There's a lot of really scary stuff in there:
- Cancel payments to U.N. climate change projects
- Remove two existing regulations for every new regulation
- Drastic tax cuts
- Massive immigration changes
- Cancel payments to U.N. climate change projects
- Remove two existing regulations for every new regulation
- Drastic tax cuts
- Massive immigration changes
One of the major issues is that we've had several hiring freezes in the US civil service in recent decades. It causes a bathtub effect. You do reduce the workforce through attrition, but eventually you have to hire again and hire almost exclusively junior people (< 25 or 30). So you end up with a massive gap spanning around 15-20 years of age and experience.
You lose a great deal of institutional knowledge (particularly critical for civil service which has many long running programs (for various reasons both good and bad)). Contractors don't really suffice in this regard because they (the employees, not necessarily the companies) tend to move much more frequently. It's going to be a problem.
NASA and DoD research labs are still dealing with the experience and cultural gaps from the hiring freezes of the 90s. I think for a lot of Americans it's easy to think of the "lazy bureaucrats" of the federal government (which definitely exist) and see a freeze or Reduction in Force as an overall good thing. However, every freeze and RIF has long lasting damage in the federal scientific community.
This wouldn't be true if government pay was competitive (low pay partially offset by, particularly, pension benefits means entering government mid-career except as a box-checking thing to move to a private position leveraging the knowledge of government is discouraged, but entering at a junior level for a full career is less discouraged.)
Of course, the kind of people embracing starve the beast aren't going to mitigate the skill impact by improving pay.
Total compensation for civil servants is quite a bit higher.
Working as a civil servant is much nicer, but it's not cheaper for the government.
But unless things have changed drastically you're not going to make more money working a government contract.
Color me shocked. : )
I'm all green peace and pro-nature, but is it really such a bad thing? I have no idea, what that money is actually spent on, and UN seems to be pretty... well, pretty useless organization, to be honest. To what extent do these billions prevent/slow down melting of ice caps and drough? If they don't, then what's the matter? It seems to be better to spend money ob the lesser something, than on greater nothing.
- Yes. Too many regulations by unelected bureaucrats. Sounds good to me. I'd rather have one clear and meaningful regulation than two "up for random interpretation."
- Yes. Tax cuts for all working people. Let people decide what to do with their own money (spend, save, donate, etc.). The bigger the government, the smaller the individual.
- Massive immigration changes? Not really. The pamphlet seems to enforce existing laws regarding criminal illegals.
Tax cuts are all well and good in a vacuum, but how are we realistically going to pay down the national debt when we enact a massive tax cut on top of a tax rate that is already at historically low levels?
Some people say we can cut all of this government bureaucracy to make up for tax cuts but we'd have to take a figurative axe to all of our federal agencies to get to a point where we can afford a massive tax cut and pay down the national debt.
Otherwise we'd have to enact big cuts to Medicare/Medicaid, defense, and Social Security as well, which people seem loathe to stomach.
Here's a hint: we're not going to pay down the debt anytime soon. I would expect the debt to increase by $8-$12 trillion over the next decade if Trump gets all the tax cuts and programs in his agenda.
The electorate hates taxes. At the same time it loves government spending. There is no political will to cut spending in any meaningful way. The last Republican vice president declared that "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter" - a line that Trump has echoed.
We don't want to pay down the national debt. Each treasury note is a promise to provide the holder with real goods and services later, and we need to make those promises to our aging citizenry. We do this in part with the intra-governmental debt that the Social Security Trust Fund holds. Regular citizens also save for retirement, and they hold and demand Treasury bonds as well.
You don't have to buy Treasuries to save for retirement. There are all sorts of bonds, foreign and domestic.
We should be spending more wisely, but debt economics is not as simple as it seems.
Treasury rates are only effectively negative because the government is printing money to buy treasuries. That's not going to end well.
The corporate bond market cannot soak up trillions of dollars in safe investments. In fact, low interest rates can simply result from high demand for treasury bonds because they are a "sure thing."
We've had quite a bit of asset inflation. Sure, the consumer products you buy that were made in China aren't going up, but Zillow says my house is worth more than double what I paid five years ago. You can't tell someone looking for housing there's no inflation.
Did you ever stop and wonder why infrastructure costs so damn much in the US? Why a rail segment going from nowhere to nowhere in California costs seventy billion dollars, or a new bridge ten billion?
>The corporate bond market cannot soak up trillions of dollars in safe investments. In fact, low interest rates can simply result from high demand for treasury bonds because they are a "sure thing."
Low interest rates are the result of artificial demand for bonds. If the government would stop monkeying with the bond markets they could "soak up" enough to cover domestic savings. Foreign governments would have to find somewhere else to park their money, but that's not the end of the world.
Housing bubbles come and go, they don't impact real inflation.
Unfortunately, libertarians would throw away all of our influence in global finance for an isolationalist paradise, but it won't work. If Russia and China aren't economically dependent on us, do you think that would actually mean less military tension?
You mean..it's gained value a few short years after a major crash? How surprising.
My working assumption is that the military is mismanaged, and spends trillions of dollars on wasteful projects. I think you can get a pretty big tax cut by just managing the military better.
I find it interesting that in the US people are comfortable discussing improving military efficiency, yet its taboo to discuss reducing the size of the military.
With a concerted effort it would be a major accomplishment to improve military efficiency by 5-10%. Or you could cut the military budget by 40% and still outspend every other nation's military. Yet, I don't recall ever hearing a candidate suggest reducing the military's budget. Hell even after the cold war didn't spending go up after a brief decline?
There are some situations where US aircraft will fire half-million-dollar heatseeking missiles at empty sky, just in case enemies fire SAMs. That's an expensive habit.
The military doesn't constrain itself financially unless it's forced to. They care more about the mission and the warfighter, as they should. But the guys in Congress who are tasked with constraining the military are too chicken to endanger their support from active duty, veterans, and their friends and families.
IMO, the causality is Economic might --> military might + "soft power" --> superpower (look at how China's trajectory). Prioritising military over economy in peace times seems short-sighted
> Restoring National Security Act: Rebuilds our military by ... expanding military investment;
It reminds me of the "plan" to replace the ACA/Obamacare. Sounds great on paper but probably does fuck all to address the real issues.
The first method is to control costs on military projects, and audit their finances. I think he'll do fine on this boring executive work, though I don't think better project management alone is going to get a 35% tax cut on the middle-class.
Second, there are foreign members of NATO that are supposed to pay 2% of GDP for a defense pool that are not doing this. He wants to pressure them into paying their share for protection. Since he's mentioned this, supposedly some countries have started paying into it.
Third, he doesn't actually want to go to war. War is pretty expensive, so building up a military to project strength without actually using it could be cheaper if we pull out of all on-going wars.
But... it's already by far the most well funded and advanced military in the world with a navy that ensures the US can deploy strength anywhere quickly.
But China and India are on the same planet as us.
The issue with climate change is that the people making the bess are not the same ones who suffer from the mess. So our mess isn't just ours. And their mess isn;t just theirs.
It really should have to be explained to you.
A family of 4 with a median household income of $50k/yr pays close to nothing in federal taxes. Tax cuts don't help the people that need it.
Near-zero chance that Trump will clean up any of America's environmental mess. Near-certain chance that he will significantly add to America's environmental mess.
What the hell. How ignorant is that.
If you care to make a point worth replying to about 'china and India cleaning up their own messes' (despite the US having the highest CO2 emissions per capita in the world by a huge margin, over 2x that of China's and nearly 10x that of India's, and for a far far far longer time) then be my guest.
Wait, so you agree with him then, that US has a waaaay bigger mess than china(1/2) and india(1/10), and that the US should clean up its own (biggest) mess first, before the other two?
Your country has historically contributed far more than its fair share of greenhouse gasses, and these small payments (from the richest country in the world) help other countries reduce emissions and show that you recognise that.
But nope. Let's drop all that so we can prop up some failing coal towns for a while longer.
On the bright side, this is a sure-fire recipe for deadlock.
We've seen this over and over from Senators in both parties. The filibuster is dumb as a procedural tool, but as a political tool it's invaluable for Senators who want to make a career out of the Senate.
The Treasury doesn't care if other banks won't lend them money, so long as the Fed will, and the Fed always will.