Our government is going broke, and not because of "defense spending". Defense spending takes up 5% of the annual budget. We're going broke because we're subsidizing the laziness of half the country.

Okay, you're right. It was actually 20% for FY 2010, according to the Wikipedia pie chart. The other spending went to Medicare & Medicaid (23%), Social Security (20%), Net interest, "Other mandatory", and discretionary. Thanks for making me look that up. I still feel justified in my comment.

And the "ignorant" door seems to swing both ways. We can all mount up on our own high horses and think we have a circumspect view of the situation, but no idea, however high minded it may be in its basic conception, is without its flaws. On principle, we as free-minded people should all fearsomely guard against any agent that would seek to limit our liberty, or constrain us in our basic freedoms. I find it shocking that so many in our country would subjugate one group of people for the so-called benefit of another group.

"defense spending takes up 5% of the annual budget"



bwahahahaha

According to this one, defense spending was 6% in 2010. I suppose it all boils down to what your definition of defense spending is.



http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_brief.php



bwahahahaha

the fact that you believed that the annual spending for defense was 5% no matter WHERE you saw it is beyond excusing yourself, Andrew Pace.



bwahahahaha

@Andrew Pace

At least read your own sources. That article states it's 6% of GDP, not 6% of spending.

In that same article, right at the top in the introduction it states spending at the moment is 40% of GDP.

Duplicate

Whatever. I'm done. Sorry to have bothered you all.



Cheers.

Or the "occupation."

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra_loan_controversy



The first few lines are all you need to read about "just some of the ways the federal government spent your tax dollars"

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And BP hasn't cost us a dime...



Gotta love how people think conservatards are incapable of wasting money and always see the just uses when they do.

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Again, it isn't the government's responsibility to preserve video games. It should be done by those that love and appreciate them.

Again, it's not about preserving games; it's about preserving the history of them.

Here here!!

Personally, my view is that a privately funded program is more likely to be biased than a publically funded program - after all, the latter is more likely to get a benefactor who's willing to donate $amount *IF* it's spent on what the benefactor views as important.



Then too, commercial entities have generally not done a good job of preserving TV, movies, books or music, compared to the efforts of non-commercial entities such as the Library of Congress...

/agree

@Andrew Pace



It's "Hear, hear". That saying is derived from the the parliamentary call "Hear he, hear he".



/obligatory history lesson

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Eh, have you ever heard of contingency planning? Politicians are fickle masters that shouldn't be relied upon. The sane business model is to assume that any money you're getting from the government could evaporate at any time, and plan around finding alternative sources of funding to replace that government money.

Politicians are like diapers, they need to be changed often and for the same reason. ;-)

I'm amazed you managed to last this long. My eyes are already bleeding.

Ya, institutions like this are needed to build trends and foster the vintage game market. It helps boost the public profile of our industry and lend legitimacy to industry professions and the people who go into games as a career choice.



The Smithsonian recently had its video game history exhibit and Kickstarter helped these guys http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/37003/Video_Game_History_Museu
m_Reaches_Kickstarter_Funding_Goal.php so there's definitely a viable market as long as it's nurtured properly.

He did.



"...as being among 100 "unnecessary, duplicative and low-priority projects" that the federal government spent money on in 2011."

No he didn't.



That's just a fact.



What he did was cherry pick $30 billion dollars worth of the ones that make for good sound bites. Clearly most of these are frivolous and unnecessary, but my quick read through found some that seemed worthy... at least debateably so in terms of international good will.



Following is the LINK to the actual document. NOTE It doesn't look anything like a congressional "REPORT" you'd expect to read. It looks more like a politician's re-election campaign handout. Of course his senate seat is not open for election until 2014, but some still consider Coburn a dark horse candidate for the Presidency in 2012.



http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public//index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File
_id=b69a6ebd-7ebe-41b7-bb03-c25a5e194365



So this begs the question... he could only find $30 billion dollars worth of unnecessary spending? That's not gonna solve the budge woes!!! Not even remotely close.



Laina Lain is right in that he does NOT point out the enormous waste in the military budget for things the military doesn't even want... nor does he point out subsidies to various corporations which all quickly total up to vastly more than $30 billiion dollars. It was recently reported that $60 billion dollars had been "lost" to fraud and waste in Iraq related war spending alone. Talk about OUTRAGEOUS...

While you make some excellent arguments for why this work needs to be done, you make no such arguments for why the Federal Government needs to step outside its clearly defined Constitutional limits to use tax payer money to fund it. Art preservation is not part of the government's responsibility.

I think he did make the argument. It (film preservation) didn't get adequately done otherwise!



"Art preservation is not part of the government's responsibility."



Nice ideological point of view there. What about health research, science, museums of flight and war history? Institutions, organizations and museums across the country in these areas and more receive grants every year. Does it matter to you that most Americans are in favor of government assistance in many of these areas?



Collectively the arts, science and health research are vital to a healthy functioning and prosperous society. They all lean on one another and depend on one another. People have forgotten the value of interdisciplinary arts and sciences in strengthening a nation. That is certainly a part of government's responsibility. You need only scan the globe for countries with poor focus in these areas to find the ones we call third world countries. People forget that before being smart was uncool, the focus on education in the US helped create the intelligent and creative work force that spurred all sorts of achievements and innovations that helped propel this young country into economic hyperdrive compared to the rest of the world. (the capitalists will cry "no, it was our free markets!" Well capitalism provided motivation, but the vehicle was the availability of (at the time) world class public education)



Where is the Supreme Court ruling declaring these sorts of grants unconstitutional?



Ultimately the government is responsible for what the people say it is. For example, even the almighty US Constitution can be (and has been) amended.

Zachary if you say it is unconstitutional, I say we need to start a movement to create an amendment that gives the US government the right to promote the preservation of history, the arts, and the sciences.

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Michael,



We don't need a supreme court ruling. We have a Constitution that clearly outlines the role of the Federal Government. Please point to the clause that gives the federal government the authority to use tax payer money to fund a museum of any sort? Just because it has never been challenged does not make it Constitutional.



I don't doubt the importance of the work, but it should be done by the citizens.

I would say that assuming it IS constitutional sans any lawsuits is more likely to be correct than your stance of assuming it's illegal despite never having been challenged.



--

re: Please point to the clause that gives the federal government the authority...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Welfare_clause



“WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, INSURE DOMESTIC TRANQUILITY, provide for the common defense, PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”



and



Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution refers to the “general welfare” thus: “The Congress shall have the Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. . .”



But you already knew I was going to refer to these...

----



I would say ensuring domestic tranquility is a form of national security and that social programs, federally funding for public schools and college tutition grants, etc all help to ensure domestic tranquility (no riots, mass protests, etc) and provide for the general welfare of citizens. But you probably won't agree.



Your turn. Please point to the clause that gives the federal government the authority to draft you into the military? To build maintain roads and bridges? Please point to the clause that gives the federal government the authority to do food inspections or require safety labels and require food distributors to list ingrediant and nutritional info? Where do they ahve the authority to require doctors to be licensed to provide service? The launching of weather satellites and monitoring of the climate and oceans? Federal Aviation Administration? Environmental Protection Agency? (if you want to know what it looks like to not have an EPA at all, look at China)



I suspect you feel all this too is unconstitutional.



I would bet that if there was some US Supreme Court decision that suddenly made all of these things illegal, the very next thing you'd see is a bi-partisan movement to amend the constitution to allow for all of them. The states would not want to have to take on these seperate responsibilities themselves because without the fed gov doing it, they'd have to do it cooperatively somehow. The Corporations would be pushing for an amendment because they'd be afraid of 50 sets of state regulations taking the place of 1. The corporations would be against you on this one. Would you be ok with this if there was a Constitutional Amendment making it unambigiously legal? I suspect not.



There's also the simple reality that we've arrived where we are today because of the US Constitution. Everything that exists today that you are against (the things you consider unconstitutional) is because of the US Constitution and not inspite of it. You may say "No, the Constitution isn't the problem, it's the people!" to which i would say that is not logical. People are imperfect which means the implementation of the governmetn would be imperfect. The office holders would be imperfect. The Constitution cannot be perfect if it doesn't account for all this imperfection to help ensure an implementation that is resilient to what would surely be a barrage of attacks from all conceivable angles.



A specification that relies on smart, wise, good, loyal, unselfish, patriotic human beings to function is not much of a specification. It might as well say



"Following this Constitution will lead to a renegade government in the not too distant future. ADOPT AT YOUR OWN RISK" at the bottom.



If still you're essentially going to just say "everybody who thinks like you is wrong. it's unconstitutional because it's not listed in there."



My final response if you feel that way is you'd better to learn to live with the idea that your federal government has gone completely renegade and you are powerless to stop it because insufficient people think the way you do.



Do you think without federal funding for public schools people would be more or less likely to be manipulated by the renegade government into perpetuating it's renegade policies? Dropout rate is bad enough as is, I wonder how much worse it'd be with no public schools. Of course that would never actually happen. Invariably wind up with state funded public schools (because who wants uneducated kids who have no real responsibilities hanging out with nothing to do all year round?) resulting in higher state taxes. But somehow I think the Libertarians wouldn't like 100% state funded public schools either. They'd still be paying taxes for the benefit of "other people." They loath that. They can never be convinced that social programs actually benefit them indirectly by making this entire country a better place to live. This is why the whole "It's unconsititional!" argument is so empty. In actuality they don't want these programs funded at all - by the states neither but they are wrong if they don't realize the states would have to assume the full responsibility instead.



So _we_would_have_to_pay_for_it_one_way_or_another because the people demand it.



(So Dave Smith, you wouldn't get to keep your tax money afterall.)



However, if you're in favor of (more or less) the sorts of regulations we have today, but you'd rather the states do it and are ok with paying higher state taxes in exchange for lower federal income taxes, then I think you'd be able to sell your position more effectively. It may actually wind up costing individuals a lot more overall, and businesses would have a much tougher time navigating 50 different sets of regulations, but the it could be argued that it would be better for constraining corporate influence of government. Tougher to bribe and help electr 50 state senators in each of 50 states than it is to corrupt the 495 congress people sent to the District of Columbia.

To all the people worshiping the "Constitution" as if it was some holy document that has never changed, it has. Many, many times, it has changed. Amendments to the constitution have been made expressly for the purpose of giving the government more authority than it originally had, and the founders designed the parliamentary process to be this way as a safe guard for the future. Something ideological libertarians refuse to acknowledge.



Bible-thump all you want, the Constitution never mentioned the Air Force, nuclear weapons, the stock market, or electronic warfare. Doesn't stop them from having all of that too, though. And ironically, you guys seem to have no problems with that.



Truth is, all this "but the Constitution didn't say that!" crap is just a convenient excuse for blatant greed. I don't think anybody who thinks libraries should be privatized knows the fallout of such a stupid idea. Kiss any books that criticized media companies goodbye as you get your 'no poor people allowed' text palace. I've yet to find anybody who can adequately envision what life would be like if everything but the military was handled by some corporation who is clearly doing something for reasons other than personal profit.



Go ahead, I dare any one of you hack philosophers to show me what this 'no government' dream society would look like and tell me how many people on this planet would actually go for it.

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And this $100K is not out of line with what the constitution allows the government to do. It has allowed the government to create social programs and spend money on them. End of story. The patriot act an affront to your civil liberties? Definitely. The creation and funding of museums and libraries? No.



And "bible-thumping" here refers to 'constitutionalists' treating the document as if it were the bible itself, or any religious text, for that matter. Replace it with "Constitution-thumping" if you want.

@Brenton, You are pushing your confirmation bias on others through exaggerated assumptions made clear via "bible thumping constitutionalists".



These people who you attempt to mock keep the foundation strong in what creates a constitutional republic. It goes back to the height of the Roman civilization, where the common law was above the people (including the politicians). Like any video game, it is the rule set which creates the limitations which in turn creates a stable and usable piece of software/social & economic order. The founders warned of democracy taking over, as it bubbles down to mob rule, they also warned of that same mob rule trying to change the constitution.



It is not supposed to be easily changed nor stray from its original path. You have to treat it as something, the law of the republic, its core, as something that is not changed or twisted by the mob, otherwise you destroy the purpose and foundation of that form of government. Historically it has been the strongest form of governance. Mankind has a good track record of, when relying on their own interpretation and desires, of messing everything up. It is why these documents, these LAWS (religion created the concept of law), must remain above the people. You call it "holy", but what does holy mean? Above ones self? Sacred? Special and honored. Yes it is both. It takes priority.



The laws of physics can be considered "Holy" in a way. If we had the power to constantly change it, there would only be chaos. So it and the people who support the stability of a constitutional republic deserve some level of respect. I do take some offense that you mock them for this. All it takes is looking at world history and finding those civilizations which prospered the most and in the most technologically advanced society. Check out the Greeks and Romans.

Michael,



I believe that a great deal of what the Federal Government is currently doing is unconstitutional. Over 3/4 of the Federal government's spending could be eliminated if we began adhering to the Constitution once again.



Will that mean that all those programs will end? Of course not. As the 10th amendment says, those powers not granted to the Federal Government are the domain of the states and the people. Let them handle the rest.



Now as for those that seem to think I am a "bible thumping constitutionalist", thanks for the complement. While I would love for the Federal Government to adhere strictly to the Constitution, I know that it is not perfect nor is it unchangeable. The Constitution can change as the citizens of the US wish for it to change. We have had many amendments to address the will of the people and that is fine. We have also taken on many things that are not strictly outlined within the Constitution but adheres to the spirit of certain clauses, eg the Airforce.



What I completely reject is the idea that we should bend the Constitution to comply to programs we set up. The Commerce clause is one of the more abused clauses. When it was written, it was meant for the Federal Government to act as a liason between the states to manage trade. Now it has been mutilated to give the Federal government sweeping authority to regulate all commerce whether intra or inter state. Same for the 2nd Amendment.



While this museum or any museum is a nice community good, it is not a federal responsibility. It can be managed quite well by the state within it resides or the city/county or even those people that are interested in it.



There is enough wealth within the games industry that this work could be funded into a new century. That is what needs to be tapped. Not the tax payer.

@Jonathan



I'd suggest you look at your own examples again. Neither of those societies had any form of a constitution, only a senate which wrote most of the laws, and an emperor who could make a law himself by executive order. And no, the common law was not above the politicians - it never is. The Roman senate assassinated their own emperor simply because they realized he wasn't a good fit - twice. And nobody was punished for the assassinations in either instance.



As for our own constitution, you're the only one that says it's "easily changed", and even if it is, it doesn't matter because it was designed to be changed. How easily? Have fun in that debate somewhere else. The founders knew times would change. They knew that countries have to evolve, rather than live in the dark ages forever. There are economic, war, and legal systems that exist now that simply didn't in their time, and they were well-aware that this could and would happen.



And there is nothing about physical "law" that is "holy". Physical laws aren't written, they're discovered. If something is found out to be wrong, then it's just plain wrong and that's the end of it. Whether or not society likes it is completely irrelevant. Science has no similarity with the art of law, so don't even try that here.



Also, we don't have a "constitutional republic", we have a democratic republic. So whatever happens in a "constitutional republic" isn't up for debate because that's not what exists here. Governing by democracy is exactly what's supposed to happen. You can mock it as mob rule if you want, but that's not reality, and you're only wasting your own time in doing so.



By the way, you're still side-stepping the issue of where all this magic money is going to come from to take care of society...

Let's put this in a clearer perspective... whining about $114,000, out of a budget of $3 trillion. First, the straight math... $114,000 is approximately 0.0000039% of the total budget.



Now, let us make this more relevant to those of us who seriously don't have the context to envision what $3 trillion is like.



This is less than one quarter of a cent from a budget of $60,000, which is something I'm sure most of us can identify with. Even from the budget of a millionaire, someone who has an annual income of $1,000,000 this only translates into 3.9 cents.



So, if you truly think that a millionaire is being reasonable to make a scene in a store over $0.04, I really don't want to ever hang out with you...that's just over the top whiny.

Anthony,



He lists this within a list of 100 of countless wasteful spending programs. While this one program is .0000039% of the total budget, this plus everything else that the federal government has no authority to spend on takes up quite a bit more.

42!



Wocka Wocka Wocka!



http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/66/Fozzie-bear.jpg

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Just about nothing that is passed by federal lawmakers ever receives direct voter support. Our only direct input is election of officials.



Our only recourse if we don't like their votes or actions is to cease voting for them in future elections.

We live in a republic...there are too many decisions to go to the public, which is why we have a representative democracy. Esp for something a small as $100K, given the size of the Federal budget. Theoretically the people of OK disapproved by proxy. Or will vote Coburn out, if enough of them care. Or will keep him around, if enough care. Unlikely either way.

I doubt collective townships of U.S. citizens have had THAT much guarenteed influence on state government legislation proceedings since the 1800s...

Absolutely correct.



But it's too bad Coburn doesn't give us the whole picture instead of just the side he wants us to hear.



This is a big part of what's wrong with our politics. The outwardly adversarial nature of the two big parties has been an



ongoing



national



tragedy.

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It's about greed. People think if they don't have to pay taxes, they'll all be rich and magic corporations will take care of everything.