I'd believe it was "just about how to pay for it" -- except that the republicans didn't bat an eyelash over the extensions to the bush tax holiday. Indeed, they were pretty clear and unambiguous that if millionaires didn't a tax cut, then they would hold their breath until they turned blue.

"...and you can't just do the math and ignore the fringe effects! With electric motors, it's all fringe effects" (Carnegie Mellon EE professor).

Real theorists are painfully aware of how their models don't reflect reality, and are careful to say so.

Not just labor unions support this -- as a taxpayer, I support it, too. Otherwise, every time a bad president came into office, they'd get rid of all of the "non supporters" and replace them with useless hacks. The way we have it, people can get a job with the government as a first choice ("I can make a career here" and "I won't be fired summarily") instead of a last choice ("it's only for a few years, but I need money now").

TL;DR: "You kids get off my lawn"

May apologies, but you are on the wrong side of history. In the 50's, there were "old guard" programmers who wanted to program in octal instead of assembly so they could really understand what the computer was doing. In the 60's, the "old guard" fought COBOL and FORTRAN in favor of assembly so "they could understand what the computer was doing". In then 70's, they fought virtual memory because "only with real memory could you understand what the computer was doing". In the 80's, they fought SQL and wanted to keep COBOL so "they could understand what the computer was really doing". In the 90's they fought GUIs because "only with a command line could you really understand what the computer was doing". And in the last decade, they fought bytecode and interpreted languages because "only with a compiled language can you really understand what the computer is doing".

This is not to say that every proposed new language and concept is good -- they aren't. There was an research computer where the compiler was in hardware (yes, individual gates and thing to parse your source code), along with the entire OS. There have been visual languages by the dozen; almost all were losers.

But, overall, history isn't on your side. The higher level languages and abstractions actual make people more productive programmers. Both Java and .NET have been accepted as "good" by an enormous number of working programmers and their hard-nosed managers; they are here to stay.

The British felt the same way about the American and German "bubbles" in manufacturing and steel, too. But they just knew that eventually the two small upstart countries would slow down, resulting in Britain continuing to have a comfortable lead over all other industrialized countries.

Sometimes the view in the rear view mirror is true.

Imagine a world with no government interference -- with no long private railroads (no eminent domain, no free land parcels out west, no westwards expansion). Imagine a world where cars are always slow (no roads mean no cars; no cars mean no roads). Imagine a world with no sewers, and no telephone (telephones are possible only because of telegraphs; telegraphs are only possible because of the railroads).

But imagine a world with lots smallpox, diptheria, and polio. A world with short, nasty lives. A world with plenty of Victorian virtues like polluted water and air, and childen living and dying in poverty.

Yup, that's the world for me!

For your item #3 -- "doing nothing to encourage bright young minds" -- except for the honors courses. And the accelerated courses. And the IQ tests that can get you in to them.

We just had a very successful auction for $24 billion of 10-year notes. Rich people don't think that we're a credit risk (and they also don't think that inflation is coming back any time soon).

One simple way to tell if we've "spent all the money": do really, really rich people still feel comfortable lending us money for long periods at low interest rates? 'Cause those people aren't dumb, and they'd sell their own grandparent to make more. ....survey says.... we just sold $24 billion of 10-year notes at 3.66%. I'd say that everyone who is rich disagrees with you.

And lastly: basic economic data is that when countries are in a recession, they should increase government spending (especially on infrastructure like rails). Countries that cut spending then tend to fall further into recession.

Oven thermostats -- how do they work? I mean, the coils are one temperature, the racks another, I take ten measurements of the air, and they are all different. There's clearly no way to usefully average the temperature, or have my baking rely on a simple "oven temperature" controlled by a single knob!

So I'll just set some random value on the knob. I hope the cupcakes turn out!