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!
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Despite the lies from Donald Trump, Matt Gaetz, Elon Musk, and their conservative followers, FEMA and the Biden/Harris administration have done an incredible job helping the southeastern states through Hurricane Helene, with even Republican governors and other local officials praising the assistance they've been receiving. Over a week later, there are still local, state, and federal emergency teams doing the best they can to help families affected by the hurricane. And next up is Hurricane Milton, scheduled to hit within 24 hours. Keep in mind that it's the Republican party that keeps rejecting additional FEMA funding and downplaying the seriousness of natural disasters, with Trump calling climate change a hoax and refusing to give certain states necessary emergency aid when he was president. They offer their thoughts and prayers, while Democrats offer proactive and reactive solutions that save lives.
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.
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.
I hear you, but while watching that discourse I did notice we all followed GH's criticism exactly.
- Intro and DPB start a measured conversation on debt/budgeting. - oBlade says some derailing shit on firing 50% of the government - The next 15 posts are about the new absurd thing and not the original actual discussion. We couldn't help ourselves.
I'm not better - I'm one of those 15 posts. GH isn't wrong to point out this pattern. Don't take it personally.
Where GH and I diverge is where we think controlling this is reasonable (on a large scale, people will and should respond negatively to offensive or harmful things) and that the avoided discussion has intrinsic value. In this case, I would have appreciated the Intro/DPB discussion more than what happened, but that doesn't grant it more 'political value' than shouting down an absurd and damaging idea.
Lastly, when GH's point is "Y'all are incapable of controlling the conversation, you can't help yourselves", him pointing out that we can't control the conversation IS him being interested in taking the discussion in a new direction.
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.
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.
I hear you, but while watching that discourse I did notice we all followed GH's criticism exactly.
- Intro and DPB start a measured conversation on debt/budgeting. - oBlade says some derailing shit on firing 50% of the government - The next 15 posts are about the new absurd thing and not the original actual discussion. We couldn't help ourselves.
I'm not better - I'm one of those 15 posts. GH isn't wrong to point out this pattern. Don't take it personally.
Where GH and I diverge is where we think controlling this is reasonable (on a large scale, people will and should respond negatively to offensive or harmful things) and that the avoided discussion has intrinsic value. In this case, I would have appreciated the Intro/DPB discussion more than what happened, but that doesn't grant it more 'political value' than shouting down an absurd and damaging idea.
Lastly, when GH's point is "Y'all are incapable of controlling the conversation, you can't help yourselves", him pointing out that we can't control the conversation IS him being interested in taking the discussion in a new direction.
Yeah, I get what you're saying, I do. I'm ultimately not bothered if we take the point and focus more on what makes the Democrats stand in a positive light, instead of getting mired in shit flinging about the Republicans. I know I get caught up in it more than my fair share. I'm happy to do it recreationally to a point, but ultimately it's not worth it if that's all we're doing.
For instance, DPB's post about the FEMA response to our recent natural disasters is a good one. In general, Harris and Walz running on a more optimistic note is a good one. It's undoubtedly better if we can keep the discourse on that end of the spectrum, I can see that.
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.
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.
I hear you, but while watching that discourse I did notice we all followed GH's criticism exactly.
- Intro and DPB start a measured conversation on debt/budgeting. - oBlade says some derailing shit on firing 50% of the government - The next 15 posts are about the new absurd thing and not the original actual discussion. We couldn't help ourselves.
I'm not better - I'm one of those 15 posts. GH isn't wrong to point out this pattern. Don't take it personally.
Where GH and I diverge is where we think controlling this is reasonable (on a large scale, people will and should respond negatively to offensive or harmful things) and that the avoided discussion has intrinsic value. In this case, I would have appreciated the Intro/DPB discussion more than what happened, but that doesn't grant it more 'political value' than shouting down an absurd and damaging idea.
Lastly, when GH's point is "Y'all are incapable of controlling the conversation, you can't help yourselves", him pointing out that we can't control the conversation IS him being interested in taking the discussion in a new direction.
Just to add my perspective: I still care about my conversation with Introvert, despite also chatting with oBlade. Whenever Introvert gets around to reading my reply and responding to it, I'll happily continue the discussion, but while I patiently wait - and if I have the time and energy - I don't mind engaging with other people in the meantime. oBlade and I might be able to bang out more back-and-forth posts in a shorter amount of time, especially if it's about a quicker or less serious topic, but my willingness to engage with one poster/post doesn't mean I'm no longer interested in engaging with another poster/post. I don't feel like oBlade's post derailed or distracted me from my conversation with Introvert.
I think GH was hoping to have the 457th iteration of the argument of less evilism and how we're all genocide enablers unless we reject both parties and join the socialist revolution. But here we are not talking about that so I understand his frustration.
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.
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.
I hear you, but while watching that discourse I did notice we all followed GH's criticism exactly.
- Intro and DPB start a measured conversation on debt/budgeting. - oBlade says some derailing shit on firing 50% of the government - The next 15 posts are about the new absurd thing and not the original actual discussion. We couldn't help ourselves.
I'm not better - I'm one of those 15 posts. GH isn't wrong to point out this pattern. Don't take it personally.
Where GH and I diverge is where we think controlling this is reasonable (on a large scale, people will and should respond negatively to offensive or harmful things) and that the avoided discussion has intrinsic value. In this case, I would have appreciated the Intro/DPB discussion more than what happened, but that doesn't grant it more 'political value' than shouting down an absurd and damaging idea.
Lastly, when GH's point is "Y'all are incapable of controlling the conversation, you can't help yourselves", him pointing out that we can't control the conversation IS him being interested in taking the discussion in a new direction.
This place isn't some activism ground where we're supposed to win people over or solve great economic quandaries. We're too old and entrenched for the former and we lack expertise for the latter, that discussion about debt was mostly "idk but..".
I think treating this place as a very serious one where you're supposed to control narratives or gain something from every discussion is a faux pas. It's mostly casual conversation with the rare insight or wit.
When conservatives don't post in this thread, Russians don't post in the Ukraine thread, and rabbis/apologists don't post in the Israel thread, the threads are almost entirely dead. Because people are way more likely to post when they disagree with something or they find a fault in an argument. And personally I actually want to see how they think, and it's less irritating than looking for it on Reddit, Twitter, w/e.
Also, I don't think oBlade or BlackJack are MTG-level as suggested, not even close. If anything, the annoying part about this dynamic is that they get too many poor arguments as replies from people that misunderstood the subject or what they wrote, which makes them pounce on those instead of dealing with the more difficult to answer counterpoints.
Honestly, while I disagree with oBlade on pretty fundamental points, when I responded with content, he answered, sometimes a bit flippantly, but I deserved that as I was rather sarcastic too. DPB then had a further follow-up about why the ATF is redundant and I probably ended up agreeing with oBlade on that one. It may be because I don't know enough about what the ATF does, but here in Spain, the Policia Nacional is in charge of policing a whole host of "federal level" things, ranging from organized crime to anti-terrorism. They are maybe a bit too large, also being the organization that emits ID cards and a bunch of other weird stuff at most tangentially related to law enforcement, but if I understand oBlade he'd prefer that kind of large organization to the splintered situation in the US. And he and GH could probably find some common grounds on the wholesale reorganisation of all law enforcement in general, although I expect they both hope for very different outcomes.
I agree it took us too many posts to get there, but thus is the internet.
On October 08 2024 05:19 GreenHorizons wrote: [quote] This is electric sharks all over again and really probably a big reason they might lose ground over the next month. Baiting themselves into these absurdly petty bickering matches over the stupidest aspects of the serious issues they distract from is incredibly repellant to people that can be persuaded to show up and vote for Democrats.
What are you talking about? People can discuss serious issues *and* call out Trump for saying stupid shit also. (I'm also not quite sure I agree with your premise that a presidential candidate saying alarmingly stupid shit isn't its own serious issue.) Harris and Walz and Democratic supporters haven't suddenly stopped talking about their plans for the economy, or women's rights, or other important topics. And it's extremely hypocritical when Republicans almost never talk about substance, but god forbid Democrats pause for a second from the issues, to point out Trump's gaslighting or fearmongering or lying.
I mean they can, but that's not what gets the engagement.
You can see a microcosm of it play out here in the difference between the level of engagement on anything that isn't bickering with BJ and oBlade about the most inane shit.
The national version (that also played out here) was how Democrats lost a week that was supposed to be about Amber Thurman and how
"Women are bleeding out in parking lots, turned away from emergency rooms, losing their ability to ever have children again. Survivors of rape and incest are being told they cannot make decisions about what happens next to their bodies. And now women are dying. These are the consequences of Donald Trump’s actions.”
(sounds a lot like Trump's bit about Harris killing someone) apnews.com
Instead Dems, the media, and posters here basically spent the week arguing pet eating with people whose primary objective is simply to get Dems, media, and posters like yourself to spend that engagement arguing about whatever bullshit stupid bait argument is the flavor of the day instead of the Amber Thurman of the day. You guys fall for it basically every time. You can't help yourselves.
It was pretty well-established, even among the Republicans, that Trump's "they're eating the dogs" meltdown during the debate was an embarrassment. There's nothing wrong with milking that for all it's worth, and - again - that's not stopping the rallies and interviews and other points being made. It doesn't hurt to occasionally remind the voters of the mistakes your opponent makes.
And yes, bickering with BJ* and oBlade does happen a lot, but it's not like there are conservatives on this forum proposing great, substantive ideas for policy. (I would imagine it's because the leader of the Republican party doesn't have many of those either.) There are still discussions about other important issues, and "important" is subjective; I'm sure a lot of people roll their eyes when we end up having yet another "GH vs. Capitalism" conversation that goes on for several pages, even if some people consider it a legitimately useful topic.
*BJ spent multiple posts denying that Trump meant "murder", even though he said "murder", only to eventually concede that Trump probably only meant "second-degree murder" and that the metaphor stops it from technically being first-degree murder, so it does indeed appear to have been a fruitless discussion about semantics with him:
On October 08 2024 06:07 BlackJack wrote:
On October 08 2024 05:43 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
On October 08 2024 05:17 BlackJack wrote: [quote]
He IS ascribing responsibility to Kamala for Rachel Morin's death. He's not saying Kamala was literally the one that murdered her. "Gun in her hand" is a metaphor. He's not saying Kamala literally had a gun in her hand and used it to murder that woman on a hiking trail in Maryland. Pretending like we don't know what metaphors are just to attack Trump on something is just really bizarre. That's my point.
On October 08 2024 05:27 BlackJack wrote: [quote]
I didn't say Trump was joking. I said he wasn't speaking literally.
The quote is "Kamala let the savage in that murdered Rachel Morin. Kamala murdered her."
How do you interpret that? That Kamala murdered Rachel Morin? But he just said the savage murdered her. Did he forget in the faction of a second that he already said the savage murdered her? Was it a double murder? Did the savage rape her and then Kamala finished the job with the butt end of her metaphorical gun? It's just really weird having to explain this. It's obvious he is saying that the savage is the one that killed Rachel Morin but Kamala is culpable for her death because she is the one that allowed the savage in. If you delete the context and narrow in one the one sentence "Kamala murdered her" then of course it looks like he is actually accusing Kamala of murdering someone. Just like if you delete the context of Joe Biden grinning and people laughing then it looks like he is "back in" the 2024 race. The point is it's stupid to delete context to win stupid arguments.
So Trump is saying that Harris is responsible for the victim's murder, but he also used a metaphor about the wrong cause of death. And that means "not murder". Does Trump think that Harris should only be convicted of manslaughter instead of murder? Please tell us the name of the crime, since Trump said "murder" but you know he meant "not murder".
If your ace in the hole is that two people can't be convicted of the same murder, then I think that's something you need to flesh out in more detail. I thought such a thing was possible, but I could be wrong.
You and oBlade are comparing a joke to a serious statement (part of which, at best, might contain a metaphor). These are not the same things though. oBlade might sincerely not understand this, but you're working really hard to try to make these things equal, even though I suspect you know they aren't.
I'm guessing it would be 2nd degree murder unless Trump thinks there was pre-meditation before Kamala bashed someone's skull in with her metaphorical gun.
Neat. I'm satisfied.
Actually this back and forth is a good reason why people who don't agree with dem policy positions don't really post about them. Sure, it's time consuming and can be less fun, but as we see here, some people are simply incapable of giving their opponents even the slightly benefit of the doubt or believing that they hold their positions in good faith. If a right-leaning poster argues for, say, a way to reduce debt that doesn't address every progressives wishlist item then really that person is just a shill who wants billionaires to run everything and believe that everyone who is poor deserves to be poor and powerless. And something like the debt, when taken as a topic by itself, is about the most boring thing you can talk about. Now imagine trying to talk about healthcare, the middle east, or anything else. You seem to think that discussing policy would be less rancorous, but given the way the left views policy disagreements (as moral failures) it can be even worse.
We can literally test this right now Please explain what you believe would be the best way to reduce our national debt, and why you think it would be effective.
From what I read the first thing that needs to happen is to simply stabilize debt as a percentage of GDP. We can theoretically never have a balanced budget (and even have an always increasing debt) but still be ok so long as the portion of the economy that it takes up remains constant. There can be modest tax hikes, but for deficits of the size we are running now (and what types of spending are going to be main debt drivers in the future) it simply is not possible to tax your way out, and it has diminishing returns. The big elephants in the room is Social Security and Medicare (this is where things get controversial). But first the government needs to rein in spending during the normal part of the cycle where is should be giving itself a cushion for hard times. Unfortunately, neither major party nominee has a *serious* plan to fix this. Federal spending exploded during COVID... not just in one time expenditures, but almost every department had its regular, baseline budget significantly increased. COVID is over, but the government spends a higher percentage of GDP now then it did before. In 2018 it was ~19%. During COVID it was 30%, even now it's 22% (after the 2009 crisis it was 24%). And both parties have plans to spend even more. So that's the main problem, the exact dollar amount isn't as concerning as the trendline, interest payments, and the crowding out effect.
Edit: Those are net outlays btw, numbers are slightly different gross. looks a little better actually, or more accurately it's barely changed since the end of the financial crisis ~34%). However *debt* as a % of GDP is going up like crazy. Maybe I should have led with that lol
Thanks for taking the time to write out your thoughts. I'm not very well versed on our national debt / federal spending, so I'd like to ask for some clarity.
"From what I read the first thing that needs to happen is to simply stabilize debt as a percentage of GDP." That makes sense to me. Is there a target percent in mind that we ought to stabilize at? I found a site that's mapped out that data from 1948 onward: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-debt/ It's one of the gray graphs - the one with the title "Federal Debt Trends Over Time, FY 1948 – 2023; Debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP)".
"The big elephants in the room is Social Security and Medicare (this is where things get controversial)." Those definitely appear to be two of the biggest elephants, yeah. I found a source that says that the top six biggest costs are Social Security (21%), Medicare (14%), net interest (14%), health (13%), national defense (13%), and income security (10%). It's a gray table found here: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/
In order to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio, we could cut spending and/or we could find ways to increase our annual GDP, right? Do you think that increasing our GDP through economic growth alone isn't viable or consistent enough to stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio? So therefore, we have to cut spending from somewhere? How do we decide what gets cut and what doesn't get cut? I feel like there are probably arguments for/against cutting from everywhere lol; how do we decide?
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.
I’ve come to think of this as the problem of everything-bagel liberalism. Everything bagels are, of course, the best bagels. But that is because they add just enough to the bagel and no more. Add too much — as memorably imagined in the Oscar-winning “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — and it becomes a black hole from which nothing, least of all government’s ability to solve hard problems, can escape. And one problem liberals are facing at every level where they govern is that they often add too much. They do so with good intentions and then lament their poor results. (Conservatives, I should say, are not immune from piling on procedure and stricture, but they often do so in a purposeful attempt to make government work poorly, and so failure and inefficiency become a kind of success.)
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.
Here's where we get to the intersection of math and values. As a conservative my inclination is towards increasing military spending (although like I said before, how they spend money needs serious reform, and Congress is slowly coming around). What I find most interesting about your post is what you didn't follow up on. We both see just from the numbers that the single greatest expenses facing the federal government includes the Military, but also Social Security/Medicare as well as debt service. And as the years go on, those last things are going to take up much, much more of the budget than the military or the administration in any particular department.
My desire to drastically rework the bureaucracy and bring it into line is not primarily driven by the budget, it's a concern for what the federal government should be doing in the first place. These agencies have not acquitted themselves well recently, and they need a reminder of where their authority actually comes from and what they are permitted to do. Slash every department's budget by 50%, I don't care. It will only delay the crisis that is coming.
The problem of federal/state interaction is summed up nicely in the underreported story of how Dems used their last big COVID slush fund to bail out a bunch of financially precarious union pension plans. They used COVID as a excuse to do do part of what they really wanted to do anyways. Often times when those two sphere overlap they are up to no good.
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.
Did you look at the opinion piece I linked? The problem is the liberal governments spend gobs of money and have an incredibly low return as they fight with themselves. I'm not adverse to funding "infrastructure" (narrowly defined) but we don't know how to do that any more. And of course those programs you listed cost money. Again as someone on the right, my instinct is to get government out of the way, except when necessary, and let the people bring the growth. The multiplier effect of government spending decreases every time it's used. You know how dems love to say that GOP tax cuts never bring in as much revenue as they promise? Well government spending never brings the growth Dems promise.
Besides, we're only talking about the current "level of government" we have now. What happens when the rest of the wish list is added in? Universal healthcare, child care, expanded income security, "green" projects, massive infrastructure projects (all have to be enviro-friendly of course), etc. Dems are currently promising not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400k. I'd love to know how all of the above is going to be paid for. If they want a European welfare state+, they should tell us what we actually have to pay for it. As an honest person you have to ask why CA, NY, IL, and these other blue states don't do all the things Dems want to do. Why is "California" a watchword for big blue government gone wrong? If all these things "pay for themselves" (an assertion I'm sure is coming) then why haven't they been done? Cali has almost 2/3 the population of Britain or France, why can't it do anything? None of these states have European tax levels, and even dems would lose if they tried it. But I bet even with that type of taxing and spending these states would still fail at it. I have no desire to give the government more money, espeically when they have proven themselves poor stewards of what they have now.
fwiw i think GHs argument of ‘those with shit platforms drag conversation into obvious bullshit instead of real conversation’ has intensely demonstrated merit.
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.
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.
Bolded - See the only reason you prefer socialism over anything is because you never lived in one. Socialism is surprisingly similar to religion, great as an idea, but never working in practice. Think about it, there is nothing wrong with, for example, Christianity, all the sh...t comes from institutions build around it and the same goes for socialism. I remember quite a while ago you posted in points what are the problems you see in current duo party political situation and I must say that I agreed with every single observation you made, I was however surprised how off the mark your conclusions were, till I realised that you are idealist. There is nothing wrong with that, however as the saying goes: "road to hell is paved with good intentions"
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.
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.
I hear you, but while watching that discourse I did notice we all followed GH's criticism exactly.
- Intro and DPB start a measured conversation on debt/budgeting. - oBlade says some derailing shit on firing 50% of the government - The next 15 posts are about the new absurd thing and not the original actual discussion. We couldn't help ourselves.
I'm not better - I'm one of those 15 posts. GH isn't wrong to point out this pattern. Don't take it personally.
Where GH and I diverge is where we think controlling this is reasonable (on a large scale, people will and should respond negatively to offensive or harmful things) and that the avoided discussion has intrinsic value. In this case, I would have appreciated the Intro/DPB discussion more than what happened, but that doesn't grant it more 'political value' than shouting down an absurd and damaging idea.
Lastly, when GH's point is "Y'all are incapable of controlling the conversation, you can't help yourselves", him pointing out that we can't control the conversation IS him being interested in taking the discussion in a new direction.
This place isn't some activism ground where we're supposed to win people over or solve great economic quandaries. We're too old and entrenched for the former and we lack expertise for the latter, that discussion about debt was mostly "idk but..".
I think treating this place as a very serious one where you're supposed to control narratives or gain something from every discussion is a faux pas. It's mostly casual conversation with the rare insight or wit.
When conservatives don't post in this thread, Russians don't post in the Ukraine thread, and rabbis/apologists don't post in the Israel thread, the threads are almost entirely dead. Because people are way more likely to post when they disagree with something or they find a fault in an argument. And personally I actually want to see how they think, and it's less irritating than looking for it on Reddit, Twitter, w/e.
Also, I don't think oBlade or BlackJack are MTG-level as suggested, not even close. If anything, the annoying part about this dynamic is that they get too many poor arguments as replies from people that misunderstood the subject or what they wrote, which makes them pounce on those instead of dealing with the more difficult to answer counterpoints.
In my opinion people just approach the thread differently. When someone shares Trump saying some dumb thing on immigration I just see it as an opening of a discussion on immigration where we can all share our thoughts on the topic. But some really just want to commiserate with each other over whatever the dumb thing Trump or MTG said, which is well within their rights. Obviously it's very difficult to have an earnest discussion on immigration when half the replies are peppered with "But Trump said they are eating cats, why are you defending Trump?"
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.
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.
Bolded - See the only reason you prefer socialism over anything is because you never lived in one. Socialism is surprisingly similar to religion, great as an idea, but never working in practice. Think about it, there is nothing wrong with, for example, Christianity, all the sh...t comes from institutions build around it and the same goes for socialism. I remember quite a while ago you posted in points what are the problems you see in current duo party political situation and I must say that I agreed with every single observation you made, I was however surprised how off the mark your conclusions were, till I realised that you are idealist. There is nothing wrong with that, however as the saying goes: "road to hell is paved with good intentions"
One could argue liberal capitalism doesn't work either. How many economic fuckups have we dealt with in the last 45 years already? There just hasn't been a dominant enough non-capitalist power strong enough to fuck with us the way we have to others.
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.
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.
Bolded - See the only reason you prefer socialism over anything is because you never lived in one. Socialism is surprisingly similar to religion, great as an idea, but never working in practice. Think about it, there is nothing wrong with, for example, Christianity, all the sh...t comes from institutions build around it and the same goes for socialism. I remember quite a while ago you posted in points what are the problems you see in current duo party political situation and I must say that I agreed with every single observation you made, I was however surprised how off the mark your conclusions were, till I realised that you are idealist. There is nothing wrong with that, however as the saying goes: "road to hell is paved with good intentions"
One could argue liberal capitalism doesn't work either. How many economic fuckups have we dealt with in the last 45 years already? There just hasn't been a dominant enough non-capitalist power strong enough to fuck with us the way we have to others.
I didnt specify liberal capitalism as better, I specifically said that pretty much anything is better, you see I do think that some ideas at the basis of liberal capitalism are absurd and I think that the same way democracy will inevitably lead to socialism (one of the reasons I think GH conclusions are of the mark) liberal capitalism will lead to monopoly or at best cartels (like Lysine situation). I heard some absurd remarks from conservative side like: "if you think google is monopoly do something better and people will use it" (dont recall where I heard it), well, yeah, sure after they google it...
Bolded: Are you sure you wanna go into economic fuck ups of liberal capitalism vs socialism??
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.
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.
I hear you, but while watching that discourse I did notice we all followed GH's criticism exactly.
- Intro and DPB start a measured conversation on debt/budgeting. - oBlade says some derailing shit on firing 50% of the government - The next 15 posts are about the new absurd thing and not the original actual discussion. We couldn't help ourselves.
I'm not better - I'm one of those 15 posts. GH isn't wrong to point out this pattern. Don't take it personally.
Where GH and I diverge is where we think controlling this is reasonable (on a large scale, people will and should respond negatively to offensive or harmful things) and that the avoided discussion has intrinsic value. In this case, I would have appreciated the Intro/DPB discussion more than what happened, but that doesn't grant it more 'political value' than shouting down an absurd and damaging idea.
Lastly, when GH's point is "Y'all are incapable of controlling the conversation, you can't help yourselves", him pointing out that we can't control the conversation IS him being interested in taking the discussion in a new direction.
This place isn't some activism ground where we're supposed to win people over or solve great economic quandaries. We're too old and entrenched for the former and we lack expertise for the latter, that discussion about debt was mostly "idk but..".
I think treating this place as a very serious one where you're supposed to control narratives or gain something from every discussion is a faux pas. It's mostly casual conversation with the rare insight or wit.
When conservatives don't post in this thread, Russians don't post in the Ukraine thread, and rabbis/apologists don't post in the Israel thread, the threads are almost entirely dead. Because people are way more likely to post when they disagree with something or they find a fault in an argument. And personally I actually want to see how they think, and it's less irritating than looking for it on Reddit, Twitter, w/e.
Also, I don't think oBlade or BlackJack are MTG-level as suggested, not even close. If anything, the annoying part about this dynamic is that they get too many poor arguments as replies from people that misunderstood the subject or what they wrote, which makes them pounce on those instead of dealing with the more difficult to answer counterpoints.
In my opinion people just approach the thread differently. When someone shares Trump saying some dumb thing on immigration I just see it as an opening of a discussion on immigration where we can all share our thoughts on the topic. But some really just want to commiserate with each other over whatever the dumb thing Trump or MTG said, which is well within their rights. Obviously it's very difficult to have an earnest discussion on immigration when half the replies are peppered with "But Trump said they are eating cats, why are you defending Trump?"
There's -some- nuance to be had imo. I don't think the "They're eating cats" is a springboard to talk about immigration because it's an overtly racist comment. To talk about immigration using that as a springboard makes it ABOUT race. You're obviously going to get a lot of pushback because what you're effectively doing then is saying "Hey, no, maybe they're on to something here" in support of an overtly racist comment.
It'd be like someone gleefully arguing that people should have more guns with fewer restrictions in response to an assassination attempt on Trump. That person could argue they just want to talk about gun rights, but unless they fully and clearly divorce themselves from the idea that they support assassination attempts on former presidents, the obvious assumption is that they support assassination attempts on former presidents.
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.
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.
I hear you, but while watching that discourse I did notice we all followed GH's criticism exactly.
- Intro and DPB start a measured conversation on debt/budgeting. - oBlade says some derailing shit on firing 50% of the government - The next 15 posts are about the new absurd thing and not the original actual discussion. We couldn't help ourselves.
I'm not better - I'm one of those 15 posts. GH isn't wrong to point out this pattern. Don't take it personally.
Where GH and I diverge is where we think controlling this is reasonable (on a large scale, people will and should respond negatively to offensive or harmful things) and that the avoided discussion has intrinsic value. In this case, I would have appreciated the Intro/DPB discussion more than what happened, but that doesn't grant it more 'political value' than shouting down an absurd and damaging idea.
Lastly, when GH's point is "Y'all are incapable of controlling the conversation, you can't help yourselves", him pointing out that we can't control the conversation IS him being interested in taking the discussion in a new direction.
This place isn't some activism ground where we're supposed to win people over or solve great economic quandaries. We're too old and entrenched for the former and we lack expertise for the latter, that discussion about debt was mostly "idk but..".
I think treating this place as a very serious one where you're supposed to control narratives or gain something from every discussion is a faux pas. It's mostly casual conversation with the rare insight or wit.
When conservatives don't post in this thread, Russians don't post in the Ukraine thread, and rabbis/apologists don't post in the Israel thread, the threads are almost entirely dead. Because people are way more likely to post when they disagree with something or they find a fault in an argument. And personally I actually want to see how they think, and it's less irritating than looking for it on Reddit, Twitter, w/e.
Also, I don't think oBlade or BlackJack are MTG-level as suggested, not even close. If anything, the annoying part about this dynamic is that they get too many poor arguments as replies from people that misunderstood the subject or what they wrote, which makes them pounce on those instead of dealing with the more difficult to answer counterpoints.
In my opinion people just approach the thread differently. When someone shares Trump saying some dumb thing on immigration I just see it as an opening of a discussion on immigration where we can all share our thoughts on the topic. But some really just want to commiserate with each other over whatever the dumb thing Trump or MTG said, which is well within their rights. Obviously it's very difficult to have an earnest discussion on immigration when half the replies are peppered with "But Trump said they are eating cats, why are you defending Trump?"
There's -some- nuance to be had imo. I don't think the "They're eating cats" is a springboard to talk about immigration because it's an overtly racist comment. To talk about immigration using that as a springboard makes it ABOUT race. You're obviously going to get a lot of pushback because what you're effectively doing then is saying "Hey, no, maybe they're on to something here" in support of an overtly racist comment.
It'd be like someone gleefully arguing that people should have more guns with fewer restrictions in response to an assassination attempt on Trump. That person could argue they just want to talk about gun rights, but unless they fully and clearly divorce themselves from the idea that they support assassination attempts on former presidents, the obvious assumption is that they support assassination attempts on former presidents.
Shrug, I have no issue with having a debate on gun control after a Trump assassination attempt or a school shooting and I would consider each persons post to be divorced from the idea they want more school shootings or something like that.
But what is often the case is that people essentially use the absurd thing Trump said as a shield to assert their own opinion. For example something like
“Trump’s cat eating comments are deplorable. The Hatians are a blessing to Springfield and anyone that disagrees is a racist.”
“Well there are also negative consequences from the immigration and I don’t think it’s purely racist to take issue with them.”
“How can you say it’s not racist.. they are talking about eating cats!”
It’s a sort of a Motte and Bailey where the attempt is to defend immigration and label its critics as racist then when challenged retreat to “but look what Trump said, he’s talking about eating cats for Gods sake!”
On October 08 2024 05:29 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: [quote]
What are you talking about? People can discuss serious issues *and* call out Trump for saying stupid shit also. (I'm also not quite sure I agree with your premise that a presidential candidate saying alarmingly stupid shit isn't its own serious issue.) Harris and Walz and Democratic supporters haven't suddenly stopped talking about their plans for the economy, or women's rights, or other important topics. And it's extremely hypocritical when Republicans almost never talk about substance, but god forbid Democrats pause for a second from the issues, to point out Trump's gaslighting or fearmongering or lying.
I mean they can, but that's not what gets the engagement.
You can see a microcosm of it play out here in the difference between the level of engagement on anything that isn't bickering with BJ and oBlade about the most inane shit.
The national version (that also played out here) was how Democrats lost a week that was supposed to be about Amber Thurman and how
"Women are bleeding out in parking lots, turned away from emergency rooms, losing their ability to ever have children again. Survivors of rape and incest are being told they cannot make decisions about what happens next to their bodies. And now women are dying. These are the consequences of Donald Trump’s actions.”
(sounds a lot like Trump's bit about Harris killing someone) apnews.com
Instead Dems, the media, and posters here basically spent the week arguing pet eating with people whose primary objective is simply to get Dems, media, and posters like yourself to spend that engagement arguing about whatever bullshit stupid bait argument is the flavor of the day instead of the Amber Thurman of the day. You guys fall for it basically every time. You can't help yourselves.
It was pretty well-established, even among the Republicans, that Trump's "they're eating the dogs" meltdown during the debate was an embarrassment. There's nothing wrong with milking that for all it's worth, and - again - that's not stopping the rallies and interviews and other points being made. It doesn't hurt to occasionally remind the voters of the mistakes your opponent makes.
And yes, bickering with BJ* and oBlade does happen a lot, but it's not like there are conservatives on this forum proposing great, substantive ideas for policy. (I would imagine it's because the leader of the Republican party doesn't have many of those either.) There are still discussions about other important issues, and "important" is subjective; I'm sure a lot of people roll their eyes when we end up having yet another "GH vs. Capitalism" conversation that goes on for several pages, even if some people consider it a legitimately useful topic.
*BJ spent multiple posts denying that Trump meant "murder", even though he said "murder", only to eventually concede that Trump probably only meant "second-degree murder" and that the metaphor stops it from technically being first-degree murder, so it does indeed appear to have been a fruitless discussion about semantics with him:
On October 08 2024 06:07 BlackJack wrote:
On October 08 2024 05:43 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: [quote] [quote]
So Trump is saying that Harris is responsible for the victim's murder, but he also used a metaphor about the wrong cause of death. And that means "not murder". Does Trump think that Harris should only be convicted of manslaughter instead of murder? Please tell us the name of the crime, since Trump said "murder" but you know he meant "not murder".
If your ace in the hole is that two people can't be convicted of the same murder, then I think that's something you need to flesh out in more detail. I thought such a thing was possible, but I could be wrong.
You and oBlade are comparing a joke to a serious statement (part of which, at best, might contain a metaphor). These are not the same things though. oBlade might sincerely not understand this, but you're working really hard to try to make these things equal, even though I suspect you know they aren't.
I'm guessing it would be 2nd degree murder unless Trump thinks there was pre-meditation before Kamala bashed someone's skull in with her metaphorical gun.
Neat. I'm satisfied.
Actually this back and forth is a good reason why people who don't agree with dem policy positions don't really post about them. Sure, it's time consuming and can be less fun, but as we see here, some people are simply incapable of giving their opponents even the slightly benefit of the doubt or believing that they hold their positions in good faith. If a right-leaning poster argues for, say, a way to reduce debt that doesn't address every progressives wishlist item then really that person is just a shill who wants billionaires to run everything and believe that everyone who is poor deserves to be poor and powerless. And something like the debt, when taken as a topic by itself, is about the most boring thing you can talk about. Now imagine trying to talk about healthcare, the middle east, or anything else. You seem to think that discussing policy would be less rancorous, but given the way the left views policy disagreements (as moral failures) it can be even worse.
We can literally test this right now Please explain what you believe would be the best way to reduce our national debt, and why you think it would be effective.
From what I read the first thing that needs to happen is to simply stabilize debt as a percentage of GDP. We can theoretically never have a balanced budget (and even have an always increasing debt) but still be ok so long as the portion of the economy that it takes up remains constant. There can be modest tax hikes, but for deficits of the size we are running now (and what types of spending are going to be main debt drivers in the future) it simply is not possible to tax your way out, and it has diminishing returns. The big elephants in the room is Social Security and Medicare (this is where things get controversial). But first the government needs to rein in spending during the normal part of the cycle where is should be giving itself a cushion for hard times. Unfortunately, neither major party nominee has a *serious* plan to fix this. Federal spending exploded during COVID... not just in one time expenditures, but almost every department had its regular, baseline budget significantly increased. COVID is over, but the government spends a higher percentage of GDP now then it did before. In 2018 it was ~19%. During COVID it was 30%, even now it's 22% (after the 2009 crisis it was 24%). And both parties have plans to spend even more. So that's the main problem, the exact dollar amount isn't as concerning as the trendline, interest payments, and the crowding out effect.
Edit: Those are net outlays btw, numbers are slightly different gross. looks a little better actually, or more accurately it's barely changed since the end of the financial crisis ~34%). However *debt* as a % of GDP is going up like crazy. Maybe I should have led with that lol
Thanks for taking the time to write out your thoughts. I'm not very well versed on our national debt / federal spending, so I'd like to ask for some clarity.
"From what I read the first thing that needs to happen is to simply stabilize debt as a percentage of GDP." That makes sense to me. Is there a target percent in mind that we ought to stabilize at? I found a site that's mapped out that data from 1948 onward: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-debt/ It's one of the gray graphs - the one with the title "Federal Debt Trends Over Time, FY 1948 – 2023; Debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP)".
"The big elephants in the room is Social Security and Medicare (this is where things get controversial)." Those definitely appear to be two of the biggest elephants, yeah. I found a source that says that the top six biggest costs are Social Security (21%), Medicare (14%), net interest (14%), health (13%), national defense (13%), and income security (10%). It's a gray table found here: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/
In order to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio, we could cut spending and/or we could find ways to increase our annual GDP, right? Do you think that increasing our GDP through economic growth alone isn't viable or consistent enough to stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio? So therefore, we have to cut spending from somewhere? How do we decide what gets cut and what doesn't get cut? I feel like there are probably arguments for/against cutting from everywhere lol; how do we decide?
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.
I’ve come to think of this as the problem of everything-bagel liberalism. Everything bagels are, of course, the best bagels. But that is because they add just enough to the bagel and no more. Add too much — as memorably imagined in the Oscar-winning “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — and it becomes a black hole from which nothing, least of all government’s ability to solve hard problems, can escape. And one problem liberals are facing at every level where they govern is that they often add too much. They do so with good intentions and then lament their poor results. (Conservatives, I should say, are not immune from piling on procedure and stricture, but they often do so in a purposeful attempt to make government work poorly, and so failure and inefficiency become a kind of success.)
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.
Here's where we get to the intersection of math and values.
Two of my favorite things
As a conservative my inclination is towards increasing military spending (although like I said before, how they spend money needs serious reform, and Congress is slowly coming around). What I find most interesting about your post is what you didn't follow up on. We both see just from the numbers that the single greatest expenses facing the federal government includes the Military, but also Social Security/Medicare as well as debt service. And as the years go on, those last things are going to take up much, much more of the budget than the military or the administration in any particular department.
I didn't specifically dive into any of those, because I don't know how their money is allocated and where the waste / room for improvement is, but I gave a blanket agreement that all of them should be examined. I also agree with you that the biggest costs and the fastest-increasing costs would definitely need to be assessed if we have a goal of reducing our national debt.
My desire to drastically rework the bureaucracy and bring it into line is not primarily driven by the budget, it's a concern for what the federal government should be doing in the first place. These agencies have not acquitted themselves well recently, and they need a reminder of where their authority actually comes from and what they are permitted to do. Slash every department's budget by 50%, I don't care. It will only delay the crisis that is coming.
This is actually really interesting to me, because it's an opportunity for you to persuade people who might not agree with your premise (that the federal government isn't supposed to be doing X) by appealing to other arguments (our national debt is increasing at an unsustainable rate, we need to examine where and how we allocate money so that we can identify inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement, etc.). There might be some common ground and common goals, although I wouldn't personally be on board with slashing every department's budget by 50%.
The problem of federal/state interaction is summed up nicely in the underreported story of how Dems used their last big COVID slush fund to bail out a bunch of financially precarious union pension plans. They used COVID as a excuse to do do part of what they really wanted to do anyways. Often times when those two sphere overlap they are up to no good.
I'm unfamiliar with this. Would you mind pointing me in the direction of a source that elaborates on it?
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.
Did you look at the opinion piece I linked?
It was behind a paywall, but I read the excerpt that you pasted.
The problem is the liberal governments spend gobs of money and have an incredibly low return as they fight with themselves. I'm not adverse to funding "infrastructure" (narrowly defined) but we don't know how to do that any more. And of course those programs you listed cost money. Again as someone on the right, my instinct is to get government out of the way, except when necessary, and let the people bring the growth. The multiplier effect of government spending decreases every time it's used. You know how dems love to say that GOP tax cuts never bring in as much revenue as they promise? Well government spending never brings the growth Dems promise.
I'm not sure how easily quantifiable some of these programs' benefits are, in terms of economic growth, and sometimes the return on investment is something intangible or more conceptual or holistic, like a better quality of life. Would those situations be less convincing for you, in terms of whether or not we ought to fund them, compared to something as mathematically solid as "for every $1.00 spent on Program X, we'll make a total of $1.10 over the next five years"?
Besides, we're only talking about the current "level of government" we have now. What happens when the rest of the wish list is added in? Universal healthcare, child care, expanded income security, "green" projects, massive infrastructure projects (all have to be enviro-friendly of course), etc. Dems are currently promising not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400k. I'd love to know how all of the above is going to be paid for. If they want a European welfare state+, they should tell us what we actually have to pay for it. As an honest person you have to ask why CA, NY, IL, and these other blue states don't do all the things Dems want to do. Why is "California" a watchword for big blue government gone wrong? If all these things "pay for themselves" (an assertion I'm sure is coming) then why haven't they been done? Cali has almost 2/3 the population of Britain or France, why can't it do anything? None of these states have European tax levels, and even dems would lose if they tried it. But I bet even with that type of taxing and spending these states would still fail at it. I have no desire to give the government more money, espeically when they have proven themselves poor stewards of what they have now.
I think different items in that list would be addressed differently. For example, I've heard arguments that universal healthcare would end up saving us money compared to our current system, which would not only improve our quality of life, but help address one of the big contributors to the national debt.
The upfront cost of subsidizing childcare can also be made back by the fact that parents can continue working at their jobs and making more money and spending it on goods and services, further stimulating the economy. (I have colleagues who literally quit their teaching jobs when they had babies, because the cost of childcare is just about as much as their salaries.)
Green/environmental projects are arguably more proactive than reactive; the idea here is that properly preparing for the realities of climate change by spending some money now, will end up saving way more money in the long run, because it'll be far more expensive for us to repeatedly fix things that could have been made unbreakable or much harder to break.
I don't know enough about California to comment on it.
I now realize I should have asked you this question a few posts ago: What do you think the federal government should be responsible for taking care of, and which national programs/departments do you believe should be dismantled and relegated to the states?
On October 08 2024 06:05 GreenHorizons wrote: [quote] I mean they can, but that's not what gets the engagement.
You can see a microcosm of it play out here in the difference between the level of engagement on anything that isn't bickering with BJ and oBlade about the most inane shit.
The national version (that also played out here) was how Democrats lost a week that was supposed to be about Amber Thurman and how [quote] (sounds a lot like Trump's bit about Harris killing someone) apnews.com
Instead Dems, the media, and posters here basically spent the week arguing pet eating with people whose primary objective is simply to get Dems, media, and posters like yourself to spend that engagement arguing about whatever bullshit stupid bait argument is the flavor of the day instead of the Amber Thurman of the day. You guys fall for it basically every time. You can't help yourselves.
It was pretty well-established, even among the Republicans, that Trump's "they're eating the dogs" meltdown during the debate was an embarrassment. There's nothing wrong with milking that for all it's worth, and - again - that's not stopping the rallies and interviews and other points being made. It doesn't hurt to occasionally remind the voters of the mistakes your opponent makes.
And yes, bickering with BJ* and oBlade does happen a lot, but it's not like there are conservatives on this forum proposing great, substantive ideas for policy. (I would imagine it's because the leader of the Republican party doesn't have many of those either.) There are still discussions about other important issues, and "important" is subjective; I'm sure a lot of people roll their eyes when we end up having yet another "GH vs. Capitalism" conversation that goes on for several pages, even if some people consider it a legitimately useful topic.
*BJ spent multiple posts denying that Trump meant "murder", even though he said "murder", only to eventually concede that Trump probably only meant "second-degree murder" and that the metaphor stops it from technically being first-degree murder, so it does indeed appear to have been a fruitless discussion about semantics with him:
On October 08 2024 06:07 BlackJack wrote: [quote]
I'm guessing it would be 2nd degree murder unless Trump thinks there was pre-meditation before Kamala bashed someone's skull in with her metaphorical gun.
Neat. I'm satisfied.
Actually this back and forth is a good reason why people who don't agree with dem policy positions don't really post about them. Sure, it's time consuming and can be less fun, but as we see here, some people are simply incapable of giving their opponents even the slightly benefit of the doubt or believing that they hold their positions in good faith. If a right-leaning poster argues for, say, a way to reduce debt that doesn't address every progressives wishlist item then really that person is just a shill who wants billionaires to run everything and believe that everyone who is poor deserves to be poor and powerless. And something like the debt, when taken as a topic by itself, is about the most boring thing you can talk about. Now imagine trying to talk about healthcare, the middle east, or anything else. You seem to think that discussing policy would be less rancorous, but given the way the left views policy disagreements (as moral failures) it can be even worse.
We can literally test this right now Please explain what you believe would be the best way to reduce our national debt, and why you think it would be effective.
From what I read the first thing that needs to happen is to simply stabilize debt as a percentage of GDP. We can theoretically never have a balanced budget (and even have an always increasing debt) but still be ok so long as the portion of the economy that it takes up remains constant. There can be modest tax hikes, but for deficits of the size we are running now (and what types of spending are going to be main debt drivers in the future) it simply is not possible to tax your way out, and it has diminishing returns. The big elephants in the room is Social Security and Medicare (this is where things get controversial). But first the government needs to rein in spending during the normal part of the cycle where is should be giving itself a cushion for hard times. Unfortunately, neither major party nominee has a *serious* plan to fix this. Federal spending exploded during COVID... not just in one time expenditures, but almost every department had its regular, baseline budget significantly increased. COVID is over, but the government spends a higher percentage of GDP now then it did before. In 2018 it was ~19%. During COVID it was 30%, even now it's 22% (after the 2009 crisis it was 24%). And both parties have plans to spend even more. So that's the main problem, the exact dollar amount isn't as concerning as the trendline, interest payments, and the crowding out effect.
Edit: Those are net outlays btw, numbers are slightly different gross. looks a little better actually, or more accurately it's barely changed since the end of the financial crisis ~34%). However *debt* as a % of GDP is going up like crazy. Maybe I should have led with that lol
Thanks for taking the time to write out your thoughts. I'm not very well versed on our national debt / federal spending, so I'd like to ask for some clarity.
"From what I read the first thing that needs to happen is to simply stabilize debt as a percentage of GDP." That makes sense to me. Is there a target percent in mind that we ought to stabilize at? I found a site that's mapped out that data from 1948 onward: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-debt/ It's one of the gray graphs - the one with the title "Federal Debt Trends Over Time, FY 1948 – 2023; Debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP)".
"The big elephants in the room is Social Security and Medicare (this is where things get controversial)." Those definitely appear to be two of the biggest elephants, yeah. I found a source that says that the top six biggest costs are Social Security (21%), Medicare (14%), net interest (14%), health (13%), national defense (13%), and income security (10%). It's a gray table found here: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/
In order to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio, we could cut spending and/or we could find ways to increase our annual GDP, right? Do you think that increasing our GDP through economic growth alone isn't viable or consistent enough to stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio? So therefore, we have to cut spending from somewhere? How do we decide what gets cut and what doesn't get cut? I feel like there are probably arguments for/against cutting from everywhere lol; how do we decide?
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.
I’ve come to think of this as the problem of everything-bagel liberalism. Everything bagels are, of course, the best bagels. But that is because they add just enough to the bagel and no more. Add too much — as memorably imagined in the Oscar-winning “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — and it becomes a black hole from which nothing, least of all government’s ability to solve hard problems, can escape. And one problem liberals are facing at every level where they govern is that they often add too much. They do so with good intentions and then lament their poor results. (Conservatives, I should say, are not immune from piling on procedure and stricture, but they often do so in a purposeful attempt to make government work poorly, and so failure and inefficiency become a kind of success.)
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.
Here's where we get to the intersection of math and values.
As a conservative my inclination is towards increasing military spending (although like I said before, how they spend money needs serious reform, and Congress is slowly coming around). What I find most interesting about your post is what you didn't follow up on. We both see just from the numbers that the single greatest expenses facing the federal government includes the Military, but also Social Security/Medicare as well as debt service. And as the years go on, those last things are going to take up much, much more of the budget than the military or the administration in any particular department.
I didn't specifically dive into any of those, because I don't know how their money is allocated and where the waste / room for improvement is, but I gave a blanket agreement that all of them should be examined. I also agree with you that the biggest costs and the fastest-increasing costs would definitely need to be assessed if we have a goal of reducing our national debt.
My desire to drastically rework the bureaucracy and bring it into line is not primarily driven by the budget, it's a concern for what the federal government should be doing in the first place. These agencies have not acquitted themselves well recently, and they need a reminder of where their authority actually comes from and what they are permitted to do. Slash every department's budget by 50%, I don't care. It will only delay the crisis that is coming.
This is actually really interesting to me, because it's an opportunity for you to persuade people who might not agree with your premise (that the federal government isn't supposed to be doing X) by appealing to other arguments (our national debt is increasing at an unsustainable rate, we need to examine where and how we allocate money so that we can identify inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement, etc.). There might be some common ground and common goals, although I wouldn't personally be on board with slashing every department's budget by 50%.
The problem of federal/state interaction is summed up nicely in the underreported story of how Dems used their last big COVID slush fund to bail out a bunch of financially precarious union pension plans. They used COVID as a excuse to do do part of what they really wanted to do anyways. Often times when those two sphere overlap they are up to no good.
I'm unfamiliar with this. Would you mind pointing me in the direction of a source that elaborates on it?
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.
Did you look at the opinion piece I linked?
It was behind a paywall, but I read the excerpt that you pasted.
The problem is the liberal governments spend gobs of money and have an incredibly low return as they fight with themselves. I'm not adverse to funding "infrastructure" (narrowly defined) but we don't know how to do that any more. And of course those programs you listed cost money. Again as someone on the right, my instinct is to get government out of the way, except when necessary, and let the people bring the growth. The multiplier effect of government spending decreases every time it's used. You know how dems love to say that GOP tax cuts never bring in as much revenue as they promise? Well government spending never brings the growth Dems promise.
I'm not sure how easily quantifiable some of these programs' benefits are, in terms of economic growth, and sometimes the return on investment is something intangible or more conceptual or holistic, like a better quality of life. Would those situations be less convincing for you, in terms of whether or not we ought to fund them, compared to something as mathematically solid as "for every $1.00 spent on Program X, we'll make a total of $1.10 over the next five years"?
Besides, we're only talking about the current "level of government" we have now. What happens when the rest of the wish list is added in? Universal healthcare, child care, expanded income security, "green" projects, massive infrastructure projects (all have to be enviro-friendly of course), etc. Dems are currently promising not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400k. I'd love to know how all of the above is going to be paid for. If they want a European welfare state+, they should tell us what we actually have to pay for it. As an honest person you have to ask why CA, NY, IL, and these other blue states don't do all the things Dems want to do. Why is "California" a watchword for big blue government gone wrong? If all these things "pay for themselves" (an assertion I'm sure is coming) then why haven't they been done? Cali has almost 2/3 the population of Britain or France, why can't it do anything? None of these states have European tax levels, and even dems would lose if they tried it. But I bet even with that type of taxing and spending these states would still fail at it. I have no desire to give the government more money, espeically when they have proven themselves poor stewards of what they have now.
I think different items in that list would be addressed differently. For example, I've heard arguments that universal healthcare would end up saving us money compared to our current system, which would not only improve our quality of life, but help address one of the big contributors to the national debt.
The upfront cost of subsidizing childcare can also be made back by the fact that parents can continue working at their jobs and making more money and spending it on goods and services, further stimulating the economy. (I have colleagues who literally quit their teaching jobs when they had babies, because the cost of childcare is just about as much as their salaries.)
Green/environmental projects are arguably more proactive than reactive; the idea here is that properly preparing for the realities of climate change by spending some money now, will end up saving way more money in the long run, because it'll be far more expensive for us to repeatedly fix things that could have been made unbreakable or much harder to break.
I don't know enough about California to comment on it.
I now realize I should have asked you this question a few posts ago: What do you think the federal government should be responsible for taking care of, and which national programs/departments do you believe should be dismantled and relegated to the states?
Re: whether or not you should be concerned. For a long time there was attitude on the center-left to ingore it or push it aside for now, but the past while (basically since the economy started coming back from COVID) it's been getting more attention. Of great concern is the fact that we are spending now when times are good (I'll accept that premise for sake of argument) and not leaving much room for the next crisis.
I wish there was more common ground, but I'm afraid I don't see one in the immediate future, Dems are now so thoroughly the party of government it's hard to imagine it. but I think the failures of the high speed internet roll out, or the charging station stories that have been int he news could be slow catalysts to at least narrow down what government does to one thing at a time. For no other reason than it's simply embarrassing. My 50% was just making a point, wrt the debt the cost of the bureaucracy is not directly financial, it has more to do with a department or agency's scope and power.
The union bailout is just such a good example of how we are incapable of learning anything. These pension promises were made when times were good and no one thought they would end. now the taxpayer has to pick up the tab.
$1.9 trillion stimulus bill that cleared the Senate on Saturday is an $86 billion aid package that has nothing to do with the pandemic. Rather, the $86 billion is a taxpayer bailout for about 185 union pension plans that are so close to collapse that without the rescue, more than a million retired truck drivers, retail clerks, builders and others could be forced to forgo retirement income. The bailout targets multiemployer pension plans, which bring groups of companies together with a union to provide guaranteed benefits. All told, about 1,400 of the plans cover about 10.7 million active and retired workers, often in fields like construction or entertainment where the workers move from job to job. As the work force ages, an alarming number of the plans are running out of money. The trend predated the pandemic and is a result of fading unions, serial bankruptcies and the misplaced hope that investment income would foot most of the bill so that employers and workers wouldn’t have to. Both the House and Senate stimulus measures would give the weakest plans enough money to pay hundreds of thousands of retirees — a number that will grow in the future — their full pensions for the next 30 years. The provision does not require the plans to pay back the bailout, freeze accruals or to end the practices that led to their current distress, which means their troubles could recur. Nor does it explain what will happen when the taxpayer money runs out 30 years from now.
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Using taxpayer dollars to bail out pension plans is almost unheard-of. Previous proposals to rescue the dying multiemployer plans called for the Treasury to make them 30-year loans, not send them no-strings-attached cash. Other efforts have called for the plans to cut some people’s benefits to conserve their dwindling money — such as widow’s pensions, early retirement subsidies and pensions promised by companies that subsequently left their pools. The federal government does provide a backstop for certain failing pension plans through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which acts like an insurer and makes companies pay premiums, but does not get taxpayer dollars. Currently, the pension agency has separate insurance programs for single-employer and multiemployer pensions. The single-employer program is in good shape, but the multiemployer program is fragile. As of 2017, the country’s 1,400 or so multiemployer pension plans had a total shortfall of $673 billion. One huge Teamster plan, in particular, is expected to go broke in 2025, and when the pension agency starts paying pensions to its nearly 200,000 retirees, its multiemployer insurance program will go broke, too, according to the agency itself. That would leave the roughly 80,000 other union retirees whose pensions the agency now pays without their payouts. The new legislation changes that. It calls for the Treasury to set up an $86 billion fund at the pension agency, using general revenues. The agency would be required to keep the money separate from the funds it uses for normal operations. It would use the new money to make grants to qualifying pension plans, allowing them to pay their retirees. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that 185 plans were likely to receive assistance, but as many as 336 might under certain circumstances. The grants are intended to pay the retirees their full pensions, a much better deal than the pension agency’s regular multiemployer pension insurance, which is limited by statute to $12,870 per year. Many retirees in the soon-to-be rescued plans have earned pensions greater than that. The taxpayer money will also be used to restore any pensions that were cut in a 2014 initiative that tried to revive troubled plans by trimming certain people’s pensions. The stimulus bills — there is a House version and a Senate version that have minor differences — call for the affected retirees to get whatever money was withheld over the past six years. The legislation requires the troubled plans to keep their grant money in investment-grade bonds, and bars them from commingling it with their other resources. But beyond that, the bill would not change the funds’ investment strategies, which are widely seen as a cause of their trouble. For decades, multiemployer pensions were said to be safe because the participating companies all backstopped each other. If one company went under, the others had to cover the orphaned retirees. Because they were considered so safe, multiemployer pensions never got much oversight. While companies that run their pension plans solo must follow strict federal funding rules, multiemployer plans do not have to. Instead, the companies and unions hammer out their own funding rules in collective bargaining. Both sides want to keep the contributions low — the employers to reduce labor costs, and the unions to free up more money for current wages. As a result, many of the plans have gone for years promising benefits without setting aside enough money to pay for them. In hopes of making up for the low contributions, the plans often invest unduly aggressively for their workers’ advancing age. In bear markets they lose a lot of money, and they can’t ask the employers to chip in more because the employers are often struggling themselves. The new legislation does nothing to change that dynamic. “These plans are uniquely unable to raise their contributions,” said Mr. Naughton, whose clients included multiemployer plans when he was a practicing actuary. “When things go well, the participants get the benefits. If things go badly, they turn to the government to make it work.”“Imagine that you have a college-aged kid who runs up $1,500 in credit card debt,” said James P. Naughton, an actuary now teaching at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. “If you give him $1,500 and you don’t do anything else, the odds that the problem is going to get fixed are pretty low.” At the same time, Republicans assailed it as a union handout masquerading as pandemic relief. They have tried to turn the provision, which would benefit only union workers and retirees, into a political liability for Democrats. “Just to show you how bad this bill is, there’s more money in this to bail out union pension funds than all the money combined for vaccine distribution and testing,” Senator Bill Hagerty, a Tennessee Republican, said last week.
This doesn't even touch the problems with public sector pensions, a problem that, Surprise!, California has in its future as well.
See, I knew you would claim all those things you want would pay for themselves To which, again, the question is that if they do, how come it hasn't happened yet? You are right that I don't think it's the governments role to do anything at all with daycare except basic health and safety. But in some ways the argument is on my side. Why haven't these states done it? is the payoff too far into the future? Is it not politically viable? There's just no way to do any of this stuff without massive tax hikes but dems just demagogue billionaires instead. Then again, they've been doing that since at least William Jennings Bryan, through FDR, and up until the present day.
The one line answer to your question is that the federal government should A) be responsible only for those things that must be done and B) cannot be done by the states. National defense? Yes. Large scale disaster relief? In cooperation with the states. Infrastructure? Sometimes. Child care? No. I am however more in favor states trying different things, which is one reason I keep bringing up these big, rich, blue states. If all this stuff really is good, and really does good for people, then regardless of what someone like me thinks the governments role should be, these programs will expand. Instead, we somehow believe that if 40 million can't do it that 350 million can. Maybe they just need a printing press...
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.
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.
I hear you, but while watching that discourse I did notice we all followed GH's criticism exactly.
- Intro and DPB start a measured conversation on debt/budgeting. - oBlade says some derailing shit on firing 50% of the government - The next 15 posts are about the new absurd thing and not the original actual discussion. We couldn't help ourselves.
I'm not better - I'm one of those 15 posts. GH isn't wrong to point out this pattern. Don't take it personally.
Where GH and I diverge is where we think controlling this is reasonable (on a large scale, people will and should respond negatively to offensive or harmful things) and that the avoided discussion has intrinsic value. In this case, I would have appreciated the Intro/DPB discussion more than what happened, but that doesn't grant it more 'political value' than shouting down an absurd and damaging idea.
Lastly, when GH's point is "Y'all are incapable of controlling the conversation, you can't help yourselves", him pointing out that we can't control the conversation IS him being interested in taking the discussion in a new direction.
This place isn't some activism ground where we're supposed to win people over or solve great economic quandaries. We're too old and entrenched for the former and we lack expertise for the latter, that discussion about debt was mostly "idk but..".
I think treating this place as a very serious one where you're supposed to control narratives or gain something from every discussion is a faux pas. It's mostly casual conversation with the rare insight or wit.
When conservatives don't post in this thread, Russians don't post in the Ukraine thread, and rabbis/apologists don't post in the Israel thread, the threads are almost entirely dead. Because people are way more likely to post when they disagree with something or they find a fault in an argument. And personally I actually want to see how they think, and it's less irritating than looking for it on Reddit, Twitter, w/e.
Also, I don't think oBlade or BlackJack are MTG-level as suggested, not even close. If anything, the annoying part about this dynamic is that they get too many poor arguments as replies from people that misunderstood the subject or what they wrote, which makes them pounce on those instead of dealing with the more difficult to answer counterpoints.
In my opinion people just approach the thread differently. When someone shares Trump saying some dumb thing on immigration I just see it as an opening of a discussion on immigration where we can all share our thoughts on the topic. But some really just want to commiserate with each other over whatever the dumb thing Trump or MTG said, which is well within their rights. Obviously it's very difficult to have an earnest discussion on immigration when half the replies are peppered with "But Trump said they are eating cats, why are you defending Trump?"
There's -some- nuance to be had imo. I don't think the "They're eating cats" is a springboard to talk about immigration because it's an overtly racist comment. To talk about immigration using that as a springboard makes it ABOUT race. You're obviously going to get a lot of pushback because what you're effectively doing then is saying "Hey, no, maybe they're on to something here" in support of an overtly racist comment.
It'd be like someone gleefully arguing that people should have more guns with fewer restrictions in response to an assassination attempt on Trump. That person could argue they just want to talk about gun rights, but unless they fully and clearly divorce themselves from the idea that they support assassination attempts on former presidents, the obvious assumption is that they support assassination attempts on former presidents.
Shrug, I have no issue with having a debate on gun control after a Trump assassination attempt or a school shooting and I would consider each persons post to be divorced from the idea they want more school shootings or something like that.
But what is often the case is that people essentially use the absurd thing Trump said as a shield to assert their own opinion. For example something like
“Trump’s cat eating comments are deplorable. The Hatians are a blessing to Springfield and anyone that disagrees is a racist.”
“Well there are also negative consequences from the immigration and I don’t think it’s purely racist to take issue with them.”
“How can you say it’s not racist.. they are talking about eating cats!”
It’s a sort of a Motte and Bailey where the attempt is to defend immigration and label its critics as racist then when challenged retreat to “but look what Trump said, he’s talking about eating cats for Gods sake!”
Perhaps if people didn’t stoke racial/cultural fears on immigration while simultaneously saying things like ‘we can’t have a discussion on immigration without being called a racist’ it wouldn’t be the case.
Sure some people don’t want to have any kind of discussion over immigration being anything other than beneficial and won’t entertain conversations saying otherwise, I don’t really think that’s particularly the case in this thread.
‘You can’t even say racist things these days without being called a racist!’
Hey I’m personally perfectly happy to have the ‘conversations you can’t have’ (despite immigration being an almost ever-present top 3 political topic in a slew of nations), but not if it’s prefaced with some of the invective it often is
On October 08 2024 08:22 BlackJack wrote: Kamala's not just doing "Call Her Daddy" Podcast. She's also going to be on Howard Stern, The View, and Late Nite with Stephen Colbert. Of course there are lots of serious journalists that would love an opportunity to interview Kamala. It would be nice if she gave as much attention to answering questions from the press as she does to giving softball interviews with podcasters that are happy to cheerlead for her.
60 Minutes isn't a serious interview? Trump backed out of it, too.
60 Minutes is very friendly territory and not a serious interview. Case in point, it was discovered that 60 Minutes edited the interview to delete a wordy non-answer and make her appear more competent:
Obviously this kind of dishonest editing would never be extended to someone like Sarah Palin who is also known for giving nonsensical answers.
This is the same program that ran a hit piece on George Bush using documents it failed to authenticate which ended up costing Dan Rather his career.
They also tried to run a ridiculous hit piece on DeSantis accusing him of partnering with a large grocer/pharmacy to assist with the vaccine rollout because they donated to him. The mayor of the city where this happened and the director of Florida's Division of Emergency Management both came out and said the story was malarkey and DeSantis's office never even recommended this pharmacy. Both of them are Democrats by the way.
It's really a shame because 60 Minutes used to be one of the most esteemed programs in television history and it was quite literally the #1 show in the country for many years. Now it's just another example of why people have lost trust in the mainstream media to tell the truth. Selectively editing an interview to make a candidate look more favorably is not journalism, it's propaganda.
Which goes back to what I said originally, there is a reason she is doing interviews with Call Her Daddy, Howard Stern, Stephen Colbert and the ladies on the View and why she doesn't take questions from the press. She's VP because she was chosen to balance the ticket, not for her ability to govern or answer questions.
EPT
To which, again, the question is that if they do, how come it hasn't happened yet? You are right that I don't think it's the governments role to do anything at all with daycare except basic health and safety. But in some ways the argument is on my side. Why haven't these states done it? is the payoff too far into the future? Is it not politically viable? There's just no way to do any of this stuff without massive tax hikes but dems just demagogue billionaires instead. Then again, they've been doing that since at least William Jennings Bryan, through FDR, and up until the present day. 
