Kamala Harris Introduces Bill To Send Millions To Local Governments For Tech Support (theverge.com) 136
Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has introduced legislation that would allocate millions of dollars for local government to create dedicated teams that could "update and rebuild" government systems. The Verge reports: The United States Digital Service, an office established in 2014 after the widespread failures of Healthcare.gov, provides IT support for the federal government, bringing technologists into the government to work on tools like federal websites. It's continued to operate under the Trump administration, and some states, Harris' office notes, have experimented with similar teams. Harris' bill, the Digital Service Act, would provide an annual $50 million to the federal service, but it also goes further, allocating $15 million per year to state and local governments to create similar teams.
Harris' bill, the Digital Service Act, would provide an annual $50 million to the federal service, but it also goes further, allocating $15 million per year to state and local governments to create similar teams. Under the plan, the national Digital Service would offer two-year grants, giving state and local governments between $200,000 and $2.5 million per year. Those governments would be required to take on 20 percent of costs and to spend at least half of the money on talent, rather than tech. The national Digital Service, under the proposal, would report bi-annually to Congress on the progress of the grantees. The bill would provide funding through 2027.
Harris' bill, the Digital Service Act, would provide an annual $50 million to the federal service, but it also goes further, allocating $15 million per year to state and local governments to create similar teams. Under the plan, the national Digital Service would offer two-year grants, giving state and local governments between $200,000 and $2.5 million per year. Those governments would be required to take on 20 percent of costs and to spend at least half of the money on talent, rather than tech. The national Digital Service, under the proposal, would report bi-annually to Congress on the progress of the grantees. The bill would provide funding through 2027.
Ah cool! directed government spending (Score:5, Insightful)
It is the government after all.
Just my 2 cents
Re:Ah cool! directed government spending (Score:4, Insightful)
And if your state is efficient and doesn't use all of it's allocation, there will be a year-end rush to spend it on something. Anything.
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You can spend it on spelling lessons. it's means "it is".
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Don't worry. The probability of Kamala Harris being the next president is exactly 0%.
If you look at how she is running her campaign, it is obvious she isn't even trying to be the next Barack Obama. She is trying to be the next Jesse Jackson. She wants to be the national leader and spokesperson for the black community. Unlike the presidency, she actually has a good shot at that (there is not much effective competition).
She announced her candidacy in Oakland. Her national headquarters is in Baltimore. T
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You are looking too hard.
She's a mockery of incompetence. When she announced a plan to eliminate private insurance, CNN asked her "If you like your insurance can you keep your insurance?"
She didn't even understand the sarcasm of the question.
She is tone-deaf and oblivious in a way that only third party candidates or meme candidates generally are. She actually might get weeded out earlier than one might expect once they have debates and she has to respond credibly to questions.
No one likes "dog ate homewor
No, she's serious (Score:3)
If we had a proper functioning media they'd be calling them both out on this shit, but, well, we don't.
Meanwhile Warren, sadly, got destroyed by some dumb college chick things she did pretending to be an Indian Prin
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Still, she's a multi-millionaire so it's kind of hard to believe she's serious.
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This shows that she is smart because she is the only one who knows the difference between a wealth tax and income tax.
Unfortunately, she wants the wealth tax in addition to the income tax, rather than as a replacement, which would make much more sense.
Still, she's a multi-millionaire so it's kind of hard to believe she's serious.
Why should competent financial management be a disqualification? It seems to me it should be a plus.
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Why should competent financial management be a disqualification? It seems to me it should be a plus.
Since you seem to need it spelled out for you, most people don't make laws that hurt themselves.
Re: No, she's serious (Score:4, Interesting)
First, define hurt. A vaccine injection hurts for a moment but helps for many years.
Why should Warren care if her law dents money she won't notice, if the amount it saves her over, say, ten years exceeds the amount it costs her over ten years?
Those who care about any pain, regardless of gain, are penny wise and dollar foolish. They're not the people you want in charge.
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if the amount it saves her over, say, ten years exceeds the amount it costs her over ten years?
I'm listening to your proposal for how that might happen.
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Well considering how many posts about her from the /. editors, we know who they want.
Re: Ah cool! directed government spending (Score:3)
Are you suggesting that Slashdot ran Clippy as a write-in candidate?
Re:Ah cool! directed government spending (Score:4, Interesting)
You're being unfair. I give her at least a 1.5% chance. With a margin of error of 1.5%.
But she is trying to get her name out there as I think you're suggesting. Name recognition matters. A year ago, had anyone even heard of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Beto O'Rourke? Or for that matter, Kamala Harris? Maybe those who really pay attention to politics had, but it's still doubtful for AOC.
Now they're all household names, with particular thanks to Fox News for elevating AOC to that level. She is pretty extreme, but in past years such junior representatives would have been mostly ignored as that crazy liberal who really doesn't have any significant influence in the first place. I'm thinking of one particular Democrat Congresswoman from my hometown who has been in office for 30 years or so and has had very little influence at all other than casting her vote with other Dems. She just doesn't get that much attention, but AOC is in some ways like Trump. She sometimes speaks before she thinks things through and she likes to use social media and also get in her opponent's faces.
It's like the right wants to find the most extreme Democrat they can and use them to paint the entire party with a broad brush.
And I apologize for wandering away from Kamala Harris. She's the Democratic Senator from California, right? The one who is not Dianne Feinstein? Been a Senator for a whole 2 years?
At this point in the election cycle I think many of us are waiting for candidates like Harris to drop out before we start trying to figure out who we support. And that's probably bad because if we got involved much earlier in the process maybe we'd have better candidates on both sides of the aisle and we wouldn't be trying to figure out if Trump or Hillary would be worse for our country.
In an ideal world, the Hatfields and McCoys would get along and we'd honestly be torn over who would make America even greater, but no matter who won we would still have faith in their ability to lead us.
I can dream anyway.
Re:Ah cool! directed government spending (Score:4, Insightful)
While I don't agree with AOC on many things, and that Green Thing she helped push after Markey loaded it with the Communist Manifesto (she's also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America so it was an easy sell), I've watched her in some hearings on CSPAN. She does her homework. She's the woman Asshole needs to watch out for. She's not running for Pres but he'd better hope she never becomes a DA with subpoena power.
Re: Ah cool! directed government spending (Score:2)
She wants to be the national leader and spokesperson for the black community.
Doubtful she'll get there; he's the black community has already identified her as a traitor and a sell-out.
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Nah, even lying is better than troll-spamming.
You're the one (Score:2)
Who made government that way.
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Re:Ah cool! directed government spending (Score:4, Funny)
It's impossible to ever improve any government infrastructure because it's automatically pork for someone. The government should therefore keep using hand-me-down TRS-80s for all its computing needs, to avoiding giving any pork to Dell and HP.
Actually what wrong with an abacus? They can collect stones for free from the side of the pork road and just make-do without the frame.
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This just continues to illustrate everything that is wrong with the Fed. Take money from the citizens of the States, then waste it, then send part of it back to the States, with lots of strings and regulations attached, and without any concern for the actual needs of each State. Meanwhile, making the Fed larger and larger, and governance further and further away from the constituents. It breeds inefficiency, waste, corruption, and centralization of power while lowering innovation, freedom, and accountab
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>"First, the Elastic Clause, then the General Welfare clause, then the matter of guarantees to the state of their government, then the various Amendments."
If one misreads the intent of the clause, yes. Otherwise, the "Elastic Clause" gives the Fed the power to make laws which the Constitution allows, and [supposedly] nothing more.
"General Welfare"- same thing, a generic clause that just gives the power of the Fed to make laws. Not WHICH laws, which are [supposedly] constrained by the 10th Amendment in
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Not enough money.
We would need to be up into the fucking billions.
Trump's budget calls for cuts domestically. How do the two narratives fit?
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Which will go to CEOs of tech call centers who will route the calls to India and skim the tax payer funded costs i their pockets
Expanding (Score:5, Insightful)
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By myself.
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Why? (Score:2)
They'll tax us either way. Kamala wants her cut (Score:5, Insightful)
Two options when states need to do something:
A. Your state decides what is needed in your state. State taxpayers approve it via whatever mechanisms your state has. Taxpayers pay the cost for it.
B. Kamala Harris and the rest of the Washington politicians decide what your state needs. Washington politicians approve taxing you. Taxpayers send their money to Washington. Washington sends part of it back to your state. Tax payers pay the actual cost of program, plus the bureacracy cost of sending it back and forth, plus Washington's cut.
It's pretty plain why Kamala Harris wants to send your money through Washington and keep a portion of it. Why YOU would agree with that I have no idea. Unless you're just a superfan of politicians that play for team D. Superfans do non-sensical things.
City councilman lives two blocks away, I can knock (Score:2)
My city councilman lives two blocks away. I can stop by any time. Most evenings he'll be out in his shop working on a hot rod. I've had a fifteen minute conversation with him, and a 15 minute conversation with his opponent in the last election.
My Texas state Senator (state laws) does a call-in program on the local radio station every week. I've called and pointed out where I thought he was looking at things the wrong way, had a 5 minute conversation with him.
My Washington senator - don't know where they li
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A. Your state decides what is needed in your state.
Conceptually, this seems like the better idea. However, there are plenty of politicians that wouldn't give two shits if they had the worst security. They would only care after everyone's data was stolen and it was reported to the public. By mandating spending on IT, it ensures these systems are maintained.
If you want to better understand how little they value security, just look at corporations because the same types of assholes are in charge of the budgets.
Also out of date (Score:3)
> If you want to better understand how little they value security, just look at corporations because the same types of assholes are in charge of the budgets.
Fifteen years ago you would have had a good point.
Next week I'm starting a new job, at a new company. Both my current company and the new one each spend over a million dollars per year on information security. So if I look at what these companies budget for security, it shows they value it very highly.
Companies are starting to realize not only the v
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It's pretty plain why Kamala Harris wants to send your money through Washington and keep a portion of it. Why YOU would agree with that I have no idea. Unless you're just a superfan of politicians that play for team D. Superfans do non-sensical things.
The irony here is that "red" states generally take more money from the federal government than they pay into it. [politifact.com] Which is to say, people like you complaining about taxes are more likely to be from a "taker state".
FYI your star quarterback retired 15 years ago (Score:2)
FYI, the data you love masturbating to is 15 years out date. That's fine, though, I see that you are a superfan for team D, so facts don't matter.
I understand because I'm kinda the same way - I still have a John Elway jersey. I didn't publicly say "the Broncos are the best because in the Redskins game John Elway rushed for ...". I'd look silly citing a stat that old.
It's cool though, enjoy rooting for the team you picked.
Btw you're bragging about being stupid (Score:1)
When Californians want to support California orange growers, they each send $1.00 to Washington and ask Washington to send $0.60 back to California orange growers.
When Texans want to support pecan growers in Texas - well mostly they buy pecans and make a pecan pie, no government involved. But when they want to involve government, they have the state spend $1.00 each supporting pecan growers.
Californians then brag that until recently they sent a lot of money to Washington. This perplexes Texans because send
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Sorry, but nope...
https://rockinst.org/issue-are... [rockinst.org]
Click on the state ranking and per capita.
Now offset the values by the $3k per capita that the annual deficit runs.
21 States are ahead on the federal cash flow, 5 of which are Blue.
Virginia (R), Kentucky (R), New Mexico (B), West Virginia (R), Alaska (R), Mississippi (R), Alabama (R), Maryland (B), Maine (B), Hawaii (B), Arkansas (R), S. Carolina (R), Arizona (R), Oklahoma (R), Missouri (R), Montana (R), Louisiana (R), Vermont (B), Tennessee (R), Idaho (R),
Re:Most can't (Score:5, Informative)
Then you act like anyone who doesn't live in one of those blue states is some kind of simpleton that couldn't possibly manage without your superior knowledge of how they should live their lives. Could you be more sanctimonious? Go read Thomas Sowell's The Vision of the Anointed. Maybe you'll learn something and come to your senses.
Whether they went for Trump is irrelevant (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't need to "believe" anything, it's pretty well documented [wallethub.com] that states that lean to the GOP depend heavily on the Feds. It's not hard to understand why. They don't invest in their people, and when you don't do that the people who can leave because the roads, schools, water supply and air quality suck rocks. This is the part where you point out
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Re: Why? (Score:2)
Ah, yes, just as each State can create its own IETF and invent its own Internet protocols. Or maybe each State can set its own width of railway track, or define its own units of measurement.
Sometimes standards are useful.
Americans are determined that the Feds should not hold to standards, then complain when the Feds have no standards.
Besides, Trump just ended State Rights.
I totally misread this... (Score:2)
"Talent" (Score:2)
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Because government...
Doesn't have to compete
Can't pay as well
Can't be agile
Has red tape for everything
Almost never fires anyone who's incompetent
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Government simply does not attract the best and brightest most of the time.
I think that qualifies as "not even wrong". I mean its technically right (which is the best kind of right) but theres a whole lot of implied context which is way off base.
I mean sure the government doesn't attract the best and the brightest most of the time, but neither does anyone else. Anyone who thinks business is better in this regard has clearly never worked for a company. Or dealt with a company in any capacity.
Re: "Talent" (Score:3)
There are a lot of best and brightest at NASA, CERN and Fermilab that would disagree. IPv4 was not designed by a corporation, neither was the Manchester Mk 1.
Linux' two top gurus, Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox, were not working in bakeries or bars. (Yes, being a student at a government-backed facility is working for the government. They were not working for private enterprise.)
We saw private enterprise at work in the 2004 DARPA Challenge. Not a single automated vehicle finished. Most crashed on the first corn
My local government is (Score:3)
Is our internet up or do we have to use the free wifi across the street again to get to our Office 365 accounts and use our cloud apps and data?
Just my 2 cents
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Standard Pork for California Companies (Score:4, Interesting)
This is just standard, time-honored "pork belly politics." California companies are betting that this legislation will channel loads of federal money to California companies. She is just looking out for the interests of her past and future campaign donors. Very transparent what the intent is here. This is just how politics is done.
A $65 million dollar national appropriations bill (Score:2)
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Probably, in the details of the bill, it will turn out that almost all of the 65 million is going to end up in the hands of one beneficiary company who made a substantial donation to Kamala Harris's election campaign.
Re: A $65 million dollar national appropriations b (Score:1)
#me_too (Score:2)
I ALSO chose to spend money on shit I wanted instead of shit I needed.
When may I expect my big check from the Federal Government to cover my poor decision-making?
Fed Rework was Lightning in a Bottle (Score:1)
woman is an idiot (Score:2)
And she is worried about fucking around with software!!!!
She should have a backbone and push to increase gasoline/diesel tax slowly to pay for these other infrastructure, while getting an OSS going on gov systems.
reparations (Score:4, Interesting)
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Maybe there is a better way (Score:1)
Rather than running a high overhead federal government giveaway program the brain damaged broad should instead lobby for a tax reduction with the suggestion that local governments raise their taxes slightly to capture the money directly. Then more money goes to local IT needs and less goes to Federal government administrators in their lavish offices.
{^_^}
Tech support? Let's start with the FCC (Score:2)
Can we hobble established Internet providers when they try to shut down municipal Wi-Fi/fiber efforts? $15 million a year just to support those problems would probably make more of a difference than anything else techy that money would be put to.
It's so easy to spend other people's money... (Score:2)
n/t
Re:It's so easy to spend other people's money... (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you have anything to add other than "durrr gubbmint baaaad *drool*"?
Seriously that insight and thought-free attitude is nothing but deeply tedious. If you think "spending other peoples money" is bad, then why aren't you living in the government-free paradise of the Congo?
I also love the irony of such a complaint made on the web on the internet, two things developed with government money.
I have zero sympathy (Score:2)
For those who create that which they then profess to hate, then make worse in the name of improvement and enslave in the name of freedom.
I have very little time for the right wing extremists that make up American politics, and less for those that support such gibberish.
The idea, whilst sound, is doomed to fail because voters want dysfunction and a corrupt government. They want things to fail. The Libertarians and Republicans especially, but I'd say 60% if Democrats as well.
Yet 25,00 People Are Homeless in Silicon Valley (Score:2)
Throwing money won't help (Score:3)
California has tried twice to modernize its vehicle registration system from the sixties, and failed twice, and thrown away tens of millions of dollars in the process.
What's needed is competence, and you can't just buy that.
Don't teach everyone to code (Score:2)
The key is to teach the talented to code WELL. Hint: you don't do that in Javascript or on Windows.
Reagan (Score:1)
"If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." --Reagan
Plug & Play Proposal (Score:2)
Kamala Harris (Score:2)
If she had her way, all the tech bought would be license plate scanners, facial recognition cameras, wiretaps, weakening of cryptography, DNA databases.