You are right on the money. Despite the noble intentions, this expensive experiment will not turn out well.

Me too. Discovered it during a grad course in numerical analysis. With the CRC Handbook in one hand and the HBMF in the other, you had a great deal of summarized practical math at your disposal. Throw in Numerical Recipes in FORTRAN (later released in C) -- icing on the cake.

If we could reject them, we would. Our philosophy is for all people to choose their own poison. You're forcing it down everyone's throat. ONCE AGAIN, states' rights. If California or Iowa or [state] wants to enact this legislation, alright. But don't force it on 300m people! Our nation is too large for the high government to be representative of the people. Such sweeping, life changing, nation-bankrupting legislation is best reserved for the better-representing states, where only a portion of the country will be affected.

I only want to shrink the FEDERAL government, and I apologize if I didn't make that clear.

There's no reason that 'modern government' has to be neatly organized in one massive engine, unless you're wanting to make a lobbyist's day shorter.

That being said, the Constitution is very much the perfect thing for a limited Federal government. The States are encouraged to both write their own laws AND solve their own problems.

As you may know, it is monumentally easier to change the State law than it is the Federal.

You're already modded down, but at the risk you're looking for a discussion, let me see if I can relate how I understand it, personally:

"Liberty" relates to "budget" under the terms of "small government". We can have fewer programs, at least at the Federal level, and that would in itself be good, but it would also cost less. That's not at all incoherent, even if it wasn't explained in detail. Less liberty will basically always mean more spending, because someone has to fund the enforcers, the tracking system, etc. There's just no way to implement a program like that for zero cost. A libertarian sees fewer programs as a win-win in this way.

"Budget" relates to "taxes" because the government should not have any other income. Taxes are one entire side of the balance sheet that makes up the budget. Ergo, a smaller and/or balanced budget would lead to fewer taxes demanded in the future.

Again, more wars means more tax needs. This point should, and I underscore should, be completely obvious to anyone, whether you agree with it or not.

There does exist a framework for running our government. Most of it us under glass at the National Archives Rotunda in DC, I think. Otherwise, I'm sure you can locate a copy online with relative ease.

Budget neutral is not filler. That's crucial, because the taxes are, again, the only income for this business entity that will be managing a large portion of the economy. Responsibility is paramount, because our children deserve better than 'pay for it somehow tomorrow'. At least they do if we do not wish the USA to follow in Rome's footsteps.

Abortion is not filler because these are public dollars being spent. If the constituency is not in favor of this type of expenditure, then it shouldn't probably occur. Unless there's some kind of opt-out provision that I'm unaware of...

The latter of your point is a fine position to take. My only rebuttal there would be that once/if the system is no longer broken, we will see no opportunity to remove this program. It is not a 'fix', it is a retrofit. If we're unhappy with it, due to the entitlement angle, we'll simply suffer under it forever - as we will with Medicare.

Or is it that Joe Public wants the cheap products and services that only cheap labor can provide, and won't let the problem be solved? It's just the free market in action.

Many Toyotas are built in America with American workers. And these days, a lot of "American" cars are built in Canada and Mexico. Look before you buy!

Or, to play the Devil's advocate, it is "Keynesian" economics that stimulates the economy. [Note, I'm not a fan of most subsidies, especially not in an established market like coal power; I was simply arguing the point that so many in the government now try to make].

Amen, bro.

Your continuing guesswork is close.

I'm actually one of the ones who has an ulcer with an unknown cause, I take pantoprazole every day and I'm fine.

I was diagnosed using the standard urea breath test, which is around 97% accurate.

I have no A. Pylori, but if I did, I would be off the meds right now, instead having to take them indefinitely.

"I always find it funny that people who risk jail time for a drug claim they haven't got a problem. "No sirree, I am not a drunk. Yes I am drinking industrial alcohol laced with rat poison for flavor sold to me by outragous prices and I could go to jail for it, but really, I got it all under control."

Apparently we haha when someone offs them self doing something stupid like swimming with sharks with a bloody cut, but when someone does something Darwin like drinking poisoned alcohol, bust out the sympathy cards. Stupid is stupid and it's not going to get any smarter by justifying it.

I agree with many of the posters here that say most of the current slums are horrific. Also, I live in a poor part of London and have just returned from Bangkok where I visited and walked through some of their slums.

However, I believe the key word here is 'teach'. There are many things that I admire in Bangkok that I'd like to introduce to the East End. Good street food at an affordable price rather than look-alike hamburger chains (as part of the informal economy), re-use of anything reusable, (often) better levels of respect for property and people, ingenuity that doesn't exist in the gadget-heavy west. Yes, there are rats and open-sewers as well, but that doesn't invalidate the rest.

Walkability is also a big factor. I live near a canal but many of my female neighbours won't use the towpath because no-one else does, of course, this is a downward spiral, so I'm trying to get it to be a little more attractive, then more people walk it.

I used to work for NASA. You are totally wrong about the need for "gee whiz flashy programs". NASA lives or dies by its ability to deliver jobs and contract $ to states and Congressional districts. Furthermore, NASA and the space industry (the big guys like LockMar etc.) are joined at the hip. I remember procurement-sensitive meetings at NASA where NASA managers with lots of responsibility would say, "can I bring so-and-so (their pet contractor) to the meeting?" The reason is that the contractors, at least in the human exploration side of NASA, do most of the hard technical work. They will close out these contractors and it will also be the end of career for many NASA people who don't have the right stuff for whatever comes next. These changes in NASA are really at heart a local jobs issue. Regarding "placate various legislators": no, you are definitely not paranoid! Look where the NASA Centers are located. They were deliberately place in southern states during Apollo to woo those states to the Democrat side. It didn't work all that well. But now you have these government centers in places where they provide a disproportionate amount of state revenue and jobs for the region. OF COURSE THIS IS POLITICAL. Any change to the work that NASA does, and which NASA Center gets the work, directly affects the fortunes of one state versus another, which affects the direction of NASA as a whole. Expect to see a lot of high and mighty words from Senators and Representatives about what is right for NASA, but what they are really talking about is jobs and total contract $ for their political domain. That's all it is. That is their motivation. Its plain as daylight. Nobody is Congress plans for the long term of NASA unless it is spelled out in terms for jobs and $.