Maastricht Treaty revisions needed?

[kandrathe]

The US needs to back off, and let people take care of their own issues.

And this relates to taking money from state A and spending it in state B how?

In the case of States, you can look at the "2009 stimulus bill" for which the bulk of the so-called stimulus went to bail out States whose falling revenue could no longer sustain their social programs.

. . . politicians having a spine, . . .

Do you have x-rays supporting this claim?

Jon Stewart does.

. . . changing the systems to require people to apply for their handouts (where they would need to detail their assets and income).

Have you ever applied for any type of government assistance? Because all who I know that have applied had to do exactly that -- document that they qualified for the assistance they were requesting. If there's a government office that one can just walk into, ask for money, and walk out of with cash, then I've missed seeing it.

Come to Minnesota. We give away General Assistance checks every month to all who show up to collect them. The main requirement is that you have an address in Minnesota, and it is known to be rife with fraud. The cost to our state is only 45 million though. That aside. Yes, I've even been one of the destitute, homeless wretches who needed help.

Any system where you give away money has the problem of fraud, and nothing changes here except the amount of cash you are handing out.

Is the problem helping people or is the problem fraud? Because to stop the one in order to prevent the other is, IMO, a vast overreaction. Like closing the roads because some people drive drunk.

That is not the gist of what I was saying. If you reduce the need for the handouts, and increase the accountability for the handouts then you reduce the amount being given away, and you reduce the amount of fraud.

The point was that 17 different agencies are working on the 400 trade agreements. Why would corporate mergers ever save money? Of course consolidation would remove duplication and increase coordination of effort.

OK, so you are *for* consolidation.

You don't like it much when people put words in your mouth. Please don't do that to me. There is a difference between consolidating within the federal government, and consolidating to a federal government.

Our economy is in the toilet, and a record number of people are losing their homes, unemployed, and going bankrupt. The government doesn't have enough money to pay its bills, nor can it continue to borrow a trillion or so per year to keep up paying for all we spend. Not to mention, that all those trillions we borrowed will need to be paid back.

True or false, what does this have to do with to taking money from state A and spending it in state B?

Let me reiterate, "In the case of States, you can look at the "2009 stimulus bill" for which the bulk of the so-called stimulus went to bail out States whose falling revenue could no longer sustain their social programs." This was reauthorized in 2010, to again bail out the states, and there is no doubt that they are working out the 2011 bailout of State shortfalls as we speak.

I'd say it's time to justify every expenditure, and be very thoughtful about where our money is spent.

At what cost? Since we've gotten to that part in the thread where we're recycling our arguments, let me reiterate; "But when it comes to the government, many seem to be willing to spend any amount, no matter how large, to prevent the misuse of any amount, no matter how small."

There is no dichotomy here. It isn't all or nothing, and we are smart enough to identify and begin with the biggest savings first. I'm intimately familiar with audit, and routinely use AI audit heuristic models to reveal anomalies in financial streams. We have the technology to increase the accountability and drastically reduce the costs of keeping the accounts clean.

I wouldn't call it de-consolidation, so much as getting the federal fingers out of the states business.

So, you're *against* consolidation. Let's see: Consolidation is good when the federal government does it. No, consolidation is bad when the federal government does it. No, consolidation is good when industry does it.

Let me reiterate, "There is a difference between consolidating within the federal government, and consolidating to a federal government."

Much like "intercourse", the context and subject of the sentence vastly changes the meaning.