...what can the engineering & scientific communities expect to happen over the next 2 years before the presidential election? More jobs coming home? More investment spending in education? Tax breaks for middle America? More affordable health care? Or should we merely expect more of the same crap?
Not a lot of change. Certainly no significant tax breaks. Minimum wage increase, probably.
John
Not that I consider much of this to be specific to the engineering and scientific communities...
I do expect that lack of same party in both houses of Congress and the White House will slow down Federal spending, or at least acceleration thereof - as happened after the 1994 elections and before Bush II got into the White House. Keep in mind that Bush is no fiscal conservative - in some fiscal year in hist first term, he requested from Congress a $8 billion "energy bill" and the $14 billion one he got in return he did not veto. For that matter, Bush II has only one veto to his name almost halfway into his second term, and it was not on a spending bill.
What I fear: Democrats will hold congressional hearings and impeachment proceedings to the point of making Congress a worse circus than it was when the Republicans had Congress and Clinton was their target in the White House. That could motivate voters to consider the Republicans the lesser of two evils in 2008! The Democrats would do better with a legislative agenda and budget debates.
- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)
I think that tax breaks should be tied to spending cuts to support them.
Eisenhower achieved cuts in both top tax rate and spending. Kennedy got a tax cut and spending boosts decried by Republicans until Reagan gave the USA annual deficits (with actual close to those in his annual budget requests to Congress) over twice the ballooning ones he criticized Carter about!
- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)
Did you really buy into the Democrat platitudes ?:-)
I think we'll see the Democrats throwing up a lot of absurdities... but none will get past W's veto.
They're so stupid they will have created a poor image of themselves, just in time for 2008 ;-)
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...
How could they ever be as bad as the worst congress ever?
US national debt is a bit under 70% of gdp, less than Japan's and similar to that of several Western European countries. But we don't have the ageing populations and declining workforces that they have, so the debt probably isn't as big a problem.
John
I nominate that for the Most Exaggerated Claim Ever Posted on Usenet.
John
I nominate it for the most truthful.
Jim Thompson wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
The Republicans have to be careful they don't get pasted with the "obstructionist" tag.
IMO,the DemocRATs are just itching to do that.
-- Jim Yanik jyanik at kua.net
Oh please. Modern US government is squeaky-clean compared to years past. People who know nothing about history are always the ones who claim that the things they know are the worst ever.
John
So, you used to be a totally corrupt bunch of bastards and now you are slightly less so. Wow, starting at the bottom and working up -- ever so slowly.
An honest politicians stays bought.........
martin
There is something to be said for the money-talks school of government, namely that powerful interests do deserve to be represented. People complain about how "big business" influences government, but big business *should* influence government... they're the guys creating the food, the goods, the services, the taxes, and the jobs.
It's all a matter of balance.
John
I agree about balance, but what sticks in my gullet about the US system is that *the people* elect the politician, then big biz/ God/GM/nukeRus, comes along with $$$ and try to get or buy legislation passed in their favour, which may not be in the national or local interest.
So the politician may be in considerable conflict with the genuine needs of voters, who empowered him/her
Despite the rather good US constitution, the US system is pretty ugly in practice, but there are many worse.
Maybe I've missed something....
martin
Plot Synopsis: Gunter Wallraff is a journalist seeking to expose the unethical journalism practiced by The Standard, a very popular and powerful German newspaper. He goes undercover, using forged identity papers and at great personal risk, to join their staff. Once there, he sees how they don't just report the news, but manufacture it to suit the personal political agenda of the paper's leaders.
Unless anyone has lived in a vacuum under a rock, there is no question that the United States' health care system is on the verge of imploding. We can thank rotten administration, out of control lawyers, corrupt doctors, equity financing, and the lack of a single payer system for all this. Health care is an issue that should have been addressed 20 years ago but was ignored. Now it has grown into an uncontrollable nightmare that will plague American businesses and consumers like a cancer. Is anyone looking for a solution? Is there one on the horizon? Or are we just going to do what we have done all along? Do nothing--until the whole system comes crashing down.
The victim in the below article could have been anyone's mother or grandmother. Have we, as a nation, become so consumed in ourselves, our money and our jobs that nothing and nobody else matters? Yeah, there are still some good people out there, but nowadays they've become the exception, not the rule.
Can we turn this around?
Hospital charged in alleged patient dumping on Skid Row POSTED: 5:49 a.m. EST, November 17, 2006 Adjust font size: LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- In an unprecedented crackdown on a practice experts say is shamefully common around the country, a major hospital chain was accused by prosecutors Thursday of ridding itself of a homeless patient by dumping her on crime-plagued Skid Row.
A surveillance camera at a rescue mission recorded the demented
63-year-old woman wandering around the streets in a hospital gown and slippers last March.In announcing the criminal and civil charges, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo said a Kaiser Permanente hospital put the woman in a taxi and sent her to the neighborhood even though she had serious, untreated health problems.
"Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, part of Kaiser Permanente, the largest HMO in the nation, will be held accountable for violating state law, its commitment to its patients, its obligations under the Hippocratic oath, and perhaps most importantly, principles of common decency," Delgadillo said.
No U.S. hospital has ever been prosecuted on criminal charges of patient dumping, said President Bush's homelessness czar, Philip F. Mangano.
Mangano, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, said patient dumping is a widespread practice. "We need to hold hospitals accountable, but also work with them to resolve these issues," he said.
Kaiser's Bellflower hospital, which discharged the woman, is among 10 Los Angeles-area hospitals under investigation on suspicion of discharging homeless patients onto the streets instead of into the custody of a relative or shelter. (Watch the surveillance camera footage -- 1:04 )
The legal actions filed against Kaiser late Wednesday included criminal charges of false imprisonment and dependent adult endangerment, and civil claims involving the treatment of patients and laws on discharging them.
"They have violated every ethical obligation under which they operate and they have also broken the law," Delgadillo said.
Diana Bonta, vice president of public affairs for Kaiser Southern California, said the legal action unfairly demonizes Kaiser, which she said has taken steps to see that no more of its patients are left on Skid Row.
"It's a big disappointment," she said. "They're taking one isolated case and saying, 'This is what hospitals do.' In reality, hospitals are trying our best to take care of all people, including and especially the most vulnerable."
Kaiser could be fined in the civil case and see penalties including restrictions on its practices if convicted of the criminal charges.
Police have long suspected that medical centers and outside law enforcement agencies were using Skid Row as a dumping ground for the homeless. Skid Row already has one of the nation's largest concentrations of homeless people, in part because of its cluster of shelters and services to help them.
The woman found wandering on the street, Carol Ann Reyes, was taken in at the Union Rescue Mission. Its director, Andy Bales, said she continues to receive care.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Jim Yanik wrote:
[snip]
(1) It's a very small percentage
(2) It's due to cheap-assed TOWNS not appropriately spending the Federal funds they've received.
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
True, but, sadly, the number of incidents are increasing.
Yes. However, large MSAs are culprits as well. It's pretty sad to see things heading the way they are.
Have a good weekend.
Igor The Terrible wrote:
I see two immediate problems, one that is somewhat fixable, the other not:
#1. Corruption #2. Unfair insurance practices.
#1: I had a disheartening moment a few years back while complaining to a doctor-friend of mine about a stethoscope that cost $300, how it was a rip off for something that basically was metal and plastic. The look on his face was one of ..."If you said that 10 years ago, I might have shared your disgust, but right now, I'm getting paid."
#2: This problem is more fixable. Fortunately, as a middle-aged male, I have not yet had any major medical concerns. I had multiple fractures on my left arm from doing crazy things as a young man, but that's it. I do not feel I should have to pay the same amount as someone who abuses his or her body. I could enumerate things that people do to abuse their bodies, but won't, as my goal is not to offend anyone here. On second thought... those of us who are 100 kilos overweight are asking for trouble. Those of us who smoke are asking for trouble. Those of us who drink incessantly are asking for trouble. Those of us who never exercise, ever, are asking for trouble. Even poor dental hygiene affects parts of the body that you would not expect. The point is that much of our health is in our control. I think medical insurance should be treated like car insurance. There should be mandatory physical. For those things that can be controlled, people who do well should get rewarded. People who don't should be penalized. For those things that *cannot* be controlled (cancers, etc..) THERE SHOULD BE 100% FORGIVENESS, but in general, there should be a correlation between a persons self-care and how much insurance they pay. Unfortunately, I learned that this is illegally. If I wanted to form a posse with a group of like-minded healthy individuals so that we could pool our funds and have our own private health insurance, I could not because, in the USA, IT IS ILLEGAL. This seems wrong. At the very least, people would very quickly decide how much they really want that hamburger when they are paying $500 / month for health insurance and the guy next to him is paying only $18.
-Le Chaud Lapin-
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