The Democrat Thread

[Jake]

37 Congressmen voted against Sandy aid despite asking for relief in their own states/districts

[mr_genius]

Ann Coulter thinks we should publish names and addresses of women who have had abortions

 

I knew that was coming. I knew it!

[StrangeSox]

New threat to America's budget: Smokey the Bear!

 

http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/politics/gop-...key-balloon-cut

 

Since 2005, the National Forest Service has chipped in nearly $240,000 to help pay for balloon costs and appearances. Chapel says that’s a small part of the Friends of the Smokey Bear Balloon’s approximately $200,000 a year budget.

 

But not small enough for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R – KY). Today at the opening day of a new Senate, he called out the Smokey Bear Balloon as a waste of taxpayer dollars.

“If we can’t stop spending taxpayer dollars on robo-squirrels, and dancing robot DJ’s or hot air balloon rides for Smokey the Bear, then there’s no hope at all,” McConnell said. “If we can’t fix the easy stuff… how are we ever going to get at the hard stuff?”

 

Almost $30,000 a year! That's like half-way to eliminating the deficit, right?

[Y2HH]

New threat to America's budget: Smokey the Bear!

 

http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/politics/gop-...key-balloon-cut

 

 

 

Almost $30,000 a year! That's like half-way to eliminating the deficit, right?

 

While I think he's being ridiculous, he has a point if you look at the big picture instead of nitpicking his highlighted point. You merely mirrored him by doing the exact opposite in this ongoing game of reductio ad absurdum, because when you say 30,000$ a year, you'd be right if you only looked at that ONE thing. While he was pointing to that one thing, he was using it as an example of one of many, and you know that...and combined, they actually WOULD make a difference.

 

Now, who gets to say what's worth spending money on and what isn't when it comes to their importance? I don't know. Maybe Smokey the Bear isn't important to you, but he might be to me.

 

It all comes down to what's important. IMO, if you have starving kids in the country, and you're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on things like this, maybe your priorities are out of whack.

[bmags]

Well, I doubt we know about the efficacy of the program. Man-created wild fires are a problem in the western us. Is starting awareness as children more helpful than shifting the 200k to signage at parks? Would the 4-5 park salaries you hire provide more assistance in wildfire prevention?

[StrangeSox]

While I think he's being ridiculous, he has a point if you look at the big picture instead of nitpicking his highlighted point. You merely mirrored him by doing the exact opposite in this ongoing game of reductio ad absurdum, because when you say 30,000$ a year, you'd be right if you only looked at that ONE thing. While he was pointing to that one thing, he was using it as an example of one of many, and you know that...and combined, they actually WOULD make a difference.

 

Now, who gets to say what's worth spending money on and what isn't when it comes to their importance? I don't know. Maybe Smokey the Bear isn't important to you, but he might be to me.

 

It all comes down to what's important. IMO, if you have starving kids in the country, and you're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on things like this, maybe your priorities are out of whack.

 

Why he and the rest of the GOP deserve to be mocked is because it's only this little piddly bulls*** ($30k a year? seriously?) that they advocate cutting. they don't have the balls to start openly and strongly advocating for the trillion dollars in spending cuts they say they want because that would involve talking about cutting programs an awful lot of people like and depend on. So they focus on stuff that seems frivolous on it's face but is usually actually something meaningful once someone bothers to check what they're actually talking about. Volcano monitoring, anyone?

[StrangeSox]

Well, I doubt we know about the efficacy of the program. Man-created wild fires are a problem in the western us. Is starting awareness as children more helpful than shifting the 200k to signage at parks? Would the 4-5 park salaries you hire provide more assistance in wildfire prevention?

 

It's been $200k over the course of several years. That's one person making about $30k a year if that's the trade-off you're looking for.

[bmags]

It's been $200k over the course of several years. That's one person making about $30k a year if that's the trade-off you're looking for.

 

That's about the salary for park employees. I think the point stands. Just because it may be a miniscule part of the budget doesn't mean you don't need to question whether it's best served elsewhere.

[StrangeSox]

That's about the salary for park employees. I think the point stands. Just because it may be a miniscule part of the budget doesn't mean you don't need to question whether it's best served elsewhere.

In the context of "we need to cut the deficit," it's absolutely stupid to talk about programs costing $30k a year while you're failing to offer anything really meaningful and specific that you want to cut.

 

Sure, program efficacy should always be evaluated, but that's not what McConnell is doing here. He's talking about wasteful government spending in the context of the looming debt ceiling and offering up a program that's 0.0000000081% of the budget that no one will care about.

[bmags]

In the context of "we need to cut the deficit," it's absolutely stupid to talk about programs costing $30k a year while you're failing to offer anything really meaningful and specific that you want to cut.

 

Sure, program efficacy should always be evaluated, but that's not what McConnell is doing here. He's talking about wasteful government spending in the context of the looming debt ceiling and offering up a program that's 0.0000000081% of the budget that no one will care about.

 

Yeah but if these will be the programs to ceremoniously sacrifice in order to keep social security and medicare fine, I'll play ball.

[StrangeSox]

fair point, that is another way of looking at the signals.

[Balta1701]

Yeah but if these will be the programs to ceremoniously sacrifice in order to keep social security and medicare fine, I'll play ball.

Unless of course the end result is more wildfires due to fewer people getting the message. In which case, you'll sacrifice this and Medicare in order to pay for disaster assistance and firefighting.

[bmags]

Unless of course the end result is more wildfires due to fewer people getting the message. In which case, you'll sacrifice this and Medicare in order to pay for disaster assistance and firefighting.

 

What are the odds smokey the bear is between us and an explosion of camp fires. What about we encourage states to have 1 quarter of phys ed cover outdoor education. Seems worthwhile.

[Balta1701]

What are the odds smokey the bear is between us and an explosion of camp fires. What about we encourage states to have 1 quarter of phys ed cover outdoor education. Seems worthwhile.

1. It doesn't need to cover an explosion of campfires. A single wildfire can cost millions of dollars to fight. Last year, the government budgeted $400 million for wildfire fighting, and blew through all of that money for the first time (thank you CO2 for your assist on that).

 

To cover the losses, Congress took money from those same programs, prevention programs, forest control programs, etc. (which of course, is the ol cutting off your nose to save your face trick).

 

If you prevent a single wildfire, you can save millions of dollars. Tens of millions if you prevent a wildfire that threatens or destroys structures. That's the cost-benefit analysis here.

 

2. Let's say we cut campfires, but we get a 0.1% rise in the obesity rate as a consequence of the outdoor education campaign. Now you've caused a nice increase in health care costs. That's yet another tradeoff to consider.

[bmags]

1. It doesn't need to cover an explosion of campfires. A single wildfire can cost millions of dollars to fight. Last year, the government budgeted $400 million for wildfire fighting, and blew through all of that money for the first time (thank you CO2 for your assist on that).

 

To cover the losses, Congress took money from those same programs, prevention programs, forest control programs, etc. (which of course, is the ol cutting off your nose to save your face trick).

 

If you prevent a single wildfire, you can save millions of dollars. Tens of millions if you prevent a wildfire that threatens or destroys structures. That's the cost-benefit analysis here.

 

2. Let's say we cut campfires, but we get a 0.1% rise in the obesity rate as a consequence of the outdoor education campaign. Now you've caused a nice increase in health care costs. That's yet another tradeoff to consider.

 

None of this is related to whether smoky the bear is doing anything to reduce future wild fires.

[Balta1701]

None of this is related to whether smoky the bear is doing anything to reduce future wild fires.

I would say, particularly based on my park experiences, that the ad campaign is at least a solid way of reminding people about fire dangers. Perhaps a better ad campaign could be designed...but designing a new ad campaign is a multi-million dollar endeavour. If you have trouble with the basic ads, then something tells me you're going to have trouble with spending 100x that much to develop and start a new ad campaign.

[StrangeSox]

None of this is related to whether smoky the bear is doing anything to reduce future wild fires.

 

Which is unrelated to McConnell's rhetoric, which was to complain about seemingly silly government spending that is essentially irrelevant in the context of the size of the federal budget because they will continue to demand that Obama make their spending cut proposals for them.

[StrangeSox]

A (long) HLR article examining the Roberts' Court's distrust of the democratic processes

 

http://www.harvardlawreview.org/media/pdf/vol126_karlan.pdf

 

It does a really good job of linking the ruling upholding Indiana's Voter ID laws, which was based on speculative feelings about how the electorate in general might lose confidence in the system, with Kennedy's equally speculative statement in Citizens United that no amount of money would give rise to the appearance or existence of corruption in politics.

Edited January 8, 2013 by StrangeSox

[bmags]

I would say, particularly based on my park experiences, that the ad campaign is at least a solid way of reminding people about fire dangers. Perhaps a better ad campaign could be designed...but designing a new ad campaign is a multi-million dollar endeavour. If you have trouble with the basic ads, then something tells me you're going to have trouble with spending 100x that much to develop and start a new ad campaign.

 

I think if wildfire prevention is worthwhile, then we need to make sure our government wildfire prevention methods are achieving that goal. It shouldn't be preventing wildfires is worthwhile, therefore any initiative to achieve this, no matter successful, is also worthwhile.

[bmags]

Which is unrelated to McConnell's rhetoric, which was to complain about seemingly silly government spending that is essentially irrelevant in the context of the size of the federal budget because they will continue to demand that Obama make their spending cut proposals for them.

 

If we stayed on topic for everything nobody would ever talk in this forum.

[Balta1701]

I think if wildfire prevention is worthwhile, then we need to make sure our government wildfire prevention methods are achieving that goal. It shouldn't be preventing wildfires is worthwhile, therefore any initiative to achieve this, no matter successful, is also worthwhile.

And thus, I say it's on you to explain why the smokey the bear ad campaign is a failure. Clearly you must have some market research to back this up, because that's the kind of thing the people running the campaign would have done.

[bmags]

And thus, I say it's on you to explain why the smokey the bear ad campaign is a failure. Clearly you must have some market research to back this up, because that's the kind of thing the people running the campaign would have done.

 

I don't really care. I was bringing up that we need not get indignant on questioning how government money is spent. That should be done constantly by liberals to make sure the government is working well.

[Balta1701]

I don't really care. I was bringing up that we need not get indignant on questioning how government money is spent. That should be done constantly by liberals to make sure the government is working well.

The problem is that the basis for doing so is completely ludicrous, as is the case here. We see great examples of this all the bloody time, usually by one party (in fact, often led by McCain) of finding spending items that, when taken out of context, sound hilarious. Studying pig farts! Smokey the Bear on a balloon!

 

This is one that drives me nuts, because they love finding research that NSF funds (based on highly competitive grant processes) and then complaining about them because they sound funny.

 

If you want to conduct an integrated advertising campaign, you put your ad in all sorts of places. Do you think that the sort of people who would be interested in ballooning would tend to be outdoor enthusiasts? I sure do. Compared to running a couple dozen more TV spots, this seems like it's liable to be as effective, or perhaps more effective, than other types of directed advertising. The US Army sponsored a vehicle in NASCAR for a decade, much of which it struggled to meet its recruiting quotas. This is how you conduct an integrated campaign, find what the people you want to reach are doing, and then make sure that they see the ads in as many places as you can.

 

The Majority leader isn't arguing that this ad campaign is ineffective, he's not arguing that he has suggestions for better fire prevention programs, he's not arguing any of those. You don't see any evidence given in that link or statement. He's arguing that this program sounds hilarious and thus must therefore be wasteful.

[StrangeSox]

The problem is that the basis for doing so is completely ludicrous, as is the case here. We see great examples of this all the bloody time, usually by one party (in fact, often led by McCain) of finding spending items that, when taken out of context, sound hilarious. Studying pig farts! Smokey the Bear on a balloon!

 

This is one that drives me nuts, because they love finding research that NSF funds (based on highly competitive grant processes) and then complaining about them because they sound funny.

 

If you want to conduct an integrated advertising campaign, you put your ad in all sorts of places. Do you think that the sort of people who would be interested in ballooning would tend to be outdoor enthusiasts? I sure do. Compared to running a couple dozen more TV spots, this seems like it's liable to be as effective, or perhaps more effective, than other types of directed advertising. The US Army sponsored a vehicle in NASCAR for a decade, much of which it struggled to meet its recruiting quotas. This is how you conduct an integrated campaign, find what the people you want to reach are doing, and then make sure that they see the ads in as many places as you can.

 

The Majority leader isn't arguing that this ad campaign is ineffective, he's not arguing that he has suggestions for better fire prevention programs, he's not arguing any of those. You don't see any evidence given in that link or statement. He's arguing that this program sounds hilarious and thus must therefore be wasteful.

 

McConnell is the minority leader in the Senate, but, yes, exactly that. This wasn't a good-faith criticism of a program on the merits.

[Balta1701]

McConnell is the minority leader in the Senate, but, yes, exactly that. This wasn't a good-faith criticism of a program on the merits.

One little mistake...d'oh.