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

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931–940 of 1001 posts

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

#931

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 po…

> As a non-American, this is possibly a stupid question but why are limited terms on congress a good thing?

Term limits are one of those things that Americans always expect to be good before they are implemented, but never actually are more satisfied with the affected institution after they are implemented. They attack a boogeyman (the "career politician" that is supposedly worse than the neophyte politician) that many politicians attack at the start of their careers (and many later, trying to construct themsleves.as outsiders) so often that people have internalized the idea that experience is a negative trait in governing.

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

#932
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?

>High brow smack (condescension) like that and "basket of deplorables" are what America revolted against. Actually, the majority of Americans agreed with Hillary Clinton. She won the popular vote by over a million votes. We just use an outdated system built to appease slaveholders that does not necessarily represent the bulk will of the people. Trump won on a technicality of our (antiquated and frankly awful) system,…

The country is mostly red. Even though Clinton got 200k more votes I'm sure you can see why the the electoral system is in place.

I like to add there is still 4 million votes that are being counted. Projection even from CNN is that Trump wins the popular vote.

[0] https://mishgea.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/geographic-lands... [1] http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-10/trumps-geographic-l...

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

#933
"Restoring National Security Act" The Federalization of law enforcement has the potential for fascism. Also lowering the repatriation of corporate abroad profit makes it more tax efficient to move jobs overseas. A 10% repatriation below the 15% cap gains rate is a massive tax loophole.

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

#934

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.

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…

It's a really terrible thing to have laws that aren't respected by the people, the government or the courts. It completely undermines the rule of law.

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

#935

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As disliked as Paul Ryan is by Trump followers around the country, his actual seat is very safe. There are plenty of Republicans relying on the Trump coalition, though.

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

#936

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.

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…

There's an argument to be made that there might be some benefit in government spending a little less time impacting people's lives.

But also, spending that time cleaning up old laws sounds an awful lot like "doing something useful that will actually impact people's lives".

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

#937
post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more important aspect is preventing local police from having to act as immigration agents. That has a very real effect on crime: illegal immigrants don't have to be afraid of talking to police. I think we're safer when everyone feels free to report crimes and act as witnesses.

I agree with your message about safety, but it is important to keep in mind that illegal immigrants are inherently breaking the law. We should not encourage keeping them safe from deportation.

There's a long debate to be had about immigration in general. I'd contend, though, that it's in the public interest to look past things like immigration status in certain situations. For example, suppose we're vaccinating against an epidemic. In that case, you definitely don't want anyone to be afraid to come out and get their shot for any reason.

SF doesn't keep illegal immigrants safe from deportation. It says "in these circumstances, we think it's more important that you cooperate with the city than it is for us to try to deport you, so we're going to call a temporary truce".

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

#938

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtually nobody making 10 million a year pays a 39% tax rate. They likely take most of their comp as stock and pay the long term capital gains rate. If they're in finance/VC, they are taking full advantage of carried interest. They have financial planners who structure their portfolio to favor low-tax investments. They form S-Corps and trust funds to defer tax liability, get paid in distributions, write off all sort…

Taxing wealth is a terrible idea, because it means every asset has to generate income each year to offset taxes.

Why is that bad? Asking purely out of ignorance.

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

#939

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has it become that radical to suggest that smart, well-educated people may in fact see further into the consequences of things (particularly in their areas of expertise, but probably also peripherally), see more cognitive bias, have better critical-thinking skills, remember more mistakes from history, and all around make better long-term decisions? Why is that even offensive to anyone? Just because of someone's perso…

This is true, statistically. But on the level of one person you can't make such predicaments. Software developer or rocket engineer with all their complex knowledge sometimes isn't more successful (and happy) in life than some smart businessman. Knowledge is just a part of whole thing (to be ideal ruler of the USA). May be it is 1/5. So why people make so much hype about this 20%? Because they don't have much perspec…

What do you suggest the other 80% is?

I happen to agree with you in concept, although I'd put knowledge closer to 30% (guesstimate).

In my line of work I would say that knowledge is a third of what I need, and the rest is a mix of patience, ability to learn things I don't know, humility and ability to work well with others.

Are these the traits you would look for or something else?

And how would you rank Trump on these? (or yours, if you have others)

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

#940

> FIFTH, I will lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars’ worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal This is what I have the biggest problem with. The ONLY WAY we are going to continue making progress towards widespread clean renewable energy is if it is financially beneficial for corporations to continue investing in R&D. Sure, there are s…

I just came out of an energy company job, and you're outta luck. There's nothing in the energy sector to make me think they'll innovate unless they stumble into it. Now, certain people might be able to sidle into energy but it'll be pretty rough going. I was simply trying to buck up '80s-'90s era control systems to stop breaking things and this was perceived as "they're takin' 'er jerbs." Nothing was understood. My i…

> I just came out of an energy company job, and you're outta luck. There's nothing in the energy sector to make me think they'll innovate unless they stumble into it.

I don't think it only affects the existing members of the energy sector. Given the necessary financial motivation, there is a realistic opportunity for new competition in the renewable energy market rather than only relying on existing stablished companies to shift focus. Even if a group wants to move in to the renewable energy market on principal, funding will be a lot harder to come by with super cheap fossil fuel prices since investors (who are also motivated by money) won't see as much potential for short term profits.

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