What Has Biden Wrought? 206
Politico: Joe Biden spent the first half of his presidency enacting plans to steer at least $1.6 trillion to transform the economy and spur a clean-energy revolution -- only to watch those programs become afterthoughts in the 2024 election. Now the core of his domestic legacy stands unfinished, with hundreds of billions of dollars left to deploy, and imperiled as Donald Trump prepares to take office.
A wide-ranging examination of the Biden administration's spending and tax policies reveals signs that his efforts could leave a lasting mark, but also ways in which his agenda has yet to take hold -- after unleashing money for batteries, solar cells, computer chips and clean water; luring foreign-owned factories to U.S. soil; and turning some red-state Republicans into supporters of green energy projects.
Throughout 2024, POLITICO's "Biden's Billions" series has documented the halting pace, uneven progress and genuine economic impact of a spending blueprint rivaling Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. With just weeks left in Biden's term, it's not at all certain his legacy will endure in the same way. Much of it remains a work in progress.
Solar installations have surged to record levels, but the country is not adding enough zero-carbon electricity to meet Biden's climate targets. A $42 billion expansion of broadband internet service has yet to connect a single household. Bureaucratic haggling, equipment shortages and logistical challenges mean a $7.5 billion effort to install electric vehicle chargers from coast to coast has so far yielded just 47 stations in 15 states.
A wide-ranging examination of the Biden administration's spending and tax policies reveals signs that his efforts could leave a lasting mark, but also ways in which his agenda has yet to take hold -- after unleashing money for batteries, solar cells, computer chips and clean water; luring foreign-owned factories to U.S. soil; and turning some red-state Republicans into supporters of green energy projects.
Throughout 2024, POLITICO's "Biden's Billions" series has documented the halting pace, uneven progress and genuine economic impact of a spending blueprint rivaling Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. With just weeks left in Biden's term, it's not at all certain his legacy will endure in the same way. Much of it remains a work in progress.
Solar installations have surged to record levels, but the country is not adding enough zero-carbon electricity to meet Biden's climate targets. A $42 billion expansion of broadband internet service has yet to connect a single household. Bureaucratic haggling, equipment shortages and logistical challenges mean a $7.5 billion effort to install electric vehicle chargers from coast to coast has so far yielded just 47 stations in 15 states.
Whiplash (Score:2)
Re:Whiplash (Score:5, Insightful)
The solution is to write the important ideas into law. Those will only change if both houses of Congress and the President agree that they should change.
Some asshole fairly recently decreed that his pen and telephone should be enough to bypass a Congress that disagrees with him and the current situation is the result.
Re:Whiplash (Score:5, Informative)
The solution is to write the important ideas into law...
Unfortunately, we've had decades of laws that cede Congress's power to the executive branch. Congress writes laws giving federal agencies powers to write regulations, instead of Congress doing its job and writing those regulations as law. That's why the President can make so many sweeping changes by executive order.
Re: Whiplash (Score:2)
This is how most normal governments work.
Do you really expect a lower house of any government to deliberate on the safety of every chemical being sold or added to food, or the minutia of water infrastructure standards or road safety standards etc etc etc? That seems highly inefficient
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Unfortunately, we've had decades of laws that cede Congress's power to the executive branch. Congress writes laws giving federal agencies powers to write regulations, instead of Congress doing its job and writing those regulations as law. That's why the President can make so many sweeping changes by executive order.
This is how most normal governments work.
This is how strong-president republics work. As a counter-example, you might want to take a look at how parliamentary democracies work.
Re: Whiplash (Score:2)
They all work the same way.
Laws enable regulatory bodies to set rules. US and Canada are no different in that regard. And you want this, because not every single decision should be based on popular vote anyways.
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Yes, because there's absolutely no regulatory bodies in parliamentary democracies.
Please point out a single democracy ANYWHERE that has a full parliamentary vote on the use of every single food additive or medicine before they are made available in that country. Or every single aviation regulation. Or electrical code standard. Or restriction on industrial chemicals.
Just point to even one.
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What you and i_ate_god miss is that democracies without a "strong president" don't have someone who "can make so many sweeping changes by executive order."
In a parliamentary democracy, for example, the government is run by a collection of ministries (similar to departments) each of which are headed by a minister, plus a prime minister who co-ordinates the ministers, all of them sitting in the house of commons. Think of it like Congress having the head of each department as a sitting member, with the majorit
Re: Whiplash (Score:2)
Spot on. The problem in the US is the president having too much power and, evidently, too high a bar preventing their removal. "Prime Minister" was first used mockingly, because the PM doesnâ(TM)t actually have any power constitutionally speaking. They can only govern so long as they can command a majority and since they arenâ(TM)t directly elected it's much easier for them to get the boot if their party happens to elect someone who is utterly feckless or bat shit insane.
Re: Whiplash (Score:2)
Come visit Washington State. Where a lot of that is decided by citizen's initiatives or the courts*. There is no way for congresional representatives or their staffs to understand the minutia of any topic without help from experts. Those experts are often within regulatory agencies. But quite often inside the industries being regulated (Boeing, for example). The telecoms need $42 billion for rural broadband. We'll just take them at their word that $40 billion isn't for executive salaries and a new corporate
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There's a difference between "subsidizing" and "regulating."
Example: there is no subsidy happening when the FAA tells Boeing to park 737-MAX airplanes because parts fall off of them. Without the FAA having regulatory authority to do so, we would STILL be waiting for Congress to do something about door plugs falling out while in flight.
Get fucking serious.
Re: Whiplash (Score:2)
You know, if Congress consulted with experts before drafting laws, they could bake the experts advice into the legislation, rather than pretending they did something by merely authorizing someone else to do something later.
But yes, I do expect lower house of government, each with their staffs comprised of several dozen staffers to know what bills they vote on will do.
Re: Whiplash (Score:2)
Which democratic government has no regulatory body? Which democratic government crafts laws with that much specificity?
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Re: Whiplash (Score:5, Informative)
"Congress writes laws giving federal agencies powers to write regulations, instead of Congress doing its job and writing those regulations as law."
No. That is a lie as written. Giving agencies the power to write regulations IS Congress' job. It is impossible for them to handle all of the regulations themselves, and they are not qualified for that anyway.
Re: Whiplash (Score:2)
If public health policy is your example of successful agency action....
Well MTG or AOC or any other airhead in congress couldn't do much worse.
Re: Whiplash (Score:2)
Why can't the PHds tell the congressmen and senators what's needed, and that gets written into the law?
We pass laws that say things like "we hereby allocate $7.5BN for EV chargers" and then rely on middle-managers to bring all their biases and priorities into how they spend our money, with disastrous results. Three years ago $7.5BN was allocated for EV chargers, now we've seen 50 chargers installed as regulators try to define the perfectly diverse contractors to install them, and racially-diverse locations
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Why can't we just build the damn things? Who said that this project has to address hundreds of years of social mistreatment of certain populations?
Tell us more about your support for institutional racism.
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The solution is to write the important ideas into law.
It takes both congressional houses to create those laws in the first place, so unless a party has has a majority in both houses, or there is some aisle jumping, those laws aren't going to get enacted in the first place.
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I believe some famous American once said something about parties and partisanship being a bad idea.
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Sure. And that guy died like 200 years ago.
In the subsequent time, a lot of ambitious people figured out the only reliable way for them to attain the power they desire is through collective action, otherwise known as political parties.
And now the most grasping motherfucker in American history has been re-elected by a feckless party who is collectively too busy cowering in the corner afraid to lose their ambitions to do the right thing, completely forgetting that bravery and leadership are still respected.
D
Re: Whiplash (Score:2)
Wow, you are showing your youth!
As a person born in the sixties, I clearly remember when legislation wasn't considered as purity tests for party loyalty, people would craft a bill, and to get bipartisan support you would offer politicians on the other side to add amendments to fund things they wanted to get them to fund things you wanted.
When Obama took office, some republicans announced publicly that they were going to thwart his policy initiatives, and democrats wailed like stuck pigs about how wrong that
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com]
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Perfect.
Misses increasing complexity for 100 years (Score:3)
A simpler exercise would be to see if the general public and politicians can agree to a few Yes/NO questions
1. Are they any parts of what the government does which should be cut? Yes/NO
2. Are there any parts of what the government does which should be expanded? Yes/NO
3. Should citizens have less or more freedom? Yes/NO
4. Should government be careful in its policies and spending? Yes/NO
These are Yes/NO questions in particular so that we can get to a reasoned discussion for the questions:
What the government s
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This is a pretty good sign that there is too much "power" centralized in the federal government.
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And not a single penny will be cut from any program where money flows through to Musk. Guaranteed.
Re: Whiplash (Score:2)
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Yeah, it really is too bad that there is no incentive to make screws and toothbrushes... ah well, guess I will have to burn this money that I was going to use for such things...
Re:Whiplash (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems to me that the democrats are actually trying to help the majority of the country as a whole. Sure there are always going to be some far left programs but the net result seems positive. But with the rise of maga and 'trumps america', the republicans only care about dismantling or blocking programs that have any association with the democratic party. And most of their changes are much more beneficial to the high net worth population and large corporations. It just boggles my mind that incoming administrations aren't able to look at the real merits of programs instead of party associations.
Re: Whiplash (Score:3)
Modern Democrats talk a good game, but their follow-thru is horrible (go read the summary), and they toss money around like debt is a virtue.
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There's is a small but vocal faction that doesn't like the smooth functioning of government. They want the system to break so that they can tear it down and rebuild it a different way. Imagine a future where MTG drafts us a new Constitution. Probably won't happen, but it's the dream for some.
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That's why it's more important than ever that we have a dictator for life. I nominate Al Sharpton.
Re: Whiplash (Score:2)
One thing that might help would be to limit a president to one term and extend it to six years. That way no time is spent campaigning and no policy is enacting with campaigning in mind.
"We're from the Government and we're here to help" (Score:5, Interesting)
"A $42 billion expansion of broadband internet service...."
The US Government could literally purchase a Starlink terminal + 12 months of service for every single rural household in the United States for half the cost of this program.
Yes, that is ridiculous, but it is still highly illustrative of how wasteful these programs are.
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Sure, but "as typical of government, he wasted lots and lots of money doing things of questionable value" would not make the story long enough to get paid for.
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Considering over $1 trillion of taxpayer money has been handed over to private industry for this very purpose, how about we tell them to do what they were paid to do?
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I'm pretty sure that the money paid so far was not to buy Starlink service for people without broadband connections. What did the recipients of that money fail to deliver on ("what they were paid to do")? Or are you suggesting that we tell companies to do things they already did?
You should instead look to why the government spent that trillion dollars didn't get the job done. The government is in charge of writing contracts for private entities to execute, overseeing that execution, and deciding whether
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Providers have been given taxpayer money to build out rural broadband service, among other things. They keep making excuses why they aren't doing it and in some cases stating they will not do so.
Yes, the government should be holding them to the contract, but at the same time companies can't plead they don't have the resources.
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Please be specific. Which rural broadband contacts have not been fulfilled? Where are the specific excuses that you refer to?
Re: "We're from the Government and we're here to h (Score:2)
The government makes a pile of money available for rural broadband, but the regulatory hurdles are massive, and the candidates for the service can cost tens of thousands of dollars to wire their homes for broadband. The govt keeps redefining what level of service is required to serve people that only have dial-up currently.
Don't confuse Congress allocating funds with telcos accepting the money to perform the service. There are countless billions in unspent "rural broadband" initiative money sitting in gover
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Yes, and what do they do next year after they've just given Elon a pile of cash? What happens in 10 years time?
Or do you suggest that giving $21b till the end of time is a good idea?
Re: "We're from the Government and we're here to h (Score:2)
Er... do you think rural households get free internet from Verizon/etc under these programs? They still pay monthly fees.
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And what happens if Starlink then raises their prices? What happens when that year is done? What happens if Starlink stops operating some day? Then 100% of that money is wasted.
You are advocating for buying generators for people rather than stringing power lines that will work for 100 years regardless of the provider. That's incredibly foolish. Lay fiber lines that work on standards that anyone can use, and then lease the fiber to operators. Oh look, now that infrastructure will pay for itself on an a
Re: "We're from the Government and we're here to h (Score:2)
What happens when Verizon or AT&T or whomever else is going to get this money rises their prices?
Strawman argument.
Re: "We're from the Government and we're here to (Score:2)
I just want to point out your incorrect use of the term strawman argument. If you want people to take you seriously, you should probably avoid that.
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The US Government could literally purchase a Starlink terminal + 12 months of service for every single rural household in the United States for half the cost of this program.
Yes, that is ridiculous, but it is still highly illustrative of how wasteful these programs are.
And in doing so collapse the Starlink network instantly via oversubscription. Yes it's ridiculous that even old school Slashdotters with low UI don't put even the slightest thought into their posts.
Re: "We're from the Government and we're here to h (Score:2)
I'll lay even money that a Starlink terminal doesn't qualify for federal broadband subsidies, because politicians carefully crafted the legislation to avoid a service like Starlink (owned by a conservative!) to ever get federal money.
Of course, nothing is stopping the underserved from just buying a goddam Starlink terminal, rather than with for an infrastructure buildout to reach their home...
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Or nationalize Starlink, that would be even cheaper.
Why do you think the government would run Starlink more efficiently than SpaceX does?
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The US is firmly in an oligarchy era now, the term is appropriate. They control US media, they own the levers of power, they run the mega corps.
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How the fuck is "dark jumpy" an appropriate term for Starlink?
You're white-knighting a guy who spent yesterday complaining about "Leon" because he couldn't bring himself to type "Elon".
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For worshiping a demagogue, you sure don't pay attention much.
You're barking up the wrong tree there, cupcake
This past weekend, the outgoing president and current Republican nominee unintentionally called the CEO of Twitter, "Leon" at a campaign speech in Wisconsin.
I've seen the "Leon" comments on here before, referring to Musk, but honestly wasn't interested enough to look it up. Forgive me for not being aware of the details of Trump's rallies. Being a dyed in the wool Democrat, you'd think that would be excusable..
It's sad how little you know.
Fuck you too.
Re: "We're from the Government and we're here to h (Score:2)
This past weekend, the outgoing president and current Republican nominee unintentionally called the CEO of Twitter, "Leon" at a campaign speech in Wisconsin.
Uh nominees are what parties run in the primaries, then the winner becomes the candidate, and after the election the winner is called "President Elect".
Trump hasn't been the 'nominee' since the Republican Convention, and has been President Elect since he won the electoral vote back in November...
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Pretty tough taking someone seriously, that has to refer to people with grade-school nicknames.
Indeed. [wikipedia.org]
The soft landing (Score:2, Informative)
Here's a video with the head of the US Federal Reserve planning 3.5m layoffs with zero plans to stop there [youtube.com]. He wanted a recession. He didn't get one.
You can thank Biden for that.
Also what's with this extremely bias headline? "What has X wrought" in English implies that X did a horrible thing.
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Also what's with this extremely bias headline? "What has X wrought" in English implies that X did a horrible thing.
A certain Mr. Bell (of telephone fame) begs to differ.
(Unless he foresaw people yakking on cell phones on airplanes.)
A certain Mr. Bell (of telephone fame) (Score:2)
The quote "What hath God wrought" is a reference to the first telegraph message, not telephone.
(Samuel Morse)
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Yep, stimulus works. Fiscal tightening + monetary tightening is a bad time.
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Did you read his report? He summarized the possibility of that many jobs lost; he didn't _plan_ it, nor was he seeking to make it happy. He's pulling a lever to contain inflation and, in his due diligence, recognized the risk of lost jobs. He also recognized the risk of lost jobs and more if he didn't recommend pulling that lever.
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Also what's with this extremely bias headline? "What has X wrought" in English implies that X did a horrible thing.
Agreed. Seems like Politico is complaining that the Biden Administration hasn't given the money away fast enough, but you just don't give this away willy-nilly and legitimate, not to mention sustainable, factories and companies can't be stood up in the blink of an eye and you don't want to just give them money until you're confident they'll deliver. Anyone remember the Foxconn failure in Wisconsin, that started under Trump? Here's a short timeline of Foxconn's plans and development in Wisconsin [jsonline.com]
Foxconn promised a $10 billion investment in Wisconsin and the creation of 13,000 jobs.
But the company pivoted away from the large screens and the 13,000 jobs never materialized. Instead, about 1,000 workers are now at the site assembling servers and other electronic products.
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He wanted a recession. He didn't get one.
He did not. On the other hand you want people to believe that's what the goal is rather than actually understanding what the Fed is doing and repeatedly over the past 2 years posting the same bullshit, and repeatedly having your bullshit put in it's place.
You have had two years to read some of the basic rules of economics being followed, being linked to you, you've had two years to understand the policy. You've put no effort in, despite many people her attempting to educate you on why the Fed did what they
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"Biden benefited from Trump's efforts to blunt the effects of the pandemic. "
LOL that is the most ridiculous thing that could possibly be said. Trump's efforts were to make the effects worse for Democrats. It was the Congress that passed spending bills, and those were bipartisan. Biden not only inherited NO plan to deploy a vaccine for the pandemic, the Trump administration illegally refused the Biden team a proper transition plan. Everything Trump did was to make Biden's situation worse, and that culmi
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You are one-percenter, the top 1% of most ignorant MAGA supporters in existence.
I'm assuming you are posting on the internet from the USA, if so then you are almost certainly in the top 1% of wage earners in the world.
I do wish this class warfare would stop. If you have access to the internet then it's a good bet that you are living a pretty decent life. Maybe you aren't in the top 1% but then it's the top 5%.
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Are you sure about that? Nowadays, to be able to SURVIVE in most 'first world' countries, you are REQUIRED to have an internet connection. Without it, you can't find proper jobs, do your taxes, act on health care/insurance or manage your debit/savings/credit account. It's nowadays even more necessary than having physical money. If you have internet and banking, at least you can pay for most goods or services electronically. You have to pay extra nowadays to big corporations if you use hard currency because
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Which is completely irrelevant in a conversation about politics in the United States.
It doesn't matter if the poorest person in the US is still far better off than some poor downtrodden soul in Uganda. Absolutely irrelevant in this context.
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Yawn. Get talking points that haven't been debunked. Ideally, get talking points that haven't already been debunked in this thread. For example, the WSJ report I mentioned earlier describes how the White House cover-up of Biden's incapacity goes back to at least the spring of 2021: "[Biden] has good days and bad days, and today was a bad day so we're going to address this tomorrow." https://www.theweek.in/news/wo... [theweek.in]
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And what's your excuse for including incoherent gibberish like that in your posts?
Re:The soft landing (Score:5, Insightful)
honestly who is it with the credibility problem?
All the people around him. All the media, who according to their own retrospective [rollingstone.com] now have to explain why they look "gullible and wrong" compared to "so many people with no sources and no inside info" -- because otherwise they look like part of a conspiracy to cover it up. All the people who said [realclearpolitics.com] things like "This version of Biden intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever. Not a close second" or that Joe Biden is "sharp as a tack." [thehill.com]
Who else has credibility problems? All the fact checkers who, even before the 2020 election [politifact.com] but after a campaign run mostly from his basement, with mid-day caps and every public appearance heavily scripted, said "Biden does not exhibit signs of dementia."
Such Nineteen Eighty-Four. Very MiniTrue. So
The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
It was gaslighting in the truest sense.
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Why is there so much focus on Biden's mental state, and not on the much worse situation with his opponent?
It was years of... claims that Biden is too old (Score:3)
His performance at the debate v Trump was devastating; after that he had to go. The sad thing is the degree to which those around him failed to prevent his seeking reelection earlier. They are the ones most responsible for giving the world four more years of Trump...
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He absolutely does. I have POA for a relative who was diagnosed with severe dementia, and that relative is mentally more with it than Biden is. You can read things like the recent Wall Street Journal report about it for more details, including admissions that the problems go back to at least 2021. Other long-term Democrat groupies have said that Biden was clearly worse in 2020 than in 2017.
Joe Biden's personal physician has refused to give Biden a cognitive exam. It's not because the guy who referred to
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Joe Biden's personal physician has refused to give Biden a cognitive exam. It's not because the guy who referred to his Secretary of Defense as "the guy who runs that outfit over there" -- when Biden came up blank for the names of both Lloyd Austin and the Department of Defense -- is clearly with it. It's because he knows what the results would say, and that recognizing the President as mentally incapable would trigger a constitutional crisis.
Do you ever tell the truth? You have any proof of anything you say? Or do we just take the word of some high school drop out loony Leon-loving right wing nutjob? [whitehouse.gov]
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has told reporters that the president has never been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, dementia or any similar degenerative neurological disorder. The White House says the president has undergone a neurological exam three times since becoming president, as a part of each of his annual physicals at
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No, that's them leading you around by the nose.
The easiest way to never be diagnosed with X is to never be tested for it, and Biden has never been tested for dementia or Alzheimer's. There are a ton of neurological exams that won't tell you about cognitive decline. Let's see relevant results that are specific to cognitive function: MoCA or something at least that comprehensive.
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As if that is going to matter in three weeks. Remember Trump's first term was all about undoing everything Obama did; didn't matter why he did it, whether he was mentally competent, whether it was a Good Thing, whether all he DID with it was put a scribble on the final page of a proposal longer than War and Peace; what mattered was that Obama made it so it was Bad(tm) and had to be removed.
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Those that can be laid off from the federal government should be laid off. The federal government isn't there to give people money for make-work. If you want welfare reform push for that.
What does the GP post (or linked video) have to say about federal government jobs or layoffs? The answer is ... nothing. What are you on about?
Buy a Clue Already. (Score:4, Interesting)
A $42 billion expansion of broadband internet service has yet to connect a single household.
You could have started with this statement and gotten to the Biden-wrought answer a lot faster. How many fucking times are taxpayers going to pay for that broadband expansion? Look at every other time we didn’t connect a single household, and you’ll start to understand why billions spent by Government, doesn’t mean progress. What it does mean, is Greed N. Corruption is still in charge. Milking and laundering taxpayer dollars through “expansion” programs.
Again.
But don’t take my word on it. Instead, let’s ask Forbes in 6 months what the net worth of the Big Guy is. After serving in a job (supposedly) paying “only” $400K/year.
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They keep doing the same thing over and over because they don't understand the Embedded Growth Obligation and the self-perpetuation of buracracy.
These ideas predict exactly what we see. If a bureaucrat is hired to expand broadband and he gets everybody hooked up then he doesn't have that job.
A state-level Infrastructure Department might just be able to assign "broadband expansion" to a bureaucrat and have him move on to another project when it's done.
The Federales have no business attempting this. Remembe
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Its not laundering money. Its printing money. Completely different grift.
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Look at every other time we didn’t connect a single household
The only way to not connect a single household is to cancel a project mid way. You seem to be under the impression that 9 woman could give birth to a baby in a month and that a big number on infrastructure spending means fast rollout. Don't be that daft.
But you are right, no house will be connected to this, since President Musk is going to scrap this the moment his lackey takes office on Jan 21th ensuring that everything that was spent will remain wasted. It will help validate their claim (and yours) all th
As many times as it takes (Score:2)
The Dems are very good at running a country. They are terrible at politics. The Repubs outmaneuver them again and again and manage to get you blaming the Dems for what the Repubs did.
It's so common that it was major news in the political world when Joe Biden managed to blame the Republicans for trying to shut dow
Very president centric (Score:2)
It could have been Biden or Trump or Jesus risen from the grave. If you try and harm or remotely threaten the monopoly powers of oil companies or telecoms etc they will resist.
Companies supplying petrol ("gas") that cannot profit from EV sales will fight tooth an nail. A harging network across the country is like cancel for them.
Telecoms and others will always fight whoever it is. If it's via bribes AKA "lobbying" or their armies of lawyers to drown efforts in bureaucracy it's all the same.
If your emp
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It could have been Biden or Trump or Jesus risen from the grave. If you try and harm or remotely threaten the monopoly powers of oil companies or telecoms etc they will resist. Companies supplying petrol ("gas") that cannot profit from EV sales will fight tooth an nail. A harging network across the country is like cancel for them. Telecoms and others will always fight whoever it is. If it's via bribes AKA "lobbying" or their armies of lawyers to drown efforts in bureaucracy it's all the same. If your empire relies on consumption of product/service X and some presedeint red or blue is gonna harm that what would you do? -Corporate intersts are such that they'll screw the taxpayer, the little guy and or the government and each other because that's a given. Cue big surprise on what Biden has "wrought" - bring in the other guy. He'll do so much better because...uhm...?
Delete parent please. I've reposted - because a dyslexic typing results in typos...FFS /. needs an edit option.
Sometimes the president makes little difference (Score:2)
It could have been Biden or Trump or Jesus risen from the grave. If you try and harm or remotely threaten the monopoly powers of oil companies or telecoms etc they will resist.
Companies supplying petrol ("gas") that cannot profit from EV sales will fight tooth and nail. A charging network across the country is like cancer for them.
Telecoms and others will always fight whoever it is. If it's via bribes AKA "lobbying" or their armies of lawyers to drown efforts in bureaucracy it's all the same.
If your e
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In the neoliberal/neocon world, the purpose of govt spending is to hand out money to those who paid the campaign bill. If the telecoms paid a part of the bill, they get "broadband initiative" money. If defence contractors paid a part of the bill, they got to build Obamacare. Which as we remember basically had to be built again, because who on earth has defence contractors write web services. I guarantee you, whoever is building the charger network got their hand in the pie the same way. Look into any of the
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> I would like to hear a research-based story on why so few charging stations have been built.
Because the money is released on a set schedule (not all of it has been released yet) and when released by the Federal government it is given to the states to administer, so the states then have to take applications from private companies, vet and approve those applications, and then the sites actually start to get designed which will require local approvals and utility coordination before they can break ground
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Answer: bureaucracy.
The federal program merely gave funding to states' plans - plans that States had to draft and submit to the federal Department of Transportation for sign-off, and then they get the block grant to start buying stuff and constructing things.
The federal government has no jurisdiction to just start planting chargers in the ground unless they're doing it on federal land that they already own. States do, so the States have to do the work. If you have a problem with the speed of it, take it u
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If wind, solar, and EV charging stations were profitable, oil companies would invest more. It's simple economics; it's simple business.
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Except they have a MASSIVE investment in petro infrastructure that they don't want to write off. All those oil rigs, oil plants, oil tankers... An oil company wants the transition to non-oil to happen at no faster then the natural depreciation pace of their infrastructure. Otherwise they are left with a $5-15B oil refinery that still has useful life left but is not generating income. That refinery was built on the expectation that it would process oil for 75+ years.
So, even if a $ invested in renewables wi
One fix that would help slightly (Score:4, Insightful)
The U.S. ought to be run on two-year budgets. It would smooth out appropriations and allow DoD and other agencies to plan. Right now, they lose money with every continuing resolution in addition to allowing the pols two shots at gaming the system per every 2 years instead of one.
On a different note, they can stop with the tax decreases. When Kennedy did it, the tax rates were way too high, so he got a big bang for his buck. However, since Reagan they have been designed for the Billionaires Club as a reward for campaign contributions (and other "contributions"). Giving them more money isn't going to do squat for the economy. And now those assholes will be in charge of the government agencies. Situations change. Once a pol learns a trick, s/he thinks they can repeat it ad nauseum well after the conditions that enabled it to work the first time have changed.
If tax decreases cause prosperity since Reagan, the U.S. wouldn't be in the debt hole it is in.
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The state I live in uses a biennial budgeting and appropriation process. It's still a shit show of ridiculous bad-faith arguments and dipshit parliamentary rule fights and obstruction.
Technically the federal budget is a 10-year document, where appropriations bills have to be passed during the fiscal. And the realized spending at the end of the 10 years NEVER matches the budget because there's always changes in Congress or the administration, or even priorities that cause the budget to get rewritten basica
We needed more people like Andrew Yang (Score:2)
I recall the 2020 primaries for POTUS and seeing Andrew Yang say a lot of nice things about nuclear power. His comments forced other candidates to weigh in on nuclear power. Most of the candidates picked a very straightforward message of being in support or opposition of nuclear power. Then were the "elder statesmen" like Biden and Warren that tried to split the baby and make nonsense comments like a need to keep existing nuclear power plants open but build no new reactors.
It's because Japan took the pol
Hard to ascribe accomplishments or failures (Score:2)
Biden was slurring his words and was confused about his whereabouts when he entered the race in 2019.
Since the election, several articles in WSJ and NYT have documented how his staff cocooned him for the entirety of his term.
Who the fuck knows whose successes and whose failures were pinned on him as the titular president.
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Not that I've heard. On the other hand, it's *documented* that Trump slurs, and more than once was recorded lisping. these are *clear* signs that he's having regular mini-strokes. He also can't maintain a coherent thought.
Here's $1 if he doesn't have a massive stroke in the next two years.
The IRA heat pump rebates start this coming year! (Score:2)
Why more than two years? Too much bureaucracy.
What he will be remembered for is runaway inflation because he decided to threaten Big Oil and they retaliated by simply taking more profits at the expense of everything else in the economy, then the dementia that was evident pre-election finally getting so bad he is now an embarrassm
Biden? Personally? Nothing. (Score:2)
Biden? Personally? Nothing. Nothing at all.
His handlers, though, have pushed through all sorts of unappetizing things the mainstream has *no* taste for, that benefit only a slim range of people.
And this is why they ultimately lost the presidency. In their effort to coddle, placate and pander to the marginalized, they lost the support of the majority. They lost Joe and Jane Sixpack. All because they wanted to pander and guilt-trip the malleable softies into supporting their marginal cases.
I was going to
This was all window dressing (Score:3)
These trillion dollar programs were never intended to do what the voters were told they were going to do. It was always a massive money laundering scheme combined with a scam to add more items to a budget that never gets cut. That's called baseline budgeting. Whenever politicians bleat about budget cuts, they're actually only talking about cuts to proposed increases. The programs themselves never go away. Civil servants never get fired or downsized or laid off.
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You mean the government which bailed out Tesla and which continues to provide subsidies?