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"Dismantling" is very far from what is happening. "Slightly reducing" would be more accurate - even if we concentrate on the discretionary budget, i.e. start wi

by smsm42 1y ago

"Dismantling" is very far from what is happening. "Slightly reducing" would be more accurate - even if we concentrate on the discretionary budget, i.e. start with ignoring 3/4 of the whole federal spending - the projected 2025 spending is around $1.6 trln, where 2024 was at $1.8 trln. It is a cut of about 12%, which is substantial, as federal budgets go, but nowhere near "dismantling". If we dig further down and ignore defense and security spending (which is the whole point of this post, but let's go wild!) then it's projected that 2025 figure would be about $710 bln, down from $910 bln in 2024. Thats about 22% reduction (Trump's cuts, unsurprisingly, mostly go to nondefense budget parts) - again, a substantial reduction, but nowhere near "dismantling". In fact, the government, spending 7 trillion dollars per year, does not look "dismantled" to me, dwarfing the GDP of every country on Earth excluding USA and China. And this is not likely to change much in the rest of Trump's term, more likely these are the biggest cuts we will see and some of them may even be quietly rolled back later in the term.

_DeadFred_ 1y ago
People pay attention to both SPOKEN/PUBLISHED intentions along with how cuts were implemented/planning for dealing with the cuts. Both of those show your absolute numbers don't matter in the determination that this regime is in fact "dismantling" the government.
- smsm42 1y ago
  So you are saying "dismantling" is actually Trump speaking about what he's going to do rather than actual actions on the ground? In this case, the federal government has been "dismantled" by pretty much every President since FDR, they all promised to implement cuts and fight "waste and abuse" and the federal spending only grew. In fact, if Trump cuts all government spending in half (including mandatory spending, which is nearly impossible to do, but let's assume for a second he can do that) he'll just go to the size of the government as it was in 2008, and that's not exactly a tiny government, let alone a "dismantled" one. The actual cuts, of course, are way smaller than that, and will always remain so. And I am willing to bet that once Trump retires, not only the federal government will be alive and well, it likely would be spending a lot more than it had been when he first became President. And there's more than even chance it will also be spending more than when he took the oath of office for the second time. It is quite discouraging though that people are now openly calling to ignore politician's actions and only take their words into account, even if not supported by any actual action. There was a time, not so long ago, where it was considered smart to do the opposite.

by smsm42 1y ago

_DeadFred_ 1y ago

People pay attention to both SPOKEN/PUBLISHED intentions along with how cuts were implemented/planning for dealing with the cuts. Both of those show your absolute numbers don't matter in the determination that this regime is in fact "dismantling" the government.

smsm42 1y ago
So you are saying "dismantling" is actually Trump speaking about what he's going to do rather than actual actions on the ground? In this case, the federal government has been "dismantled" by pretty much every President since FDR, they all promised to implement cuts and fight "waste and abuse" and the federal spending only grew. In fact, if Trump cuts all government spending in half (including mandatory spending, which is nearly impossible to do, but let's assume for a second he can do that) he'll just go to the size of the government as it was in 2008, and that's not exactly a tiny government, let alone a "dismantled" one. The actual cuts, of course, are way smaller than that, and will always remain so. And I am willing to bet that once Trump retires, not only the federal government will be alive and well, it likely would be spending a lot more than it had been when he first became President. And there's more than even chance it will also be spending more than when he took the oath of office for the second time. It is quite discouraging though that people are now openly calling to ignore politician's actions and only take their words into account, even if not supported by any actual action. There was a time, not so long ago, where it was considered smart to do the opposite.