News: TRUMP: The Official Trump thread (a.k.a. the classiest thread at BigSoccer, I promise you that)[F]

Move people around, priorities, no need for testing water in Flint. They can work in the new department.

 

Maybe Obama should have sent the 200+M he sent to the Palestinians to Flint.

Flint obviously wasn't one of his priorities.

 

This is why some people voted for Trump; they desire to be ruled. They don't want a president, they want a god-king.

 

Snark.

Obama went against precedent by releasing the $200+M, yet couldn't find enough money for the Flint issue until the waning hours of his Presidency.

It's about priorities.

 

Except the money wasn't issued to the Interior or Commerce or Transportation or any department he could have feasibly manipulated the funds for Flint. It was issued to State. He had to spend the money in certain ways.

You know this. You know only Congress can authorize where spending goes.

 

Yes, I am fully aware of that.

The point is, if we have $200M just laying around, how do we not have money elsewhere to fix this extended crisis in Flint?

Brummie, you think $100M is pocket change, why has this been allowed to continue to be a problem? These thingscare what executive orders should be used on, not building pointless walls or other BS.

 

The willful ignorance.... Astounding...

 

You cannot believe your first sentence and your second sentence. You cannot believe these two things at the same time. Government agencies are allocated a certain amount of money, and you cannot just transfer those monies from one agency to the other without Congressional approval. If Barack Obama is a Democrat, and members of Congress are Republicans, will they come to an agreement on giving money to the Palestinians? NO!

I'm so sick and tired of you claiming to know anything about how our government works.

https://www.amazon.com/Logic-Americ...ds=the+logic+of+american+politics+7th+edition

I assign it to my students. You can have a free copy if you PM me.

 

Why are you such an asshole? Do you purposefully set your mind up in such a way that it's impossible to be anything else?

 

I'm sorry that you didn't understand the first two times someone explained something basic to you. But the third time someone has to explain something this basic to you, don't expect a lot of sympathy. If being annoyed that basic knowledge of the federal government is foreign to you makes me an asshole, then so be it.

You still have no clue how the federal appropriation of money works. The President is not given a giant pile of money to do with as they see fit. Congress sets money for each agency. Some of it has to go to certain projects/programs (like Social Security). Some of it is discretionary. But even discretionary funds have to stay within the agency. The State Department cannot use $200 million for a job that the Transportation Department would handle, for example.

It almost belabors belief that this isn't common practice in the private sector. If your company set aside $500 for buying office supplies, could that $500 be pocketed by the disbursements department as an-end year bonus to throw a holiday party?

But you know all this. That's why I don't feel bad about being brusque. You're playing dumb. I have to believe you're playing dumb.

 

And you continue to twist my words into something they aren't and then say I'm the dumb one.

My point, which you either refuse to acknowledge or are too blinded by your own ego to recognize, is that in prior conversations, we have discussed various pork barrel projects that you call "grease in the wheels of government" that amount to millions of dollars. We give 200+ Million to the Palestinians. There is money there to fix the issues in Flint if Obama would have made it a priority but he didn't.

If all you have is some kind of rehash of HS civics class, save it. I understand how things work as well as you do.

If Flint was someplace someone cared about, this would have been fixed.

 

This $200 million ain't pork-barrel. Pork barrel is by definition for domestic spending. This was a State Department fund for foreign aid.

 

I don't care what it was for or which department it was allocated to. That isn't the point AT ALL. I am not saying divert ANY of that money. What I AM saying is that MONEY IS AVAILABLE. If we consider sending $200 Million to a foreign country we should be able to find the money it takes to ensure or children aren't drinking contaminated water for YEARS.

Do you get it now?

 

Yes, but you fundamentally do not understand how budgets work in government. The priorities you propose will take an act of Congress, and your problem has been this entire time that Obama did not have his priorities set straight. Congress - not the President - allocates these funds. Moreover, the $200 million State had this year could have been from a surplus account, meaning Congress never intended those funds to be used for domestic purposes.

If you dislike the way our government is set up, and blame the wrong person for outcomes, you need to learn how the government is set up before you begin attributing blame. Afterwards, we can set out to find solutions.

 

Serious question. Not trying to troll here I just genuinely don't know.

Allocating an extra 200 million (or whatever resources they needed) for the situation in Flint CANNOT be done via executive order? Is that correct?

 

It could if the appropriate government agency had $200 million in discretionary funds, yes.

 

You might know or know where to find out-- did the President's Discretionary Fund (or whatever it is/was called) survive all the budget impasses, and if so how large is it?

 

@taosjohn how is my undercover brother from another mother?

 

You know, I don't know if it did. I also know I don't want to wade in and find it

 

Well, I just saw Man U for the first time this year, and it just increased my respect for Sir Alex... what a mess in what a short time...

Not sure if that's what you're asking?

 

Every time I see mention of $200 million and Flint by some I think of the people (including the group at Virginia Tech that did many of the water studies that broke the Flint issues open) that were out of pocket for what many assumed the government and other agencies were doing.

 

That's over 10yrs. So 3.8billion/yr for Israeli defense, about 1/3 of which they use for discretionary domestic use instead of buying USA arms and related services.

 

So $380 million this year then, right. Which is about twice as much as the number you are complaining about, for a country that needs it far, far less.

GDP per capita is israel is around $35,000, in Palestine its around $1,700.