Ryan, would you agree with me that a Civ V player at more than a trivial difficulty level needs to decide upon one and only one victory strategy by not later than the early renaissance era?
Civ V is a very different sort of game than Civ IV. Even at an easier setting the AI is much more competitive than you've been used to. The hex grid, the limitation of one military piece to one tile, the ability of an ungarrisoned city to defend itself for many turns, and the high cost of producing miltiary units all around, all make warfare and particularly conquest a much more challenging venture than you've been used to in Civ IV.
But a decision about Civ V should be governed by your system's capabilities. This is not one of those games where meeting the minimum system requirements is going to be good enough. My laptop meets the minimum requirements and the game performs with minimal speed and minimal graphics performance. I don't get animations during diplomacy and often experience audio chop. If you've got a system that meets the reccomended requirements, it will play faster, look better, and be significantly more enjoyable.
Don't get me wrong, Mr. Van Dyke. I want significant spending cuts, in all areas. As I wrote below, there should be no sacred cows.
If we're going to take the process of cutting spending seriously, as we should, then there need to be real cuts in defense, real cuts in social security, real cuts in medicare. Repealing Obamacare is not feasible today, but scaling it back potentially is, when confronted with the stark, cold reality of our financial situation. Unlike Portugal, the EU isn't going to bail us out.
Ryan made a good first step down this road last year with his "Roadmap to Solvency" or whatever it was called. It tacked entitlement reform, phasing it in slowly over two generations; it tacked defense spending, ratcheting it down. It had the U.S. government deficit-free by 2040 and free of all debt other than 1-year or shorter T-bills by 2075. His plan was not without flaws, including some still-too-sunny economic assumptions, especially projecting things sixty years into the future. But it was a coherent plan, one that earned the high praise of being sniffed at by Paul Krugman.
So I had expected more from Ryan this time around. I fault Ryan for not being either ambitious or realistic enough with this proposal, particularly when he has shown that he possesses the ability to be both ambitious and realistic. I remain hopeful that he can return to form.
They are absurd because they are not actual spending cuts, only the illusion of cuts predicated upon unrealistic assumptions about future economic growth and future commitments, both military and social, to which the government will be held.
Folks used to use the phrase "smoke and mirrors" to describe this sort of thing and I'm deeply disappointed that Congressman Ryan has backpedaled from his earlier and more ambitious proposals of a year ago to instead rely on the punchline to the old professionals-on-a-desert-island joke: "The economist says, 'Assume a boat...'".
So why don't the Dems and Repubs all agree we're going to have 12.5% annual GDP growth in 2014 with .5% inflation and oil selling at $29 a barrel and no foreign military deployments at all while they're at it? I bet the numbers would look great if they did that.
Until I read this comment, I had no idea that Boegiboe was Jason's husband. Congrats, fellas -- and here's hoping that Boehner and Reid and Obama get their acts together by Friday.
And just because Jason works at Cato doesn't mean he has to live his life like some sort of inhuman Ayn Rand disciple. Last time I checked, the Cato Institute wasn't in favor of anarchy.
I'm not sure I see a linkage between Jason's marrying another man as opposed to a woman and glee at the rather scary consequences of shutting off the primary breadwinner's income, even in the more conservative voices here. Rather, it seems to me that the nastiness to which Jason has (rightfully) taken exception comes not from the gender of Jason's spouse but rather the spouse's "choice" of employers. The object of derision here is not "teh ghey," it's "the gummint."
It ought to be obvious that I have no wish or desire for you or the hubby to suffer and I don't want the government to be shut down and not just for the sake of your family. It's a cold political necessity that a shtdown be a risk was my earlier point. If it weren't, the politicians would feel less pressure to bargain. I hardly enjoy the spectacle and I hardly enjoy the prospect of so many people, including both blogbuddies like you and meatworld friends I interact with daily, having to do without money. Here's hoping it doesn't come to pass.
I've a very nice retirement account for my investments to which I've contributed for fifteen years. If I needed to survive I could liquidate the account, pay the penalties and taxes, and go for much more than 90 days.
I've something less than 90 days' worth of ready liquid cash, however.
If public sector unions could bind the government to continue paying employees during a government shutdown, could the government actually ever shut down? After all, if they're going to be paid, they may as well work so the public gets some value for its money. And to work, they need electricity, and office supplies, and gasoline, etc. etc. etc. And indeed, many of them work to obtain (if not produce) those very same things to then consume. So what, if anything, would be shut down?
Sadly, I think we need to have the real threat of a shutdown, the real threat that families like Jason's will be seriously affected, that services people depend on will be interrupted, as an ultimate threat in order for politicians to feel sufficient pressure to actually sit down and deal with one another. If the government won't really shut down, then there is no pressure and none of them have any real incentive to make the concessions necessary on all sides to reach agreement.
As to the last question, you're getting beyond my sphere of knowledge.
As to the first question, sounds like what you're arguing for is a voucher system. I don't think you're out of line there. I don't like the idea of vouchers myself, but I can see the appeal.
Sending your kids to a private school is a luxury; if you can't afford that luxury, society does not have a duty to provide that luxury for you. (Yes, I know that once upon a time, educating your children at all was considered a luxury and a privilege for the economic elite, but we don't live in that kind of a world anymore.) You should not get a tax credit for consuming a luxury, whether that luxury be a private school, a yacht, a bowl of caviar, or an Armani suit.
Maybe I'm not sure what you're getting at, DD. Sending your kids to private school should not disqualify you from, say, home mortgage interest deductions. The reason is, you qualify for that deduction not because you send your kids to private school, but because you've taken out a home loan.
Tax incentives are built in to the law in no small part to encourage people to do (or not do) particular things. And people respond to those incentives; witness, for instance, contributions to tax-deferred retirement plans. A tax incentive to send your kid to religious school will result in more kids being sent to religious schools as a result of the government offering this incentive -- and thus, that tax incentive embodies a government preference that kids to receive religious instruction. That's why I think the tax incentive here is an Establishment.
I realize that in theory, the deduction here was available to parents who used a pass-through scholarship entity to pay for a secular private school would also get that deduction. But in practice, functionally all of the tax credits awarded here were awarded for tuition to religious schools.
Obviously you can argue that any reduction of any tax burden in any form frees up private money to go elsewhere and some of that money will go to religious causes, but at some point the relationship between religious spending and tax breaks will become too indirect to trace fairly or reasonably.
And I had my way, donations to churches would be deductible in proportion to the amount of money spent by the church on charitable activities, which would be traceable through those churches' Form 990 disclosures which in turn would be audited with the same level of scrutiny as is given to individual taxpayers. If a church spends, say, 30% of its overall income on payroll, 30% on physical plant maintenance and paying its own mortgage, 20% on evangelism and religious education, and 20% on charitable activities dispensed to the public in a manner that is unaccompanied by evangelism, then 20% of your donation to that church ought to be deductible because twenty cents of every dollar you spend there goes to charitable work. I do not see charitable work accompanied by evangelism as primarily motivated by a desire to do charity, but rather by a desire to evangelize. ("Come here and eat this free food while we tell you a story about a man from Galilee!" The point of doing something like that is not to feed the poor, but rather to preach to them.) Of course, I don't get to have my way on that point. The present regime of making religious donations 100% deductible is too politically popular for my preferred policy to have a realistic chance at becoming law.
Well, I don't think parents have the final say on matters of what goes in the curriculum, if that's what you're asking. Let's say we have parents who are morally outraged at the content of the curriculum, and can't afford private school.
They'll just have to teach their children right from wrong themselves, which is something I think they ought to be doing anyway. And they can elect members of the school board who will change the curriculum; I don't discount the availability of a political remedy.
The question here is whether they can also use the courts to sue the school for teaching their kids about sex, evolution, etc. That's well-worn territory; they have standing to sue, but they're going to lose on the merits.
Bob, I think you're confusing "within Constitutional boundaries" with "a good idea." It may not be wise that the government do certain things, but it nevertheless possesses the lawful power to do them. I think we can agree that it is not typically appropriate for a court to decide whether a particular law is wise, but I do think it is the appropriate job of a court to decide if a law is within the boundaries of the Constitution.
Now, if you're asking me, do I think public parks and public schools are good ideas, yes, I think that both are good ideas.
But don't taxes have to be imposed on similarly-situated people in an equal and neutral fashion? Let's assume a flat income tax for ease of argument, although of course IRL income taxes are progressive as marginal income increases.
Given a generally-applicable flat tax of 20% of all income, is it within the range of Constitutionally-permissible ways the government can levy that tax for the government to say "Protestants who tithe to support their churches get a dollar-for-dollar tax income tax credit on their tithes?" Is it made any better if it's expanded beyond Protestants to all Christians, or all believers generally? What about those of us who don't believe at all -- we have to pay more taxes than believers who can tithe instead; is the law saved if a similar tax credit for some secular charity is included as well?
An idol in a public place seems less objectionable when it's to a god that almost no one believes in anymore, doesn't it? It's hard to imagine anyone offering a serious objection to a statue at a courthouse depicting a togate and blindfolded woman holding a sword and scales -- but that is a statue of a god that historically, people sincerely worshiped.
The IRS used to pass out 501(c)(3) exemptions for organizations on a pretty free basis without a lot of scrutiny into what the organization was actually doing. That's changed; there's some fairly searching investigation into activities before 501(c)(3) status is awarded.
The real question is whether churches should be 501(c)(3)'s at all and whether churches should receive such favorable treatment by taxing authorities such as exemptions from property taxes. Granted that churches do engage in substantial charitable work that does benefit the public at large -- but they also engage in religious instruction, and it's less clear to me how religious instruction benefits the public. This question becomes less shocking when one assumes that God is not real, but even if She is, it's still not clear how giving tax breaks to churches benefits the public until and unless the government decides which particular church is spreading The Truth, which would be the very essence of an Establishment.
To some extent, yes; Congress could expand the definition of people who are entitled to seek declaratory relief against the government by amending certain statutes. But the concept of "standing" and whether a particular lawsuits presents a live "case or controversy" is ultimately an interpretation of Article III and at the end of the day, it is for the courts to decide that issue.
Yes, that's exactly right. One ought to at least be able to conceive of a non-frivolous equal protection argument based on those facts too.
But the more powerful reason tax credits should not be given to indirectly support private schools is because the schools which benefit from that indirect support engage in religious indoctrination and even legally engage in religious discrimination if they wish to do so. The government must tolerate (or to use another phrase, "accomodate") religious indoctrination of children and thus must allow and fairly accredit private schools; however, it ought not to support it by, inter alia, providing tuition-paying parents with tax breaks to subsidize that religious indoctrination.
Which is why the decision is so irritating. Perhaps, as tom van dyke suggests, the line between an acceptable "accommodation" and a prohibited "establishment" was not crossed. Or perhaps not; we don't know right now, and won't know ever, until someone can make that argument on its merits and a court makes a ruling on it. A decision narrowing the ability of the courts to reach the merits of such a controversy should be viewed with askance. Looking at our Constitution through the lens of "no harm, no foul" invites lawlessness. So contrary to Justice Kennedy's proclamations to the contrary in yesterday's case, it is decidedly not to the credit of courts that they refuse to decide cases brought before them; it is inherently the particular province of courts to resolve individual controversies, on their merits.
On “Three In One: Jukebox, Bleg, and Open Thread”
Ryan, would you agree with me that a Civ V player at more than a trivial difficulty level needs to decide upon one and only one victory strategy by not later than the early renaissance era?
"
Civ V is a very different sort of game than Civ IV. Even at an easier setting the AI is much more competitive than you've been used to. The hex grid, the limitation of one military piece to one tile, the ability of an ungarrisoned city to defend itself for many turns, and the high cost of producing miltiary units all around, all make warfare and particularly conquest a much more challenging venture than you've been used to in Civ IV.
But a decision about Civ V should be governed by your system's capabilities. This is not one of those games where meeting the minimum system requirements is going to be good enough. My laptop meets the minimum requirements and the game performs with minimal speed and minimal graphics performance. I don't get animations during diplomacy and often experience audio chop. If you've got a system that meets the reccomended requirements, it will play faster, look better, and be significantly more enjoyable.
On “Are the Ryan Budget’s Spending Cuts Credible?”
Bartlett is critical of TEAM RED; ergo, he must be a flaming liberal. No other reasonable explanation exists.
"
Don't get me wrong, Mr. Van Dyke. I want significant spending cuts, in all areas. As I wrote below, there should be no sacred cows.
If we're going to take the process of cutting spending seriously, as we should, then there need to be real cuts in defense, real cuts in social security, real cuts in medicare. Repealing Obamacare is not feasible today, but scaling it back potentially is, when confronted with the stark, cold reality of our financial situation. Unlike Portugal, the EU isn't going to bail us out.
Ryan made a good first step down this road last year with his "Roadmap to Solvency" or whatever it was called. It tacked entitlement reform, phasing it in slowly over two generations; it tacked defense spending, ratcheting it down. It had the U.S. government deficit-free by 2040 and free of all debt other than 1-year or shorter T-bills by 2075. His plan was not without flaws, including some still-too-sunny economic assumptions, especially projecting things sixty years into the future. But it was a coherent plan, one that earned the high praise of being sniffed at by Paul Krugman.
So I had expected more from Ryan this time around. I fault Ryan for not being either ambitious or realistic enough with this proposal, particularly when he has shown that he possesses the ability to be both ambitious and realistic. I remain hopeful that he can return to form.
On “A 4/20 Reminder”
Breathtaking, isn't it?
(That is not intended as a compliment to the author.)
On “Are the Ryan Budget’s Spending Cuts Credible?”
They are absurd because they are not actual spending cuts, only the illusion of cuts predicated upon unrealistic assumptions about future economic growth and future commitments, both military and social, to which the government will be held.
"
Or entitlements, particularly Medicare and Social Security.
No sacred cows.
"
Folks used to use the phrase "smoke and mirrors" to describe this sort of thing and I'm deeply disappointed that Congressman Ryan has backpedaled from his earlier and more ambitious proposals of a year ago to instead rely on the punchline to the old professionals-on-a-desert-island joke: "The economist says, 'Assume a boat...'".
So why don't the Dems and Repubs all agree we're going to have 12.5% annual GDP growth in 2014 with .5% inflation and oil selling at $29 a barrel and no foreign military deployments at all while they're at it? I bet the numbers would look great if they did that.
On “A Confession of Bias, Followed by a Bunch of Stuff You Should Probably Ignore”
Until I read this comment, I had no idea that Boegiboe was Jason's husband. Congrats, fellas -- and here's hoping that Boehner and Reid and Obama get their acts together by Friday.
And just because Jason works at Cato doesn't mean he has to live his life like some sort of inhuman Ayn Rand disciple. Last time I checked, the Cato Institute wasn't in favor of anarchy.
"
I'm not sure I see a linkage between Jason's marrying another man as opposed to a woman and glee at the rather scary consequences of shutting off the primary breadwinner's income, even in the more conservative voices here. Rather, it seems to me that the nastiness to which Jason has (rightfully) taken exception comes not from the gender of Jason's spouse but rather the spouse's "choice" of employers. The object of derision here is not "teh ghey," it's "the gummint."
"
It ought to be obvious that I have no wish or desire for you or the hubby to suffer and I don't want the government to be shut down and not just for the sake of your family. It's a cold political necessity that a shtdown be a risk was my earlier point. If it weren't, the politicians would feel less pressure to bargain. I hardly enjoy the spectacle and I hardly enjoy the prospect of so many people, including both blogbuddies like you and meatworld friends I interact with daily, having to do without money. Here's hoping it doesn't come to pass.
"
I've a very nice retirement account for my investments to which I've contributed for fifteen years. If I needed to survive I could liquidate the account, pay the penalties and taxes, and go for much more than 90 days.
I've something less than 90 days' worth of ready liquid cash, however.
"
Quick poll: how many commenters here would qualify as "grown-ups" as defined by Tony Comstock?
Count Burt Likko out of that list.
"
If public sector unions could bind the government to continue paying employees during a government shutdown, could the government actually ever shut down? After all, if they're going to be paid, they may as well work so the public gets some value for its money. And to work, they need electricity, and office supplies, and gasoline, etc. etc. etc. And indeed, many of them work to obtain (if not produce) those very same things to then consume. So what, if anything, would be shut down?
Sadly, I think we need to have the real threat of a shutdown, the real threat that families like Jason's will be seriously affected, that services people depend on will be interrupted, as an ultimate threat in order for politicians to feel sufficient pressure to actually sit down and deal with one another. If the government won't really shut down, then there is no pressure and none of them have any real incentive to make the concessions necessary on all sides to reach agreement.
On “Closed Front Doors, Open Back Doors”
As to the last question, you're getting beyond my sphere of knowledge.
As to the first question, sounds like what you're arguing for is a voucher system. I don't think you're out of line there. I don't like the idea of vouchers myself, but I can see the appeal.
Sending your kids to a private school is a luxury; if you can't afford that luxury, society does not have a duty to provide that luxury for you. (Yes, I know that once upon a time, educating your children at all was considered a luxury and a privilege for the economic elite, but we don't live in that kind of a world anymore.) You should not get a tax credit for consuming a luxury, whether that luxury be a private school, a yacht, a bowl of caviar, or an Armani suit.
"
Maybe I'm not sure what you're getting at, DD. Sending your kids to private school should not disqualify you from, say, home mortgage interest deductions. The reason is, you qualify for that deduction not because you send your kids to private school, but because you've taken out a home loan.
Tax incentives are built in to the law in no small part to encourage people to do (or not do) particular things. And people respond to those incentives; witness, for instance, contributions to tax-deferred retirement plans. A tax incentive to send your kid to religious school will result in more kids being sent to religious schools as a result of the government offering this incentive -- and thus, that tax incentive embodies a government preference that kids to receive religious instruction. That's why I think the tax incentive here is an Establishment.
I realize that in theory, the deduction here was available to parents who used a pass-through scholarship entity to pay for a secular private school would also get that deduction. But in practice, functionally all of the tax credits awarded here were awarded for tuition to religious schools.
Obviously you can argue that any reduction of any tax burden in any form frees up private money to go elsewhere and some of that money will go to religious causes, but at some point the relationship between religious spending and tax breaks will become too indirect to trace fairly or reasonably.
And I had my way, donations to churches would be deductible in proportion to the amount of money spent by the church on charitable activities, which would be traceable through those churches' Form 990 disclosures which in turn would be audited with the same level of scrutiny as is given to individual taxpayers. If a church spends, say, 30% of its overall income on payroll, 30% on physical plant maintenance and paying its own mortgage, 20% on evangelism and religious education, and 20% on charitable activities dispensed to the public in a manner that is unaccompanied by evangelism, then 20% of your donation to that church ought to be deductible because twenty cents of every dollar you spend there goes to charitable work. I do not see charitable work accompanied by evangelism as primarily motivated by a desire to do charity, but rather by a desire to evangelize. ("Come here and eat this free food while we tell you a story about a man from Galilee!" The point of doing something like that is not to feed the poor, but rather to preach to them.) Of course, I don't get to have my way on that point. The present regime of making religious donations 100% deductible is too politically popular for my preferred policy to have a realistic chance at becoming law.
"
Well, I don't think parents have the final say on matters of what goes in the curriculum, if that's what you're asking. Let's say we have parents who are morally outraged at the content of the curriculum, and can't afford private school.
They'll just have to teach their children right from wrong themselves, which is something I think they ought to be doing anyway. And they can elect members of the school board who will change the curriculum; I don't discount the availability of a political remedy.
The question here is whether they can also use the courts to sue the school for teaching their kids about sex, evolution, etc. That's well-worn territory; they have standing to sue, but they're going to lose on the merits.
"
Bob, I think you're confusing "within Constitutional boundaries" with "a good idea." It may not be wise that the government do certain things, but it nevertheless possesses the lawful power to do them. I think we can agree that it is not typically appropriate for a court to decide whether a particular law is wise, but I do think it is the appropriate job of a court to decide if a law is within the boundaries of the Constitution.
Now, if you're asking me, do I think public parks and public schools are good ideas, yes, I think that both are good ideas.
"
Yes. It's also lawful to tax everyone to support public parks, even though some people don't use those parks personally.
"
But don't taxes have to be imposed on similarly-situated people in an equal and neutral fashion? Let's assume a flat income tax for ease of argument, although of course IRL income taxes are progressive as marginal income increases.
Given a generally-applicable flat tax of 20% of all income, is it within the range of Constitutionally-permissible ways the government can levy that tax for the government to say "Protestants who tithe to support their churches get a dollar-for-dollar tax income tax credit on their tithes?" Is it made any better if it's expanded beyond Protestants to all Christians, or all believers generally? What about those of us who don't believe at all -- we have to pay more taxes than believers who can tithe instead; is the law saved if a similar tax credit for some secular charity is included as well?
"
An idol in a public place seems less objectionable when it's to a god that almost no one believes in anymore, doesn't it? It's hard to imagine anyone offering a serious objection to a statue at a courthouse depicting a togate and blindfolded woman holding a sword and scales -- but that is a statue of a god that historically, people sincerely worshiped.
"
The IRS used to pass out 501(c)(3) exemptions for organizations on a pretty free basis without a lot of scrutiny into what the organization was actually doing. That's changed; there's some fairly searching investigation into activities before 501(c)(3) status is awarded.
The real question is whether churches should be 501(c)(3)'s at all and whether churches should receive such favorable treatment by taxing authorities such as exemptions from property taxes. Granted that churches do engage in substantial charitable work that does benefit the public at large -- but they also engage in religious instruction, and it's less clear to me how religious instruction benefits the public. This question becomes less shocking when one assumes that God is not real, but even if She is, it's still not clear how giving tax breaks to churches benefits the public until and unless the government decides which particular church is spreading The Truth, which would be the very essence of an Establishment.
"
To some extent, yes; Congress could expand the definition of people who are entitled to seek declaratory relief against the government by amending certain statutes. But the concept of "standing" and whether a particular lawsuits presents a live "case or controversy" is ultimately an interpretation of Article III and at the end of the day, it is for the courts to decide that issue.
"
Yes, that's exactly right. One ought to at least be able to conceive of a non-frivolous equal protection argument based on those facts too.
But the more powerful reason tax credits should not be given to indirectly support private schools is because the schools which benefit from that indirect support engage in religious indoctrination and even legally engage in religious discrimination if they wish to do so. The government must tolerate (or to use another phrase, "accomodate") religious indoctrination of children and thus must allow and fairly accredit private schools; however, it ought not to support it by, inter alia, providing tuition-paying parents with tax breaks to subsidize that religious indoctrination.
"
Which is why the decision is so irritating. Perhaps, as tom van dyke suggests, the line between an acceptable "accommodation" and a prohibited "establishment" was not crossed. Or perhaps not; we don't know right now, and won't know ever, until someone can make that argument on its merits and a court makes a ruling on it. A decision narrowing the ability of the courts to reach the merits of such a controversy should be viewed with askance. Looking at our Constitution through the lens of "no harm, no foul" invites lawlessness. So contrary to Justice Kennedy's proclamations to the contrary in yesterday's case, it is decidedly not to the credit of courts that they refuse to decide cases brought before them; it is inherently the particular province of courts to resolve individual controversies, on their merits.