Exactly. Any discussion about US debt as a barrier to economic process when there are so many other avenues for the state to make revenue is either ignorant at best or disingenuous at worst.
What is disingenious about it? It is a recent phenomena that states have this amount of debt. The debt of the US specifically is backed by its military and economic output. If one collapses, there will be a severe hyperinflation.
Tax payers are slowly and increasenly burdened by said debt.
I think the problem is that people that are constantly ranting about the debt (for instance Republicans), pass measures like the one they’re about to that raise the deficit even further while cutting taxes. If they were really concerned about the debt, they’d cut spending on defense (lol) and raise taxes to say the Clinton era.
Haven't you heard? Republicans have decided that all those deficit calculations for the new bill are wrong. See "How a GOP accounting maneuver hides $3.8 trillion in red ink from Trump's 'big, beautiful bill'" [1].
They are basically saying that when some current law is expiring (such as some of the 2017 Trump tax cuts) a bill that extends that law or makes it permanent should count as having zero cost.
If this goes through it means any party that gets a majority in the Senate can pretty much get anything through via budget reconciliation (which is supposed to only be allowed for deficit-neutral things) which cannot be filibustered by simply putting a time limit on it and then later making it permanent.
For example, Democrats pointed out that next time they have a majority they could pass universal free healthcare with a one year expiration with enough taxes and/or spending cuts elsewhere to make it deficit neutral for that one year, and then next year pass a bill making the universal healthcare permanent part permanent and letting the taxes or cuts expire.
This bill making the healthcare permanent would have zero cost under the new Republican rules and so could also be done via budget reconciliation, and so just need a majority to pass.
That kind of sounds amazing TBH. As an American I’m only now waking up to the depths of narcissism this country has, and Trump got it. Americans are either socially liberal and fiscally conservative (few), or socially liberal/conservative and fiscally liberal. They’re just giving the people what they want, let’s just give it to them faster and reset the whole thing sooner.
Pilot here: even in my small Cessna I will backtrack do you know why? Because it gives me that money more options to work with in case something goes wrong with my take off.
And I say this as a man who thought I didn't need it because I can't get cervical cancer. But it turns out oropharyngeal cancer might be just as preventable with the HPV vaccine.
> My mother was from Utah, and she always lamented at the small size of her flowers growing up in Chicago. They are much larger in Utah because they can get big without insects eating them.
Counter-anecdote from a Utah local: every time we travel to a "wet" area (any travel but Arizona / Nevada) we always find the climate to be more verdant and flowery. Perhaps ecosystems are more multi-faceted in nature.
Counter-counter-anecdote: Our Roses love the weather here.
Just moved to Utah (wife's job was relocated here) a couple of years ago after many decades in the southeast and midwest. Some stuff grows like crazy here, some stuff doesn't.
Nothing in the continental US competes with the gulf coast when it comes to sheer masses of flowering vegetation. Everything is green and most of it flowers. Everywhere you look, there's actually really neat and beautiful plants. But most of it is what folks think of as "weeds". Non native stuff in yards (what people think of as "flowers") often struggles. E.g. yapon is native and is often an ornamental and it'll grow like crazy, or even worse, try planting some Mexican petunias... I love those things, but they are a purple swarm that will swallow everything.
But plant your daffodils, and while they'll grow, they get overpowered and outspread by everything native. A lot of common ornamentals can't take the fully saturated then dry cycles and clay soils, too. Then there are the bugs. Everything gets eaten by something. So so so so so many bugs.
But in Utah, those common ornamentals absolutely thrive _if_ they get water. When you irrigate here, things grow like crazy. Flowers are huge and there are basically no bugs here at all. (I don't count box alder beetles or brine flies as "lots of bugs".)
But native vegetation can survive the actual climate here, while most ornamentals can't without extra water.
Right. The state made the decision to stop it from being added, which is what OP proposed.
Did OP mean that municipalities should simply decide to keep adding or not? If so, how do we decide (from our various armchairs in most cases far away from Utah) what the appropriate level of government for making this call is?
The state’s Department of Health can issue a guidance explaining the states’ experts’ analysis of the available data and tradeoffs of the decision, and let the municipalities sort it out.
I think the bigger complication though is going to be - depending on the state - how water districts are apportioned. I think even many counties (let alone municipalities) will share water infrastructure so it’s not really clear who has the jurisdiction to make that decision other than the state.
It also makes it easier for the consumer: don’t want fluoride, move to Utah. Rather than having to figure out what random water district is doing what.
I highly recommend onshape these days if you're ok with a web app that makes all your design open source (the pay for private space model has a steep cliff, but for my hobby purposes and open source enthusiasm it's great).
So, sometimes software gets these things called "iterations" and "versions" where the authors of the software add features and updates. So while this link isn't the KidPix of the 90s, it certainly has the same gameplay to the point where Im personally transported back to playing this on my Dad's Mactinosh 30ish years ago.
Perhaps you can try downloading it and seeing for yourself?
Technologies: Python, LLMs, content moderation, FDA approvals, massive data, React, angular, htmx, all the clouds -- pretty much everything but mobile frontend and game development.
