The current disarray moves well beyond the precedented events like government shutdowns and rapidly screw things up across the board.
Certainly, there is no precedent in US history for an authoritarian, law-flouting executive takeover centering illegal purges of the executive branch as a whole (and a particular focus on illegally purging federal law enforcement and internal government accountability officials), racial scapegoating, and massive "deportation" efforts that rapidly encompassing setting up massive concentration camps, almost all done by executive fiat, with the tacit support of a Congressional majority that is ideologically aligned with both the policies of the executive and the decision to execute them without regard to existing law rather than through legislation.
There are a history of similar things one might point to in other countries, but it's a first for the USA.
Although I am not inclined to agree, it is fair to dispute specific funding cuts or firings. It would also be reasonable to temper those arguments against the futility of general cut-backs without specific cuts.
Consider a few hypotheticals:
If we accept that special interest groups exist for spending, then it would also be reasonable to accept that these groups would protest cuts in the most hyperbolic way imaginable.
If we accept that the Federal gov. is not free from corruption, selective enforcement, what is in effect "legislation from unelected bureaucrats", or entrenched bureaucracies which oppose the will of the people - If we accept that any of this exists or is possible, it is not unreasonable to accept that some of these bureaus would be cut or eliminated.
It is reasonable to expect that these bureaus and special interest groups would stand in solidarity. They have every incentive to join together and expand the largess of the central government. It makes sense that partisan media groups would paint any criticism or cuts in the most hyperbolic and odious terms.
All of these things are easy to reason about. It is also easy to take cursory glance at the historical record. It is easy to examine the economic and political ideologies of the odious authoritarians which the partisans are so quick to invoke. Where did these odious authoritarians cut spending? Where did they reduce the purview of the state? If we examine this, we will find that cuts and reductions are entirely antithetical to the authoritarian platform. It is a contradiction in terms. For these reasons, I regard the comparisons as ridiculous hyperbole.
Humor me here. How is the following not a non-sequitur, "Cutting spending and regulation is authoritarianism. What we need are more regulations, central planning from unelected bureaucrats and socialism"?
Can anyone here explain that?
It is easy to construe blatantly illegal and facially unconstitutional acts as authoritarian, actually.
But you can't argue with these conservatives; at this point it is fair to assume that they don't debate in good faith.
Or maybe Dead Internet Theory and I've just been arguing with a lot of bots. Bot that convinced a country we needed 4 more years of this.
Even if you like the fiscal goals - I do, for example - the gitmo housing plan is messed up
I hope their spending dragnet now result in a balanced budget, its not hyperbole to acknowledge how disjointed and disruptive it is
I wish we had a comprehensive immigration policy that wasnt undermined for decades, its not hyperbole to acknowledge that this dragnet to address this is staffed by people interested in punitive disruptions to people's lives, that this particular process has plenty of mistakes in it and it doesnt afford people access to a lawyer if improperly arrested by immigration personnel despite an authorization or citizenship. and that its punitive to go after some statuses (or anyone in this way really) even if identification isnt a mistake
yeah there are a lot of problems, a lot of parallels to how worse things started, and lacks the accountability to prevent those outcomes
its fine to acknowledge that while being a beneficiary of other policies. there are court cases on appeal that I want new prosecutors to drop, stuff thatll fly under the radar, there are plenty of other things going on to happen for some industries and new industries
I agree with you that its not as black and white as partisans are saying, and its pretty clear that lamenting or protesting the outcome is an unproductive use of energy in a system that doesnt support that, while its clearly an oligarch land grab that you can spend time getting a piece of too
However, it still leaves the question: Were cuts possible in terms of realpolik in any other way? We can argue that there should have been more nuance and in the ideal world, yes, we would like more measured cuts.
Additionally, even if we found areas to cut which are generally agreeable, the proponents of that spending would use every means possible to oppose those cuts. The special interests would have every incentive to use the most inflammatory language to incite aligned partisans.
The rate of increase in debt has been increasing consistently. Even with Clinton's so called balanced budget, the total amount of debt has increased over the long term.
If Trump were not taking this radical approach in his first weeks, I would assume that his talk about cuts were empty campaign promises. Even with these actions, I'm cautiously optimistic at best.
I'm not a die hard Trump supporter or enthusiastic about any politician. Generally I dislike politicians and the political classes. It wouldn't be a terribly inaccurate to generalize by calling them all looters. These cuts make it possible to consider hope.
The debt data is very clear and very public. If anyone is "cooking" it's you.
>You're assigning an awful lot of trustworthiness to a known liar...
Am I? Did you bother to read my above comment?
In my view, all politicians are liars by necessity. They have every incentive to make the most grandiose promises while campaigning. Once in office they can begin looting. The long term health of the polity is of no concern to their particular set of incentives. They need only worry about the next election campaign. Bankrupting or exploiting the public is almost a foregone conclusion. Individuals may differ, but these are the incentives inherent to the political game.
>... for someone who claims not to support him.
These are my assessments of politics and politicians. I've even been explicit about them previous to spelling them out in more detail here. Despite that, you insist on projecting your partisan nonsense onto my views, as if you have some kind of crystal ball that allows you to read my mind or another telepathic power which would preclude you from engaging in good faith.
Take another look at this discussion. You've gone off the deep end here.
Description of facts
> The hyperbole is a bit much for me.
Your assessment.
Then you respond to every calling out as "I'm neutral"
I can only laugh at this point.
Why is your perception of my views even on the table? Argue the topic, not the person.
>there is no precedent in US history for an authoritarian, law-flouting executive takeover centering illegal purges of the executive branch...
As I've attempted to illustrate here repeatedly, authoritarianism is in direct contrast to cuts in state power. Especially as it concerns the specific comparisons to National Socialism made on this site. Totalitarian statists seek to increase the power of the state, not cut it. Your assertion is a non-sequitur.
>...purges of the executive branch as a whole...
The president is the head of the executive branch. With other administrative agencies, there is some dispute over the extent of presidential authority.
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/georgetown-law-journal/wp-con...
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/public-policy-journal/wp-cont...
>...setting up massive concentration camps...
Deporting illegal immigrants is not comparable to Dachau or the actions of the National Socialists. Making this comparison trivializes genocide.
>I can only laugh at this point.
I don't find it funny in the least.
You would be right to say that mass deportation will probably involve violations of civil rights and profiling in practice. I hope we can agree in our opposition to this. However, illegal immigration is illegal. Circumventing immigration law by funding NGOs with taxpayer money is a greater expansion of state power. We should be more concerned with the victims who have been trafficked, including women and children. The incentives of the "amnesty" program's abuse led to the exploitation of minors. The abuse has to stop.
If partisans want immigration reform, they should pass the laws. Until then, enforcing the existing laws is not an expansion of state power. Circumventing the laws via NGOs is an expansion of state power. It is an usurpation of the democratic process you claim to value.
I ain't reading that. You're just trolling. Peace out.
Aka "i have no willingness to debate in good faith."
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60843/html
- Over FY24, revenue ran to $4.19 trillion, while spending ran to $6.14 trillion – leaving (up to rounding before calculation) a deficit of $1.95 trillon.
– Of all of this spending, ~$4.10 trillion is likely untouchable politically, since accounted for by the DoD, Social Security, Medicare, and interest on public debt. This leaves us with ~$2.04 trillion worth of spending to cut $1.95 trillion from. I think you can see how feasible that is.
Federal salaries and benefits are _peanuts_ compared to the trillions of dollars involved – I think around 8.6%, although the CBO doesn't have spending broken down by cost objects.
Assuming Elon's run the numbers, he'll be perfectly aware that trimming down the federal workforce won't do jack shit to get the US to a balanced budget. His motivations are different.
The ultimate in removed regulation is an apparatchik unhelpfully advising: "Just don't screw up."
The ultimate in simple taxes is serfdom.
Those are the end-states of looking only at quantities while ignoring the changes in the character and mechanics of a government.
> There ultimate in removed regulation is an apparatchik unhelpfully advising: "Just don't screw up"
What you posit as merely "unhelpful advise" is in practice an unpronounced threat: "Do it the way we expect or else". It isn't a removed regulation but an obscured one where the final interpretation rests with the apparatchik.
>The ultimate in simple taxes is serfdom
I never got the memo when black became white. The simplest tax paid is zero taxes. Serfdom renders individuals as property fixed to the land/estate they pay tithes/taxes to. They couldn't by an be further from each other.
That's a kind of serfdom. Not literally the same thing but ...
Look up "the working poor", is a little bit already a reality to some
Regarding spending cuts being antithetical to authoritarian regimes, note that the cuts don't affect the military or law enforcement (except for people who were involved in prosecuting Trump) that's very much in line with many authoritarian regimes.
There is plenty of precedent for both spending cuts and shrinking (in some areas, usually while expanding others) government from US Presidents. Simply refusing to spend appropriated funds as directed by law where even the excuse given isn't either of those but imposing ideological constraints not contained or authorized at the discretion of the executive in the governing law is, on the other hand, not. Openly ideological and patronage oriented purges of the federal workforce (at least, since the adoption of civil service laws expressly to to stop that) again is not, and is neither about shrinking the scope of government or cutting spending.
Again, this is how the issue is being played in a partisan fashion. Yet, when we dig deeper, beneath the soundbite interpretations, we find that legal scholars and Supreme Court justices have complex and conflicted views on how much authority The President has over government bureaus.
>...the President’s authority over independent agencies depends not on the Constitution but on a common statutory phrase, which allows the President to discharge the heads of such agencies for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” This phrase—the INM standard—is best understood to create a relationship of residential review—and a particular remedy for legal delinquency flowing from that review. It allows the President to discharge members of independent agencies not only for laziness and torpor (inefficiency) or for corruption (malfeasance) but also for neglect of their legal duties, which includes egregiously erroneous decisions of policy, law, or fact, either repeatedly or on unusually important matters...
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/georgetown-law-journal/wp-con...
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/public-policy-journal/wp-cont...
The cited sources illustrate how complex the law is. If we accept the authority of the state, then it is up to the Supreme Court to rule on the specifics. If the ruling is in favor of Trump's actions, we can again reasonably expect the partisans to paint this as an out-of-control judiciary. From that point we may see more arguments for "packing the court", the entire narrative around "authoritarianism" again becomes an exercise in partisan hypocrisy.
The point about cutting budgets, agencies and reducing the purview of the state remains. It is in direct contrast to authoritarian ideology, which without exception seeks to expand the purview of the state. Many quips have been leveled here, but no one has approached this point.
https://youtu.be/271poZihRTg?si=nLBAtEnN39tGkXzH
They pretty much always rejected this idea. It's in the constitution. President can't do much to a budget congress decides on.
I would like to refer you to what happened slightly more than 8 years ago when a new president took office.
Rub those brain cells together and use your logic organ, dude.
I for one am curious how this turns out. I give it an 80% chance of failing spectacularly, 20% chance of 'wow, we were wasting that much money?'
The fact is the federal government seems to grow and spend without any limit or regard to logic. It doesn't -feel- like much has ever been done to address it.
Well, now someone decided to just sledgehammer the whole thing. I'm both horrified and hopeful at what comes from that.
I mean, i understand the need to remove unnecessary costs like DEI etc, but actual productive output like science fundings etc are important in nation building.
What i dont like is how trump is looking to (or is being manipulated to) move a lot of public spending into private entities. For example, the recent ai stargate announcements. How is the public spending meant to benefit all americans, rather than the few that own those companies?
But it seems to me that DEI has so pervasively infiltrated the academy and scientific community, that excising them is extremely hard without drastic measures.
There was an open letter in 2020 summer from a lot of "prominent scientists" that claimed that suddenly social distancing didn't matter because BLM. I think that any such people that are viewing the world trough this lenses shouldn't touch federal money on account of being idiotically political or egregiously stupid.
If you're referring to this letter, that characterization is pretty much the opposite of what it says: https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/health/health-care-open-lette...
Does it?
>White supremacy is a lethal public health issue that predates and contributes to COVID-19.
>However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States.
Do you think that anyone that has put his name under such idiotic sentence deserves state money in any form - except payments under ADA?
Sure .. All the risks of being black in the USofA and the additional risk of being even more likely to contract COVID while black.
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/28/11/22-0072_article#:~:t...
So you don’t believe there should be an attempt to reckon with the structural forces in play since the beginning of the country that have systematically lowered the wealth for Black Americans, trans and queer Americans, disabled Americans, neurodiverse Americans, and immigrant Americans?
Hey you finally found the Bailey. The DEI arguments were just to win your vote. Aka the Motte.
He woulda said he'd fix whatever you hated to get your vote. Now we gave him the keys to the castle and gets what he's always wanted. What the richest people who donated to him always wanted.
Public schools, police departments, parks, streets - I interact with these more than any other government service and no of them can print their own money and most of them work really hard to be run like businesses that care deeply about budgets and managing costs.
In terms of "growth", the number of federal civilian government employees has basically never been lower as a percentage of the population.
https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/styles/report_580_h...
But arguably a lot more companies that aren't on the face of it defense and arms manufacturers are getting a larger and larger piece of the pie. Tech companies rely on defense – and "national security" – spending as key revenue streams, and they've built the connections with the government to match. (I think both SpaceX and Oracle are very much obvious examples now.)
So, perhaps the definiton of the MIC has to be updated for the 21st century to include "national security" spending and other significant technical suppliers.
Thank god, this also hit the Russians incredibly bad, but yeah; people's perceptions of the production capacity of both countries is wildly, wildly overestimated.
The MIC basically had its budget slashed by ~80% or so after the cold war. Thousands of factories were permanently shuttered, hundreds of companies more or less ceased to exist - sometimes some of their engineers were aqui-hired by other firms, but by and large they just stopped working for the MIC in general.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqjvTKFufuk
This is what they called the "Peace Dividend"; when the Soviets collapsed, we no longer felt we needed a military that could repel a conventional assault from the Soviet Union (with all 700m citizens, and the heartland of industrial Europe (i.e. Germany, Poland, Czechia) backing them). We just, worst-case, needed to stop Russia and their 140m citizens.
They called it that because it unlocked a huge chunk of the budget that previously went to the MIC. A literal dividend of money.
He classifies the Tech companies as not part of the military industrial complex, which seems like a mistake. The US tech industry is integrated with the US intelligence establishment and is effectively part of their military presence. Musk, for example, was making a very visible contribution to the Ukranian war effort with Starlink. Google & Facebook are a bigger threat than the US military when it comes to governments being taken out in my opinion and the US military is probably more of the same mind than they let on.
He's also very focused on earnings which is a headscratcher. He has revenues right next to that, and revenues are what matter. Earnings just say the US weapons producers are an inefficient industry which isn't a matter of controversy because it doesn't matter much. He seems to be confused about what figures to look at.
The 2024 budget was 15% national defense.
in 2024, the US Fed collected 4.9 Trillion in taxes and spent 3.8 trillion (78% of revenue) on the following programs: Social security, Medicare, health, and income payments like disability.
It also had 1.8 Trillion dollars of deficit spending, bringing the total to 6.7 trillion with welfare taking up (57% of total spending). The fed spent 0.9 trillion (13%) paying interest.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
- 1350B on social security
- 870B on Medicaid
- 850B on Medicare
- 830B on the military
- 660B on interest payments
Out of total of $6200B. Essentially 3/4 of all spending is in these 5 major categories. There is little left to save in other ones.
How to minimize taxes in retirement. (the RMD causes panic because if forces taxation). Many get a pension, social security, have a 401k, paid off house, and savings. Not everyone needs social security.
But we're not quite there yes, and I imagine many gen X will need that social security.
Increase social security taxes (example: no longer stop taxing wages over $150k for a start)
Decrease social security benefits. Means testing. If you have over $200K of income, then no check (or $300k, pick a number. Just not $50k)
Cancel 1 leg of the nuclear Triad. Cost / Benefit military procurement vs. keeping Lockheed healthy.
A functioning congress could fix this problem. If they functioned.
(*) https://www.brookings.edu/articles/is-government-too-big-ref...
I get that there's plenty to not like about the Federal Government (and by plenty I mean a lot), but the answer to addressing that is to fix the problems rather than burn everything to the ground.
In fact, Trump explicitly lied about project 2025 during the campaign. So many may have been swayed to vote Trump, with the understanding that project 2025 was not on the table. Those people did not ask for this.
The voters knew exactly what they were voting for.
But yes, plenty of his voters heard what he had to say and liked it.
Tangent: in the United States, more people believe in angels than in evolution (69% vs 60%).
"failing spectacularly" to me looks more like collapses of the international monetary system or generalised large scale riots. Which could easily happen, the US government is responsible for about half the US economy; look at the USSR for what can happen when that sort of system gets dismantled too quickly. Mere large monetary amounts are not a factor these days.
The majority of the US budget goes to social security, medicare/medicaid and defense spending. This is about 60% of the budget.
The billionaires are in control of the US now as oligarchs and defense spending is how they suck up money. So that is never getting cut.
Social security and Medicare will be untouched even though they talk about cuts, because that's how they keep a good chunk of their voting base placated.
The cost of medicare/medicaid will continue to spiral to the moon as the Trump admin killed the governments ability to negotiate drug prices again, because this is good for the oligarchs. But even ignoring pharma, the cost of services is still growing out of control.
There are plans in place to cut medicaid to reduce the corporate tax. Trump is in full DGAF mode, he's not running for president again so his mask is off. Heck, at the speeds he's going he may get everything he wants in place before Midterms anyway.
https://democrats.org/news/new-report-house-republicans-floa...
Sorry for such a partisan link, but he already said out loud he wants to reduce corporate tax from 21 to 15%
That's not the case really. In the last 50 years there was no trend in federal spending vs GDP, with widest movements being a growth from ~19% in FY2001 (which ended with 09/11) to almost 25% in 2009, with subsequent decline to the same average as before. Nothing catastrophic. In the immediate postwar era of course, the spending has been much lower at around 15% but that was when the population was 9 years younger and no Medicare or Medicaid existed, i.e. old or poor sick people were just left to fend for themselves.
In 2024 out of 6.8T in federal spending, Medicare and Medicaid was 1.9T. Remove that and you are back to a typical 1950s level of 16-17% federal spending to GDP.
First, that's not true. Ignoring COVID, it keeps going up, slowly but surely.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S
Secondly, why does the government need to spend to match GDP? The more productive we are, the more the government spends?
In addition, it becomes inevitable because with high per capita GDP there is a lot of excess income which people want to invest because their needs are covered, and varying outcomes of those investments (even if purely random, by chance), tend to compound, which results in entrenched, systemic inequality, that might even crystallise into caste system. Only way to counteract it is more taxes and more government spending, so that there's less excess income left to invest, and outcomes of those less lucky are compensated by gov spending.
Step 1: It's not really happening
Step 2: Yeah, it's happening, but it's not a big deal
Step 3: It's a good thing, actually
I feel like this thread has fast tracked the steps.
I don't mean this to be insulting. I think you actually bring up interesting points. But perhaps could have not led off with step 1 and started with this.
Take a car analogy, if the GDP per capita increases such that the number of people who can afford a car doubles, the government will have to invest more in roads. Moreover the expectations to the quality of the roads will likely increase as well. In other words if more stuff gets done in a country your more likely to night more infrastructure and services to support it.
My dream government is that of Switzerland, which keeps the purse close to the people.
A lot of these problems wouldn't happen if we just had the 35% capital tax not lobbied down over the decades. Now we're going to 15.
Your response is that we aren't taxing enough.
I have been harping on this for years
Tax as a percent of the economy has gone through the roof, both as a percent of GDP, and as inflation adjusted dollars. If you compare to a benchmark like the 1940s, tax% of GDP has more than doubled, and GDP has increased ~4.5x. This means someone today pays about 10X the taxes (controlling for for inflation!). State and local taxes have grown even faster than federal taxes.
Is the government providing 10X more services per capita? Do we have 10X the schooling? 10X the police? 10X the roads?
These numbers are already scaled for both inflation and population, so it should actually productivity.
This video is probably the most succinct summary of it I've seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RpPTRcz1no
It was made two months ago and has been right on the nose so far in terms of the phases in their process.
Note that “run openly on authoritarianism” is step one.
Total US GDP in 2023 was $27.3 Trillion...so around 2.5% of total GDP.
GDP grows (inflation adjusted) around 2.3% per year.
US Health Care is 17-18% of US GDP.
So while federal discretionary spending is important, it's not nearly as important as keeping growth up, and getting a handle on health costs.
I'm all for cutting this, reducing benefits to current recipients to bring spending to sustainable levels, but to date I haven't found a politician to vote for who endorsed this position.
Why not just cut and run on social security? I've paid in my whole life and probably won't even take a cent from it. We realize it's a mostly unsustainable ponzi scheme dependent on huge population growth that nobody wants, why not just tell us 'sorry, your money is gone, we're ending the program'?
Single payer I'm all for. Just in case you thought I was picking a side :).
There's no appetite for this for the exact same reason social security was created in the first place. Without it you have a bunch of senior citizens out on the street unable to work and unable to afford basic necessities.
For all the gnashing of teeth on "entitlement spending" the reality without it is pretty unpalatable to most.
How is social security discretion spending? It's tied to what has put into it, i.e. much more like a trust fund as I understand it.
It is a tax, and an income redistribution program.
For the record, I agree with the overall program. Old people need some support from society.
This is unsustainable. The people running it know and have known this for decades, instead of fixing it they have been at work finely tuning everything to ensure that the boomers receive full benefits just before major overhauls are require, significant additional taxes and/or reductions in benefits are 100% a guarantee at this point, but they continue spending and even increasing benefits all the while. A quarter century ago, Al Gore suggested putting a small amount of money aside to fund the program in the future and everyone laughed at him, on both the left and right. Instead they cut themselves stimulus checks and went to the mall, kicking off a decade of indulgence that ended with the 2008 global financial crisis while spending 7 trillion pounding sand in Iraq and Afghanistan with no particular goal and little to nothing to show for it.
This generation has acted like overgrown children their entire adult lives, they've spent and borrowed and kicked every can in sight down the road. They rigged this program along with every other as another massive transfer of wealth from the generations with the least money to the one with the most. As a final FU to future generations, they are as we speak in the process of dismantling the global world order that has protected and enriched them for their entire lives. I hope in the near future they will at last see some retribution for all of this.
(*) I say this as someone who thinks COINTELPRO was a key example of a law enforcement agency getting high off its fumes and shredding human rights, of which the list is endless.
No-one will trust the FBI from here on out.
Need to delete it and re-create the function with a different name.
Would anyone like to bet whether the national debt will be lower in 2029?
There is a disconnect with how big we are and what infrastructure is needed to support it. Let's say we cut everything but Senate, House, President, VERY basic defense. Our military is larger than probably anything else. I think the naivety is hilarious. Our employees and government bloat is big because our nation is big. There is no way around this. It's time to impeach, Trump. Good night.
Do you know where I could get some data on that topic?