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

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

#921

Post by 551199 » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 1:35 PM UTC

tribune wrote: post #717

bduerst wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a lie. Trump courted and accepted money from special interests - there was even a Planet Money podcast on it.

Sure he did - but nearly as much as did Clinton. This election absolutely proved that a candidate can't simple "buy" an election

Clinton campaign was the most expensive ever and she still lost[0]

And there is a reason for that: "Hillary Clinton was the candidate of the military industrial complex and international finance capital."[1]

[0] https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16 [1] http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/09/the-rejection-of-wall...

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

#922

Post by tssva » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 1:37 PM 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…

Term limits are an awful idea. They limit my ability to vote for the candidate of my choice while providing no benefit. Term limits already exist for many political offices and in no case have they resulted in any tangible changes in political behavior.

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

#923

Post by bdavisx » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 1:44 PM UTC

danenania wrote: post #697

tw04 wrote: post #595

So he's going to lower taxes on the wealthy, drop taxes on businesses, increase spending on military, destroy our national parks to extract oil, and lay off federal employees. This is going to help the middle class and the uneducated who are struggling through... magic. None of the lobbying stuff will ever see the light of day. The term limits won't happen. He's going to repeal the "illegal" Obama executive orders bu…

He's (unfortunately) going to have a LOT of leverage over Congress. One word to his minions and he can instantly remove over 50% of any Republican's support. They are terrified of provoking him.

How is he going to remove their support - Paul Ryan was still reelected against Trump's wishes.

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

#924

Post by 551199 » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 1:51 PM UTC

oldmanjay wrote: post #324

ainot wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority High brow smack (condescension) like that and "basket of deplorables" are what America revolted against. If the liberal left was truly smart, why did they allow the president to run up more national debt than all presidents prior...combined?

Here's Nate Silver today trying to explain trump: > America hasn’t put its demons — including racism, anti-Semitism and misogyny — behind it. White people still make up the vast majority of the electorate, particularly when considering their share of the Electoral College, and their votes usually determine the winner. By intentionally continuing to attempt to associate support for trump with a litany of unacceptable…

Nate Silver has been wrong in everything he has predicted about Trump.

Again its not about ism although they play a part. Its about establishment vs anti-establishment. Hillary Clinton was the candidate of international finance and military complex.

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

#925

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 1:54 PM UTC

zeveb wrote: post #359

dragonwriter wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It does seem like it could be useful as a short term policy, if Congress can't find any way to agree on directly repealing unnecessary regulations. Regulations are issued by the executive branch, not Congress (repealing regulations is actually done by issuing regulations specifying the regulations to be repealed, so the process for repeal is the same.) Also, "a regulation" isn't a well-defined unit.

> Regulations are issued by the executive branch Sounds like the meaning of the executive's order to 'repeal two for every one new' could be decided within the executive branch, then. And since everyone within the executive branch is responsible to the chief executive … maybe it could even work.

It could, my point is that it's not at all clear what the promise even means.

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

#926

Post by mixedCase » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 1:55 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #863

burgreblast wrote: post #849

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How do you guys deal with re-factoring code? As a very rough guide. Replacing one big function with two smaller functions is often better than replacing two small functions with one big one.

This is for functions that actually have a meaningful purpose and merit being better understood.

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

#927

Post by kdamken » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 1:57 PM UTC

tw04 wrote: post #595

So he's going to lower taxes on the wealthy, drop taxes on businesses, increase spending on military, destroy our national parks to extract oil, and lay off federal employees. This is going to help the middle class and the uneducated who are struggling through... magic. None of the lobbying stuff will ever see the light of day. The term limits won't happen. He's going to repeal the "illegal" Obama executive orders bu…

For the tax cuts, seems like it'd be pretty helpful for the lower and middle classes from what he's posted here - https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/tax-plan

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

#928

Post by ascagnel_ » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 2:10 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #281

pfraze wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal mining and related production is a large employer. It's about propping up small coal-towns.

Put out of work coal miners on social security early at their full benefit and fund it with a carbon tax. This doesn't even need to be a carbon tax; simply a transfer from the general fund. The average coal miner salary is ~$22/hr, or ~$42k/year. 174,000 coal workers in the US @ $31,668k/year (the max SS benefit permitted) = $5.5 billion/year. This is not expensive, nor in perpetuity, only the years from now until th…

Why not, instead of putting them on Social Security, subsidize the installation of solar and wind generation facilities in areas that previously were economically driven by coal mining, and then provide training programs so those displaced miners instead are attractive to employers as workers that can manage and maintain the new electricity generation networks? A single coal-fired power plant can generate far more electricity than a single solar panel or wind turbine, and keeping those up and running will need a lot more hands.

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

#929

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 2:14 PM UTC

internaut wrote: post #150

dragonwriter wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If he does this alone, then he's made a huge impact No single action could increase the power of lobbyists and unelected officials not directly accountable to voters more than this, it's true. It would be an enormous impact.

Can you provide a supporting line of reasoning? I think corruption is like a weed. It grows when you become acclimatized to your environment and start to exploit it. Term limits get us closer to a part-sortition. From the wiki: Author James Wycliffe Headlam explains that the Athenian Council (500 administrators randomly selected), would commit occasional mistakes such as levying taxes that were too high. Additionally…

There are three key groups at work in the legislation: legislators, the professional staff on whom legislators rely, and lobbyists.

Reducing the average level of experience in the particular legislative institution, and in legislative affairs generally, of the first group increase the relative advantage in systematic knowledge and effectiveness of the latter two groups compared to the first.

Term limits aren't sortition (it's not random, and political parties and the donor class are actively involved in choosing who stands for seats and how much support they have, so, the effects you point to in sortition of breaking up factionsome and reducing corruption simply aren't present.) And, in any case, the level of complexity of a modern nation of 300+ million people different considerably from that of ancient Athens.

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

#930

Post by hendubz » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 2:14 PM 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…

As a non-American, this is possibly a stupid question but why are limited terms on congress a good thing? My assumption was that those who wish to progress in government can benefit from lengthier terms in the legistlative branch to gain experience. Doesn't imposing a limit (or at least one shorter than several election cycles more than the executive branch) reduce the amount of experience that one can gain before potentially looking to move on and up?