To impeach, or not to impeach

[Kinser79]

(10-14-2019, 11:18 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-14-2019, 01:52 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: Most roads, cops, and firemen should be handled on the local or state level.  I'd go further and say the same is true of schools and universities.  

I have no real problem with this.  Federal involvement in local infrastructure and first responder activities is minimal now, and it seems to work.  Schools, on the other hand, educated and train the next generation in the never ending relay race of civic life.  There needs to be a lot better consistency of results, and Mississippi isn't about to emulate Massachusetts, or Minnesota for that matter, without some prompting and funding.

Mississippi doesn't emulate Massachusetts or Minnesota with said prompting or funding they get now.  We've tried throwing federal money at the problem for forty years and strangely the only thing that's happened is the education budget has become more bloated.  Well I say strangely but really I'd say that is to be expected.  

Unsurprisingly, largely black Mississippi is on par with largely black northern cities when it comes to educational outcomes.  Perhaps a combination of the students and the culture the students come from is the problem and not who is in charge of the schoolhouse.

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Kinser79 Wrote:The Postal Service is an enumerated responsibility of the Federal government.  I'd say that regulation of interstate commerce (IE big oil) and interstate infrastructure would be the responsibility of the Federal government as well.

Okay, though somewhat short of the mark.

No the Constitution says what it says.  Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 empowers Congress to establish post offices and post roads.  Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 empowers Congress "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes."  I am going to assume that multinational corporations such as say Exxon (to pick on them) also conduct business across state as well as international boundaries.  As such it falls to Congress to regulate them via laws.

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Kinser79 Wrote:As for the private healthcare system being broken it seems to me that it is broken more due to governmental intervention, and more governmental intervention is unlikely to solve the problem.  That being said, I would support a Medicare for All but with that comes some costs namely much higher taxes (I think tariffs would help a great deal here...but that has more to do with my economic views than my political ones).  Needless to say, the solution to healthcare is to make the US system all one thing or all the other.  Either it must be totally private or totally public--any hybrid system or incrementalist system will only result in a poorly functioning patchwork.  

Actually, Medicare is already a hybrid for most people using the system (it is for me, and I'm not atypical).  Does it have to be?  Probably not, but it does allow some flexibility for people to have more coverage or less, without pushing anyone off decent health insurance.  I have a supplement plan that covers pretty much everything that Medicare doesn't, except for dental, vision and vanity care, like non-reconstructive plastic surgery.  Drug coverage is the one part of the hybrid that is totally screwed-up, and that needs fixing pronto!

Medicare is a bankrupting mess that is getting worse with time because a particular generation isn't dying fast enough.  Myself having had to deal with employer based systems, federal systems and private systems on this matter far prefer individual private solutions.  That being said that is probably not doable without a huge subsidy to the insurance industry and I quite frankly would prefer the government to simply take the whole thing over than to give any industry a subsidy.  Subsidies corrupt both the state and business.

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Kinser79 Wrote:All of these things though I would say are not necessarily socialism--ie the means of production being in the hands of the state.  Not even Norway or Denmark or Sweden are socialist.  Yes they have vast welfare states and highly regulated markets  but the means of production are in the hands of private persons.

True, for the most part.  Some interaction between public and private occurs too, like utilities and defense spending.

The fact that the government purchases goods and services from private persons does not socialism make.  Also most utilities are if they are run by the government at all on the state or local level (Florida Power and Light, or the New Smyrna Beach Utilities Commission for examples).  There is no true in the most part here.  It is simply true.  Or would you wish to argue that this forest isn't a forest because a lone tree is standing some fifty feet away from the rest of them?

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Kinser79 Wrote:What do the Democrats have to offer?  Just take a look at the cities that they have run for decades.  Look at what California is turning into.  Quite frankly I can think of nothing worse than the whole of the US looking like San Francisco or Portland or hell even Chicago.

San Francisco is in the state it is, because too many people want to live there who have money.  It's hard to live in a city where entry-level housing costs 7 figures, so the teachers and bartenders live elsewhere.  It's screwed-up, but I'm at a loss to see a fix, unless you cut the pay of all those mid-to-high-6-figure software developers by a lot.  Good luck with that.

Not quite.  Miami is also very popular with very very rich people but it isn't infested with human excrement or drug needles on the streets because its Republican (and Cuban) majority will not tolerate such things in their cities.  San Francisco is in the mess it is in because of the policies chosen by its elected officials.  The same is true of Detroit, Newark, Chicago and all the other Dimocrat shitholes in the Blue states.

In order to fix San Francisco I'd suggest scrapping all the hippy dippy legislation and evicting the drug addicts and vagrants toot sweet, and furthermore eliminating or cutting what programs there are for them.  Half of the problem SF has isn't being close to Silly-Con Valley, it is all the takers looking for free gibs-me-dat.