This "accrued debt" and its consequences belongs to all of us ass hole. Please think a little longer before posting such drivel.
I have come to believe, that issues of fair taxation are the most important ones that need addressing in America. In particular it should entail a nuanced approach utilizing Sales Tax, Value added taxes, and Property Taxes. These seem to be the hardest to "escape" in some Amazonian cheat the system kind of way. As your regular American with a house in the "burbs", i know proportionately I am hit much harder on property taxes than a farmer is. Their MILLIONS in land value is just given a passing glance on property taxes - and perhaps rightfully so but I feel they're cheating at the "taxes" game too and getting by on a very low property tax rate. The Trump tax changes, for now, have benefited me and my family but that could easily go away and is slated to. Regardless, the goal should be to simplify, reduce the gains from special interest lobbying and make taxation in America easier to understand and address. Lastly, this endless game of low/no taxes and fiscal deficits needs to be drawn closer to a 3% of gdp normal. A future of hyper inflation sounds very scary, and very likely.
I do not like this argument, it is incomplete and wrong. A consumer who lives minimally and only buys (for example) groceries should only help pay the truckers tax for their grocery trucking, and not support the lumber, automobiles, etc. Taxes should be paid by those most in proportionate benefit. This tax should not be spread wide like a blanket covering all, but by their specific consumers. Caveat: I am not sure this rule applies always, like for example to pay for public schooling (the benefit of such is for all, and a directed cost to young families would be harder to bear) but in cases like commerce I believe it applies.
Back on topic, these road use taxes for EV I feel is fair. Especially in northern climates it is used for things like snow removal which EV cars still benefit from. Our state of South Dakota also recently setup a $75 use tax for a similar reason. Not egregious in price, but I feel reasonable to help pay for basic road maintenance and use.
The difference, if I recall correctly, is that there are actually scenarios that Al Gore could've won. Trump lost more than one swing state. He lost rather handily. His path to victory did not exist. But he did not concede in any meaningful way, in any meaningful time line but instead fought things to the bitter end. To my view of things Gore showed a lot of class and handled things quite well. It may be true that some democrat supporters were bitter but the situation played out much differently.
To pivot slightly, the thing I am finding the most concerning today is editorial bias in news coverage. The choice in what gets covered is very problematic, the particular titles applied to the stories, and then also the content of the articles. The "preaching to the choir" has such an amplified effect. People likely do not even read the articles, the whole article, or the variety of sources any more. But these factors would lead people to have certain views on the world that is totally out of context. (i'm ignoring facebook and such - i'm not on facebook or twitter and surely could not stand it either. just talking about npr, breitbart, foxnews, etc)
Something like "you can sell stock to the government" as the bailout, followed by some plan to divest that stock post-pandemic.
To this I totally agree, don't give out free money. Those that think they need a bailout should issue stock that the government buys that is later sold at some predetermined rate of release over some particular delayed window of time. This causes the original share holders to have to take an immediate loss due to the asset dilution. Their risk must be "rewarded."
for many Americans, the path to literacy begins with story time in their school classroom
From what I understand: if your path to literacy begins in the classroom it is already game over. Toddlers need read to a lot. An average of twenty minutes a day is the number at which children are on a path to success. This needs to be drummed into parents across this and every nation. If you read to your kids a lot (parents need to be very literate and love reading too) your kids will love it also and probably (from my experience) learn to read more easily and sooner. Parents don't realize this, and the schools do way too little to help children catch up. They often don't even diagnose this problem till its too late. Furthermore it should be your goal to expand your child's vocabulary (another marker for success) as early as possible, and books are a great facilitator.
The more I have learned about these issues, the more I believe this whole system is rigged for failure. Parents, and parents alone bear this responsibility. It is very hard to fix or address later. You can't just hand off your kid to kindergarten and hope for the best. It is too easy to rant and rave about school funding, and all the other things like white privilege, and ignore the damage already done. Some places are trying to expand pre-k schooling which would help get to kids in need of this help sooner, but its much cheaper if parents would realize their role in this.
Everyone on here going to extremes, or using gross generalizations to push their political talking points should just stop. This situation is fairly simple: should Texas winterize everything? Probably not. Do they need to winterize their power plants? Yes. Do they need to winterize all of their fossil fuel production? Probably not. Does our power grid need to be modernized? Yes. (See Trump, and the coal lobby, and their cancellation of the Seams Grid Modernization study. Which would've helped in this case too, get excess power from elsewhere into Texas.)
I absolutely HATE how politics in America is so partisan, no one examines anything and just jumps to their attack positions as if we've all been listening to Rush Limbaugh all afternoon. It is a disgrace. Grid modernization probably falls under the purview of a "Green New Deal" so instead of considering its merits the right will just try to shout the whole thing down. God forbid Republicans go along with ANY Biden policy positions, that'd give the Dems a stronger chance in the mid terms. I abhor what Democracy in America has become. Have fun sleeping in the bed we've made, it's awful cold.
The next person to mention spaghetti stacks to me is going to have his head knocked off. -- Bill Conrad