BaltACDEducation and Healthcare are THE CRITICAL infrastructure elements for us as a country. There is too much of 'I don't have children anymore, so I don't want to pay for education' that floats in the population; as well as 'I have healthcare - let them die'.
Once again, education and healthcare are not infrastructure. No one here is saying that education and healthcare are not important.
By the way, of the 37 countries that are in the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), the United States ranks fifth in spending per full time equivalent student in elementary and secondary schools. We spend 39% more than the average of the 37 countries.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp
The United States does not have a problem of under-funding education.
York1 John
BaltACDWith the population of the USA, there should not be any us vs. them - it should be WE! We can if we want to. Not doing the BEST we know how is just dumpster diving.
There's no way "we" will vote for something if "they" are voting for it.
Who cares what the voters want...
And we won't get into graft, for the hole is far too deep...
As was noted by someone else, "infrastructure" to me is water, sewer, roads, power, communications, etc.
Education is education, and we've done a royal job of screwing that up.
Likewise, healthcare is healthcare. The insurance companies have screwed that up for us.
I like the idea I saw posted on-line a while back: A congressional bill must be brief, use plain language, have one subject, and include how it's going to be paid for, among a few other conditions. The multi-faceted bills being submitted these days (and then amended ad nauseum) make it virtually impossible to figure out what the bill will actually accomplish, other than spending money that then can't be accounted for.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
York1 RKFarms I agree with Balt 100%. And the idea of a weaker dollar being such a negative thing, think again. A weaker dollar helps us with exporting our products to the rest of the world and makes their products more expensive. As one who has spent most of my life involved in agriculture, a weaker dollar is a GOOD thing. While a weakened dollar may be attractive in the short run, it signals an underlying issue -- too much debt, inflation fears, government instability, etc. The discussion is getting sidetracked by the claim that education and healthcare are important. Of course they are important, and no one is claiming otherwise. The issue is that an infrastructure bill should not be a catch-all for other spending. Trying to change the definition of a word does not alter the fact that most people know "infrastructure" refers to 'hard' systems. Roads, pipelines, railroads, bridges, power grids, broadband systems, water systems, etc., are and have been the stuff of "infrastructure". "Infrastructure" does not include home healthcare except as a means to get a huge amount of money ($400 billion) for an agenda item.
RKFarms I agree with Balt 100%. And the idea of a weaker dollar being such a negative thing, think again. A weaker dollar helps us with exporting our products to the rest of the world and makes their products more expensive. As one who has spent most of my life involved in agriculture, a weaker dollar is a GOOD thing.
While a weakened dollar may be attractive in the short run, it signals an underlying issue -- too much debt, inflation fears, government instability, etc.
The discussion is getting sidetracked by the claim that education and healthcare are important. Of course they are important, and no one is claiming otherwise.
The issue is that an infrastructure bill should not be a catch-all for other spending.
Trying to change the definition of a word does not alter the fact that most people know "infrastructure" refers to 'hard' systems. Roads, pipelines, railroads, bridges, power grids, broadband systems, water systems, etc., are and have been the stuff of "infrastructure".
"Infrastructure" does not include home healthcare except as a means to get a huge amount of money ($400 billion) for an agenda item.
We haven't taken a full effort to IMPROVE the country since the 50's and the Interstate system. Ever since it has been half a step ahead and two step back because 'we can't afford' to do things right, we can only do things halfas.ed and on the cheap and in many cases on the take.
The political opposition to projects are more about who is going to make money off the project than it is about the benefits/detriments of the project itself.
Education and Healthcare are THE CRITICAL infrastructure elements for us as a country. There is too much of 'I don't have children anymore, so I don't want to pay for education' that floats in the population; as well as 'I have healthcare - let them die'.
With the population of the USA, there should not be any us vs. them - it should be WE! We can if we want to. Not doing the BEST we know how is just dumpster diving.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
RKFarmsI agree with Balt 100%. And the idea of a weaker dollar being such a negative thing, think again. A weaker dollar helps us with exporting our products to the rest of the world and makes their products more expensive. As one who has spent most of my life involved in agriculture, a weaker dollar is a GOOD thing.
JPS1If politicians were honest, instead us using terms like infrastructure, they would push for monies to improve roads, waterways, electric grid, education, healthcare, etc. as separate items. Now wouldn't that be something! A straight talking, honest politician.
We don't need no stinking roads all they do is create traffic. Waterways they went out when railroads came in. Don't need not electricity, just burn your own trees. Don't need no healthcare, undertakers need more business. Education is overrated it never gets used in the real world. [/sarcasm]
There are too many things in the country that aren't up to the level they need to be for us to rightfully reclaim the title of leader of the world, if we don't invest in making all components of the country better we will only be making them worse.
Worldwide China as been eating our lunch in leadership of the developing world. Russia is attempting to pick up the crumbs that China is leaving behind.
NittanyLionYou can construct a reasonable argument that healthcare is a national security issue. I've seen DoD papers about it. You're never, ever, going to sell that to the general public that way. Redefining "infrastructure" as "education" and "healthcare" is the same way. Infrastructure is the physical plant and don't pull any wool over my eyes on that.
You're never, ever, going to sell that to the general public that way. Redefining "infrastructure" as "education" and "healthcare" is the same way. Infrastructure is the physical plant and don't pull any wool over my eyes on that.
Infrastructure is EVERTHING that is a part of making the ENTIRE country perform to its maximum potential. The country is its inhabitants that operate the machines necessary to build the brick, mortar and machinery necessary to run the country.
Consigning ones thoughts to only bricks and mortar for infrastructure is to consign the country to failure. It isn't necessary to pull wool over your eyes, it is just necessary to close the lid on your coffin.
You can construct a reasonable argument that healthcare is a national security issue. I've seen DoD papers about it.
York1 The issue is claiming the spending is for infrastructure. If the spending is for healthcare or education, then call it that.
The issue is claiming the spending is for infrastructure. If the spending is for healthcare or education, then call it that.
John,
Not only do I agree with you but virtually all - if not all - the Republicans in Congress and even a small handfull of Democrats would likely agree.
We should do like most other countries and spend less on defense. We have more than enough to defend ourselves. Other countries spend more on health care, etc., because we defend them. That's the one (and only) point that I agreed with Orange on. I'm on other international forums and they laugh at us. They think if a threat isn't on their immediate land border, it's not their problem. Let them keep thinking that...
Very well said Euclid.
Fred M Cain Euclid, I don't think it's merely an issue of adding to the national debt. How are they ever gonna pay for all this stuff? Taxes, yeah, and maybe sell more bonds to the Chinese, but I think the biggest thing they're gonna do to pay for all these schemes is by simply printing money. Printing money is something that the government can do to pay off debts that no one else can do! It's a stealth tax because it will devalue the dollar. So, we will pay dearly for anything and everything that we need to buy.
Euclid,
I don't think it's merely an issue of adding to the national debt. How are they ever gonna pay for all this stuff? Taxes, yeah, and maybe sell more bonds to the Chinese, but I think the biggest thing they're gonna do to pay for all these schemes is by simply printing money.
Printing money is something that the government can do to pay off debts that no one else can do! It's a stealth tax because it will devalue the dollar. So, we will pay dearly for anything and everything that we need to buy.
I am not limiting my concern just to the fact that debt has to be paid back. I know that on a personal level, many people just don’t like the feeling of owing money, so they long for day they will be mortgage free. With that kind of debt people are at least limited by their creditors as to how much debt they can assume. Nevertheless, they are sometimes ruined by easy credit, the natural lure of money, and the things the desire.
At a national level, the lure is often for power, and that can be acquired merely by spending public money while cloaking it in pretexts and rationalizations that spending public money makes us all wealthier.
Thankfully, there are usually counterforces to at least push back against this reckless tendency. Obviously, that is not completely sufficient because the debt continues to rise, and the spenders get bolder when they see that can raise it and the sky does not fall. This alone is precarious, but now suddenly we have arrived at the point where there can be no pushback against reckless spending. Both spending ability and the desire to spend are suddenly unlimited. So now we are evaluating estimates for projects such as the Green New Deal at $100-TRILLION.
Now we are on the Titanic speeding past icebergs while being assured that this is a new smart ship that cannot be sunk.
rrnut282 Spending infrastructure money on non-durable services (health and child care) is a sure-fire way to bankrupt a country, both monetarily and morally. This "redefinition of infrastructure" is high-handed obfuscation so taxpayers can't tell where their money is being spent. Soon, there won't be enough money to run fuel efficient trains. Better start learning Mandarin.
Spending infrastructure money on non-durable services (health and child care) is a sure-fire way to bankrupt a country, both monetarily and morally. This "redefinition of infrastructure" is high-handed obfuscation so taxpayers can't tell where their money is being spent. Soon, there won't be enough money to run fuel efficient trains. Better start learning Mandarin.
The recent example of Greece. People spending is nice but realistically someone has to work to pay for it and needs the concrete fixed type infrastructure to do so efficiently.
BaltACDHealthcare and Education IS part of the infrastructure to build the country. The country is no good without people. People are the MOST CRITICAL infrastructure of all.
Additionally, the country is no good without a currency that is accepted as credible by your creditors. So at some point when it comes to investing money for the future the projects that lend more credibility to your currency should rank higher than the ones that do not. Our national bond rating and the marketability of our bonds is not only tied to ability to repay but also on how we prioritize our spending in regards to investments. I believe there was one country not too long ago called Greece who would prioritize spending primarily on people and got into quite a bit of trouble in the process along with losing the confidence of it's trading partners.
Back to the topic. The spend on Amtrak is directed at Corridors and Corridor development and once again the Long Distance network is ignored if you look at the current proposal and look at the spending intent for Amtrak. From what I understand Biden views LD trains only as a political expedient to garner a larger voting block for Amtrak vs LD trains as a investment direction. So that is a way of prioritizing spending within Amtrak.
If done right an infrastructure investment will payback the investment plus more and I think that as a country should be our goal. If done wrong an infrastructure investment is a one time hit with little or no future returns and the money is largely wasted.
So what isn't infrastructure?
York1 BaltACD You trying to ramp up gravestone manufacture? A healthy population is more productive than a sick an dying population. A educated population is more productive than a poorly educated population. Want to guarantee reporting the Bejing - just keep the USA sick and dumb. The issue is claiming the spending is for infrastructure. If the spending is for healthcare or education, then call it that.
BaltACD You trying to ramp up gravestone manufacture? A healthy population is more productive than a sick an dying population. A educated population is more productive than a poorly educated population. Want to guarantee reporting the Bejing - just keep the USA sick and dumb.
Healthcare and Education IS part of the infrastructure to build the country. The country is no good without people. People are the MOST CRITICAL infrastructure of all.
BaltACDYou trying to ramp up gravestone manufacture? A healthy population is more productive than a sick an dying population. A educated population is more productive than a poorly educated population. Want to guarantee reporting the Bejing - just keep the USA sick and dumb.
rrnut282Spending infrastructure money on non-durable services (health and child care) is a sure-fire way to bankrupt a country, both monetarily and morally. This "redefinition of infrastructure" is high-handed obfuscation so taxpayers can't tell where their money is being spent. Soon, there won't be enough money to run fuel efficient trains. Better start learning Mandarin.
You trying to ramp up gravestone manufacture? A healthy population is more productive than a sick an dying population. A educated population is more productive than a poorly educated population.
Want to guarantee reporting the Bejing - just keep the USA sick and dumb.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm: "We don't want to use past definitions of infrastructure."
One-fifth of the new infrastructure bill ($400 billion) is for revolutionizing home health care for the elderly and disabled.
SD70DudeWhen you owe the bank $100 you have a problem. When you owe the bank $30 trillion the BANK has a problem!
And when you are a sovereign country you can print money to satisfy all debts both public and private.
When you owe the bank $100 you have a problem. When you owe the bank $30 trillion the BANK has a problem!
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Can anybody say Weimar Republic?
Traditionally, spending plans are limited by the following two forces:
A sense of how much debt is safe for the country to take on.
Opposition from those who have no desire for the things the money will be spent on.
Both of these mechanisms to limit spending are suddenly gone. That is why we are suddenly seeing trillions flying out the window.
The spenders are not just neutral arbiters doing the Country’s bidding to buy what we need. The spenders also spend for their own benefit. So their motive is often just to spend money regardless of what it is spent on. There is nothing now to prevent reckless spending that endangers the country. And there is no end to ideas about what needs funding. We are buying Utopia on a credit card.
OvermodThe problem, of course, is that being tagged as the source of higher gas prices has particularly been the highest-voltage of political third rails. (Closely followed by being 'outed' as supporting any tax that can be shown to have regressive effect.) So you will likely see this follow the time-honored Democratic practice of soaking the rich, usually with vociferous protest that the soaking will only pertain to the presumed '1-percenters' or whatever) and only come later to ease it into becoming a national institution only Draconian on the little guys
Well, I think we can all rest assured that there will be dire solicitation for the money needed to pay for whatever work is to be done, I can sense the violinists already tuning their instruments in anticipation.
The biggest objection I have is that there are already so many black holes out there where money once appropriated to worthy causes has been hijacked to fund special interests. Our system is "rigged" that way.
For example just to illustrate, 50+ years ago our local fearless leaders may have made a successful appeal to fix our schools, and bulid new ones. Giving junior the opportunity he is "entitled to", being a well-worn heartstring always good for a tug now and then. So, they devise a $50 million program to be paid for though the sale of 30 year bonds, and pass some local tax earmarked towards retiring the bonds.
Once those bonds are retired, is the additional assessment retired along with it? Not that I've ever seen. In Indiana there is actually a law on the books forbidding the practice. Once the worthwhile cause has been completed, the cash flow once dedicated to the nominal worthy cause is thereafter directed to the state's general fund, to pay for "whatever" the authority deems fit.
They depend upon the short attention span of the payers funding the boat ride, to not notice.
I'd really like to see an honest attempt to go in and harvest black holes such as these, before they come to me expecting more money. I know - - "rotsa-ruck", but I do get weary of the ongoing nature of such usury. And I'll bet the state of Indiana is far from alone in that regard. Ploys such as this have been going on for at least 100 years, yet everytime money is needed to address pressing priorities, the violin music begins again.
Funny how whenever they want to "incentivize" some new public-private partnership, finding the money is never a problem, but... when it comes time to fix potholes, or hire more firemen, the cupboard is always bare...urgently requiring my participation.
charlie hebdo Very true. As a nation we have already fallen behind many other nations in important measures except defense spending and excessive health spending because of an inappropriate system.
Very true. As a nation we have already fallen behind many other nations in important measures except defense spending and excessive health spending because of an inappropriate system.
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