posted
That's basically my take on it too. I wish that this was kept as a pure stimulus bill but it doesn't look that Congress can pass any big bill that is only for the purpose it is supposed to be for. There are definitely things that shouldn't be there, but the GOP have done themselves no favors by the kind of stupid way they've gone about opposing it.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: Not at all. $50m is still $50m that we do not need to spend at this moment. I thought we had to reduce spending?
I'm srsly?
Spending is not supposed to reduce. The *way* you spend money is supposed to change. Same goes for the government- whether they reduce budgets by decreasing taxes or streamlining or both, the extra money is meant to be spent. It has to be spent to do any good... or else it's nothing.
If the U.S. Government starts just cutting its own programs with no other plans for the money it has generated, so that it just sits there, then we really will be in economic trouble.
Plus, I'm feeling like you just don't *get it* on this one. Assume for a moment that 50M in art grants would contribute a net positive benefit to the national economy over the next decade of about 10% per dollar, adding 5M in value over 10 years. Do you think that our nation would be helped if we cut programs that were known to generate such a return to our national economy over long periods of time? What is a more wise use of the money?
Where is it going to go? I'm being completely dull-headed here, but really, where? If it weren't being spent on *something* then it would go into a bank. The money would be invested by the bank in commercial enterprises at similar, or possibly lower rates. The rate of return would most certainly be lower.
I am not an economist or a financial expert, but I think, from all I've learned in the past 6 months or so, that all money is being spent all the time. If it's money, someone is using it somewhere for something. Money doesn't ever just sit and rot.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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The phase "throwing money at the problem" I think is often misused these days. If a hospital needs a new x-ray machine to help diagnose patients and says they need $40,000 to do it, then spending $40,000 to buy a new x-ray machine isn't just "throwing money at the problem," it's investing money to SOLVE a problem.
I think it's used far too often as a scare phrase these days to attempt to paint anything one might not like as wasteful spending. Given the purpose of the bill, I don't even mind a little bit of "pork," so long as it's the right kind. If it's to build a new road, then no, as that'll just increase long term maintenance costs and increase sprawl, but if it's to fix a local road that's in a state of disrepair, sure, or to help start a local business, sure. The whole point of this thing is long term and short term shots to stimulate growth, and sometimes that means spending money in someone's home district to do it.
I think if anything it'd be a challenge to spend that much money and NOT have it directly effect any specific Representative's home district, if not entirely impossible. I have some problems with this bill as well. I don't think it's perfect. But I think it might work. As far as I'm concerned, I like getting value for my money. Tax cuts don't do that. Tax cuts reduce income to the federal government in exchange for short term gains in the economy that never pay for the tax cuts themselves. But necessary infrastructure improvements can create jobs that'll do much the same thing, but at the end of the day we'll have an upgraded energy infrastructure and better roads, pipes and bridges. We have to spend the money eventually anyway, why not spend it now? I don't get what Republicans have against spending on infrastructure. You think this stuff just lasts forever?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
There's a great open letter to the Obama administration posted by Rebecca MacKinnon, a former bureau chief for CNN in Beijing who is now based in Hong Kong.
The actual letter isn't terribly long and I encourage Americans to read it, but here's a bit of it.
quote:Originally posted by Rebecca MacKinnon:
The point is that while these people are not citizens of a democracy, they are by no means an undifferentiated mass of brainwashed drones. Despite often crude censorship of the Internet and state-run media, despite manipulation, intimidation of dissidents and political astro-turfing of the blogosphere by paid commentators, there is no unity of thought in China today. Civic minded citizens manage to hold wide-ranging debates on the Chinese Internet, in living rooms, dormitories, office break rooms, and classrooms about many public issues. Reading the Chinese blogs I've found all kinds of views about you and your new administration. Many are inspired by your personal story and the idea of truly equal opportunity that you represent. Others hope that you will be more forthright and principled on human rights issues than the Bush administration was. Others are very concerned that you will be protectionist in order to help the American people in the short run, and that this will hurt the Chinese people economically. Others lament cynically that no matter what happens, the rich and powerful in both countries will be the relationship's main beneficiaries.
The Chinese government will have greater incentive to work with you on creative solutions to complex problems if your diplomats can do a better job of reassuring ordinary Chinese that you do actually care whether U.S.-China policy outcomes will benefit them -- not just China's commercial and political elites. Right now, frankly, they're not convinced...
quote: Duh. I was asking "what about this, how does it contribute?" A rhetorical question- not a challenge.
Duh? Nice tone. I was providing information in response to your post which you now label as rhetorical. Fair enough. I am regarding all of your posts as rhetorical and will not respond to them.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:I'm surprised by the GOP apprehension to the stimulus bill.
I'm not. It's political positioning. They don't expect the economy to recover within four years, so by making this entirely the Democrats' baby, they can make a run at the elections by claiming the Dems have failed to fix the economy.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Dude, one sentence in the post is rhetorical. I was correcting the assumption you made about what I said. Feel free to ignore everything else I've said (which you did).
And DK, honestly, take your ball and go home if you don't want to play with the other kids. I weep for you.
Posts: 79 | Registered: Jan 2009
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quote:Amid all the anticipation of Obama's stimulus package, Americans should realize that its effects aren't likely to be felt until the economy is already rebounding on its own.
quote: The main obstacle to the ability of fiscal-policy measures to influence the path for the economy this year is that they usually require a frustratingly long amount of time to work their way through the system. President-elect Obama's claim that his economic team has, in collaboration with governors around the country, already identified a significant number of infrastructure projects that are ready-to-go once funding is approved, is encouraging on the face of it. But it needs to be viewed with some caution. The sheer scale of the spending involved makes it hard to identify enough such projects that can be immediately implemented.
In fact, this poses a distinct risk that would undermine Obama's recent statement that he has extracted a promise from Congressional leaders that the fiscal package, in an effort to eliminate wasteful spending, will not contain earmarks. In the rush to spend a large, pre-committed amount of money, projects of dubious quality and long-term value to the economy will start creeping into the package. The side effect of that prospect is that at least a portion of the total fiscal package may have very minimal contribution to economic activity over the next year or two. Differently put, bridges-to-nowhere may well be a quick way to spend the money but do little to set into motion a productive expansionary dynamic for the broader economy.
All in all, the legitimate infrastructure spending, which in its expanded form would include Obama's ambitious plans to invest heavily in renewable energy sources, will most likely not start coming on line until the fourth quarter of the year and its full effect is at least 12 to 18 months away. In other words, the fiscal stimulus measures that the incoming Administration will be pushing through are more a 2010 story.
The same needs to be recognized regarding the new President's assertion last week that his economic stimulus plan will create or save between 3 and 4 million jobs over the next two years. Even if these numbers were to be momentarily accepted at face value, the job creation almost certainly be heavily back-loaded. It's precisely for that reason that the Obama team is referring to such expected outcomes over the time frame of the next two years, carefully refraining from attaching a specific estimate to 2009 alone.
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KMB, Do you think Democrats would have passed this kind of legislation under Bush? Democratic Party on Budget & Economy Back in 2006 the Democrat party line was all about pay as you go and fiscal discipline.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
That's not unreasonable, considering it was the minority party, trying to reign in an administration that was spending us into record debt. Now that democrats are in control, they want to spend more money on the things they think will work, and are important. That doesn't exactly match up with was the GOP thought would work and was important in 2006. And guess what, the GOP failed miserably in the last 8 years, and the democrats, at least in 2006, were right. It's 2009 now, and things have changed. It's not even that they've changed their minds, the situation is now different. It's a lot worse.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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For the record, I do think that there should have been more infrastructure spending under President Clinton.
ETA: However, my point is that we can't go back in time to make those emergency measures work any faster than they are going to work. If this is, as Paul Krugman suggested (IIRC) an "L" shaped recession rather than a "V" shaped recession, we are still going to need that spending next year or two years from now.
Tax breaks wouldn't hit till next year either. We tried stimulus checks to very little benefit.
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We can dramatically cut virtually all federal tax rates today. Cut corporate, capital gains, and individuals taxes to very low rates and keep them low for a year. This is more money in your check every pay period starting the very first week. You could cut the bottom bracket from 10% to 2%, 15% to 6%, 25% to 13%, 28% to 15%, and so on. For corporate taxes we could do much the same with the same reductions. We could also eliminate capital gains taxes for the first year. After one year we start with a phased in, top down, tax increases for corporations and individuals. Those at the bottom will have their taxes stay the lowest for the longest. After one year of new capital gains taxes we slowly raise that tax to a max of 10%.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Which would only work if people spent all the money they get in tax breaks.
Spent, not saved for a rainy day, not paid down their debt, not spent on imported anything.
In which case, since we need roads and bridges (some of them lead to places) and levies and so forth, it makes sense to spend it.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: So is anyone actually surprised that Obama hired that witch Samantha Powers back again?
Nope.
Every one knew that her leaving during the campaign was just a political move to get the issue off of Obama. It's zero surprise that he'd bring her back in, or that he'd put her in a senior foreign policy leadership position.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
They don't have to spend it all. Paying off debt can free up credit, especially in the housing market. Putting money in the bank gives the bank more capital to work with as well. This is the short term help while we work on the best plans and efficient use of money for roads, bridges, levies and so forth. We already have money coming in from our gas taxes to spend on roads and the rest. We can start planning for more expensive long term road etc fixes and make sure we are making better choices instead of pave now, tear up to lay new pipes, and pave again.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
And in those 8 years we never had a good economy with low unemployment? When the tax cuts were imposed, did the economy improve? Were the tax cuts this dramatic?
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:We already have money coming in from our gas taxes to spend on roads and the rest.
You think so do you?
Sure, more money is coming in, but decreased consumption has the National Highway Trust Fund near the breaking point. The gas tax needs a serious boost.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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DK: the recovery from the early 2000s recession was the weakest recovery from a recession in decades. Since WW2, if I recall correctly.
The employment figures were pretty good, but not as good as they looked. Under the direction of the Bush administration, the rules for counting unemployment were changed (especially birth/death rate calculations). Many effective job losses are only now being realized in the statistics, contributing to the particularly large job losses at the start of the current situation.
So, no, Bush's tax cuts, despite being historically very large, on the whole had an abysmal record if you're taking the performance of the economy as an indicator.
Your idea is a very bad one. It would skyrocket both government debt and inflation (everyone has more money? Businesses will charge more money) to little positive effect. The crux of delays to current recovery seem to lie with uncertainty by banks and other institutional investors in the reliability of businesses and other institutions backing financial instruments. A massive, temporary tax cut does absolutely nothing to allay those doubts. Instead, it feeds them, since only if many institutions were in even more trouble than currently thought would such a plan be considered even vaguely a wise course of action.
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I admire President Obama's call for personal responsibility, but I'm worried that he's not leading by example. Certainly corporate bonuses for leaders of troubled companies are a bad idea, but Pres. Obama threw a very expensive cocktail party 2 days ago.
Now I feel that the leader of our country should live well and that the Office of the Presidency should be honored appropriately. I don't begrude him the very costly inauguration and I enjoyed watching it (and, yes, I watched mostly for the clothes (which were spectacular)). However, I don't like being told, "Do as I say, not as I do." I'm not arguing that he should lead a spartan lifestyle, but maybe don't serve kobe beef and high-end alcohol unless it's a very special occassion. And don't crank the thermostat when you admonished people about it.
Posts: 3037 | Registered: Jan 2002
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This is one of those "lose/lose" situations. People made fun of Carter for turning down the thermostat.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I'm not making fun of him. I just don't want to be told not to keep my thermostat at 72 (which I don't anyway) by someone who keeps his at 76.
Posts: 3037 | Registered: Jan 2002
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I would guess that the White House is a prime location for doing some winterizing. What a great photo op - President Obama with one of those 3M kits and a blow dryer working on the oval office windows.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote: Sure, more money is coming in, but decreased consumption has the National Highway Trust Fund near the breaking point. The gas tax needs a serious boost.
We need another way to fund our highways if we plan on not using gas as much in the future. Raising the gas tax is not a very viable option as the more we raise it the less we will use. Just like cigarettes.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
American-raised Wagyu beef was served, not Kobe beef. Wagyu beef is not Kobe beef, in the manner that Korbel is not DomPérignon. Wagyu is the name of a cattle breed. Kobe denotes a Japanese method of raising Wagyu with luxury resort pampering.
quote: Sure, more money is coming in, but decreased consumption has the National Highway Trust Fund near the breaking point. The gas tax needs a serious boost.
We need another way to fund our highways if we plan on not using gas as much in the future. Raising the gas tax is not a very viable option as the more we raise it the less we will use. Just like cigarettes.
Yes and no. Regardless, then you're back to paying for roads out of the general coffers, which you just said we shouldn't do.
Yes, though, because the higher the price of gas goes, the less people drive, and the less money comes in, and it just keeps going up. But no, because the less people drive, the fewer roads you actually have to maintain. The problem is that we're trying to sustain an unsustainable transportation infrastructure. We need more mass transit and higher gas taxes, which go hand in hand. One forces them off the road, and the other gives them a viable alternative. Building more new roads just increases sprawl and gives us MORE stuff to fix in the long run.
Either way, now is the perfect time to raise the gas tax.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
We're hoping to get a tiny piece of it to help fund a light rail line from Detroit out into the suburbs. It'll do wonders for everyone economically and to cut down on congestion.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
"We need another way to fund our highways..."
...whether or not fuel taxes are raised or decreased. A 6600pound/3tonne* Expedition causes far more than 3times as much road damage as a 2200pound/1tonne CRX. Road damage goes up exponentially with weight. If I remember correctly, a maximum-load 80,000pound/36tonne tractor-trailer rig causes substantially more than 300times as much road damage as a subcompact car.
As is, drivers of light-weight vehicles are subsidizing drivers of heavy-weights in both fuel and road repair.
posted
Couldn't one surmise that lighter weight cars are more fuel efficient and thus pay for less gas than heavier weight cars? Or does the ratio still not work out right? I wouldn't be surprised if the CRX got three times the gas mileage that the Expedition did.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Nope, was just memories of old articles inregard to how eg the heavy-trucking industry is hyper-subsidized in comparison to railroads, why semis should pay higher road-use fees, etc.
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hrrm... "Roadway wear also increases exponentially with axle weight (between the third and fourth power), so heavy vehicles impose much greater maintenance and repair costs than lighter vehicles. A heavy truck imposes roadway costs equal to hundreds or thousands of light vehicles, depending on weight and road type."
The 40ton truck is assumed to have 4or5 axles (10or8tons per axle) while the 1ton vehicle is assumed to have 2 axles (0.5tons per axle): ie a 20to1 or a 16to1 weight-per-axle ratio when comparing heavy trucks to personal transportation, depending on where "between the third and fourth power" the exponent lies.
"Couldn't one surmise that lighter weight cars are more fuel efficient and thus pay for less gas than heavier weight cars? Or does the ratio still not work out right? I wouldn't be surprised if the CRX got three times the gas mileage that the Expedition did."
Actually the CRX HF(HighFuelEfficiency) got up to 52miles per gallon on the highway (at the old EPA test-speed limit of 55miles per hour), while the Expedition gets 18mpg (at the new federal testing limit of 65mph).
While the CRX HF would have to get 65% more horse power to the wheels in order to test at the new standard (equivalent to air-resistance), really hard to compare directly: 1) The amount of power used to overcome powertrain resistance remains (closer to) constant as the amount of horsepower increases, so the ratio between powertrain resistance and horsepower decreases as horsepower increases. Or something like that 2) The gear ratio has to be tuned to engine rpm in order to maximize fuel efficiency. 3) The engine has to be reengineered, beefed up and tuned to have the highest efficiency at test speed (equivalent on the dynometer) 4) The transmission has to be beefed up to take the extra horsepower. 5) The car frame has to be strengthened for the extra weight of the engine and transmission, and the extra weight of the strengthened frame. ETC including all the new required safety equipment and frame-deformation requirements, plus more frame weight to carry the safey-requirement weights.
So an old CRX HF wouldn't be nearly as efficient in converting engine power to the new highway-test speed. And one newly engineered for the same performance (eg 0to60 in 12seconds) wouldn't be the same vehicle, and would probably be heavier.
Then there are typical driving habits: I've noticed Expedition drivers almost always opt for the bigger engine, and like to accelerate and brake as if they're driving sports cars.
I chose the two examples only for arithmentic simplicity, cuz the CRX HF weighed only a bit less than 1tonne while the Expedition weighed only a bit more than 3tonnes.
Still, the Expedition produces a 27+times* more road damage than the old CRX HF, and the Expedition driver pays only ~3to4times as much in gas taxes (depending on driving habits) as a CRX driver.
* Probably considerably less than 27times on Interstate freeways, which were engineered&built to meet much higher strength&durability standards than typical state&local roads. Mostly cuz the US military (and General-then-PresidentEisenhower) admired how the (over)engineering of the German Autobahn made it easy to quickly transport HEAVY war machinery such as tanks.
posted
But the heavier weight of those big semis is spread out over many more tires--bigger tires, each with a broader "footprint." Only if the full weight of a semi were loaded onto four typical automobiles tires could it be true that semis cause "9,000 times" as much damage to roads. But then the tires would blow out, so it couldn't happen.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Nearly the entirety of damage done to roads and highways comes from two sources: over-limit loads (tens of thousands of which travel across states, both legally and illegally), and weather.
Standard wear and tear from regular vehicles does nearly nothing in comparison.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
The broader footprint of the more and bigger tires probably goes up roughly proportional to the weight. So even taking that into account, road damage would still go up as the 2nd or 3rd power of weight (if aspectre's link is correct).
And edit: regardless, it's not exponential, it's polynomial. Exponential increases typically only appear when a process feeds back on itself (e.g., a critical mass of a nuclear isotope, bacterial growth, or, in an ideal world, my bank account).
Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jan 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Mike: The broader footprint of the more and bigger tires probably goes up roughly proportional to the weight. So even taking that into account, road damage would still go up as the 2nd or 3rd power of weight (if aspectre's link is correct).
You're saying a 2 ton vehicle has 1/10th the footprint of a 20 ton vehicle, or 1/15th that of a 30 ton vehicle? Methinks you don't see many lorries on the road with 40 or 60 tires that are twice as big as standard car tires. 16-18 tires is more normal.
But still, just because the weight is distributed across more tires, you still have 4 times the number of tires on the road, and 10-15 times the weight (or considerably more) spread across those tires. That's a considerably larger amount of wear. Even if the vehicle weighed exactly the same per-tire, you would be talking about at least 4 times the damage per vehicle.
But I think the point is that there is a greater effect on the road of 16 wheels with 20 tons of weight on them passing than even 4 cars weighing 5 tons each. All that weight in the 16 wheeler is passing over the road all at once. I'm also no physicist, but I think the extra weight changes the equation significantly, so you can't just look at it as if cumulative wear of all types is equal. Even ignoring everything else, the weight distribution in a 16-wheeler is not as smooth as a modern 4-wheel car, which means the force of individual wheels on the ground in a 16 wheeler can be great at any one moment. Have you ever heard a 16 wheeler drive over a slight bump or imperfection in the grade of a road? BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM. The sets of wheels all do their added damage separately.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
The materials used in road construction are designed to maintain well when driven on by all vehicles up to a certain weight limit. So we set that as a weight limit for vehicles. And this would result in a very low level of road degradation, were it not for the fact that this weight limit gets flaunted regularly.
The legal stuff is oversized loads (like when they commonly move mobile homes and stuff) and approved high-weight loads. The highway authority has to as a practical matter allow it often. And plenty more overweight loads go over illegally.
When a semi or something way over the street's load limit goes over that street's tested load bearing capacity, it smushes it in weird ways and degrades the quality. Segmented concrete roads suffer the worst from it. It's what deforms them in the way that makes your car start 'wobbling' over them.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:And this would result in a very low level of road degradation, were it not for the fact that this weight limit gets flaunted regularly.
See also, chains and studded tires when there's no ice on the road.
I've never actually seen this in my life. Is this something that goes on in the north or the east or something? Because it sounds like the most ridiculous things anyone could choose to do- leaving chains on their tires.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I haven't seen it either, but I could see it happening if the weather is on-again-off-again icy, and you don't feel like removing and adding the chains over and over again.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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If you're moving from country and side roads that require chains to move down and onto main roads that actually get plows and salt.
The side street in front of my house has been a skating rink for about a month and a half now, but the main road nearby and the freeways are frequently cleared. I imagine it's a lot worse further up north, or especially in the UP and the west where they get more lake effect snow.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Tire chains are so much trouble, few people use them, unless they make frequent trips over the high northern mountain passes in Idaho or Montana, where they might actually be required during declared snow emergencies.
What used to be more common is tire studs, which were permanently embedded into the tire treads. You could pull them out with pliers. These caused so much damage to paved road surfaces, because people left them in year around, that they have been outlawed pretty much everywhere.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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