No, I’m just not buying what you’re all selling. You presently have no track record of success beyond just showing Trump is implementing policies you believe will make a positive difference. You don’t get to tout those as wins for me to be bitter about any more than I get to complain about them being implemented. We will see if prices improves or crime gets better or any other outcome we might want comes to pass. But it’s not a fear of being proven wrong by Trump that has me unhappy with his policies. It’s that I don’t agree with these policies being the way to bring about positive outcomes.
Second ('Third') Trump Presidency Thread
- Thread starter thethe
- Start date
No, I’m just not buying what you’re all selling. You presently have no track record of success beyond just showing Trump is implementing policies you believe will make a positive difference. You don’t get to tout those as wins for me to be bitter about any more than I get to complain about them being implemented. We will see if prices improves or crime gets better or any other outcome we might want comes to pass. But it’s not a fear of being proven wrong by Trump that has me unhappy with his policies. It’s that I don’t agree with these policies being the way to bring about positive outcomes.
Setting aside the trans issue for a moment, I’d argue this shouldn’t be the aim of the treatment of mental illness any way. The mentally ill are still human beings that we should be trying to help live the best lives they can, not hide in a corner.
I would have thought your side would be all over having fewer future Gazans at the moment.
But amazingly the money delivering condoms to Gaza is not the spending I’m opposing us eliminating. Enjoy arguing with your straw man, though.
Meanwhile the shrieking right believes any expenditure on anything that doesn’t support a conservative political agenda is wokeness and a secret plot to destroy the West. Congratulations on discovering politics though.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
If we means-tested Social Security and other transfer programs it would generate a lot more in savings than cutting back on condoms to Gaza. A lot more. It wouldn't even have to be a draconian means test. Just cut off people making half a million or more a year. Why are we sending transfers to those folks. If you want to cut federal spending you have to go where the spending is happening. And that is mainly in these transfer programs. The often-outrageous padding of costs that defense contractors charge is another obvious target.
It won't happen. For a very simple reason. The rich and defense contractors (substantial overlap between the two I might add) are protected classes. Our political system (as currently configured) does not countenance anything that might discomfit them.
Meanwhile maga will go on channeling its outrage at condoms for Gaza. Emotionally satisfying maybe. But not something that makes a real dent in federal spending.
It won't happen. For a very simple reason. The rich and defense contractors (substantial overlap between the two I might add) are protected classes. Our political system (as currently configured) does not countenance anything that might discomfit them.
Meanwhile maga will go on channeling its outrage at condoms for Gaza. Emotionally satisfying maybe. But not something that makes a real dent in federal spending.
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For all the ways I lump you in with the shrieking right, government spending is not one of them. It’s Thethe and the woke right that think we’re saving the country by spending millions on military flights and extensive ICE operations for undocumented migrants, placing tariffs on goods and potentially creating new government departments to do the things it already does. I respect that you at least seem to not agree that a deficit is suddenly okay if we’re just being unwoke while we increase it.
sturg33
I
Well I do think some spending is less egregious than others. But I agree that if we are running the same deficits regardless, we are not helping.
If Elon and Trump can show me the data that these one time burts of spending will create decades of spending cuts, than I'm in. But nothing is really gonna change til congress starts actually doing individual spending bills instead of the yearly "government shutdown crisis omnibus bill"
I frankly see zero indication of this so far. Instead of that, you’re getting Elon Musk tweeting about getting rid of DEI contracts. I’m actually personally fine with eliminating every DEI position and contract currently in place. Where I think the left has it wrong is thinking DEI is a thing you “buy” in the first place. Valuing diverse perspectives and being inclusive are just leadership qualities and having a person or company run point on those things to the tune of billions of dollars is wasteful in my opinion.
But where they lose me is when they start blaming DEI for things they have direct control over. DEI doesn’t cause a helicopter to run into a passenger plane, systemic operational failures do. Failures such as failing to staff departments adequately (which the Biden Admin failed to do, but Trump isn’t showing me any sign of improving) or expecting employees to complete work to some standard, or having poor technology or spending controls. Those are things that DOGE could actually be an effective agency for solving if it were being run by someone who isn’t an internet troll that got turned into a real boy.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
Anecdote alert. I know someone who is an airplane pilot fairly well. Being a commercial airplane pilot does not require any kind of engineering expertise. It does require extensive and specialized training. This guy that I know dropped out of college after less than two years. He had a meth addiction that put him in the hospital and almost cost him his life. To his credit he got his life together. Meeting the right woman helped. He spent several years working as a truck driver before realizing he wanted to be a pilot. He was able to save enough money to get through pilot school. A success story in many ways.
With all due respect I don't think the guys on your twitter feed understand the process of becoming a pilot. At all.
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Yet again, if something was just silently in place from 2016-2020, I reject the notion that it is part of some obvious existential crisis the Dems wrought on the world that Donald Trump is thankfully fixing now that a helicopter ran into a plane.
Tapate50
Well-known member
Massie has been doing his thing in Congress for years, as have folks like Chip Roy and Justin Amash. How has that gone for them when Trump and his ilk are the ones who want their initiatives passed? Suddenly Donald Trump has a mandate to do whatever he wants and anybody who opposes is a RINO, no?
Exactly my point. If my taxes don’t go down or my quality of life doesn’t markedly improve in the next 4 years, I don’t really give a **** if $50 million less went to condoms for Gazans or not. We have Trump and Hegseth teasing a mother****ing iron dome for America, a country that has no threats capable of attacking us in a manner that would be protected against by such a system. That alone would cost more money than DEI programs or State Department initiatives and would do **** all for me or my taxes.
Money spent is money spent, and there’s a large contingent in your movement that forget that, just as there’s a large contingent in mine that do the same. Not all spending cuts are unjustified or bad. But there’s a lot of folks that are unduly claiming life will improve because $50 million will be spent on a conservative initiative instead of a progressive one and I think it’s worth pointing out that you’re not improving the lives of Americans like me unless you take less of my money, make my money go further through lower prices or make so many new jobs that my income rises as a result.
chop2chip
Well-known member
Chip Roy tried saying this and MAGA said to primary him.
It’s not gonna happen. These drop in the bucket cuts, while good, are the equivalent of economic virtue signaling.