which were generally (but not specifically) intended to pay for everything and then some restricted funds then the restriction is pretty irrelevant because money is fungible. You specifically allocate the restricted funds to things that meet their criteria, and in doing so you free up unrestricted funds which were previously used to pay for that, and you use them on abortions. TLDR: Restricted accounting exists and it's totally a thing. But money is still fungible and when costs are shared between restricted and unrestricted accounts then you still end up with more money available for abortion when you fund cancer screening (assuming that money that was previously being split between cancer screening and abortion can now be redirected). So what's the point? If unrestricted funds are now readily available to transferred to other services (abortions included)? It seems like this law was just a way for republicans to not feel any moral guilt, but it doesn't actually do anything in reality.
Yep. It was posturing. A waste of time for all involved.
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Conway promoting Ivanka's products line from the White House, classy.
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United States42691 Posts
On February 10 2017 01:30 biology]major wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2017 01:26 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:On February 10 2017 01:24 biology]major wrote:On February 10 2017 01:17 Sermokala wrote:On February 10 2017 01:11 biology]major wrote:On February 10 2017 01:03 brian wrote:On February 10 2017 00:53 biology]major wrote:
Glad to see someone who is pro-life on this board, the modern democratic platform is very extreme regarding this topic and alienates a lot of people who lean on the side of pro-life and would prefer abortions (imo after first trimester)not be used unless the most dire circumstances (rape, medical consequence to mom or fetus). to clarify, is your opinion that in the first trimester abortion be legal regardless of the motivation? is that not precisely the democrats opinion on the matter? The problem is with planned parenthood, a politically charged organization that has radical views on abortion rights. As long as the democratic party aligns itself with PP, their view doesn't matter, because PP is responsible for half the abortions that occur. It's the slippery slope argument, I am absolutely against abortion after the first trimester, but that doesn't mean an abortion at 10 weeks is easily justified either. A fetus at 12 weeks has ears, eyes, a nose, mouth, fingers, heart, and developing organs and nervous system. Also the law that prevents PP from not using federal funds (probably half a billion dollars) to not fund their abortions is also suspsect. How are we supposed to account for that? GH: The republicans are so backwards and wrong on this issue because they are blinded by religion. You can have access to contraceptives, sex education, maybe even federal support for cheap/free birth control and adoption services, but still restrict abortion. You don't see the hipocracy of horse trading on when you feel its appropriate to take away a womans ability to have an abortion? The woman chose to get pregnant (outside of extreme scenarios), there is a responsibility element here. A baby didn't just instantly pop into her belly out of thin air due to random chance that she is now forced to carry. In that hypothetical situation I would say autonomy over your own body >= right to life by fetus. Buuuut its 2017, and there are plenty of contraceptive options, education with simple internet click and so on. If you are so poor that you can't afford any of this, then it's on you to avoid a pregnancy that you don't want. If that is too high of a expectation of people, so be it. Think about what you just said... Sorry I meant chose to accept the risk of getting pregnant. Same thing in my mind.
Out of curiousity, given the hypothetical small chance for a simultaneous failure of multiple contraceptive methods, would you still argue that a woman who uses a condom, a birth control pill and the withdrawal method has chosen to accept a risk of getting pregnant and therefore must accept the consequences of her action if all three fail? Is it possible for a woman to have heterosexual sex without, in your opinion, implicitly accepting the risk and therefore the consequences?
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On February 10 2017 01:30 biology]major wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2017 01:26 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:On February 10 2017 01:24 biology]major wrote:On February 10 2017 01:17 Sermokala wrote:On February 10 2017 01:11 biology]major wrote:On February 10 2017 01:03 brian wrote:On February 10 2017 00:53 biology]major wrote:
Glad to see someone who is pro-life on this board, the modern democratic platform is very extreme regarding this topic and alienates a lot of people who lean on the side of pro-life and would prefer abortions (imo after first trimester)not be used unless the most dire circumstances (rape, medical consequence to mom or fetus). to clarify, is your opinion that in the first trimester abortion be legal regardless of the motivation? is that not precisely the democrats opinion on the matter? The problem is with planned parenthood, a politically charged organization that has radical views on abortion rights. As long as the democratic party aligns itself with PP, their view doesn't matter, because PP is responsible for half the abortions that occur. It's the slippery slope argument, I am absolutely against abortion after the first trimester, but that doesn't mean an abortion at 10 weeks is easily justified either. A fetus at 12 weeks has ears, eyes, a nose, mouth, fingers, heart, and developing organs and nervous system. Also the law that prevents PP from not using federal funds (probably half a billion dollars) to not fund their abortions is also suspsect. How are we supposed to account for that? GH: The republicans are so backwards and wrong on this issue because they are blinded by religion. You can have access to contraceptives, sex education, maybe even federal support for cheap/free birth control and adoption services, but still restrict abortion. You don't see the hipocracy of horse trading on when you feel its appropriate to take away a womans ability to have an abortion? The woman chose to get pregnant (outside of extreme scenarios), there is a responsibility element here. A baby didn't just instantly pop into her belly out of thin air due to random chance that she is now forced to carry. In that hypothetical situation I would say autonomy over your own body >= right to life by fetus. Buuuut its 2017, and there are plenty of contraceptive options, education with simple internet click and so on. If you are so poor that you can't afford any of this, then it's on you to avoid a pregnancy that you don't want. If that is too high of a expectation of people, so be it. Think about what you just said... Sorry I meant chose to accept the risk of getting pregnant. Same thing in my mind.
In your mind, accepting the risk of getting pregnant by having sex (including protected sex) is the same thing as choosing to get pregnant?
edit: sniped!
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EPT
