American infrastructure is failing period

[Rodeo]

@gooddad409

Buh, Buh, Buh, Obama was “wonderful”.

My nephew and his family got totally screwed as well.

Obamacare was I think it’s fair to say horrible for most. It screwed me, more than doubled my costs for insurance that was useless because the deductible was so high. I m trying to make some significant changes and the biggest obstacle is health insurance because it’s impossible to buy affordably as near as I can find…still looking.

I think there are some for whom it worked…yay for them. For most of us it sucked.

[DougBH]

@JayJay

The depletion analysis is like depreciation on steroids.

Couple that with intangible drilling costs, which allow write-offs of capital expenditures within one year, and oil companies are getting huge breaks other sectors do not…to the point of being able to deduct much more than the actual capital costs they run up in any one year.

And we haven’t even talked about the real reason other energy sectors are knocked on the head and oil kept propped up in myriad ways…the petrodollar…which allows the US to keep running persistent current account deficits and keeps the dollar as the reserve currency.

(All the more reason you’ll never see fossil fuels go away no matter what AOC says).

Again, other than a small part of the depletion allowance only available to small operators and people who own royalties, like farmers, nothing is being expensed except costs. And all companies are allowed that…i.e. accelerated depreciation allowing most costs expensed early.
No oil and gas subsidy. Oil and gas subsidizes the government.

And I know Democrats don’t understand this, but allowing people to keep some of their money is not the same thing as the government giving them money.

[Rodeo]

Ok…questions for the folks talking up electric vehicles…

How much fossil fuel will be required to be burned to charge the cars.

How much carbon is being generated in the production of the batteries.

How will the batteries be disposed of…what is their working life…1 year…5…?

I don’t anticipate ever buying an electric vehicle…if the price of fuel goes up too much I could look at a hybrid but as much as I drive in rural areas I don’t see electric as all that practical. Someday I m sure we will replace all fossil fuels…but are we now just trading burning the gas on the engine with burning the coal to generate the electricity…are the batteries just going to end up filling lots of landfills?

I m here to learn. Make your case.

[Samm]

@Axxowiz

Both Obama and Trump tried for infrastructure plans both got bulldozed by the opposition. Not sure how this will be any different.

Obama had two years of total power. But he squandered it on the ACA.

[Hexenbiest]

It’s not hard but the democrats look at things one way, tax and let low wage workers pour across the southern border while simultaneously letting close to a million high wage technical workers mostly from India come in to replace American workers and work for a 1/4 of the amount of an American worker. They are essentially shrinking the tax base.

Look at China the beautiful new cities and sprawling new infrastructure as much as I despise the CCP they aren’t stupid. They don’t import/export their labor force and manufacturing. Then they reverse engineer by stealing tech from the U.S. and European companies who parked their companies in a communist country. Thousands of western country moved their manufacturing to the east or south of the border to exploit low wage and in cases we are finding out now slave labor in parts of China. ← This is the problem.

If even half of the infrastructure/manufacturing was brought back to the states, both high and lower wage jobs there would be a much larger tax base in America instead of just targeting the ultra rich and companies who simply offshore their companies and loophole their money though offshore accounts, lawyers, and accountants that are able to navigate the nightmare that is the U.S. tax code.

How many times do we need to see some tech CEO get hauled in front of congress and explain why their company pays so low in taxes? Yet the tax rules gets more complex not simpler they don’t want to fix it and many in congress benefit from the same loopholes.

They even laugh about it, last week Senator Warren complained about Amazon on Twitter paying such low taxes and they just shot back what is the truth whether one likes it or not.

And as for bringing jobs back one of the first things Biden did was rip up and EO that limited the amount of HB1 workers who could come here and take American IT jobs. Tech/Insurance/Healthcare companies love this they can pay these people a 1/4 of what they would an American worker and offer little if any benefits.

And the majority of the money they make they send back to their homeland the only people who make money on this arrangement are the companies and shareholders. Anyone who has stepped foot in a fortune 100 company they would see close to 90% Indian workers doing the software development it’s a cruel joke that this has been allowed to continue.

Right now it might be mainly IT, but next it might be yours, mine, or one of your families job sectors next. I would imagine if they imported 90% of all teachers from let’s say Malaysia and paid them $9000 a year to replace the American teachers here there would be more attention paid to this.

[Samm]

@biggestal99

@Rodeo

That’s a joke. Who’s got time for “smart maintaining” when there are so many new illegals that Biden basically invited to the country to deal with

Correction. They are not illegals. They are legitimate asylum seekers.

You have posted a lot of dumb stuff Alan, but this one takes the cake.

[Axxowiz]

And this is why it won’t pass. Every bill before it’s voted needs to be read in full to the American public and then highlighted on were the spending goes rather than using names like infrastructure bill, or my favorite patriot act, were all patriots right? Who wouldn’t want to pass that.

Too many times bills get passed by using the Nancy Pelosi way of “we have to vote on it to see what’s in it” only to find out what’s in it is not what was touted.

[Konssurvative1]

There was a report out of Chicago last week or the week before that nearly every neighborhood in the city had unhealthy levels of lead in the water supply. This is largely due to the almost 100 year old piping in many of the inner neighborhoods and the fact that this old pipe carries water to the newer neighborhoods…that all have consistently high levels of led. It’s not the water it’s the infrastructure carrying it.

[TommyLucchese]

@Axxowiz

And this is why it won’t pass. Every bill before it’s voted needs to be read in full to the American public and then highlighted on were the spending goes rather than using names like infrastructure bill, or my favorite patriot act, were all patriots right? Who wouldn’t want to pass that.

Too many times bills get passed by using the Nancy Pelosi way of “we have to vote on it to see what’s in it” only to find out what’s in it is not what was touted.

There aren’t five people who would listen to that even if you offered it. Have you ever read a large federal bill?

[TommyLucchese]

@Konssurvative1

There was a report out of Chicago last week or the week before that nearly every neighborhood in the city had unhealthy levels of lead in the water supply. This is largely due to the almost 100 year old piping in many of the inner neighborhoods and the fact that this old pipe carries water to the newer neighborhoods…that all have consistently high levels of led. It’s not the water it’s the infrastructure carrying it.

More bridges than Venice here and a lot of them need work.

[EternalVigilance]

@Rodeo

Just a suggestion but you seriously might wanna read up on the current mess at the border. That wall has way more to do with this nations security than most of the crap in the infrastructure bill has to do with infrastructure…

No Democrat actually cares about what’s going on at the border. It’s a net win for them.

[Rodeo]

@Samm

You have posted a lot of dumb stuff Alan, but this one takes the cake.

You were more diplomatic than me but I agree.

[Samm]

@JayJay

Electric charging stations are indeed infrastructure.

It’s no different than the massive subsidies gasoline got (especially the all important depletion allowance in the 1910s-1920s that allowed oil producers to deduct 27.5% of all their gross revenues for tax purposes. Senator Tom Connally, from oil-rich Texas, later admitted they chose that very specific figure to fool Americans into believing they had arrived at it “scientifically”) that was one of the key factors in the ICE car overtaking the electric and steam cars as the most popular selling automobiles (people might be surprised to know that in 1912 a third of all cars on the roads were electric…steam and electric were the most popular selling vehicles).

People really need to learn the history of their own country.

How does putting money in a expenditure bill equate to a tax deduction to incenify private sector investment?

[Samm]

@JayJay

@Smyrna

@Jezcoe

It isn’t about what is current but what is produced in the future.

If the infrastructure is not there then the transition to EV would be longer than necessary.

If anyone desires an electric vehicle, let them…and THEM ALONE pay for it. The government did not pay for gas stations, those that saw an opportunity did. If electric vehicles are in our future, there’s an opportunity to make money. Let those with this vision, pay for these charging stations…and welcome to the United States of America.

The government made gas very very cheap, as I pointed out.

Then the equivalent would be to make electricity cheap.

[Axxowiz]

Granted I am referring to highlighting where the money is going leaving out the rest of the wood gargle.

It seems the only ones who do that are news agencies, then it gets turned into partisan bickering.

Konservative1 above was talking about Chicago’s water infrastructure being bad. It won’t happen but it would be nice if it was a one page bill which said we are going to spend ‘x’ on Chicago’s water infrastructure, instead both sides craft these things into 1000+ page bills passed around like a joint in congress with each member trying to put pork in it.

[EternalVigilance]

@JayJay

We already have 500 mile batteries.

With the latest generation of battery powered cars, we can charge them to 80% in fifteen minutes…with the promise of a five minute battery around the corner.

Batteries are becoming cheaper to make.

Batteries can be put in trucks and haul things right now.

They are the next thing because the power to charge them can come from a multitude of sources.

But of course, they’re still nascent right now, so they’ll never be any good.

Today’s right wing…always looking backward.

Would you support an expansion of nuclear power construction to enable the scale of this transition? That’s a bit of a litmus test for me when it comes to green energy. If nuclear isn’t part of any carbon neutrality conversation, then you know the overriding consideration of any green initiative is greater control of the populace - can’t power a 21st century superpower on renewables.

[mot1man]

How much of the “Infrastructure Bill” is going to fix this?

[SixFoot]

@RayStark

That was my experience with Obamacare. Never understood why some friends of mine considered it to be fabulous.

I’m sorry you got screwed over, but hey! At least some other people got subsidies!

[Samm]

@JayJay

Nobody is mandating you buy an EV.

Yet…

[Camp]

Why are we waiting?

Time to act is now.