pacino wrote:

“I have learned a great deal about the important work being done every day by the outstanding men and women of the DOE,” Perry said in his opening statement at his Senate confirmation hearing this morning. “My past statements made over five years ago about abolishing the Department of Energy do not reflect my current thinking. In fact, after being briefed on so many of the vital functions of the Department of Energy, I regret recommending its elimination.”

Werthless wrote:

pacino wrote:

Werthless wrote:

pacino wrote:Ulysses S Grant, traitor to the nation, created the first couple and then the tyrannical reign of Teddy Roosevelt guaranteed we'd be forced to visit these national areas of interest for our own amusement. The freedom-loving Bundys know what's up.

Hey man, sometimes it's fun to turn off the sarcasm font!

states won't have the funds to maintain some of 'em properly and some of them go over multiple states. it's nice to have cool things, too. if they were created at the federal level, i think they should remain in federal control.

/serious

So there are richer states that are forced to maintain the land of poorer states, because that's the way it's always been? I dunno man. This is one of those privatization/nationalization topics where I've never been satisfied with an argument to nationalize a bunch of federal land and then tax people to pay to maintain it. We take it for granted now, of course, but if there were no federal lands, I don't think we would be advocating that the US take $XX billion dollars and buy a bunch of land to hold. We'd probably say that there are better things, like universal healthcare, to spend money on. We would be cutting these land purchases to pay for actual services that benefit people.

I mean, imagine if Putin decided he wanted to buy a bunch of land of land in Russia. Would we say, "Great, he's nationalizing the preservation of the earth," or "Hey, what an autocrat, buying a bunch of land as a monument to himself. I wonder which of his friends is a new billionaire after these purchases."

td11 wrote:even if the NYT story was horseshit, what about this direct quote?

pacino wrote:

“I have learned a great deal about the important work being done every day by the outstanding men and women of the DOE,” Perry said in his opening statement at his Senate confirmation hearing this morning. “My past statements made over five years ago about abolishing the Department of Energy do not reflect my current thinking. In fact, after being briefed on so many of the vital functions of the Department of Energy, I regret recommending its elimination.”

seems like he's admitting it

“If you asked him on that first day he said yes, he would have said, ‘I want to be an advocate for energy,’” McKenna said.

“If you asked him now, he’d say, ‘I’m serious about the challenges facing the nuclear complex.’ It’s been a learning curve.”

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.

Overall, the blueprint being used by Trump’s team would reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years.

The proposed cuts hew closely to a blueprint published last year by the conservative Heritage Foundation, a think tank that has helped staff the Trump transition.

The Heritage blueprint used as a basis for Trump’s proposed cuts calls for eliminating several programs that conservatives label corporate welfare programs: the Minority Business Development Agency, the Economic Development Administration, the International Trade Administration and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. The total savings from cutting these four programs would amount to nearly $900 million in 2017.

At the Department of Justice, the blueprint calls for eliminating the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, Violence Against Women Grants and the Legal Services Corporation and for reducing funding for its Civil Rights and its Environment and Natural Resources divisions.

At the Department of Energy, it would roll back funding for nuclear physics and advanced scientific computing research to 2008 levels, eliminate the Office of Electricity, eliminate the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and scrap the Office of Fossil Energy, which focuses on technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Under the State Department’s jurisdiction, funding for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Paris Climate Change Agreement and the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are candidates for elimination.

Conservatives allied with fiscal hawks such as Pence, Paul and the Heritage Foundation say the time is long past due to get serious about cutting the federal deficit.

CalvinBall wrote:clear this shit a build a water park.

Werthless wrote:I don't think we would be advocating that the US take $XX billion dollars and buy a bunch of land to hold.

pacino wrote:Overall, the blueprint being used by Trump’s team would reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years.

drsmooth wrote:

pacino wrote:Overall, the blueprint being used by Trump’s team would reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years.

is this figure confirmed by CBO, or is The Hill pulling it out of its own or Heritage's gaping ass?

Youseff wrote:& how would Putin's friend become billionaires & get rich from buying public land where subsequently no industries would exist?

slugsrbad wrote:

Youseff wrote:& how would Putin's friend become billionaires & get rich from buying public land where subsequently no industries would exist?

I assume the hypothetical would be that his friends would buy, or already own the land, and then the Russian government would pay outrageous sums to buy it for parks and preservation.

CalvinBall wrote:i just dont get why things that are small percentages of the budget are the ones that always get attacked (fed land, us interior) when there are things that cost 30 times as more. maybe we should focus on cutting costs there first.