Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#851

Post by meric » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 8:34 AM UTC

redler wrote: post #834

adamgravitis wrote: post #786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reducing the number, length and complexity of regulation is a valid goal, and that hasn't changed in thousands of years: "The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government." - Tacitus

The actual Tacitus quote doesn't really serve your argument. It's "The more corrupt the government, the more numerous the laws." -- you've got it backwards. Complexity is one thing (although it should be obvious that complex domains often require complex descriptions). But number is arbitrary. Suppose there exists a set of three distinct regulations regarding ways to safely manufacture a drug, and a dangerous new pro…

Trump's intention to reduce government regulations may mean government under his administration will be less corrupt.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#852

Post by pbreit » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 8:42 AM UTC

tdaltonc wrote: post #479

darawk wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It might sound great if you don't think too hard about it. IMO this is the best thing in there. The burden of complex legislation is incredible, and there are tens of thousands of pages that could be simplified and/or removed entirely. It'd be a very lon…

I agree that regulations should be simpler, but this sounds like a bad way to achieve that. Are "regulations" strictly countable? It sounds like trying to minimize the number of lines (or characters) in a code base. Fewer lines (or characters) doesn't mean it will be more readable.

Take it seriously but not literally. Seriously.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#853

Post by imtringued » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 8:42 AM UTC

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #43

Some of this sounds great - term limits on congress, a measure to reduce the revolving door effect of government officials going into lobbying. Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It might sound great if you don't think too hard about it. The scariest things for me are the backing out of cli…

>for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated.

It's easy to game. Now every new regulation is as big as two old regulations.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#854

Post by onion2k » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 8:43 AM UTC

burgreblast wrote: post #849

redler wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not unlike how an opposing party will criticize a bill based on its number of typed pages. The thump of a couple of inches of paper on a podium makes for great and reductive theater. It's likewise naïve to consider the number of regulations to be a direct barometer of the goodness or badness of regulation in general. Next we'll see the refactoring of existing regulations into smaller or larger components to a…

How do you guys deal with re-factoring code? Imagine a codebase that has been largely additive for 100 years. While the "+1 minus two guideline" has plenty of shortcomings in the long term, there is lots of low hanging fruit now, and it's an important mindset shift. Guys, don't just add LOC. Refactor, clean it up and make it better. Remove blocks we don't use anymore.

Government is strongly limited by time. There's a hard ceiling on the amount of things that can be proposed, debated, and voted on within a term. Consequently, if there are things in the statute that are no longer used it's often better to simply ignore them than to spend precious time in the house arguing about removing them. It might only take 5 minutes to call the house to order, have someone stand up and say "We don't need a law banning witchcraft any more" and then have a vote where the result is a foregone conclusion, that's 5 minutes that the government isn't doing something useful that will actually impact people's lives.

The repeal of pointless old laws comes up relatively often here in the UK. Some of our laws are really old - the government was talking about repealing some that were passed almost 750 years ago recently http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30334812

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#855

Post by pbreit » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 8:43 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #171

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #43

Some of this sounds great - term limits on congress, a measure to reduce the revolving door effect of government officials going into lobbying. Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It might sound great if you don't think too hard about it. The scariest things for me are the backing out of cli…

2-for-1 need not be a law, just executive guidance around what Trump will or will not veto. If it doesn't take two substantive--to him--pieces of regulation off the table for each one proposed, he'll send it back for more cutting.

Critics still can't get their head around "taking it seriously but not literally".

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#856

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 8:48 AM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #853

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #43

Some of this sounds great - term limits on congress, a measure to reduce the revolving door effect of government officials going into lobbying. Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It might sound great if you don't think too hard about it. The scariest things for me are the backing out of cli…

>for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. It's easy to game. Now every new regulation is as big as two old regulations.

[deleted]

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#857

Post by pbreit » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 8:51 AM UTC

akiselev wrote: post #473

chrismeller wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of them being at the state and local level sounds more like the recession (and corresponding decrease in tax revenues the following years) catching up with state and local governments that actually have to stick to a budget. I'm not sure what the breakdown of "more recently at the Federal level" is, but it doesn't sound very pro-Obama in terms of your argument, particularly since Trump is talking about the Feder…

Between a quarter to half of California's state budget comes from the federal government [1] and I'm guessing the same is true for most states. With that much money coming from the federal government, it's a muddy distinction. One of the primary argument against the federal government is the disconnect from local needs but most of the money is tied to federal mandates anyway (for example, the feds threatened road inf…

"Between a quarter to half of California's state budget comes from the federal government"

I think you're trying to make it seem higher than it is. Per your link, it's 25%.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#858

Post by nartsbtaa » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 9:06 AM UTC

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #819

bmmayer1 wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is campaign finance reform really that big an issue, considering Trump just proved it's possible to win an election without any big money or support from special interests?

> "proved it's possible to win an election without any big money" But he had big money! :)

You can win an election without spending big money. But you do need to charisma, and no amount of money can buy Hillary/Romney/Kerry/Gore charisma.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#859

Post by daenz » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 9:15 AM UTC

davesque wrote: post #770

grzm wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A significant percentage of voters in the US came to that conclusion, given the choices they had. I think it's likely pretty easy to find one of them to ask, if you're willing to listen.

Not the majority, though.

If you're talking about majority of voters, CNN projects Trump to win the popular vote http://www.cnn.com/election/results

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#860

Post by astrodust » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 9:21 AM UTC

malz wrote: post #707

albinofrenchy wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why did they allow the president to run up more national debt than all presidents prior...combined This isn't true even on the face of it; it went up from ~10 trillion to ~18 trillion. And aside from that; the national debt exploded due to the economic collapse that happened months before Obama was sworn in. The accusation is wrong on the facts and disingenuous.

And the debt was increased by actions like bailing out the auto industry, saving 800,000 jobs. All those workers then voted for Trump.

That actually didn't increase the debt. Most of those loans were repaid.

The money to the banks, I'm not so sure.

Don't forget Obama was handed two active wars that he had to fund. They were spending billions per day on military operations. He wound them down as fast as he could but it still took years.