Why in the hell is Trump wasting time trying to impose his will on the NYC congestion pricing system? Like it, don't like it, I don't care. But things like this are literally the epitome of an issue best handled by a local government, not the federal government. At one point, the conservative/Republican position was the the reach of the federal government should be smaller, not larger. I guess that's not the case any more.
What in the name of all that is holy are Trump and Elon talking about with their talk of sending a $5,000 check to everyone in the country with DOGE "savings"?
Look, I am all in on cutting the size of the federal government. I am 100% behind getting rid of the lifers who do as little as possible, rake in the high end of the GS pay scale, and are just hanging on for their 30 and a bigger lifetime pension. I'm all for cutting waste, fraud and abuse. I don't even care if they maybe err on the side of cutting a little too much, it can always be added back if necessary. But $5,000 checks to 330,000,000 people when there is no possible way to get that cash except by increasing the deficit/debt, screw that. Conservatives complained about the COVID stimulus checks, but this is much worse and just a stupid attempt to play by the DFL vote buying rule book.
Instead of a one time $5,000 check (believe me, I could find some great uses for $5,000), I freaking want to ease the debt burden on our grandchildren and great grandchildren. I don't want short term pleasure at the cost of long term pain, I want them to do what they promised and cut the deficit and work to lower the debt.
$1,650,000,000,000. That's how much $5,000 x 330,000,000 is. If there's really that much savings, then pay down the long term debt.
4 comments:
I agree. As much as I like the idea of tax refunds for having been overtaxed, as I would label this $5K idea as being, paying down the debt with any money saved by cutting waste is a far better idea. Can't do much about money already flushed, but for money still being sent out, to stop it from going where it shouldn't is to cut unnecessary spending. So if there are bills outstanding, resolve them and the debt is reduced. Every little bit helps as the interest on that debt falls as well.
We'll be fine if Trump does repeats what he did the first time around which resulted in an expanding economy. That gave us more money in our pockets and a much lower cost of living. That goes farther than $5K.
I have no problem with a tax refund based on actual taxes overpaid for a specific year, that makes total sense. If someone wants to forego their refund and contribute extra, that's fine.
The promise was to save money and reduce the debt/deficit, that's what they should do with any savings going forward.
While I could use $5k, borrowing vast amounts of money (remember most government spending is borrowed money, and interest on the debt is the largest budget line item) to give everyone a check seems like a DFL vote buying scheme. The whole point should be that we need a bit of austerity to get our fiscal house in order, not trying to buy votes with borrowed money.
As I've looked more deeply into this $5K give away, that number is based on a percentage of the money saved...that is, the $2trillion...divided by the population (don't know if it's everybody are just taxpayers). Thus, if DOGE only finds $1trillion, the tax refund would only be $2500. Naturally, what's left over is still a huge amount which would go to reduce the debt. But I personally would prefer all savings go to reduce the debt and thus the interest on it.
When one considers $36 trillion, I'd say there has to be more than $2 trillion in spending which can be cut. The budget simply can't be loaded with pork anymore. There's no way we need to be spending so much and then to pretend we can't reduce the budget to a number lower than the previous budget is simply a lie. I'm rapidly approaching 3/4 of a century on this earth. By the time I get there, I see no reason...especially with people such as we now have in charge being in charge beyond the extent of Trump's term...why the debt can't be reduced well below $30 trillion.
Dan whines about people not being fed because of cuts and suspensions of spending. But if we cut the debt, expand the economy there will be fewer hungry people in THIS country, and more people who will donate to fund efforts to fee the rest of the world. Regardless, we just can't have people like Dan running the country. No Trabues are likely to end the fiscal crap sandwich the Trabues served up.
I say that after I posted this as well. Frankly, I don't care. 100% of the "savings" (which aren't so much "savings" as they are reductions in future spending, which means we would have to borrow less. Should go toward reducing the debt/deficit, and setting up future generations for a more fiscally sustainable US. It was vote buying when Biden did it, vote buying when Walz did it, and it'd be vote buying now.
I agree that there is plenty of W/F/A to be found in our bloated federal budget, and that there are plenty of federal employees who are not adding value to their organizations and who should be gone. The stereotype of federal employees hanging on, doing the bare minimum, so they get more retirement $$$$$ is based in reality. My only problem is that they're firing probationary workers instead of the one's who should have retired years ago. At least the probationary workers should be motivated to do well to avoid being fired.
BTW, what in the hell is wrong with our country where literally every employee in the country is an "at will" employee and can be fired at any time for any reason, yet federal employees are somehow magically protected from this? Screw that, this is what is wrong with public employee unions. It's a big job, but that's what Trump should go after, the culture that protects federal employees in ways that private sector employees are not.
The problem is that Dan thinks that there is a magical money supply that those of his ilk can tap at will to "feed the hungry", when he chooses to ignore that every dollar that the the US borrows for these programs is going to be a financial burden on our great grandchildren to the point of government insolvency. Maybe if we got our fiscal house in order, we could then revisit providing aid to others, and how that is done.
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