r/tuesday • u/coldnorthwz New Federalism\Zombie Reaganite • Nov 21 '24
DOGE can succeed by scaling back its ambitions
https://reason.com/2024/11/21/doge-can-succeed-by-scaling-back-its-ambitions/35
u/ScoopskiPotatoes78 Centre-right Nov 21 '24
They may be able to reduce some inefficiencies but meaningful deficit reduction must make cuts in areas beyond the bureaucracy. For 2023, Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, Defense spending, Veteran's benefits, and interest mad up around 75% of the total budget. The remaining non-discretionary spending was about $900 billion (which also brings in a few billion dollars in revenue) while the deficit was $1.7 trillion.
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u/EatsFiber2RedditMore Right Visitor Nov 22 '24
Honestly I don't have high hopes for a made up department with two heads. A department that seems to be a very thinly veild joke about crypo.
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u/btribble Left Visitor Nov 22 '24 edited Nov 22 '24
Musk just threatened UK PMs with being "summoned" to the US for their questioning of the role X played in inciting violence in the UK recently. He's threatening them with power he wouldn't have, under a role and a department that isn't authorized by Congress, in an administration that won't take office for 2 months.
The wheels are coming off the trolly sooner rather than later. Trump is going to kick his ass to the curb. There can be only one.
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u/Nelliell Right Visitor Nov 22 '24
And yet, I have to wonder if Musk is yet another individual blackmailing Trump. They're both egotistic narcissists. And, as you said, there can only be one. So why does Trump tolerate his antics even now?
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u/btribble Left Visitor Nov 22 '24
Money. Musk has just offered to bankroll primarying any Republican that doesn’t go along with their plans.
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u/EverythingGoodWas One Nation Conservative Nov 22 '24
The government could totally do with some efficiency reviews, but this isn’t at all the way to go about it. Now it will look like a political stunt and a joke rather than actual efficiency.
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u/btribble Left Visitor Nov 22 '24
You can look at my flair and take what I'm saying with that in mind, but it was never about efficiency.
It's about gutting the federal government to limit its power. This is about preventing the IRS from going after tax cheats, it's about taking resources from BLM lands, it's about preventing the EPA from prosecuting polluters (and especially from anything related to Climate Change), and it's about neutering the department of education to privatize, profitize, and Christianize education in the US. It's a plan by confederacy fanboys to neuter the federal government, and that's something that foreign adversaries are actively promoting because they want the US to exit the world stage.
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u/EverythingGoodWas One Nation Conservative Nov 22 '24
I agree largely with your assessment. Drives me crazy. I don’t know why we can’t be conservative and still want a functional government
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u/Nelliell Right Visitor Nov 22 '24
It's maddening. There are places the government could be more efficient for sure. Fiscal Christmas comes to mind - there's so much waste and superfluous purchases made to justify budgets while other departments are chronically underfunded and thus inefficient. Instead, this is what we get.
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u/btribble Left Visitor Nov 22 '24
The short answer is that America’s new oligarch class doesn’t want anyone telling them what to do. The current Republican Party is captured, and so are the Dems to a slightly lesser degree.
The rich kid bullies on the playground want to get rid of the yard duties because they’re tired of having to answer to anyone.
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u/flugenblar Left Visitor Nov 22 '24
I’m with you. Trump is a reality tv show star first and foremost. When he sees his ratings slip, you can bet there’ll be phone calls to premiere Musk, and then one day there’ll be a post to Twitter that Elon is moving on.
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u/garyp714 Left Visitor Nov 22 '24
We have to increase revenue. The tax cuts fr the rich syndrome that has played out since Reagan is why the deficits are so high. Cutting poor people's access to retirement and medical care is not the answer. And we all know the military budget will never go down.
Tax the rich into the ground.
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u/TheDemonicEmperor Social Conservative Nov 22 '24
We have to increase revenue. The tax cuts fr the rich syndrome that has played out since Reagan is why the deficits are so high.
Tax cuts haven't added a single penny of deficit. Revenues have never been higher.
https://www.cato.org/blog/federal-tax-revenues-soar
The problem is the spending.
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u/garyp714 Left Visitor Nov 22 '24
Oh and if you believe that nonsense, i have a swamp bridge for you. Thanks Cato but 2017 weren't the first tax cuts for rich and corporations. There have been half a dozen since 1980. And those are complete revenue sucks.
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u/TheDemonicEmperor Social Conservative Nov 22 '24
Oh and if you believe that nonsense, i have a swamp bridge for you
It's amazing that you don't actually have any facts to respond to mine. Surely you should have something to say it's wrong, but you don't.
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u/garyp714 Left Visitor Nov 22 '24
50 years of tax cuts is the issue not the last of several rounds in 2017:
After Decades of Costly, Regressive, and Ineffective Tax Cuts, a New Course Is Needed
Tax Cuts Are Primarily Responsible for the Increasing Debt Ratio
50 years of cuts has decimated the ability to grow out of our national debt. Plain and simple.
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u/TheDemonicEmperor Social Conservative Nov 23 '24
50 years of cuts has decimated the ability to grow out of our national debt
No, as shown above, 50 years of continued debt has decimated the ability to grow out of our national debt.
We have not once shrunk spending over the last 50 years. Let's try that! Stop spending money you don't have.
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u/TerminusXL Left Visitor Nov 23 '24
If you honestly cared about the deficit, you'd be advocating for an increase in revenue through increased taxes. There are multiple ways to go about this, but that's the only long term solution. Anything else is just performative.
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u/TheDemonicEmperor Social Conservative Nov 23 '24
If you honestly cared about the deficit, you'd be advocating for an increase in revenue through increased taxes
Why would I do that when, as shown above, the problem isn't tax revenue? Our revenues are fine. The problem is the spending.
Anything else is just performative.
What's performative is your "eat the rich" nonsense. That's never actually helped get us out of any deficit.
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u/TheDemonicEmperor Social Conservative Nov 22 '24
For 2023, Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, Defense spending, Veteran's benefits, and interest mad up around 75% of the total budget.
Exactly. Anyone who points to "foreign spending" or "military industrial complex" to pretend they're fiscally conservative is either being openly dishonest or doesn't have a clue about spending.
I agree with John Bolton on this. I hope they find actual inefficiencies so that we can spend more money on the military.
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