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PoliGAF 2017 |OT5| The Man In the High Chair
- Thread starter aspiegamer
- Start date
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Now let's see what Trump shill they replace him with...
It's Mueller Time.
Box of Kittens
Banned
A 1998 scenario seems awfully unlikely to me. Two key facts about that election were that Clinton was popular and the Republicans actually impeached him. Trump is unpopular and the numbers are such that the Democrats can't impeach him alone even if they wanted to.
Sure you have some people talking about impeachment now, but you also did in 2010 (with nothing to justify it) and it galvanized the Democratic base so well we lost 63 House seats. Anti-anti-Trumpism is only going to get the GOP so far.
Taking the House will not be easy due to gerrymandering, but making gains in the House is almost certain.
Would you fucking stop? Like ten posts in a row of this garbage
Futurevoid
Member
Kind of stupid considering the context of his statement but if it gets his worthless ass off of peoples televisions - great.
You're forgetting that social services include hospitals, schools, and public transportation. Privatizing our amenities is terrible because it makes profit the factor upon which these services operate. Democratic accountability crumbles away, and the second one company gets a monopoly on some kind of service we find ourselves in a Comcast situation.
Cash transfers are dangerous because even with a monthly check you can be ruined by a medical emergency or a particularly high water bill. Abolishing free services which provide food and healthcare means that our poorest citizens are in an even more precarious situation, even if they're less poor in absolute terms than they used to be. If we agree that relieving poverty is the purpose of universal basic income, then any future policy needs to augment our existing welfare state.
balladofwindfishes
Member
Trump Mad Libs
If ___Country/Person___ does ___Verb___ it will be a ___Noun___ the likes of which have never been seen before
If ___Country/Person___ does ___Verb___ it will be a ___Noun___ the likes of which have never been seen before
Officerrob
Banned
Looks like CNN was looking for an excuse to fire Lord
They were probably looking for an excuse at this point. It's been pretty clear for a while that the anchors, especially Cooper, were barely tolerating him.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
It seems like trump got a talking to.
Because his comments on NK are bad but they seem to be more couched in, if kim attacks, we'll respond, which is obvious. Which is normal besides trumps bombast over "the likes of which we've never seen" and "fire and fury"
Because his comments on NK are bad but they seem to be more couched in, if kim attacks, we'll respond, which is obvious. Which is normal besides trumps bombast over "the likes of which we've never seen" and "fire and fury"
Brawly Likes to Brawl
Member
It took going that far for CNN to realize he had no business there?
Sure, I agree that the government should still be responsible for infrastructure, which I include all those in. I was talking more about alternate transfer programs.
I mean, you mostly can't? I certainly can't, because I have a bunch of cash, and I used that cash to buy good insurance and save some money for unexpected expenses.
People who can be ruined by a medical emergency are living in a state of precarity. That state isn't arbitrary or mysterious -- they are in precarity because they have no money to provide security for themselves! They're not running around without insurance or with no savings or credit because they think those are awesome conditions, they're doing it because they are poor. If we give them a bunch of money they'll buy the things they need to insure themselves against catastrophe. Then they won't be in precarity any more.
This is not to say we shouldn't still do things like manage healthcare publicly -- that's infrastructure. It's just to push back against your unclear ideas about precarity.
I agree that relieving poverty is the purpose of UBI, but your conclusion simply doesn't follow. If we give our poorest citizens a bunch of money...they won't be poor any more. That will make their situation naturally less precarious. It's not clear to me where you think precarity originates.
AntraxSuicide
Banned
No one is talking about HSAs. But quite a lot of social services are hamstrung by treating poor people like children and mandating what they use the money on (ex: food stamps). That's inefficient and demeaning.
Whoa, has hell frozen over? McEneny and Lord finally gone? Is Scottie Nell Hughes still on there? I quite literally have not seen CNN since January.
https://twitter.com/JonLemire/status/895749482821898240
That's what happens when a narcissist gets bored.
That's what happens when a narcissist gets bored.
Aaron Strife
Banned
Letting Trump bury himself is always good.
There's a reason he can't actually do press conferences.
Spoiled Milk
Banned
Nobody is being buried. Those quotes are so tame. 
Basileus777
Member
Even if he is convicted, the NJ GOP isn't picking off a Senate seat in Trump's midterm.
Spoiled Milk
Banned
Have you ever been poor before? People just don't pay their water bill or medical bills if it's between that and eating.
whyamihere
Banned
i'm hard
Aaron Strife
Banned
Food, housing, and medicine must always be available to those who need it. If we replace our current welfare state with direct single payer, these benefits are no longer guaranteed.
Personally, I'd prefer a universal system for distributing human needs not pegged to any dollar amount. Poor people should be entitled to a minimum of food and shelter even if they don't have money, as a way to free up their limited finances for more discretionary investments, like a nicer apartment or a college education.
Not only does this relieve the stresses of poverty more effectively than a monthly check, but it allows for a greater stimulus of our economy and more taxable income. The only people who would be harmed by this system are the property owners who take so much from society that they are obligated to give something back through their taxes.
Yeah, and then you lose your lights and water. If these services are free and held in common, nobody has to worry about that.
If he's convicted this year, Christie gets to appoint his successor.
Basileus777
Member
Ah, that was what he meant.
at least we haven't been vaporized!
Spoiled Milk
Banned
Food and housing benefits are already specified in dollar amounts.
How do you measure a "minimum of food and shelter"? Because dollar amounts do that extremely well.
How can you make this claim when you haven't quantified your alternative at all?
Why do you think it's possible for services to be free or held in common? Especially scarce goods like water and energy.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
It's the blatantness of it all. Like, hiding in plain sight or something. There's no way to look at it other than serving the real Don in Moscow. I almost guarentee this is what that quiet meeting between T-Rex and the Kremlin was about: messaging and groveling.
Abinash117
Member
Not yet.
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
If this keeps up, we MAY see a slight push behind the scenes by the GOP for impeachment before the election in 2018. If these numbers keep falling, they may hit the panic button.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Okay, so say you guarantee every person has access to $50 of food per week, or whatever. Why not just... give them $50? If spending it entirely on food is entirely as they want, then they'll go and spend it on food, and there's no difference between your policy and mine, but if they chose to spend only some portion of it on food and would otherwise spend some of it on something else, your policy has stopped them doing that - it's fundamentally paternalistic; it assumes they're not best placed to make their own choices. It's an oddly conservative approach to welfare I'm surprised to see coming from you.
AntraxSuicide
Banned
I don't get this at all, especially the bold. How do you make sure people have food? Are you sending them food boxes? Because that's the same demeaning thing I'm talking about with food stamps that only work on certain foods.
Poor people can be trusted to buy their own groceries. Just give them the money to do that.
Sure, but what if they spend the $50 on garbage food, or cigarettes for example.
If you are covering their healthcare costs, its in the government's best interest to ensure that the money is spent in a way that is healthy.
My point isn't to put more restrictions on welfare, but to point out that UBI isn't a silver bullet.
Yes, I agree with this. I just wouldn't give them that food and shelter in kind, because it would be extremely inefficient for the government to acquire and distribute it, unnecessarily restrictive to the financial choices of the people receiving benefits, who may want to spend some money on food or shelter but now can't effectively do so without suffering regressive loss of benefits, and naturally lead to the development of an exploitative black market in services that are not ideally suited to the needs of the individual receiving them.
Instead, I propose giving people enough money to purchase that food and shelter for themselves. This way they can get exactly what they want, leveraging the existing market structure, which is already heavily subsidized and strongly networked, and if they're able to get food or shelter through a secondary avenue, they're not punished for their resourcefulness by the government, but can simply redirect that money to other needs.
If you phrase it as "authoritarian" instead of "conservative" it's less surprising to see coming from him!
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
No, sure, but you're biting the bullet and saying: we, the government, are very happy to be paternalistic. Now, I think on the facts of the evidence you're simply wrong - e.g., cigaratte consumption actually decreases as income rises - but that's another topic. For Valhelm, given his moral background, I would have thought that there would have been some kind of political resistance to the deliberate reduction in autonomy and freedom of the working classes by the state's bureaucratic organs, typically controlled by the bourgeoisie.
Agreed.
I'm just thinking about issues relating to how to effectively tailor a program to do most good. You have to consider the accessibility of healthy, fresh food (and tailor this program to encourage supermarket development in areas that have none, for example). If the government is on the hook for healthcare costs, you want to ensure that a level of autonomy and freedom is accompanied by readily available healthy choices.
a. They don't, studies show this.
b. Who fucking cares? It's not my job to babysit these people, it's my job to ensure they have the opportunities that society has denied them. They have the right to turn down those opportunities if they want to for some dumb reason. My moral responsibility to ensure they are fed does not come with a right to control their actions.
We don't do this for any other people in America, even though everybody's healthcare, food, transportation, etc. are all heavily subsidized by the government. Why should we single out the poor for oppressive management of their personal choices? This is literally the argument that is routinely used to justify drug tests for welfare recipients. You should stop swallowing right-wing messaging!
But your reasoning for why UBI isn't a silver bullet is that poor people might be too stupid to make their own choices. I defy this judgemental position.
Greigor The Fellhand
Member
Trump is saying too much shit today, has to be the pattern. Some shit probably went down, my guess is JR/Kush got raided by the FBI and Trump is rambling again.
Human needs like food, shelter, and healthcare should be guaranteed no matter what. If we build a welfare state based on need fulfillment rather than dollar entitlement, we can make sure that nobody slips through the cracks. The worst that can happen is that a middle class person goes to a clinic or cafeteria meant for poor people, but they're still paying through their taxes so there's little harm done.
As long as resources like water and electricity are nationalized rather than privatized, quality is beholden to local democratic pressures rather than market demands. This is great, because it means nobody will skimp on quality to make some extra cash, and protects other tax-based programs from being dismantled.
So many of our local crises, most obviously the Flint water disaster, are caused by cash-strapped governments ceding authority to for-profit enterprises. If we raise taxes and ensure transparent and democratic management of our social services, this won't happen.
I don't actually think we're disagreeing that much. I'm concerned that these programs need to be tailored to (1) provide sufficient money to afford healthy food, as opposed to cheap junk (2) provide appropriate access to healthy food (I don't need to get into food deserts and lack of healthy options that are available in lower income neighborhoods) and (3) corresponding access to health education.
I've read a lot recently about food access in lower income areas, and that is a unique problem to the poor - in many cases, healthy, fresh food simply isn't accessible. I just read this book and its a fascinating study (http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt...w-u-s-policies-encouraged-fast-food-to-spread)
Joe Shlabotnik
Banned
This is a problem for everyone buying garbage food and while certainly something to discuss has absolutely nothing to do with what poor people should or shouldn't buy.
We're either talking about policing everyone's eating habits or no one's, and either way we shouldn't make poor people wait on figuring it out.
Brawndo Addict
Banned
bump
Aaron Strife
Banned
McConnell drawing up then impeachment papers.
(Yes I know it starts in the House)
This is uniquely a problem that pervades lower income areas. Its not about policing, its about access.
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