EPTDing Dong, the wicked Dick is Dead
US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5342
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Zambrah
United States7393 Posts
Ding Dong, the wicked Dick is Dead | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States45246 Posts
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farvacola
United States18846 Posts
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Zambrah
United States7393 Posts
On November 05 2025 11:45 farvacola wrote: The murder fanatics are outperforming the polls in most races, imagine that Its nice in the moment, but likely they're going to fuck up the next few years and it'll probably switch back over. God willing they wisen up and take as much drastic action as they can, but Im not one to put money on Democrats being wise. | ||
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ChristianS
United States3288 Posts
On November 05 2025 00:15 oBlade wrote: + Show Spoiler + On November 04 2025 13:49 ChristianS wrote: Sure, all of which to say when they wanted that stuff they were happy to find the votes, or maybe just schmooze up to their rich buddies and get it done that way. But food stamps? Fuck em. Health care premiums more than doubling? Oh we think that’s good actually. They require different numbers of votes. You can only do budget reconciliation without a cloture vote once a year. There are parliamentary limits to what this can apply to. You can't for example use that to set fiscal policy and budgets for the next 20 years. On November 04 2025 13:49 ChristianS wrote: By their own admission they’re so determined to *ensuring* that people’s healthcare premiums go up that they’re willing to accept all the other consequences of the shutdown. I have no doubt Democrats would happily help them pass something that funded SNAP in the interim, but clearly Republicans have no interest in that either. If Republicans didn't want it to pass, Democrats should have called their bluff by allowing a vote on it, which would then force Republicans in the Senate to vote no on their own bill. Since it already passed the House. Or make them double bluff forcing Trump to veto it. I said Democrats would be happy to pass something funding SNAP in the interim (i.e., until a budget deal can be reached on everything else) and your response is to say, no, that’s not true, because they didn’t just capitulate to the Republicans on the budget deal? I guess I could chalk that up to me being unclear, but that would mean you came away from our discussion thinking I said Democrats would be happy to fund the government with a “clean CR” (that extends most funding but doesn’t extend the healthcare subsidies), and I just don’t see how that can be true. What you think I'm saying: Trump both can't and shouldn't deplete USDA contingency fund on partial SNAP benefits. Why you think I can't: You fancy that I ignored something else 6-7 years ago? Firstly, I'm not Trump. If he had used the USDA contingency fund to build the wall, that would be a clear problem. The money he used to address the border at the end of his first term was taken from a few sources, including drug task force funds. Drug interdiction is a key part of border security and that sounds 100% on the money. Legally because it's called "contingency fund" that doesn't necessarily mean it's "carte blanche use this money on whatever you think is good." Like USAID wasn't about "aid," but the agency for international development. Names are different than things. Now it may be permitted, or not, or a gray area. In this case it's probably a good idea, but there's a reason not to take that for granted: Imagine a town has a 911 emergency fund for services like police, hospitals, ambulance, fire, rescue. The fund is half the monthly budget of any of those departments. Now imagine the government was so busy doing nothing that they forgot to fund ambulances. The ambulance program just stopped. Some people would be inconvenienced, some suffer, some even die. Seems clear we should just fund the ambulance program for half a month and also hope the government will notice and officially support it again. But this time it's wildfire season. There's a significant chance of an event that without the fire department and other access to that money, many times more people will die than those who just couldn't get the ambulance. It's not so clear now and that's why there are rules. Idea: But can't you just fund the ambulance and then get the people who control funding to make a new emergency fund when there's a wildfire? Possibly, except if they can't figure out how to fund ambulances they're not likely to be particularly on the ball for the wildfire either. In our USDA case the unforeseen disasters don't seem likely or that risky, and so even if were technically not legal it's not likely to be challenged, or stopped before it happens anyway. But in either case after a max of one more month benefits it's still back to the same problem: Now what? Despite the fraud and unnecessary use, feeding people is good. But incentivizing the people whose job is to fund the government to not fund it because you can pull rabbits out of hats occasionally is not a smart habit to be falling into. Again, all this appealing to following proper procedure is just ludicrous given the nearly-a-year we’ve just lived through. It’s currently this administration’s position that if Congress funds a program, or even an *entire agency,* and the President doesn’t like it, he can unilaterally delete it from existence. That’s aside from all the other things they think the executive can unilaterally decide to do in violation of plain-text law. We can talk through some examples if you’re really that skeptical on this point, but it seems like a waste of time for both of us? Then there’s the “rescissions” business, where after refusing to execute what Congress lawfully enacted (that is, nominally, the executive’s whole purpose, no?) he demanded that Congress retroactively pass something saying that oh, we changed our mind about wanting that to happen anyway. Rescissions aren’t subject to the 60-vote filibuster so this kind of backfills some legality to an otherwise lawless process, but it also completely breaks the budget negotiation process. Why agree to a deal if the other side is going to refuse to honor it? They’ve already done it before *this year*. Can we agree, at least, that if Republicans were willing to extend the healthcare subsidies that are going to more than double a lot of people’s premiums when they expire, they could already have the government open again? | ||
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Doublemint
Austria8703 Posts
On November 05 2025 11:52 Zambrah wrote: Its nice in the moment, but likely they're going to fuck up the next few years and it'll probably switch back over. God willing they wisen up and take as much drastic action as they can, but Im not one to put money on Democrats being wise. yeah I am afraid that holds true, Dem leadership is still gonna suck for a while. Schumer's days are numbered though, you can not not endorse the guy who went from literally zero to hero. also Mamdani's campaign will be studied at how expertly run and executed it was. he himself is ridiculously charming and sharp in every interview. watch his Fox interview. next gen Obama levels of rizz as the kids might say. | ||
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Zambrah
United States7393 Posts
On November 05 2025 12:10 Doublemint wrote: yeah I am afraid that holds true, Dem leadership is still gonna suck for a while. Schumer's days are numbered though, you can not not endorse the guy who went from literally zero to hero. also Mamdani's campaign will be studied at how expertly run and executed it was. he himself is ridiculously charming and sharp in every interview. watch his Fox interview. next gen Obama levels of rizz as the kids might say. Yeah, Mamdani had a high quality campaign and a high quality level of charisma, I hope they take away from it that Americans want bold visions for a better future from a candidate with clear authenticity, but I think they’ll ignore Mamdani and take Spanberger as their template and continue believing that moderate centrists with blah platitudes are the way forward. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17232 Posts
I think transit fares should be 1/3 what they are now. I think absolutely free is a bad idea. In general, I think all public transit fares in all cities should be ~1/3 their free/open market value. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States45246 Posts
On November 05 2025 12:56 JimmyJRaynor wrote: When will we get free public transit in NYC? I think transit fares should be 1/3 what they are now. I think absolutely free is a bad idea. In general, I think all public transit fares in all cities should be ~1/3 their free/open market value. Why 1/3? | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17232 Posts
the porridge is not too hot and its not too cold.. its just right. totally free leads to abuse. prices at their revenue maximizing point are unfair to the working poor who make up a large portion of the riders. It is not just NYC that has painted itself into this corner with fares at revenue maximizing levels. Boston, San Fran, Toronto, Chicago and Montreal are also in this same conundrum. Republicans love Reagan... welp.. let's go back to the glory days of the 80s and return fares to 1/3 their open market value. So, fares in NYC should be a bit less than a $1. | ||
micronesia
United States24753 Posts
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Fleetfeet
Canada2628 Posts
In my city, public transit feels relatively cheap/affordable, and is typically 1/4 to 1/8th the cost of an uber. Public transit also operates at a loss and is effectively subsidized by the city for about 50% of the overall cost. How bad is New York? Short google says transit prices are around $3, Uber prices easily 5 times that, and NY transit operates at a loss similar to that 50% of the overall cost. Napkin math suggests 1/3 of their free or open market value is what transit is at already. Granted, that's 5 minutes of googling into napkin math, so feel free to provide better data. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17232 Posts
According to some libertarian theorists all people should pay the tax to cover the state enforcement of every contract they're engaged in. So a single person in a bachelor apartment working a single job would pay very little. This person has very few contracts requiring enforcement. A billionaire who owns 20 locations in NYC, employs 400 people, and has 50,000 customers is engaged in many orders of magnitude more contracts/agreements. This billionaire is relying on the power of the state and court system to enforce the 34349084390 contracts/agreements he has. Thus, the billionaire should be paying a lot of tax. So there, the socialists and libertarians are now both happy.  | ||
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KT_Elwood
Germany1108 Posts
![[image loading]](https://static.politico.com/c8/f2/b228b09b4838b9ef64f9e50c9dfe/ap21306613462638.jpg) "I helped" | ||
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pmh
1399 Posts
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Acrofales
Spain18204 Posts
On November 05 2025 13:05 JimmyJRaynor wrote: the porridge is not too hot and its not too cold.. its just right. totally free leads to abuse. prices at their revenue maximizing point are unfair to the working poor who make up a large portion of the riders. It is not just NYC that has painted itself into this corner with fares at revenue maximizing levels. Boston, San Fran, Toronto, Chicago and Montreal are also in this same conundrum. Republicans love Reagan... welp.. let's go back to the glory days of the 80s and return fares to 1/3 their open market value. So, fares in NYC should be a bit less than a $1. Public transit was totally free in Spanish cities for about 4 years. The problem wasn't abuse. There was no abuse. How do you "abuse" free public transport? People either have to travel or they don't. They don't suddenly decide to travel because it's free. What they obviously decide to do is take the train instead of the car, because it's free. That's not abuse. That's the intended purpose. That said, the system was rolled back because it was too expensive, and instead there's a compromise: free/very cheap public transport for under-30s and a low price cap for repeat travel for everybody else. It is probably the better use of money: if you take local transport more than 10 times a month it's still cheaper than anything pre-Covid (and that's the cap, so traveling 11 times or traveling 200 times costs the same 20 €). It seems reasonable, but I'm not the target of it regardless: I WFH and have enough disposable income that a train ticket every now and then is not the issue. I think that a better system is possible, where tolls are reinstated on the national roads (expired in 2021 and weren't renewed) and the gains are used to fund public transport. | ||
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Uldridge
Belgium5032 Posts
The only times trains in Belgium are "full", is during peak commuting hours. Other than that.. nearly empty always. So, trains are basically always operating at a loss. I think the only way we can even closely approach breaking even is by pricing singular tickets quite highly and banking on tons of people buying a season ticket (3m, 6m, 1y) and that being priced in a way so it more or less gets them by. Also, government subsidizing. By the way, the more I think about it, the more I think costs for goods in society should be proportional to your income. You earn 500k per year? You pay 10 times more (or some % more) for an apple or eggs than someone who earns just 50k per year. You still won't feel it as much, but the revenue coming back to other people will be quite significant imo. Nobody will support this obviously. | ||
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oBlade
United States5853 Posts
On November 05 2025 12:01 ChristianS wrote: I said Democrats would be happy to pass something funding SNAP in the interim (i.e., until a budget deal can be reached on everything else) and your response is to say, no, that’s not true, because they didn’t just capitulate to the Republicans on the budget deal? I guess I could chalk that up to me being unclear, but that would mean you came away from our discussion thinking I said Democrats would be happy to fund the government with a “clean CR” (that extends most funding but doesn’t extend the healthcare subsidies), and I just don’t see how that can be true. "Something" means something that ONLY funds SNAP? Because SNAP is a good thing that should be funded? If Democrats would be happy to pass something that funds just specifically SNAP because it's good, what about something that also only funds ATC - because it's good? What about something that also only funds education because it's good? What about something that also only funds FEMA because it's good and winter storms are coming? What about you put all of those things together? Then you have a CR. Why only SNAP? I don't see anything special about SNAP that means it alone should be exempt from the strategy of not funding anything everybody agrees on until they get the exact health insurance subsidy policy they want. | ||
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Lmui
Canada6221 Posts
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-09/how-vancouver-s-translink-escaped-the-public-transit-death-spiral I work from home most days now, but I was a transit user through university/early career. Not needing to drive to work/school saved me literally thousands of dollars a year in parking/insurance/gas, at the cost of ~40 min of extra transit time each day. I still owned a car for evenings/weekends, but I probably could've gotten away with a carshare instead. | ||
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Uldridge
Belgium5032 Posts
In any case, being able to read/work/sleep during commuting is so undervalued. | ||
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