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PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2013 10:42 am 
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Indeed.

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 Post subject: Re: Make Congress Work
PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2013 10:42 am 
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Elmarnieh wrote:
Xequecal wrote:
Khross wrote:
They wouldn't have to raise money to deal with disasters if they were not dependent on Federal appropriations of money to pay their bills. Again, Zero-Sum accounting and government finance practices are irrational, detrimental, and bad. They can't save money; they can't hold surpluses in most cases; and if they can hold surpluses, there are all sorts of federal rules as to how that money can be spent.


No, you're still missing the scope of the problem. Even if Lousiana were to double its current income tax rate, set aside all the additional revenue for hurricane relief/fixing hurricane damage, and their economy was completely unaffected by the extra taxes, it would still take over fifty years for them to have enough money to afford a Hurricane Katrina. It's just not realistically possible for them to cope with major disasters of that scope without federal assistance.



What does that say about living there?


That, like any delta for a major river or coastal area, it's inherently risky? What does the fact that the Mississippi River is critical infrastructure for the nation's transportation system, to the tune of nearly $200 billion in economic activity a year, say about the need for people to live in the area and maintain the waterway?


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 Post subject: Re: Make Congress Work
PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2013 10:43 am 
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Kaffis Mark V wrote:
Elmarnieh wrote:
Xequecal wrote:
Khross wrote:
They wouldn't have to raise money to deal with disasters if they were not dependent on Federal appropriations of money to pay their bills. Again, Zero-Sum accounting and government finance practices are irrational, detrimental, and bad. They can't save money; they can't hold surpluses in most cases; and if they can hold surpluses, there are all sorts of federal rules as to how that money can be spent.


No, you're still missing the scope of the problem. Even if Lousiana were to double its current income tax rate, set aside all the additional revenue for hurricane relief/fixing hurricane damage, and their economy was completely unaffected by the extra taxes, it would still take over fifty years for them to have enough money to afford a Hurricane Katrina. It's just not realistically possible for them to cope with major disasters of that scope without federal assistance.



What does that say about living there?

That it's only smart if you're getting the rest of the country to pay for your "unexpected" expenses when they crop up!


Well, if the rest of the country wants to continue using the Mississippi for transportation, they need to pay up.


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 Post subject: Re: Make Congress Work
PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2013 11:19 am 
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I think if we did not have people living in areas where some major natural disaster was a real possibility, we would find ourselves with a great deal of vacant land and very few places to live.

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 Post subject: Re: Make Congress Work
PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2013 12:23 pm 
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Diamondeye wrote:
I think if we did not have people living in areas where some major natural disaster was a real possibility, we would find ourselves with a great deal of vacant land and very few places to live.


Hmm. What would be left? To the internet!!!

So it looks like Texas has had the most emergency declarations, by far. Of their 334 declarations, 234 were related to fires.

The runner up is California, with 218 declarations, including 132 resulting from wildfires. It can take pride, however, in that it has the largest number of major disaster declarations, at 78.

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indian Nation, the Karuk Tribe, the Navajo Nation, and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe each had only one disaster declaration, so I can only assume that this was when they were being attacked by Calvary and were subsequently wiped off the map....

Washington D.C. and Delaware had 19 and 20 emergency declarations, respectively. These apparently are the "safest" areas.

There were 12 states with more declarations than Louisiana.


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2013 7:58 pm 
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Come to Ohio, we don't do disasters.

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PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2013 8:18 pm 
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Hopwin wrote:
Come to Ohio, we don't do disasters.


I beg to differ.. Cleveland is in Ohio....


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2013 9:04 pm 
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I don't think we've ever had a disaster here.

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PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2013 11:17 pm 
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Kaffis Mark V wrote:
You know.. withholding congressional pay doesn't go far enough for #1.

Withhold the congress-person's pay, that of their staff, and increase their annual tax rate to 100% of all income-generating activities. Revoke their campaign's non-profit status for the year, and jack its tax rate up.

What's that? This makes it really hard for incumbents to campaign against challengers if they don't pass a budget, and they'll probably have to fire their staff (and have a really hard time finding people willing to risk being their staff)? Gosh, darn. Maybe they should take the whole notion of taking ownership of the fiscal state of our nation seriously, then. After all, the entire reason they DON'T pass budgets anymore is so they're not on a black and white record supporting the bankrupting of our nation and can try to weasel their way off the wall when the angry revolution comes.


See, I was thinking about going in the other direction. Changing their paycheck doesn't matter to the rich Senators and Representatives, but the few average Joes who got elected on merit (who may or may not exist in reality) will be hurt. That's also why I support Congressmen/women having a pretty high salary, even though most of them probably don't need it.

So that got me thinking of non-monetary incentives. At first I thought you could hit them with everyday annoyances. Remove french fries from the cafeteria menu. Replace all their seat cushions with ones that are super uncomfortable. Those are kinda retarded, but you might be able to come up with something along those lines that would provide a little more incentive.

But then I realized, if you want to get this **** done and hit them where it hurts, you need to target elections. For every month Congress is late on passing a budget, subtract 1% of their vote totals from their next election. Yeah, it would require a Constitutional amendment and would never happen, but it would work. They'd be passing budgets like no ones business.


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 Post subject: Re: Re:
PostPosted: Thu Dec 12, 2013 3:07 am 
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Midgen wrote:
Hopwin wrote:
Come to Ohio, we don't do disasters.


I beg to differ.. Cleveland is in Ohio....


He's got you there.

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 Post subject: Re: Re:
PostPosted: Thu Dec 12, 2013 8:04 am 
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Diamondeye wrote:
Midgen wrote:
Hopwin wrote:
Come to Ohio, we don't do disasters.


I beg to differ.. Cleveland is in Ohio....


He's got you there.

Hey our river hasn't caught on fire in like 40 years.

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PostPosted: Thu Dec 12, 2013 9:44 am 
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Ohio does have earthquakes and tornadoes, though.

Like our hurricanes, the earthquakes are so mild as to not cause property damage, though.

And tornadoes are pretty tolerable, as far as natural disasters go, since they tend to be so localized that they never ravage an entire community. Given that everywhere in the world, *something* can happen that falls into the "act of God" category and will not be covered by insurance, I'll take the ones that don't level entire communities. Even if the grocery gets hit by a tornado, I can still shop at the next town over and be okay until they get it fixed up.

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PostPosted: Thu Dec 12, 2013 10:36 am 
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Hopwin wrote:
Hey our river hasn't caught on fire in like 40 years.

I thought he was referring to the NFL record.

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PostPosted: Thu Dec 12, 2013 11:01 am 
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Diamondeye wrote:
Hopwin wrote:
Hey our river hasn't caught on fire in like 40 years.

I thought he was referring to the NFL record.

Zing!

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 Post subject: Re: Re:
PostPosted: Thu Dec 12, 2013 12:04 pm 
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Diamondeye wrote:
Hopwin wrote:
Hey our river hasn't caught on fire in like 40 years.

I thought he was referring to the NFL record.

What about our Baseball and Basketball teams?

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PostPosted: Thu Dec 12, 2013 4:40 pm 
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Ohio: 47 major disasters, 7 emergency declarations, zero raging fires.


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PostPosted: Thu Dec 12, 2013 5:22 pm 
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Müs wrote:
I don't think we've ever had a disaster here.


Oh wait, we have. But they're all floods and wildfires. So really, no real disasters on even the scale of a tornado, much less a hurricane.

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PostPosted: Thu Dec 12, 2013 6:05 pm 
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Floods are way worse than tornadoes.


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PostPosted: Thu Dec 12, 2013 6:56 pm 
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They're not too bad here. Not like when a river floods. We get flash floods, but in recent years there has been a lot of management of them done.

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PostPosted: Fri Dec 13, 2013 11:45 am 
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Müs wrote:
They're not too bad here. Not like when a river floods. We get flash floods, but in recent years there has been a lot of management of them done.


What floods if it's not a river? Not sure where you are exactly.


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 Post subject: Re: Make Congress Work
PostPosted: Fri Dec 13, 2013 12:23 pm 
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He probably is talking about floods in arroyos, gulleys, things like that.

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PostPosted: Fri Dec 13, 2013 2:44 pm 
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How do you not know I'm in Vegas?

Desert flash floods are dangerous, but not like those rivers bursting their banks back east.

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PostPosted: Fri Dec 13, 2013 4:15 pm 
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Müs wrote:
How do you not know I'm in Vegas?

Desert flash floods are dangerous, but not like those rivers bursting their banks back east.



Why should I know you're in Vegas? Do you know what city I live in?


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PostPosted: Fri Dec 13, 2013 7:11 pm 
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I don't know where you are, but I've never been secretive about where I live ;)

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 Post subject: Re: Re:
PostPosted: Thu Jan 09, 2014 10:24 am 
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Hopwin wrote:
Diamondeye wrote:
Hopwin wrote:
Hey our river hasn't caught on fire in like 40 years.

I thought he was referring to the NFL record.

What about our Baseball and Basketball teams?

It's still Ohio. I grew up there and I've kept myself far away as possible after finishing HS. :psyduck:

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