AOC as a politician- Split from: U.S. Democratic Primary

[Raider5678]

23 hours ago, rangerx said:

AOC is inexperienced and not eligible because of her age, but she a rising star to millennials and the old guard alike. Not only does she have thick skin and brilliant retorts, her mere presence triggers the right into resorting to their childish character assassinations and dog whistle politics.

I get the impression from her that her fame is going to be short lived. She seems to really believe in what she's saying, but what's she's saying often doesn't add up. She promises a lot, but she's not going to be able to deliver much.

[swansont]

4 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

I get the impression from her that her fame is going to be short lived. She seems to really believe in what she's saying, but what's she's saying often doesn't add up.  

Like what?

[J.C.MacSwell]

5 minutes ago, swansont said:

Like what?

She recently made a claim that essentially said she may sometimes get her facts wrong, but that it was her sentiments that really mattered.

She is young, smart, high energy, and I don't think she is going away soon. Having a lot to learn won't change that IMO, so I don't think Raider's expectation is likely.

But he correct otherwise (IMO)

[Ten oz]

17 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

She recently made a claim that essentially said she may sometimes get her facts wrong, but that it was her sentiments that really mattered.

I am not familiar with that exact qoute but it I can see it. We all get technical facts wrong from time to time but that doesn't necessarily undermine the larger context of what we might being saying. Which facts one gets wrong, why, and to what end all matters. Being technically wrong about a gun violence stat because I rounded a number up wouldn't have any significant impact on my views about gun violence overall. 

Moving into the Primary I think the more successful candidates will be the ones who best stay on message and avoid getting sucked into lengthy discussions about peripheral technicalities. 

Opposition will always attack. It is the nature of the beast. Some of the attacks will be grounded in some truth and some won't. All the time a candidate spends addressing their opposition the aren't talking about their platform. 

 

[swansont]

45 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

She recently made a claim that essentially said she may sometimes get her facts wrong, but that it was her sentiments that really mattered.

That's not the same as "what's she's saying often doesn't add up"  

 

[J.C.MacSwell]

Just now, swansont said:

That's not the same as "what's she's saying often doesn't add up"  

 

I guess not, but it is with regard to her inexperience. Which is at the root of it IMO.

She is ineligible in any case.

[Ten oz]

AOC isn't running in the Democratic Primary. There are lessons Democratic candidates in the primary can take away from the way AOC manges social media and stays engaged with her supporters but specific discussion about AOC alone absent of a Democratic Primary connection is off topic. 

[swansont]

58 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

I guess not, but it is with regard to her inexperience. Which is at the root of it IMO.

She is ineligible in any case.

Right, she isn't eligible, but some of her policies may end up being campaign issues, so I want to know what doesn't make sense, since it allegedly happens often.

[CharonY]

32 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

I guess not, but it is with regard to her inexperience. Which is at the root of it IMO.

She is ineligible in any case.

I think the inexperience could be a political weakness, i.e. it may be harder for her to navigate the power structures. However, considering how much basic things members of congress and senate gets wrong (snowball as a rebuttal to climate change? rape cannot cause pregnancies? how marginal tax rates work? Steve King?) it would be hypocritical to call her out specifically. Just skimming to fact checks the only thing I found is a claim regarding Pentagon spending that was wrong. There is still some ways to build the mountain of lies that are part of the regular political broth, though.

[J.C.MacSwell]

21 minutes ago, CharonY said:

I think the inexperience could be a political weakness, i.e. it may be harder for her to navigate the power structures. However, considering how much basic things members of congress and senate gets wrong (snowball as a rebuttal to climate change? rape cannot cause pregnancies? how marginal tax rates work? Steve King?) it would be hypocritical to call her out specifically. Just skimming to fact checks the only thing I found is a claim regarding Pentagon spending that was wrong. There is still some ways to build the mountain of lies that are part of the regular political broth, though.

It wasn't just that it was wrong. She suggested Medicare could be funded by it. 

[CharonY]

18 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

It wasn't just that it was wrong. She suggested Medicare could be funded by it. 

I am not sure what you are trying to say. She was wrong in assuming that the money just vanished and could have been used for something else. How does the latter assumption (which hinges on the wrong one) make it worse (if that is what you are implying).

[Ten oz]

AOC isn't running in the Democratic Primary. 

[swansont]

1 hour ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

It wasn't just that it was wrong. She suggested Medicare could be funded by it. 

No, she was equating a dollar amount. Basically that $21 trillion was missing, and you could fund ~2/3 of medicare for all with that amount of money. 21/32 is, in fact, 65.6%

First of all, it was a tweet, meaning that the amount of nuanced argument in it is close to nil. Any kind of complex explanation, if distilled into a tweet, is going to be missing some context.

Second of all, she did not make up the number. It was from an article. If the number was wrong, blame the researcher.

Her mistake was the implication that this represented a pile of money (wasted or missing). But the broader context was that these kinds of accounting anomalies exist with the pentagon budget, and not with other programs, where people ask "How are you going to pay for it?"

[J.C.MacSwell]

37 minutes ago, swansont said:

No, she was equating a dollar amount. Basically that $21 trillion was missing, and you could fund ~2/3 of medicare for all with that amount of money. 21/32 is, in fact, 65.6%

First of all, it was a tweet, meaning that the amount of nuanced argument in it is close to nil. Any kind of complex explanation, if distilled into a tweet, is going to be missing some context.

Second of all, she did not make up the number. It was from an article. If the number was wrong, blame the researcher.

Her mistake was the implication that this represented a pile of money (wasted or missing). But the broader context was that these kinds of accounting anomalies exist with the pentagon budget, and not with other programs, where people ask "How are you going to pay for it?"

You are leaving out the obvious. Anyone remotely familiar with the scale of the budgets involved would not make that mistake. She has good "ideas". She lacks the judgement that comes with experience.

I am not condemning her for this. I am simply explaining it. I'm sure it will be a footnote on her tweeting record by the time she might ever run for President.

Edited January 22, 2019 by J.C.MacSwell

[Raider5678]

8 hours ago, swansont said:

Like what?

Like saying the constitution doesn't technically prohibit her from running for President because she's female, and threatening to run against Trump.

That type of thing.

5 hours ago, swansont said:

But the broader context was that these kinds of accounting anomalies exist with the pentagon budget, and not with other programs, where people ask "How are you going to pay for it?"

I'd completely disagree. Very much so. In this case, relatively accurate numbers are very important.

I mean, the very question is "How are you going to fund it?"

If your answer is wrong and uses false numbers, I'm not going to be like "Oh. Okay. Your numbers were wrong but the broader idea is that you can still fund it."

That sounds ludicrous to me. I mean it's math. Either you can pay for it or not. There is no "broader idea" when it comes to being able to afford something.

Especially with the difference in numbers. It's one thing if the actual number was like 15 Trillion or something. It's not. It was literally nothing.

5 hours ago, swansont said:

Second of all, she did not make up the number. It was from an article. If the number was wrong, blame the researcher.

 

Except the number wasn't wrong. The researcher wasn't wrong either. AOC simply didn't read the entire article, and quoted it from one of the first few sentences in the article, instead of reading the entire thing to get context before making a claim.

Which is a problem I have with our current president as well. 

Nobody gives Trump a break when he makes stupid mistakes like this. It's just that. A stupid mistake. Read the entire article before making a claim based on it.

And just as I don't think Trump should be given a break about making stupid mistakes like that, I don't think AOC should either.

5 hours ago, swansont said:

and not with other programs

Except they do exist with other programs.

6 hours ago, CharonY said:

I am not sure what you are trying to say. She was wrong in assuming that the money just vanished and could have been used for something else. How does the latter assumption (which hinges on the wrong one) make it worse (if that is what you are implying).

Because the broader point of "Medicare could be funded by it" is doubly worse then being simply wrong. Because you can't just "accept the broader point."

For example.

If I said "We could fund the wall by just increasing the taxes on Americans by 0.00000000000000000001%", you'd correctly assess that the number was wrong and that we could not, in fact, fund the wall. That number would be 1,000,000,000% off(or something like that. I didn't actually do any math)

If you corrected me, and my response was "It's important that we look at the broader point of things. Not making sure that our numbers are exactly correct." you should call me an idiot. Because that's what I'd be.

When you're talking about math, you don't just get to say "well it's the broader point that counts." 

Because it's not.

It's the math that counts.

 

 

 

 

Again, guys, this is just my opinion. I think math is math. If the numbers don't add up, they don't add up. I don't see some broader point behind it. If you can't pay for something, you can't pay for it. If you can prove to me, mathematically, how you'd pay for it, then you can pay for it. If you can't prove to me, mathematically, how you'd pay for it, then you can't pay for it.

6 hours ago, Ten oz said:

AOC isn't running in the Democratic Primary. 

And I agree. Normally, I wouldn't have responded to a question asking me to explain further because it was off topic, but it was @swansont . If he asked for further clarification, I was gonna give it to him. 

[CharonY]

25 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

Like saying the constitution doesn't technically prohibit her from running for President because she's female, and threatening to run against Trump.

Could you quote where she said that? 

 

25 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

That type of thing.

You mean it is a pattern of action? Any articles that highlight that which you could share?

 

27 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

Because the broader point of "Medicare could be funded by it" is doubly worse then being simply wrong. Because you can't just "accept the broader point."

I fail to see it. Her error is to assume that 21T were available. Would it be different if she said that we could fund something else with it? Which math does not add up on the medicare aspect? And is it worse than actually passing a tax cut and claiming that it will somehow pay for itself (while in truth it increases the deficit as predicted)? I.e. I am uncertain what the precise issue is and here the overall baseline claim is here.

[Raider5678]

11 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Could you quote where she said that? 

 

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2018/12/08/ocasio-cortez-for-2028-359210?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000167-7a3f-d33b-a5f7-7e7f4cff0000&nlid=630318

AOC: “No, not for a long time. Thank God. Although we’ve been joking that because the Equal Rights Amendment hasn’t been passed yet, the Constitution technically says he cannot run unless he’s 35. … So what we’ll do is we’ll force the Republican Party to pass the Equal Rights Amendment by threatening to run for president.”

PHOTOG: “That is awesome. All the people who say a literal interpretation of the Constitution is the only thing you should be paying attention to.” AOC: “Exactly, all those Constitutionalists, I will keep vigilance.”

11 minutes ago, CharonY said:

You mean it is a pattern of action? Any articles that highlight that which you could share?

1

See the aforementioned one.

And yes, it is a pattern. See the thing about the $21 trillion that she said. Additionally, those are not the only 2 examples. 

11 minutes ago, CharonY said:

I fail to see it. Her error is to assume that 21T were available. (1)Would it be different if she said that we could fund something else with it? (2)Which math does not add up on the medicare aspect? (3)And is it worse than actually passing a tax cut and claiming that it will somehow pay for itself (while in truth it increases the deficit as predicted)? (4)I.e. I am uncertain what the precise issue is and here the overall baseline claim is here.

1

1. No. It wouldn't be different. I don't care what she wants to fund. If we can't fund it, we can't fund it.

2. The math that we can fund it. The price tag is $32 trillion dollars. Per decade. If you can't show me how we'd fund it, we can't fund it. That's how math works. 

3. No. It's not worse. But I don't see why you're bringing that up.

4. The issue is, that if you're going to claim we can fund it, you need to prove it.

 

 

Do you disagree with the idea that we can either fund it or we can't fund it? Do you disagree with me when I say that you should be able to mathematically prove how you're going to fund it before saying you can fund it? Do you think there is a broader point to math other then it being.......math? What do you not understand about making the mistake of claiming we have $21 trillion dollars when we don't? Is there some broader concept in mathematics that allows you to make up $21,000,000,000,000 simply because you mistakenly thought it was there? What are you talking about in regards to this "broader point."

Isn't it important to be able to back your ideas up with proof? What point is there in an idea if you can't prove that you can pay for it? If I said we should build a Dyson sphere right now, and I mistakenly said we could simply dig up the iron found in California to get all the materials we needed because I made a mistake in my math, is there some broader concept that says "You're missing the point. We can build it." Sure. I can reply "We'll do California AND Texas." But that's not going to solve it. It wasn't a mathematical error by 2 or 5 times. It was a mathematical error of millions of times. 

Take for example if I said we could buy all the materials to build the wall out of silver for just $5,000,000,000. But I had mistakenly assumed silver was $1 an ounce(Still less of a mathematical mistake then AOC made).  What is the broader concept that says "We can actually afford it."?

Again. Very simply. I think that if we can fund it, you can prove we can fund it. Tell me how you're going to fund it. Otherwise I'm not going to believe in some "broader idea that we can still fund it."

 

 

 

 

Look guys. I must be missing something.

This is a science forum. Yes? We believe in mathematics. 

I'm not saying it's impossible to fund Medicare. I'm not saying we can.

I'm simply saying you need to be able to mathematically prove that you'll be able to come close/fully fund it. 

[J.C.MacSwell]

30 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Could you quote where she said that? 

 

You mean it is a pattern of action? Any articles that highlight that which you could share?

 

I fail to see it. Her error is to assume that 21T were available. Would it be different if she said that we could fund something else with it? Which math does not add up on the medicare aspect? And is it worse than actually passing a tax cut and claiming that it will somehow pay for itself (while in truth it increases the deficit as predicted)? I.e. I am uncertain what the precise issue is and here the overall baseline claim is here.

No. But it is why some people have compared her to Trump.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/16/politics/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-congress/index.html

She's still more of an activist than a politician. She's a rookie. A high draft pick based on potential that needs to change her game to make "the Team"...even for the Democrats.

She's going to make mistakes. But let's not write her off.

[Raider5678]

2 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

She's still more of an activist than a politician. She's a rookie. A high draft pick based on potential that needs to change her game to make "the Team"...even for the Democrats.

She's going to make mistakes. But let's not write her off.

The question I think is important is whether or not she'll actually change.

[iNow]

3 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

Look guys. I must be missing something.

This is a science forum. Yes? We believe in mathematics. 

I'm not saying it's impossible to fund Medicare. I'm not saying we can.

I'm simply saying you need to be able to mathematically prove that you'll be able to come close/fully fund it. 

When you consider these questions, I’m curious to understand if you see the legislation as pure costs / expenditures or if (like me) you frame them in your mind as investments with a clear return. 

Similarly, when you’re doing all of this math, it’d help to know what you are doing / what numbers you are using to account for all of the great many fees we all pay today in health insurance premiums, high deductibles, and additional out of pocket costs for uncovered needs... outlays that would vanish under a Medicare for all system and which are likely higher than any increases in individual taxes we may need to collect if such plans proceed. 

So... is it a pure cost or is it an investment, and are the tax increases needed to it for it larger or smaller than what we’re already paying today to cover our families across the nation in the private market and emergency room markups to cover the uncovered?

I have similar questions for massive green jobs programs given the income and sales tax revenues plus the peripheral supporting jobs those newly created green jobs would create, but let’s focus first on healthcare since that’s where the bulk of our dollars go. 

Edited January 23, 2019 by iNow

[rangerx]

1 hour ago, Raider5678 said:

The question I think is important is whether or not she'll actually change.

Change what?

She's her own person. Genuine in her manners, thoughtful in her responses without the rancor or hyperbole and sincere in her objectives. She doesn't accept PAC money and derides crass industrialism that pollutes or oppresses. Unlike most politicians, that girl practices what she preaches.  The more republicans are triggered by her, the stronger she gets. That's the only change I expect from her.

1 hour ago, iNow said:

So... is it a pure cost or is it an investment, and are the tax increases needed to it for it larger or smaller than what we’re already paying today to cover our families across the nation in the private market and emergency room markups to cover the uncovered?

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That concept seems lost on so many Americans.

They'd rather pay though the nose, after the fact.

[swansont]

11 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

Like saying the constitution doesn't technically prohibit her from running for President because she's female, and threatening to run against Trump.

That type of thing.

So, two examples is "often" and, by inference, more than other politicians (because why call it out if it's not?) Were there 14 other mis-statements that day? (where that's equal to one Trump)

The Constitution doesn't prevent her from running for president. It prevents her from being elected. Victoria Woodhull ran for president (the first woman to do so) before turning 35. 

11 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

I'd completely disagree. Very much so. In this case, relatively accurate numbers are very important.

I mean, the very question is "How are you going to fund it?"

If your answer is wrong and uses false numbers, I'm not going to be like "Oh. Okay. Your numbers were wrong but the broader idea is that you can still fund it."

That sounds ludicrous to me. I mean it's math. Either you can pay for it or not. There is no "broader idea" when it comes to being able to afford something.

So why is it that the GOP is silent when it comes to funding an expansion of the military, or going to war? Why didn't this come up with the tax cut?

11 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

Especially with the difference in numbers. It's one thing if the actual number was like 15 Trillion or something. It's not. It was literally nothing.

You can't be sure of that, though. There is no paperwork to show it.

11 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

Except the number wasn't wrong. The researcher wasn't wrong either. AOC simply didn't read the entire article, and quoted it from one of the first few sentences in the article, instead of reading the entire thing to get context before making a claim.

You know this is what happened? Citation? 

11 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

Which is a problem I have with our current president as well. 

Nobody gives Trump a break when he makes stupid mistakes like this. It's just that. A stupid mistake. Read the entire article before making a claim based on it.

Actually, I think people ignore the president when he makes stupid mistakes like this. They don't when he blatantly lies, which he does a lot. Mistakes at a much higher rate than AOC

11 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

And just as I don't think Trump should be given a break about making stupid mistakes like that, I don't think AOC should either.

False equivalence, given Trump's propensity to lie. 

11 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

Except they do exist with other programs.

I just pointed out a few where they don't exist. So, no.

11 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

Because the broader point of "Medicare could be funded by it" is doubly worse then being simply wrong. Because you can't just "accept the broader point."

For example.

If I said "We could fund the wall by just increasing the taxes on Americans by 0.00000000000000000001%", you'd correctly assess that the number was wrong and that we could not, in fact, fund the wall. That number would be 1,000,000,000% off(or something like that. I didn't actually do any math)

If you corrected me, and my response was "It's important that we look at the broader point of things. Not making sure that our numbers are exactly correct." you should call me an idiot. Because that's what I'd be.

You're just making up numbers, though, so this is not an apt comparison.

There's a proposal to lock new computers from being able to access porn, and charge $20 to unlock them, and that would go toward the wall. Technical issues aside, this isn't going to pay for the wall. Even if you sold 100 million computers and all wanted to be unlocked, that's $2 billion. But if you quoted that proposal, you would not be the one to blame for the math error, or the assumptions that went into it.

But you could bring that up as a broader point of finding ways to fund the wall. Even though it's new taxes, so the GOP would be conflicted about it all.

 

11 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

When you're talking about math, you don't just get to say "well it's the broader point that counts." 

Because it's not.

It's the math that counts.

That's your prerogative. If math is more important than concepts for you, then that's that.

 

17 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

You are leaving out the obvious. Anyone remotely familiar with the scale of the budgets involved would not make that mistake. She has good "ideas". She lacks the judgement that comes with experience.

I am not condemning her for this. I am simply explaining it. I'm sure it will be a footnote on her tweeting record by the time she might ever run for President.

Other than saying "Her mistake was the implication that this represented a pile of money (wasted or missing)" yeah, I completely missed the obvious that her mistake was that this represented money in some budget.

11 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2018/12/08/ocasio-cortez-for-2028-359210?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000167-7a3f-d33b-a5f7-7e7f4cff0000&nlid=630318

AOC: “No, not for a long time. Thank God. Although we’ve been joking that because the Equal Rights Amendment hasn’t been passed yet, the Constitution technically says he cannot run unless he’s 35. … So what we’ll do is we’ll force the Republican Party to pass the Equal Rights Amendment by threatening to run for president.”

Although we’ve been joking that because the Equal Rights Amendment hasn’t been passed yet, the Constitution technically says he cannot run unless he’s 35. … So what we’ll do is we’ll force the Republican Party to pass the Equal Rights Amendment by threatening to run for president.”

Funny how that characterization has been missing from the discussion. She states at the outset that she's not serious, and that the later comment about the constitutional literalists — the question that they might be forced to interpret the Constitutional restrictions as applying to men. And she's talking to a photographer, not a reporter.

 

 

11 hours ago, CharonY said:

 I fail to see it. Her error is to assume that 21T were available. Would it be different if she said that we could fund something else with it? Which math does not add up on the medicare aspect? And is it worse than actually passing a tax cut and claiming that it will somehow pay for itself (while in truth it increases the deficit as predicted)? I.e. I am uncertain what the precise issue is and here the overall baseline claim is here.

What I'd like to see is the reaction of this sort to anyone who has ever equated the cost of a weapons program and point out how else that money could be used. Do they get lambasted like this? Anyone got links for responses to "An F-35 costs $X. We could do Y with that" where the person is chastised for not knowing that the pentagon's money can't actually be used that way?

[J.C.MacSwell]

43 minutes ago, swansont said:

Other than saying "Her mistake was the implication that this represented a pile of money (wasted or missing)" yeah, I completely missed the obvious that her mistake was that this represented money in some budget.

I said scale of the budgets, Swansont. Two thirds of 32 Trillion in medicare over 10 years cannot be funded by any amount of change in military spending. Their total budget is not even a third of that.

Is that not obvious? You can't get blood out of a turnip.

[Raider5678]

8 hours ago, iNow said:

When you consider these questions, I’m curious to understand if you see the legislation as pure costs / expenditures

I don't care about what the legislation is.

Either you can fund it or you can't.

That's how mathematics works.

Yes. It'd be great to build solar panels on every home in the country, distribute free electric cars, give a house to everyone, and have free food for all.

IT'd have clear benefits. Poverty would be eliminated.

NOw how are you going to fund it?

 

That's the simple question I'm asking. Stop skirting around the question, pretending that I'm just attacking AOC. It's mathematics. Not politics.

8 hours ago, iNow said:

Similarly, when you’re doing all of this math, it’d help to know what you are doing / what numbers you are using to account for all of the great many fees we all pay today in health insurance premiums, high deductibles, and additional out of pocket costs for uncovered needs... outlays that would vanish under a Medicare for all system and which are likely higher than any increases in individual taxes we may need to collect if such plans proceed. 

1

I'm not doing the math.

You're free to do so. Hence the point of "doing the math."

Again. I've said repeatedly. Either we can fund it or we can't. It's that simple. 

This is a discussion on AOC. Do not attempt to turn it into a discussion about healthcare.

8 hours ago, iNow said:

 So... is it a pure cost or is it an investment, and are the tax increases needed to it for it larger or smaller than what we’re already paying today to cover our families across the nation in the private market and emergency room markups to cover the uncovered?

 

It's a pure cost and an investment.

 

Let's say I was planning on investing in Gold. (ignore any question about whether gold is actually a good investment or not. That's not the point.)

Gold goes up, doesn't go down.(Not true, but for the sake of the example.)

Therefore, the logic is to invest in as much gold as possible. Yes?

But I can't just say "Alright. It's a great investment. I'll buy 400 tons." unless I have the money.

 

The first thing you need to figure out is whether it's a good investment or not. I'm sure we can both agree that funding Medicare for all can be debatable. But let's just assume it's a perfect investment.

 

If we don't have the money for it, we don't have the money for it. It doesn't matter how good of an investment it is. We still need to pay for it. 

That's the question. And I'm not going to let you drag me off on a tangent.

7 hours ago, rangerx said:

She's her own person. Genuine in her manners, thoughtful in her responses without the rancor or hyperbole and sincere in her objectives. She doesn't accept PAC money and derides crass industrialism that pollutes or oppresses. Unlike most politicians, that girl practices what she preaches.  The more republicans are triggered by her, the stronger she gets. That's the only change I expect from her.

1

Clearly.

8 hours ago, iNow said:

 I have similar questions for massive green jobs programs given the income and sales tax revenues plus the peripheral supporting jobs those newly created green jobs would create, but let’s focus first on healthcare since that’s where the bulk of our dollars go. 

Let's not focus on healthcare, as you're missing my point.

Again, for the sake of example. Let's imagine installing solar panels on every home in America and distributing electric cars to all.

Either we can afford it or we can't. Correct?

That's the simple point I'm making.

The idea that AOC has some "broader concept" that we need to look at when it comes down to basic math, is ridiculous and absurd.

1 hour ago, swansont said:

So why is it that the GOP is silent when it comes to funding an expansion of the military, or going to war? Why didn't this come up with the tax cut?

I don't know. This thread isn't about the GOP. End of this discussion.

1 hour ago, swansont said:

You can't be sure of that, though. There is no paperwork to show it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/us/politics/fact-check-pentagon-medicare-alexandria-ocasio-cortez.html

Yes. There is. We know where the money was. And if AOC would actually read the article/study before making claims about it, she'd know that.

But she didn't. 

1 hour ago, swansont said:

You know this is what happened? Citation? 

Yes. See above.

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Actually, I think people ignore the president when he makes stupid mistakes like this. They don't when he blatantly lies, which he does a lot. Mistakes at a much higher rate than AOC

Except they don't ignore the president. They accuse him of lying. Give me an example of a time Trump simply made a mistake and wasn't accused of lying.

1 hour ago, swansont said:

You're just making up numbers, though, so this is not an apt comparison.

 

Theoretically, so was AOC.

1 hour ago, swansont said:

There's a proposal to lock new computers from being able to access porn, and charge $20 to unlock them, and that would go toward the wall. Technical issues aside, this isn't going to pay for the wall. Even if you sold 100 million computers and all wanted to be unlocked, that's $2 billion. But if you quoted that proposal, you would not be the one to blame for the math error, or the assumptions that went into it.

Yes. I would be to blame for it.

Because I should do the damn math before making a claim about it. 

That's not somebody else's fault, that's mine for not fact-checking.

[Ten oz]

AOC is just one of 435 members of Congress. Her district is not a competitive one for Conservatives. AOC is a junior member without any meaningful influence over committees in Congress. The only reason Conservative waste time talking her is because she is popular and they (Conservatives), as opposition, just want to dull up some of her shine. AOC says nothing which is outside the normal margins of error for a political. AOC is simply popular and well like by her constituents and  Conservatives can't have that so they attack her at every chance they get. 

Currently the govt is shut down. The country is without a Sec.of Defense, without a Attorney General, and with a Chief of Staff. No amount of complaining about AOC makes a bit of difference to the current challenges we (USA) face. If AOC disappeared tomorrow the govt would still be shutdown. AOC is not important. 

Edited January 23, 2019 by Ten oz