Quote:
Originally Posted by Munchkin03
This will probably surprise a ton of people, but I don't care too much about teaching evolution or creation in schools. I figure that's a pretty personal belief that people will teach their kids regardless of what's being taught in the schools. I remember in my HS biology classes, there were a group of 3-4 fundamentalist Christians who challenged the science texts. Most people come in with their ideas on this topic, and you can't really change their minds too much.
The states with the most military bases are Florida, California, and North Carolina--and they all break just about even with the tax thing. The whole thing seems to have less to do with population or even military involvement, and the general economic picture of the state. For example, the same states that always show up at the bottom of the lists for quality of life--Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia, and New Mexico--also take a ton more than they give to the government.
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I don't care much about the evolution-intelligent design-creationism stuff either. I think it's important kids get a good foundation in actual science and that's what should drive the state curriculum, but I think a certain fundamentalist segment oversells how much aggressive Godlessness is required for this. I grew up with a traditional evolution based curriculum, I guess, but we didn't get into the who or why; just the general overview of how. It wasn't incompatible with my belief in God.
I just think it's interesting who politically can get away with holding certain views and advocating them in office and who can't. Palin got painted with a pretty broad brush for advocating things there's little evidence she used her offices to press for. Jindal doesn't and it intrigues me. What accounts for that? Jindal projecting higher IQ generally? Maybe.
As far as revenue, and I still haven't looked at the links I confess, it would make sense that if you didn't have an economy that generated much money, you'd contribute less in taxes. Any money that you then took in from the federal government would look disproportionate.
But you'd also have a pretty low bar for keeping your generally crappy economy going so maybe you could claim you didn't need as much stimulus funding.
But I think it's more about positioning with the GOP than really exercising good fiscal judgment.
On the other hand, I have the impression, having not read the bill I can't say for sure, that it contains a ridiculous amount of funding for projects unrelated to present economic health. So one probably could turn down some of the pork.
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