US Political Discussion: Biden/Harris Edition (Rules in OP)

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thraxil

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If it was straightforward you would've just named who you were referring to.

I wasn't referring to anyone in particular. I wanted to know if you agreed that *any* politician with a similar history deserves similar consequences and treatment? I would still like to know. Is this a consistent belief you hold (that Northam and Franken should be kicked to the curb for their past actions), or is it a belief you only hold when the offender is a Democrat?
 

thraxil

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So, does the blackmail attempt on Bezos by AMI violate AMI's immunity agreement, wherein AMI agreed to not engage in any crimes subsequent to the agreement? If so, bad news for Trump crony David Pecker.

I'm no fan of Bezos, but it looks like he's in a position now to destroy AMI. I'm thinking Hulk Hogan vs Gawker but with criminal charges added. In addition to the problems that they have with ongoing investigations and cooperation agreements, Bezos has the financial resources to make for a very painful civil suit. If they end up bankrupt, I wonder what happens to all the stories that they have bought up over the years for "catch and kill". Are those considered assets that they will have to sell off to pay their creditors?
 

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tedtan

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I would aggressively challenge the notion that our government, the one that's notorious for overcompensating itself, has employees that are literally living paycheck to paycheck.

I'd disagree. Keep in mind that those who are "notorious for overcompensating themselves" are those that are generally the "higher ups", not the every day workers.

Plus, are a lot of people don't have any savings to speak of. According to this CNBC article, 29% of Americans have no savings at all and this Motley Fool article states that 40% of Americans don't have the funds to cover a $400 emergency. If they can't cover a $400 emergency room visit/car repair/etc., they won't get very far during a government shutdown without risking eviction, foreclosure, bankruptcy, etc. (I understand that this is poor financial planning on their part, but many people are poor financial planners).

Furthermore, building the wall is not part of the current government budget as the wall has not been approved at this point, therefore there is no reason that the government should be shut down over the wall. The wall should be an entirely different discussion and budgetary process from the standard operating budget under current discussion. I understand that Trump is using this approach in order to attempt to force the wall into existence, but he had his shot last year when the democrats offered him funding for the wall in exchange for DACA protection and he and Kelley misplayed his hand; I don't think he'll get a legitimate second chance.
 

Ordacleaphobia

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Over 550k government employees make under $24k a year. Is it so impossible to believe that due to life circumstances that anyone might be in a paycheck to paycheck situation?

I'm sure basic living expenses can be budgeted for, but if you have a major financial blow (car shits the bed, you break a leg, etc.) there's very, very little wiggle room to recover.

This is a decent summary, but I recommend reading the sources: https://work.chron.com/average-salary-government-employees-7863.html

Lets start with the fact that that 550k number included employees of all branches of government, not just Federal (which was on average the highest paid).
That Article said:
The federal government, which included the U.S. Postal Service, showed the highest average compensation at $70,100, annually or $33.70 per hour, for its 2,710,740 workers

I understand that this figure is an average and that there must be numbers substantially below this figure, but the average is still $33.70. That is quite comfortable. More than I make, and I'm doing pretty alright for myself.
It's also worth noting that these figures seem to include part time positions as well, which would actually skew these numbers lower. I'm not sure about the federal level, but I know that an incredible amount of state and local positions tend to be part time and would assume that extends to fed.

Going deeper and sorting the Federal table, we can see the lowest entries, which are for Agricultural Graders and Sorters and Retail Workers, are at an average of $13.66 & $14.11. I don't know about you guys, but that certainly sounds noticeably higher than what the average wages for those positions usually are.

To clarify, I'm not arguing that nobody is hard up because of this. I'm sure there are some folks out there that are really hurting right now and that's unfortunate. But what I am saying is that I strongly doubt this is as big of an issue as people are making it out to be, and that if you are one of those that got sucker-punched....maybe this is a wake-up call.

I'd disagree. Keep in mind that those who are "notorious for overcompensating themselves" are those that are generally the "higher ups", not the every day workers.

Plus, are a lot of people don't have any savings to speak of. According to this CNBC article, 29% of Americans have no savings at all and this Motley Fool article states that 40% of Americans don't have the funds to cover a $400 emergency. If they can't cover a $400 emergency room visit/car repair/etc., they won't get very far during a government shutdown without risking eviction, foreclosure, bankruptcy, etc. (I understand that this is poor financial planning on their part, but many people are poor financial planners).

Furthermore, building the wall is not part of the current government budget as the wall has not been approved at this point, therefore there is no reason that the government should be shut down over the wall. The wall should be an entirely different discussion and budgetary process from the standard operating budget under current discussion. I understand that Trump is using this approach in order to attempt to force the wall into existence, but he had his shot last year when the democrats offered him funding for the wall in exchange for DACA protection and he and Kelley misplayed his hand; I don't think he'll get a legitimate second chance.

I would disagree with the bolded assertion. Government benefits and average compensation are wildly above what you would normally find for similar work in the private sector on average UP UNTIL you get to the higher-ups. A secretary for my local DWR office can make almost $30 an hour with a FULL benefit package and an early retirement. My father worked with a guy in the BAR that had 4 years of vacation time banked up. That is a heavy 6 figure check whenever he decides to cash out. The government looks after their own.

Your second paragraph I will concede though; but I've seen those numbers before. You said it yourself, many people are poor financial planners and if you're in a tough situation due to poor financial management, especially for something as foreseeable as a government shutdown, my sympathy can only go so far before the devil on my shoulder starts saying "Well, maybe you should have just worked at Target." This partly extends to my reply to Max and his comment on how it's difficult to account for major hits because "life happens," because it does (and it is). But on the same token, there are certain things that you can kind of see coming. A government shutdown is one of those things. I understand that nobody can predict how long it'll take, but you can at least foresee that at least it's coming. And as such, if you're living off of the skin of your teeth, struggling to keep up and just cannot find the money to put away for an event like that....maybe you should switch to a job where that isn't a possibility. Because the positions that pay low enough to where this isn't possible are also going to be the positions that are easily changed out.

I didn't bring up the wall. I'm not terribly invested in it, but I do know that the budget that Trump is requesting is an overall drop in the bucket. I disagree with the idea of pushing the shutdown in a faux-tantrum to try and get what you want, but on the other hand, nobody wants to play ball with him. I agree that he misplayed last year and I think he's panicking. None of this is affecting my opinion on the shutdown, however.
 

MaxOfMetal

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We've gone from "highly doubting" to being "sure".

I'll take it. :lol:

Re:Wall
It's hard to play ball with someone who isn't negotiating in good faith. As of yet the Trump administration hasn't offered anything worth both $5.7B or the political fallout from capitulating. We've just gotten more threats, being dismissive at meetings and short term fixes for issues caused by the White House.
 

Ordacleaphobia

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We've gone from "highly doubting" to being "sure".

I'll take it. :lol:

Re:Wall
It's hard to play ball with someone who isn't negotiating in good faith. As of yet the Trump administration hasn't offered anything worth both $5.7B or the political fallout from capitulating. We've just gotten more threats, being dismissive at meetings and short term fixes for issues caused by the White House.

Yeah, hyperbole and such. Come on Max; you know I wouldn't be that confident that NO ONE AT ALL was getting roped here. :lol:

On the wall, yeah; all totally fair points. The argument is there for long-term cost reduction given how much illegal immigration costs the american taxpayer year on year, but I don't see it being levied in the way that I would expect it to. The whole thing is just not being handled gracefully at all...by anybody...lol. I want to support Trump and I like his enthusiasm, but the complete lack of finesse makes it really difficult to look at how he handles himself and think "Yeah, that's productive."
 

MaxOfMetal

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Yeah, words and such. Come on Max; you know I wouldn't be that confident that NO ONE AT ALL was getting roped here. :lol:

On the wall, yeah; all totally fair points. The argument is there for long-term cost reduction given how much illegal immigration costs the american taxpayer year on year, but I don't see it being levied in the way that I would expect it to. The whole thing is just not being handled gracefully at all...by anybody...lol. I want to support Trump and I like his enthusiasm, but the complete lack of finesse makes it really difficult to look at how he handles himself and think "Yeah, that's productive."

I just don't see the wall as being effective, even if I agreed that illegal immigrants themselves, and not our terrible system, costs us money.

If the goal was to reduce illegal immigration, shouldn't we roll back intervention south of the border and create better paths to citizenship, not to mention prosecute employers of illegal immigrant labor.
 

bostjan

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If you are conservative, you likely don't trust the federal government to be able to do much of anything right, so why do you think that they'd be able to build an effective wall?!

And then...

Who wants to spend many billions of tax dollars on the Trump wall? Trump says the people wanted it, but he didn't win by popular vote, and those who did vote for him were explicitly promised that the wall would cost them nothing... so... hmm.

I think something like 2/3 of US people don't even want the wall. This isn't populist agenda, but it's being framed that way.
 

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I just don't see the wall as being effective, even if I agreed that illegal immigrants themselves, and not our terrible system, costs us money.

If the goal was to reduce illegal immigration, shouldn't we roll back intervention south of the border and create better paths to citizenship, not to mention prosecute employers of illegal immigrant labor.
I don’t think those approaches are flashy or immediately tangible enough to get the relatively uneducated (on this topic) public on their side. They lack the instant gratification that we so crave. ‘Tis a sad reality.
 

MaxOfMetal

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If you are conservative, you likely don't trust the federal government to be able to do much of anything right, so why do you think that they'd be able to build an effective wall?!

And then...

Who wants to spend many billions of tax dollars on the Trump wall? Trump says the people wanted it, but he didn't win by popular vote, and those who did vote for him were explicitly promised that the wall would cost them nothing... so... hmm.

I think something like 2/3 of US people don't even want the wall. This isn't populist agenda, but it's being framed that way.

Which brings up a very important point: it's not that Democrats in the House are blocking the wall to be dicks, they're representing the wishes of thier constituents.
 

Ordacleaphobia

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I just don't see the wall as being effective, even if I agreed that illegal immigrants themselves, and not our terrible system, costs us money.

If the goal was to reduce illegal immigration, shouldn't we roll back intervention south of the border and create better paths to citizenship, not to mention prosecute employers of illegal immigrant labor.

There's a valid argument that there are other, potentially more (cost) effective methods, for sure. I'm not entirely convinced that it's worth it, either.

If you are conservative, you likely don't trust the federal government to be able to do much of anything right, so why do you think that they'd be able to build an effective wall?!

True on all fronts :lol:

Who wants to spend many billions of tax dollars on the Trump wall? Trump says the people wanted it, but he didn't win by popular vote, and those who did vote for him were explicitly promised that the wall would cost them nothing... so... hmm.

I think something like 2/3 of US people don't even want the wall. This isn't populist agenda, but it's being framed that way.

I don't know about the majority of the american public, but I know Border Patrol is strongly in favor of a physical wall at least; as well as a large number of residents at border towns.
Not an argument one way or another. Just something to think on.
 

MaxOfMetal

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Jeez. At this point we're going to be down to the janitor on this one. I wonder who's 2847th in line. Does the Dog Catcher come before the head Meter Maid or is it the guy who orders office supplies?
 

jaxadam

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Jeez. At this point we're going to be down to the janitor on this one. I wonder who's 2847th in line. Does the Dog Catcher come before the head Meter Maid or is it the guy who orders office supplies?

I don't know... maybe his campaign manager, or lawyer ("fixer"), or maybe even just an adviser. Shit, nevermind, I'm thinking of someone else!
 

tedtan

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I would disagree with the bolded assertion. Government benefits and average compensation are wildly above what you would normally find for similar work in the private sector on average UP UNTIL you get to the higher-ups. A secretary for my local DWR office can make almost $30 an hour with a FULL benefit package and an early retirement. My father worked with a guy in the BAR that had 4 years of vacation time banked up. That is a heavy 6 figure check whenever he decides to cash out. The government looks after their own.

I have a hard time believing that the people you mentioned are representative of all US federal government employees, but then I haven't done much research into it, so maybe I'm overlooking something.


Your second paragraph I will concede though; but I've seen those numbers before. You said it yourself, many people are poor financial planners and if you're in a tough situation due to poor financial management, especially for something as foreseeable as a government shutdown, my sympathy can only go so far before the devil on my shoulder starts saying "Well, maybe you should have just worked at Target." This partly extends to my reply to Max and his comment on how it's difficult to account for major hits because "life happens," because it does (and it is). But on the same token, there are certain things that you can kind of see coming. A government shutdown is one of those things. I understand that nobody can predict how long it'll take, but you can at least foresee that at least it's coming. And as such, if you're living off of the skin of your teeth, struggling to keep up and just cannot find the money to put away for an event like that....maybe you should switch to a job where that isn't a possibility. Because the positions that pay low enough to where this isn't possible are also going to be the positions that are easily changed out.

First, is there a legitimate reason that the government functions should shut down like this? Allowing this to happen at all is childish on the part of our elected officials. In fact, if there is no approved budget by the deadline, the budget should immediately default to what it was in the prior period IMO. This would help force a realistic compromise rather than allowing this childish shutdown BS.

Second, as a civilized society we have a responsibility to protect people from themselves to some extent. For example, a mentally ill person intent on harming himself should be held for treatment rather than allowed to harm himself. Should this extend to those who are poor financial planners, too? (I'm not saying that it should, necessarily, but it is worth considering).


I didn't bring up the wall. I'm not terribly invested in it, but I do know that the budget that Trump is requesting is an overall drop in the bucket. I disagree with the idea of pushing the shutdown in a faux-tantrum to try and get what you want, but on the other hand, nobody wants to play ball with him. I agree that he misplayed last year and I think he's panicking. None of this is affecting my opinion on the shutdown, however.

I didn't mean to imply that you brought it up, I commented as it was relevant to the shutdown.
 
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Only a Dem could spin a purple outcome as a victory and delivering on their promise of a blue wave.

In other news, how about that blackface/KKK senator's year book photo?
And only a conservative could conveniently forget the outcome went almost exactly as was predicted, and was consistent with the belief that the Dems had about a 7-8 point advantage over a "neutral" partisan environment. :lol:

Northam? I'll be willing to hear arguments to the contrary, but my prior here is he should go, of course. And he's probably in good company, among both Democrats AND Republicans in Virginia. It'll be an ugly reckoning, but let's rip off the bandaid.

I think that I highly doubt any employees of the federal government at the level where they're affected by the shutdown are living paycheck-to-paycheck.
HIGHLY doubt.
What makes you think the only people impacted by the shutdown were ultra-high-level highly paid federal employees? Hell, the people really getting fucked here are contractors - the rank and file employees who either stayed home without pay or were made to work without pay at least got back pay when this was all said and done - it was the contractors, some of whom continued to have to work during the shutdown, who were not guaranteed back pay when the government reopened. The Dems tried to pass a bill fixing that, but the GOP blocked it.
 

Dumple Stilzkin

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And only a conservative could conveniently forget the outcome went almost exactly as was predicted, and was consistent with the belief that the Dems had about a 7-8 point advantage over a "neutral" partisan environment. :lol:

Northam? I'll be willing to hear arguments to the contrary, but my prior here is he should go, of course. And he's probably in good company, among both Democrats AND Republicans in Virginia. It'll be an ugly reckoning, but let's rip off the bandaid.


What makes you think the only people impacted by the shutdown were ultra-high-level highly paid federal employees? Hell, the people really getting fucked here are contractors - the rank and file employees who either stayed home without pay or were made to work without pay at least got back pay when this was all said and done - it was the contractors, some of whom continued to have to work during the shutdown, who were not guaranteed back pay when the government reopened. The Dems tried to pass a bill fixing that, but the GOP blocked it.
I have a friend, whose husband is in this very boat. Needless to say, a pretty shitty thing to do. It's disgusting what is going on, they might have to take out loans to cover it.
 

Ordacleaphobia

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I have a hard time believing that the people you mentioned are representative of all US federal government employees, but then I haven't done much research into it, so maybe I'm overlooking something.

Totally, I'm not pretending they were. Just a couple of offhand examples.
But coupled with what I've seen from their hiring process and public record, I firmly believe federal employees are -in general- well compensated.
First, is there a legitimate reason that the government functions should shut down like this? Allowing this to happen at all is childish on the part of our elected officials. In fact, if there is no approved budget by the deadline, the budget should immediately default to what it was in the prior period IMO. This would help force a realistic compromise rather than allowing this childish shutdown BS.

Second, as a civilized society we have a responsibility to protect people from themselves to some extent. For example, a mentally ill person intent on harming himself should be held for treatment rather than allowed to harm himself. Should this extend to those who are poor financial planners, too? (I'm not saying that it should, necessarily, but it is worth considering).

I didn't mean to imply that you brought it up, I commented as it was relevant to the shutdown.

Fair enough, but I don't believe the 'validity' of the shutdown plays any role in whether or not it's a foreseeable event. They seem to happen pretty regularly; to the point where if I worked for the fed, yes, I absolutely would account for it.

As for protecting people from themselves in this context, I'm conflicted. On one hand, nobody wants anyone to live in poverty and I am no exception. However, finances make things sticky. Especially for stuff like this, the only way to really 'help' that type of person is to give them the tools to help themselves and hope that they have the willpower to do so. With that in mind, I think our system is already set up this way more or less, no? Yes, I understand most of our big social programs are designed around already being broke, but you can't expect to be able to protect someone from simply being irresponsible. To quote Ron White, "you can't fix stupid." If you're the type to throw your rent money away on night out, I don't think anyone can save you but yourself.

What makes you think the only people impacted by the shutdown were ultra-high-level highly paid federal employees? Hell, the people really getting fucked here are contractors - the rank and file employees who either stayed home without pay or were made to work without pay at least got back pay when this was all said and done - it was the contractors, some of whom continued to have to work during the shutdown, who were not guaranteed back pay when the government reopened. The Dems tried to pass a bill fixing that, but the GOP blocked it.

I will acknowledge that I don't know exactly how this plays out with contractors. Most of the government contractors I've worked with are functioning at the state level, so I'm admittedly pretty clueless on federal jobs and I'll wholly concede that it's entirely possible they're just flat out getting fucked.

Although, with that in mind, those guys typically make $50+ per hour from what I've seen at the state level so I doubt things are SUPER DIRE; but again, I'm not familiar with federal contracting so I'm totally open to getting BTFO on that one.
 

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I will acknowledge that I don't know exactly how this plays out with contractors. Most of the government contractors I've worked with are functioning at the state level, so I'm admittedly pretty clueless on federal jobs and I'll wholly concede that it's entirely possible they're just flat out getting fucked.

Although, with that in mind, those guys typically make $50+ per hour from what I've seen at the state level so I doubt things are SUPER DIRE; but again, I'm not familiar with federal contracting so I'm totally open to getting BTFO on that one.

Well, there are two rough buckets of people here -

1) contractors who work directly for the government on an hourly basis. Many of them I believe were just told not to come to work during the shutdown. they received no pay and no back pay.

2) Contractors who worked for the federal government on a salaried/project basis. I have a buddy in this boat and thankfully the worst was averted - because his project was funded through January at the start of the shutdown, he continued to work... But, had the shutdown extended into February, he would have had to keep going to work, but would not have been paid and would not have received back pay for this work. Which would have been financially tough, since he was the primary earner in his household and in short order his hot water heater and HVAC system had gone out, the former flooding his basement and requiring significant repairs.

Also, that second scenario kind of points to the issue with your second paragraph - I won't get into specifics with my salary, but ballparking it let's say I make about 6x what I did when I first started working in Boston, and 4x what I did when I first moved to my current city. Does that mean I could work without pay for several weeks to a month or two without ill effect? Today, yeah, I probably could, but I've been super diligent about saving. Even as recently as two years ago, though, I wasn't living paycheck to paycheck, exactly, but yeah, it'd have been pretty dire. The reason? Your fixed expenses tend to scale with your income. 10 years ago I was living in a house with three other roommates, splinting utilities four ways. Today I own a condo I pay a mortgage on that even with refinancing my way out of PMI at a really favorable rate I'm paying more than 3x as much to live in as I did my old apartment. While a lot of expenses I could scale back pretty quickly - stop drinking, eating mostly $0.10 ramen packages for meals, cancel my internet service, etc, things like the amount of housing you consume on a monthly basis are things you really can't adjust on the fly. At the present I could comfortably go a couple months without working, two years ago I could have gone a couple weeks without major effect... And six years ago, the year after I bought my place, I honestly don't know what I would have done without income. And that's with still driving the Toyota Camry I bought new maybe....14 years ago?

Idunno. A high nominal salary alone doesn't necessarily mean anything because most people, as soon as they can, stop making the sacrificies around housing they make when they're younger, and, well, housing in the DC area isn't exactly cheap.
 
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