- This topic has 191 replies, 24 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 4 months ago by waynster.
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November 15, 2016 at 4:43 pm #865094
redblackParticipantthe funny thing, dave, is that you don’t even understand which half it is that’s mooching from the other.
the tragic thing is that no amount of evidence will sway you.
November 15, 2016 at 4:55 pm #865097
captainDaveParticipantredblack: The funny thing is, you have yet to show evidence that government produces anything beyond re-distibuting a portion of the horrendous amount of wealth taken from the private sector.
November 16, 2016 at 6:14 am #865162
redblackParticipantthat socialist redistribution of wealth also pays for the military, a federal highway system, social security, and medicare, to name a few. none of those programs benefits the poors exclusively.
November 16, 2016 at 10:15 am #865187
JoBParticipantCaptain Dave..
that socialism you complain of pays for the coast guard you count on…
but hey.. again.. why let reality get in the way of rhetoric“Of course, I will continue my political advocacy for individual freedom, equal opportunity and blind justice.”
great! when do you start?
November 16, 2016 at 7:43 pm #865283
JKBParticipantNow here’s an election protest: http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2016/11/16/kate-upton-isnt-happy-about-the-2016-cy-young-award-balloting/?cid=eref:nbcnews:text
November 17, 2016 at 8:07 am #865345
JoBParticipantJKB
against my better judgment i am going to assume that you meant that comment to be humorous..November 17, 2016 at 8:15 am #865346
JoBParticipantJKB
for you this fine morning
i am pretty sure this one isn’t a jokei posted a facebook meme so had to edit :(
credit for most of this information and most of the wording goes to the Coffee Party of America
but don’t let that get in the way of the facts…the population of California is 38,800,000
the population of Wyoming is 584,153
California has 55 electoral votes
Wyoming has 3
that means that in California one electoral vote = 705,454 voters
In Wyoming one electoral vote = 194,717 votersthat means that in the electoral college every vote from Wyoming wis worth 362% of every vote in California
to top that. wyoming is a winner takes all electoral state in which only 70% of voters voted for Trump.. so that makes every electoral vote worth roughly 30% fewer voters
this election math is what Republicans call a fair and equal election…
As long as it benefits them.. it is unlikely to change.- This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by JoB.
November 17, 2016 at 9:09 am #865349
waynsterParticipantIt will never change unless it ends in a tie and it can …….I did like this article today makes one wonder just how smart trumpers really are……
November 17, 2016 at 2:03 pm #865390
JKBParticipantIt’s difficult to get the correct population count. Wiki says populations of CA and WY are 37253956 and 563626 respectively. Census Bureau report on congressional apportionment gives 37,341,989 and 568,300. The main census page matches the Wiki numbers, so presumably that’s where Wiki got them. Don’t know where the numbers you quoted are from. Fortunately the discrepancies aren’t large.
Wyoming is a single cherrypicked example. Every state is guaranteed at least one congressional rep, and very few fall short. If we could allocate a fractional rep, ND gets 0.95, VT 0.89, and WY only 0.79 reps. Boosting them up to 1.0 is a pretty tiny change, with WY easily the largest.
A much larger effect is the rounding to the nearest whole number. A number of states get more than 0.5 extra representatives. And the list is pretty skewed politically: CA, MN, RI, WA vs only TX.
But mostly, JoB, you’re just ignoring the Great Compromise effect. The elector count is a blend designed to balance the interest of large states with that of small states. It never was intended to be direct election, nor strictly proportional, and for good reason.
- This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by JKB.
November 17, 2016 at 5:02 pm #865427
JoBParticipantJKB..
I didn’t source the numbers.. but nitpicking them doesn’t change their impact..
we could list the population of every state and compare but the fact remains that less populated states have far more electoral votes per person than those that are more populated… what kind of “compromise” favors the interests of the few over those of the many by even 100% let alone 300%?
What you are saying in effect is that those states with larger populations.. that produce substantially more tax income.. should have less say in choosing our President.
kind of like what happens in the Washington legislature. Seattle produces the tax income that our legislature disproportionately redistributes to the rest of the state while refusing to fund the kind of transportation infrastructure that Seattle needs.
what’s up with that?
There is no question that equal representation is missing.. but it doesn’t look to me like that has been replaced by equitable representation either.
Can you explain to me why that should be true?
November 17, 2016 at 5:20 pm #865431
JKBParticipantRead some history, JoB. ‘Great Compromise’ isn’t my phrase; it’s the name for our two-house Congress.
The compromise is there to keep large states from just rolling over the small ones. Tyranny of the majority is a central defect of democracy, and mechanisms like the Electoral College are defenses against that.
The EC counts are because a state gets as many electors as it has Congresspersons, that is: #senators + #reps.
Tax base is irrelevant, and should be. We don’t disenfranchise Michigan because the auto industry collapsed, or peg North Dakota to the price of oil.
So you’re right that a small state (any of them) gets electors above what would be strictly proportional. But I don’t see WY (or VT – the effect is nonpartisan) exercising undue control.
November 17, 2016 at 6:25 pm #865438
JoBParticipantI am aware that great compromise isn’t your phrase.. that it’s one of the names that has been used to describe the US two house Congress..
but dismissing the inequity in the system by saying the compromise is there to keep large states from just rolling over the small ones doesn’t change the fact that it is being used to allow small states to roll over the large ones…
which in this case is exactly what it is being used to do.
Nor does it change the manner in which it is used in our State to allow small counties to prioritize their needs over those of the larger.
this is an inequitable antiquated system that needs to be changed even if it does benefit Republicans.
- This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by JoB.
November 17, 2016 at 8:58 pm #865459
JKBParticipantSmall states are rolling over large ones? No, that’s not the case. And don’t go stating things as facts unless they are.
Wyoming’s a great example of outsize influence per capita. So is Vermont. Small state on each side, it’s a wash.
The score isn’t final until the Electoral College actually votes, but Wiki has it 306-232, with Trump winning 30 states to HRC’s 20 plus DC. The rule for assigning electors amounts to an extra 2 votes per state won.
So without that rule – if the Electoral College was just apportioned the same way the House is – Trump wins 246-190. Bottom line is that he won by carrying a lot of states.
Look again at the map. Trump carries small states: ID, WY, MT, ND, SD. So does Hillary: VT, ME, RI, DE, DC.
So you’re not showing ‘inequitable’, just ‘results didn’t satisfy JoB’. Sorry, but you are not personally the authority on what’s fair.
Truth is that I was pretty surprised too. I don’t care for Trump, but the EC isn’t to blame. My opinion is that the primary system is the travesty. But just like yours, that’s an opinion.
November 17, 2016 at 9:25 pm #865460
wendyBParticipantVoters threw a rock.
Humour (caution, strong language; also, British). And dead on.
See Jonathan Pie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLG9g7BcjKs&t=51s
November 18, 2016 at 6:14 am #865483
anonymeParticipantWendy, thanks for that. Hilarious – and accurate.
November 18, 2016 at 6:42 am #865484
JoBParticipantJKB
“Wyoming’s a great example of outsize influence per capita. So is Vermont. Small state on each side, it’s a wash”
this statement fails because it totally ignores the bigger issue here.
you stated that delegates to the electoral college are based on allocation of representatives to the US House… if electoral votes give small states undue influence.. so does the allocation of representatives… a factor that i alluded to in my Washington State example.
the notion of balancing state power was predicated on an a much different society than the one we have now.
as someone said when they looked at the red and blue map on election night.. i don’t see voters.. i see land. The same observation would hold true in Washington State.
Congress froze the number of Representatives at 435 in 1911.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_Act_of_1911
If we still followed the intention of the constitution, we would have a Rep for every 50K-60K people.. or they would be apportioned as they were prior to 1911 according to population.
and.. by the way.. the reasoning behind the cap on representatives was to prevent the undue influence of immigrants (foreigners) flooding into urban centers…
or what current Republicans would call “the mob”…
November 18, 2016 at 10:29 am #865499
metrognomeParticipantI may be sorry for stepping in here, but it seems to me that the issue of disproportionate representation involves three factors:
– the 100 electors who correspond to the total number of senators. Unlike Representatives, Senators are not apportioned by population; every state gets two. Therefore, less populated states have more clout per resident in the Electoral College than more populated states;
– every state has a minimum of one Representative, and therefore one additional Elector, even if their population doesn’t rise to the required level; there are currently seven states with one Representative for a total of 3 Electors. The District of Columbia has 3 Electors regardless of population. This is a total of 24 Electors for very small states where the combined population may not result in that many slots;
– apportionment of Electors is based on the Census, which occurs every ten years. A lot of population change can happen in 10 years these days. 17 states experienced changes in their number of representatives, resulting in 12 positions being moved, following the 2010 Census (see chart in Wiki article.)
Clearly, these three issues carry enough weight to result in an imbalance in a close election.
This conversation reminds me of the federal court ruling regarding the makeup of the governing body for the now defunct Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle (for you newbies, Metro Transit used to be part of an countywide independent government before being ‘merged’ into King County.) Basically, the 42 member Metro Council was made up of officials elected to other positions as well as some representatives appointed by the King County Council. Which elected officials served was based somewhat on population so that jurisdictional interests throughout the county were represented.
Judge Dwyer ruled that the makeup of the Council was unconstitutional as it violated the ‘one person – one vote’ principle as representation was disproportionate in that residents of some areas had more people representing them than other parts did. The issue was whether a majority of the members were elected or appointed. The judge, citing a SCOTUS opinion, ruled that the situation could be resolved by changing the makeup to address this imbalance, but a decision was made to merge the agency into the county government. Not a direct parallel, but I found it interesting. It also made me wonder if a provision of the Constitution could be found to be unconstitutional.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States)
November 18, 2016 at 1:08 pm #865514
Michael WaldoParticipantWhen Trump takes over, he will immediately have to reckon with Obama’s example, and this is a historical popularity contest His Orangeness seems doomed to lose.
Donald Trump may have won the White House, but he will never be a man like his predecessor, whose personal example will now only shine more brightly with the passage of time.
At a time when a lot of Americans feel like they have little to be proud of, we should think about our outgoing president, whose humanity and greatness are probably only just now coming into true focus.November 18, 2016 at 6:34 pm #865540
captainDaveParticipantMichael Waldo: It is quite likely that Obama will be considered, by most of the county, to be the worst president in American history because he didn’t accomplish anything but racking up more debt than all previous presidents combined while wrecking the economy with over-regulation, and stirring up discord between numerous identity groups that used to just identify themselves as people. I guess it is just a matter of perspective. I am sure there are a few here who believe accomplishing a massive increase in welfare dependance, pushing factories and jobs overseas and setting off a massive migration by allowing the growth of ISIS is a good thing.
I hate to be the one to say this since I voted for him in 08′, but the one good thing Obama did was to make Jimmy Carter look better.
November 19, 2016 at 7:06 am #865565
JoBParticipantCaptain Dave
“he didn’t accomplish anything but racking up more debt than all previous presidents combined”
exaggerate much?
I would flag this with the links that i read to get context for where this claim comes from but this is actually a complicated issue that requires understanding the principle of context and more than a fair amount of economics :( … thus too much for people who think “Make America Great Again” is policy.
November 19, 2016 at 8:38 am #865574
redblackParticipant“wrecking the economy with over-regulation?”
wtf are you talking about, dave? we’ve been adding jobs since 2010, and wages are rising.
all that debt was largely to bail out wall street after bush and a republican congress let them run wild.
so what’s trump gonna do? rip the solar panels off the white house? again?
- This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by redblack.
November 19, 2016 at 11:23 am #865586
captainDaveParticipantredback: Replacing productive careers with multiple part-time service jobs is hardly a measure of success. Quantity is not quality. And no, wage growth from increased minimum wage laws just reduces hours and puts more people out of full-time work. If things are so great, why are there so many homeless here in Seattle? Why is rent and food rising faster than wages in this perfectly pure liberal mecca?
The sad thing is that Obama didn’t spend all that money on anything intrinsically useful. He and the his corrupt crony establishment just squandered it on themselves–creating the biggest wealth disparity since the 1930’s and leaving the county’s infrastructure in a dilapidated state.
It must be difficult for you liberals to admit that you have been swindled for so many years. That’s ok though. You live in Seattle where you can continue to enjoy being raped by political cronyism.
All those solar panels, by the way, are are useless now that Obama’s legacy showpiece Solyndra vaporized with a half billion in tax-payer funds.
November 19, 2016 at 2:55 pm #865606
redblackParticipantso which is it, dave? is obama redistributing wealth or is he enriching the already-wealthy?
please stick to one fantasy at a time.
November 19, 2016 at 7:15 pm #865642
JoBParticipantredblack..
thanks for the chuckle
Captain Dave does seem to think he can have it all ways all of the time.November 19, 2016 at 10:47 pm #865663
metrognomeParticipantcaptainDave – must be interesting to view the world through orange-colored glasses.
President Obama’s legacy will be footnoted with the fact that the Republican-controlled Congress refused from Day 1 to do anything except to try to make him a ‘one and done’ president (they failed) and to refuse to cooperate with him (they pretty much succeeded.) They did everything they could to make both the President and the country fail through budget brinksmanship and shutdowns and other actions (failing to authorize the war against ISIS, for example) and then blaming the President when real or Faux Noise-generated imaginary situations arose.
The President resurrected America’s reputation from the garbage pile where Shrub43 left it, working diligently with leaders around the world to address global concerns about terrorism, economic issues, the impact of climate change, etc. He also made strides in pulling the U.S. economy back from the edge of the cliff where Shrub43 and the Republican-controlled Congress drove it; those ‘productive careers’ were gone long before he took office. The economy was healing under his leadership and even he acknowledges it needs further repair; I’d love to see some documentation of your assertion that President Obama’s actions (rather than Wall Street or Congress or other economic forces) resulted in the biggest wealth disparity since the Great Depression.
As far as your assertion regarding infrastructure, it is simplistic to say the least to blame a single president; even I wouldn’t lay the blame at Shrub43’s feet. Infrastructure involves public and private investment at the national, state and local level. It is typical in this rather young country to think in the short term re: building the infrastructure but not in the long term regarding funding maintenance and repair or replacement … until the bridge collapses. For example, the federal highway program, funded mainly by the gas tax, is about 60 years old. Construction is pretty much complete, so maintenance is the primary function now. And yet, Congress has failed to raise the federal gas tax, set at 18.4 cents in 1993, for 23 years, despite the increase in fuel-efficient cars, inflation, rising construction costs, etc. Federal funding for infrastructure has dropped 9% from 2003-2014.
The President’s budgets have included infrastructure repair; it’s up to Congress to decide how much, if any, and whether to raise taxes to fund any increase. Our infrastructure is crumbling in large part because the Republicans have controlled Congress for too many years; they blather about not raising taxes, which infrastructure will require in huge amounts, because they know that they can use soundbites to blame the president when the next bridge collapses or the next water main break creates a sinkhole that swallows a few unfortunate citizens.
Think what he could have done with a Congress that was willing to work with him, to create a compromise approach where both got some of what they want and let go of some of what they wanted. That’s the way the Founding Parents set things up, a fact that is lost on neo-conservatives. And yet, despite the way he has been treated for 8 years, President Barack Hussein Obama has the grace and the class to do his best to provide trump with the information he needs for a peaceful transition of power. He has also gone out of his way to reassure world leaders that the U.S. is still their ally. Would that trump shows his successor the same grace and class.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/25/politics/infrastructure-roads-bridges-airports-railroads/
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