| Forum Index > General Forum |
Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread | ||
|
DarkPlasmaBall
United States43759 Posts
On October 08 2024 18:19 BlackJack wrote: But think of how short the queues would be It's funny you mention that, because I've only ever been to Disney World's resorts and parks during summer vacations... and when we made these plans a month ago, I was really looking forward to experiencing Disney when it wasn't super hot and when it was actually during the school year (maybe meaning that the queues wouldn't be as crazy as I was accustomed to). | ||
|
Acrofales
Spain17827 Posts
On October 08 2024 18:18 oBlade wrote: I have nothing but respect for the country that gave us Liszt and Erdos and the only country in Europe smart enough to write their family names first, but I can't make heads or tails of whatever translator that post has been through. If your challenge is "politicians don't always do what they say they do," that's true, but it's a separate issue from "what should politicians do," like you have to be right about the latter before you can hold them to account for not following through on something that everybody "knew" wasn't real anyway. 1) You can do both. The whole challenge is an unnecessary either/or bifurcation. You're correct I don't have a 100% perfectly measured picture of what parts of the government are underperforming. Neither does the government itself. That's part of the problem. Let's compromise, cut it in half immediately to start. Have the survivors audit each other. 2) I didn't come up with it. Someone else did. That's why I wrote "Republican proposal" in the post. Vivek and others have brought it up. Drumpf usually puts it at 50% I think, so Vivek turboed it to 75%. People who follow politics have encountered what both sides are up to and talking about before. The US Postal Service? Come on, don't be absurd. I had a family member not get mail for 2 weeks. They called the post office. "Oh yeah, your mailman retired 2 weeks ago." You have a government agency that is the sole legal way to deliver certain things, their workers also have a union, and that union endorsed a candidate in a postal election. I looked at what Ramaswamy wanted to do. Apparently abolishing the FBI was one of those. I could probably get behind that, although I'd personally start with the DEA, which he didn't mention. He did mention the ATF, which I find a weird choice. I guess illegal gun trade is popular among certain 2nd amendment enthusiasts? Anyway, I question the sanity of anyone wanting to abolish the department of education, the IRS and the nuclear regulatory commission. I suspect he just wanted to sound like he had a plan for his whole firing 50-75% of government employees without actually having too many details on why those agencies do important work. In any case, what are we talking about here? Are we culling all federal employees? Postal service, law enforcement, army, judges? Or are some of those categories exempt from your cull? Insofar as I understand it, the Federal Government employees around 2.8m people. Around 500k are postal service, and 1.4m by the different armed forces. DHS employs around 80,000 people, and with your stance on the border I guess you want to employ more there, not less. So out of 2.8m, I guess you could privatize the post, like Europe did (quite disastrously in most places, I might add), but that wouldn't really solve much, it'd just mean that the US government would have to subsidize a private postal agency (or Jimmybob in rural Arkansas just won't ever get mail again, because delivering mail to Bumfuck, Midwest is not profitable). That leaves 2.3m, of which 1.48m are armed forces and Homeland security, which is already more than 50% of the original 2.8m. but let's say they're exempt, leaving ~800k federal employees. 300k work for VA, which I guess you want to cut entirely, because fuck m. What did veterans ever do for your country, after all. Another 35k work for the FBI, which GH and Vivek agree on nuking. It's gone! And yes, I'm sure there's plenty in that remaining 450k-ish that can be removed. The IRS after all shouldn't need to employ anybody, just as Vivek claimed. Honest god-fearing Americans all pay their taxes exactly as mandated and who needs accountants to tally that all up and audit government income? Just hand it unseen to treasury and I'm sure it'll work out. Also, federal judges? Fire them all! Starting with the entire Supreme Court. I'm heavily in favor of that! The EPA? Gone! Corporations should be able to dump toxic waste anywhere, including major cities' drinking water reserves! FDA? Nonsense. Let big pharma self-regulate. Purdue Pharmaceuticals and I are both sure that will work out just fine! NASA? Fuck them, let Space X do that shit. Elon promised a Mars colony after all! Oh, and while we're at it, NOAA is gone too. We don't need weather forecasts, and definitely definitely definitely don't need people telling us global warming is real. James Inhofe debunked that shit years ago by bringing a snowball to the Senate. Here's some real suggestions though: nix the NSA and CIA. Stop the war on drugs and release everyone in prison for "possession", or even "possession with intent to distribute". Then shut down a whole bunch of prisons. Abolish the DEA. Heck, can probably cut down on coast guard too in that case: most of their work is arresting drug couriers. Sure, I won't get anywhere near 50%, let alone 75, but I could probably get close if you let me cut the army too. It probably wouldn't make the world a better place, but I'm not sure the US' presence worldwide is doing so either. At the very least, fucking off entirely out of the Middle East seems like a net positive at the moment. | ||
|
PVJ
Hungary5212 Posts
On October 08 2024 18:18 oBlade wrote: I have nothing but respect for the country that gave us Liszt and Erdos and the only country in Europe smart enough to write their family names first, but I can't make heads or tails of whatever translator that post has been through. If your challenge is "politicians don't always do what they say they do," that's true, but it's a separate issue from "what should politicians do," like you have to be right about the latter before you can hold them to account for not following through on something that everybody "knew" wasn't real anyway. I also have a lot of respect for South korea. That being said, I tried to make two points w/r/t your post. 1, the idea is shit. 2, the people who came up with the idea are shit. First, it reads to me your answer for "what should politicians do" is "use randomness to bring about `cuts`" -- I tried to creatively make a hyperbole out of your comment to display the non-sense. You think if the gov't doesn't know where is bloat and where isn't within their system, then social-security-based-layoffs would be better than a systemic, independent, scientifically supported overhaul. Nothing wrong with this thought process but it's barbaric and I don't get why you present this as some sort of enlightened, novel idea from the Republican party. Second, you seem to forward these Republican party ideas here with an assumption that "well it's a good idea because it's huge and it's reckless and it breaks things fast" Cool! This is the same that was promised 8 years ago. I was curious if I could get a simple, direct answer from you: what is your opinion on the chance of success of this radical proposal, if these guys already have a history of over-promise and under-delivery. It just doesn't add up. You can either ignore <politicians> as the actors of these changes and giving them clean slate. Or you can present the <politicians's> idea here as something you like but in that case you are not allowed to selectively ignore who those <politicians> are. You cannot say "This idea from the Republicans...." then ignore me in saying that you shouldn't trust the idea because it came from the Republicans. | ||
|
Simberto
Germany11310 Posts
This "randomly fire 50-75% of government employees" thing. Is it a thing republicans actually want? Is it a thing oBlade actually wants? Or is it just a joke i don't get? | ||
|
DarkPlasmaBall
United States43759 Posts
On October 08 2024 13:16 Introvert wrote: To the first question, I don't know, people argue about such things. Some people seem to think the US can get to 150-200% debt-to-GDP before things go south. No one really knows for sure though. As for what amount of GDP can government spend before the ill effects add up, I don't know. Memory says people estimate about 30%, but I could be making that number up and confusing it with something else. The second paragraph shows why so many of the budget fights we have now are fake. Non-defense discretionary spending is all of 14% of total federal spending, and yet that's what Congress spends most of its time arguing about. Republicans are very proud that they were able to get a not-insignificant-but-still-small cut in the growth of spending while still spending more than pre-pandemic. All very silly. It took a while, but we are finally at the point where left-of-center economists are getting worried about the debt load. Again not an economic historian but the days of explosive growth seem long gone, pick your favorite reason why. But if the economy can't grow faster than the debt does then obviously you can't catch up that way. But that's where choices have to be made. The "cut everywhere" idea is one of Rand Paul's I think, but not a single Democrat or even most Republicans would go for it, though for different reasons. Dems are constantly talking about what government "should" be doing for everyone and it's hard to talk that way while advocating for for cuts. As the party of the state and bureaucracy, they will never go for it. I'm convinced neither party will go for it until a crisis forces compromise. Me? I'd cut most department budgets, but even so, probably more important is to reform how government functions. American bureaucracy is a mishmash of different agencies and rules. A lot of it was created to fulfill political needs. some Senator needs some money or federal help for something he wants (logrolling), or in response to a crisis (e.g. New Deal agencies, of which many mercifully are no longer with us, but its legacy remains in many places). Our administrative apparatus is unwieldly, and while some blame federalism for that, I disagree. More like, much of the Democrat created state suffers from what Ezra Klein calls "everything bagel liberalism" where the state has no capacity to deal with any particular problem because it tries to deal with every problem. For the record that last part is wrong, what conservatives will do, which is what every does, is try to get government out of the way when they think government is doing something it shouldn't. No one actually wants the DMV to be slow and annoying to deal with. That's kind of a tangent though, even moderate reforms to our major entitlement programs would do wonders for our government's money situation. But any suggestion that calls for cuts or changes to systems implemented when people didn't live so many decades beyond retirement is considered cruel by Democrats. Even now Kamala says he plan to deal with debt is to tax the rich, but if you look at projected outlays you see that you can't sustain these programs without European level taxes on the middle class (or even with them IIRC), which NO ONE in America wants. Americans want government smaller in many ways but they also like all the goodies (who wouldn't?). This is why Republicans lose if voters think they will touch entitlements and Democrats lose if voters think their taxes are going up. I think nothing will happen until these crisis moments arise. But as for me, I would reform our biggest spending programs, massively reform how government operates and grants money (this is needed for more reasons that just cash problems). As a political concession I'd allow a tax increase, even though that really would be a small part of fixing the problem. I'm not sure if I would use the word "fake" when talking about budget cuts to the military, but perhaps "ineffective" or "not impactful enough", if we're talking about ways to meaningfully cut a serious amount of federal spending. (Military spending shouldn't be ignored, but it obviously won't single-handedly solve the debt crisis.) I don't know if Congress spends a disproportionately large amount of time essentially nickel-and-dime-ing the military budget, but I think that all the big pieces of the pie should be examined. That might mean looking for ways to cut spending or address inefficiencies. It may also mean reallocating some resources from one slice to another. If there are ways to update these systems of welfare, healthcare, and military where we can provide equal (or better!) benefits without spending more in the long term, they should be considered. I worry about the effects of blindly slashing the budget of... any department, really... without first doing the research on what might happen. Rand Paul's "cut everywhere" idea sounds fair at first glance, but I wonder if every department would truly be affected equally if they suddenly lost, say, 10% of their budget, and just had to deal with the consequences. When you say that you'd cut most department budgets, how do you figure out which ones to cut and which ones to leave alone? I assume we would hire multiple independent evaluators to assess bloat and wasteful spending in each department, and then make whatever cuts we felt were justified? I wonder if that's way easier said than done, especially when it comes to the (subjective) estimation of what costs are - and are not - a waste of money. I think the conversations about the federal government's role and what should be left up to the states are really difficult to have. From my perspective, sometimes (not always) the federal government's oversight can help vulnerable Americans and save struggling states, and that's something I think is worth keeping around, even if it costs extra money. There are certain freedoms and benefits to living in one state over another, and it's not necessarily feasible for the disenfranchised to move to the state that works best for them. But my perspective has the same spending issue that every other perspective seems to have - that everyone (except, I suppose, for Rand Paul) is happy to make exceptions for whatever they deem to be worthy of extra money. For example, you said that conservatives try to get government out of the way when they think government is doing something it shouldn't. I think that extra qualifier is crucial, because conservatives are happy to promote government intervention when it promotes conservative ideals, just as how liberals are happy to promote government intervention when it promotes liberal ideals. One of Kamala Harris's proposals is indeed to tax the rich, but that's not the only suggestion she's made for boosting our economy, addressing inflation, and finding ways to increase our GDP. And that last part - increasing our GDP - is the other side of this "debt-to-GDP ratio" coin. Some ways to stimulate the economy include: funding programs that create jobs, investing in infrastructure and technology, and educating and refining a skilled workforce. Liberals have historically championed these and presided over stronger economies, as a result. This extra money often helps pay for the more expensive costs of liberal ideals. If we really wanted to chip away at a huge part of the national debt (and I don't know if this should be our number one objective, but assuming it is...), then it seems like we should be leaning more towards the liberal side for boosting our economy, and leaning more towards the conservative side for cutting our costs. I wonder if both are truly possible though, as too little spending can lead to too little stimulation. I also think everyone (including myself) would probably be pissed off at how certain departments and programs and even human rights may be affected. | ||
|
DarkPlasmaBall
United States43759 Posts
On October 08 2024 21:22 Simberto wrote: Okay, i gotta out myself as a european barbarian here. This "randomly fire 50-75% of government employees" thing. Is it a thing republicans actually want? Is it a thing oBlade actually wants? Or is it just a joke i don't get? I've never even heard Republican leaders promote it, so it might just be what oBlade wants. I don't think Trump has ever said it, but I could be wrong. I tried Googling things like "republicans want to cut half the federal government" and didn't find anything. | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28553 Posts
| ||
|
DarkPlasmaBall
United States43759 Posts
On October 08 2024 22:26 Liquid`Drone wrote: It absolutely sounds like a Vivek suggestion. You're right: "Ramaswamy’s proposals are among the broadest in the field. Speaking at the America First Policy Institute in Washington, he said he would try to reduce the federal employee headcount by half in his first year in office and by 75% during his first term if he makes it to the White House." https://apnews.com/article/ramaswamy-2024-gop-slash-federal-workforce-layoffs-fbi-180ef9599a688ef68d6e51446baef4a7 "If presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswasmy gets elected and ends up leading the nation’s executive branch, he wants to gut it through unprecedented means — including a 75% decrease in government employees and the elimination of at least five agencies." https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2023/09/13/ramaswamy-wants-to-eliminate-fbi--atf-and-department-of-education--reduce-federal-workforce-by-75- I didn't think to do a Google search for Vivek, since he's (thankfully) not holding any office. | ||
|
GreenHorizons
United States22664 Posts
I'll give DPB credit for at least trying to balance it out with some of the typical kabuki with Intro. Should be noted though, this demonstrates my point about engagement with stuff like whatever Harris had to say on Call Her Daddy vs oBlades latest absurd distraction. It's not like I give a shit what she said on some stupid podcast, but Democrats are putting her through this media blitz because they think it's important they do so just for their biggest advocates to get immediately distracted by whatever stupid thing some Republican in their proximity said/did recently. It'd truly be funny if it wasn't so sad and dangerous. | ||
|
NewSunshine
United States5938 Posts
On October 08 2024 23:05 GreenHorizons wrote: Ramaswamy... You guys really can't help yourselves lol. I'll give DPB credit for at least trying to balance it out with some of the typical kabuki with Intro. Should be noted though, this demonstrates my point about engagement with stuff like whatever Harris had to say on Call Her Daddy vs oBlades latest absurd distraction. It's not like I give a shit what she said on some stupid podcast, but Democrats are putting her through this media blitz because they think it's important they do so just for their biggest advocates to get immediately distracted by whatever stupid thing some Republican in their proximity said/did recently. It'd truly be funny if it wasn't so sad and dangerous. I think you're confusing a few people on the internet with Democrats and their supporters as a whole? Like, we can't have a discussion about anything else that's going on without you chiming in with a smug reminder that we could be doing something more important? If you think we're so distracted from something that's important to talk about, what would you like to add to the conversation? Beyond a self-congratulatory I told-you-so. You're just as free to contribute to the conversation as anyone else, nobody's sidelining you and preventing you from being a part of the discussion. | ||
|
GreenHorizons
United States22664 Posts
On October 08 2024 23:14 NewSunshine wrote: I think you're confusing a few people on the internet with Democrats and their supporters as a whole? Like, we can't have a discussion about anything else that's going on without you chiming in with a smug reminder that we could be doing something more important? If you think we're so distracted from something that's important to talk about, what would you like to add to the conversation? Beyond a self-congratulatory I told-you-so. No, it's just a microcosm. You can see the same thing on reddit and irl. You critique me as if the vast majority of posting from libs isn't just self-congratulatory told-you-so's and pointing and laughing at Republican stupidity? To the degree one could argue I do that to libs, it's a fraction of how frequently they do it to those on their right. So...? If I were to try to extract something of value from libs recent attempts at engagement on government spending it would be devil's point about healthcare. On October 08 2024 15:20 Severedevil wrote: Resources are finite and the important thing is to spend them well. We should redirect resources away from bad expenditures and towards good ones. For example, for-profit health insurance is a huge ripoff. It's wildly inefficient compared to single payer, let alone compared to publicly-run healthcare. + Show Spoiler + On the other hand, the government spends trillions on bullshit weapons we'll never use or should never use, and on murdering foreigners overseas for no good reason. We can save a ton of resources by not doing that. There's mountains of government waste and private waste to clean up, and often they're intertwined (such as government subsidies --> 'food' full of corn syrup). Unfortunately, waste often funnels lots of resources to people who shouldn't have received those resources, and who will use those resources to make sure they keep getting funneled those resources. Shit's hard to fix. I'd add as an example (and this is basically what I was saying since Bernie v Hillary): If I was a Democrat that was sincerely trying to have the best possible outcome based on a sincere/favorable interpretation of what seems to be the amorphous core principles of being a Democrat this is more or less what I'd have thought/pushed after swallowing the bitter pill of Biden saving us from Trump. Basically from the day after Biden won I would have brought in Bernie to support Biden/Harris 2024 running on universal public healthcare that would naturally integrate themes of racial/economic/gender/age/etc equity, bodily autonomy, environmental justice, and basically everything Democrats claim they care about. From child poverty, to education, to jobs, to quality of life for seniors, to reducing the national debt, damn near everything could easily be put in the context of how universal healthcare would not only help but could do so with essentially a net positive economic impact. As in we could make the US unequivocally the best healthcare system in the world for less than what we're already paying for one of the worst among what the US considers its As obtuse as the online/extremely politically "engaged" Trumpers are, there's a lot of people out there that are just trying to make it through the next days, weeks, months, years, without worrying about falling off a ladder while cleaning their gutters turning them into a homeless fentanyl addict (or whatever else) because we have shit worker protections and healthcare systems. I think millions of them would be wondering where the hell this message has been their whole life. Probably more than enough to make up for whatever shithead curmudgeons in the Democrat party that would insist on perpetuating the profit driven system they enshrined in the ACA. Hell, might even get Intro on board if ya show him the math on how having a better healthcare system would reduce what we had to spend on it. EDIT: Instead from before the first primary even started Democrats went the "Shame, Blame, Fear, and no other option" route immediately demanding everyone fall in line behind a Biden that wouldn't even end up making it to the nomination because the majority of the party that said Biden was too old (and were right) were told to shut up and stop buying into Republican propaganda. | ||
|
KT_Elwood
688 Posts
On October 08 2024 22:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: I've never even heard Republican leaders promote it, so it might just be what oBlade wants. I don't think Trump has ever said it, but I could be wrong. I tried Googling things like "republicans want to cut half the federal government" and didn't find anything. It's the happy dystopian world view of many "anti-regulation" politicians (mostly R) and well documented idea of dissolving "Chevron" and stacking the courts with "anti-regulation" judges up to the supreme court. Then carefully manufactured anti-regulation lawsuits should provide precedence for companies to happily attack regulation they fall under. It's aligning with Trump's idea ..that reality is somthing you can negotioate, and that any and all "expert" official should get fired for not aliging his scientific reality with Trump's reality. It's really bleak outlook ..and of course there is a "Last Week Tonight" piece on it. (Leonard Leo) | ||
|
NewSunshine
United States5938 Posts
On October 08 2024 23:25 GreenHorizons wrote: No, it's just a microcosm. You can see the same thing on reddit and irl. You critique me as if the vast majority of posting from libs isn't just self-congratulatory told-you-so's and pointing and laughing at Republican stupidity? To the degree one could argue I do that to libs, it's a fraction of how frequently they do it to those on their right. So...? The "So?" is that this is a discussion thread on the internet for US politics, and it can range from the casual to the profound. If you have a strong opinion as to what's being discussed, you drive the change, you start the new leg of the discussion if you see something folks are missing and think we should be talking about. That's literally it, that's how a discussion thread works in perpetuity. Don't overthink it. Either you're interested in seeing the discussion take a new angle, and you do something to make it happen, or you don't care to change it, but don't expect us to do it for you. If your brand is just nihilism at this point, then you do you. But you're not better than anyone else for it. It's just people shooting the shit. | ||
|
oBlade
United States5268 Posts
On October 08 2024 19:41 Acrofales wrote: I looked at what Ramaswamy wanted to do. Apparently abolishing the FBI was one of those. I could probably get behind that, although I'd personally start with the DEA, which he didn't mention. He did mention the ATF, which I find a weird choice. I guess illegal gun trade is popular among certain 2nd amendment enthusiasts? Alcohol, tobacco, and firearms are all legal. You don't need a separate agency to police inanimate objects. Enforce laws against people. The ATF's successes include sniping a guy's entire family because the shotgun they told him to saw off was an inch too short, and telling people that pistol braces are illegal because they allow you to shoot with one hand and because they turn pistols into dangerous short barrel rifles that are shot with two hands making them more dangerous. Although most of ATF's overreach, like Drumpf banning bump stocks, will have hopefully been shored up by the overturning of the Chevron decision. On October 08 2024 19:41 Acrofales wrote: Anyway, I question the sanity of anyone wanting to abolish the department of education, the IRS and the nuclear regulatory commission. I suspect he just wanted to sound like he had a plan for his whole firing 50-75% of government employees without actually having too many details on why those agencies do important work. History shows that the US was more competitive worldwide before the Department of Education. Not having a federal department for something doesn't mean that people don't learn. The IRS got $60 billion to upgrade themselves during corona, so they audited people to recover $1 billion in missing tax revenue. There has been one nuclear reactor project added to the US in the last 30 years. You are falling, for what I hope brian sees because he's able to appreciate a good witticism, for what I will call "nominative dogmatism." Just because you put the name "Department of Education" on something doesn't mean it's worth anything or that you need it and that we need to defend at all costs its perpetual and eternal right to exist since... 1979. Like you probably couldn't even name me the cabinet chief of the DOE without looking it up right now. On October 08 2024 19:41 Acrofales wrote: In any case, what are we talking about here? Are we culling all federal employees? Postal service, law enforcement, army, judges? Or are some of those categories exempt from your cull? Insofar as I understand it, the Federal Government employees around 2.8m people. Around 500k are postal service, and 1.4m by the different armed forces. DHS employs around 80,000 people, and with your stance on the border I guess you want to employ more there, not less. I want to enforce the law on the border. We don't need mail. They are the NASA of driving white trucks around. There's e-mail, telephones, fax machines, Fedex, telex, telegrams, holograms. Nobody needs mail. On October 08 2024 19:41 Acrofales wrote: So out of 2.8m, I guess you could privatize the post, like Europe did (quite disastrously in most places, I might add), but that wouldn't really solve much, it'd just mean that the US government would have to subsidize a private postal agency (or Jimmybob in rural Arkansas just won't ever get mail again, because delivering mail to Bumfuck, Midwest is not profitable). That'd be possible, or just make it a law to operate in a state you have to serve the whole state, at any rate On October 08 2024 19:41 Acrofales wrote: That leaves 2.3m, of which 1.48m are armed forces and Homeland security, which is already more than 50% of the original 2.8m. but let's say they're exempt, leaving ~800k federal employees. Defense waste I feel is not an issue of the employees per se, but of projects, pork, and corruption. Certainly I'd be happy to see more government employees if they were all New Deal strongmen hanging by ropes making Hoover Dams. On October 08 2024 19:41 Acrofales wrote: 300k work for VA, which I guess you want to cut entirely, because fuck m. What did veterans ever do for your country, after all. The VA is not a shining example of a working government program, vouchers for private healthcare are instantly better. I have a friend who all the VA does is abandon him and the government gives welfare and free hotel rooms to illegal immigrants while they say he magically became undisabled. On October 08 2024 19:41 Acrofales wrote: Another 35k work for the FBI, which GH and Vivek agree on nuking. It's gone! Transplant about half of those to the US Marshals. On October 08 2024 19:41 Acrofales wrote: And yes, I'm sure there's plenty in that remaining 450k-ish that can be removed. The IRS after all shouldn't need to employ anybody, just as Vivek claimed. Honest god-fearing Americans all pay their taxes exactly as mandated and who needs accountants to tally that all up and audit government income? Just hand it unseen to treasury and I'm sure it'll work out. Also, federal judges? Fire them all! Starting with the entire Supreme Court. I'm heavily in favor of that! Judges are appointed so fall outside the blanket firings we're doing. There are protections against like reprisal firings. On October 08 2024 19:41 Acrofales wrote: The EPA? Gone! Corporations should be able to dump toxic waste anywhere, including major cities' drinking water reserves! FDA? Nonsense. Let big pharma self-regulate. Purdue Pharmaceuticals and I are both sure that will work out just fine! NASA? Fuck them, let Space X do that shit. Elon promised a Mars colony after all! Oh, and while we're at it, NOAA is gone too. We don't need weather forecasts, and definitely definitely definitely don't need people telling us global warming is real. James Inhofe debunked that shit years ago by bringing a snowball to the Senate. Regulation and bureaucrats are not a good thing per se. Letting big pharma self-regulate is the exact opposite of Drumpf's position this time around if you pay attention to why Kennedy is part of the team. SpaceX is demonstrably leagues more efficient than NASA, they are the crowning jewel of commercial space. NOAA spends half a million per person per year. $6b to tell me the weather. Either they need more people, or less money. That's unacceptable. NOAA and the EPA together tell me a little fish called the smelt is more important than water for the people and agriculture of California. I don't want bureaucrats making those decisions just because their "mission statement" is protect the environment bro. The only smelt we should be concerned about is the bullshit we smelt whenever Kamala goes into telling us how she grew up in a middle class family. Also FEMA. Literally have only the military and national guard do disaster relief. On October 08 2024 19:41 Acrofales wrote: Here's some real suggestions though: nix the NSA and CIA. Stop the war on drugs and release everyone in prison for "possession", or even "possession with intent to distribute". Then shut down a whole bunch of prisons. Abolish the DEA. Heck, can probably cut down on coast guard too in that case: most of their work is arresting drug couriers. Unlike the ATF, where alcohol, tobacco, and firearms are legal, drugs aren't. However, it would be better again to subsume that agency (like the FBI) into another, competent one, to avoid interagency inefficiency. On October 08 2024 19:41 Acrofales wrote: Sure, I won't get anywhere near 50%, let alone 75, but I could probably get close if you let me cut the army too. It probably wouldn't make the world a better place, but I'm not sure the US' presence worldwide is doing so either. At the very least, fucking off entirely out of the Middle East seems like a net positive at the moment. Yeah it's nice to see the Middle East turn over a new page while they blast into the future. On October 08 2024 20:24 PVJ wrote: First, it reads to me your answer for "what should politicians do" is "use randomness to bring about `cuts`" -- I tried to creatively make a hyperbole out of your comment to display the non-sense. You think if the gov't doesn't know where is bloat and where isn't within their system, then social-security-based-layoffs would be better than a systemic, independent, scientifically supported overhaul. Nothing wrong with this thought process but it's barbaric and I don't get why you present this as some sort of enlightened, novel idea from the Republican party. As I already said, I'm not opposed to auditing the government also. You people have such a limited imagination that we can't do both at once. However, your invocations are wrong for several reasons. Independent: The government will never independently review itself, that's the whole problem. Science: 1) There is no science of budgeting a government. It might be nice to imagine there is a right answer we can approach with the laws of nature, but it's not nature running our society, it's us. 2) You don't need an "independent, scientifically supported" reason to cut money if you didn't need that reason to spend it in the first place. What a backwards standard. The government is not something we're sitting here taking wildlife observations of. "Hey, give it some more money, see what happens. Wait, don't not feed it, that'd be unethical without a peer reviewed source." On October 08 2024 20:24 PVJ wrote: Second, you seem to forward these Republican party ideas here with an assumption that "well it's a good idea because it's huge and it's reckless and it breaks things fast" Cool! This is the same that was promised 8 years ago. I was curious if I could get a simple, direct answer from you: what is your opinion on the chance of success of this radical proposal, if these guys already have a history of over-promise and under-delivery. If it happened, there would be a 95% chance of it succeeding. But I think by success you may have meant chance of happening, in which case: If we elect a unified government, probably about 20%. With just Drumpf winning, maybe 4%. Why would I want to break something? The government is hopelessly broken and has been for about 50 years, since Vietnam. The government cannot build, cannot improve, cannot succeed, except in the field of improving its own ability to waste. On October 08 2024 20:24 PVJ wrote: You cannot say "This idea from the Republicans...." then ignore me in saying that you shouldn't trust the idea because it came from the Republicans. Watch me. | ||
|
DarkPlasmaBall
United States43759 Posts
On October 08 2024 23:41 oBlade wrote: Alcohol, tobacco, and firearms are all legal. You don't need a separate agency to police inanimate objects. The FDA = The Food and Drug Administration. Do you believe the FDA should be abolished and that we shouldn't have oversight in regards to public health and safety related to food and medicine? | ||
|
GreenHorizons
United States22664 Posts
On October 08 2024 23:39 NewSunshine wrote: The "So?" is that this is a discussion thread on the internet for US politics, and it can range from the casual to the profound. If you have a strong opinion as to what's being discussed, you drive the change, you start the new leg of the discussion if you see something folks are missing and think we should be talking about. That's literally it, that's how a discussion thread works in perpetuity. Don't overthink it. Either you're interested in seeing the discussion take a new angle, and you do something to make it happen, or you don't care to change it, but don't expect us to do it for you. If your brand is just nihilism at this point, then you do you. But you're not better than anyone else for it. It's just people shooting the shit. This response makes no sense if you don't selectively edit out me doing the "driving the change" thing with the majority of the post you responded to but didn't include. + Show Spoiler + I'd add as an example (and this is basically what I was saying since Bernie v Hillary): If I was a Democrat that was sincerely trying to have the best possible outcome based on a sincere/favorable interpretation of what seems to be the amorphous core principles of being a Democrat this is more or less what I'd have thought/pushed after swallowing the bitter pill of Biden saving us from Trump. Basically from the day after Biden won I would have brought in Bernie to support Biden/Harris 2024 running on universal public healthcare that would naturally integrate themes of racial/economic/gender/age/etc equity, bodily autonomy, environmental justice, and basically everything Democrats claim they care about. From child poverty, to education, to jobs, to quality of life for seniors, to reducing the national debt, damn near everything could easily be put in the context of how universal healthcare would not only help but could do so with essentially a net positive economic impact. As in we could make the US unequivocally the best healthcare system in the world for less than what we're already paying for one of the worst among what the US considers its lessers peers. As obtuse as the online/extremely politically "engaged" Trumpers are, there's a lot of people out there that are just trying to make it through the next days, weeks, months, years, without worrying about falling off a ladder while cleaning their gutters turning them into a homeless fentanyl addict (or whatever else) because we have shit worker protections and healthcare systems. I think millions of them would be wondering where the hell this message has been their whole life. Probably more than enough to make up for whatever shithead curmudgeons in the Democrat party that would insist on perpetuating the profit driven system they enshrined in the ACA. Hell, might even get Intro on board if ya show him the math on how having a better healthcare system would reduce what we had to spend on it. EDIT: Instead from before the first primary even started Democrats went the "Shame, Blame, Fear, and no other option" route immediately demanding everyone fall in line behind a Biden that wouldn't even end up making it to the nomination because the majority of the party that said Biden was too old (and were right) were told to shut up and stop buying into Republican propaganda. Or that what I was doing was literally "start the new leg of the discussion if you see something folks are missing and think we should be talking about." I don't think I'm better than anyone else, but I do think socialism is preferable to liberal capitalism and argue accordingly. People mostly know I'm right, even from their perspective, but they are trapped in a liberal electoralism Hamster Wheel paradigm and can't figure out how to get off. I'm not the nihilist btw, Democrats are the ones insisting things can't be better so everyone just needs to accept their shittyness. | ||
|
Velr
Switzerland10596 Posts
I don't think I'm better than anyone else, but I do think socialism is preferable to liberal capitalism and argue accordingly. People mostly know I'm right, even from their perspective, but they are trapped in a liberal electoralism Hamster Wheel paradigm and can't figure out how to get off. Wow, imagine really having typed that. | ||
|
oBlade
United States5268 Posts
On October 08 2024 23:44 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: The FDA = The Food and Drug Administration. Do you believe the FDA should be abolished and that we shouldn't have oversight in regards to public health and safety related to food and medicine? Let me know when the FDA starts arresting people. | ||
|
DarkPlasmaBall
United States43759 Posts
On October 08 2024 23:55 oBlade wrote: Let me know when the FDA starts arresting people. Let me know when you're going to answer my question. | ||
|
GreenHorizons
United States22664 Posts
Imagine thinking you're really doing something by pointing out that I openly acknowledge I prefer socialism to liberal capitalism and that most people arguing with me do too. They just don't know how to get from here to there because of the paradigm of how US politics functions, and disagree with me that revolutionary socialism is that path. Wow. | ||
| ||
WardiTV Invitational
Round of 8 & 4 and Finals
Spirit vs SHINLIVE!
Clem vs SKillous
herO vs TBD
TBD vs GuMiho
[ Submit Event ] |
|
StarCraft 2 StarCraft: Brood War Mong Dota 2 1083Pusan  844actioN  553BeSt 519firebathero 421ggaemo 325Larva 276GuemChi 247Last 232Leta 137[ Show more ] League of Legends Counter-Strike Super Smash Bros Heroes of the Storm Other Games tarik_tv48257 B2W.Neo1602 sgares479 DeMusliM308 Pyrionflax275 Fuzer  234RotterdaM226 Hui .97 EmSc Tv  14trigger2 Organizations Counter-Strike StarCraft 2 Other Games StarCraft 2 StarCraft: Brood War StarCraft 2 StarCraft: Brood War |
|
AI Arena 2025 Tournament
Replay Cast
Clem vs Zoun
Wardi Open
Monday Night Weeklies
PiGosaur Monday
Replay Cast
SOOP
SKillous vs Spirit
Tenacious Turtle Tussle
The PondCast
Replay Cast
[ Show More ] |
|
|
EPT
Please explain what you believe would be the best way to reduce our national debt, and why you think it would be effective.
