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Thread: Cutting down on government spending

  1. #1

    Default Cutting down on government spending

    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  2. #2
    Yeah, I'd like to know why all taxpayers are paying for anything the TSA does with respect to air travel. And why we all pay for air traffic control. Why do we all subsidize something only a minority uses? All these costs should be born by the people using the service. I feel the same way about the highway system, tax fuel enough to cover the costs. All the people here complaining about high income taxes should take note and work toward ending subsidies such as these and let the markets take care of the industries involved. You bunch of damned corporate socialists. /end rant
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  3. #3
    I don't see how this adds to the TSA budget. If the security screeners are checking 100+ bags or zero they get paid the same wage for the same length of shift. Now if the TSA is claiming the need to hire more screeners, that becomes a budget issue that must, I believe, be approved first. Am I missing something?
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  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Being View Post
    Yeah, I'd like to know why all taxpayers are paying for anything the TSA does with respect to air travel. And why we all pay for air traffic control. Why do we all subsidize something only a minority uses?
    Hear hear! Only the people making active use of something should be paying for it. I demand the public schools stop freeloading off my property taxes. And the unemployed should be the ones paying for unemployment benefits too.
    Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"

  5. #5
    Is civilian air travel really as important to a nation's interests as public education and feeding the unemployed?
    In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
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  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy View Post
    Hear hear! Only the people making active use of something should be paying for it. I demand the public schools stop freeloading off my property taxes. And the unemployed should be the ones paying for unemployment benefits too.
    But when the poor under-educated public school grad asks to mow your lawn for 10 bucks, you are actively using the public school system.
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  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Nessus View Post
    Is civilian air travel really as important to a nation's interests as public education and feeding the unemployed?
    It looked to me like he was talking about the entire transportation network. And I could be wrong, but think both public education infrastructure and the unemployed rely fairly heavily on the national transportation network, same as everyone else.
    Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy View Post
    It looked to me like he was talking about the entire transportation network. And I could be wrong, but think both public education infrastructure and the unemployed rely fairly heavily on the national transportation network, same as everyone else.
    True. I am asking out of ignorance, not malice: Does the US spend as much resources in checking cargo and civilian luggage in other areas of national transport such as rail, cars and nautical transportation?
    In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
    The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy View Post
    I demand the public schools stop freeloading off my property taxes. And the unemployed should be the ones paying for unemployment benefits too.
    I specifically said income tax.

    edit: And I didn't refer to social programs either.
    Last edited by Being; 03-04-2011 at 10:27 PM.
    Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
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  10. #10
    Stingy DM Veldan Rath's Avatar
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    So....it costs 250 mil, but the surcharge would bring in 600 mil....

    Yeah...okay.
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  11. #11
    Can we please just throw out the tsa as a solution? The employees suck, the machines don't work. It's a bottomless expense of security theater.
    "In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."

  12. #12
    Ignoring for a moment that airport screeners just won the right to collectively bargain, this is some really piss-poor logic.

    Carry-on limits haven't increased, so the screeners are still screening what they have been supposed to be able to screen so long.

    Though I do like the airports making separate lines for frequent, regular and special-needs passengers.

  13. #13
    Stingy DM Veldan Rath's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
    Can we please just throw out the tsa as a solution? The employees suck, the machines don't work. It's a bottomless expense of security theater.
    Good luck getting rid of them. Once able to collective bargaining the next step is for them to make it illegal for airports to use private security.
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  14. #14
    The President can fire them if he wants.
    Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
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  15. #15
    Stingy DM Veldan Rath's Avatar
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    That is a bit of a political can of Blowback in your Face. I'm not sure today's/future Presidents would dare do it.

    Granted Regan did it with the Air Traffic Controllers.
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  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Nessus View Post
    True. I am asking out of ignorance, not malice: Does the US spend as much resources in checking cargo and civilian luggage in other areas of national transport such as rail, cars and nautical transportation?
    I have no figures to give you. I'm completely ignorant on rail, I know we spend basically nothing checking road traffic *no screening security whatsoever there* and it's constantly brought up that whatever it is we're spending on our screening in nautical transportation, it is completely inadequate. Something like 2% is actually checked. Of course, as was brought up in another thread a few months ago, all the recent terrorism within the US has been through the aeronautical network.

    Quote Originally Posted by Being View Post
    I specifically said income tax.

    edit: And I didn't refer to social programs either.
    I believe I already pointed out how the national transportation network can be framed in social program terms. Seeing as the economy is so massively interconnected.
    Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    Ignoring for a moment that airport screeners just won the right to collectively bargain, this is some really piss-poor logic.

    Carry-on limits haven't increased, so the screeners are still screening what they have been supposed to be able to screen so long.

    Though I do like the airports making separate lines for frequent, regular and special-needs passengers.
    Not entirely true; for some people the difference between check in and carry on is something liquid or a gel they won't let you have in carry on.

    I am pretty certain that what makes the difference for me is also the difference for other people who travel by plane more than one, two times a year.

    As far as I know I am already paying for security at Schiphol airport through a special tax for that purpose. Then I pay some extra for not having to wait in line with people who don't know the routine. I have learned to go Zen at other airports when I do have to wait in line with vacation goers, but still, it does make me wonder. These people are in line for a security check that is being announce with big signs in several languages and icons for others and complete morons. Still, they manage to pull up all the way to the front of the line utterly oblivious to what they are supposed to do there.

    Also, I have decided to assume that my iPod is a laptop, because nobody seems to know whether it is or isn't. So now my small iPod stays in the bag and its bigger brother has to get out.
    Congratulations America

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Hazir View Post
    Not entirely true; for some people the difference between check in and carry on is something liquid or a gel they won't let you have in carry on.

    I am pretty certain that what makes the difference for me is also the difference for other people who travel by plane more than one, two times a year.
    What I was saying is that the amount of luggage allowed as a carry-on hasn't increased, so in theory the TSA is just admitting that it's not prepared for the theoretical amount people have always been able to bring on board.

    But you did remind me that Americans have already had a September 11 Security Fee tacked-on to every ticket (up to $5 per itinerary): http://www.tsa.gov/research/fees/passenger_fee.shtm

    We have a little under one billion flyers in the US each year.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy View Post
    I have no figures to give you. I'm completely ignorant on rail, I know we spend basically nothing checking road traffic *no screening security whatsoever there* and it's constantly brought up that whatever it is we're spending on our screening in nautical transportation, it is completely inadequate. Something like 2% is actually checked. Of course, as was brought up in another thread a few months ago, all the recent terrorism within the US has been through the aeronautical network.
    Yeah, I'm aware. The most common 'scare' I've seen has been that unchecked freight container being a nuke, but that doesn't seem very likely and isn't being peddled by pundits so air travel will be the focus until it no longer is. *sigh*
    In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
    The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

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