Today In Biden Land

[Kirkland Laing]

Banking explained in sixteen seconds:

https://twitter.com/DannyDeraney/sta...50778584498176

[Kirkland Laing]

This is a bookmark for the forthcoming debt ceiling clusterfuck. Long story short, US government spending hasn't gone up in forty years while one section of the population have seen their taxes decrease significantly. Can you guess which section?

https://jabberwocking.com/yes-of-cou...e-to-tax-cuts/


It's actually quite misleading. Really it's the top 0.01% who have made the massive income increase/tax cuts.

The bloke who wrote this is a handy ten minute a day read if you want to know how all the moving parts in America fit together. He made a lot of money working for a tech company in California, retired early and was one of the first bloggers. Was so good he got paid to do it for the last twenty years and is now retired from being paid for it but has gone back to doing it for free.

[Kirkland Laing]

FsZ6qp1XwAE8KIp.jpg


The US electorate thinks the government spends too much money but they're happy with or would like to see more money spent on every category here except for foreign aid. Unfortunately it's less than one percent of the budget, Israel gets about ten percent of it which is popular and the rest has to be spent on American goods and services which provides employment and income for a number of Americans. Maybe they could just raise taxes on the top 0.1 percent or so.

[TitoFan]

I love graphs.

Amazing that as many as 11 percent of people polled said the government spends too much money on infrastructure.

I'd love to hear their "reasoning."

[Kirkland Laing]

I love graphs.

Amazing that as many as 11 percent of people polled said the government spends too much money on infrastructure.

I'd love to hear their "reasoning."

I was thinking when I read this there's no way even eighty nine percent of Americans (or any other country's population) know what infrastructure means so I looked up the actual poll and the question actually explains what infrastructure is. Amazing these days that ninety percent of Americans can agree on anything. I wonder what would happen to this number of conservative media went on an anti infrastructure jihad for a month or two.

[TitoFan]

I love graphs.

Amazing that as many as 11 percent of people polled said the government spends too much money on infrastructure.

I'd love to hear their "reasoning."

I was thinking when I read this there's no way even eighty nine percent of Americans (or any other country's population) know what infrastructure means so I looked up the actual poll and the question actually explains what infrastructure is. Amazing these days that ninety percent of Americans can agree on anything. I wonder what would happen to this number of conservative media went on an anti infrastructure jihad for a month or two.

You've touched upon a very important point, and that is the definition of infrastructure itself.

Republicans seem to favor the more narrow definition, which encompasses mostly what is known as "hard infrastructure" (roads, bridges, utilities, communication systems, etc).

Democrats seem to want a more broad definition, including much of what is known as "soft infrastructure" (healthcare, law enforcement, education, etc).

Me... I tend to lean toward the Republican view for two reasons.

1. I'm of a technical background... so the word "infrastructure" means certain things to me.

2. By limiting the scope of the term, I feel we're freer to discuss things like healthcare, law enforcement, and education separately.

All are needed for a productive society... but that's just my personal taste.



But yeah... I can fully imagine some people saying "Hell yeah. We spend way too much on infrastructure." Without having even a remote idea of what infrastructure actually means.

[Kirkland Laing]

I love graphs.

Amazing that as many as 11 percent of people polled said the government spends too much money on infrastructure.

I'd love to hear their "reasoning."

I was thinking when I read this there's no way even eighty nine percent of Americans (or any other country's population) know what infrastructure means so I looked up the actual poll and the question actually explains what infrastructure is. Amazing these days that ninety percent of Americans can agree on anything. I wonder what would happen to this number of conservative media went on an anti infrastructure jihad for a month or two.

You've touched upon a very important point, and that is the definition of infrastructure itself.

Republicans seem to favor the more narrow definition, which encompasses mostly what is known as "hard infrastructure" (roads, bridges, utilities, communication systems, etc).

Democrats seem to want a more broad definition, including much of what is known as "soft infrastructure" (healthcare, law enforcement, education, etc).

Me... I tend to lean toward the Republican view for two reasons.

1. I'm of a technical background... so the word "infrastructure" means certain things to me.

2. By limiting the scope of the term, I feel we're freer to discuss things like healthcare, law enforcement, and education separately.

All are needed for a productive society... but that's just my personal taste.



But yeah... I can fully imagine some people saying "Hell yeah. We spend way too much on infrastructure." Without having even a remote idea of what infrastructure actually means.

I think a lot of it was during the writing of the infrastructure bill various Democrats were trying to get money allocated for their pet issues so they were claiming that they were infrastructure:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dem...-spending-bill

It's a shame they didn't manage to pass a bill like this back in the Obama years. It would have helped drag the economy out of the 2008 meltdown recession much faster and it would all exist now.

[walrus]

I love graphs.

Amazing that as many as 11 percent of people polled said the government spends too much money on infrastructure.

I'd love to hear their "reasoning."

I was thinking when I read this there's no way even eighty nine percent of Americans (or any other country's population) know what infrastructure means so I looked up the actual poll and the question actually explains what infrastructure is. Amazing these days that ninety percent of Americans can agree on anything. I wonder what would happen to this number of conservative media went on an anti infrastructure jihad for a month or two.

Of course you know more than most Americans but most infrastructure bills go into union pockets.

[Kirkland Laing]

I love graphs.

Amazing that as many as 11 percent of people polled said the government spends too much money on infrastructure.

I'd love to hear their "reasoning."

I was thinking when I read this there's no way even eighty nine percent of Americans (or any other country's population) know what infrastructure means so I looked up the actual poll and the question actually explains what infrastructure is. Amazing these days that ninety percent of Americans can agree on anything. I wonder what would happen to this number of conservative media went on an anti infrastructure jihad for a month or two.

Of course you know more than most Americans but most infrastructure bills go into union pockets.

Yes, union bosses have famously made huge generational wealth fortunes from American government infrastructure spending. It's the one thing people think of when the subject of infrastructure spending comes up.