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Comment by Dig1t | Hacker News Reader

lol these are my tax dollars! I’m sorry, I have nothing against gay people, but I do not want my tax dollars going to sex change operations in Guatemala.

We have people in CA affected by fires, people in Carolina who still need help rebuilding after flooding, people in Hawaii that need to rebuild after their own fires.

Did you know that most of FEMAs budget was spent housing migrants who crossed the border illegally instead of helping Americans affected by hurricanes?

The current situation is one where bureaucrats and NGOs enrich themselves off the back of taxpayers and the problems that actually need solving in our own country go completely unsolved.

We voted to cut all of this garbage, if they can’t spend it wisely then just pay down the national debt, which is at crisis levels BTW, or give it back to the taxpayers.

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> these are my tax dollars!

These are not "Your" tax dollars.

Some of them are other peoples tax dollars that do want this.

So do as my father had and claim that "your" taxes mean you "own" least 1 E4 and a couple of E-2/3's in the military--or whatever your preferred interest is and let the other American tax dollars pay for the things they want. Because You, personally, did not fund the entire US budget. It is not all "your" taxes.

> Some of them are other peoples tax dollars that do want this.

Well then those people can take their money and donate it directly to the causes they care about. They do not need to use my tax money for it.

Yes actually some of this money WAS mine. I paid into this system (actually I was forced to under threat of violence), and I do not want my money being spent on this. I would rather keep my own money or have it used on paying down the national debt.

All money spent by the government is ultimately taxation, if it doesn’t come directly from taxpayers it comes from us in the form of inflation. i.e. printing more money than there is value in the economy.

> I paid into this system (actually I was forced to under threat of violence), and I do not want my money being spent on this.

You were only "forced" to if you wanted to continue to enjoy the benefit of being a US citizen/working in the US. I love a good anti-tax American essay just as much as the next person, but I also love this country and will pay my due even when that due pays for the salaries of politicians and their staff that I don't agree with (I don't want my taxes to pay for them--but life as an adult can be hard); you really do not come off as someone that wants to be a part of that or this country, but on an libertarian island. You may be more interested in Seasteading[0]

If you don't like being a contributing member of the US (who by acts of bipartisanship in US congress decided where the money goes), you are free to renounce your citizenship (assuming you are a citizen) and leave the country; if you are already outside the country then you are almost there, simply hand in your passport and file the paper work at the nearest US embassy. And never pay US taxes again. Problem solved.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading

I also pay into the the system, and I want to spend my tax dollars on all the things you don't want to. Moreover, I want to defund all the services which benefit you personally. Where does that leave us as a society?

I'd like my tax to pay for some oxygen for that other person, since they have clearly been deprived of it for a while.

It leaves us in the libertarian utopia which the commenter above you clearly desires to live in.

I don't know if there's any evidence that your tax dollars went to sex change operations in Guatemala.

$350k (out of $2 million) was given to ASOCIACION LAMBDA. Yes, gender affirming care is mentioned in the description but that could mean almost anything. [1]

If you look at what they promote it's mostly about gender equality and protecting people from violence. Workshops, safe spaces, collecting statistics, some HIV testing stuff. [2][3][4][5]

I'm not saying it's impossible but I haven't seen any evidence and the people making the claims are known chronic liars.

And most of FEMA's budget was not spent on housing illegal migrants. Disaster relief funding is separate and much larger than Shelter and Services Program funding[6][7][8], as ordered by Congress in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023. [9]

[1] https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_72052024FA00001_7...

[2] https://www.asociacion-lambda.org/

[3] https://www.instagram.com/asoclambda/

[4] https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestori...

[5] https://gt.usembassy.gov/2023-human-rights-report-guatemala/

[6] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/false-claims-f...

[7] https://apnews.com/article/fema-migrants-nyc-funding-luxury-...

[8] https://www.fema.gov/grants/preparedness/shelter-services-pr...

[9] https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/2617...

Don’t waste your time researching facts for people like this. They will not even take the courtesy of responding, and cannot be bothered to consider an alternative angle to their ideology.

very correct and important advice (not being sarcastic)

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/usaid-guatemala-gender-aff...

This is just a long list of excuses.

How hard is it to understand we shouldn’t be spending money on foreigners when Americans go without? That seems like a basic rule that everyone agrees with.

And “most of FEMA’s money” is a cop out. 0% of FEMA’s money should be spent on anything other than Americans in need after a disaster.

It’s this kind of “oh, come on it’s not a big deal” that resulted in the trouncing the Democrats got. It’s talking down to Americans like they are stupid.

You can ctrl+f 'shelter' in the bill. It was not really FEMA's money, it was U.S. Customs and Border Protection money that was transferred to FEMA to disburse (probably for efficiency because FEMA already did similar work).

"I-don't-want-to-fund-sex-changes" is an emotional and possibly moral argument, it's made to get people angry at how their money is being spent.

Not wanting to spend money on foreigners at all is a completely different argument, that's generally not made probably because you get similar emotional arguments of feeding starving children. Or you get non-emotional arguments like projecting soft power and fighting disease epidemics before they reach us.

We're a nation of laws. The USAID and FEMA money is set in law by Congress. I disagree with how a lot of money is spent too. But that's why we vote and communicate to our representatives and have them change the law.

Bill Clinton's administration reduced the deficit and had a surplus. It reduced the federal workforce. It decreased spending and increased revenue. But it was done legally by working with both parties and unions and passing bills in Congress.

Money is fungible. All the hand waving about “it was really X agencies money” falls pretty flat when Americans go without.

Yes Congress sets spending, but the executive is responsible for executing on the law. Biden should have gone back to Congress (if needed) and said “no, this money is for Americans”. But he didn’t even try.

Which is why nobody should be surprised so many voters support what Musk and Trump are doing - they are doing what many voters think is the right thing to do.

Americans are just tired of politicians excuses.

If Trump is our fiscal savior then why did he let Congress create that spending under his administration?

There's a FEMA program, created in 1987 for Americans, call the Emergency Food and Shelter Program.

In 2019, during the first Trump administration, Congress passed additional funding for EFSP-H (Humanitarian) to expand the program to migrant families.[1]

Then in 2022, under the Biden administration, Congress decided to move that into a new separate CBP/FEMA program which is the Shelter and Services Program.[2]

I would be all for an administration that forces Congress to create a budget that decreases spending and increases revenue (or at least maintains revenue) in order to decrease the deficit (or at least decrease the rate of deficit growth).

So far there's no evidence this administration is doing that. But we don't have a fleshed out budget bill to look at yet either.

Americans might be tired of politicians' excuses but it's my opinion, from the (lack of) evidence so far, that we're being misled: the rich will get richer, government services will be worse, our democratic rules will be weaker, and the national debt will still increase. Hopefully my opinion is wrong.

[1] https://www.fema.gov/grants/emergency-food-and-shelter-progr...

[2] https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47681

> How hard is it to understand we shouldn’t be spending money on foreigners when Americans go without?

Cool, so you're cutting all corporate welfare, closing all US military bases in foreign countries, and ceasing sending bombs to Israel then, right? Or does it only count as spending money on foreigners when it's something you don't like?

This is a nice idea but the people doing the cutting are not looking to provide for the people. Part of what they’re cutting is Medicaid, for instance.

If they had communicated they wanted to balance the budget to provide for Americans that would be one thing, but they have communicated they will instead cut taxes for corporations with the money saved from Medicaid and foreign aid. Americans will have to go without more.

This would make sense if they introduced any policy to actually help Americans lol. They are trying to cut benefits to Americans and foreigners. The current administration has literally talked about conditioning aid to California for the wildfires. What an absolute joke.

Strange that elsewhere you're asking people to provide "adult arguments", but as soon as people actually provide solid arguments you immediately devolve into rants and emotions.

America doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It is in American interests to have a stable, prosperous, happy rest of the world to engage with.

> How hard is it to understand we shouldn’t be spending money on foreigners when Americans go without?

How hard is to start with this argument? Elon Musk is certainly making more Americans "go without" than he is cutting off "overseas sex changes".

> I have nothing against gay people,

You don't get to dictate that to other people after going on a rant specifically about gay people. I mean you can, but nobody's gonna buy it. You need to realize that perception is reality, and the perception here is you are very narrow minded. More concerned with taking condoms away from gay people than you are with saving your own country from a 20 year old gang of fascists who stole your SSN on a USB stick and stood up a blank WordPress site to brag about it.

— $6.3 million for men who have sex with men in South Africa

See, you can't paraphrase to add (what you view as) negative connotation and then claim "I have nothing against gay people." The money did not go to South Africa with the earmark "so gay men can have sex with gay men." It went to something you don't see the value in. It went to something you think is unimportant. Like HIV medication, or STD prevention, or treatment, or gasp a $.50 condom that maybe prevented a diesease. The takeaway for you is this; your anti-LGBT bias clearly shows through. You are not as middle-of-the-road as you think you are. Sir, you are brainwashed. This is not about cost. This is about regulating others and preventing lifestyles you disagree with from having access to medical care. You think that by deincentivizing LGBTQ activities you can regulate LGBTQ culture. Good luck.

> We voted to cut all of this garbage

Yeah, well we both voted for a lot of this garbage that was created by a BYPARTISAN ACT OF CONGRESS. Your orange clown has no right acting like a king in a country that we all built together. Your vote shouldn't be able to erase all of mine. The government was built with checks and balances. Respect them.

> We have people in CA affected by fires, people in Carolina who still need help rebuilding after flooding, people in Hawaii that need to rebuild after their own fires.

Trump wants to end all federal disaster relief.

And he literally dumped billions of gallons of water from their reservoirs[1] that they needed to fight future fires. To nobody’s benefit, mind you, and at a great expense.

[1](https://stocktonia.org/news/california-water/2025/02/01/trum...)

> lol these are my tax dollars!

No, those dollars have been extorted from you fair and square. You have no control over who gets the spoils.

True. But I can vote for someone who ensure my tax dollars are going where I want them to go.

fine. they should do it legally, not fascistically

Hard to take anyone seriously who rambles about anything other than corporate welfare and income inequality. Anything to distract from class. Now you're sitting there typing up diatribes about sex change operations in Guatemala.

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