Hardball - Rep Kendrick "it is bipartisan" Meek (D-FL) totally owns Dan "the whiner" Burton (R-IN)

Run time: 08:38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKInB38eKb0   Posted on YouTube: February 10, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: February 10, 2009 By DU Member: Turborama Views on DU: 1732

 
The exchange builds up to a fantastic moment at 7 minutes in...




(edit because the subject line self deleted for some reason)

while Burton sneers, points, interrupts, and flings out lies left and right. True republican obstructionist colors bleeding through. This whole thing is a spectacle, and Meek's responses to that Troglodyte make it quite evident who's in control not just of the political message, but of the national rhetoric. Bring it on Rethugs: history is being rewritten and flaccid washout Bush-era acolytes like Burton will quickly be confined to this new era's footnotes.

Am I being prejudiced if I suggest that he looks like the sort of guy who has a white sheet and hood hanging up in his closet...?

He gets to ride on A.F. ONE with the President to Florida!

We won't fully get our country back until we vote more of these blood sucking "tax cut" mentality morons out of Congress.

I thought it would be settled in 2008. Now I see we're going to have to wait till 2010 to get the train on the tracks in this country.

These neolithic repug types are simply interested in ONE thing.....tax cuts. Haven't we done that for the past 8 years? Works pretty well, eh? Lots of Hummers on the road, and smaller middle class: does that equal success in their pea brains?

There is plenty in the way of tax cuts in this stimulus bill. There's also tons of unnecessary pork. It shouldn't pass as it is right now. It needs more work before it gets signed.

and welcome to DU :hi:

I know people will jump down my throat with this example: education. The US already spends the most on public education per student in the world and yet our education system's performance is at best flat. Improving education is much more than a money issue. It's largely how education systems are constructed, how things like No Child Left Behind actually end up making education worse. NCLB is proposed to get Billions more in funding under the Senate Version of this stimulus package. That is unnecessary pork that will make education worse.

Plus, there's plenty of the proposed spending that private companies ought to be spending money on themselves instead of the govt.
Personally, I have a beef with anything more than infrastructure related projects. Going over that and why would require a whole lot of time and details why.

According to http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph/edu_edu_spe-education-spending-of-gdp&b_map=1">Nation Master the US is #38 with regards to % of GDP spent on education.

Also, you can go to that link to see who is actually number 1, you might be surprised... ;-)

As an educator I experience this firsthand. The lion's share of public funding, by far, is allotted by local districts tax shares, which means that the total amount spent is not a mean sum evenly distributed throughout the nation's populace (incorrectly stated in your post). Instead, a public school in a rich district receives its funds in proportion to the high tax bracket and revenue of that district. This could amount to anywhere from double to 10, 20 times the amount that a poor or disadvantaged inner city district, for example, receives. Lumping the entire populace together and using the proportional argument, therefore, is both a representational and distributional fallacy. The high high majority of educational funding in President Obama's stimulus package has been dedicated to improving (as you yourself noted as a important use of public funding) the infrastructures of schools in high disrepair, providing labs and other vital resources that lower class schools simply do not have, and improving the chance students in this lower income bracket have of availing themselves of the same services and opportunities that students in the higher class districts have automatically available to them.

Besides that, nor does a capitalistic argument hold water here. A well-educated populace serves the best interest of a capitalistic society, providing vital training and services that improve the overall quality of life of the entire population.

In regards to the private sector, I don't understand your point, and would be glad to engage if you elaborate on it and explain your reasoning.

thought it would be nice to conduct some pragmatic dialogue on the issues....

:dem:

he seems on top of his game. Instead I get stuck with a idiot in PA. Todd Platts