Just now, NoDisplayName said:

 

Tax cuts don't "cost" anything.

 

It's less money being stolen from working 'merkans.

Well, there's one vote for unlimited debt.

43 minutes ago, Pouatchee said:

 

no not at all. i love people yapping about another country's politics without actually knowing anything about said country except what they think they know which usually aint anything more than a fart in a bathtub... there opinion that is... 

In that case, let me expand on my post. Forum rules say it's irrelevant.

Just now, placeholder said:

Well, there's one vote for unlimited debt.

 

That squatter in your cranium seems to have thrown the grey matter out with the bath water.

 

That's only one side of the equation.

Cut spending.

Cut it now.

Bigly.

If writing posts hating on Trump was an Olympic sport some posters on here would be gold medal champions.

2 minutes ago, NoDisplayName said:

 

That squatter in your cranium seems to have thrown the grey matter out with the bath water.

 

That's only one side of the equation.

Cut spending.

Cut it now.

Bigly.

 

3 minutes ago, NoDisplayName said:

 

That squatter in your cranium seems to have thrown the grey matter out with the bath water.

 

That's only one side of the equation.

Cut spending.

Cut it now.

Bigly.

Here's what you wrote:
"Tax cuts don't "cost" anything.

 

It's less money being stolen from working 'merkans."

 

There are members who claim to be mind readers but I'm not one of them. If you can't say what you mean, don't expect others to fill in the blanks for you.

1 minute ago, placeholder said:

 

Here's what you wrote:
"Tax cuts don't "cost" anything.

 

It's less money being stolen from working 'merkans."

 

There are members who claim to be mind readers but I'm not one of them. If you can't say what you mean, don't expect others to fill in the blanks for you.

 

I'm sorry, bigly sorry for you, that the country from which you hail has a less-developed edumacation system than 'merka.

 

Tax cuts don't "cost" the treasury anything.

It's not the treasury's money to spend.

1 minute ago, NoDisplayName said:

 

I'm sorry, bigly sorry for you, that the country from which you hail has a less-developed edumacation system than 'merka.

 

Tax cuts don't "cost" the treasury anything.

It's not the treasury's money to spend.

More confused thinking from you. On the one hand you refer to 'merka. On the other hand according to you it apparently doesn't require any money to run. So maybe 'merka isn't a real country? Unlike The United States of America?

1 hour ago, Pouatchee said:

 

no not at all. i love people yapping about another country's politics without actually knowing anything about said country except what they think they know which usually aint anything more than a fart in a bathtub... there opinion that is... 

 

You need to look up forum rules before posting again. One's citizenship is irrelevant to respond to topics.

1 minute ago, placeholder said:

More confused thinking from you. On the one hand you refer to 'merka. On the other hand according to you it apparently doesn't require any money to run. So maybe 'merka isn't a real country? Unlike The United States of America?

I do not think it needs as much money to run as it has been. 

 

Every administration, with the possible exception of Biden's has run on cutting waste and fraud and closing the border. This administration meant it.  

 

 

11 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

If writing posts hating on Trump won Olympic medals some posters on here would be gold medal  champions

Sure and of course there was never any hate at all directed at Biden other than nonstop for four ++ years....and continues even now as blame him for any and all even though he is no longer potus.

 

If trump has his way he alone would automatically be awarded every olympic gold medal as we all know that he is the best at everything...just ask him and he'll tell you ad naseum.  Big Macs bone spurs and all.

2 minutes ago, placeholder said:

More confused thinking from you. On the one hand you refer to 'merka. On the other hand according to you it apparently doesn't require any money to run. So maybe 'merka isn't a real country? Unlike The United States of America?

 

You're having trouble unnerstanding.

 

Tax less is not tax none.  Not same-same.

 

Tax less, spend lesser.  Balance the budget, and maybe, just maybe, start paying off that $37 Trillion debt.  Then reduce the $1 Trillion annual interest payment on the debt, and possibly start funding the $128 Trillion in unfunded liabilities.

 

 

54 minutes ago, placeholder said:

And for someone who claims to worry about the debt, you don't seem to care at all that the Trump/Musk machine is slashing employment at the IRS. I guess the hundreds of billions lost to tax cheats don't concern you. Have you asked yourself why the 2 billionaires are doing this?

The billionaires are involved because, like everyone else, they would like for their money to continue to be worth something.  When the debt bubble pops, all bets are off.  And when that happens, they'll no longer be billionaires.  The USA will be finished. And so they're trying to do something about the mess that now exists. And make no mistake, it's a big mess and it's possible that nobody can undo the damage that's been done. 

 

Please tell me you're not OK with the alternative. Would you like to see America destroyed?  Business as usual isn't going to work this time.  If you don't know it, the banking system is on the verge of collapse.  Who is buying the US Bonds?  Is there any gold in Ft. Knox that the US actually owns?  

1 hour ago, madone said:

and it is not just the mythical "left" that aren't thrilled

Who else then? Doesn't really count for Jack unless you are an American.

Musk was ok with everyone when he was supplying Ukraine with his starlink. 

1 hour ago, placeholder said:

When someone has nothing, they often try to make it personal. You've got nothing. And it's a really trite nothing, to boot.

You live in his mind, rent free, which is why he has to bird dog your posts. The MAGAs are like those who get apoplectic over Danish cartoonists. They're up to their eyeballs in the fever swamps, unable to state facts nor offer rational answers.

 

Some of it I understand. The 4 years under Biden were the best years since the late 1990s to get wealthy, and they missed it. Smart folks got rich, MAGAs stagnated. They also tend to be losers, the kind who weren't the football hero nor Class President nor top in their class nor able to get a cheerleader as a prom date, so they live vicariously through POTUS, who they think is getting back at the cool kids on their behalf, trying to erase an entire life of mediocrity.

 

Also, they're too lazy to look at the numbers, noting Biden's GDP dwarfed his predecessor, along with job creation, and that rather than endlessly repeat "Next week is infrastructure week", Biden actually got a bipartisan infrastructure Bill passed. Hey, but 45 built a wall and got Mexico to pay, right? No?

 

The MAGAs bark about "waste" and "fraud", but note only minor examples, which will never be wiped out completely. It's like trying to make a restaurant operate with zero waste. Some fish is going to go bad before it's sold. OTOH, the source of the greatest amount of fraud and waste is inviolable: defense. In a $916 billion budget, they've found only a few million of supposed waste. Perhaps if they spent a little time looking at cost overruns on obsolete weapons systems, or took exception to the new F-47, which is a manned fighter in an age where unmanned systems are quickly becoming superior and will be vastly superior before a sure-to-be delayed and costly F-47 comes online, a few hundred billion could be cut from defense, with zero loss in capability.

 

I guess if other NATO members were as inefficient and profligate as the US DoD, POTUS could stop barking about "fair share", though that wouldn't make NATO any more effective, especially when POTUS prefers Europe's greatest threat over our actual allies.

 

Some things I always wanted MAGAs to answer, but they never do:

 

---Why did 45 call his goobers to DC for 6 Jan 2021, and why did he send them to the Capitol? Was the Capitol gift shop having a sale on coffee mugs and keychains? Are MAGAs admitting that 45 is so stupid that "how could he have known" his goobers would get violent? Why do MAGAs bark about a few fringe Dems who said "Defund the police", when 47 has so little respect for police that he pardoned the terrorists who beat and bear sprayed 140 of them?

 

---On a personal note, why do MAGAs think it was both okay and necessary for 45 to steal hundreds of highly classified documents and keep them at his wedding planner facility, where anyone willing to pony up $200K could join and sniff around for secrets? What possible use could 45 have for Human Clandestine Sources (HCS) documents that reveal the identities of clandestine intel assets in hostile nations and terrorist organizations? If US national security is so important that 45 must keep young Guatemalan mothers and their kids from entering the US, why did he steal TS, SCI, SAP, Codeword, RD and other documents that expose everything from battle plans to weapons capabilities to knowledge of adversaries' capabilities?

 

No doubt all this post will get from MAGAs is silly emojis, never an answer, because for the cultists, POTUS is as infallible as a Borgia Pope.

7 minutes ago, Walker88 said:

OTOH, the source of the greatest amount of fraud and waste is inviolable: defense.

 

Democrats across the Capitol were outraged Thursday at news that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered senior Pentagon and military leaders to plan 8 percent cuts from the defense budget in each of the next five years. 

 

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5156520-pentagon-cuts-defense-budget/

I'm just grateful that he has the presence of mind to backpeddle. I admire the ability to recognize when you have made a mistake and try to correct it. Trump could have avoided this by listening to his advisors, but he has always appeared to think that he knows better than the experts.

11 minutes ago, Walker88 said:

a few hundred billion could be cut from defense, with zero loss in capability.

 

As part of the Defense Department's ongoing effort to cut wasteful spending, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memo today directing the termination of more than $580 million in programs, contracts and grants.

 

https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4130310/dod-to-cut-580-million-in-spending/

1 hour ago, Patong2021 said:

Navarro

 

I have some respect for this guy.

 

Definitely NOT a Pinko, by any means.

 

46 minutes ago, NoDisplayName said:

 

You're having trouble unnerstanding.

 

Tax less is not tax none.  Not same-same.

 

Tax less, spend lesser.  Balance the budget, and maybe, just maybe, start paying off that $37 Trillion debt.  Then reduce the $1 Trillion annual interest payment on the debt, and possibly start funding the $128 Trillion in unfunded liabilities.

 

 

Actually, you're having trouble understanding yourself. 

"It's not the treasury's money to spend."

 

13 minutes ago, NoDisplayName said:

 

As part of the Defense Department's ongoing effort to cut wasteful spending, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memo today directing the termination of more than $580 million in programs, contracts and grants.

 

https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4130310/dod-to-cut-580-million-in-spending/

Goodness! $580 million out of $916 billion.....and some of that involves removing the Enola Gay from the Dulles-area museum. Of course Hegseth did find $50,000 to repaint his official residence.

 

What about the F-47?  If we're going to buy that (so POTUS can have a jet sort of named after him), might we also contract for muskets and siege engines?

 

Far more was cut from USAID, which spent money trying to ring fence viruses that could easily make their way to the continental US.

5 minutes ago, placeholder said:

Actually, you're having trouble understanding yourself. 

"It's not the treasury's money to spend."

 

 

I unnerstan' you perfectly.

 

I work, I make money, I invest, I make more money.

 

But it's not MY money.

 

It belongs to my betters who can distribute it better.

2 hours ago, jas007 said:

Why do you think Musk has involved himself? He surely doesn't need to make any money.  Ditto for Trump.

Surely you jest!

 

1 minute ago, Walker88 said:

Goodness! $580 million out of $916 billion..

 

It's a start.

 

But are you forgetting the 8% cuts for each of the next 5 years?  That's convenient.

 

 

2 hours ago, placeholder said:

What's really funny is that whatever Trump decides to do, that's okay with Trumpists. So much independent thinking not going on. They ask me where I stand on the issue but having surrendered their thinking processes to Trump, they no longer feel accountable.

So true. Must be quite pleasant in a kind of lobotomized way to surrender your thought processes to a dim bulb like that of VP Trump. It's like voluntarily becoming an intellectual zombie.

I'm afraid that once again this shows that Trump really doesn't have a plan or a strategy that is thinking beyond the initial application of tariffs. Personally, I think tariffs are justified in the right situation. But one of the things that could best have illustrated their strategic use would have been to concentrate on one particular region. Southeast Asia deserves that honor. It's a region that puts up its own tariffs on American goods, while providing cover for Chinese companies avoiding US sanctions. The US should hit them hard and demonstrate just how powerful  American trade policy could be and how it could reward friends and significantly damage enemies and fence sitters. Access to US markets has always been part of US foreign policy. But if you have a region slipping into the control of a US enemy, China, then there is no reason to allow them to continue to access the US without at least incurring reciprocal tariffs. But here is the one thing you DO NOT DO: don't start off attacking your two closest neighbors and military allies, while all but groveling to Arab states and Russia.

No American expat should have any criticism of the leadership of developing countries when the Trump administration is busy dismantling what's left of Democracy. America has stepped in it bigtime. The United States will never have the respect it once had on the international stage.

2 hours ago, placeholder said:

That's funny about Musk and Trump not needing money therefore they are not greedy. What does Trump's memecoin escapade tell you? OR Musk's repeated lies about developments at Tesla? 

 

It's funny. You kept after me about my stand on tariffs but when I asked you about reversing the tax cuts of Trump and Bush, you've kept mum. So, put up or ...

 

We know that tax cuts have cost the treasury billions. We know that Reagan, Bush, and Trump promised tax cuts would pay for themselves. How did that work out? 

 

We keep on hearing about waste, abuse and fraud everywhere but there's remarkably little evidence to show that it's a significant problem. Musk has deleted any codes that might identify the cuts he has made. What does that tell you?

 

As for the "look in the mirror" schtick. Just a transparent ploy to make it personal.

 

EDIT: I should have written we know that the Reagan, Bush, and Trump tax cuts cost the Treasury TRILLIONS

 

 

Everyone knows or should know by now that the tax cuts you mention didn't pay for themselves.  Reagan figured that out in short order during his first term and tried to undo the damage, but the cuts were politically popular and, to this day, politicians have continued to run up debt as if that's always the answer.  Cut taxes and everything will be fine. And now we have a 36 trillion dollar mess that may well bankrupt the country.  

 

Did you seriously think I didn't realize that? 

 

No one can go back and undo the damage that's been done. The debt is there. The question going forward is how to deal with the problem. There's no guarantee that the Trump plans will work. None whatsoever. But if he's not given the chance, that's tantamount to hoping he fails. And, like I said, if that's what you want, then you are part of the problem. 

 

Apparently, Trump thinks he needs room to maneuver. He needs a period during which he can have lower interest rates and that, during this period, his tariffs will begin to bring in a lot of money and establish a trend of slowing the growth of the debt. In other words, perhaps his plans will help re-establish some confidence in the continued worth of US bonds. The percentage of US debt held as reserves by countries around the world has been dropping. That trend needs to be reversed or there's big trouble.  Mathematically, there's a point where more debt simply doesn't work well any more.  It becomes counterproductive. 

I don’t think he has a coherent value structure as most of us understand it. I think we’re seeing a president who’s operating without anything any of us would recognize as a conscience. Truly.

 

It is about showing what he can get away with. It’s about showing his enemies that what they support, he can tear down. It is all about displays of brute strength. He gets off on that, and in that sense, it seems not so much an autocracy but a flexocracy. Let me show you how I can flex my bicep as I use it to power my fist coming into your face.

 

It’s not about any coherent values. It’s not about any North Star. It’s about showing that you can turn the boat 180 degrees around and that you can do whatever you want and you can bring the people who opposed you to their knees.

 

Trump’s idea of power. If I can destroy, if I can defile and march on relatively unscathed and unpunished, that makes me powerful. Other people can’t get away with it, but that’s how dominant and superior I am.

 

I think it's safe to say at this point that Trump is completely lost, he loved the idea of tariffs, they were a great talking point with voters, make America great again is his favorite slogan, but we know it's never going to happen. 

 

While I think tariffs on highly subsidized commodities like steel and aluminum are likely a good idea, I question how wise it is to impose such horrendously high tariffs on EV's from China. Likewise I question how wise it is to impose high tariffs on Mexico and Canada as they are both part of our manufacturing ecosystems. 

 

As far as I'm concerned one of the most dangerous, reckless, and poorly thought out policies that Trump has proposed, are even higher tariffs on many classes of imported products.

Who ends up paying for this? American companies who are manufacturing in China, and the consumer, that's who. 

In the end huge taxes may encourage companies too pull out of China, which is a good thing, but how long will that process take, and what will the economic consequences be in the interim? 

 

If he enacts his import tariffs as promised it could spell disaster for the American economy. It is nothing but a massive tax hike on the American People, and could have a very negative impact on thousands of American companies that manufacturer overseas, without any true understanding of why they manufacture overseas.

 

Trump manufactures overseas, every opportunity he gets, to save money. Bibles, baseball caps, and likely countless other things. So, calling him very disingenuous would be an understatement.

 

 

3 hours ago, jas007 said:

For some of us, it may not be 'OK." Burt whatever he does undoubtedly beats the alternative, which is the bankruptcy of the United States in the not too distant future.  Why do you think Musk has involved himself? He surely doesn't need to make any money.  Ditto for Trump.  But they both see reality and they both know that something has to change, or else. 

 

What part of a $36 Trillion debt don't you understand?  Do you seriously think that the current rate of debt expansion can continue unabated?  Other nations are already selling off US bonds.  No one is buying, except the Fed.  And the only way that trend can be reversed is if a credible effort is made to slow the spending.  Perhaps it will work.

 

The US Treasury was raided. Money was stolen by the war mongers. Waste. fraud, and abuse everywhere you look. And the system needs continuous debt expansion to survive. One of the ways they do that is by war.  War always cost money. A lot of money. A lot of debt is generated. 

 

Make fun of Trump all you want, but if you're looking for a culprit, go look in the mirror.  You're part of the problem. 

The thing is that Musk and Trump seem to be afraid of the big spenders, the biggest item in the discretionary budget, the military.

Handling them with kid gloves I see. 

Afraid to poke the bear?

 

Remember the audits that found $640 toilet seats and other extravagant payments?

 

Who was the leftist hippie that warned us about the military industrial complex in 1960?

Oh, now I remember it was Dwight Eisenhower.