Dan Sarandrea (Phila)
Waitin' On Parts...
Re #1.....Oh, I agree that the conventional wisdom follows what you posted about the MidEast (ME).
But as you posted "never mind the facts." Which is now painfully obvious that USA involvement in the ME has nothing to do with facts and is probably severally attributable to hubristic politicians wanting to exert power by playing on the world stage (there's nothing like a ME peace deal to put a President in the lead for next year's Nobel Peace prize), the real influence of the military industrial complex, and the influence (IMO overrated) of the so-called Israel lobby.
So logically that conventional arguement of energy independence getting us out of the ME frying pan does not hold water because that's not why we're there in the first place.
#2. Well all I can say is that my perfect world:devil: of not spending all that money in the first place trumps your perfect world of overspending and scrambling to pay the bill now that it looks like the collection agencies are going to lower the boom.
#3. I think the infrastructure "needs" are not some unexpected calamity that has befallen us and thus require a collective emergency reaction. I divide infrastructure needs into two areas---"A" being maintaining the stuff you have and "B" being building the new stuff you think you need.
Under that line of thinking, "A" should have been built into federal/state/local budgets already with existing revenue streams (road tolls, fuel taxes, registration fees, etc) to support the needs. If any given government entity was underfunding their maintenance requirements, I hardly see the justification for the rest of the country to pay for the shortfall just to make sure that (for example) a 50 foot bridge over a small stream in Northeast Philadelphia does not collapse into the stream.
The problem with "B" is that government money is spent on the decisions of politicians, which are influenced only by politics and not reality. As the founders held, I think that the closer the decisions are made to the people who are actually paying for them, the better the decisions will be.
But as you posted "never mind the facts." Which is now painfully obvious that USA involvement in the ME has nothing to do with facts and is probably severally attributable to hubristic politicians wanting to exert power by playing on the world stage (there's nothing like a ME peace deal to put a President in the lead for next year's Nobel Peace prize), the real influence of the military industrial complex, and the influence (IMO overrated) of the so-called Israel lobby.
So logically that conventional arguement of energy independence getting us out of the ME frying pan does not hold water because that's not why we're there in the first place.
#2. Well all I can say is that my perfect world:devil: of not spending all that money in the first place trumps your perfect world of overspending and scrambling to pay the bill now that it looks like the collection agencies are going to lower the boom.
#3. I think the infrastructure "needs" are not some unexpected calamity that has befallen us and thus require a collective emergency reaction. I divide infrastructure needs into two areas---"A" being maintaining the stuff you have and "B" being building the new stuff you think you need.
Under that line of thinking, "A" should have been built into federal/state/local budgets already with existing revenue streams (road tolls, fuel taxes, registration fees, etc) to support the needs. If any given government entity was underfunding their maintenance requirements, I hardly see the justification for the rest of the country to pay for the shortfall just to make sure that (for example) a 50 foot bridge over a small stream in Northeast Philadelphia does not collapse into the stream.
The problem with "B" is that government money is spent on the decisions of politicians, which are influenced only by politics and not reality. As the founders held, I think that the closer the decisions are made to the people who are actually paying for them, the better the decisions will be.
Last edited: