It should be noted that the US decided not to extend the universal free school meals program, because it was "too expensive" at $11B. They also stopped the expanded and early payment of family tax credits, causing a double-whammy hit to poor families (then pile on inflation/food prices, and gas prices). But $50B to large monopolistic companies isn't "too expensive," and we can afford that.
Unfortunately 52 senators get to control the agenda, and they get to decide what is "affordable" and "too expensive."
> It should be noted that the US decided not to extend the universal free school meals program, because it was "too expensive" at $11B. They also stopped the expanded and early payment of family tax credits, causing a double-whammy hit to poor families (then pile on inflation/food prices, and gas prices). But $50B to large monopolistic companies isn't "too expensive," and we can afford that.
That's misleading framing, that's derailing discussion about this.
More accurately: there's more consensus around national security spending than social spending. The government has decided it would rather have the economy depend on large American companies for these critical components than on large Chinese companies.
And that might have follow-on effects that mean more jobs for Americans so fewer kids are poor and need subsidized school lunches.
I suppose if you're unhappy with that write your senators, and ask them to pass laws requiring purchases from the lowest-cost global supplier (e.g. not American), and use the money saved for welfare subsidies.
The point isn't that its one or the other, the point is that spending on social programs is much cheaper than national security programs and makes a more meaningful difference in more peoples lives. The point is that either-or is a false dichotomy, we can have good social safety nets and still have robust national security. The reason we don't have both isn't that we can't afford both, its that much of this country views poverty as a moral failing and intentionally neglects the poor because "they deserve it".
> makes a more meaningful difference in more peoples lives
Many people in this country want their chances to be better, and not have those opportunities distributed evenly. They want a shot of improving their status by ascending career, wealth, and opportunity gradients. This is how they vote. This is how companies operate too.
On the flip side, true universal equity doesn't even stop at the national boarder. If you're a proponent of equitability for all, then you want to distribute all high income jobs, housing, medical care, and wealth all around the world and give everyone access and good chances. To some degree this has happened with manufacturing. In time it will happen to knowledge work as well.
There are problems with both models of the world. Power and resources become concentrated. With slowing growth, wealth building up the lower class of one nation leads to the eroding of the middle class in another.
It's unclear to me that these choices are even the ones that will dominate the future outcomes for our civilization. It's resource reallocation. The big trends will be war, technological disruptions, and ecosystem changes.
> the point is that spending on social programs is much cheaper than national security programs and makes a more meaningful difference in more peoples lives
That's not the point presented by the OP. If he was to advance such a point, he'll have to cite a research that shows that investing in poorer families will lead to semi-conductor advancement in the country.
Unless you think the US (or any reasonably advanced big economy) doesn't need a competitive semi-conductor industry.
It seems like the burden of proof should be the other way around. The proponents of this bill should have to prove to the hungry and poor that handouts to Intel are ultimately better for them than food in their mouths and money in their pockets.
This has nothing do with people’s civic engagement levels, and everything to do with money. The semiconductor industry gets a massive subsidy because they spend tens of millions of dollars on lobbying - impoverished schoolchildren get left to starve because they don’t.
Think you can have an effect by contacting your elected officials? Public preference has almost no impact on what legislation gets passed. Not to mention all the gerrymandering...
Your first two sources are just comparing spending to returns. It doesn't address the hard question which is about causality.
A better explanation for The American Jobs Creation Act is probably the fact that republicans support lower taxes, and they won in 2016.
Regarding the Microsoft case with the IRS, perhaps the fact that everyone hates the IRS is a better explanation?
>Public preference has almost no impact on what legislation gets passed.
Why would it have a significant impact? We don't pass laws by poll.
>Not to mention all the gerrymandering
This one seems real from what I've seen, but I need to look into it more, and I don't think it should be tied very closely to money in politics.
I doubt it. The parallels of this rhetoric from the war on terror is stark. You can put anything under the umbrella of national security, and your average senator is perfectly aware of that. A theoretical threat to semiconductor distribution pails in comparison to the actual threat of climate change or the real threat of poverty which millions of Americans are facing.
No, I don’t believe the senators looked at this with an unbiased mind and came to this conclusion on their own volition. Much rather, they rely on some funding for their campaigning, and said funding had a deep influence on their decision. Not rational thinking.
Securing core resources has been a long standing national security concern for countries. Also, there’s a good chunk of populist isolationist sentiment in the zeitgeist.
Senators aren’t unbiased. They’re biased towards what their voters want. If they step out of line, they’ll likely get crushed.
I don’t think money in politics is very explanatory. It seems a basic understanding of the 3 branches and the interplay between the states and federal government explains a lot.
I think you might be underestimating voter apathy. Voter apathy stems further then low voter turnout, it also includes people who vote despite not caring or despite not believing their values will not be represented in that vote. That is, the lesser of two evils is a very real thing for many (most?) voters.
For that to be true there would have to be some dissonance between what voters actually want and to what their representatives actually deliver. If you don’t believe this dissonance exist, then sure, there is nothing I can say to convince you otherwise. I on the other hand, not only believe such dissonance exist, but is a fundamental flaw in our democracy.
I mean… yes? I thought this was common knowledge; there’s certainly no shortage of documentation available: the ROI from lobbying efforts is insanely high, on the order of 75,000% by many estimates.
I find it amusing that you dismissed this in a sibling comment as “just comparing spending to returns”… that’s literally what lobbying is: spending money to secure political favor. If our elected representatives simply agree that something should be a priority, companies wouldn’t need to bribe them to do it.
(Not so clear, personally, how you justify transposing this semiconductor handout to the more superficially defensible “national security”; but see also fossil fuel subsidies, corporate tax breaks, barring negotiated drug pricing: https://visual.ly/community/Infographics/politics/amazing-ro... )
As for “why is it so cheap”? I always assumed it was at least in part because there are a limited number of politicians competing with each other for the same funding sources.
It’s very low effort for a corporation to threaten to offshore and ask for a handout to not follow through on the threat. And it’s a very easy call for the politician to take the bribe, because then they can go back their constituency and say “We saved your jobs from going to China!” Everybody wins except the taxpayers. (And the corporations will go ahead and offshore, or not, just like they would have anyway, because one of the services they pay their lobbyists for is ensuring there will be no consequences for accepting the handout.)
>I find it amusing that you dismissed this in a sibling comment as “just comparing spending to returns”… that’s literally what lobbying is: spending money to secure political favor. If our elected representatives simply agree that something should be a priority, companies wouldn’t need to bribe them to do it.
This is wrong. That's not what lobbying is understood to be. I think you're confusing lobbying with campaign contributions or PAC money. Lobbying is basically just advocating.
>I always assumed it was at least in part because there are a limited number of politicians competing with each other for the same funding sources.
That's kind of dodging the question. Why are there so few funding sources then?
That's fair. I was imprecise: I should have made it explicit that I was speaking about lobbying in America:
> The one big difference between the US and the EU is that the majority of policymakers in the EU institutions are not elected, and since they do not need to stand for elections, they do not need to find the significant amounts of cash to support campaigns. Instead of spending innumerable hours fundraising, they balance competing interests in an effort to produce policies that are seen as legitimate, though produced by a less-than-democratic supranational structure. https://www.politico.eu/article/why-lobbying-in-america-is-d...
US Lobbyists funneled a total of 3.77 billion dollars into campaign coffers in 2021, and are already over 2 billion for 2022. I hope it's not necessary to point out that they're not doing that without the expectation of a return on that investment (and as we've already seen, they absolutely are getting that ROI.)
> That's kind of dodging the question. Why are there so few funding sources then?
Not sure I see how it's dodging the question, especially since my following paragraph continues not dodging it in greater detail.... but setting that aside, the obvious answer to "why are there so few funding sources" is "there is a finite number of wealthy individuals and organizations", with a side order of "and they tend to consolidate their lobbying activities into industry groups". (To be specific, in 2022 that finite number is 11,441.)
In an economic system where the rich earn money just from being rich, you have a strong incentive as a politician to sell your country as ten million dollars will result in a perpetual and exponentially growing income stream that exceeds a politicians salary multiple times and you don't even have to lift a finger, just do a single corruption stint and be locked in the upper class with the rest of the wealthy for the rest of your life.
I'm open to debate. But I think the OP is erroneous in presuming popular will is expressed in American National Security and Foreign policy and therefore using that to lend credence to this turn of events.
In the abstract it seems much easier to get alignment on a national security question (especially one as cut and dry as this one, which is don’t let your nation’s semiconductor supply fall under the control of a hostile foreign country), than it is to get alignment on a much more ideological and philosophical question about how to solve poverty.
There is nothing abstract in politics and that's just plain old "begging the question".
> especially one as cut and dry as this one, which is don’t let your nation’s semiconductor supply fall under the control of a hostile foreign country
Cut and dry to whom? And were it so cut and dry why is a subsidy the solution rather than any number of other legislative actions?
> than it is to get alignment on a much more ideological and philosophical question about how to solve poverty
Free lunch for students is hardly an attempt to "solve poverty".
On one subject you are asking to do politics in a vacuum because it is the status quo and on the other imply a heavy ideological weight.
In reality both things are equally ideological, the only difference you're asserting is that a nationalistic defense ideology should be taken for granted and perhaps that it is popular.
I think it's pretty cut and dry to people who pay attention to what fuels a modern economy: semiconductors. If you have a problem with the subsidies themselves that's a disagreement about implementation, and to an extent I would agree that some additional tariffs are in order - beyond the subsidies.
>Free lunch for students is hardly an attempt to "solve poverty".
Well sure, but any time someone disagrees with the policy of "free lunches" (as if there was such a thing) you get asked "what, do you hate poor people"? Which sends you down a spiral of debate on what the appropriate policy should be to solve a complex problem ... like poverty.
>the only difference you're asserting is that a nationalistic defense ideology should be taken for granted and perhaps that it is popular.
I'm asserting that semiconductors are what make things comfortable in modern society, which isn't really a contested point as far as I'm aware. I'm not really making any commentary on the wisdom of a "nationalistic defense ideology", which in my mind would be something quite different and go much further than "subsidies for building chips in the US".
I'm sensing that a lot of the hostility in this thread has to do with how we already spend so much money on the MIC, and while it's true that we do spend a lot of money on the MIC, semiconductors are markedly different, because military hardware and weapons aren't consumer products. Semiconductors go into everything. I feel like I'm repeating myself here, and it seems odd to me because I would've expected folks on this website to understand this.
> I think it's pretty cut and dry to people who pay attention to what fuels a modern economy
That's a value judgementon your part which happens to agree with what passes for wisdom in the natsec press and that's literally my entire point. Justifying a government action as status quo opinion is how a status quo is maintained and how an entire class of journalism and foreign policy acts as if the world is its oyster and as if there is no alternative. This is literally the hypothesis of manufacturing consent.
> Well sure, but any time someone disagrees with the policy of "free lunches" (as if there was such a thing) you get asked "what, do you hate poor people"?
You're not talking to "anyone", you're talking to me and I never made that point.
> I feel like I'm repeating myself here, and it seems odd to me because I would've expected folks on this website to understand this.
I'm not sure what other conversations you've had but I'm not arguing the merits of some semiconductor protectionism. I'm arguing against the OPs shrug that we should uncritically accept this spending because it's an outflowing of the Democratic process.
How is this a cut and dry question? By your definition is there any national security question that isn't cut and dry?
Would adding three more carrier groups to the Pacific likewise be a cut and dry question? What about scuttling three carrier groups? What about another three hundred ICBMs to the nuclear arsenal? Hundred-year leases on seven new army bases in Poland? Another trillion or two on building a new fighter jet?
These all seem about as cut and dry. Which is to say, not at all.
It's correct to observe that piling mountains of money into the military-industrial complex tends to have consensus in Congress, but let's not confuse that with the questions having a 'cut and dry' answer.
I'm not following why you seem to think those things are comparable. Semiconductors go into nearly everything today, from your phone to your car to your refrigerator. An ICBM isn't a consumer product that is the literally lifeblood of the modern economy, like semiconductors are. If you're hostile to "piling mountains of money into the military-industrial complex", as I am but probably for different reasons, then that's great, but it's a separate issue from securing access to a capability to produce a technology that maintains our standard of living.
So, yeah, it really is that cut and dry. A "National Security Issue" doesn't always mean "weapon" or "air craft carrier". This is a rare moment when, even if it's for cynical and self-serving reasons, some money is going to be spent on something that actually matters and will help secure future prosperity. Do get mad about the MIC, though. I still am as well.
I'm not them, but it's an invitation for a different answer than the one that seems obviously true. I don't think that it's constructive or less "argumentative" to work to come up with a framing for a question that makes it seem less one sided; making the answer less obvious is the job of people who have a different opinion.
True, the natsec Republican your polity elected did have to overcome a natsec Democrat or visa-versa.
I encourage you to attend some meetings of your local party Republican or Democrat (whichever is dominant) and see how the people you get to elect are chosen. What you'll find is the folks controlling that process are deeply under the influence of a status quo and that most unorthodoxy there is very quickly marginalized.
I'm not talking about crackpots. I'm talking often qualified people who don't match the entrepreneur, small business owner, veteran, firefighter, nurse template that local bourgeoisie party leaders tend to endorse and find funding for.
IMO, this preference has lead to a clear preference for statism and state violence amongst our elected officials as the people who rise through the rabks tend toward an implicit trust in the institutions of the martial state from the criminal justice sysyem to a standing military.
Maybe. I haven't really read enough about anarchism as a political philosophy to say. But I do see that politicians have in common a basic fundamental belief in the institutions of the state. The Democrats give more credence to the civil bureaucracy and the Republicans give more credence to the martial bureaucracy but they overlap a lot.
And in my experience this has a lot to do the low level party operatives whose hands are on the scale at the primary level.
How many marginalized people actually ever make it into office? Virtually none and so that is a perspective that is completely unrepresented. It's stalwart statists all the way down, they mostly just disagree on what the state violence should be used to enforce.
Sadly many people that vote only care about a small number of issues and just choose a candidate based off those. Gun control and abortion are high on those lists for both sides.
Ah, yes, the ol' write your congresspeople. Part of the problem is that for years they are running on these platforms saying they will help the people but end up not doing any of the things they say they are going to do.
Then it should be pretty easy to undermine your democracy. Just increase the number of people per representative such that each representative has plenty of constituents that align with whomever pays most into your campaign.
And alas, USA is one of the least represented democracies in the world at 596,060 constituents per legislator. Compared to China’s 454,930, Brazil’s 353,783, South Africa’s 98,726 or France’s 71,631 constituent per legislator.
I hate to refer you to a search engine, look for any major issue where the population differs in opinion to the donor class. An obvious place to start is with healthcare, where even slight majorities of Republicans wanted it socialized (at least before 2016) but picking out issues is a waste of time. The vast majority of the public has no influence on public policy. The elite consensus becomes policy 100% of the time. If there isn't an elite consensus (on around 11% of studied issues), the median public preference is chosen 1% of the time; instead one of the elite factions not aligned with public opinion usually carries the day.
People's opinions are highly correlated with elite opinions, of course (because elites control what they hear, read, and see, and whether they'll progress in their careers or be employed at all), but when there's a divergence, public opinion is followed 0% of the time.
>I hate to refer you to a search engine, look for any major issue where the population differs in opinion to the donor class.
That's not what I asked. I asked for an issue supported by voters, not population. A lot of people have opinions, but not many people vote, which skews actual legislation. There's also a conservative tilt because rural voters have disproportionate power.
The populist "it's the elite and their money controlling legislation" sentiment doesn't seem to correlate with reality from what I've read.
On healthcare, the support of socialization is complicated. Voters are iffy depending on how questions are phrased, so it's not totally clear on exactly what they want. It seems something like the ACA was pretty close, but even that was very controversial.
For example, I know you can get very high approval for M4A, but if you phrase questions in a more partisan manner, approval tanks. Something along the lines of "Would you support government provided healthcare that would ban private insurance?" would poll terribly, even though they're both referring to the same policy.
Would have allowed for professionals in a given field to be accredited to make investments related to their profession. Or to put it another way, you would no longer need to already be rich to use the tools that the rich use to get richer.
The bill was passed unanimously in the house, and then quietly killed in the senate.
5 years later, we got a neutered version. Now you can make investments if you get a series 7 license, etc. But from what I understand you can’t just take the test and get the license, you need to be sponsored by an institution, but that misses the point of the original bill that represented the actual will of the people.
Do you have data to substantiate a strong majority of support for this bill among voters, and adjusted for voting power? I'd assume a lot of voters would be indifferent to this issue. It seems quite complicated. It seems it's a tradeoff between freedom and saving uniformed people from losing their money.
Are you citing this poll [0] for the healthcare questions because if so, I'm not sure how relevant that is. I'd bet a lot of money those support numbers drop once you throw in the nitty gritty details that actual legislation requires such as how you plan on paying for a X trillion dollar per year spending bill.
> there's more consensus around national security spending than social spending.
Consensus among whom? Congress?
Poll after poll demonstrates that people care more about economic issues that affect them directly than spending more on military when the US already spends ridiculous amounts over their nearest competitors.
You could also say that a few very good traders in the senate would greatly benefit from this passing as well. There are a number of reasons this passed.
This is not going to increase skilled labor in a meaningful way so I would not frame it as providing jobs that will get people out of subsidized programs.
Or the tl;dr, there’s always money available for things that directly make money and when it comes to government repayment is in the form of jobs and GDP growth.
“But free school lunches also provide a positive ROI!” I agree with you, now convince your representative of it.
Maybe we need a different spin on it: instead of a positive ROI, free school lunches provide a strong security posture by making stronger and smarter future-soldiers?
A substantial number of those 52 senators oppose free school meals not because they're "too expensive" but because the policy itself (the government giving free food to children) is something they object to on ideological grounds. A much smaller subset of that group also oppose the government giving free stuff to industry, but in either case the cost is not what they're concerned about.
I’ve stopped believing in the ideology of the average legislator. There are some high profile congresspeople or senators who are deeply ideological, and act according to their ideology, but I feel like that is the exception rather then the rule (hence the high profile).
Rather then ideology most legislators rule by the most persuasive lobbying, this includes people and PACs that pay for their very very expensive campaign funds. And in this case semiconductor monopolies simply has a better performing lobbying campaign then social advocacy groups, so the former gets passed but not the latter.
Note. I don’t believe this listing of democracy is unique to the USA. You see it in Europe as well. However USA is especially prone to this because of lax lobbying laws, lax campaign financing laws while also being one of the least represented democracy in the world (even less represented then non-democracies like China).
Unlikely, because many states then cut those assistance programs when given the opportunity. It's more likely that the 'state' argument is a way to achieve their ideological ends (cutting the program.)
That said, this bill is a very positive development. Investing in local manufacturing and R&D is a great idea, and it will help the economy. Hopefully it will efficient and money will not be captured by rent-seekers or cronyism.
Isn't that how it's supposed to work? The state is supposed to pass laws that represent the will of its constituents. If the majority of the people living in the state are opposed to such a program, then they shouldn't have such a program. The scope of the federal government is supposed to be for coordinating cross-state stuff that states alone can't decide for themselves.
> The state is supposed to pass laws that represent the will of its constituents. If the majority of the people living in the state are opposed to such a program, then they shouldn't have such a program.
You're ignoring that gerrymandering districts allow politicians to enact policies that don't reflect the will of the people.
If we wanted local control then local towns/cities and counties would have the most power in our system. Instead things are reversed so smaller units of government have progressively less power.
This makes sense because we want people to freely move around the country without encountering wildly different systems in every small town.
Also, when education funding happens on the county level we end up having wildly different standards of education depending on if your county is where rich people live or not - everyone wants to demand the best for their own children, but I think it's pretty settled that children, who don't have freedom of movement and aren't viewed as fully rationale agents, should have access to good education regardless of who their parents are and where they choose to live.
Differing county education funding was a real and evident problem when I was growing up in Massachuesettes in the 90s - some areas (like Wellesley) had extremely well funded schools due to local taxes while other areas had far too many students for the funds they collected. This, in part, lead to a whole big thing involving student busing[1] which was honestly pretty awful for the students that rode several hours to attend suburban schools - even if they did end up in a better funded district it was a cheap patch that avoided the real issue.
The name of our country is the United States. The state was intended as the primary unit of general government.
Lots of land is outside of cities, and that can't be left ungoverned. And many counties have very few people, which make a lot of government functions impractical or insufficient.
So states are still a reasonable unit after 250 years.
Alternatively the name of our country (well my former country but whatever) is the United States because existing colonial governments held significant power and weren't willing to unite if it meant they could be unseated from their cushy political appointments.
I don't think going by names is the best approach when we've got legal documents and statements to go by which are far less vague.
Thats the abortion ruling in a nutshell - return it to the states and let the voters decide. However at the same time we have rulings saying gun rights are a federal issue and a state cannot regulate how permits are given out the way they want (although there are many nuances there), essentially making it a constitutional issue due to the 2nd amendment.
So in other words if it's the will of the country we need to pass an amendment, and if not then move to a state where your ideals are embraced. I know I've heard this story somewhere before...i think back in 1860's...
> essentially making it a constitutional issue due to the 2nd amendment.
Yes, because that's how the American constitution works. If you think something else should have similar protections - or if you don't like the second amendment and think it should be repealed - lobby for a new amendment.
Until then, it's the highest law in the land and is on equal footing with any constitutional protection, regardless of your personal policy preferences.
Oh to live in such a world... Unfortunately the Supreme Court is not a compiler that returns rulings from some objective process. The justices have massive leeway to decide how to interpret every part of the constitution, and they do so to align their rulings with their own personal and political goals. If we swapped this court with 9 other judges they would return very different rulings on the exact same cases.
In this instance though, the majority's 'political goals' are textualism and originalism- where the intent of the written words is paramount. This at least has the virtue of limiting the power of their unelected personal policy outcomes- which we see much more often with the putative conservatives voting with the liberals against their presumed personal opinions on what they'd like the outcome to be.
You see that quite often from Gorsuch and Alito- you'll not once see that from Sotomayor.
Thomas is consistent, though conveniently for him his policy and political preference's and how he reads the Constitution seem to align nearly perfectly.
Gorsuch I'll give you as, while intensely conservative, probably pretty honest about it, but Alito is a whole-cloth mythmaker on his own in the vein of a Scalia. He's about as much of a "textualist" as Thomas is, and both will search for any wild port in a storm (see Dobbs itself for plenty of them) to get to the point he wanted to get to.
How big of a majority needs to decide that the federal government should be what they want and not what you think it is supposed to be before it can change?
States Government don't have the taxing power of the Federal Government.
The only way to solve this equation is to drop Federal Government taxing power to as close to zero as possible and zero may not be enough as states power is likely to drop.
If economics was a harder science, it would be about mathematically proofs of these possibilities.
I'm all for free public education for poor kids. Is it really necessary to give free public education to all Palo Alto kids independent of financial status?
Snark aside, the answer is: it's much simpler to manage a program that offers the same thing to everyone regardless of income than it is to manage a program that has to work out who deserves it. And offering it to all avoids stigma.
Why would a human being feel that feeding children is NOT their responsibility?
Clearly you have never had to be the "free lunch kid", or idealize your childhood independent of the cruelty of "different". You are extremely privileged.
The idea that we'd limit what kids we fund for meals, education, etc. is just gross and bifurcates any moralistic or democratic ideals.
The US has a serious problem with "bootstraps" and whatnot. Which really means, survival of the sh1tt1est.
If you feel that investing in the future of your community is BS, stop living in a community.
You don't have kids? Cool!
Meanwhile, you don't feel like you need to contribute to the future you wish you had secured for yourself without struggle? F*ck you. Your community is an investment in the continued existence of a people with similar DNA as yourself.
It is beyond my understanding to fathom how in 2022 we're all still trying to deal with false scarcity as some sort of reality.
There is MORE than enough for everyone, but we don't really care about that beyond a family or clan directive. That's a shame for any culture.
I was at the house of the owner of a company I worked for. I mentioned my amusement at seeing a school bus in this very rural area on the way to his house. He complained that he didn’t have kids so he didn’t see why he should have to pay for that. I replied that, as my employer, he was benefiting from my public school education. That ended that conversation.
It’s not defunding education. It’s saying rather than waste money on something unnecessary over here (like free lunches for the wealthy) let’s spend it on something better (like teacher salaries).
If you have a progressive tax system, excess government aid used by wealthy families is more than made up for by the higher tax rates those families pay. In exchange, you end up with programs that are simpler to operate, have less red tape, and have a broader base of political support.
Let’s say there is a 22 to 1 student to teacher ratio. And 20 don’t need the free lunch but you give it to them anyways. Let’s say you’re spending $5 per meal per kid. That’s $100/day. 180 days per school year. $18k per class.
It could be higher, it could be lower. Certainly it’s enough to be out to good use.
The additional subsidy for free lunches in the US currently is closer to $3.60, and you are massively overestimating how many additional free lunches would be consumed. The majority of school lunches consumed are already free. In 2019[1], 20.1 million free lunches were served compared to 7.7 million full price (and 1.7 million reduced price). And even the "full price" lunches are partially subsidized. So even assuming that all of the students in that class are eating school lunches (they aren't; only about 60% of kids do), the difference is more like 5-6 "unnecessary" lunches, not 20. The real number would likely be significantly lower than that.
“Free lunch” isn’t free if one pays enough tax to cover its cost and other free things that they receive. Given there’s already progressive taxes, what’s the benefit of having income threshold for free lunch programs (or similar assistance programs)?
Universal “free lunch” is cheaper to manage, avoids filtering out children who needs it (but is filtered out due to administrative error or rigid rules), prevents children’s embarrassment, etc.
It's not about the kid in Palo Alto who doesn't need it, but gets it anyway.
It's about the kid who lives in poverty and should get it, but doesn't, because their family didn't properly submit forms A65, B39, and F12 proving their annual income meets the ever-changing requirements.
Giving a benefit to everyone is by far the simplest and most effective way to be sure no one falls through the bureaucratic cracks (though it's probably more accurate to call them gaping chasms than 'cracks').
You’re suggesting that buying free lunches for the 92% of students who don’t need it [0] is more efficient than just paying teachers more or hiring more intervention specialists or counselors?
Many parents who can afford things still don't pay for them for their kids. Not sure why nobody thinks of those kids, there ought to be millions of them...
You think there are millions of US American school-age children whose parents voluntarily undernourish them? Out of 73 million children under 18 in the US, that's at least several percent. Do you have a citation?
>>Also, giving every kid the same treatment is a good idea in general as it reinforces the idea that they should be treated equally.
Actually what it does is teach kids they should depend on the government for handouts - even if there families can easily afford to pay their own way. Not a message I would choose to send.
I keep asking the same thing about why it's necessary for malloc to give so much memory to Electron, but they are way less friendly on the glibc mailing list to that argument for some reason.
Most likely only those who need it will take it, and making it available to everyone makes it simpler to manage.
I went to a public school in Uruguay and we had a daily free meal (not really lunch, it was more of a snack, school ran 13 to 17 for me) and I never went to get mine, but I always had a couple of classmates who didn't get a square lunch at home and they went to get that.
The Palo Alto school meals are by no means healthy. At least at my kindergartner’s school last year, nothing’s really prepared onsite, it’s mostly microwave-in-a-bag fast food (factory made burritos, pizza, 2-ingredient sandwiches). Often this would come with a side of fruit (canned and sweetened) and crackers.
My kid would always bring a lunch from home but often return with it uneaten, because when you pit healthy home cooked food against microwaved pizza and crackers, for a six year old, it’s no contest.
I’m still supportive of the program - if there are starving kids in our community, of course having free options is great, I just wish they’d managed to have a cook onsite so it wouldn’t be so factory-made and artificial.
There's an added cost if you want to sort through which kids qualify and which kids don't. Trying to filter kids out also reduces the program's reach for kids which do qualify for various reasons.
>And then the government gets to decide what the lunches are for everyone.
Well, no. You always have the option to bring your lunch if you can afford it. So the government gets to decide what the lunches are for poor people who don't have another option. Take that for what it is, but shit lunch is better than no lunch, ask any hungry person.
Necessary is a bad way to evaluate because it often devolves into whether or not it is "absolutely necessary". Of course the answer is often times no.
Rather than embrace minimalism, the better question is if it is more efficient to run the program that way and often times, universal programs are indeed more efficient.
In the US, a lot of the time support for one program or another is given not on the basis of ideology, but rather on the basis of whether or not the beneficiaries of a program provided commensurate, um, "campaign contributions".
Pretty sure impoverished school kids contribute pretty much zero to political campaigns.
Increasingly campaigns are funded almost entirely by small dollar donations raised through social media. This is about to make US politics really weird, and I'm not sure what to think of it.
Also basically all legislation that passes which is very little, is written by the staffers of House and Senate leadership without going through committee. It's then handed to members to rubber stamp on the floor if the votes are already secured. Buying some random senator or rep is basically worthless these days unless they hold swing vote and can't be primaried for some reason.
Sure, but most of that stuff doesn't make it into law at the federal level. State houses are a different story. Congress really doesn't pass a lot of legislation anymore.
> It would be nice if all campaigns were funded by small donations
If you go look at the videos congress people are putting up to pull in donations, you may not have such a rosy view. It tends to be the most divisive stuff, and really leans into fear of the other in general. It seems unhealthy to me.
It's not that crazy if you think about the fact that most senators never went to public schools, are from wealthy families, went ivy league, mostly hang around other wealthy people.
Completely out of touch is probably the right mental framework.
> It should be noted that the US decided not to extend the universal free school meals program, because it was "too expensive" at $11B.
Tragic, yes, but note that you can’t compare the price tags directly on bills like this because the headline number tends to be a mix of tax breaks combined with spending authorization stretch out over many years.
For example, $100 billion of the bill goes to domestic funding scientific research and fostering technology hubs. It’s spread out over 5 years.
I need to read the fine print of how this is all spread out, but it’s incorrect to read the headline and assume that chipmakers are getting $280B of checks next year.
For comparison, a bill authorizing the domestic lunch program over a similar 5 year term would likely be said to cost $65-70 billion due to the 5-year term and the inevitable rising prices over that term. (Note I’m not making any moral judgments about this, just putting it in context. I also didn’t verify any cost numbers from the parent comment, so don’t take my example as a fact)
> Semiconductor manufacturing is of military and geopolitical significance so it makes a lot of sense that the government is willing to spend big here.
You expounded on the value of semiconductors but you didn't on the value of feeding children that would go hungry otherwise.
This is why saying
> This is a shallow analysis.
rings hollow.
The value of feeding the next generation of Americans and ensuring they do not go hungry should be just as much a matter of national security as semiconductors. It's not because the poor are viewed as expendable.
so many "think of the children" arguments without even addressing the fact that literally no one starves in the U.S. for lack of food availability (mental issues can and do lead to starvation though, unfortunately).
I for one don't think the federal government should have anything to do with our school systems. That is not their expertise, not their domain and they don't need any temptations or distractions to use their funding or powers on schools. I want the federal government focused on federal issues.
It seems quite reasonable that schools should serve the local community and be largely funded and ran by locals.
did you read the definition of the very lowest tier of "very low food security" metric?
It's hilarious, 100 years ago people would laugh at such "hardships". Food availability isn't a problem in the U.S. for all but the extreme outliers. Now, education about nutrition is very likely a problem, but even the poorest of the poor can readily get the nutrition they need if they knew what they needed, but obviously even our rich don't understand nutrition.
The harshest measurement on the chart was someone who didn't eat for a full day over a 3 month period. I fast for many days at a time _because_ it's healthy. Our ancestors did not eat three meals a day and as a result our bodies are extremely adept at having irregular eating schedules.
We have an obesity epidemic in our poorest demographic. That says about everything that needs to be said, if you ask me.
> It's hilarious, 100 years ago people would laugh at such "hardships".
The metrics people used 100 years ago are of no concern to me and indeed the values those people held are more often than not abhorrent.
> Food availability isn't a problem in the U.S. for all but the extreme outliers.
When faced with data, you persist in this lie.
> Now, education about nutrition is very likely a problem, but even the poorest of the poor can readily get the nutrition they need if they knew what they needed
False, food deserts coupled with the fact that the more nutritious foods are much more expensive make it extremely difficult to do so.
> I fast for many days at a time _because_ it's healthy.
That's easy af to do when it's voluntary.
> We have an obesity epidemic in our poorest demographic. That says about everything that needs to be said, if you ask me.
This tells me that you've never been poor. One of the reasons people are obese is because all they can afford is the worst foods.
> One of the reasons people are obese is because all they can afford is the worst foods.
Obesity is caused exclusively by calorie surplus. You can literally eat pure sugar, twinkies, and sugary beverages exclusively at base metabolism maintenance calories and never become obese.
As for your ignorant assumptions, I've been homeless for short periods of time in my life (in between jobs moving to a different city) and lived far below the poverty line for like 8 years of my adult life. Frankly, you have no idea what you're talking about. You can eat far healthier than the average american on the lowest budgets in the US. At literally half the poverty line if you spend 30% of your budget on food that's $5 a day on food - now you've probably never been poor so you don't understand how far $5 can take you in america - here's a nice showcase of what you can eat for $3.33/day
> You can literally eat pure sugar, twinkies, and sugary beverages exclusively at base metabolism maintenance calories and never become obese.
You changed your argument from nutrition to calories.
> As for your ignorant assumptions, I've been homeless for short periods of time in my life (in between jobs moving to a different city) and lived far below the poverty line for like 8 years of my adult life.
As for your ignorant assumptions,
> Frankly, you have no idea what you're talking about. You can eat far healthier than the average american on the lowest budgets in the US. At literally half the poverty line if you spend 30% of your budget on food that's $5 a day on food - now you've probably never been poor so you don't understand how far $5 can take you in america - here's a nice showcase of what you can eat for $3.33/day
None of this would be true in a place like California, especially if you live in a food desert.
> So again, you've got no idea what you're talking about
So again, you've got no idea what you're talking about
> I could do this all day, honestly as it's not even remotely hard to eat very healthy and very well on $5/day
well you can choose to remain ignorant if you want, the second link I provided was based off prices in california...not just california, but berkley - which is right next to the most expensive grocery city in california (oakland)
Not to mention I'm being extremely generous by using a salary that is 50% of the poverty line on top of only utilizing 30% of that for food and on top of that building meals that provide more nutrition than the average wealthy american gets by far.
but you've since left the domain of attempting reason, but I'm hoping that's just because you have too much ego on the internet but can still absorb information and utilize it later.
> well you can choose to remain ignorant if you want, the second link I provided was based off prices in california...not just california, but berkley - which is right next to the most expensive grocery city in california (oakland)
You don't even fully read the links you provide.
> Cost estimates based on Safeway and Berkeley Bowl prices advertised in January 2013.
> Note that costs are for portions used in the menu; your up-front cost will be higher if you purchase all items on the list as packaged.
Furthermore, this is only for one person. This menu doesn't work for little kids because they need formula. It doesn't work for teenagers because they're ravenous eating machines. And if they're particularly active kids, then this doesn't even meet the caloric needs.
This menu is for an adult that is relatively sedentary. If you're talking about working class people that do manual labor, this is completely inadequate.
> but you've since left the domain of attempting reason, but I'm hoping that's just because you have too much ego on the internet but can still absorb information and utilize it later.
> It's hilarious, 100 years ago people would laugh at such "hardships"
And a 100 years ago a lobotomy against "mental illness" (like mood swings or chatty women) was considered acceptable. A high school diploma was an amazing achievement. What's your point and how does that relate to today?
if you read the rest of my comment I'm sure you'll find a point in there. Picking out a single comment you don't like and ignoring the context of the debate adds nothing to the conversation. I'm not about to debate the merits of diet 100 years ago vs today in a thread about whether or not people in the US can or can't get access to adequate nutrition.
> I for one don't think the federal government should have anything to do with our school systems.
I wouldn't go that far. Federal and state governments provide about half of education funding [0] and the way they dish it out is basically inversely proportional to how much funding a school gets through their local property taxes.
Without that, funding would be very unbalanced. Although I'd be fine with reducing federal government funding/taxes with proportionate increase by the states.
Do you think areas that want to put more into education should be punished while areas that care very little to invest in education get equal funding?
If an area does well to foster profitable trade and wishes to utilize that profit to boost education, I feel like that's a good thing and ideally would result in massive migration to that area. Especially with utilities of the internet that make it not only possible, but very much in practice to share teaching for free from the best educators.
If you force every kid to be equally educated, I worry you'll end up with a bunch of highly capable kids getting bored (because they're getting the same education as the rest of the kids who don't care) while forcing kids who don't care to painfully spend their entire youth on a useless education that they don't see value in.
Sure, we all want disadvantaged people to have better opportunities but if we're forcing them to have better opportunities it seems unlikely to instill the most important aspect of those opportunities, which is that the people utilizing them actually want them.
Difficult problems, for sure, but I struggle looking at todays kids attitude towards school and seeing how this is the best path forward. Even as recent as just a few generations ago you hear stories about kids giving up a lot in order to be educated. I imagine classrooms full of only eager students would have its benefits, and maybe those would vastly outweigh the detriments.
If you've ever had to jump through the hoops of these programs like my parents had to, you would know that simply being eligible does not mean that you'll actually gain access to the program nor are you actually eligible if you're poor.
The income requirements often times are far too high especially if you're in gentrifying areas due to cost of living.
The next generation of Americans will grow up hungry if we cede the security of the very item at the heart of all of our infrastructure. The next generation won't have any equivalent electronic equipment from the post-WWII era, whilst living in a world that is based exclusively on semiconductors (consider the usage of semiconductors in medical equipment as well). This is certain death, and this kind of short-sighted belly aching is a problematic position to take when we're staring down the prospect of losing the entirety of our ability to sustain the infrastructure needed to keep anyone alive in the first place.
I agree here, and I think a good way to think of it is not as government handouts but government incentives. $x for chips in USA incentivizes industry to move to USA which creates jobs and reduces a dependency on external companies. $y for feeding poor school children incentivizes what exactly?
They only killed universal free lunch, not the means tested part. Poorer kids are still getting free lunches and now the richer families have to pay for school lunches. They ended welfare for the wealthy.
I went to a public elementary school in New York state in the early 2000s, and only kids who needed free or reduced school lunch prices got it. The rest of us paid $1.75.
Keep in mind that this isn't just a handout to business, but also a national security issue. Having 90% of our chips made in Taiwan means we have to spend a bunch of resources protecting Taiwan.
The long term plan here is to bring this manufacturing back into the US so that we don't have to protect Taiwan anymore.
(Please note I'm not stating my opinion on if this is good or bad, simply stating the end game they are going for).
It is despicable that we don't do enough for the poor, but the government can do two things at once. It does not need to be either or.
For the US this is a chip manufacturing is a key strategic asset. South Korea, China, and Taiwan governments are essentially funding their chip manufacturing. It is not a fair playing field. The fact that they are only spending $52B on grants and incentives out of $280B is actually too little. South Korea is spending $450B for local chip manufacturing over 10 years and that started last year.
While South Korea is throwing out giant numbers, the number of South Korean and Taiwanese companies who are announcing plants contingent on the CHIPS Act recently makes it seem like what the US is doing is very favorable (these companies have announced plans of SK Group $22b, Samsung $200b, Globalwafers $5b).
Schools meals are pure cost, they don't bring anything back. It's not like we have mass starvation going on at the moment either.
Also, why "free meals" when parents can afford to pay for it? If you have parents who are under a certain threshold of revenues, give their kids free meals, but let's not do a one-size fits all policy, this is not 1950 anymore.
> Schools meals are pure cost, they don't bring anything back. It's not like we have mass starvation going on at the moment either.
They are not a pure cost, they are an investment in your next generation of humans (or human resources if you are that way inclined). Poor nutrition leads to worse academic and social outcomes which limits opportunities for poorer kids. Good food can boost their quality of life, health and ability to contribute to the world.
> Also, why "free meals" when parents can afford to pay for it? If you have parents who are under a certain threshold of revenues, give their kids free meals, but let's not do a one-size fits all policy, this is not 1950 anymore.
Every time you add a condition to a benefit like this, you have to create a whole government department around it. Many salaries, managers, cost of equipment and rent and energy. All to go through and classify each person against the threshold, then build reporting to find those who don't qualify, communicate this to them (so a helpdesk and appeal system needs to be created), an enforcement system, a penalty system, long waits for support or decisions, having to update your financial status if it changes etc. All of this wasteful bureaucracy just to be stingy towards kids.
> Poor nutrition leads to worse academic and social outcomes which limits opportunities for poorer kids. Good food can boost their quality of life, health and ability to contribute to the world.
I don't buy it. People were given poor quality food right after WW2 pretty much everywhere and still had productive and fulfilling lives no matter what - they actually invented the world we currently live in. Nutrition science is also junk (look at the ever-changing recommendations from nutritionists on what should be given to people, it's a running joke at this stage since they keep contradicting what they were recommending before).
> Every time you add a condition to a benefit like this, you have to create a whole government department around it.
With digital reporting and tracking for everything the cost of customized tax-breaks or subsidies is going down year after year. And many other countries are already doing that (condition-based benefits), so not sure what the big problem is to do in the US as well. Unless there is rampant incompetence at play in the administration, which is another problem altogether.
And usually its on the basis that 10 people may commit fraud to take advantage of of a benefit. Corporations would never take advantage of these types of agreements. /s
While this still may be a good idea to help get more semiconductor production in the US and could reduce ongoing inflation by increasing supply it doesn't mean we shouldn't invest in people as well including plans for school meals. I think we are still figuring out how much of the inflation is supply related and how much is because the cost of money has been too cheap.
In the US, there is basically one party - the business party. It has two factions, called Democrats and Republicans, which are somewhat different but carry out variations on the same policies.
> But $50B to large monopolistic companies isn't "too expensive," and we can afford that.
The US cannot afford losing its technological edge. It is an issue of national security. CHIPS is quite a modest bill compared to foreign competitors such as the South Korean $450Bn bill[1]. And that's not even going into how much subsidies China is pumping into their fabs.
Your points are very good, I would have said the same thing.
The cynic in me thinks it is not just the Senate. How much money has House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s family invested in US chip makers in the last few months? Quite a lot of money…
I remember when the US government stopped the $50 million/year breakfast for poor kids program - too much money. That is when we were attacking Iraq, and spending $50M every 20 minutes of so in order to pump money into political donors like the ‘defense’ industry and energy industries.
Off topic, but I laugh when I hear democrats or republicans talk like their political party cares for them. Absurd. The DNC and RNC are themselves profit driven entities.
Security is what allows everything else to exist. You can't just say "Let's liquidate military and spend all that money on children". This would last only shortly until China or somebody else invades US.
Now, I am not saying to not pay for meals. Investing directly in children is probably one of the better ways to improve future outlook of a country.
I am just saying your logic is flawed and there is no easy way to compare the two.
The environment is what allows everything else to exist. By your logic, that should be the #1 spending priority. And that’s only the lowest hanging of the rotten fruit of this argument.
A country that can't defend itself will be pray to everybody else and will not be able to do anything about environment or education.
You can bitch and moan all you want. Go visit Ukraine and see what happens when you live in a country that can't defend itself. Everything else is being put to side. Do you think they are discussing how much they should be spending to help with the effort to control global warming?
The simple fact is that having US reliant on chips supplied by a hostile power will eventually be US downfall.
Your position is incredibly simplistic - and your response has nothing to do with my comment. That the environment underlies civilisation is a simple fact. Degraded environment, no food. No food, no people. No people, no military.
But the invasion of Ukraine most likely has a lot to do with Russia gaining control over the supply of fossil fuels to Europe and the world. So even at a very high level, the things you say are far from cut and dried. Had Europe moved more resolutely towards energy independence then things might have been different.
Military security is only one kind of security. Military spending is only one way to create security. Most of the wars of the last 100 years have been about energy. And I suspect that most militaries exist primarily to perpetuate themselves.
> This would last only shortly until China or somebody else invades US.
Let's be realistic. Nobody can invade the US. Two oceans, vast territory, sparse population make that impossible from the get go. Not to mention the fact that what, 1/3 of the US population is armed to the death dreaming of the day they could make use of their arsenals. The sheer amount of troops required to keep the land and population under control, and the logistics to feed them all rule out pretty much any Earthly military power.
Nuke? Missile strikes? Naval blockade? All plausible, if difficult.
But an actual boots on the ground invasion? Impossible.
Not sure you understand this internet thing works.
US is investing into microchip industry so that they don't get invaded over the internet.
As to boots in the ground, you are just naive. The only thing that stops China or Russia from invading US is US military potential. The money that goes into military buys you peace.
> As to boots in the ground, you are just naive. The only thing that stops China or Russia from invading US is US military potential. The money that goes into military buys you peace.
No, i am not naïve, you just have no idea how militaries, amphibious assaults and logistics work. How many hundreds of thousands, or millions of soldiers are required to conquer the US? How do you supply them? For reference, the invasion of Sicily had 160 thousand, and had the advantage of being against an enemy with no will to fight and within less than a hundred kilometres from a friendly shore for supplies. And then you have a population, which again, is highly armed.
The US spent more than half of its existence with practically no armed forces. Yes, warfare has drastically changed and various amphibious assault and supply ships now exist, but there are still none in anything close to the quantity required to supply multiple hundreds of thousands of soldiers and their equipment across an ocean, and there's also a much heavier need for logistics.
The US can cut the entirety of its army and air force tomorrow and just keep the navy and marines, and it's still invincible from invasion and will remain so.
It's like the misconception that the US armed forces somehow have anything to do with freedom ("protecting"), of American citizens or otherwise. It's just stupid American propaganda that doesn't make sense if you think about it for a bit.
The military is full of young people who grew up in poverty. It might be good for national security if more of them didn't have nutritional deficiencies. They aren't separate issues.
Nobody changes it because they know they are going to need it when they are the minority. Someone is gonna have to take one for the team and pull the plug on it, but I have little faith in our government ever doing the “principled” thing.
In 2013, Senator Harry Reid did it for federal judges (and not supreme court judges). At the time, McConnell told them that if they killed the filibuster for federal judges, he would kill it for supreme court justices. In 2017, he followed through on his promise, the orange fool appointed 3 justices, and now Roe v. Wade has been overturned.
It would not be crazy to link the overturning of Roe to the 2013 decision of Harry Reid to invoke the "nuclear option." It appears to have led to an era of unprecedented judicial activism.
I doubt that getting a few extra progressive federal judicial nominees through was worth those supreme court seats. For now, it seems that enough of the Senate has learned their lesson about removing the filibuster.
You're missing a piece of the puzzle actually - this goes back to George Walker Bush's presidency.
Democrats were being extremely obstructionist in GWB's federal judges. Republicans were considering throwing out the filibuster in response. Moderates from both parties got together and convinced their respective sides to back down and let judges get through while maintaining the filibuster.
In 2013, the tactic was pulled out by Republicans, and the Democrats used the - given the history of this tactic - unsurprising response after some time. Which, of course, led to 2017.
It would be absolutely insane to link overturning Roe to Reid's decision. Everyone already knew McConnell would have gotten rid of it anyway the second a supreme court justice was fillibustered. Look at his actions in the Garland and Barrett nominations, compared to that getting rid of the fillibuster for judges is peanuts.
The only mistake Reid made was not to do away with the fillibuster fully
It wasn’t the same situation because there wasnt a court majority at stake. Unless not voting on the Supreme Court nominee’s of Obama was also because of Reid’s actions?
The filibuster isn’t even dead. Senators can still get up there and talk for as long as they want (aka what the filibustering actually is). The current filibuster rule is basically a senator just saying “yeah I want to filibuster this” and for some reason everyone just goes along with it.
this isn't quite accurate. The modern filibuster is basically a move to table discussions, and it takes 60 senators to overcome that delay and continue to a vote. The problem is the onus is on the 60 senators who want to pass it, and not the 40 senators who want to delay voting.
In this way it's stupidly easy to block any legislation by telling the other side "I'm gonna filibuster this." and if they want to pass it they need to pull the ~10+ votes and make it bipartisan. This is a lot of work so they normally don't even try.
>In 2013, Senator Harry Reid did it for federal judges (and not supreme court judges).
Yes, it was an extremely aggressive and short sighted thing for him to do. Most people don't know this story though, so it seems the Democratic Party gets a pass.
Here's McConnell lambasting Reid about it in 2013.
>It appears to have led to an era of unprecedented judicial activism.
Judicial activism is a judicial philosophy holding that the courts can and should go beyond the applicable law to consider broader societal implications of its decisions.
Based on recent decisions, we seem to be currently in an era of judicial restraint, not activism. Again, the SCOTUS doesn't create laws, congress does. That's the way the system was designed. I hope the Citizens United decision will get overturned.
But there is likewise nothing preventing court packing right now except the concern of some democrats right? They could assign 8 more, then next time there is a swap the gop would add 16 etc. You have to go exponential by nature of the vote to account for deaths. So in as little as 116 years the whole population might be on the bench! I don't like that the macro level policy of our nation is getting decided based on rules of order and who is willing to change them. I'm not a historian, but it seems like the filibuster was already a hack around intended operation of the legislature. Time limiting it would still serve the purpose of preventing the minority from getting shut down with no chance to speak, but also prevent its abuse to require 60 votes on absolutely everything.
>But there is likewise nothing preventing court packing right now except the concern of some democrats right?
Right. FDR threatened this during his administration and bullied the SCOTUS into deciding his way. He was quite Machiavellian. For me, doing something like this would neuter one of the tiers of the check and balance system.
>I'm not a historian, but it seems like the filibuster was already a hack around intended operation of the legislature.
Yes, but it's procedure that the senate had agreed on for quite some time. There's nothing in the constitution that says how many votes are needed to pass, the senate decides that, and for most things, it's 60.
>require 60 votes on absolutely everything.
Depends on how you look at it. Do you want a political party to make laws of the land with only 25+ states supporting it? It sounds good when it's something you support, but doesn't sound great when it isn't. The idea of the 60 vote rule is the federal government can't enact legislation that a supermajority of the country isn't in favor of. Regardless of your party affiliation, you can imagine what horrible legislation would be passed if the opposing party was allowed to pass anything with just 50+1 votes in the senate.
No it was a wise and practical decision. And the fillibuster has always been a stupid accident of the rules. It delayed civil rights bills by over a decade
Everyone knew that McConnell was lying and would have overturned the fillibuster on judges the second a supreme court fillibuster started. And we would have gotten the same extremist supreme court that laughs at restaint and takes away fundamental rights
Apparently he had the option to do it under Bush when Democrats were obstructing Bush's nominees to the federal courts, and he chose not to, so the evidence suggests that he would not have just removed the filibuster for the fun of it.
The Democrats could have been smarter tactically. Trump’s first SC nominee was Gorsuch, certainly conservative but a stellar jurist, and an uncharacteristically good pick from Trump (compare to the other names on his 2016 shortlist). The Democrats had no cards besides obstruction, which would certainly lead McConnell to kill the filibuster. If they had made the reasonable guess that Trump’s next pick would be easier to beat, saved their powder, and reluctantly let Gorsuch through, McConnell would have had to kill the filibuster for Kavanaugh. For Kavanaugh, a far more controversial pick than Gorsuch, he wouldn’t have had the votes.
Well the Democrats just lost all chance of any new gun control and will probably have some gun control repealed. Not only that, they lost the power of Democrat controlled states to enact gun control at the state level and will have much of state gun control repealed. They completely lost the right to abortion at the federal/constitutional level as well. What did they gain for that immense cost? Some federal judges back in 2013. If you think that was wise and in no way short sighted, I really don't know what to say.
The GOP in two years from now if they control Congress will ignore the filibuster and pass a national abortion ban at the federal level at the first opportunity. Anyone believing these folks haven't been lying or won't be complete hypocrites by now are living in an alternate reality.
You literally don't know that though. All signs point to them not doing that, because allowing abortions is actually popular. The only people telling you that Republicans will do that are Democrats. Also, even if they take a majority, they won't have a veto-proof majority, so there is no reason to go nuclear in the Senate when Biden is going to veto everything they do.
If they cared about popular will, almost every GOP controlled state in the USA wouldn't be as we speak trying to implement the most extreme abortion bans they can.
Popular will doesn't matter when you don't need to listen to popular will to keep power. If your insane, extreme base is all you have to pander to to keep power, the GOP is doing just that.
History won't look fondly on us for the absolute laughingstock of a policy it is at the highest levels of power. "Look even back in 2025, people were a bunch of monkeys with nuclear weapons. Look how they would decide on policy."
Unfortunately 52 senators get to control the agenda, and they get to decide what is "affordable" and "too expensive."