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What did Republican appointees on the Supreme Court have to say about student loan forgiveness? Who not only fights tooth and nail against healthcare improveme

by cwal37 5mo ago

What did Republican appointees on the Supreme Court have to say about student loan forgiveness? Who not only fights tooth and nail against healthcare improvements but actively took money from existing programs to fund a national police and detainment apparatus? Which party produced the most meaningful (albeit not far enough) healthcare reform of the 21st century in the US? Those examples in particular are quite rough to try and both sides.

encoderer 5mo ago
Where I live (California) there are basically no republicans in power. For a long time now. And we have more money and a better economic base than just about anywhere on the planet Earth. So to all the partisans out there who are sure things would be better if "their side" had total control, I ask: what the hell is going on with California then?? We should be modeling the best governance in the country and even the world, but yet, our government is basically dysfunctional and our state is great despite it.
- wat10000 5mo ago
  That's easily answered. They think California is a hellhole that everyone with means is fleeing. "Vote for Democrats to turn your state into California" is a great way to get people on both sides to vote for their own preferred side.
  - redsocksfan45 5mo ago
    [dead]
- pchristensen 5mo ago
  California has structural obstacles that don’t fit into partisan politics. Proposition 13 limits property tax collection, which warps housing development and many other factors. Also, California has high incomes, which means Californians pay more federal income tax, and the state receives less back in federal benefits, to the tune of almost $100 billion a year. Those are significant headwinds that the state would still have to deal with even if it was governed well.
  - Melatonic 5mo ago
    Prop 13 is brought up a lot but it never made any sense to me that it also applies to commercial real estate used for businesses. I can see an argument for single family homes (primary dwellings) but property that large corporations own ? It makes no sense.
    - irishcoffee 5mo ago
      Occams razor: it was never about the SFH owners...
    - pchristensen 5mo ago
      It was created by and for homeowners, but businesses aren't going to pass up a gift like that. It's actually worse for commercial property - building are owned by separate single purpose corporations, and if you want to sell the building, you sell fractions of the ownership in the corporation over time so there's never a big enough change to trigger a tax reassessment.
  - encoderer 5mo ago
    You really think california localities have a revenue problem? Prop 13 dos not limit property tax collection: it changes the distribution of it. It means I pay 40x more than my neighbor and that is very dumb, but whenver the city needs more revenue they just raise the rates.
    - pchristensen 5mo ago
      Low turnover, political and financial opposition to building, and structurally higher costs. It's a tangled mess. 1. People are disincentivized to move - the longer you've lived in a home, the larger the effective subsidy (vs average property tax payer) becomes. 2. New homes are on the other end of that - you pay much more in taxes than the average. So the cost of new homes is higher. 3. The average home pays less than it costs the local government. This is largely true everywhere because of the cost of public schools, but Prop 13 makes it more pronounced in CA. So local governments have a huge disincentive to approve any housing, especially larger apartments or condos where school aged children could live. 4. Govs make up for the lower tax per home by charging very high development fees for new construction, which raises prices and lowers rates.
- ryandrake 5mo ago
  I don't think "What the hell is going on with California?" is a great example. I've lived in many states throughout my life, from deep red to navy blue, and now I live in California. It's definitely the best place I've ever lived, and neither me nor anyone in my family wants to leave any time soon. Is California a flaw-free utopia? No. Does it have its shit together in more ways than most other states? I'd say yes. Also, being a few hours drive from the ocean, a few hours from a city that's a major cultural center, a few hours from the beautiful Sierras and winter sports, and a few hours from many other pristine and interesting outdoor amenities is and added bonus. Extra bonus, year round decent weather, relatively clean air, clean water, a great university system. Extra extra bonus, nobody in my house has to worry about being hunted down because of the color of their skin or their national origin or their sexual preferences, or because they had a miscarriage. Not exactly the hell hole red staters make it out to be.
  - encoderer 5mo ago
    Totally, like I said right there, it is a great state! But the governance is not great. That was actually the whole point I was making. And getting back to that: The getting things done is abysmal. Taxes are high. Spending is loose. No progress is made on things the state takes on as priorities (housing costs, high speed rail, homelessness). It's just not well managed. But from the "one side good, other side bad" POV it should be great, no pesky republicans to get in the way. I don't know if there's a lesson there but it's an intersting question to ask.
    - ryandrake 5mo ago
      Is there any example of good State governance to point to, though? Every State is on the spectrum of dysfunction. I'd argue (and I am aware that it is a blatantly partisan point of view) that every additional republican you add to the mix will increase dysfunction. The party's entire M.O. currently is to increase chaos wherever possible, grief the other side, and generally troll everyone not like them; and I say this as someone who voted (R) decades ago. The (R) of today have no governance principle besides sowing chaos and ending effective governance, and CA would be even worse if Sacramento had to deal with having a significant number of them around gumming everything up.
- joe_mamba 5mo ago
  > And we have more money and a better economic base than just about anywhere on the planet Earth. Because of the massive historical defense, tech and entertainment industries all under one roof for decades, bringing in crazy money. The blue politicians that built California as the defense, tech and movie powerhowse decades ago, have nothing in common with those running California today, so California staid successful despite it's current blue leadership not because of it. It would be amazing for things to be as simple as "vote blue and become rich like California", but that's not how it works. It's more like rich people tend to vote blue, rather than voting blue makes you rich. When the private sector brings trillions in revenue and local taxes, then the current political competence decline, corruption and mismanagement, inflicts a much smaller splash damage than in places that have less money so there's no one size fits all magic solution.
  - turtlesdown11 5mo ago
    yeah keep voting red and look like Mississippi, Oklahoma and Louisiana...
    - joe_mamba 5mo ago
      Really not what my point was, but thanks for showing me how far your thinking skills go, so I know not to waste my time debating further with you.
      - deleted 5mo ago
        [deleted]
  - encoderer 5mo ago
    Also agriculture and tourism. We truly enjoy an abundance.
- datsci_est_2015 5mo ago
  Bwuh yeah imagine living in a meteorological paradise that happens to be the world’s strongest economy with the nation’s best state school system with a diversity of culture bringing tangible everyday benefits like delicious food. Sounds horrible.
  - groby_b 5mo ago
    Sure, our streets are shit, our legislators are actively trying to ruin the tech industry, we spent $130B on 300 yards of train, policing in large cities is a disaster, and the "best state school system" translates into an education level at 29th/37th country-wide, building housing is impossible due to the world's worst permitting process, but otherwise... Look, I don't mind paying a lot of taxes. If there's service you get for it. And I'm deeply in the blue camp. But CA leadership (state/county/city) is still an utter disaster and needs to be tossed out on its ear.
    - datsci_est_2015 5mo ago
      Yeah I don’t mind Californians shitting on California, by all means, strive for perfection. But… have you been to eastern Kentucky? There’s levels to this. Also, low key, visit eastern Kentucky. Gorgeous countryside, Red River Gorge. Genuine people, I once stayed in someone’s cabin over Thanksgiving and they insisted on bringing me a fresh Thanksgiving meal, a gesture I’ll never forget.
  - bluefirebrand 5mo ago
    You're so right! Imagine complaining about government inefficiency and corruption when there is all this bread and all these circuses!
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
  - encoderer 5mo ago
    I love it here, California has been good to me. But it really is OK to hold government to high standards.
- hervature 5mo ago
  Define "For a long time now". The Republican party controlled California for 75% of the 1900s with the Democrats coming in power in the last quarter of the century. This is well after California established itself as an economic powerhouse which was greatly aided by the wild West attitude and things like Santa Clara being the location of 20 superfund sites due to all of the ground pollution caused by the semiconductor industry. California is also home to the greatest environmental disaster known as the Salton Sea. You are either going to have to concede that either the economic base of California was established by Republican and exploitative pro-business practices or that Democrats manufactured some of the worst environmental catastrophes.
  - bluefirebrand 5mo ago
    > Define "For a long time now". The Republican party controlled California for 75% of the 1900s with the Democrats coming in power in the last quarter of the century. 50 years seems like plenty to justify "a long time now"
- mrguyorama 5mo ago
  California has an identical problem to Texas: Local big money industry responsible for a large part of the state's GDP, and ample money to take total control of the local Single Party machine. New York was like this once, possibly still is.
- triceratops 5mo ago
  > what the hell is going on with California then?? Only being the 4th or 5th largest economy in the world. California's own voters did the housing crisis to themselves by passing Prop 13. You can't pin that on any political party. I don't know who's responsible for the clusterfuck that is PG&E. Water supply and farmer water rights are another contentious issue. The seeds for that were sown in the late 19th and early 20th century. It's got nothing to do with Democratic domination of state politics today. Other than expensive housing and electricity, and a sometimes precarious water supply, the state is basically fine. What's this political dysfunction you speak of?
  - encoderer 5mo ago
    I think we are so far apart on our world view that I wouldn’t even know where to begin.
    - triceratops 5mo ago
      Maybe. I don't follow state politics that closely.
christkv 5mo ago
That was executive orders that got shutdown and its because congress controls the purse and they did not pass a law.
- msie 5mo ago
  Well, the Dems tried but the GOP shut that plan down.
- lumost 5mo ago
  I'm sorry, but what kind of CalvinBall allows this argument to be made in good faith? https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-orders https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-or... I had Claude dig through the orders to pick out substantive examples where the courts ultimately allowed the order to go through USAID's dismantlement is the top instance which has an affirmative legal ruling. However unilateral grant freezes, tariffs, and other issues are still progressing in the courts. While I'd certainly like to return to the world where congress handled the democratic duties of law making, budget, and war declarations. I must acknowledge that we no longer appear to have separation of powers.
- UltraSane 5mo ago
  That certainly doesn't seem to apply to Trump
owlcompliance 5mo ago
[flagged]
- hypeatei 5mo ago
  [flagged]
  - ecshafer 5mo ago
    [flagged]
    - hypeatei 5mo ago
      Uhm, did we read the same comment? There were many things listed that only a demented fox news watcher would go off about in one comment. What specific thing does "80% of America" support?
    - selectodude 5mo ago
      [Citation needed]
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - Terr_ 5mo ago
      > a view point largely supported No, you're playing a rhetorical game, trying to con readers with a switcheroo between pairs of "viewpoints" that aren't actually the same thing at all. For example: 1. "The liberals are everywhere trying to teach our children something wrong! They're telling them men can become pregnant!" 2. "Men--by which I implicitly mean people without the parts for it--cannot become pregnant." Only the second one common and banal, unless you ask someone with a weird fetish, or perhaps a fan of Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito eager to talk about the film Junior. In contrast, the first one is not solely a medical belief, but also a claim about what others advocate, and the average American--or average HN commenter--may quite rightly judge you a weirdo for internalizing and repeating it.
  - Terr_ 5mo ago

by cwal37 5mo ago

encoderer 5mo ago

Where I live (California) there are basically no republicans in power. For a long time now. And we have more money and a better economic base than just about anywhere on the planet Earth. So to all the partisans out there who are sure things would be better if "their side" had total control, I ask: what the hell is going on with California then?? We should be modeling the best governance in the country and even the world, but yet, our government is basically dysfunctional and our state is great despite it.

wat10000 5mo ago
That's easily answered. They think California is a hellhole that everyone with means is fleeing. "Vote for Democrats to turn your state into California" is a great way to get people on both sides to vote for their own preferred side.
- redsocksfan45 5mo ago
  [dead]
pchristensen 5mo ago
California has structural obstacles that don’t fit into partisan politics. Proposition 13 limits property tax collection, which warps housing development and many other factors. Also, California has high incomes, which means Californians pay more federal income tax, and the state receives less back in federal benefits, to the tune of almost $100 billion a year. Those are significant headwinds that the state would still have to deal with even if it was governed well.
- Melatonic 5mo ago
  Prop 13 is brought up a lot but it never made any sense to me that it also applies to commercial real estate used for businesses. I can see an argument for single family homes (primary dwellings) but property that large corporations own ? It makes no sense.
  - irishcoffee 5mo ago
    Occams razor: it was never about the SFH owners...
  - pchristensen 5mo ago
    It was created by and for homeowners, but businesses aren't going to pass up a gift like that. It's actually worse for commercial property - building are owned by separate single purpose corporations, and if you want to sell the building, you sell fractions of the ownership in the corporation over time so there's never a big enough change to trigger a tax reassessment.
- encoderer 5mo ago
  You really think california localities have a revenue problem? Prop 13 dos not limit property tax collection: it changes the distribution of it. It means I pay 40x more than my neighbor and that is very dumb, but whenver the city needs more revenue they just raise the rates.
  - pchristensen 5mo ago
    Low turnover, political and financial opposition to building, and structurally higher costs. It's a tangled mess. 1. People are disincentivized to move - the longer you've lived in a home, the larger the effective subsidy (vs average property tax payer) becomes. 2. New homes are on the other end of that - you pay much more in taxes than the average. So the cost of new homes is higher. 3. The average home pays less than it costs the local government. This is largely true everywhere because of the cost of public schools, but Prop 13 makes it more pronounced in CA. So local governments have a huge disincentive to approve any housing, especially larger apartments or condos where school aged children could live. 4. Govs make up for the lower tax per home by charging very high development fees for new construction, which raises prices and lowers rates.
ryandrake 5mo ago
I don't think "What the hell is going on with California?" is a great example. I've lived in many states throughout my life, from deep red to navy blue, and now I live in California. It's definitely the best place I've ever lived, and neither me nor anyone in my family wants to leave any time soon. Is California a flaw-free utopia? No. Does it have its shit together in more ways than most other states? I'd say yes. Also, being a few hours drive from the ocean, a few hours from a city that's a major cultural center, a few hours from the beautiful Sierras and winter sports, and a few hours from many other pristine and interesting outdoor amenities is and added bonus. Extra bonus, year round decent weather, relatively clean air, clean water, a great university system. Extra extra bonus, nobody in my house has to worry about being hunted down because of the color of their skin or their national origin or their sexual preferences, or because they had a miscarriage. Not exactly the hell hole red staters make it out to be.
- encoderer 5mo ago
  Totally, like I said right there, it is a great state! But the governance is not great. That was actually the whole point I was making. And getting back to that: The getting things done is abysmal. Taxes are high. Spending is loose. No progress is made on things the state takes on as priorities (housing costs, high speed rail, homelessness). It's just not well managed. But from the "one side good, other side bad" POV it should be great, no pesky republicans to get in the way. I don't know if there's a lesson there but it's an intersting question to ask.
  - ryandrake 5mo ago
    Is there any example of good State governance to point to, though? Every State is on the spectrum of dysfunction. I'd argue (and I am aware that it is a blatantly partisan point of view) that every additional republican you add to the mix will increase dysfunction. The party's entire M.O. currently is to increase chaos wherever possible, grief the other side, and generally troll everyone not like them; and I say this as someone who voted (R) decades ago. The (R) of today have no governance principle besides sowing chaos and ending effective governance, and CA would be even worse if Sacramento had to deal with having a significant number of them around gumming everything up.
joe_mamba 5mo ago
> And we have more money and a better economic base than just about anywhere on the planet Earth. Because of the massive historical defense, tech and entertainment industries all under one roof for decades, bringing in crazy money. The blue politicians that built California as the defense, tech and movie powerhowse decades ago, have nothing in common with those running California today, so California staid successful despite it's current blue leadership not because of it. It would be amazing for things to be as simple as "vote blue and become rich like California", but that's not how it works. It's more like rich people tend to vote blue, rather than voting blue makes you rich. When the private sector brings trillions in revenue and local taxes, then the current political competence decline, corruption and mismanagement, inflicts a much smaller splash damage than in places that have less money so there's no one size fits all magic solution.
- turtlesdown11 5mo ago
  yeah keep voting red and look like Mississippi, Oklahoma and Louisiana...
  - joe_mamba 5mo ago
    Really not what my point was, but thanks for showing me how far your thinking skills go, so I know not to waste my time debating further with you.
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
- encoderer 5mo ago
  Also agriculture and tourism. We truly enjoy an abundance.
datsci_est_2015 5mo ago
Bwuh yeah imagine living in a meteorological paradise that happens to be the world’s strongest economy with the nation’s best state school system with a diversity of culture bringing tangible everyday benefits like delicious food. Sounds horrible.
- groby_b 5mo ago
  Sure, our streets are shit, our legislators are actively trying to ruin the tech industry, we spent $130B on 300 yards of train, policing in large cities is a disaster, and the "best state school system" translates into an education level at 29th/37th country-wide, building housing is impossible due to the world's worst permitting process, but otherwise... Look, I don't mind paying a lot of taxes. If there's service you get for it. And I'm deeply in the blue camp. But CA leadership (state/county/city) is still an utter disaster and needs to be tossed out on its ear.
  - datsci_est_2015 5mo ago
    Yeah I don’t mind Californians shitting on California, by all means, strive for perfection. But… have you been to eastern Kentucky? There’s levels to this. Also, low key, visit eastern Kentucky. Gorgeous countryside, Red River Gorge. Genuine people, I once stayed in someone’s cabin over Thanksgiving and they insisted on bringing me a fresh Thanksgiving meal, a gesture I’ll never forget.
- bluefirebrand 5mo ago
  You're so right! Imagine complaining about government inefficiency and corruption when there is all this bread and all these circuses!
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
- encoderer 5mo ago
  I love it here, California has been good to me. But it really is OK to hold government to high standards.
hervature 5mo ago
Define "For a long time now". The Republican party controlled California for 75% of the 1900s with the Democrats coming in power in the last quarter of the century. This is well after California established itself as an economic powerhouse which was greatly aided by the wild West attitude and things like Santa Clara being the location of 20 superfund sites due to all of the ground pollution caused by the semiconductor industry. California is also home to the greatest environmental disaster known as the Salton Sea. You are either going to have to concede that either the economic base of California was established by Republican and exploitative pro-business practices or that Democrats manufactured some of the worst environmental catastrophes.
- bluefirebrand 5mo ago
  > Define "For a long time now". The Republican party controlled California for 75% of the 1900s with the Democrats coming in power in the last quarter of the century. 50 years seems like plenty to justify "a long time now"
mrguyorama 5mo ago
California has an identical problem to Texas: Local big money industry responsible for a large part of the state's GDP, and ample money to take total control of the local Single Party machine. New York was like this once, possibly still is.
triceratops 5mo ago
> what the hell is going on with California then?? Only being the 4th or 5th largest economy in the world. California's own voters did the housing crisis to themselves by passing Prop 13. You can't pin that on any political party. I don't know who's responsible for the clusterfuck that is PG&E. Water supply and farmer water rights are another contentious issue. The seeds for that were sown in the late 19th and early 20th century. It's got nothing to do with Democratic domination of state politics today. Other than expensive housing and electricity, and a sometimes precarious water supply, the state is basically fine. What's this political dysfunction you speak of?
- encoderer 5mo ago
  I think we are so far apart on our world view that I wouldn’t even know where to begin.
  - triceratops 5mo ago
    Maybe. I don't follow state politics that closely.

christkv 5mo ago

That was executive orders that got shutdown and its because congress controls the purse and they did not pass a law.

msie 5mo ago
Well, the Dems tried but the GOP shut that plan down.
lumost 5mo ago
I'm sorry, but what kind of CalvinBall allows this argument to be made in good faith? https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-orders https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-or... I had Claude dig through the orders to pick out substantive examples where the courts ultimately allowed the order to go through USAID's dismantlement is the top instance which has an affirmative legal ruling. However unilateral grant freezes, tariffs, and other issues are still progressing in the courts. While I'd certainly like to return to the world where congress handled the democratic duties of law making, budget, and war declarations. I must acknowledge that we no longer appear to have separation of powers.
UltraSane 5mo ago
That certainly doesn't seem to apply to Trump

owlcompliance 5mo ago

[flagged]

hypeatei 5mo ago
[flagged]
- ecshafer 5mo ago
  [flagged]
  - hypeatei 5mo ago
    Uhm, did we read the same comment? There were many things listed that only a demented fox news watcher would go off about in one comment. What specific thing does "80% of America" support?
  - selectodude 5mo ago
    [Citation needed]
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - Terr_ 5mo ago
    > a view point largely supported No, you're playing a rhetorical game, trying to con readers with a switcheroo between pairs of "viewpoints" that aren't actually the same thing at all. For example: 1. "The liberals are everywhere trying to teach our children something wrong! They're telling them men can become pregnant!" 2. "Men--by which I implicitly mean people without the parts for it--cannot become pregnant." Only the second one common and banal, unless you ask someone with a weird fetish, or perhaps a fan of Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito eager to talk about the film Junior. In contrast, the first one is not solely a medical belief, but also a claim about what others advocate, and the average American--or average HN commenter--may quite rightly judge you a weirdo for internalizing and repeating it.
- Terr_ 5mo ago