The earmark system is nothing more [or less] than a shopping list that any person/family/team/company/city/government would do. It as gotten a bad name for things like the Bridge to Nowhere or the paving of Bubba's parking lot and boat ramp under DHS funds down in Southeast Kentucky.
What doesn't get mentioned are the mammography units, mobile labs, temporary school trailers and other items that are used in very rural areas that don't have the clout or tax base to build their own hospitals or shiny new schools. Down in Harlan County they just this Sept 1 replaced the High School that my father attended back in the 1930s. It has been a primary high school for eight decades, last remodeled in the early 1970s. So earmarks are not all bad things. But I can't imagine the time required to discuss Evarts High School in the massive Congressional budget and schedule, a requirement if earmarks did not exist.
What needs to occur is for "earmarks" to be redefined to make sense of the spending. Let people understand that if we send these folks to DC to make $Trillion decisions, they have to be responsible to make some all on their own. Oversight of the 10% of passed earmarks is helping insure that.
As for Social Security, yes, most of the folks on this board are very much able to invest their own money because we think about the requirements. What about the folks that do not have that skillset? To them it is not a good option, it is a burden. If they do it correctly GREAT, if it is done incorrectly WE STILL HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT when they get old and quit work [because we don't leave people in the woods to die in the snow]
Now, the 83% of Americans who DON'T do stock market have a way to deal with partial retirement. They simply have X taken out weekly and when they turn 62-65-70 they get a check a month. It is their money.
Much like the whining about Social Security now is odd as it is monies paid in by taxpayers yet some people whine that the Government has to pay these people. It's the people's money. Who forgot that?
I was enjoying your piece until I got that little thing about facts and truth in the underlined part.
About 60% of the working population are invested in the stock market in one way or another.
One never has a vested interest in their SS money; because there is no fund. At the very very best, it could be called our tax money we send to them each month.
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I got news for ya'. The Chinese are not that far behind us. They became extremely wealthy by producing cheap goods with cheap labor but as their wealth increased, so did the cost of living, wages, etc.
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I was enjoying your piece until I got that little thing about facts and truth in the underlined part.
About 60% of the working population are invested in the stock market in one way or another.
One never has a vested interest in their SS money; because there is no fund. At the very very best, it could be called our tax money we send to them each month.
The 83% number was phrased "who do Stock Market", not everyone who participates "one way or the other". Those are two different things. Those "who do Stock Market" reference those who actively play the market and invest further than the benign investments that the 60% number you reference.
I did phrase it that way intentionally, for context to show the contrast of folks who are ACTIVE investors and those who "invest one way or the other".
I never said I liked the SS System, by the way, I just know that the model works for a big majority of people who don't have the wherewithal to do their own investing or understand the mechanics of it. The stock market requires some intellectual skin in the game, not everyone is able to address that requirement.
No, you're just a gullible chump who would believe anything.
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No, it does not. And I am aware of conflicting opinions. You're a pretty savy investor, from what i've read here. Wouldn't you like to have had the option of managing the money that you've contributed into that system?
Here's one for you, if one accepts the going interpretation of general welfare, does the earmark system comply? Both parties seem to have a love for it, but it seems too specific to be general.
The rest of your post I agree with. My fleeting hope is this election cycle will lead to the GOP returning to its conservative roots and a purging of the neocons. The party and country could use it.
The SSI has withstood numerous constitutional challenges, but that is for another thread. As far as the money, I simply do not look at it the way you do - it is not a retirement vehicle, it is an insurance program, and I look at it as paying the premiums on something like car insurance.
Earmarks and general welfare are an apples to oranges comparison. They fall under Congress's right to appropriate money, and in that sense, are totally constitutional.
The SSI has withstood numerous constitutional challenges, but that is for another thread. As far as the money, I simply do not look at it the way you do - it is not a retirement vehicle, it is an insurance program, and I look at it as paying the premiums on something like car insurance.
Earmarks and general welfare are an apples to oranges comparison. They fall under Congress's right to appropriate money, and in that sense, are totally constitutional.
Insurance against what?
The pertinent interpretation of actual COTUS words would be congress's right to appropriate money for the general welfare. How is an earmark general?
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It would depend on what the earmark is for. What if the earmark attempts to create jobs by earmarking a new PX at the local base? That could be called "defense", while one asking for a new Severe Teenage Acne Clinic could be called general welfare.
Numerous court challenges over the years have gone after laws on the basis of the enumerated powers. The courts have generally held that the first sentence of Article 1:8 gives Congress a wide latitude in both areas, while the rest of the Section deals with specific items in order to clarify that they belong under Congress's realm, in other words, they are in addition too, not inclusive of, the general welfare and military spending clauses. The same thing can be found in the sections dealing with Executive Power. The COTUS gives the President broad powers as Commander-in-Chief, and defines them in a vague way, yet later adds specific clauses giving him judicial powers within the military as well - they are there to avoid confusion between the branches. If they were not so broad and vague, we would be in court all the time.
It would depend on what the earmark is for. What if the earmark attempts to create jobs by earmarking a new PX at the local base? That could be called "defense", while one asking for a new Severe Teenage Acne Clinic could be called general welfare.
Numerous court challenges over the years have gone after laws on the basis of the enumerated powers. The courts have generally held that the first sentence of Article 1:8 gives Congress a wide latitude in both areas, while the rest of the Section deals with specific items in order to clarify that they belong under Congress's realm, in other words, they are in addition too, not inclusive of, the general welfare and military spending clauses. The same thing can be found in the sections dealing with Executive Power. The COTUS gives the President broad powers as Commander-in-Chief, and defines them in a vague way, yet later adds specific clauses giving him judicial powers within the military as well - they are there to avoid confusion between the branches. If they were not so broad and vague, we would be in court all the time.
Humor me and elaborate on how the acne clinic qualifies as general.
Well, it is a facetious example, however, for the same reason SSI is general - sooner or later we are all teenagers, and sooner or later we are all old (or dead), so the law applies equally to all, it is general welfare legislation.
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