gdp's Comments

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Mon, 8 Dec 2008 17:50:09 +0000

“Many programs have been proven to be effective and save more money than they cost the taxpayer.” This is very true. Unfortunately, money spent on prevention is often labeled as “wasteful spending” by some because the benefits often pay off in longer time frames, but the expense is immediate. When you talk about things that reduce potential criminal behavior, it is too easy to attack the program as being “soft on criminals” or “bleeding heart”. As I remember it, the data showed that midnight basketball programs, for example, actually reduced teen criminal activity. In short, they worked and cost much less than moving kids through the justice system. But the radio talk shows used it as an example of “liberal government run amok” without bothering to examine the actual results- so those programs got cut. It depresses me, but spending a dollar to prevent spending ten later on should be a much easier sell (politically) than it is. This is probably much more the case in things like mental illness and criminal behavior—there are some hard hearted people out there would rather talk tough than spend one dime actually working on the problem.

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Mon, 8 Dec 2008 16:22:10 +0000

I agree that State and Local conversations are critical. Here is what I would like to see. I’d like a system set up that would centralize what policies have been proposed or tried at the state and local level, and what the results were (good or bad). It should be easy enough that if you typed in “teen crime prevention” you would get a result of all the cities and states that had tried something related to that. Each city and state would be encouraged to list their projects – whether they worked well or not. I’d also like to see colleges/universities get involved by checking out the effectiveness of these programs. How much was spent? What were the results? What measurable figures went up or down? Instead of researching “academic” questions, they could see what areas people were asking for data on, and then go out and study those areas. This way we combine the power of these institution to do through analyses with the needs of the people trying to work out the solutions on the local level. In this way each person (be it a local citizen or a local lawmaker) could see what has already been tried, and propose something that builds on that rather than reinventing the wheel. I’d also like to see community rooms set up within the topics, so if your local group was working on an issue there would be one central (and free) place where you could exchange your ideas, look up research, and access federal resources.

Change.gov : Building the community: A guide to comments | Change.gov: The Obama-Biden Transition Team

Mon, 8 Dec 2008 15:07:04 +0000

Not sure why that word could cause a moderation trigger. I can’t think of any context where it would be inappropriate or disrespectful! Guess we will all have to learn the ins and outs of the system…

Change.gov : Building the community: A guide to comments | Change.gov: The Obama-Biden Transition Team

Mon, 8 Dec 2008 15:03:38 +0000

I think the reason they went with a third party system was that some people had voiced privacy concerns over the government having a list of subscribers to these boards. By having a third party control the signups and manage the mailing list, no governmental employee will have access to contact information. I do agree with the points about the usability of the current system.

Change.gov : Building the community: A guide to comments | Change.gov: The Obama-Biden Transition Team

Mon, 8 Dec 2008 02:22:06 +0000

Yes, there is technology which does exactly that.. relatively easily as it turns out.

I am working on a prototype mockup to show the folks at IntenseDebate that will have many of these features and I will post it when I finish.

I think the key would be to allow users that had earned a certain amount of points to be able to add tags to a posting. The more tags that were added, the more ways people could search (and find) the topics they were looking for.

Change.gov : Building the community: A guide to comments | Change.gov: The Obama-Biden Transition Team

Sat, 6 Dec 2008 20:45:24 +0000

We have fundamentally opposing views of government. I believe it ha a vital role to do the things that the "free market" will not do, and that people individually cannot do for themselves. You see it as something odious... to be "tolerated". In my opinion, this view has been thoroughly discredited by the current adminitration... and a lot of people now believe that there is a critical role for government to play.

Regardless, you still miss the point. When I said that there might be a way for government to provide either the same services at a lower cost, or offer more/better services for the same cost, that does NOT mean that there is a private sector "solution". If one government ageny ask you to fill out an application for a permit, and then another agency makes you fill out the very same form to do an inspection, if you suggested that both organizations SHARE the form data, it would reduce time and expense for all involved. That doesn't have anything to do with the free market, intrusion of rights, limiting of competition or anything else you have mentioned. It simply means "Here is an idea of how to do things better"... nothing more.

I'm guessing we could really go back and forth all day but I don't see much point to it. Good ideas are good ideas. They help in business. They can help in government. And aking a view that democrcay works "better" when nobody offers suggestions seems backwards, dangerous (look at where the last administration took that idea), and easily correctable.

The entire premise of this site is to increase the flow of information between the government and the people it serves. THAT is why change.gov was created. If you are not on board with that, great- that is your perogative. However criticizing those who DO want to participate simply for offering ideas seems ironic.

Change.gov : Building the community: A guide to comments | Change.gov: The Obama-Biden Transition Team

Sat, 6 Dec 2008 18:06:11 +0000

I guess we will have to agree to thoroughly disagree.

However it is incorrect to say that by having American citizens actively participate in their government AFTER an election, it somehow is "basing policy on what is good for some at the expense of others". The two things are entirely unrelated. If I see a way that government can provide the same services at a lower cost, or how service can be improved without spending any additional reources, that is not the us versus them scenario you paint.

You are also way off in logic. By ONLY using your vote as a tool for managing government, you leave out all of the entire executive branch that makes the rules, regulations, and oversight that affect each of us citizens on a daily basis. So, since I can't vote for any of them, We are just resigned to let them do their own thing and never offer any ideas or criticism. And even with elected officials, your logic doesn't hold. If neither Candidate A or Candidate B is aware of a potential solution to a problem, what good does my vote do?

In any event, I find it preposterous to suggest that the only ones who will have the answers to these problems are the lawmakers themselves. Who is more likely to have the answer (based on probability) 100 senators or millions of citizens. They NEED feedback... they NEED suggestions.... They NEED ideas. There should never be a monopoly on ideas... ANYONE with a voice can make a suggestion. It is up to the lawmakers to decide if that suggestion should be pursued further.

Change.gov : Building the community: A guide to comments | Change.gov: The Obama-Biden Transition Team

Sat, 6 Dec 2008 01:24:07 +0000

I don't understand your point.

How can it possibly be a bad thing to say to the people who are most engaged and participating in a democracy- "If you care about this issue, here is what is about to be proposed on it and whom you should contact if you have better ideas"?

All I am suggesting is that people can easily find out how to participate directly in their government AFTER the election. Electing someone, and then doing absolutely nothing until they run for re-election seems like a disasterous plan when whe have crisis on the level we currently do. It also runs counter to everything Obama ran on during the election.

Elected officials will govern better when hearing from their constituents than not.

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Fri, 5 Dec 2008 22:45:08 +0000

There is no way a flat tax could realistically be implemented in 120 days. Trying to do that would be a train wreck. The federal bureaucracy is a mammoth machine. The funding mechanisms are complex, and intricate- and can’t just be turned of and restarted at the snap of a finger. It would be like trying to work on a car engine while driving it. And as for your statement that “DC seems to be a dysfunctional team of people who cater only to the bleeding hearts and freeloaders who've never done anything for themselves or the country” I think perhaps you should understand people’s situations before condemning them. Just because someone is struggling does not make them worthless. Obama’s mother was on food stamps at one point- did that make her a “freeloader”?

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Fri, 5 Dec 2008 20:38:04 +0000

The warranty doesn't help if the suppliers stop making the tools and parts needed to service your vehicle.

If you are a supplier for GM and they go into bankruptcy, are you going to keep making parts for GM vehichles and hope they pull through, or are you likely to start looking at other car makers.

A warranty with no way to service the car is just a worthless piece of paper.

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Fri, 5 Dec 2008 20:21:10 +0000

#1 It could start with headlines for the start of each discussion. That would at least let people have a 10,000 foot view before digging into a thread. Ideally, there would be general “topics” that people could organize their threads in. So under the economy page, there might be Auto Bailouts, Green Jobs, Wall Street… etc. Either moderators could add these, or maybe users with a certain number of points and activity. #3 Tracking. The two things someone needs to see if they are following a thread (assuming they can find it again!) is to know if someone has added to it since the last time they posted, and where the new posts are. Huffington post does a good job of having a timer and flag on new posts, which helps. If you used cookies, each user could see post that they have read, and which were new (which could be color coded or put in bold etc.) #4 Right now all threads are open, which limits how many can be put on a page, and makes it hard to absorb the whole page. Instead, if the first page had the top level post showing and then an indicator of how many post there are in that thread, they could press a button to expand and dive into the whole thread. Or they can quickly skim over the top level postings while looking for one to dig into to. Right now you can collapse a thread, but that is backwards. Instead of starting with it all open, start with it all collapsed.

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Fri, 5 Dec 2008 19:58:25 +0000

Most forums will allow for grouping of a discussion into a topic. Maybe topic that has a headline, like say “Auto bailouts are evil”. Then you can see how many threads are in there. “Wow, 327 posts since yesterday… must be interesting”. So a user dives in, and starts drilling down into the topic and seeing more individual posts. In this way they can skim topics until they find one they like, drill into it and follow along with the discussion. Also, the link that you get when someone responds to a posting should take you to back to YOUR posting, not the first page of the topic. I have someone responding to a posting in the economic forum, but with all my searching I cannot find it! What we have right now has two major problems. You can’t skim. There are no headlines to organize the threads by. You can’t search- If I put in “Auto bailout” I should get all related threads, like google. Those two simple additions (the headline feature- maybe grouping headlines by sub topics) and simple search would go a LONG way to making it easier to use. Some features I don’t currently see in other forums but would love to see are the ability to have links submitted related to a topic and some tie to the legislative calendar. So if a post was opened about the auto bailout, people could post news articles, employment statistics… whatever was related. Just as individual posts here can get thumbs up or down, so would the links. Think of it as a related library at your fingertips. (and users would get points if their links were thumbs upped just like the posts) Similarly, if there was a box next to a discussion that had information about who is responsible for writing laws about a topic (say organic foods for example) and any meetings they have upcoming, then people who post ideas here would know who to contact in order to try and see those become reality. Lastly, you should be able to easily jump to any of your own post and see that entire thread. I have lots more but I don’t want to hog the forum here!

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Fri, 5 Dec 2008 19:33:06 +0000

I understand telsa as a counterbalance to to big to fail. It is interesting though, that there was a big article recently about how they are now looking to hire folks from the big three because they are running into some problems from creating a company exclusively of folks with no previous car building experience (but plenty of new technology experience). Apparently there are some hard lessons to learn in the car business, even from a small agile company of brilliant people like Tesla.

My point was that bailouts to any company might be less effective than subsizing the cost of persuing things like plug-in, windmills, etc. By investing directly in the people who get those new jobs, you lower the barriers to entrance, promote competition, and reduce the cost for business that choose to go down that path. Seems like you get more bang for your buck that way.

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Fri, 5 Dec 2008 18:48:02 +0000

I would disagree a bit about the regulation part. Credit default swaps were unregulated. A TRILLION dollar shadow market- entirely unregulated. The instruments they created were so complex that they had to hire physics phd’s to write them (they were the only ones that understood the math). So you had these wonderful instruments that nobody fully understood, with massive amounts of money pouring in, and no way to monitor what was going on. If I could get one rule passed it would be that NO new financial instrument could be unleashed on the market until it went through a review process. The same way the FDA is supposed to examine, review and approve new medicine, we need the same type of process for derivatives. The problem is that regulation for the financial industry was set up before they went super-complex. You can’t regulate anything you don’t fundamentally understand.

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Fri, 5 Dec 2008 18:41:06 +0000

So here is my idea, rather than a new bailout of Telsa (who has some great ideas but is running into issues of its own recently). Rather than subsidize the companies directly, we subsidize the workers and equipment used to produce things like plug-ins. So any company that wanted to manufacture a plug-in vehicle in America would get a subsidy for each worker and piece of machinery that is used to make it. Got 5 workers building that Tesla model, Uncle Sam picks up 20% of their pay. Need a new assembly rig to make it- we pick up 20% of that too. This makes it cheaper for any business to operate when making plug-ins then when making standard fuel vehicles, but does not force them to do so. This way we leverage the funds, promote investment in renewable technology, and reduce the operating costs for companies that move in that direction. Plus we pay for jobs at any company that is willing to go down that road. All without messing with the free market and power of the consumer.

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Fri, 5 Dec 2008 18:30:33 +0000

But people won’t shell out $15-$50K for a purchase from a company in bankruptcy. I’ll by a toaster from a company in bankruptcy. I’ll even by a $400 plane ticket. But I won’t make a 10 year commitment to a product I may not be able to get serviced if the company goes belly up. So I don’t think the airlines are an apples to apples example. I think what they need is something that works like bankruptcy, but has a different name so consumers don’t panic.

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Fri, 5 Dec 2008 17:56:03 +0000

I am not sure when compromise became a bad word! While it is great to promote collaboration, and I hope we see that spirit as much as possible in the next administration, the reality is that some tough choices will have to be made… SOON. There will be honest, good willed people who believe in opposite ways to attack a problem. They won’t hate the people who see things differently, they just believe strongly that their idea will work better than the other proposal. Compromise is for when NEITHER group can implement its solution by itself. But if each gives up a little, they can move forward with some hybrid idea that has some of what they want, but not all. Many times that is infinitely better than doing nothing at all simply because neither side budges.

Change.gov : Building the community: A guide to comments | Change.gov: The Obama-Biden Transition Team

Fri, 5 Dec 2008 17:43:32 +0000

In the goal of keeping in the spirit this site was created, I have offered some suggestions (below) of how I think this site could better serve the administration and the citizens it serves. But I will also list some pragmatic changes to the forums, so they function better. 1.Organization by topic… with headers so you can get to the parts you want to participate in. This has been covered in the comments here. 2.Make the signup process a little easier – for instance where the instructions say “create an account” should link to creating an account. You should not have to post first to create an account. 3. Make tracking easier. 4.Easy search. Type in a word and get google style results. 5.Don’t start with every thread opened. By default you should drill down, not collapse up. But mark those threads with more replies (maybe in bold) so you can see visually which threads have the most comments on them. Just a partial list, and ideas I am sure have been tossed out here before- but if we want change we gotta spell it out!

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Fri, 5 Dec 2008 17:29:48 +0000

I don’t think it has to be either/ or. If you put tools on the site that list popular discussions or topics and allow people the CHOICE to do that, you don’t have to take away the “I just want to see what is out there” aspect of spreading out and being more free form. You can have both, but ONLY if they give us the organizational tools to narrow the focus.

Change.gov : Building the community: A guide to comments | Change.gov: The Obama-Biden Transition Team

Fri, 5 Dec 2008 17:20:34 +0000

How can we make all this web stuff work? 4 of 4 Interactivity: Set up chats with actual policy makers. Choose some of the most popular posters (those with the highest ratings) to be invited. They could submit questions (even ahead of time) and get a priority submission process. Everyone else could join in as well, but if a ton of people were participating, they would have a lower chance of getting through. By taking questions from the voices that the board ranks as most respected, you would get the questions that “the people” most want to ask. You could even post the submitted questions and let people vote on the ones they would like to ask. Transcripts of the chat would be available after it had occurred so that people could see the exchange even if they weren’t available when it happened real time. The schedule of upcoming chats would be posted, and would coincide with legislative schedules so bills were finalized and proposed AFTER a chat had occurred