n8nrgim

What authority would trump have to start slashing spending if the government shut down? Hed have pretext and excuses but no actual authority.

If the government shut down maybe the dems would be blamed since they r a minority party resisting the majority. But maybe the public would view it as trump has been exceeding his authority and causing dysfunction and trump was bein trump an throwing a hissy fit till he gets his way. I wouldnt assume the public would view it one way or another, but I guess half the population approves of trump now, so maybe it'd be split down partisan lines

We could also make an economy that helps everyone with all the technology we have but libertarians and republicans r too dense to wanna keep our basic social safety net or to expand it

I think the root of the problem is that we live in a democracy and make decisions that help the majority of the usa or even only usa and not other countries. Like borrowing instead of paying the deficit or electing crap politicians. The usa is the main engine of the world economically and militarily and diplomatically and the rest of the world rises and falls with the usa, good or bad. 

as has been said..

You're thinking of the famous quote by Winston Churchill:
"Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Trump thinks it's totally unacceptable that we buy a lot more from other countries than they do from us. The only thing that proves tho, is that other countries sell stuff so cheap. And, mainly, it shows that the usa has a strong dollar, which indicates its more cost effective to have a negative trade deficit with other countries. Which means our economy is strong. 

Trumps underlying premises r screwed up

we need to borrow notes from the south park movie, and invade Canada. 

Do you feel a special spot in your gut when you make random declarations like we need to take a chain saw to federal staff? Is that how you think through policy? Look up the term truthiness... it applies to your level of thinking. 

. If you want to question me on a specific fact ive provided, I will happily fact check you and show you you're wrong. I've supplied lots of facts and figures. You provide none. I'm not going to write a dissertation debate to educate you, facts don't matter to you anyway. And It's not my job to educate you.

How would you measure successful states and unsuccessful states? Blue states make more money and are more educated and live longer than red states. If that's not what counts, how are you measuring it?

Youre missing the points. The method trump is using is screwed up. Even if we cut the agencies by 75 percent, the agencies are better equipped to make that call than random slashing by musk. Hes eliminating a lot of crucial people. Also you are missing that it's irrelevant how much we cut, I mean yes we should cut some, if they don't find large ticket items to cut. Medicaid being cut for example would be a necessary and big start but trump won't even acknowledge it. I guess we can pretend we're not cutting it while cutting it all along? That might work with the low information welfare queen red states. Compared to the test of the developed world we spend way less on taxes and there's all kinds of tax increases and loopholes we can atrack, in addition to measured spending decreases. 

I might just add you to the pile of commenter's I don't l respond to, cause you struggle too much to make relevant arguments and respond to the critical ideas. 

I forgot to add. If the Republicans don't gut medicaid, the deficit won't get cut, and then the Maga base will blame RINOs for not cutting it. Totally predictable. Even tho the only way to do it is to gut medicaid, which largely would affect trumps base predominantly. In other words the magats don't realize they basically should be blaming the Republicans for not cutting the magat benefits. As is often said. Cause magats vote against their own self interest and don't know Jack about shit

So dems provide better social safety net and Republicans get people back to work... so we both agree on both counts that Republicans make the lives of the American people more like medival peasants?

I think the root of the problem is that the way people get their news has become fragmented. Now there are many low information and bad information and pure propaganda news out there. It's not just a lack of credibility, each talking head has a different agenda to give their sheep. Before 2010, news sources were more standardized in educating people and setting the agenda. Plus a country in distress will always succumb to a demagauge strongman con man. Maybe we need a different form of government if a single man can cause as much dysfunction as trump. Rank choice voting, parliamentary systems, proportional representation, some ideas that come to mind

cut the workforce? sure, but dont just start slashing it. set a goal, and say you want ten or twenty percent reduction in cost within six months, on the aggressive side. even if you insisted on fifty percent reduction, do it in an orderly way and let the people who know how the agencies are run, call those shots. when bill clinton cut the workforce of the feds, that's the way he did it. elon and trump are just firing really good talent and acting arbitarirly. what do MAGAts say? 'well we need a reduction in costs and trump is sticking to his word'. that's obviously something a brainwashed person would rationalize, cause there's no good argument that this is being done in a smart way.  plus the fed work force is only a percent or so of our budget, so it's causing dysfunction with no real gain unless they can find a real way to cut the deficit

cutting medicaid and food stamps etc? trump has insisted that medicaid wont be touched. the only way the republians can cut the 1.5 trillion they want per year, is to cut medicaid, there's no question about that. it's basic math. when you point out to trump supporters that the only way to do this math is to cut these vital programs that affect red states the most, they deny it. if medicaid gets axed, will they change their tune? they'll prob think it is necessary pain. every other developed world knows it's basic humanity to prvoide healthcare to the poor and disabled, so the ones that want it axed aren't more enlightened that the rest of the developed world, they're just brainwashed hacks. 

does it help that the tax cut only benefits the wealthy and not the middle class? if they aren't too ignorant to know that, they dont care. does it matter that the tax cut is dollar for dollar dependant on cutting welfare programs and things for our society? they're usually too ignorant to know that, or they think pain is necessary, even though we spend less on taxes than the rest of the develeoped world already, and the bush and trump tax cuts spiraled the debt, where the economy would be growing much faster than the debt if they didn't do those tax cuts. this pain is totally self inflicted, in other words, but MAGAts dont know that, and wont care if you told them, as they are part of the cult. 

we've had the first measles death in over ten years, when we thought we had it eradicated twenty five years ago. trump put an anti vaxxer in the spot to run the health agencies, which in addition he has no background in healthcare or policy. which is a recurring them with trump appointeees, comepletley no relevant experience in the agency they're running other than loyalty to trump. magats think expertise doesn't matter and loyalty to their dear leader is good enough. kids are dying because of the ignorant decisions of adults, back on the measels point. what does the anti vax leader say about it? those things happen all the time, even though that's verifiably untrue. 

We also take fewer vacations. 

Questions, comments, words of wisdom?

Also which political party do you think makes this situation worse? 

Here is the plan

joy reid

They say there is a stronger than normal correlation between thigh mass and life span. Peobably because they r the biggest body muscles and aid in respiratory health 

gotta give Double props for fighting the good fight, against impossible odds

Plus I think if there's ways to cut costs the businesses would already be doing it. They're not out of goodwill spending more than they have to

You could say that about any tax. Should we just not tax the wealthy cause they'll Weasel out of the consequences? Are you sure you wouldn't be the one against what we already have as the highest tax bracket, which as far as i can tell is working fine yet youd be agaisnt? Instead of wealth taxes where all the richest of the country are, do you prefer taxing income and sticking it to the working class who have no way to weasel out of it?

If u don't like the wealthy not paying taxes what would your solution be? 

I assume they'll grit their teeth and bear it. I don't think most do anything major over a two percent tax of their net worth, though I could be wrong. 

I'm libtarded so I fit in with the Maga retards

K through 12 is already funded by local taxes  and colleges r not publically owned. I can see limiting federal spending on education but u look like someone who doesn't know what he's talking about on education

So u want to just start cutting people's benefits and healthcare, consequences be damned? Besides being unethical, do u know how unpopular that would be and damaging to to careers of politicians who would do such a thing?

what do you propose cutting to get rid of our 1.8 trillion deficit per year?  trump and elon are just making small dents in spending, causing a lot of damage without really changing anything. i can cite you articles on that if you dont believe me. neither of them can over come the resistence even from their own party on cutting people's healthcare and benefits. 

trump is just causing chaos. he's breaking a lot of things, but not really changing the deficit much. moderate republicans are fighting him on things that would really change the deficit, spending to the people.  trump will probably just cause the deficit to spiral out of control and not change anything, just like last term. he's catering to the least common denominator, people's worst impulses, giving the people money at the expense of the younger generation. 

so what should be done?  a two percent wealth tax on the top one percent of wealth, and maybe cutting all spending by ten percent. 

the top one percent own about 45 trillion worth of wealth. a two percent wealth tax would raise about 900 billion dollars per year. we spend about four or five trillion a year, so cutting that would save another 4 or 500 billion per year. our deficit is 1.8 trillion. 

these measures would get our deficit down to where it grows about the same rate as our economy, which means it's under control. this is all without major shock to the population, and just taking  a little off the top from the wealthy. the wealthy probably wouldn't move to another country just because of a two percent wealth tax. 

if we wanted to raise a little more, it could make the tax on the top two percent of wealth, or top 5. i dont think we're desperate enough to need it on the  top ten percent of wealth. 

a wealth tax also forces people to pay who use loop holes to get their declared income close to zero for tax purposes. 

Yeah but u r very temperamental and unpredictable. Maybe tomorrow you'll be a bernie sanders supporter, a socialist that's back to worshipping carrots again. 

the quaran talks about chopping off heads and hands. self evidently false. i dont know if gettin the seventy two virgins at death thing is official teaching, but also self evidently false. 

What does you being better at spending money than the government have to do with the government putting spending on our credit card? 

And, if anything, you are being provided a loan of your own money, by charging it to your and everyones children. How virtuous of you.

Switzerland subsidized it's healthcare insurance. Their system is basically obamacare that covers everyone. Every developed country except the usa provides universal healthcare to all their citizens at half the cost with usually better wait times

that's a truism. blaming spending doesn't justify putting things on the credit card.  if you start putting your living expenses on a credit card, who is to blame for that? 

it's completely irresponsible to put the government's spending on our credit card, like reagan, bush jr, and trump did. the article shows if they hadn't done that, our debt would be permanently manageable. so what do these goons do? they cut taxes primarily for the wealthy and then try to find ways to cut spending to regular people. republians just passed a resolution that they want to cut one and a half trillion per year from the budget. the only way to do that, is to cut medicaid to the poor and food stamps, among other things. every other civiilized society knows it's just part of living in a civilized socieity that you provide these services. i think the conservatives who wanna cut these things, aren't enlightened compared to the rest of civilized society... no, these conservatives including you guys here, are brainwashed. half of conservatives dont know that trump is trying to attack their welfare, given red states take in disproportionately more in these services than blue states. and the ones that do know better, are stupid and brainwashed. that's all conservatives are on these issues... ignorant, stupid, and/or brainwashed. 

Don't forget his anti Vax anti science views

I'm all for making food healthier. Tho I'd also add if dems did the same thing they'd call it overreach

I don't know why, but you are going gang busters on rationalizing a poor running economy and government. 

you say healthcare is okay even though we spend twice as much as other countries and way more than we use to, because life expectancy has increased. ok, sure, that helps justify it a bit. but even libertarians and conservatives who want to provide everyone healthcare have healthcare plans that would significantly reduce the size our or healthcare bloat. why not advocate that? both parties have good ideas to reduce costs, there's no reason to rationalize leaving it the way it is just because life expectancy has risen. plus, even by that metric, the USA is away behind other countries on life expectancy too, yet every other developed country provides healthcare to everyone at half the cost with shorter wait times in general. 

you are also rationalizing on education too. just because education leads to higher paying jobs doesn't mean the outrageous cost is justifiable. in boomer days, schools were funded like k through 12, so education was super cheap also like they do in some other countries. the conservatives privatized it and put the pressure on individual students, ballooning costs. we could go back to that model or we could outlaw student tuition loans and only have student pay a percent of their income. these would be bring costs down, or at least to a managemenable level. there's no reason it has to be so unmanageable. 

where on earth do you get that compensation has risen to match productivity? do a basic Google search. if the minimum wage had increased with productivity, it'd be above twenty bucks an hour. there's no reason it should be half of what it was after inflation compared to the 70s. 

houses have gotten bigger but that stilll doesn't justify the costs of 400 freaking thousand on average. there's a housing shortage so instead of rationalizing the costs yet again, you should be promoting building more houses. there's lots of ways to put downward pressure on housing costs that don't involve hand outs, you should be coming up with ideas instead of rationalizing. 

you say standard of living has increased, sure, even poor people can have a decent life as long as they can work 40 hours a week, mostly... but that doesn't justify all the things that we could easily bring the costs down on being so out of reach compared to boomer days. you're a smart guy, instead of rationalizing so much, you should be coming up with solutions. 

Don't you pay attention to lib talking points or the news? The cost of living is way out of whack. The average house now is 400k, whereas in the 70s it was way less even after inflation. Education costs tens of thousands when before it's a few hundred or thousand, cause they privatized colleges. Healthcare was was less now it's 18% of our gdp, which also isn't competitive with other countries who spend half as much and cover everyone with less wait times and better in general. The minimum wage in the 70s was 15 bucks after inflation and is only 7 and change now. Wages just tread water and have barely gone up after inflation over decades.

Don't you pay attention to lib talking points or the news? The cost of living is way out of whack. The average house now is 400k, whereas in the 70s it was way less even after inflation. Education costs tens of thousands when before it's a few hundred or thousand, cause they privatized colleges. Healthcare was was less now it's 18% of our gdp, which also isn't competitive with other countries who spend half as much and cover everyone with less wait times and better in general. The minimum wage in the 70s was 15 bucks after inflation and is only 7 and change now. Wages just tread water and have barely gone up after inflation over decades.

yes but it's more than that. it's undue influence in acquiring it and undue influence in maintaining it. look at the wealth distribution map in my last post. if we were cavemen and 40 percent of Americans owned that small dot and 1 percent owned a quarter of the land, don't you think the cavemen would try to take from the one percent to meet their basic needs? and wouldn't they be justified? the way it's becoming, poorer americans can barely survive let alone get ahead. they are like serfs from olden days. if poor cavemen couldn't even support themselves with their means of getting resources, don't you think ti's moral to go after the ones with the overabundance? 

here is a map that shows how wealth is divided. If wealth were like the land in the USA.

I personally think we should tax the rich for consumption with their income. the rich borrow money at 1 percent, instead of taking from their investments and incurring a capital gain tax. they escape taxes that way. the rich should pay fifty percent of everything they borrow for personal use, or the highest bracket tax. otherwise the rich will keep escaping paying taxes. 

I also think the rich should pay a yearly two percent tax on their wealth. I doubt too many rich people will leave the country with just a two percent wealth tax. this was Elizabeth warren's idea which I didn't support at first but then I realized might be doable enough. 

ideally we'd also tax their unrealized capital gains at death, cause as it is now they escape taxation their whole life and face meager estate taxes (stupid conservatives call it double taxation but it's better to tax you when you die than when you're alive plus they do deserve to get taxed on their gains, so at least tax their unrealized gains). the problem is they might use trusts or move to another country to escape taxation so this tax might not work. we could tax them before they leave, but then they'd live the rest of their life untaxed when their wealth grows more. 

thats not a bad idea.

we might also be able to tax higher earners more for the same resources as lower earners.

When rich people hoard wealth, that's also theft. They r using the nation's laws and police and military to take all they can. Just because they usually use legal means doesn't mean it's moral. It's basically hoarding resources at gun point. 

Violence from both ends, is inherent in the system. 

USAID was created by the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President John F. Kennedy. Although executive orders can influence the operations of federal agencies, they cannot create them if they are not established by law.

President Kennedy did issue an executive order related to foreign assistance, but the formal establishment of USAID was through legislative action. Thus, while a president can shape the agency's direction and priorities through executive orders, the agency itself exists due to an act of Congress.

I think it's fair that we finally come to the conclusion,  that biden retards r less retarded than trump retards 

The authority of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and its funding can be influenced by executive orders, but nullifying the agency outright would be a complex process. An executive order can change how USAID operates, direct its funding priorities, or implement specific policies. However, it cannot completely eliminate the agency without legislative action.

In the U.S. government, agencies like USAID are established by law, and any significant changes, including elimination, would typically require congressional approval. An executive order can affect how the agency functions within the parameters set by law, but it doesn't have the power to nullify the agency itself.

The only point I might be wrong is usaid is rooted in statute but I think was created by a president. The president might have more authority than I realize to revoke or modify that. But it's still based in statute and Rubio is trying to utilize congress to amend it instead of relying on trump nullifying the order

It doesn't make sense to ask for a source that establishes 50 percent of the orders r illegal because no one would make that claim because there's no objective way of measuring that. It lacks critical thinking on your part to request it. All we could do is research the law point by point in my last post then we each give our judgment. 

You just do a small gish gallop. You started spouting nonsense about the executive trumping the judiciary and related nonsense. 

Instead of taking my suggestion and finding a few citations of law that contradict my last post analysis, you r going off on wild tangents. I've noticed that as a trend from you. Why don't you read my claims in my last post and you show me three pieces of law that contradict it? Why r u opposed to that approach? It diesnt make sense to turn this into a dissertation debate, that is overkill for our purposes. Just make a claim by citation of where my post is mistaken and I'll cite authority back where u r wrong. This will also help me establish that u lack credibility on legal matters

what do you expect me to cite statutes, the constitution, regulations, and case law? instead of all that, how about I just explain the law to you, and you can fact check me with a citation. i'm not gonna let you call my arguments Gish gallop then allow you to just turn around and Gish gallop me.

the department of education was created by Congress. that means the executive can't nullify it since it only enforces what congress gives, for the most part. many of the program in that department like student loans are mandatory spending which are not subject to yearly appropriation. the executive can't touch that either. most experts consider the supreme court the final word on on laws and the constitution. that means they can minimize or nullify that department, if they think it infringes on the executive, but they tend to respect congress the most as the law writer and give deference to them. if the court were to allow trump to nullify the department he would have to restructure the government to maintain the department's lawful orders. 

USAID is created by Congress. the president can't touch it as a program. the spending in it is discretionary and subject to yearly appropriation. so, even tho trump tried to nullify the program the court wouldn't let him, but he must spend its money as the executive unless he gets congress to change the spending, and that's exactly what Marco Rubio as secretary of state is trying to do, despite trump trying to nullify it all. Rubio is upholding the law as the statesman. 

the president has limited authority to selectively enforce the law or not spend appropriated money. the impoundment control act limits the presidents authority not to spend what congress has appropriated. the supreme court could nullify or modify that law, but they generally defer to congress. the court could give him more power to not enforce laws, but they usually limit that too. I think you could argue the executive can force its views as final, but almost every legal expert tends to give the court the final word. if we aren't careful, if we follow your ideas on executive as final, or the court lets him nullify these statutes enacted lawfully by the people or selectively enforce laws, or not spend money etc, then we could be moving in the direction of a dictatorship. for practical purposes, that might be good as our nation heads towards bankruptcy, but it's not democratic, and if we give trump that power, then dem presidents would have that power, and I know we all wouldn't want that. 

Technically the supreme court could reverse course and give the president more power. But I wouldn't want that plus dem presidents would have more power and I know we all wouldn't want that. 

I don't think they'll give him so much power to selectively eforce the law or not spend appropriated money, and its pretty clear they won't let him nullify the department of education. They'll nullify his executive orders as they often do for president's and Rubio will get usaid funding reprioritized

Here is a top historian from Yale calling it a coup

Also he is stopping payments from many programs of congressional appropriated money and those r illegal without congress. All trump can do is pause them temporarily but technically I think musk is stopping payments before trumps input. Take usaid. Permanently stopping or changing spending needs congressional approval. Rubio looks to trying that that way even tho they stopped funding already. Maybe these will just be technically illegal and plausible in the eyes of the law?

Most of Trumps executive orders r illegal. My guess is that the courts will void them and congress will do its best to uphold them lawfully. But u r right in that it's not the first time and won't be the last that presidents have been out of line by executive order. The move to nullify the department of education is blatantly illegal and ballsy tho. 

The actions of musk r skirting the boundary of legality. Hes a temporary employee and doesn't have security clearances to be accessing all the data systems of all the agencies but he's doing it anywa6 and using trumps lawyers and congress to threaten retaliation for push back. I'd need to brush up on the law to see if it's definitely illegal but it does look like it and is at least a gray area