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[Trekkin]

Sorry mate, can't rebuild the grid, we gotta save that money for a border wall.

"Straightforward" does not mean "easy."

As long as all we're doing is using government funds for public works, all we have to worry about is the incandescent rage of everyone who thinks they have a better use for the money.

If you want to actually give people things, let alone replace people's things, that horde of protesters is joined by all the people who are mad that someone else got a government handout before they did, or out of proportion with what they feel is just, which stirs up all the petty jealousy embedded in our culture in addition to all the moral outrage. It turns one big fight into a million little fights.

Then if you try to take things away, that's when you start inexorably towards riots and war. Any scheme to subsidize the replacement of gasoline cars with electric ones will invariably count as both.

[Lord Shonus]

Of course it would. Who could forget the Cash For Clunkers War of 2009?

[Max™]

That is something which pisses me off about old white fuckbags like Sanders, for all the good his socialist-flavor ideas could do, the stupid old cunt is anti-nuclear. If you are anti-co2 for some reason (read: anti-poor people improving their standard of living) then you are either pro-nuclear or a monster.

[Trekkin]

Of course it would. Who could forget the Cash For Clunkers War of 2009?

Well, CARS arguably failed in its every objective; it cost $1.4 billion more than its aggregate economic benefits, depressed new vehicle spending by $5 billion, and had an aggregate impact on the fuel efficiency of new vehicles sold of only 0.65 mpg. And Fox still came up with a conspiracy theory about it, even in 2009.

Ten years on, Fox News has the endorsement of the President and an even more rapid and conspiratorial fanbase.

[Kagus]

Well, CARS arguably failed in its every objective; it cost $1.4 billion more than its aggregate economic benefits, depressed new vehicle spending by $5 billion, and had an aggregate impact on the fuel efficiency of new vehicles sold of only 0.65 mpg.

For a moment, I thought you were talking about the movie.

[Frumple]

Man, it just struck me that trump is trying to put american workers out of a job by outsourcing our immigration services and enforcement to Mexico. Last I heard threatening to ramp up tariffs if Mexico doesn't stop illegal immigration outright.

Just think of one of the repercussions if they actually did the physically impossible and did that. ICE would be out of work. Thousands of Americans would lose their jobs.

[Max™]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/28/politics/mitch-mcconnell-supreme-court-2020/index.html

I'm not saying shoot the turtle, but like... at least hit him with a car?

[Lord Shonus]

That's dangerous. I disagreed with the 2016 stance, but staying consistent with it would at least show consistency over partisan advantage, which would be good for the country. Not only does this confirm the obvious partisan nature of 2016, but it will almost certainly boost the "pack that court" nutjobs.

[Trekkin]

That's dangerous. I disagreed with the 2016 stance, but staying consistent with it would at least show consistency over partisan advantage, which would be good for the country. Not only does this confirm the obvious partisan nature of 2016, but it will almost certainly boost the "pack that court" nutjobs.

Why are they nutjobs? Arguably a bigger court isn't inherently a bad thing, since it would help smooth out the rate of judges departing if nothing else.

[Max™]

Putting a 25 year term or something would help too, plausibly lifetime appointments 200 years ago certainly didn't mean "until the crusty old fuckers are 90 something" like it does now.

[Lord Shonus]

That's dangerous. I disagreed with the 2016 stance, but staying consistent with it would at least show consistency over partisan advantage, which would be good for the country. Not only does this confirm the obvious partisan nature of 2016, but it will almost certainly boost the "pack that court" nutjobs.

Why are they nutjobs? Arguably a bigger court isn't inherently a bad thing, since it would help smooth out the rate of judges departing if nothing else.

Even if a bigger Court was a good idea (it isn't - we don't WANT most cases going to the Court because every single one creates a binding precedent), all of the court-packers (except Buttgeig) are expressly advocating it on the "my opponents have too much support in the Court, so we must pack it to ensure our agenda is rubber-stamped" rationale. Once somebody manages to enact something along those lines, the Court will be expanded every time one party gets Congress and the Presidency to ensure that that party now has absolute uncheckable power. At best, we wind up with a bloated, unresponsive Court that is functionally useless.

A system of checks and balances between branches falls apart as soon as you decide "This branch is checking and balancing me. IT MUST BE DESTROYED."

@Max

That would hold more water if it were not for the fact that Supreme Court justices were routinely living that long from the beginning. John Jay (the first Chief Justice) died at 83, Marshall (the first Chief Justice to last) died at 79, his sucessor Taney died at 87.

[Trekkin]

Even if a bigger Court was a good idea (it isn't - we don't WANT most cases going to the Court because every single one creates a binding precedent)

See, this is where you've lost me. How does the size of the Court determine its case throughput?

[Lord Shonus]

9 people can only handle so much. The small size of the Court serves as a hard limit on caseload, which is a good thing.

[Folly]

Wouldn't more people take more time, as each of them takes time to have their opinion heard and then countered and so forth? I would think that a smaller group would be able to make decisions much faster.

[Reelya]

That is something which pisses me off about old white fuckbags like Sanders, for all the good his socialist-flavor ideas could do, the stupid old cunt is anti-nuclear. If you are anti-co2 for some reason (read: anti-poor people improving their standard of living) then you are either pro-nuclear or a monster.

Aren't those estimates sort of bullshit however? I recall a lot of those pro-nuclear things completely omit the costs to build the plants, or to decommission the plants, or store the waste, and only look at daily operating costs / outputs.

https://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-power/cost-nuclear-power

Nuclear is super-expensive if you factor in all costs. Also, there really aren't enough reserves to dig up to expand nuclear. It's estimated total cost-effective sources total 230 years of fuel at current rates. 2/3rds of that are not-yet-discovered but predicted sources. So there are about 80 years of known, viable sources of uranium. But that's at current rates which total 5% of worldwide energy needs. Scale that up merely by 4x to account for 20% of energy needs, and the known proven uranium reserves run out in 20 years, much too fast to even locate the remaining sources or develop tech to extract more uranium cheaply. Add to that that solar is only going to get cheaper and cheaper every year. Plus, the plants would take decades to come online, and the building process will create tons of CO2 in the meantime. It's a losing proposition.

Sure, we can say "but thorium" to get around the uranium issue. Except, then we're banking on a sci-fi answer of coming up with currently non-existent tech.