James Carville's Advice to the President...Panic!

[Gregg]

I think there are more than just a few of us in the US that are disenfranchised from the parties. I lean conservative for fiscal reasons, but tend to be quite liberal on social issues. I've seen too many programs initiated by the Democrats that don't have an ending. It's not so much that the idea they propose isn't valid, or even needed, its that Democratic programs have tended to stretch to perpetuity by design. They also tend to be band-aids rather than cures. The focus tends to be on helping the individual who was injured/oppressed/whatever rather than stopping the forces that caused the injury. I'm all for helping anyone who needs a hand, but we need to zoom out for a while and look at our bigger pictures to find real solutions. Like I said above, IMO we are just spending money on the wrong things.

Now please don't make the leap from that and assume I'm saying the Republicans are doing any better. They're not, but their proposals have tended to be finite in duration a little more often and smaller in scope overall. It is truly a case of the lesser of the evils for me.

[iris lily]

I think there are more than just a few of us in the US that are disenfranchised from the parties. I lean conservative for fiscal reasons, but tend to be quite liberal on social issues. I've seen too many programs initiated by the Democrats that don't have an ending. It's not so much that the idea they propose isn't valid, or even needed, its that Democratic programs have tended to stretch to perpetuity by design. They also tend to be band-aids rather than cures. The focus tends to be on helping the individual who was injured/oppressed/whatever rather than stopping the forces that caused the injury. I'm all for helping anyone who needs a hand, but we need to zoom out for a while and look at our bigger pictures to find real solutions. Like I said above, IMO we are just spending money on the wrong things.

Now please don't make the leap from that and assume I'm saying the Republicans are doing any better. They're not, but their proposals have tended to be finite in duration a little more often and smaller in scope overall. It is truly a case of the lesser of the evils for me.

No Child Left Behind doesn't seem to have an end to it. Proposed by GW (for which I could boot him in the behind), supposedly hated by liberals, why is this thing still around? Why hasn't the President dumped it?

[flowerseverywhere]

Our transportation infrastructure is crumbling. Investing in roads, bridges and rail systems will help keep us competitive. Investing in nuclear, solar, wind, clean coal and natural gas along with developing better delivery systems for the power will help keep us secure.

I wanted to comment on a small portion of your comments. I recently went on two road trips and I saw construction everywhere of roads and bridges. I was actually quite surprised at how much construction was going on in especially in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland and NY.

also, there is a lot of power development going on in NY. The whole marcellus shale/hydrofracking controversy along with the development of windmill farms is moving along. Also, there is a new streamlined process for Nuclear power plants and several actually have the possibility of being started in the next few years after a very long moratorium on new plant building.

"President Obama today said that safe, new nuclear power plants are a “necessity” as he announced more than $8 billion in federal loan guarantees to build the first nuclear power plant in three decades. "

that is from a speech in Feb 2010

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...ry-investment/

and this one from March 2011 "Nuclear energy has been handed a big role in meeting a pledge from President Barack Obama that the country will generate 80pc of its electricity from clean energy sources by 2035."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...-stations.html

I honestly think one of the problems we are having is the political spin being put on everything by the media and the information that circulates via e-mail and even verbally about perceptions of what is going on, not what is really going on. The headlines today were more about whether or not Obama's tax plan constituted class warfare or not rather than exactly what the new taxes meant to individuals and corporations. But factual news is becoming a thing of the past in this age of sensational headlines.

I wanted to add that a big project I saw in DC was the new Dulles metro rail project. They are extending the metro out to Dulles airport, a huge project with new stations being built along the way. The total when complete will be about 23 miles of new rail. It will enable many people to leave their cars home, a great goal.

[flowerseverywhere]

No Child Left Behind doesn't seem to have an end to it. Proposed by GW (for which I could boot him in the behind), supposedly hated by liberals, why is this thing still around? Why hasn't the President dumped it?

9/19/2010
"President Barack Obama is expected on Friday to announce the details of what the White House calla "relief from key provisions of No Child Left Behind."
Some lawmakers have said it would be a mistake for the administration to bypass Congress. This is a particularly sore spot for Republicans, who already bristle at what they see as the executive branch's broader attempts to sidestep their authority on a number of issues by issuing federal regulations.
"It's not just the specifics that worry the Republicans, it's the idea that he doesn't have the authority to change the law," said Michael Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington-based education organization."


http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/1...r-changes.html

[iris lily]

9/19/2010
"President Barack Obama is expected on Friday to announce the details of what the White House calla "relief from key provisions of No Child Left Behind."
Some lawmakers have said it would be a mistake for the administration to bypass Congress. This is a particularly sore spot for Republicans, who already bristle at what they see as the executive branch's broader attempts to sidestep their authority on a number of issues by issuing federal regulations.
"It's not just the specifics that worry the Republicans, it's the idea that he doesn't have the authority to change the law," said Michael Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington-based education organization."


http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/1...r-changes.html

That may be good new about No Child Left Behind if the "relief" is reasonable. I won't say any more, I'd just like Congress to repeal that.

[JaneV2.0]

Me too. I understand it was intended to be a sinecure for one of the Bush boys--the one who sells standardized tests for a living. Kind of a "no Bush left behind" thing.

[Gregg]

I wanted to comment on a small portion of your comments. I recently went on two road trips and I saw construction everywhere of roads and bridges. I was actually quite surprised at how much construction was going on in especially in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland and NY.

also, there is a lot of power development going on in NY. The whole marcellus shale/hydrofracking controversy along with the development of windmill farms is moving along. Also, there is a new streamlined process for Nuclear power plants and several actually have the possibility of being started in the next few years after a very long moratorium on new plant building.

"President Obama today said that safe, new nuclear power plants are a “necessity” as he announced more than $8 billion in federal loan guarantees to build the first nuclear power plant in three decades. "

that is from a speech in Feb 2010

I'm very happy to know that there is activity, at least in some areas. What I had in mind is something exponentially larger in scope. Somewhat along the lines of the CCC back in the 30's. Literally putting millions of people to work with new projects. It would have to be federally administered, or at least under the federal umbrella, simply because of the scope. Individual states don't have the resources to take it on.

A few million in highway repairs or a few billion in new nuke plants won't get us there. I've seen estimates on the various parts of the program floating around for years. To build a smart grid credible estimates range from $1 or $2 trillion up to $8 trillion. Building a network of new nuke plants along with retrofitting existing plants with control systems to match the new could easily be $1 trillion. I really haven't seen overall estimates to bring our rail system up to speed, but you've got to guess that between laying new track, building new terminals and bridges and fixing up all the old stuff it wouldn't be that hard to spend a trillion bucks. There are estimates that say half of the highway bridges in the county need work and a quarter of them are not even safe any more. As you observed back east, there is some work going on around me, but no where near that estimated level so the total of that work nationally would probably rival the smart grid for cost.

And all that doesn't even touch on developing domestic natural gas, clean coal, significant solar and wind, etc. What about urban renewal? Increased band width, fiber optic lines and all the other information grid components? There is no shortage of areas that need attention and probably no limit to what it would cost to fix or build everything. I'm not slamming Mr. Obama for doing nothing, I'm more fed up with the lack of vision in Washington overall. Even worse, anyone with vision and the guts to talk about all of this would be squashed by the system there. To complete the full circle, maybe Congress is the very first thing we need to fix so we can get started on the rest.

[peggy]

I'm very happy to know that there is activity, at least in some areas. What I had in mind is something exponentially larger in scope. Somewhat along the lines of the CCC back in the 30's. Literally putting millions of people to work with new projects. It would have to be federally administered, or at least under the federal umbrella, simply because of the scope. Individual states don't have the resources to take it on.

A few million in highway repairs or a few billion in new nuke plants won't get us there. I've seen estimates on the various parts of the program floating around for years. To build a smart grid credible estimates range from $1 or $2 trillion up to $8 trillion. Building a network of new nuke plants along with retrofitting existing plants with control systems to match the new could easily be $1 trillion. I really haven't seen overall estimates to bring our rail system up to speed, but you've got to guess that between laying new track, building new terminals and bridges and fixing up all the old stuff it wouldn't be that hard to spend a trillion bucks. There are estimates that say half of the highway bridges in the county need work and a quarter of them are not even safe any more. As you observed back east, there is some work going on around me, but no where near that estimated level so the total of that work nationally would probably rival the smart grid for cost.

And all that doesn't even touch on developing domestic natural gas, clean coal, significant solar and wind, etc. What about urban renewal? Increased band width, fiber optic lines and all the other information grid components? There is no shortage of areas that need attention and probably no limit to what it would cost to fix or build everything. I'm not slamming Mr. Obama for doing nothing, I'm more fed up with the lack of vision in Washington overall. Even worse, anyone with vision and the guts to talk about all of this would be squashed by the system there. To complete the full circle, maybe Congress is the very first thing we need to fix so we can get started on the rest.

All these things are what President Obama and the democrats have been talking about. All of them. But honestly, if he/democrats were to put this up in congress for debate/vote, how would the republicans react? How do you think they would react, Gregg? How do you think the mainstream republicans, a shrinking minority, would react? How would the tea party republicans react?

I'm pretty sure they would condemn it and vote it down, knocking each other over to get in front of a camera to spin just why they voted against job creation. Of course, we know they would rather sell their grandmother down the river than do anything at all that would help the economy and the people, cause, remember, job one is to get President Obama out of office. Right now, they would vote against apple pie and motherhood if they thought it would get rid of him.

[freein05]

The Tea Part wants to take us back to 18th or 17th century. No cars or trucks back than. No electricity so no need for power plants we also did not have 340 million citizens than.

[LDAHL]

The Tea Part wants to take us back to 18th or 17th century. No cars or trucks back than. No electricity so no need for power plants we also did not have 340 million citizens than.

I thought I saw something like that on the Green Party platform.