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Fear of a Trump World.
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Mar 6, 2016 10:22
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Doctor Reynolds posted:Empire's crumbling, guys. At least the flames of Rome will keep us warm next winter.
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Mar 6, 2016 11:39
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Doctor Reynolds posted:Empire's crumbling, guys. I would laugh but then I remember that the EU is on the exact same track. 
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Mar 6, 2016 12:39
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I've been re-watching the show from the first episode, because why not, and god drat was the Stephen Hawking interview great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPV3D7f3bHY
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Mar 6, 2016 13:19
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Apoplexy posted:I've been re-watching the show from the first episode, because why not, and god drat was the Stephen Hawking interview great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPV3D7f3bHY This is amazing. 
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Mar 6, 2016 13:31
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My only regret about tonight's episode was that Yorba Linda never came up.
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Mar 7, 2016 05:55
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Raise your hand if you thought that "ghost government! That's the shittiest idea for a ghost story ever. Except of course for..." was going to lead to a slam on Ghostbusters 2016.
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Mar 7, 2016 08:37
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Kevyn posted:Raise your hand if you thought that "ghost government! That's the shittiest idea for a ghost story ever. Except of course for..." was going to lead to a slam on Ghostbusters 2016. Nope. Oliver has taste, and he knows that the female Ghostbusters movie is going to be really good. 
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Mar 7, 2016 08:52
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Bringing back an old joke but in adorable child form is pretty amazing.
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Mar 7, 2016 09:51
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All those junior John Olivers, that is magical.
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Mar 7, 2016 10:45
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Ha, I totally picked the "... and you care so little about it you didn't even realise that's not the real Nile" gag before they revealed it. 
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Mar 7, 2016 11:41
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This episode's issue segment was a real yawner. Yes, local governments set up committees of people that look like your neighbors and meet in sparsely attended rooms monthly to read an agenda and maybe vote on some procedural item. Of course every story of government waste is going to be met with the usual combination of enthusiasm and skepticism.
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Mar 7, 2016 12:19
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Craptacular! posted:This episode's issue segment was a real yawner. Yes, local governments set up committees of people that look like your neighbors and meet in sparsely attended rooms monthly to read an agenda and maybe vote on some procedural item. Of course every story of government waste is going to be met with the usual combination of enthusiasm and skepticism. I assume you'd be one of the people watching for the first time because of the Trump piece.
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Mar 7, 2016 13:17
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Gyges posted:It would probably make the court more political than it is now though. As it is, Carter is the only President since Reconstruction to not get any appointments. Of the other 3 Presidents to never appoint a Justice, two died early in their first term and the other was Andrew Johnson, who wasn't getting poo poo done after Lincoln's death. Your math is off. GHW Bush only appointed 1: Clarence Thomas.
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Mar 7, 2016 15:18
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VH4Ever posted:Your math is off. GHW Bush only appointed 1: Clarence Thomas. Honorable David Souter
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Mar 7, 2016 15:38
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Well the only special district that I know of that I'm in is the one for our town's Board of Education, which is not in the jurisdiction of the municipal government. Yep, they hold their elections on different days than the typical state elections. And it's mostly filled with helicopter parents. As far as I know, everything else is part of the city, county, state, or federal government. Still an amusing story for those who are definitely more affected. Someone earlier in this thread commented on how much power state and local officials have in the US. Now we're talking about smaller constituencies that only exist as a legal fiction.
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Mar 7, 2016 16:09
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Kevyn posted:Raise your hand if you thought that "ghost government! That's the shittiest idea for a ghost story ever. Except of course for..." was going to lead to a slam on Ghostbusters 2016. My hand is half-up. I thought he was going to say Ghostbusters, wait a beat, and then to the chorus of boos and cheers add, "Two," and then admonish the crowd for being so sexist.
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Mar 7, 2016 17:17
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I saw the Ghost Dad pun coming. I have a feeling I don't really want to look up the new Ghostbusters backlash more than what I already seen.
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Mar 7, 2016 17:20
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Echo Chamber posted:I saw the Ghost Dad pun coming. I only know that there is a backlash and I can only imagine how disgusting the internet is being about it.
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Mar 7, 2016 17:29
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It's terrible to the point of me being fairly annoyed at the discussion even being discussed here, a thread that has little do to with it. And I'm contributing with this post, forgive me 
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Mar 7, 2016 21:09
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I quite liked this week's episode, I figure that for a foreigner I'm pretty well versed in the US political system but I'd literally never heard of these special districts. It just seems like such an inefficient use of resources to have yet another layer of "government" that's essentially unelected and focused entirely on doing niche jobs. I'd heard of school districts I guess, but didn't realise they were totally their own entities and not really beholden to anyone higher in the chain. Here in Australia most of those services are provided by higher levels of government - eg state governments are responsible for schools, police, health, fire etc, while local governments look after things like garbage, small-scale development, traffic management, libraries etc. Just seems crazy to me that you'd have an extra layer of government when there's no reason the existing layers can't perform those functions equally.
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Mar 8, 2016 00:43
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Pretty sure most Americans have not heard of them. I'm definitely much more politically aware than your average citizen, although that's not saying much, and I had never heard of them. Talked to my best friend who is much more politically aware than I am (and a barred attorney), and he was also completely unaware.
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Mar 8, 2016 01:05
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webmeister posted:I quite liked this week's episode, I figure that for a foreigner I'm pretty well versed in the US political system but I'd literally never heard of these special districts. It just seems like such an inefficient use of resources to have yet another layer of "government" that's essentially unelected and focused entirely on doing niche jobs. I'd heard of school districts I guess, but didn't realise they were totally their own entities and not really beholden to anyone higher in the chain. This is the fundamental problem with "small government" philosophy. If you shrink the budget/scope of the government, it's not like all the things they were doing just suddenly stop needing to be done - so you end up with the huge bureaucratic clusterfuck of a thousand different agencies or political entities, none of whom coordinate or even use the same systems, rather than a single entity that handles everything at its level. Sure it's never going to be 100% efficient, but it's almost certainly going to be better than the alternative. I would imagine the main reason this kind of thing is so widespread is probably because all these special districts handle their own budgets, so a governor or whatever can say "Look, I cut spending by X%!", when really it's all just been shunted off into a special tax district so it shows up on different paperwork.
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Mar 8, 2016 01:31
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The Cheshire Cat posted:This is the fundamental problem with "small government" philosophy. If you shrink the budget/scope of the government, it's not like all the things they were doing just suddenly stop needing to be done - so you end up with the huge bureaucratic clusterfuck of a thousand different agencies or political entities, none of whom coordinate or even use the same systems, rather than a single entity that handles everything at its level. Sure it's never going to be 100% efficient, but it's almost certainly going to be better than the alternative. Yes, usually they're for things that were getting hosed over previously when they were part of the normal government. They are also useful for things that cross several county/municipal/whatever lines or are of an irregular distribution. For instance libraries often get special districts when several counties/municipalities want to pool resources or the voters get pissed off at libraries closing/reducing hours to make up budget short falls. Mosquito districts are also popular, especially in places like Florida, because they let areas fight the mosquito without getting hosed over by budget shortfalls. Also they let rich people make sure their area is probably West Nile and Zika free while stupidly not caring about the mosquitoes in the poorer area down the road. Because they only do one thing and take money only for that one thing they are more insulated from budget cuts and economic downturns than if that one thing was under the city/county budget. Of course people have never found a way to gently caress over their neighbors that they didn't jump on with both feet, so they can also turn into total poo poo shows. The ideal solution would be to either have them all absorbed by the State government or highly regulated by the State government. Preferably the latter because otherwise they're right back to budget cuts because the Governor already cut all the education budget.
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Mar 8, 2016 03:58
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webmeister posted:I quite liked this week's episode, I figure that for a foreigner I'm pretty well versed in the US political system but I'd literally never heard of these special districts. It just seems like such an inefficient use of resources to have yet another layer of "government" that's essentially unelected and focused entirely on doing niche jobs. I'd heard of school districts I guess, but didn't realise they were totally their own entities and not really beholden to anyone higher in the chain. The idea behind special districts is that there might be some service that transcends the ability of the current local government, but it's not major enough to consolidate the existing governments. One example might be a rural hospital - it's expensive enough that no single county can pay for it, and multiple counties intend to use it. So what they do is create a special district for building that hospital, and pool some money to build it.
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Mar 8, 2016 05:17
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computer parts posted:The idea behind special districts is that there might be some service that transcends the ability of the current local government, but it's not major enough to consolidate the existing governments. One example might be a rural hospital - it's expensive enough that no single county can pay for it, and multiple counties intend to use it. So what they do is create a special district for building that hospital, and pool some money to build it. Yes. While this episode did make them seem next to useless and prone to corruption, they do make sense more often than not. Especially in suburban and rural areas. A fire district might cover several municipalities in a metropolitan community when neither the individual governments nor the county as a whole could adequately do so. And there's no reason to expect that district to coincide exactly with, say, a sewer district, or a hospital district, so naturally the borders overlap and you have situations where two houses in the same sewer district happen to be in different fire districts.
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Mar 8, 2016 05:53
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Also, they're done at the state level, so of course it's gonna be a bit of a poo poo show. Less funding, less resources, less scrutiny, less responsibility.
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Mar 8, 2016 06:06
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I work with a lot of these taxes in payroll. They're a loving nightmare and a half.
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Mar 8, 2016 07:40
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computer parts posted:The idea behind special districts is that there might be some service that transcends the ability of the current local government, but it's not major enough to consolidate the existing governments. One example might be a rural hospital - it's expensive enough that no single county can pay for it, and multiple counties intend to use it. So what they do is create a special district for building that hospital, and pool some money to build it. Yeah fair enough, I guess that makes sense. But I still don't really see why a state government couldn't control fire departments or hospitals, as opposed to essentially unelected interested parties with very little oversight?
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Mar 8, 2016 08:10
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webmeister posted:Yeah fair enough, I guess that makes sense. But I still don't really see why a state government couldn't control fire departments or hospitals, as opposed to essentially unelected interested parties with very little oversight? That sounds like communism. Blah blah something something tyranny  At least in my state, I'm only exaggerating a bit. It really is amazing how resistant to services some state legislators are. atomicgeek fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Mar 8, 2016 |
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Mar 8, 2016 14:58
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webmeister posted:Yeah fair enough, I guess that makes sense. But I still don't really see why a state government couldn't control fire departments or hospitals, as opposed to essentially unelected interested parties with very little oversight? You also have to take scale into account. When you're talking about, say, Texas, that state is the size of France. It's going to make more sense to devolve those powers to lower levels of government.
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Mar 8, 2016 17:40
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webmeister posted:Yeah fair enough, I guess that makes sense. But I still don't really see why a state government couldn't control fire departments or hospitals, as opposed to essentially unelected interested parties with very little oversight? You'd politicize the money aspect of it immensely having it completely run by the state. America is big on representation and having your state manage the processes really is unamerican at its core in comparison to a small local government. Oversight is the issue not the thing itself. Also they have an incredible amount of power to force you to pay anything which he went into with people but mother gently caress do they have power over businesses.
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Mar 8, 2016 18:09
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Also, with the state budgets being what they are, do you really want someone from Chicago deciding that they could use another coat of asphalt on Rich rear end in a top hat Terrace Drive Lane Boulevard by using the money culled from the totally unnecessary mosquito abatement funds for downstate Illinois? States tend to do things that make the highest concentrations of voters the happiest. In states like Illinois, that means money for downstate services would get re-purposed for poo poo in the Chicago metropolitan area. But, for the handful of states where population isn't heavily concentrated in a handful of urban areas, that wouldn't be a problem, I guess. So have at it, Wyoming and Alaska.
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Mar 8, 2016 19:16
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I still don't understand, do you get a tax bill from those 2 mosquito guys or does the municipal government give them a part of their tax income?
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Mar 9, 2016 10:06
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It's probably an extra line item on their property tax, or maybe a tiny .1% sales tax bump in that area. That's how I've seen these special district taxes in action at least on my end. Maybe, maybe it'd be an addendum on their state income tax (state collects, then passes it to the mosquito guys,) but I doubt it.
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Mar 9, 2016 10:14
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It sounds like you need a governmental level between state and county to deal with these kind of issues.
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Mar 9, 2016 12:58
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computer parts posted:You also have to take scale into account. When you're talking about, say, Texas, that state is the size of France. It's going to make more sense to devolve those powers to lower levels of government. I don't know, over here fire services are all State Government departments and Western Australia (for example) is over four times larger than Texas.
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Mar 9, 2016 13:36
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spamman posted:I don't know, over here fire services are all State Government departments and Western Australia (for example) is over four times larger than Texas. Texas also has more people than all of Australia and more than 10 times as many as WA. Australia has a similar geographical area as the USA but only about 1/14 the population so the district services requirements aren't really comparable.
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Mar 9, 2016 14:17
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Vodos posted:I still don't understand, do you get a tax bill from those 2 mosquito guys or does the municipal government give them a part of their tax income? In general, these appear as line items on your property tax. Taxing districts are almost always based on geographical areas that may not precisely coincide with more obvious political boundaries, like city or county borders. Municipal sales taxes are also a thing, but they're different in that they are not tied to properties but instead to commerse, and in general they are applied within a recognized geotraphic area like a city or county.
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Mar 9, 2016 16:29
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sweek0 posted:It sounds like you need a governmental level between state and county to deal with these kind of issues. I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but that's what special districts are supposed to be.  ?
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Mar 9, 2016 16:37
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