Covid-19

[philleotardo]

Asked and answered.

You *definitely* did not answer to the inefficiency of just having the red states.

[JDPNYY]

Re: Covid-19

So... How about this pandemic, eh?

[philleotardo]

So... How about this pandemic, eh?

Kushner, Chao, Wilbur Ross and Kudlow got federal PPP loans because of it. Better fire the elevator operator to cover that inefficiency.

[Jace]

Re: Covid-19

Someone else > Wyoming has the same number of Senators as California.

Maynerd > That's because Wyoming is a state, and each state gets two senators.

Someone else> But California is bigger.

Maynerd > That's why California has 53 Congressional Districts, and Wyoming has only one.

Someone else > But that's in the House. What about the Senate?

Maynerd > We're a collection of individual states. We have two houses in Congress. One is apportioned by population, and the other apportioned to the individual states. That was by design, so the centers of population don't have an undue influence over lower populated areas.

Someone else > But Wyoming has the same number of Senators as California.

Maynerd > Yes. Yes, they do. Because each state gets two.

Someone else > California should have 50 Senators if Wyoming gets two.

Maynerd > No. We have states. Each state gets two. Proportional representation is what the House is for.

Someone else > But California is bigger. Why do I need to keep debunking this? Why won;t you listen that California is bigger?

Sigh.

Repeating the current status quo over and over doesn't mean it's an ideal system, and it doesn't mean nobody else understands it and you must sigh knowingly at their ignorance. Everybody understands it and is noting major structural issues with it. Just because the system was devised in the 1780s doesn't make it permanently ideal, either.

Were California to be allowed to split itself into SEVENTY separate states that each have the same population as Wyoming, it might have something like 120 Democratic senators and 20 Republican senators, and each citizen would have just as much representation as current Wyoming citizens.

You know whose citizens have the most influence over California splitting into multiple states? Wyoming, considering Congress must approve it.

Having equal representation is just for the House, sillies - the Senate (and to lesser degree, the Presidency) is where rural citizens get their well-earned bonus. They're simply more important than you.

[Tyler Durden]

Re: Covid-19

So... How about this pandemic, eh?

:lol: It's a doozy

[Maynerd]

Re: Covid-19

It is laughable to say the private sector is efficient or even more so

Do you recall the Affordable Care Act web site rollout?

Is the private sector a thing of beauty? No. It is not. But, is it more efficient than the federal government? Yes, by orders of magnitude. The private sector can't just go print more money. If they consistently spend more than they take in, they go out of business. If they keep a bunch of non-productive people on the payroll, they go out of business.

[philleotardo]

Do you recall the Affordable Care Act web site rollout?

Is the private sector a thing of beauty? No. It is not. But, is it more efficient than the federal government? Yes, by orders of magnitude. The private sector can't just go print more money. If they consistently spend more than they take in, they go out of business. If they keep a bunch of non-productive people on the payroll, they go out of business.

What about the ones that take federal money like, say, the North Dakota Trump donor that got a billion dollars to build the border fence that’s already eroding?
And are crying about the halted construction...

[Yankee Tripper]

Re: Covid-19

Do you recall the Affordable Care Act web site rollout?

I think it went about as well as the Windows Vista rollout.

But overall the ACA favorable rating passed the unfavorable rating back in 2017 and has fairly steadily widened the gap such that the ACA favorability rating is currently 53% while it's unfavorability rating is just 34%.

[Maynerd]

Re: Covid-19

What about the ones that take federal money like, say, the North Dakota Trump donor that got a billion dollars to build the border fence that’s already eroding?

And I'm the one constantly chastised for whataboutism.

Guess what? The government wrote a contract that went into great detail about what that donor could and could not do. Who he could hire. What materials he was allowed to use. I'm sure the government specified what color paint needed to be used on the finished product. Government inspectors assessed the work before releasing payment. That's the way federal procurement works.

So, who's to blame if it's already eroding? The builder? Or the people who wrote the specifications? If the builder MET the specifications, he did what we paid him to do.

[JDPNYY]

Re: Covid-19

:lol: It's a doozy

Yeah, COVID-19 man. It’s 2021. Still going around. There should be a thread to discuss it.

[Yankee Tripper]

Re: Covid-19

And I'm the one constantly chastised for whataboutism.

Guess what? The government wrote a contract that went into great detail about what that donor could and could not do. Who he could hire. What materials he was allowed to use. I'm sure the government specified what color paint needed to be used on the finished product. Government inspectors assessed the work before releasing payment. That's the way federal procurement works.

So, who's to blame if it's already eroding? The builder? Or the people who wrote the specifications? If the builder MET the specifications, he did what we paid him to do.

Spoken like a defense contractor. :lol:

[Maynerd]

Re: Covid-19

Yeah, COVID-19 man. It’s 2021. Still going around. There should be a thread to discuss it.

I get it.

This thing derailed because I took issue with the federal government being held up as a model of efficiency, who should have greater responsibility for vaccine distribution.

I'll behave. Sorry.

[Yankee Tripper]

Re: Covid-19

yeah, covid-19 man. It’s 2021. Still going around. There should be a thread to discuss it.

500k

[philleotardo]

And I'm the one constantly chastised for whataboutism.

Guess what? The government wrote a contract that went into great detail about what that donor could and could not do. Who he could hire. What materials he was allowed to use. I'm sure the government specified what color paint needed to be used on the finished product. Government inspectors assessed the work before releasing payment. That's the way federal procurement works.

So, who's to blame if it's already eroding? The builder? Or the people who wrote the specifications? If the builder MET the specifications, he did what we paid him to do.

I promise these steps didn’t happen

[Jace]

Re: Covid-19

You're advocating the elimination of any representation by the states. You're advocating we have one national election for the presidency, rather than 50 state-level elections. You're advocating an elimination of any authority by the states, because some are more populous than others. At that point, what purpose do state boundaries serve? What purpose does the Senate serve? If there's no authority, no distinguishing characteristic of being an Idahoan or a Virginian, why bother? You're proposing making the individual states irrelevant.

It's unclear to me why you are passionately advocating for "distinguishing characteristics" between Idaho and Virginia in terms of Federal government representation. Yes, we all know that the Senate currently works this way, which again doesn't inherently make it perfect.

If the people were equally represented, rather than arbitrarily-drawn states, Idaho would remain in the northwest and Virginia would remain in the mid-Atlantic. They'd still have their own state governments and "state's rights". As noted elsewhere, this is generally how counties/local governments work right now.