Spending or Bureaucrats? Choose your poison
This question arose after taking some time to ponder my own thoughts and beliefs around the debt ceiling and the $3.5 trillion dollar bill. And It has come to my realization that I am not so much against the spending as much as I am against "Bureaucratic Bullshit" or "wasteful spending". It just generally feels that if some laws were passed we could get over some of the trillion of dollars and probably make a plan that fits in the current debt ceiling. Here are a few of the earmarks that I disagree with.
$1.8 trillion for the Finance Committee. This part of the bill is for investments in working families, the elderly, and the environment. It includes a tax cut for Americans making less than $400,000 a year, lowering the price of prescription drugs, and ensuring the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share of taxes.
Seems like this could be mostly achieved with some laws.
$107 billion for the Judiciary Committee. These funds address establishing "lawful permanent status for qualified immigrants."
Once again seems like it could be fix with a law
$726 billion for the Health, Labor, Education, and Pensions Committee. This addresses universal pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds, childcare for working families, tuition-free community college, funding for historically black colleges and universities, and an expansion of the Pell Grant for higher education.
This one I am more okay with, but why not just toss this amount at the student loans and actually relieve some of the stress indivduals have right now.
Long story short: I hate the people that spend my money not the fact that they spend it? What's your take?
What's better? This, or tax cuts that let Bezos get away with paying nothing in taxes, with no funding, going straight to the deficit, and hiking taxes for those in HCOL areas?
If there was a political party whose greatest achievement in the past 20 years was this and invading two countries, I probably wouldn't vote for that political party ever again.... just saying.......
In all fairness, I don't think you fully understand what SALT does/did.
Yeah, but big picture, it's fucking insane.
More giveways to Chinese and Russian oligarchs dumping their money here then 60% of Americans.
Hiking taxes on wealthy urbanites is the only good part of the Trump tax cut. For a long time, wealthy people in blue states underpaid federal taxes by deducting their state income taxes. Fuck 'em.
Basically, just sweeping the true cost of their cities under the rug. Granted they still get $10,000 in deductions.
Or, wealthy people in red states underpaid on their federal taxes, by paying nothing in state taxes and forcing wealthy blue states to make up the difference. See how that works?
Maybe the fact that there is a strong correlation between a state's political affiliation, and the percentage of population on food stamps, has some importance? As in, New Yorkers pay a lot in state taxes, and therefore aren't reliant on federal aid. Why should the wealthy in Oklahoma skirt through without paying state taxes and make the federal government come out of pocket for the difference?
Seems like conservatives are all about "states' rights good, federal government bad!" until it's something they disagree with.
Nope. You're just having the wealthy in blue states (who are far more politically powerful might I add) pay taxes that actually correspond to their cost of living. The entire system is set up to sustain them (who benefits from the dominance Wall Street and Big Tech have in our economy)? Time to make them pay up.
Your second point is a red herring. The popular meme that blue states pay more than take includes many things people don't really consider that just causes them to assume "lol red states are full of welfare deadbeats".
-Red states have more military bases
-Red states have a higher percentage of land owned by the federal government and federal facilities
-Red states have more infrastructure that that the federal government considers nationally important and thus will step in and fund (dams and power plants being big ones)
-Red state economies tend to be more focused on resource production, something the federal government considers to be a national security issue and thus will subsidize (agriculture and energy being the big ones)
-On a demographic basis, it's not the redneck population that causes Mississippi and Louisiana to have so many welfare recipients :^). Let's just say these people are by and large not Republican voters. Red states tend to have much larger minority populations
Now, I'm all for dismantling this, but it means we dismantle the American empire across the board. No more wars abroad, bring back manufacturing, and tariff the shit out of foreign goods.
If you don't like this system, why not propose a breakup? Let the blue states be their own country? You'd obviously be happier if that was the case. Alternatively (and I think you may subconsciously support this), just recognize that the US is an empire and make red states economic colonies of blue states.
The spending bill includes a $1 billion subsidiary to media companies. It's all pork.
Are you referring to all the Broadband spending? because to some extent I do think it is a good idea to provide internet to rural areas.
So... you create all these laws, and how do you enforce them? You seem to have a very naive view of the political process.
If a private sector company said "hey, we can build our product cheaper if we switch the way we manufacture it" and the board all agreed... do you think that's the end of it? Of course not. Government is no different, and not necessarily even less efficient, it's just bigger.
Sure, I agree there are some cost to changing the way things work. I am going to Cherry pick the easiest one to defend (purposefully because I think it is the best example) of the $107 billion for the Judiciary Committee spending. the others I am sure is harder and would require some governance, but still generally seem high to me.
There is an estimated 13 million temporary lawful (Visas, etc.) and Unlawful Immigrants in the US currently. So with a law you could make them all legal. The next is that then you would have to offer them Social Security numbers. Lets say you need a division of 10,000 people to issue SS cards and answer questions. At 75K a year, which you could higher people all across the country, paying differing rates. You have a $750 million dollar payroll. Then lets say that you need office Space (200 SQFT per person times 10,000, times the highest office space cost in the US (NY at about $80 sqft) ($80 * 200 * 10,000) 160 million. Then we we'll add an additional $90M for overhead expenses. $1B comes to the grand total. Oh and lets say that I am half as correct and double that. $2B
If the office Legalizes 4 people a day per person, you can finish this in a year. So I see that this entire process should take a maximum of $2B -$4B, 50x-25x less than the proposed amount. If you have any comments on my back of the napkin math, I am happy to discuss, but this seems ridiculous.
I appreciate the attempt to think critically about this, but I have to question what your sources are. That $107b is for way more than just issuing green cards to current illegals, and you're ignoring tons of cost associated with it. How do you find these people? Convince them this isn't a scam to get INS on their case? There is, reasonably, a lot of distrust of government agents in that community. It'll take a massive drive and publicity campaign.
But lets put that aside. There are plenty of other things the money is to be spent on. Border security. The Community Violence Intervention Initiative (the idea that violence doesn't necessitate being shot by the police, essentially). The continuing functioning of all the other aspects of the American federal government that the Judiciary Committee oversees. Etc.
You may be right, that 107 includes a lot of waste. I just think you probably don't have the slightest clue of the diversity of uses to which that money is put (nor do I, frankly), and back of the envelope math for one of them probably reinforces a mistaken impression in your mind.
I am still convinced Drumfy has no idea how the real world works.
Keep voting Republican, and watch your backwater Oklahoma town get poorer, worse infrastructure and worse education! Because “fuck you I got mine” is the national motto for you people
Actually, I just found out Oklahoma just voted to expand Obamacare! Good! Even the deepest red folks in the country are starting to see libertarianism as the steaming trash heap that it is! Good job!
Why can't we hate both? Income tax was supposed to be temporary. I'm pretty sure I know how to spend my money for my own benefit better than the government. Police and and fireman? I can own a firearm + gun insurance and buy home insurance + fireproofing systems for my residence. Social security? Don't need it, I know how to manage and invest my own capital thanks. Roads? Dominos. Agriculture & food? If you sell tainted product and the media lets the public know, you'll be crucified for it and lose customers making it in your best interest to maximize safety and minimize waste vs being able to say "we were in compliance with X regulation." Healthcare? The only reason the private sector is such a mess is because of government regulation stepping in and giving all the negotiation power to major insurance carriers, allowing for patent abuse for life-saving medications that have been around for decades (see insulin) and not enforcing price transparency which would allow for actual free market competition between providers.
Almost everything the government does is superfluous administration deliberately designed to be overly complicated in order to maximize budget usage (use it or lose it) and reinforce their own need for existence in the eyes of the public. Government more often than not creates the very problem it campaigns on the next cycle to try and fix. The private sector can in most cases manage itself fine and if it fails to do that the government need only fine the offenders for the sum total of their profits + additional amounts to make it too painful to not follow their own rules (fining a bank a few 100k for a practice that made them millions is just a racketeer taking their cut). The only place I can really see a need for government are for maintaining a court system, management of a standing military (although from a cost perspective they suck at this) and regulation within financial markets, but they can't even do that right and are more or less owned by the biggest figures in the private sector for the last two already (arguably all 3 if you look at the disparate outcomes in the legal system).
So if you sell someone poison there’s no consequences besides negative customer reaction?
Good lord. Libertarianism: not even once. This ideology belongs in the garbage can of history. No wonder why they have to tack on MAGA or the religious right to get in power
You are so unfathomably stupid it's physically cringeworthy to read your comments sometimes. Actually, most times.
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