[Zipperfish]

Pseudonym wrote:

I'm far more willing to give money to myself than to either of them. There is something to be said for the benefits of promoting culture as well as education and a literal ton of other things, but all these things must be done carefully and reasonably. Government corruption and ignorance will ruin anything if left to fester too long. I hate to bring up an overused example, but the NEA funding a jar of urine with the cross in it as a piece of art is just ridiculous.

Question: How much, precisely, was the government subsidy to the urine in the jar fiasco. Give it to me as a percentage of, say, $700 billion.

[Pseudonym]

Point well-taken, but can't I hate them wasting my money either way?

Take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves and all that, ya know. Only several orders of magnitude up from that.

[HyperionTheEvil]

Quote:

"I do think there's something severely wrong with the government supporting "art" that no one wants, but I have no problem with government as a rational consumer of art. If government buys art it deems beautiful in order to decorate public places or populate museums, great! But why is it government's role to be the willing stooge to avant-garde mockery by the artists it funds? A few hundreds of millions out of a multi-trillion-dollar budget is hardly a budget-breaker"

A 'rational' buyer of Art? So. The do it already unfortunately, frankly the artists involved should be more than happy to donate thier pieces to the country. Art is simply a luxury, and a highly specialized one at that. Not to mention that one man's art is another man "piss christ", so who within the prospective government makes the choice of what is consumer and avant-garde?

And really I would rather have those paltry few-hundred millions for Health Care, Education and the Military. Essentially if someone wants to be an artist , get used te being poor, artists estates get rich after Thier dead. Or create something that sells

The Taxpayer has no need of hundreds of millions flushed to feed the so-called 'arts' community

[HyperionTheEvil]

Zipperfish wrote:

Pseudonym wrote:

I'm far more willing to give money to myself than to either of them. There is something to be said for the benefits of promoting culture as well as education and a literal ton of other things, but all these things must be done carefully and reasonably. Government corruption and ignorance will ruin anything if left to fester too long. I hate to bring up an overused example, but the NEA funding a jar of urine with the cross in it as a piece of art is just ridiculous.

Question: How much, precisely, was the government subsidy to the urine in the jar fiasco. Give it to me as a percentage of, say, $700 billion.

15,0000 $ too much

[Zipperfish]

HyperionTheEvil wrote:

Zipperfish wrote:

Pseudonym wrote:

I'm far more willing to give money to myself than to either of them. There is something to be said for the benefits of promoting culture as well as education and a literal ton of other things, but all these things must be done carefully and reasonably. Government corruption and ignorance will ruin anything if left to fester too long. I hate to bring up an overused example, but the NEA funding a jar of urine with the cross in it as a piece of art is just ridiculous.

Question: How much, precisely, was the government subsidy to the urine in the jar fiasco. Give it to me as a percentage of, say, $700 billion.

15,0000 $ too much

But the 700 billion is fine by you, right?

[HyperionTheEvil]

Zipperfish wrote:

But the 700 billion is fine by you, right?

How bout we split the difference and give them nothing, and while were at it it privatize the CBC

[DerbyX]

Pseudonym wrote:

Point well-taken, but can't I hate them wasting my money either way?

Take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves and all that, ya know. Only several orders of magnitude up from that.

What about the people who think their money is wasted in afghanistan? What about the people who think their money is wasted by giving it to people in the form of baby bonuses and such.

Everybody can honestly say they don't support the govt spending some of their tax money on something.

[Pseudonym]

DerbyX wrote:

Pseudonym wrote:

Point well-taken, but can't I hate them wasting my money either way?

Take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves and all that, ya know. Only several orders of magnitude up from that.

What about the people who think their money is wasted in afghanistan? What about the people who think their money is wasted by giving it to people in the form of baby bonuses and such.

Everybody can honestly say they don't support the govt spending some of their tax money on something.

They can hate the government for that too, and vote as they see fit according to such things. More power to 'em. That is one of the wonders of democracy.

[Zipperfish]

HyperionTheEvil wrote:

Zipperfish wrote:

But the 700 billion is fine by you, right?

How bout we split the difference and give them nothing, and while were at it it privatize the CBC

I just don't see why you're so irked bout 15K and yet all smiles about giving away 700 billion. Hey, and at elast teh taxpayer got a product for their 15K. What did they get for their 0.7 trillion--taxpayer funded luxury retreats for teh bankers. Waitaminnit--what oif teh bankers said that the their pedicures were art?

[Pseudonym]

I think he was implying that the 700 billion was not alright with him, if I am not mistaken.

[Zipperfish]

Pseudonym wrote:

DerbyX wrote:

Pseudonym wrote:

Point well-taken, but can't I hate them wasting my money either way?

Take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves and all that, ya know. Only several orders of magnitude up from that.

What about the people who think their money is wasted in afghanistan? What about the people who think their money is wasted by giving it to people in the form of baby bonuses and such.

Everybody can honestly say they don't support the govt spending some of their tax money on something.

They can hate the government for that too, and vote as they see fit according to such things. More power to 'em. That is one of the wonders of democracy.

You said it, pal!

[DerbyX]

Pseudonym wrote:

They can hate the government for that too, and vote as they see fit according to such things. More power to 'em. That is one of the wonders of democracy.

I'd love for the govt to include a little checklist of priorities that people can check off for where they want their funding to go and then see the gov't at least respond with some portion of the budget being divied up thusly.

[Pseudonym]

That would be very nice, because it would totally eliminate favors going to specific states, but there is also the fact that nothing else would get done, since people also hate the government touching their monies.

[DerbyX]

Pseudonym wrote:

That would be very nice, because it would totally eliminate favors going to specific states, but there is also the fact that nothing else would get done, since people also hate the government touching their monies.

At least it would provide the govt with stats about where people want their taxes to go. They collect tax forms and publish the numbers about where people list their top prioritites. They also publish a budget that should reflect those priorities.

Of course its logical to assume that such lists won't be all encompasing and the govt has issues that arise suddenly or that must be funded even if people don't put it high up.

If anything it may make people feel the govt is listening to them and responding.

[Pseudonym]

What I particularly enjoy are situations where the public is seen to actually affect the outcome of Congressional votes. The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill (McCain-Kennedy Act) is one good example, and the first bailout is another. Too bad they managed to add enough goodies to that monstrosity to get it through.