there their theyre: Ugh I actually agree with turtle and boner. States and cities need to raise their taxes to cover their own local services and not depend on the rest of us.

SOCIALJISM!

//oddly enough GIS for "boehner ass farker" with safe search off is surprisingly SFW (there is one bad pic,neither penis nor ass is involved)

there their theyre: Ugh I actually agree with turtle and boner. States and cities need to raise their taxes to cover their own local services and not depend on the rest of us.

So that wealthy districts have good services and poorer ones - the ones that most need those services - don't. That's a good idea.

Meh, many of those poorer places are Republican strongholds. If the right actually got their avowed desires they'd run themselves out of supporters in a generation.

there their theyre: Ugh I actually agree with turtle and boner. States and cities need to raise their taxes to cover their own local services and not depend on the rest of us.

Yeah, it doesn't really work well that way.
See Detroit for instance. Small towns all across America fare worse because the tax base is so small. You are extremely naive.

Shaggy_C: A Dark Evil Omen: So that wealthy districts have good services and poorer ones - the ones that most need those services - don't. That's a good idea.

Why can't states provide funding for local municipalities? It doesn't always have to be top-down; next you'll be asking that the UN pay for pothole repair since otherwise some countries might get better services than others.

Because, among other things, there's the issue of the presence or absence of national borders, Garak. The EU is currently demonstrating why the ALL POWER TO THE STATESGARBL attitude is so moronic.

Free trade is making it an issue internationally, too, but on the national level the US has always had this problem where wealth can move about completely unimpeded but most working people, for the simple fact of either personal ties or lack of resources, can't. The result is that without efforts to keep poorer areas of the country afloat they go into the shiatter and eventually take the rest of the country with them, assuming they don't simply turn into wastelands.

The state level is the absolute worst level in this country to be doing things from. Either devolve all power to the municipal and county level where people have a strong ability to work with their political process directly, or allow the federal government to pick up appropriately without biatching.

(Oh, and you're welcome to borrow any and all of this in the next thread where you argue the exact opposite side of this).

o5iiawah: A Dark Evil Omen: So that wealthy districts have good services and poorer ones - the ones that most need those services - don't. That's a good idea.

It is almost as though wealth should flow from those who have means to those who have needs. Where have I heard that before?

Non-morons?

soy_bomb: Thank God for the bloggers who see a tragedy and can think nothing more than their personal political beliefs.

Thank God for right-wing politicians who talk empty words while farking the people they claim to be supporting.

falcon176: guys can we please keep the politics out of this? I mean people died, and also this article isn't insulting the libs.

Our innocence is so far gone there is no such thing as decency and respect on a board on anonymity.

We spent years politicizing one of the biggest tragedies in our nations history with each side spinning it to their own benefit and their opponents detriment. We are still plunged into 2 wars we don't even bother with paying attention to, with the exception of yellow ribbon magnets.

We've not experienced nearly as much death as previous generations, but with our technology we are (all of us across the nation) exposed to death in a way previous generations can't even imagine.

We are desensitized. The world got small and with it we see all the death around the globe. It's terrible these people died, we can all agree on that... but our true reactions and feelings can be blunted because we've learned very well how to do that. We've become accustomed to taking these things in stride and placing them behind us quickly, much like a doctor or mortician or anyone else that gets an overload of grief and morbidity.

It's a natural reaction. Sure, some of these guys are just being dicks, but there is a reason. And unless you are in this town, or know some of these people, it's really hard for the reality of the situation to hit home.


I thought I'd have enough decency to type that out instead of just saying "welcome to fark"

Shaggy_C: *Sigh* Another one of these stories, eh? Republican says the federal government shouldn't pay for something that can be handled at a state level and we get the predictable response. Brings this to mind:

"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain."
― Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Save, that folks are ALSO complaining about those pesky State taxes as well. And the exorbitant outlays for things like education and infrastructure. And the "strings" attached to Federal aid to firefighters, police, and just about every damn thing else.

Oddly enough though, folks seem OK with the state aiding grain and farmers. Just not THOSE farmers over there. OURS are OK, just not THAT state, and not THOSE guys. The myopia is that the party is protesting government at ALL levels, not just the Fed...

hinten: Americans just cannot have any news story without heroes. Heroes! Heroes? Really? Sound more like everyone did their job, no more, no less.

Be fair, saving lives - directly, actually saving lives - is pretty heroic. This isn't one of those, "These veterans from the 101st desk brigade are heroes!" things.

ox45tallboy: Weaver95: ox45tallboy: Well, it's been more than 24 hours, I guess we can start politicizing a tragedy now....

Michelle Malkin had something up online about this shooting before I'd even gotten out of bed that day.

I still say the clothing company on Twitter I linked to above was the worst - so far.

They had a pretty plausible reason for why it happened though- the folks that do their social media are in Europe, and they hadn't heard anything about this yet when they made that tweet. They just saw "Aurora" trending, and didn't bother to check it out past that.

It was an idiotic mistake, but they apologized for it.

"He's stuck in a game loop."

Imagine if first responders were privatized:

The police would say, "sorry, not in our jurisdiction." "Oops, you haven't paid your monthly bill, movie theater."

EMTs: "check their wallets to see if they have our card." "Hey, this guy subscribed to Al's EMT service. Hey Al, here's another one for you!"

jim32rr: hubiestubert: Didn't we go through this with Colorado a few weeks ago with the fire?

Emergencies happen. Best be prepared for it. Go ahead and cut their funding, and see how that works for in November.

Because you can be for damns sure that folks WILL bring it up...

Should have had the homeless and gangbangers fighting those fires. Ask not what your country can do for you.....

If only those homeless and gangbangers had 500 hours of major fire suppression training. If only.

If God truly blessed this country, we wouldn't be losing thousands overseas in third world countries, wouldn't have a federal government that is less functional than those beads people use for door "curtains", wouldn't be such an economic failure, wouldn't have homeless dying in the streets, wouldn't have people people losing their homes because of medical bills, and we sure as hell wouldn't have people shooting up others for some unknown farked up reason.

barneyfifesbullet: It is not the responsibility of the federal government ... to send money down to state government so that state governments don't have to make tough decisions about balancing their budgets.

It's quite simple really.

It's also a good demonstration of the disagreement on the role of fed govt in America, If Obama wants to argue that more of our tax dollars should buy you a fire truck, lotsa luck with that one.

California would love that. For every $1 of federal taxes leaving CA, we get back 75¢ of federal monies for federally-related items.

Shaggy_C: *Sigh* Another one of these stories, eh? Republican says the federal government shouldn't pay for something that can be handled at a state level and we get the predictable response. Brings this to mind:

"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain."
― Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

*sigh*

Another person who doesn't comprehend that part of the reason the federal government has to help pay for these things is because states cannot tax and spend like Congress. Congress may tax and spend for the general welfare under the Constitution; states cannot similarly merely raise taxes to fund public welfare. Also, while some states probably COULD tax their residents sufficiently to afford basic services, some cannot. You want to penalize Wyoming or North Dakota in terms of public services merely because their tax base is inadequate?

This is the UNITED STATES of AMERICA, not 50 countries that happen to lie in proximity to one another. If the states are going to be individually responsible for their own welfare, then why would a state like California even want to belong to the USA at all?

Shaggy_C: A Dark Evil Omen: Because, among other things, there's the issue of the presence or absence of national borders, Garak. The EU is currently demonstrating why the ALL POWER TO THE STATESGARBL attitude is so moronic.

The only thing they are demonstrating is that a shared currency and central bank without shared fiscal policy is untenable. From what you're saying, a superior model to the current state of affairs is one where there is absolute equality in all government services even at the cost of said government being run by distant and unaccountable bureaucrats who know nothing of the needs of the local community. While we can maybe agree that a federal "safety net" for services should exist, it's an entirely unrealistic ideal that we could ever have equality in all communities for all services. Not only that, but given how terribly ineffective our federal government is today, it seems like it would actually make things worse for most communities around the country.

That is exactly not what I sai,d given that the entire dispute about this is federal transfers to communities to use to manage their own affairs. Furthermore, it's a stupid strawman to hold up "ABSOLUTE EQUALITY HERPDERP" when what's being said is specifically that communities that need support for their local services should have it. You also didn't address the alternative point of devolving everything to county and municipal level; why not? Why is the state level so magically delicious?