2012 US Presidential Election discussion.

jackliu said:

There is a documentary called The Trap by Adam Curtis. In it, he argue that all of what you see is not an accident, it is really designed from the top down. How they want to control media, influence people's opinion, dump down people's intelligence etc...

I agree with him, ever since the Iraq war, I been severely disillusioned with US politics, because it shows you that just how easily the government can manipulate the public into doing whatever they want to do. All of this is because the general public have no ability to do critical thinking, and when you do some research why they can't do critical thinking... the answer is the dumping down of the media, and when you look closer at the media itself, you will find just how closely it is connected with the government positions, how they are holding up the system. It is ALL a giant circle that works extremely well to maintain the status quo.

So the next question is, if the government can do whatever it want through all this processes, do we really have a democracy???? Or is it a democracy anymore when the people itself are robots, so when they choose, they are not choosing from an open ended list, instead they are given a multiple choice answer of A B C D, in which all of it are the WRONG answers, but yet, they choose anyway, and truly believe their decision are free.

So in the end, what kind of nation do we really have?

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jackliu said:

You see politics as one team vs the other, and whatever your teams supports so do you without question.

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jackliu said:

Straight out of the mouth of Ramoney campiang Jeff well done.

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kwaigonegin said:

reminds of this quote..
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jackliu said:

Straight out of the mouth of Ramoney campiang Jeff well done.

Seriously, I am not a fan of Obama but what he did, is just about the best outcome you wold hope for the US interest. But for you... I guess you see politics as some kind of sport, your team do whatever it takes to attack the other team and of course, you follow their guidelines. So much for brain and critical thinking these days....

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Jeff Head said:

Pklease, your reaosning is just completely out of sync and out of touch with what is being revealed here on a daily basis by whistle blowers who are speaking out.

As to Romney, actually, Romney is not saying much of anything, or his campaign about the entire Benghazi situation...so please, spare us.

What I am relating to you is straight out of the mouth of operators on the ground there, from emails now made public, and from sowrn testimony, and from standard operating procedure.

No one has claimed here that the President wanted the Ambassador killed. Only stating that the President has not been honest nor Clinton, nor the UN Ambassador, nor the Press Secretary. What has been given as sworn testimony by state department officials, DOD personnel, CIA ppersonnel and others is on the record, as are now affadavits and those emails.

This has nothing to do with the campaign. It has everything to do with the US people knowing why these things happened, and under whose authority. That is what is in question...and it is clear now that after the Eminent Danger Notification system was activated, the State Department, the Situation Room, the CIA, etc. all had live feeds to what was happening both from cameras on the ground and from predator drones in the air.

So...again, spare us the attempts to try and pass this off as somekind of Romney campaign attack. It is not.

It is something however that the President will have to account for. There will be hearings and probably an independent council as there should. Clearly trying to claim that Benghazi had anything at all to do with a video was known immediately. They put that story, a false story which they now admit was not the case, out there for a reason. The relief was not mounted for a reason. Those answers will be had. The President would have been far better off by just coming out with the truth as he knew it that day as soon as possible.

Some very tragic and deadly mistakes were made...and some very misleading and out and out false statements about it were made. Seeking to have those answered is not political, and it is not "a lack of critical thinking."

I've been on this earth for 56 years now. Went through Engneering school and have led very major, successful projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars, both military and commercial. I believe I have a pretty good handle on "critical thinking."

You may not think it important...and that's fine. And you may not agre...and that's fine too. ANd you may cry "politics" all you want...it does not change the truth of what is coming out now on a daily basis. That's all I need to say on the matter.

Time will reveal what happened...and when it does, we can reconvene.

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Burden for rebuilding infrastructure may fall to states

By Ashley Halsey III, Sunday, October 28, 12:57 AM

Maryland needs more than $100 million a year to fix bridges. Virginia needs $125 million a year to repave crumbling roads in suburban Washington. The District needs $806 million to replace a rusting bridge across the Anacostia River.

The bill for all that, and more, eventually will land on taxpayers’ doorsteps. But the postmark won’t read “Washington.” Instead, the tax bill will come from state or local governments struggling to fill the growing void in federal funding.

Washington’s failure to come up with a long-term funding plan to repair the nation’s faltering transportation system is shifting the cost of critical infrastructure repairs to state and local taxpayers, according to Standard & Poor’s Rating Services.

“The burden to finance infrastructure projects will fall more heavily on local government entities or users in the form of higher rates or tolls,” the financial analysts said this past week, “and some important construction could simply be deferred.”

Infrastructure has been the elephant in the room in Washington for years. Only a few of the people running for office this year have mentioned it, and none of them have embraced it.

The reason was captured by a single sentence in the Standard & Poor’s report: The “country has a $2.2 trillion backlog of infrastructure projects.”

It has been suggested that Maryland spend $5.8 billion to widen part of the Capital Beltway. Extending the Metro system to Dulles International Airport is a $5.6 billion project.

Needs like those traditionally have been met with a balance of federal, state and local money. Now, as Washington is gripped by political deadlock and buried in deficits, the balance has begun to shift.

With new taxes an anathema in an anemic economy, and with the possibility of deep automatic budget cuts next year if officials can’t agree on alternative savings, a serious discussion about coming up with billions or trillions of dollars for transportation wasn’t on the top candidates’ debate agenda.

In four debates — three presidential and one vice-presidential — the single mention of infrastructure came on Oct. 16 when President Obama said that money saved by ending wars could be used to rebuild roads, bridges and schools. Attacking the federal budget deficit, which at a mere $1.1 trillion is half the size of projected infrastructure needs, made easier fodder for debate.

“Regardless of who wins the next election, for the next couple of years, we see [the available transportation revenue] and it’s insufficient,” said Geoffrey E. Buswick, the analyst who wrote the Standard & Poor’s report. “After that we’re not sure we’re going to get any type of broad solution or increase in funding unless there is a meaningful
tax -reform debate.”

Standard & Poor’s did credit Congress with passing a $105 billion bill for surface transportation this year that will expire in September 2014. The bill continued funding at levels set in 2005, adjusted for inflation, but fell vastly short of the amount that independent analysts and most people on Capitol Hill say is required to rescue the nation’s infrastructure from the slippery slope of decline.

“We see an expectation in the foreseeable future for reduced federal funding,” Buswick said. “The longer there is a tepid economic recovery, the more difficult it is to raise rates. There’s already a gap in funding and it’s only going to get greater, so it’s the longer term that we’re more worried about than the shorter term.”

The number of bridges that need repair or replacement — 70,000 — usually is part of the discussion when infrastructure issues make news. But it is the largely unseen decay of systems built after World War II that carry the bigger price tag. Tens of thousands of miles of highway that have been repaved for decades now need to be dug up and rebuilt from the bare earth.

In addition to billions of dollars for road and bridge replacement, experts have estimated that $30 billion should be spent on U.S. ports in the next eight years if they are to stay competitive in a global marketplace.

The price tag for resurrecting the patchwork electrical gridis $107 billion by 2020, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.

With an estimated 25 percent of the nation’s drinking water leaking from pipes before it can be put to use, the cost of fixing that system has been put at
$335 billion. To fix sewer systems — including some, like the District’s, that occasionally pump raw waste into waterways — add in $300 billion more.

A seminal study on the subject, done two years ago by a group co-chaired by former transportation secretaries Norman Y. Mineta and Samuel K. Skinner, estimated that an additional
$134 billion to $262 billion should be spent on infrastructure per year.

The bill for some of that will fall to utilities and their customers who want their toilets to flush and their cellphones to be recharged. The cost of rebuilding ports to handle a new breed of super-ship may be shared by taxpayers and private investors. Some of the estimated $40 billion to replace the aviation control system will come from user fees and airline ticket prices.

The revival of roads and
bridges, however, is a taxpayer burden. With income from the federal gasoline tax steadily declining and projected to plunge dramatically under federal mandates for cars that are more fuel-efficient, Congress has postponed any meaningful conversation on how to tackle the issue until after the votes are cast next month.

With the possibility of automatic budget cuts next year, the $18.8 billion from general tax funds used to bolster the source of transportation funding — the Highway Trust Fund — may decline dramatically.

Even if the automatic cuts are averted, the problem of funding repairs to roads and bridges will be a divisive issue in Congress as the current highway bill nears expiration.

Some Republicans have advocated limiting spending to what the trust fund brings in. Other lawmakers, notably Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), have hinted that the pay-for-what-you-use approach exemplified by the gas tax may be extended to one in which motorists pay for each mile they drive. That concept draws sharp opposition in some quarters.

“It's controversial, it’s touchy,” said Jack Basso, chief operating officer of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. “But you’re still paying for your use of the systems.”

States that levy their own gas taxes are feeling the same revenue pinch as the Highway Trust Fund, and some are turning to schemes that charge by the miles traveled. The Intercounty Connector in Maryland and some expressways in California, Georgia and elsewhere are examples, but some states are contemplating a wholesale shift from the gas tax to highway usage fees.

“Oregon is getting closer and closer to converting to that system, the state of Washington is looking closely at it, Nevada’s looking closely at it, Minnesota’s looking closely at it,” Basso said. “Will [increased bridge and highway] tolls pay a significant part? I think they will, because that’s going to be the state and local alternative.”

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