This video has been seconded as a duplicate; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof seconded with isdupe by jonny.

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/How-big-of-a-budget-cut-is-100-million

This video has been nominated as a duplicate of this video by MrFisk. If this nomination is seconded with *isdupe, the video will be killed and its votes transferred to the original.

Pretty much what I thought too. A citizen may choose to use their rights or cede them at their leisure. It's just like how I choose not to exercise my right to keep and bear arms, but the right still exists for everyone else, or in case one day I change my mind. I don't think the driver was an asshole either, as the cops are already there all night and spending an extra 1.5 minutes on a single driver makes no difference to them either way, other than slowing the cars per minute that travel through that checkpoint (perhaps preventing them from nabbing an actual drunk driver).

The police officers know the rights of citizens better than most citizens do themselves (one of the unfortunate consequences of eliminating civics classes from school curricula, a la budget cuts), which I presume is why their initial persistence and robotic repetition of the carefully-worded phrase "Have you had anything to drink tonight?" is eventually ended when they realize the driver knows his rights as well as they do.

>> ^L0cky:

So a guy calmly exercises his right to not incriminate himself; and the police allow him to do so courteously.
...and there's 50 comments arguing about this?

>> ^wormwood:

I have started to wonder a lot more about where all that money is going TO. People have started counting these dollars as though they are equal to votes, with the actual votes seeming to matter less and less. When do we just dispense with this troublesome voting and just weight candidates money piles in November? But seriously, where does all the money go? TV commercials, lavish banquets and ?????. Can you really spend a billion dollars on that? What happened to one man one vote? It's like we don't even get one anymore--the slot in the box doesn't accept ballots, just $1000 bills.
>> ^ghark:
Dammnit, Marbles fooled me, I upvoted his comment then I realised he was blaming most of that stuff on the Government. The root of the problem is lobbyists influencing the Government. I hear Obama wants to raise one billion dollars for the next election cycle, I wonder where that money is going to come from, and what it will mean for the decisions he makes after he is likely re-elected?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/04/barack-obama-re-election-r
un



In terms of what the money gets used for, it's a very good question and something that certainly needs more attention. As far as who's getting it, I was kind of surprised to recently see that the money is allowed to go to some very unexpected places - the so called super congress had raised over $300,000 in donations by the end of September alone, with most of that going to 2 Republicans and 3 Democrats on the committee.

http://www.iwatchnews.org/2011/10/18/7138/super-congress-hauls-super-donations-special-interests-try-influence-budget-cuts

I don't know if that's just the tip of the iceberg though, with the Citizen's United ruling, there may be other PAC's donating far more.

Also, after watching all this video, my one gripe is that he seems to put too much focus on political ideology, he talks a lot about how Communism, Socialism etc can work, and is working in some parts of the world, but I would say that of greater importance is how accountable those in charge of the system are. I mean, Democracy is turning out to be worse than any other system in the history of the world but it's not because the principle of letting people have a vote is bad, it's because those in charge are abusing the system.

The environment is getting destroyed on unprecedented scales that were impossible previously
Millions have been, and are being, slaughtered because of kleptocratic regimes installed by the US
In the EU, bankers are being installed to lead countries, while political parties get merged - in so called 'democratic' countries
Austerity measures are being imposed on the middle class in many countries, while the rich are doing as well, or better than ever

I think it's human nature to want to vote for a person that you think will stand up for the principles you believe in, but in reality I think you are right wormwood - one man one vote is quite a meaningless term these days, especially so because we are in the age of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and Speechnow v. FEC decisions.

What's all that about, eh?
Lately, it seems that our conservatives are becoming more like american republican senators, which is a shame since there are very few people in Canada an MP with an American republican political stance could accurately represent.

I do agree that the TV shows such as Wild Roses, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Insecurity, Republic of Doyle, Being Erica do not deserve public funding. They aren't worth much at all as far as entertainment goes.

I don't think CBC television should be terminated completely; CBC in the past has brought us Kids in the Hall and helped keep SCTV on the air. This Hour has 22 minutes used to be funny, but that was a long time ago, and not much has come since. More recent canadian comedy successes were not a result of CBC, Corner Gas, for one.
I don't think most Canadians would oppose a budget cut to CBC TV, but definitely would to termination of funding full stop.

And don't touch CBC Radio!!!!


>> ^kymbos:

Wow, what happened to Canada? It used to be so progressive!

^JesusFreak

Reagan made drastic budget cuts to education. I'd call that austerity. Do you have some specific bit of policy you believe to be the culprit instead?

Sounds like your teacher friend is confusing his role as a teacher with his role as an employee. If he feels he is being mistreated by his district, he is allowed to stand up for himself. If teachers allow themselves to be bullied into pay cuts or poor working conditions, the profession becomes less competitive and thus less effective. This might explain why Texas is dead last in high school graduates? His students are less likely to graduate, but at least they don't have to worry about him going on strike. Well done! To hell with union states and all their uppity diploma earners!

Further reading:
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-education/public-education/why-does-texas-rank-last-in-high-school-diplomas/

The problem with education is funding. More funding = better education. Period. The government has been plenty 'creative' by allowing private charter schools into the educational system. In a study done at Stanford, they found that 37% of charter schools underperformed their public counterparts, 46% were comparable and 17% were better. Among the charter schools that did outperform public schools were schools like the Harlem Children's Zone, which get much higher funding. The take away here is that you get what you pay for. If we want better schools, we need to fund them.

Further reading on this topic:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-charter-schools/?pagination=false

As far as I know, RP doesn't have any kind of realistic jobs plan, other than to further deregulate big business, cut their taxes and then pray for some hot trickle down watersports action. And, as you say, I guess he also has no problem with vast economic disparity. These two points are a great illustration of how out of touch he is with the world around him. He seems like a nice guy, and I like his liberal views on foreign policy, but if he is going to willingly kowtow to wall street, then he is the wrong guy for the job.

I think this video needs coupled with his The Problems with First Past the Post Voting Explained.

I don't know if we can ever get a constitutional amendment passed to get rid of the electoral college, which is why I've long advocated just getting rid of the winner take all in every state. Whoever wins the congressional district, gets that district's electoral vote, with the two extras going to the winner of the popular vote of the state as a whole.

If we combined that with the Singe Transferable Vote type system explained in the Problems with First Past the Post video, we would have a system that better represents the people.

We still have an issue then with the large states being under represented and small states and DC being over represented, and he doesn't go into detail on why that is in these videos. We have had 435 Representatives since 1911 (save for a couple years where we had 437). The 1910 US Census said we had 76,212,168 people, so with 435 Representatives that gives us 175,200 people for each Representative, so we'll round that up to 200,000. The 2010 Census pegged us at 308,745,538, so each Representative now represents a bit over 709,750 people. If we kept with the 200,000 figure we would have 1543 Representatives now, and with modern technology there is no reason they would all need to be in the Congressional building for votes, just in their office in their home district. Heck even if we raised it to 250,000 people, a full quarter of a million, we 1234 or 1235 Representatives, which still insures people are better represented in Congress and at the electoral college if that is still in place once we fix First Past the Post and up the number or Representatives. Congress itself set the limit to 435, so it wouldn't take an amendment to fix it, unless we wanted to insure that it was fixed forever. I don't think we would need an amendment to move to the Single Transferable Vote either, just a law stating all Federal offices must use that method.

Of course to afford that many Representative they, and the Senate, probably need a pay and budget cut. So good luck on that, which may be reason enough it would never pass... that and the lobbyist trying to stop it since such a move would make their job harder and far more expensive.

We do need an amendment limiting the term of the Supreme Court, especially since they are appointed and not elected, and a term limit would be needed even if they were elected. An amendment that specifically exempts anyone who is in now and perhaps appointed within a few years of passing should be passable I would think (if they could agree on what the limit should be), then again, they haven't made a real effort to limit the Supreme Court term yet.

The primary system needs fixed as well, but I think that would be harder to fix. Even with a Single Transferable Vote in place, if it isn't party locked, you have people from the other party purposely voting for the person who would most likely lose against their candidate. Even party locked, you still have people saying they are one, voting for the person you best guess will lose, and then voting for your real candidate during the actual election (which should never be party locked). However, a single Transferable Vote does make "fringe" candidates that don't get the mainstream press coverage, like Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich and the like, to raise higher, which is probably why the parties themselves would fight any real primary system reform.

http://videosift.com/video/Herman-Cains-9-9-9-plan-Occupy-Wall-Street

@~1:15 "If you take a look at a wealthy person, ALL of the money that is earned... is ultimately going to be spent."

This trickles down how? Be either spending/investing in consumer goods or publicly traded ventures/securities? That's such a weak correlation and yet he makes it sound like it's a foregone conclusion. What about overseas tax shelters and foreign investments? What about the knee-jerk reaction of Wall Street investors to see stock and hold onto cash when the market dips? He does not provide a complete explanation.

. . .


@~2:30 "That money is used to grow the economy, to produce goods, to provide services, to create jobs... they're not using it to benefit themselves, they're using it to benefit society."

Sarcasm -> So when rich people buy things, they aren't doing enjoying it. That's why we say "money can't buy happiness." When they buy that 12th sports car, they're taking on that hardship for their country. Weep. <- end sarcasm. The rest of us need to buy stuff too, and as wages for the middle and lower income majority stagnate or worse, the top tier has enjoyed a boom.
. . .

@~4:10 "Any money that is diverted from savings [read as equities and bond investments in the domestic market] to government is money that would have been used to produce private sector jobs and grow the economy and instead the money goes to the government."

He states that liberals miss the bigger picture when they argue that the top should pay more taxes. He goes on here to describe the government is a black hole, where all taxes are simply wasted. What about social security, medicare and the damn debt? Honestly, it astounds me that he doesn't make the connection between the generally accepted idea that the debt needs to be paid but instead of taxing from more from the most successful individuals, he seems to side with the Republican fiscal policy of accomplishing this through budget cuts alone. This is a contributing factor to global perception America's quality of life: it doesn't even make the top 10 anymore in the Nation Ranking Quality of Life Index.

. . .

@~10:30 "The protesters [OWS] should be protesting the White House. Capital Hill... That's what's failed them. It's not Captialism, but the lack of Capitalism."

So the government is too big, and we need to cut spending and stop over regulating so Capitalism can frolic freely in the forest. Sounds so me like hasty Obama blaming. I think the mortgage-backed securities practices and resulting global crisis are a perfect example of unfettered Capitalism at work. Republicans can't have it both ways, no matter how matter-of-fact you say it. This fallacy is a major sticking point for me and a major contributor to my personal ideological opposition to the Republican viewpoint. All allegations of racism aside, ignoring the shocking gun toting and violent rhetoric of hard-line Tea Party demonstrators, saving all the ridiculous comments made by the GOP candidates recently, I just see the party trying to hide their allegiance to corporations. They do this by forming ludicrous allusions to "the State-run death camps" and distracting people from the real issue of wealth disparity by talking about inflammatory topics like "Don't Ask Don't Tell."

I don't even blindly follow the Democratic dogma. They can't come out of this squeaky clean either. I'd wager they're just about as pampered and subsequently influenced by lobbyists as their Republican counterparts, although they seem to maintain their "just and true, pro-underdog" image to a large extent. I hope OWS results in the end of this corporate crony-ism.

@NetRunner

I don't really believe the "blackmail" theory. It just speaks to how sudden and drastic his about-face seemed to me. I mean, this guy had a HUGE progressive mandate when he got elected. Landslide victory, both Houses, 60-40 in the Senate (although sabotaged by "blueblood" prags). Then, Obama chastising the Repugs that "elections have consequences", and the optimistically prescient Nobel Peace Prize. Finally, some change I can believe in! Go, Obama, go!

And then... he just started caving. Offering compromises when compromises weren't called for or necessary in my view. And then failing to learn very quickly, if at all, that the opposition wasn't interested in anything but opposition. I agree that their "personal courtesy" was truly "partisan posturing", and he may has gotten suckered to a point.

Maybe part of the problem is that he has surrounded himself with people that have never shared his vision. Maybe this is some brilliant plan to expose the Republicans and the system for what it is so he has the support to proffer true progressive change in a second term, but I don't think so.

You can point to the list of his many accomplishments and tell me I'm wrong, but the big picture in this country hasn't changed. His victories are little more than election year bullet points. Very little has changed overall. Health care and financial reforms are a joke. Corporations are still raping this country's middle class by sending jobs and cash overseas while paying very little or no taxes. Unions, the very fucking organizations that created the middle class and kept it strong, are legally and financially weaker and have lower participation than ever. Environmental protections are being stripped at alarming rates, the country's infrastructure continues to crumble, students and teachers alike are being hamstrung by budget cuts, 1 in 50 Americans are in prison or on probation, and although we were walking on the fucking moon forty years ago, we currently have to rent space on Russian rockets just to get American astronauts to low earth orbit. Yeah, we have no money for roads, bridges, schools, health care, or Orion spacecraft, but we spend (borrow) many times that needed to fund these things for three useless wars and an entire Empire of hundreds of bases around the world. I'll spare you the Eisenhower reference.

Something fundamental has to change in this country, and I think that any change that matters is going to have to be HUGE change, even revolutionary.

I see a completely different Obama than the one I supported in 2008. Rhetoric that you want to hear is still just rhetoric. Palliatives for the disenchanted, and dogma for those who should be. Yeah, I know it's "yes, we can", not "yes, he can". That's what OWS is all about. Obama failed. OWS is Plan B.

I hope I'm absolutely wrong. I hope he does well and effects positive, substantive change. Unfortunately, I'll be voting for him not because I think "he can", rather, as the best of a bad lot.

You like the piechart because you already agree with the author. I wish people would stop letting others do math for them. I can claim that defense is 100% of federal spending by making up some reason that all the other programs "don't count". And why does it even matter? Look at the dollar amount. We have a 1.4 trillion dollar deficit. Your exceedingly inclusive anti-war activist source says we spend 1.449 trillion on "defense." But even if we fire every soldier, cancel every pension, and shut down the VA, we're still hosed. All the defense contractors will stop paying taxes, and all the veterans will just collect medicare/medicaid.

I am totally sick of the the whole attitude of "We can fix our finances by cutting my pet peeve." It goes right up there with "I pay plenty of tax, someone else should be paying more," and "I should get $20 and hour plus benefits with my GED." McCain's strategist was right: we're a country of whiners.

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^blankfist:
One thing that's never mentioned in these cases is that the majority of our taxes goes to militarism, nation-building, corporate welfare and wars.
I haven't actually read all the comments on this thread yet, but I already see you've repeated this line twice here, and recently aimed it at me elsewhere, so let me just step in and point out that it's "never mentioned" because it's utterly and completely false.
Here's a breakdown of what our taxes go to. You'll notice that the slice of the pie for defense (including the wars) is 20%. That's not a "majority".
If you add together Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and other safety net programs, you get 55%. That happens to actually be a majority.
Also keep in mind that the Republicans don't want the defense budget cut at all, while the Democrats are putting most of their proposed cuts in defense.

The great thing about statistics is they change depending on where you get them. Here's one that claims defense spending is 25%.
But then there's this piechart which not only accounts what they claim to be 36% current defense spending budget (based on 2009), but also the past military expenses plus interest on that debt. That brings the percentage up to a majority of money spent on militarism. As I said.

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^blankfist:
One thing that's never mentioned in these cases is that the majority of our taxes goes to militarism, nation-building, corporate welfare and wars.
I haven't actually read all the comments on this thread yet, but I already see you've repeated this line twice here, and recently aimed it at me elsewhere, so let me just step in and point out that it's "never mentioned" because it's utterly and completely false.
Here's a breakdown of what our taxes go to. You'll notice that the slice of the pie for defense (including the wars) is 20%. That's not a "majority".
If you add together Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and other safety net programs, you get 55%. That happens to actually be a majority.
Also keep in mind that the Republicans don't want the defense budget cut at all, while the Democrats are putting most of their proposed cuts in defense.

The great thing about statistics is they change depending on where you get them. Here's one that claims defense spending is 25%.
But then there's this piechart which not only accounts what they claim to be 36% current defense spending budget (based on 2009), but also the past military expenses plus interest on that debt. That brings the percentage up to a majority of money spent on militarism. As I said.


That's why you have to pay attention to what you're looking at. My link and your first link are pretty much doing the same thing -- looking at the actual budget, and rolling things up into broad categories, while still telling you how the categories are comprised. Both show military spending to be sizable, but far less than a "majority" of spending. They both show a majority of spending going to social saftety net programs, too.

Your second link does claim military spending is a majority of government spending, but to do that they have to really twist the numbers. For example, they refuse to count outlays from "Trust Fund" programs as spending. That means they don't include Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid in their pie chart at all. Add that back in, and even their doubled figure for military spending still falls short of 50% of all spending.

The majority of our taxes go towards social safety net programs, not the military.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^blankfist:
One thing that's never mentioned in these cases is that the majority of our taxes goes to militarism, nation-building, corporate welfare and wars.
I haven't actually read all the comments on this thread yet, but I already see you've repeated this line twice here, and recently aimed it at me elsewhere, so let me just step in and point out that it's "never mentioned" because it's utterly and completely false.
Here's a breakdown of what our taxes go to. You'll notice that the slice of the pie for defense (including the wars) is 20%. That's not a "majority".
If you add together Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and other safety net programs, you get 55%. That happens to actually be a majority.
Also keep in mind that the Republicans don't want the defense budget cut at all, while the Democrats are putting most of their proposed cuts in defense.


The great thing about statistics is they change depending on where you get them. Here's one that claims defense spending is 25%.

But then there's this piechart which not only accounts what they claim to be 36% current defense spending budget (based on 2009), but also the past military expenses plus interest on that debt. That brings the percentage up to a majority of money spent on militarism. As I said.

>> ^blankfist:

One thing that's never mentioned in these cases is that the majority of our taxes goes to militarism, nation-building, corporate welfare and wars.

I haven't actually read all the comments on this thread yet, but I already see you've repeated this line twice here, and recently aimed it at me elsewhere, so let me just step in and point out that it's "never mentioned" because it's utterly and completely false.

Here's a breakdown of what our taxes go to. You'll notice that the slice of the pie for defense (including the wars) is 20%. That's not a "majority".

If you add together Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and other safety net programs, you get 55%. That happens to actually be a majority.

Also keep in mind that the Republicans don't want the defense budget cut at all, while the Democrats are putting most of their proposed cuts in defense.

So let's deal with some factual claims here. Cafferty's entire premise hangs on this Washington Times article, which makes the claim that there are $3 in tax increases for every $1 in cuts.

Except, the Washington Times is lying when it says that. According to the WT article itself, the proposal outlines $4.4 trillion in deficit reduction, $1.5 trillion of which is tax increases. That's $1.93 in cuts for each $1 in taxes, nowhere near the $0.33 in cuts per $1 in taxes that the Washington times states.

So how do they arrive at their figure? Well, they subtract out a bunch of things that are "supposed to happen anyways". Things that people like @blankfist insist Obama won't do, such as ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a series of budget cuts that he'd agreed to in the debt ceiling deal a few months back.

Never mind that ending the Bush tax cuts is also something that is "supposed to happen anyways", and the new taxes proposed are more than offset by specific new cuts.

Which reminds me, Cafferty says there are no specific cuts of any kind. Before saying that, maybe he should read the plan? Or maybe even just read the entire Washington Times article he's relying on so heavily. The Washington Times' own conservative (in every sense of the word) estimate is that there are $580 billion in specific cuts, mostly coming from Social Security and Medicare, which Cafferty says have been left untouched.

Then, Cafferty says we have a $1 trillion a year deficit. Except now he is adding in all the things he subtracted from Obama's plan because they were "going to happen anyway." He's including the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan, he's including all the spending that will be cut because of the debt ceiling deal, and he's including the deficit from the Bush tax cuts.

If you're going to subtract those things out as legitimate sources of deficit reduction, then you've also got to subtract them out of your estimate of what the deficit is going to be in the future. If you don't, then you're being straight up dishonest, and exaggerating the size of the gap between the plans for deficit reduction, and the deficit itself.

I suspect Cafferty did this accidentally, but still, it's not like there aren't people at CNN who could've fact checked him before he said this on air.

Anyways, here's a much more fair assessment of the Obama plan, if you're looking for some balance on the topic.