volkris @volkris@qoto.org
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
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That's not what the ruling does, though.
To point out that the FDA broke the law in its processes surrounding the approval of this drug doesn't block access to the medication.
We SHOULD BE calling on the president to fix compliance with the law and Congress to reevaluate the law and probably reform it, but the distraction of focusing squarely on the court doesn't get us anywhere.
There are laws that I believe are too restrictive on medications, including this one. It's not the court's problem that they're having to work with bad laws.
@gbhnews @sarahutch @damemagazine @TPR @azpm @thexylom @TheConversationUS @wausaupilot @STAT
How do you think it works?
This is basic civics. The legislative branch authorizes and the executive branch executes.
The Treasury is part of the executive branch, and as they collect taxes and write checks to spend money, they're under the authority of the president.
If the president directs the Treasury not to pay debts, that's up to him.
What part of that do you disagree with?
@itwasntme223 The income from student loan collections goes into the Treasury and is included in Congressional budgeting, just the same as any tax collections.
The clearest way of illustrating this is that student loans were included in the ACA as lawmakers were working to offset its costs.
You can find it in the legislation itself, but my quick search found this article that states:
> "The profits from student loans are divided as follows: $8.7 billion goes to pay for ObamaCare; $10.3 billion goes to pay down the federal debt; and $36 billion goes to Pell Scholarship grants."
https://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/dick-morris/151801-loans-subsidize-obamacare/
@Nonilex The standing here is in a grey area, and I would tend to agree with you, but that sort of question is answered through a process that will take a little time.
The issue at the moment is what to do while that process is hashed out in courts.
There is, of course, the side issue of whether presidents are able to get away with violating law on the grounds of litigants not having standing.
We shouldn't overlook that part of it, since it's why this mess happened in the first place.
What, specific, subsidies to oil and gas companies?
Yes, POTUS had a lie to tell. And we really need to call this what it is, a lie.
It's not up to the speaker of the house to pay the nation's bills, but rather it's up to the president.
The Treasury has plenty of money, by its own statements, to pay the bills. There is absolutely no reason to default unless the president chooses, on his own, to default.
We really need to be clear about this. Biden is threatening default even though he has enough money to service the debts of the United States. It is ridiculous and, if he follows through on the threat, it is impeachable.
If Biden wants more power to borrow more he needs to be transparent about it and negotiate for that power. It is irresponsible for him to promote this line that it's anything else.
Congress has already said that they were counting on the revenues from the student loan repayments to fund government.
So this is more of a political stunt. Congress has already been clear about the loans being required to be repaid or else government will be out of the revenues It needs to function.
The Republicans here are just using that as a flag to support their bill.
Multiple lower courts disagree with you, but setting that aside, here's a question:
What do you think of the claim that the FDA delayed the proceedings for years? Is it false? Is it a misreading of the law? Specifically, what issue do you take with that core part of the dispute?
It always occurs to me that that sort of talk glosses over the point that we voters elect government officials.
It really comes down to us. If we elect and reelect officials who don't have our interests at heart, well, we get what we voted for.
We should probably stop electing the people who just might buy into this sort of thing, but that's up to us. We get to choose who we elect.
No, not at all. According to the US Treasury, their own projections, they have plenty of revenues coming in to pay the debts. They don't need anything from Congress to avoid defaulting.
Yes, a lot of people are either lying or misleading about that, but the numbers don't lie. The Treasury makes public its balance statements showing that it has plenty of revenue to service its debts.
The political grandstanding needs to be called out for what it is.
Among other places you can see this, the Treasury itself publishes the data that you can go through yourself, if you'd like.
So even the US Treasury agrees that it has the money to pay the debts.
Here's a good startingpoint:
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/monthly-treasury-statement/summary-of-receipts-outlays-and-the-deficit-surplus-of-the-u-s-government
One issue is, do you simply let the executive branch off the hook for violating the law? Do we just throw accountability out the window so easily?
To simply punt the case based on lack of standing is itself no small matter, since that sort of thing *even if correct* is better handled through the full, but time consuming, Supreme Court argument process.
The lower court cited precedents, and the problem here is that the FDA twisted things such that precedents applied in unpredictable ways. That's how it's worked its ways through layers of reviews by now.
This is one huge reason we should not look to courts to fix issues that the other two branches caused.
@LFpete @rbreich is absolutely incorrect in this, and it's really sad that he'd be promoting such ideas that are ignorant of pretty basic elements of US civics education.
The structure of the US government gives our representatives in Congress say over how much the country borrows, and it's pretty reasonable to say that the government shouldn't be obligating future generations into paying debts without strong buy-in from the population. So representatives have to approve that debt.
The debt ceiling is merely what we call the amount that we've decided, through the democratic process, to allow to be borrowed under our names.
Robert Reich is once again out to lunch on this one. Charitably, I'm imagining he knows better and is putting politics ahead of education.
Except that it's up to the Democratic president to pay his credit card, and he has plenty of money in the Treasury to do it.
Republicans have nothing to do with that, no matter how much the president might be trying to use that as a political talking point.
More importantly, the UST is projected to have PLENTY of revenues incoming to service the US debt.
There is ZERO need to default. If the president is talking about default, that would be a choice he'd be making, and it would be impeachable.
So many people get this wrong.
See the ruling I'll link below.
Courts couldn't act without the FDA's response, and the FDA simply didn't respond regardless of the law.
"After all, Plaintiffs’ petitions challenging the 2000 Approval date back to the year 2002, right?
"Simply put, FDA stonewalled judicial review — until now. Before Plaintiffs filed this case, FDA ignored their petitions for over sixteen years, even though the law requires an agency response within “180 days of receipt of the petition.”"
This case is a mess, with the FDA's delays throwing the normal legal process into chaos, so the Court is likely looked deeply into the practical results of breaking from the normal rule to make a special exemption for this case.
It's not that weird when you realize just how off the rails this situation is.
The administration should have resolved all of this already, but it didn't. So the Court is trying to figure out how best to pick up the pieces it's been handed.
If you think this is an easy decision, it sounds like you don't understand the controversy here.
The FDA delayed legal proceedings for decades, so what should have been a run of the mill stay until pending questions were settled became something of a time machine to a previous period. The administration sort of broke the legal system here.
So it's not clear what the courts should do when the standard solution is so weird, and they don't want to break their own rules.
@thejapantimes But they're not undercutting the FDA. They're grappling with the FDA running afoul of its own standards.
The courts in this case are trying to figure out how to deal with an FDA that undercut itself, looking at the FDA's own records of dubious approval to sort out what to do now.
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
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