Not at all. I’m saying that George Bush has in come cases deliberately attempted to destroy several branches of the Executive by shutting down their enforcement activity, and let many of the rest self-destruct by placing utter incompetents at their helms. Sometimes it’s impossible to tell which.
Bush Senior, Reagan and Nixon were all infintely better in the role than Shrub.
If I thought this were true, I might actually muster up some appreciation for Bush.
I’m impressed that you found a way around that, but I don’t quite understand the logistics. It was legal to sell to them but illegal for them to buy? Then what happened if they were caught buying?
I always thought there should have been a grandfather clause when they raised the age from 18 to 21 suddenly in Texas, where I was at the time. I guess if they were raising it because all these 18-20-year-olds were killing themselves on the roads, then it would make sense for the insurance industry to want them just to stop drinking so suddenly, but it didn’t seem fair to me that you could be 18 or 19 and partying it up in the bar, then they wouldn’t let you in for a couple more years. I was certainly over 21 myself at that time, so it didn’t affect me personally.
Sorry, you say it was illegal but with no penalties. Since the feds were so hot on raising the drinking age, how did you get that past them?
Piss people off.
Disaster response. Look at the response from the state government vs federal to Katrina.
Wasting money: the feds do a LOT of that! take the Boston “Big Dig” highway project; despite ARMIES of lawyers, and > 15 billion expended, the traffic is just as bad. And the construction work was so shoddy that several ceiling panels in a tunnel fell down, killing a woman. The project was mismananged from day one, and costly repairs (> 2 billiuon) wil probably be required to keep portions of the tunnels from collapse. hey-all in all, not bad-it funneled a LOT of money to politically-connect construction companies, who generously donated to local politicians…so,who cares?? :smack:
The federal government is in the business of dangling federal highway money in a carrot-and-stick approach to the various states, however. I don’t think Ike had that in mind. Europe has an impressive road system, but the areas covered are relatively tiny. Laying miles and miles of interstate type highways across the great plains and through the mountains is just outrageously expensive - this gives the federal government a lot of leverage.
I think it was just because it was universally known the New Orleans depended on a young drinking age for important parts of the economy. There were a couple of things that 18 - 20 year olds were restricted from. One was that people in that age range were not supposed to walk down the street with bottle or can with an alcohol logo. We had to put it in a plastic cup to create reasonable doubt for the police. It was hardly enforced but I did see a friend get chastized for it once. That was about it and it worked fine. Louisiana still has big alcohol loopholes for younger people as does Wisconsin so it can be done.
Gotta agree with Ravenman on this one. There’s a difference between doing well and being perfect. For every bad example pointed out from a particular Government agency, there’s likely to be a ton of good things they do.
My organization does a damn good job at bringing some of the most advanced technology available anywhere to the warfighter…making their job easier, safer, and more effective. Yeah, we could be more efficient as an organization. And likely, if anyone on this thread were familiar with our operation, they’d probably find things to say “Look where you wasted money there!” or “You dropped the ball on that technology.” For that reason alone, I’m glad we’re somewhat removed from the critical public eye, and the front page of the WP…because certainly, the focus would not be on the positive.
But, in the end, there is far more positive than negative. We still do our job very well. And in the ways we don’t, we’re always striving to be that much better. Every year, we do more with less…trimming the fat, so to speak. What more could the taxpayers want for their money?
A function which has a lack of relevance to my statement about lighthouses. You don’t seem to be reading the title or the OP - in which it was asked “Does the Federal gov’t do anything well?” Your reply would be appropriate to a thread “For everything the gov’t does well, list something it does poorly.” Fair enough, I misread threads all the time and the latter thread would certainly be a long one. However, I’d appreciate it if you could respond to what I actually said rather than talking past me. 
Again, you seem to be responding to a different thread, since that function has little to do with my comment about clearing navigable waterways of debris. I’m also curious if you have any cites about phony EIAs and cost/benefits.
Cool!