The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: alfsauve on March 23, 2024, 11:22:54 AM
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Ever notice nobody talks about the US BUDGET anymore. They only talk about SPENDING BILLS.
It's like they've got a debt ceiling so they can spend until they hit it. No fiscal responsibility.
There are so few Congress critters trying to bring order back but are fighting an up-hill up-sheer-cliff battle.
Just for a reference: https://apnews.com/article/congress-shutdown-budget-speaker-johnson-85dc1e93f6c49c154c02a166d0e8e784 (https://apnews.com/article/congress-shutdown-budget-speaker-johnson-85dc1e93f6c49c154c02a166d0e8e784)
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We have reached that time that Benjamin Franklin warned about. Our elected servants have realized that by passing out dollars they can buy votes. Don't blame just one party or mindset. Even extremist spending cutters like MTG is pandering to her power base with our money.
The saddest part is that many voters are fully convinced that the government cannot and is not intended to budget like a family or business budget - Recognizing the ability and intention to pay back the debt. These voters have also bought into the farce that Social Security and Medicare are not systems that are owed to those who have funded it under the promise it would be there for those who paid in.
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In the time of our country's founding mathematicians and other scientists were the only people familiar with numbers like one trillion, and then it was mostly used in an abstract, theoretical kind of way. No one in the world at that time could have ever imagined the government repeatedly spending billions and trillions of dollars they don't have. But now it happens all the time. The dollars they spend are so numerous they're like grains of sand on the beach.
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Greedy and dishonest politicians are partially responsible as they are liars, thieves and murderers. Selfish beyond a fault, acting in their self-interest and not for the people, lovers of admiration the policticians are virtually all corrupt in this nation. Voters love to have their ears tickled and hate to think...they embrace the lie and are primarily responsible for this.
Our form of government cannot exist without Godly men.
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So evil MAGA Republicans are at it again. Trying to at least bring some transparency to spending they've been branded as obstructionist.
First it's the military aid package. Just asking they be split into separate bills not lumped all in one.
Then there's the question of the Key Bridge rebuild. Can we at least take a deep breath and see where we're going with this? What's the hurry? How much will the Baltimore and Maryland kick in? How about tolls for a payback?
Somewhere we're going to run out of money. Somewhere, sometime in the future it's going to hurt. Oh I know, just kick the can down the road.
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US Budget? We ain't got one and likely never will again.
I was watching Grapes of Wrath the other night, and I was reminded of just how back the leftist "big government good" goes. There are repeated scenes of migrant camps, filthy, run down, ruled by the bulls and local cops, usually brutally, etc.
Then the Joad family limps into a US Gummint camp, that is clean, has running water and porcelain bathroom fixtures, is run by a kindly grandfather type, etc. All of the subtlety of a sledgehammer blow.
I am convinced that the great American experiment is done, over, stick a fork into it, nice while it lasted. Trump, if he is elected will not be able to do a damn thing, the bureaucracy has been so thoroughly perverted (in every sense of the word) and the Pubbies in kongress so weak-spined that he will have no support from anyone other than the people who put him there - and all they can do is to continue to fund the federal lunacy. And his getting put in the WH is a huge hurdle, now that the dems have figured out how to cook the books and get away with it (thanks to a willing and compliant media). And that's assuming the dems allow him to even get to the election. The dems keep chumming the waters around Trump, I am truly concerned that some looney lefty will take matters into his/her/its/xe/xit hands and do something really awful.
Anyone ask Claire Wolfe about the time lately?
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To paraphrase a movie line:
Budget,,,,,, We don't need no stinking budget!
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So evil MAGA Republicans are at it again. Trying to at least bring some transparency to spending they've been branded as obstructionist.
First it's the military aid package. Just asking they be split into separate bills not lumped all in one.
Then there's the question of the Key Bridge rebuild. Can we at least take a deep breath and see where we're going with this? What's the hurry? How much will the Baltimore and Maryland kick in? How about tolls for a payback?
Somewhere we're going to run out of money. Somewhere, sometime in the future it's going to hurt. Oh I know, just kick the can down the road.
The bridge is already a toll bridge.
"The bridge carried an estimated 11.5 million vehicles annually, with an average daily traffic of 31,500 vehicles."
Below are the toll rates for motorcycles up to medium trucks. Among the higher rates, a semi could pay $30 with the discounted E-Z Pass system.
E-ZPass Maryland Rates:
Axle Count Current Rates
Commuter 1.40*
2-axle $3.00
3-axle $8.00
4-axle $12.00
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We don't just have a toll bridge in Michigan, we have a TROLL bridge. :) It takes 7 years to paint it and when they get to the end they start again at the other end. Even with 67 years of maintenance being done the tolls have never been very high.
Passenger Vehicle – $2.00 per axle or $4.00 per car.
All Others – $5.00 per axle.
If I pull my single axle trailer over it again it will be 6 bucks each way. The Bridge is 20 years older, and over 3 times the length, but not 3 times the toll. A bargain to get to the U.P. ;D $25 for a semi without any kind of discount doesn't sound too unreasonable, I guess.
But, we're ALL going to pay for the Key Bridge. Or the kids and grand-kids of those you who have kids will pay for it. Not me. ;)
By the way, Trump is an idiot, but he's our idiot (unfortunately). Couldn't the Republican party find anyone better than THAT to run for President?
Choosing between Democrats and Republicans is like choosing how you're going to die, when you'd rather live.
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I’m familiar with the privately owned Ambassador bridge Detroit-Windsor. Dad was from Belle river. Just found out Alabama has one that the state is buying up this year. There are about a dozen others around the country.
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I didn't know the Ambassador Bridge was privately owned. The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel is 3 miles ENE of there too, if you want to drive under the river. A lot of people are afraid to and take the bridge, but the weather is always nice in the tunnel. ;) I was talking about the Mackinac Bridge between the upper and lower peninsula. Everyone who lives below the bridge like me is a troll. I've been across the bridge from Port Huron to Point Edward, and Sarnia to go to casinos before, but don't think I've taken the International Bridge from Sault Ste. Marie, U.S to Sault Ste. Marie, Canada since my dad was alive. It's less than 70 miles to Canada from my house, and more than 4 times that distance to The Soo (Sault Ste. Marie). It takes 2 1/2 hours longer to get there than it does to get to Toledo, Ohio. It's kind of a big state.
There used to be a drawbridge over the Saginaw River that was replaced by the 125 foot high Zilwaukee bridge. Zilwaukee is a little city with a weird name where two brothers from New York City built a saw mill next to the river 176 years ago. It sucked really bad when we went up north or came home and the drawbridge went up for freighters in the river. There were problems building it and my brothers both got off !-75 and detoured down highway M-13 over the river for a few years. I never heard anyone call it the Z-Bridge like this Detroit news crew does. They say how much steel cable holds it together, but didn't mention that it's mainly glued together, with something like Liquid Nails you can buy at the hardware store. If this bridge ever gets knocked out of commission for several years, all that traffic will have to go down the highway that zigzags a bit as it goes though different cities. That would would be a nightmare.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zilwaukee_Bridge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJFLMmcWq3U
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AS to what happened to the US budget, I had a GIF on my computer a couple years ago that I couldn't post because, even though it was small it was too big. It had someone, maybe the the head of the Federal Reserve Board, turning the crank on a little machine and it was spitting out money as fast as he could turn it. And it never stopped. That's what happened to the budget.