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It's only my surmise, of course, but I bet that the Trump Administration is not happy that Schumer reversed himself. Ever hear of a strategic retreat? Now the blame will fall on Republicans alone. Except, of course, those conspiratorialists who will inevitably blame a conspiracy for its failure. George Soros anyone? Already, Americans are turning against Trump. The guy who promised instant positive results for the economy is now seriously hedging on his claims.

Thanks for sharing right wing porn with us.

George Soros is not the issue in this thread. I just pointed out how dishonest Elon Musk is since you used him as a source And your second question is rather confusingly phrased. I think I know what you're getting at but I'm not sure. Care to try again?

Not exactly true. Biden was President when inflation reached 9.1%. But was the United States the only country that experienced high inflation during this period? Was Biden responsible for their inflation also. A rational fair-minded person would look to causes in common to explain those inflation figures.

You made a specific charge that you apparently based on an accusation from Elon Musk. I'm about to launch a new topic about how Musk lied about the recent crash of Twitter in which he blamed a cyberattack. He's pushed that lie before. In fact, Musk is obviously a serial liar. Far too many to name. Remember when he claimed that he had 400 billion dollar backing from the Saudis to take Tesla private? An egregious lie. Or how major new features were coming to Tesla and repeatedly were postponed? And of course there are the falsehoods about how much money Doge is saving. Why would anyone trust Musk to offer anything but self-serving lies when it suits him?

Do you really have to ask that question? Invoking the name of George Soros is a typical Pavlovian right wing response to events.

Given that this is a party that enthusiastically endorses conspiracy theories, when it breaks the Republicans will come up with some conspiratorial theory about why it's rather the fault of the Deep State or similar sinister agents. Or they will shoot the messenger. By that, I mean that they will eviscerate the BLS and Fed economic reports by claiming that they are lying. Musk, not surprisingly, has previously alleged this. I guess the latter course actually encompasses conspiratorial thinking as well.

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-rating And the thing is, RCP's polling average actually favors someone who approval is on the decline because it gives equal weight to all the polling results it uses which go back about 3 weeks. So trends are not accounted for. A fairer approach is to weight results using not just recency, but accuracy based on past performance and house effects. House effects takes into account the polling bias of the pollster. This is what natesilver.net does: "They weight more reliable polls more heavily — you can find our latest pollster ratings here. They adjust for house effects. And they account for uncertainty, estimating the fairly wide range where new polls might come in." https://www.natesilver.net/p/which-polls-are-biased-toward-harris

Looks like he took your criticism to heart. Thanks for helping the Democrats avoid a serious misstep.

Politically speaking, Schumer's reversal makes sense. If the Democrats had stopped the bill, not only would the shutdown have supercharged Trump's war on the Federal government, but it would have provided Republicans cover for the damage that their program will do to the American economy. Now, the ensuing disaster will belong entirely to the Republicans.

Just a spending problem? Then why do Republicans repeatedly and falsely claim that tax cuts would pay for themselves? " If not for the Bush tax cuts4 and their extensions5—as well as the Trump tax cuts6—revenues would be on track to keep pace with spending indefinitely, and the debt ratio (debt as a percentage of the economy) would be declining. Instead, these tax cuts have added $10 trillion to the debt since their enactment and are responsible for 57 percent of the increase in the debt ratio since 2001, and more than 90 percent of the increase in the debt ratio if the one-time costs of bills responding to COVID-19 and the Great Recession are excluded. Eventually, the tax cuts are projected to grow to more than 100 percent of the increase." https://www.americanprogress.org/article/tax-cuts-are-primarily-responsible-for-the-increasing-debt-ratio/

Nice try at deflection? Do you support Trump's tax cuts?

Well, for one thing, it would help if Trump's tax cuts were not on the table? Do you support Trump's tax cuts? Why do you consistently evade answering that question?

First, it's comical that you are accusing me of avoiding the question when you have nothing to say about Trump's proposed tax cuts. But I would say a budget deficit that's 2% would be a good target. Now, do you support Trump's tax cuts? Do you support an increase on FICA enough to secure Social Security? Or maybe some mixture of an increase in FICA and raising or eliminating the ceiling on earned income contributions to FICA?

Can it be addressed without raising taxes? Also the deficits don't have to be closed They just has to be substantially reduced to lower their percentage against GDP. Do you think Trump's proposed tax cuts will raise or lower deficits and the national debt? So I don't know how much of a spending problem the US has. But it's very clear that it has a taxation problem. And the fault for that lies clearly with the Republicans. It's unbelievable that despite the disastrous effects that their tax cuts have had on the national debt, they still persist with the lie that tax cuts will pay for themselves. Not so long ago there was a poll done that asked voters if they would endorse a substantial rise in FICA taxes in order to secure social security once and for all. Even a majority of Republicans endorsef that proposition.

I guess you failed to address the tax cut issue and fake Republican claims that tax cuts pay for themselves because you have no grounds to stand on to refute it.

There's another topic running in this forum about CNN falsely correcting an assertion by Trump. Conservative media was all over them about their mistake. What that should tell you, and apparently doesn't, is that right wing media is watching media they consider to be libera,l progressive, or Marxist like hawks or maybe like what big cats waiting to pounce. Now the New York Times has released a vast amount of detailed reports about the falsehoods promulgated by Doge. So far, the right wing media has offered virtually no fact checking challenging these reports. In other words, it's only if you don't live in the real world that you can believe the New York Times could get away with lying about what Musk and Doge are up to without fact-checking pushback from various right-wing media sources.

You mean they've made it impossible to fact check their claims. Are you actually unaware of how error-ridden Doge's claims are? Exposing falsehoods is sabotage? If Doge has to repeatedly make massive fraudulent claims to justify its activity, maybe that should be a cause for concern?

Previously when it posted new claims, DOGE, Mr. Musk’s government-restructuring effort, had included identifying details about the cuts it took credit for. That allowed the public to fact-check its work by comparing its figures with federal spending databases and talking to the groups whose funding had been cut. This time, it did not include those details. https://archive.ph/FDNDI#selection-693.0-693.43 The one thing transparent about Doge is its massive commitment to hiding its incompetence. Anyway, its latest effort failed at first thanks to the release of some embedded source code that the Times was able to use to fact check. Subsequently, Musk has removed even that code so fact-checking is now, apparently, impossible.

I think it's pretty obvious that there are no more Epstein files. At least, none that have any further scandalous information. The right wingers keep on talking about Epstein's missing "client list". In fact, there is no evidence that such a list existed or exists. It was invented by the usual suspects. None of the plaintiffs in lawsuits have mentioned any such list.

Tesla in China is pretty much doomed. BYD particularly is destroying them. China Cools on Musk: ‘Two Cars for the Price of One Tesla’ Chinese drivers that once flocked to Tesla are turning more and more to local brands that offer more efficient cars with better technology, sometimes at half the price. Tesla’s biggest rival, the electric car giant BYD, sold 481,318 cars in the first two months of this year, over three quarters more than it did over the same period last year. Tesla sold 60,480 vehicles in the first two months of the year, a drop of 14 percent from last year. https://archive.ph/dVJlo#selection-689.0-693.131

Because of there is one thing we know about the Thais, is that if someone asks them a question, they will answer it straight even if it means hurt feelings. At least, that's the case for Thais on Oppositeworld.

Actually, apart from the deficits due to WW2, the budgets started going into big deficits under Ronald Reagan. Under Clinton the budget deficits went down, In fact, in his final year there was a surplus. Then George W. Bush got massive tax cuts enacted with predictable results. From George W. Obama inherited the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. He tried as best he could not to go the Herbert Hoover route. Then Trump got more tax cuts passed. And each time those Republicans got those tax cuts passed, they claimed that the stimulus they would provide, would mean that the tax cuts would pay for themselves due to increased revenues coming from the stimulus they would deliver the economy.. That never happened. Instead of which we got big deficits. Despite which, Trump is pushing for another tax cut with the same empty promise. Do you believe that the 4th time is the charm?

Why are you telling me that? You should tell that to VincentRj. He's the one who introduced Denmark into the conversation.

Why am I not surprised that you didn't link to the article or offer any quotes from it? "There is about a 40% chance of a U.S. recession this year and a risk of lasting damage to the country's standing as an investment destination if the administration undermines trust in U.S. governance, according to J.P. Morgan's chief economist. "Where we stand now is with a heightened concern about the U.S. economy," Bruce Kasman, the U.S. investment bank's chief global economist, told reporters in Singapore on Wednesday. He said he has not yet revised any forecasts, but put a roughly 40% recession risk into the outlook - up from about a 30% chance he had reckoned on at the start of the year. https://archive.ph/scF4z#selection-1343.32-1359.174 Spinning much?