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How did you Americans allow any of this?
by chris_wot 2y ago
How did you Americans allow any of this?
- adamtaylor_13 2y agoSome of us don’t agree with the rampant waste in our government. Some of us also don’t have faith that the system can fix itself without drastic measures like this. I’ll admit I’m wrong if and when it turns out that I am. Until then, I’m cheering it on.
- gilbetron 2y agoCool, so when the fascists have dismantled government and taken over power, at least we might have your apology, although I doubt it even then, you'll just shift the goalposts.
- tomrod 2y agoRather than tearing the system down, let's identify the areas of rampant waste to a degree more lucid than what a news channel or podcast claims. Most areas people claims for alleged waste are legally required/statutory or spindoctored (especially grant topics). Social security isn't waste, but it is on the chopping block. It blows my mind that people are so hungry to hurt so many others and themselves in the process.
- adamtaylor_13 2y agoI disagree with social security not being waste. Just because some people find it useful, doesn’t inherently make it not wasteful. I’ll be lucky if my generation will even be able to pull anything out of social security.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kevingadd 2y agoSo I've been paying for social security my whole life and you think it's a waste and you have the right to take the program away from me? Will I be getting a refund?
- adamtaylor_13 2y agoI doubt it, but hey welcome to the club. Like 1/4 of everything I make goes to social security. But just because I’ve been contributing my whole life doesn’t mean we should double down of a failing program.
- Jtsummers 2y ago> Like 1/4 of everything I make goes to social security. If you want to be taken seriously, don't make false claims. It weakens your other arguments. Social Security is 6.2% (12.4% if self-employed since the employer takes care of half) on the first $176,100 of your net income (which for the median US taxpayer is on all their income). Medicare is 1.45% (2.9% if self-employed, same as Social Security). So if you are self-employed, you pay at most 15.3% of your income below $176,100 in combined Social Security and Medicare. That's a lot, but it's not 25%. If you are not self-employed, you're paying 7.65% on income below $176,100 to both Social Security and Medicare which is very far from 25%. If you're earning over $176,100 your effective Social Security tax rate will drop.
- tomrod 2y agoI agree, that was a striking claim to make. Perhaps the person you responded to puts a lot into their 401k thinking it is social security or thinks income tax is FICA?
- adamtaylor_13 2y ago[flagged]
- tomrod 2y ago
- conradev 2y ago“Notably, the views among DOGE supporters differ when it comes to where to draw the line: The first of the three people with knowledge of its work told Semafor the “entire federal government” is up for grabs. The second person suggested the line would be drawn at areas affecting national security and initiatives providing direct benefits.” https://www.semafor.com/article/02/06/2025/inside-doges-march-with-the-social-security-administration-soon-to-come https://www.semafor.com/article/02/06/2025/inside-doges-marc... I personally hope that it is more of the second
- ty6853 2y agoWe've had since FDR to try and curb the post WW2 federal hyper expansion. Regulations keep growing, our prison population reaches one of the highest rates in world, and we get vanishingly little infrastructure or other benefits for the taxes the common man pays. Patience has expired. There was lots of time to use the scalpel. The doctor never showed up, so the pre med dropout showed up with a sledgehammer, dumb and self serving as he may be. Trump is the symptom of the disease not the main cause.
- tomrod 2y ago> Trump is the symptom of the disease not the main cause. To this, we agree. To better understand a why so many are resisting, I encourage you to read up on Yarvin's Dark Enlightenment, then who has associated themselves with that movement. The overlap in the Executive branch and Trump's more outlandish ideas are substantial. Technofascism and neofeudalism are not acceptable solutions.
- Trasmatta 2y agoIf you think this is actually about "rampant waste in our government" then you are incredibly naive.
- adamtaylor_13 2y agoI’ve heard lots of people say that, and you’re entitled to that opinion. But I have yet to hear a single coherent argument explaining why that’s the case. I’m open minded but so far all I’ve heard is Musk/Trump haters clanging the alarm that somehow they’re going to take over the government or ruin America or whatever. With no explanation and no facts to back it up.
- chris_wot 2y agoThe evidence is fairly smacking you in the face. Have you seen the number of Executive Orders that Trump has been signing? Many of which are almost certainly to be overturned?
- adamtaylor_13 2y agoYes, what does signing a lot of executive orders have to do with it? Historically-speaking American presidents are using more and more executive orders to push things through. That doesn’t inherently make them bad.
- chris_wot 2y agoBecause your democracy is being run by fiat, and many of those Executive Orders are batshit insane, or just plain illegal. And you seem to be OK with this.
- adamtaylor_13 2y agoPretty sure not a single XO has been illegal. If you’d like to supply some proof I’d be more than happy to look at it. I’d be curious which orders you personally find to be “batshit insane?”
- jfengel 2y agoHow much have we saved so far?
- sqrt_1 2y agoThere is a counter at https://www.usdebtclock.org/ https://www.usdebtclock.org/
- chris_wot 2y agoAnd yet you allowed a grifter like Trump who bankrupted pretty much all his businesses to become President. Got it.
- adamtaylor_13 2y agoI didn’t allow anything. But compared with the folks running against him? Yeah, I’d pick him every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Get us a real candidate from the Democratic Party and we could have a discussion but Kamala was even less qualified than trump and what many non-Americans seem to miss is that Americans care about policy A LOT. We generally don’t give a shit if our president is a meanie head or says not nice things. In general we care a LOT about what they say they’re going to do. Trump’s plans for the nation sounded pretty good to myself and a whole heck of a lot of other Americans winning the popular vote, the electoral college, and (my memory is fuzzy) every swing state except 1?
- chris_wot 2y agoHow do you figure Harris is less qualified than Trump? I never heard Harris say she would try to take over Greenland. I never heard her say it's a good idea to inject bleach to get rid of Covid...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- insane_dreamer 2y agoTrump supported a violent attempt to overturn the results of an election. In other democratic countries that's called an attempted coup. Not to mention Trump's own attempts to pressure states not to certify the results. I don't care if Trump has amazing plans or is Mother Teresa and Henry Ford and Benjamin Franklin rolled into one, he is anti-democracy and that automatically disqualifies him, and those who support him should be ashamed of themselves for not caring. (and that's before we get into his character; I kind of liked Trump way back at the beginning, thought he might be a Ross Perot type of guy; but once that recording of him talking about women came out (before the 2016 elections), I lost all respect for him. And all of his actions since then have been completely self-serving. There is no way someone like that should have so much power, not just over the country but as commander in chief of the military.) So when you have someone who is such a poor character, and who is anti-democracy, policy doesn't really matter.
- ghfhghg 2y agoWell as long as you'll admit you're wrong then everything is fine.
- adamtaylor_13 2y agoThat’s not how this works. But the world is a lot better when people can admit the path they chose was wrong.
- chris_wot 2y agoBut... you saw that Trump said he wanted to turn the Gaza Strip into an Arabic Riviera and dispossess all the Palestinians... and he wants to take over Greenland, which is not an American territory? But everything is going great, right?
- ghfhghg 2y agoVery telling the op chose not to reply to your post.
- ghfhghg 2y agoWhile it's true I was being facetious I very much do agree with you on this point.
- root_axis 2y agoI don't agree with the waste in our government, but Musk has shown himself to be a habitually dishonest individual, so when he says he is out to cut waste, I don't believe him, I think his goal is to target his personal and political enemies while finding ways to redirect funds into his own ventures.
- UltraSane 2y agoYou do realize that what Musk and DOGE is doing is completely unconstitutional, right? ONLY Congress has the right to spend tax dollars. DOGE has no legal right whatsoever to stop any payments Congress has approved. A Democratic DOJ could very well arrest and charge Musk for what he is doing.
- unsnap_biceps 2y agoI would be much happier if this was being done with any form of thought behind the actions. Put together a report of the "wasteful" spending and target it. The whole department destruction at the whims of one man is the concerning part. Doubly so given he's appearing to target departments that has "wronged" him in the past.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago> Some of us don’t agree with the rampant waste in our government. Sure, there's waste as in any large organization, and streamlining is great. But to say that all US foreign aid is "rampant waste" and USAID should be shut down? Because it's not being shut down because it was "wasteful" but because it's full of "radical leftists" (supposedly). None of the purges at any of these agencies so far have had anything to go with "government waste". They are based on ideology. Come on, open your eyes -- they're being pretty open about what this is about.
- krapp 2y agoDon't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
- issa 2y agoIt has been a decades long journey getting here. There are so many contributing factors it is hard to even know where to begin. The most important thing to remember is that about half the country is very unhappy with the way things are going.
- apsec112 2y agoPeople who read "a great deal of" political news, from any source, went for Harris by 8%. People who never read any political news went for Trump by 20%.
- nomdep 2y ago[flagged]
- rdtsc 2y agoOnly if political news media is somehow a neutral, purely unbiased source that just tells plain facts, sure. "They are just not informed", "they are stupid", etc. If the media is partisan or biased, the situation reverses, and now the Harris voters are living in some media bubble with their own cnns, reddits and other friendly outposts, and then scratching their heads at the outcome in the end -- "How could this possibly be? All our polls were predicting a win. Maybe if we had 35 indictments instead of 34, that would have tipped the balance, for sure".
- spdgg 2y agoMuch of Trump's voter base derives from people who distrust the "news". I don't blame them, and those folks would be just as quick to point out the ignorance of DNC voters, a party repeatedly shooting their supporters in the foot every election.
- Trasmatta 2y agoI voted, donated, volunteered to try to prevent this. The country decided it wanted this.
- thrance 2y agoOr was convinced that's what they wanted, thanks to billions and billions spent in propaganda.
- NelsonMinar 2y agoA lot of this is not allowed by US law.
- root_axis 2y agoThe voters chose it. Those that voted against it lost. The courts have superpowered the executive and he is taking full advantage of it. The system is working as designed.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoYou had me until "The system is working as designed." The system is most definitely not working as designed, primarily because Congress has completely abdicated their congressional duty as a co-equal branch of government. Their are good congressional reasons why high-level advisors to the president need to be approved by the Senate. The fact that Musk and his cabal are doing an end run around this congressional requirement by posing as some sort of "special government employee" or whatever is laughable. Never mind that funding can't just be cancelled because the executive branch doesn't want to spend it, and that is completely contrary to the "power of the purse" that is the purview of Congress.
- beanjuiceII 2y ago[flagged]
- chris_wot 2y agoWhat frauds are you referring to?
- root_axis 2y ago> Congress has completely abdicated their congressional duty as a co-equal branch of government The voters also elected people to Congress that are aligned with his agenda, so they are allowing him to do what he wants. > The fact that Musk and his cabal are doing an end run around this congressional requirement by posing as some sort of "special government employee" or whatever is laughable. A judge just signed off on it so it seems to be legal. > that is completely contrary to the "power of the purse" that is the purview of Congress. They are choosing not to exercise that power.
- AtlasBarfed 2y agoIf you're from Europe... Look at your nationalist parties. It's pretty much the same thing. If you're from anywhere else ... well, then it's really not surprising.
- wallawe 2y agoMore than half of us voted for this. And we love what is going on; that action is being taken. Don't presume everyone thinks the same way you do.
- lapcat 2y agoTrump got 49.8% of the vote with 63.9% turnout, which would be 31.8% of eligible voters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...
- insane_dreamer 2y agoEnjoy the Kool-Aid.
- UltraSane 2y agoIt took almost 40 years of constant GOP propaganda from things like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. People like the Koch brothers have been dedicated to this goal for a very long time.
- UltraSane 2y agoTrump won by 200,000 votes with a voter turnout of only 61%
- stackedinserter 2y agoWe allow _this_ because we're tired of _that_. Hope it helps.
- realusername 2y ago> How did you Americans allow any of this? None of this is legal anyways, Trump is bypassing congress and the judiciary branch. It's not really "allowed", more like forced onto them right now.