Thursday, March 16, 2017

Trump Budget Proposal

Now I personally think Trump's budget would be much better if he made all those cuts, and cut the military some also...  Of course remember that I think many of the things the Feds do could be done by the States.  And we may have actually gotten closer to a balanced budget and starting to pay down the National Debt instead of continuing to add to it...


CNN Trump Budget
Fox News Trump Budget
VOX Trump Budget



52 comments:

Sean said...

If Trump would cut out a weekend or two at Mar-A-Lago, we could continue to fund Meals on Wheels. But I guess we know what the priority is...

Laurie said...

Trump’s budget blueprint is a war on the future of the American economy

also, cutting the EPA by 30% is a bad idea. I prefer clean air and clean water and a climate warming more slowly.

John said...

Silly question.... How would we know if their funding is too low or too high?

It's not like we have any idea how effective or efficient they are.

John said...

Someone linked to this on Facebook. Of course I was the only one to support it...
TC PP Teacher Seniority and Layoffs
Proposed change

Then a commenter made this simple suggestion.

"I would argue that the "simple solution" is to provide schools enough money that they don't have to fire teachers." Mike

And I asked my simple question that relates to Laurie's link.

"How much would that be? I have yet to work at an organization who thinks they have "enough". There is always more that could be done, better compensation that could be paid, etc And often it seems that the extra funds go to the Parents and Teachers who lobby the best, not necessarily to the schools and students who need it most. It tis the American way." G2A

Anonymous said...

Trump is a negotiator first and foremost. This budget is the opening bid in a negotiation. The problem with it, in negotiation terms, is that it is simply too unrealistic to move the other side forward. Another, bigger problem, is that he has already made critical concessions adverse to his base. If he isn't representing his supporters, who is he representing?

--hiram

Anonymous said...

"Who is he representing?"

Those he cares about. Namely, himself.

jerrye92002 said...

"I prefer clean air and clean water and a climate warming more slowly."-- Laurie

Laurie, how much more slowly do you want? According to the IPCC, if EVERY industrialized country on earth cut their CO2 emissions by 100%(!), the world would be just 0.287 degrees cooler than it would otherwise be, by the year 2100.

John said...

I think this source disagrees with your opinion. See slides 21 - 23.

Where do you come up with these things?

John said...

"The problem solves itself; the trick is in making the opportunities truly available and connecting these folks to them. Like holding a school voucher lottery where everybody wins, not just 1 out of 100."

Of course not everyone wins... But we have had that discussion dozens of times.

jerrye92002 said...

Of course not everyone wins. How about giving everybody the opportunity, and see if they can make it a win? Suppose we give away 100 vouchers, instead of 1. Is there a possibility that two or more will get a better education than they otherwise would have received? Is there a possibility that 1 or more will NOT? Do you want to decide beforehand which is which, or do you want to wait and see?

jerrye92002 said...

"Where do you come up with these things?" I'm glad you asked.

EPA chief Gina McCarthy herself testified to Congress that the “CPP [reducing US CO2 by 35%] will not have any meaningful direct impact on respiratory health, atmospheric temperatures, or sea level rise.”
source: http://dailycaller.com/2015/10/19/the-epas-clean-power-plan-wont-save-the-world-but-it-will-cause-human-suffering/

"The agency's analysis indicates that the Clean Power Plan will lower global temperatures by just 0.018 degrees Celsius, will reduce the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide by less than one-half of 1 percent, and will reduce rising sea levels by one hundredth of an inch. These effects are not promised to take place until the year 2100."
Source: http://www.realclearpolicy.com/blog/2015/09/23/chilling_testimony_on_the_clean_power_plan_1425.html

You were reading a political document, and if you will notice there is ZERO evidence in it that manmade CO2 is causing global temperatures to rise. The above statements prove it, because if we cannot stop it, we did not cause it.

John said...

Now you are starting to sound like Trump... Do you want to adjust your answer?

This is what you wrote... And I linked to the IPCC report which says something "Totally Different".

"According to the IPCC, if EVERY industrialized country on earth cut their CO2 emissions by 100%(!), the world would be just 0.287 degrees cooler than it would otherwise be, by the year 2100. " Jerry

And you are correct, it will take an effort by all 7 Billion of us humans to take better care of our world. That is why the USA needs to do it's share, or the other 6.7 Billion people will point at us and say... Why should we do it, the richest country in the world isn't. It is an excellent example of the Tragedy of Commons

John said...

Jerry,
Same old trade off discussion...

If 100 good parents and students leave a school of 500, it hurts the remaining 400 students. The school loses funding, the school loses volunteers / donations, the challenged students lose good peer role models, the classrooms / halls become more disruptive, etc. There is no arguing against this simple reality.

This is why the Mpls schools are so hard up, they have lost 10,000+ good families and students.

The same argument explains why N Mpls has more crime and violence.

jerrye92002 said...

Actually, the IPCC "summary for policymakers" report does not SAY at all what the results of its politically-driven policy preferences are. You have to dig into the voluminous supporting text for that, but "the IPCC" does say exactly that, that a 100% cut by the whole world, plunging us into the stone age, would make about 1/4 of 1 degree difference over 100 years, and that is IF their computer models are correct. If Trump cuts out all of the $20-$70 Billion the federal government spends on "stopping Climate Change" will we be that much better off as a nation? Are you willing to spend that much every year for the next 100 years to ward off 0.018 degrees of warming? What else might we do with $7 Trillion?

jerrye92002 said...

Now hold on. If 100 students get vouchers, you are certain they will NOT continue in the public school? Why not? Is it because they will get a better education elsewhere, so to be "fair" they must be forced to receive the substandard education they do not want? And if we do not "penalize" schools for their bad results by taking away money (note: most vouchers leave part of the money behind, so a net "profit" to the public school), what incentive do they have to do better? If we can "concentrate" the poor students (for whatever reason), can we not adapt better to improve their results, even if it takes more money to do so? Why do you continue to want to absolve the schools of their primary responsibility?

John said...

IPCC Issue - Source please. My source seems pretty clear that you are WRONG.

Vouchers - I am not going down that rabbit hole again... You wrote:

"The problem solves itself; the trick is in making the opportunities truly available and connecting these folks to them. Like holding a school voucher lottery where everybody wins, not just 1 out of 100."

I explained why a lot of people lose when school choice is easy. In fact whole communities have lost... I agree that a few win, unfortunately studies on charters don't show more benefit.

jerrye92002 said...

"A lot of people lose when school choice is easy." REALLY? So a public school which cannot educate 50-90% of the kids in its charge is suddenly LESS able to teach those kids if the 10% that WERE getting it pick up and go someplace else to get a better education? If those 10% of the kids were responsible for any minimal academic achievement among the rest of the kids, then what are we paying the school for? And you are overlooking the big benefit to charter schools, which is that they are CHOSEN.

jerrye92002 said...

I cannot find again the original IPCC reference I cited. I have another source which proves similar conclusions. The fact is that major reductions in CO2 have almost insignificant effects on global temperatures, regardless of the exact numbers. And that is true using the exact same climate models used to claim we have a "crisis."

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1758-5899.12295/full
And here is another:
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/2015/07/16/climate-change-policy-wont-change-global-temperatures

I know, it is hard to accept the "inconvenient truth," but if you won't believe the IPCC models that say CO2 is not the answer, why would you believe the IPCC when they say that CO2 is the problem?

jerrye92002 said...

And here is the official calculator, where you can find the 0.278 number for yourself.

https://www.cato.org/blog/current-wisdom-we-calculate-you-decide-handy-dandy-carbon-tax-temperature-savings-calculator

Now, how long are you going to believe the hoax?

John said...

I am sure the North Mpls community and schools were excellent at one point in time. Then some excellent folks moved out. And the neighborhood and schools got a bit worse.

Then it happened over and over and over again for decades and look what we have now...

You can deny the reality of how communities and schools degrade, but we have hundreds of examples across the country and it is pretty consistent.

John said...

Jerry,
Sorry I am sticking with the official IPCC report.

Your links are to opinion pieces by global climate change deniers and CATO. And I just don't have the energy to figure out what games they are playing with the numbers.

By the way, for the sake of my children and someday grand children I hope you are correct. Of course if you are wrong, it will be very hard to turn things around. On the upside we will likely be dead...

jerrye92002 said...

You're missing the point. My links are to eminently qualified scientists using official IPCC numbers and computer models. If you read the entire "scientific" IPCC report (100s of pages) rather than the politically-driven summary, you would find exactly the same thing. For the sake of my descendants, I do not intend to let these folks sabotage the world's economic future for a great scientific hoax.

OK, stick with your official report if you like, but tell me, where in it is the PROOF that human CO2 will cause catastrophic warming? I see only a whole bunch of claims that correlation is causation, and even that is flawed. The EPA says controlling CO2 won't matter, and they are using IPCC models to say so. Why won't you believe the EPA?

If you do the math yourself, you will find that a 50% cut in US CO2 will reduce atmospheric CO2 by about 1%, while IPCC model projections are based on an assumed doubling of CO2. What else do you need to know?

John said...

Looks like the EPA is using the same slides for now.... I wonder when Trump will make them disappear...

"Future temperature changes
We have already observed global warming over the last several decades. Future temperatures are expected to change further. Climate models project the following key temperature-related changes.

Key global projections

Increases in average global temperatures are expected to be within the range of 0.5°F to 8.6°F by 2100, with a likely increase of at least 2.7°F for all scenarios except the one representing the most aggressive mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions.

Except under the most aggressive mitigation scenario studied, global average temperature is expected to warm at least twice as much in the next 100 years as it has during the last 100 years.

Ground-level air temperatures are expected to continue to warm more rapidly over land than oceans.

Some parts of the world are projected to see larger temperature increases than the global average."

John said...

Link 1
Link One Author... He is a political science major.



John said...

Link 2
Link 2 Author He is an economist...

John said...

Link 3

Patrick Micahels And actual scientist...

Paul Knappenberger And another.

I'll check this link out further.

John said...

It is interesting that they use reductions and do not have a graph...

Per this EPA graph can can see that even a .2 degree reduction changes the trend line significantly.

Maybe that is why they did not graph it...

jerrye92002 said...

"Future temperature changes
We have already observed global warming over the last several decades. Future temperatures are expected to change further. Climate models project the following key temperature-related changes."

And this by you is proof? "We have observed global warming, CO2 had nothing to do with it" would be an equally valid interpretation. "Future temperatures are expected to change..." Heck yea. WHY? "Climate models project..." that the moon will be found to be made of green cheese. They are wrong at the 95% confidence level, cannot adequately predict historical temperatures without massive "fudge factors," are riddled with assumptions and approximations, and have a variation of 3:1 or more in their predictions. That's a SWAG at best and should never, ever, be the basis for public policy.

Oh, and that first statement is a flat-up lie. By 1970 (4 decades ago) we were certain we were headed into Global Cooling.

jerrye92002 said...

As for your graph, it proves what difference the assumptions that go into the model can make. It proves nothing about what CO2 will actually do, and far less about what manmade CO2 (about 4% of the total) may do. And notice the wide range of predictions around any one scenario? How about we roll some dice and estimate future temperatures from that?

Apparently one wag has tricked a random number generator into reproducing Michael Mann's famous "hockey stick"

John said...

As I said...

"By the way, for the sake of my children and someday grand children I hope you are correct. Of course if you are wrong, it will be very hard to turn things around. On the upside we will likely be dead..."

jerrye92002 said...

I am not wrong and I have near-conclusive evidence. If YOU are wrong we will have short-changed the world's economic development by something like $70 Trillion dollars and accomplished nothing at all. When you think that money COULD go into eliminating world poverty AND with lots of money left over for "adaptation" if and when, it makes zero sense.

jerrye92002 said...

Maybe you can help us both. What is the insurmountable leap of logic required to get from this:
EPA chief Gina McCarthy herself testified to Congress that the “CPP [reducing US CO2 by 35%] will not have any meaningful direct impact on respiratory health, atmospheric temperatures, or sea level rise.”

To this:
Efforts to control global temperatures by limiting man-made CO2 are inconsequential and not worth doing.

John said...

Let's try this again...

And you are correct, it will take an effort by all 7 Billion of us humans to take better care of our world. That is why the USA needs to do it's share, or the other 6.7 Billion people will point at us and say... Why should we do it, the richest country in the world isn't. It is an excellent example of the Tragedy of Commons.

jerrye92002 said...

You can try it as often as you like, but the problem remains the same. If the US does nothing about CAGW, the world's climate will be exactly the same as if we cut 100% of our CO2 and went back to shivering in the dark and making stone arrowheads. If all 7 billion of us did the same thing, the world's climate probably wouldn't notice that, either. Yes, we shouldn't pour poisons into the air or water. But CO2 isn't a pollutant, it's plant food.

Right now you have over 10,000 times the concentration of CO2 in your lungs as is in the atmosphere. Are you dead yet?

John said...

You know that you are on thin ice when you state:

All or nothing arguments... Reducing are carbon foot print isn't eliminating it... And with all the alternate power technologies available, no one will be shivering in the dark.

and

Make unrelated statements. No one has said CO2 is bad all the time, certainly not when we are breathing some of it...

jerrye92002 said...

Reducing our carbon footprint is not eliminating it. That is a true statement. Neither reducing or even eliminating manmade CO2 is going to make a dime's worth of difference to the climate. That is also a true statement.

As for alternative power, it's a pipe dream that wind and solar can take over our energy needs. It's expensive, which will leave poor people shivering in the dark, but far more importantly what's the point?!? If alternative energy reduces CO2 but has a negligible effect on climate, why are we doing it??? Now if you have an alternative energy source that costs less, is widely and consistently available and, just incidentally reduces CO2, trot it out and we'll all happily buy it. Mandates and subsidies won't be needed at all.

I may be seeing the problem. The global warming alarmists like to make statements that are qualitatively true. The say "the world has gotten warmer," "Atmospheric CO2 is rising," Human activity produces CO2," and "therefore human activity is raising global temperatures." The problem with all of this, besides the unproven causal chain, is that it is grossly in error on a quantitative basis. Do the simple math, you find that a 50% cut to US CO2 reduces atmospheric CO2 by 1%. CO2 has already risen about 40%, and the IPCC models assume another 100% increase. By pure linearity, 1% of that "terrible" 3 degree rise they predict is 0.03 degrees. Hmmm, notice how closely that fits with the 35% cut producing 0.02 degrees less warming? Either way you get at it, it's negligible. What is it going to take? Where is that insurmountable leap of logic between "US CO2 only adds 3/100 of a degree" to "US CO2 doesn't matter enough to do anything about"?

John said...

As I said... I hope you are correct...

jerrye92002 said...

I am currently arguing with my legislators that these "renewable energy mandates" are foolish in the extreme, and that there is ZERO scientific evidence to support such action. What will it take for you to come off of that "hope" and face the truth of the matter? Please help me. Knowing that, I might be able to get some sensible policy decisions from our elected wizards.

jerrye92002 said...

Maybe if some eminent scientists explained it to you and followed the IPCC approved method?

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/10/the-height-of-temperature-folly/

John said...

Maybe find sources that have real experts working at them, not people just trying to make money by catering to climate deniers... :-)

Willis Eschenbach Bio

My concern is that CATO, AEI, WattsUp, etc seem to be working hard to take snippets from here and there to make a case against what the scientific community seems pretty resolved on. And their case seems all about cost/benefit for certain groups. (ie namely bulk of US citizens) With little concern about the people who live in low elevation areas.

Economist Skepticism Limits

I mean they are correct that people like me really don't care if the ocean rise 10'... MN is a long ways away... And if the temperature rises 3 degrees, I'll just have drive to go snowmobiling. But should I be so selfish to save a few bucks a year? Interesting question.

Here is a more left leaning climate change site with some interesting maps.

jerrye92002 said...

I'm still asking for your help to understand why, if you don't trust "my experts," why you do not believe the EPA and the IPCC when they tell you the same thing, that curbing CO2 does not matter? Did you even read the part that said these numbers come straight out of the MAGICC tool used by the IPCC?

Did you read the part where the EPA, using the same models as the IPCC, says that cutting US CO2 drastically "will not have any meaningful direct impact on respiratory health, atmospheric temperatures, or sea level rise”?

I'm all for avoiding climate catastrophe. What I have not seen is a) proof such is coming, and b) proof that anything we propose to do about it will matter. In fact we have every sound scientific reason to believe the opposite. Unless, of course, you listen to the carnival barkers claiming otherwise.

John said...

The question is why do you want to go look at other sources when the IPCC and EPA have great graphs that show the forecast if we do nothing (RCP8.5) and if we put the brakes on hard (RP2.6)?

I may put that graph shown below on a new post...
RCP Definitions
IPCC Report Page 21
EPA Summary
EPA Graph

John said...

Speaking of reading. Did you study The Tragedy of Commons. Do you understand how it applies here?

jerrye92002 said...

Oh, please, please post the IPCC's full range of computer predictions. If you could also include the ACTUAL temperatures from satellite and balloon measurements, that would be even better. And IF by some chance you included the predictions by those same models of what would happen if we DID "do something," you would perhaps see what I have been yammering about, that the curve of the "average" of the IPCC predictions and the curve for the predictions assuming "radical CO2 reduction" are almost identical. The world will get warmer, according to the IPCC, and there is nothing we can do to prevent it.

And here's an aphorism for you, proven by the aforementioned graphs. "The average of errors is still an error."

John said...

I will when I get some time...

But still no thoughts regarding the tragedy of commons?

jerrye92002 said...

I understand the concept; it simply does not apply here. We are having an essentially ZERO impact on the "commons" of the global climate. On the contrary, we are HARMING the developing nations by denying them economic growth so that we can prevent a totally fictional climate impact, while simultaneously "fighting" the "greening" of the Earth that might improve their living conditions.

jerrye92002 said...

Here is a start:
http://media.al.com/news_huntsville_impact/photo/john-christy-climate-change-chart-0a201a1637955761.jpg

http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/climate-lab-book/files/2014/01/fig-nearterm_all_UPDATE_2017-panela-1.png


John said...

News Huntsville Chart

Climate Lab Book Link

jerrye92002 said...

I know you like statistics, here is a statistical treatment of the subject:

Notice not only the degree of certainty that the models are wrong, but the very wide variation between the models. Public policy should not be based on such wild guesswork.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/10/maybe-that-ipcc-95-certainty-was-correct-after-all/

John said...

Dr Roy Spencer IPCC 95

Spencer Bio

Critique of Spencer

John said...

Interesting discussion of our recent topic

jerrye92002 said...

I don't think considering the "qualifications" of either Dr. Spencer or those folks at "Skeptical Science" or whatever they call themselves should matter. If it did, apparently the SS folks would lose. What I would rather focus on, quite clear in your citation, is that while Dr. Spencer has the facts, the math and statistics, and the data for the statements he makes, the SS has only unfounded assertions in rebuttal. If you like we can demolish each of them in turn, but I prefer to continue with the key one with which we started. That is, the EPA, IPCC and climate skeptics alike all agree on two things: First, the burning of fossil fuels adds to global warming, and second, that the amount of warming is next to nothing. Where they part company is that the first two believe that "next to nothing" is a "catastrophe" requiring us to "do something" and the latter believes that "next to nothing" means we should DO nothing.

By the way "next to nothing" has been described (for the US alone reducing CO2 drastically) as "the difference in temperature between your feet and your head." I assume that's if you are Wilt Chamberlain.