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And don't worry, the House is ready to extend and expand tax cuts to more than extinguish any potential "savings" - to the tune of over $3 trillion in extra def
by ipython 2y ago
And don't worry, the House is ready to extend and expand tax cuts to more than extinguish any potential "savings" - to the tune of over $3 trillion in extra deficit spending. But don't worry, they've planned for that- just increase the debt limit by $4 trillion to cover the difference!
After all, now that the Democrats aren't in charge any longer, increasing the debt limit is no biggie - we'll just grow ourselves out of the hole! Once we enact those tax cuts, it'll be hard to justify even more debt spending on such silly things like "education" and "research". We've got to pay the interest on the money we borrowed to provide those tax cuts after all.
- jquery 2y agoBanning those 5 trans athletes in college sports is sure looking expensive now.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoWait, I thought the GOP was the party of fiscal conservatism and reducing the deficit? Shouldn't they be reducing the debt ceiling rather than raising it?
- anonym29 2y agoThey absolutely should be. The legislature is not representing the will of the voters and refusing to do what's right for society as a whole and pass term limits for themselves. It's not complicated. Those who vote yes are reasonable, ethical, moral people, and those who vote no leave behind a permanent legacy of boundless self-interest.
- rbanffy 2y agoThat solves a symptom, not the problem. You need stronger legislation against lobbying, campaign financing, and investing by representatives. If that works, the incentive to be a representative is reduced and there won’t be people who make it into a profitable career against the interests of the people.
- varelse 2y ago[dead]
- anonym29 2y agoI agree wholeheartedly. I think addressing any of these - term limits, lobbying, campaign finance reform, congressional insider trading - is a good thing and we should be wanting to address all of them. RepresentUs had a really good platform for this up until COVID, then seemingly all of their credibility around genuine bipartisanship disappeared and the old open-minded, respectful, cross-aisle cooperative spirit was just thrown straight out the window. I was very disappointed by this.
- scott_w 2y agoLike the Conservative Party in the UK, I’ve yet to see evidence of them actually reducing the spending deficit in my lifetime.
- alabastervlog 2y agoThey’re the party of saying that, but then cutting taxes and launching insanely expensive very-optional wars paid for by credit card. This is just what they in-fact do when given a chance. They claim to want to reduce the deficit, but are also committed to pretending that the best and least-painful ways to do that just don’t exist. So. Kinda hard to actually do it. They only care about deficits when a democrat wants to pay for sick children’s medicine or something.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- hamburglar 2y agoIt’s no accident that you have been led to think that. But it isn’t true.
- imtringued 2y agoYou don't seem to understand how the game works. Public sector liabilities are private sector assets. GOP is the party of billionaires and billionaires want more money, so they demand lower taxes and greater deficits. Two birds with one stone.
- robertlagrant 2y agoI'm not sure if this is true any more, or if it is it's nominally true. But Democrats certainly have a lot of wealth - Kamala Harris raised about $1.4bn to Trump's $700m in her campaign, and in record time.
- kelnos 2y agoIf you think that, then they've been successful at their usual smokescreen: blame Democrats for deficit spending, and then when the GOP is back in power, they do... more deficit spending. Sometimes even more deficit spending. Somehow a lot of people seem not to notice that.
- miohtama 2y agoGOP is not what it used to be
- blitzar 2y agoAlways was
- rbanffy 2y agoWell… technically the Democrats and the GOP changed sides on things such as civil rights and slavery, so it’s hard to say they always were like that. The people yes, but not the label.
- throw0101a 2y ago> Well… technically the Democrats and the GOP changed sides on things such as civil rights and slavery, so it’s hard to say they always were like that. That switch was in the 1960s: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy Pre-1960s the racists were mixed between the two parties to a varying degree. In the 1960s the GOP decide to actually go after / court the racist voter.
- rbanffy 2y agoI believe it was more complicated than that, with some moving around since the 1930’s at least. I think the 1960’s civil rights movement just made it painfully obvious. Having said that, Americans seem to be extremely pragmatic when it comes to voting, not ruling out someone for being a terrible human being if their policy proposals make sense to the voter. I wish Americans would be more ideological and principled in that situation.
- porridgeraisin 2y ago> I wish ... Interesting. Coming from a country where most people vote purely based on their ideologies, I wish they would vote more for policies. Grass, green, etc, I suppose.
- philjohn 2y agoThe last president that drove a budget surplus was Clinton, a Democrat.
- dworkr 2y agohttps://www.history.com/news/clinton-1990s-welfare-reform-facts https://www.history.com/news/clinton-1990s-welfare-reform-fa...
- throwaway2037 2y agoGoogle tells me that was fiscal year 1998.
- throw0101d 2y ago> Wait, I thought the GOP was the party of fiscal conservatism and reducing the deficit? This has not been true since Reagan. The US political right has been selling economic bullshit since the 1980s: > Ronald Reagan launched his 1980 campaign for the presidency on a platform advocating for supply-side economics. During the 1980 Republican Party presidential primaries, George H. W. Bush had derided Reagan's economic approach as "voodoo economics".[21][22] Following Reagan's election, the "trickle-down" reached wide circulation with the publication of "The Education of David Stockman" a December 1981 interview of Reagan's incoming Office of Management and Budget director David Stockman, in the magazine Atlantic Monthly. In the interview, Stockman expressed doubts about supply side economics, telling journalist William Greider that the Kemp–Roth Tax Cut was a way to rebrand a tax cut for the top income bracket to make it easier to pass into law.[23] Stockman said that "It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,' so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory."[23][24][25] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics#Reagan_years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics#Reagan_... It's the same snake oil as "shareholder value" being most important thing: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- smegger001 2y agoonly when the other team wins the presidency. when they are in the white house they spend as much as they want deficit be damned.
- ipython 2y agoNo need to worry about running deficits when the tax cuts realized by the richest individuals and corporations “trickles down” to the rest of us. Still waiting for that magic rain…