261–270 of 1001 posts
For those who want to have a substantive discussion on the federal budget and believe these cuts are justified, I have a few questions (putting aside questions of constitutionality for this thread): 1. There are claims that federal spending is out of control. How do you square that with the fact that spending as a percentage of GDP is only slightly elevated compared to the historical average going back to at least th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"We spend too much" is a political opinion, rather than a statement of fact. Only Congress can change the amount of money spent by the government, so the executive branch's actions are unconstitutional, no matter how large the crowd cheering it on. This is exactly the sort of mob rule that the Founders wanted to prevent.
[flagged]
I suppose no one should ever be able to take a loan.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"We spend too much" is a political opinion, rather than a statement of fact. Only Congress can change the amount of money spent by the government, so the executive branch's actions are unconstitutional, no matter how large the crowd cheering it on. This is exactly the sort of mob rule that the Founders wanted to prevent.
Well, we either have a despot or mob rule--hard to have both. Congress has abdicated its role, and the rot is now so plain that even a 78 year old can get the idiot masses to vote him in to do something. The thing about power...it only stays with the people who have the balls to wield it. Congress needs to find their balls or we'll just be back here in another four years.
It's really not that hard to have that combination, i.e., "authoritarian populism".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd be glad if you'd do something about the influx of trolls, like maybe requiring a few submissions before allowing comments. Right now it's easy to create an account and then just post slurs on 30 or 40 threads before getting shadow banned (and those of us who have showdead turned on still get to see it).
> I'd be glad if you'd do something about the influx of trolls Mate, with all due respect, but the first few pages of your recent comments are mostly in US politics threads. https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=anigbrowl I understand you must be upset. But a bunch of us don't care anymore about another country's internal stuff. It's not even worth the schadenfreude. For us it's been a clown show for a very, very l…
Simply not true.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"We spend too much" is a political opinion, rather than a statement of fact. Only Congress can change the amount of money spent by the government, so the executive branch's actions are unconstitutional, no matter how large the crowd cheering it on. This is exactly the sort of mob rule that the Founders wanted to prevent.
I keep harping on this - but two points: 1) Our debt is above GDP and interest is rising faster than GDP growth. Debt is fine when being used as leverage but we are upside down at the moment. 2) We don’t have the ability to issue more debt at the moment. The government has no money. They are using employee pension funds to meet obligations with a promissory note. We have negative cash flow and have run out of the abi…
All spending is authorised by Congress, isn't it? So how is the debt ceiling any different? No federal programs "have money" short of Congress deciding it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think many who are okay with our civil spend may take issue with our military spend. I have rarely encountered anyone who thinks the government isn't overspending. And nobody ever agrees on how we should be spending the money. I realize the comment above paints me as a conservative, I assure you I am not. However, I guess I can at least sympathize with how we got here (DOGE being acceptable). And from that I blame…
A lot of people think they government isn't overspending. They're the bond buyers, who loan the US government money at remarkably low interest rates. That's a true market signal, regardless of what people tell pollsters. Everyone would love to spend less money on other people's priorities. But as a whole, the bond market thinks the spending is ok, even if no individual will say so.
If you are a bank (or in aggregate a country full of banks) that takes in a bunch of $USD from your business customers selling products internationally in that currency, then you will receive a bunch of dollar deposits. These deposits can't be magically converted into the local currency, they have to be used as dollars somewhere else or traded with someone else who has a currency or commodity that you want for them. Long-term if there is a net surplus(from the other country point of view) of exports to imports, there will be a net surplus of USD as well.
So what to do with those USD? Make some more! Whatever the going rate for T-bills is is likely better than nothing. Treasury bonds are considered a "risk free rate" in the sense that they are approximately as safe as cash under the mattress.
Inflation is a more accurate measure than treasury sales of the reducing trust in our fiscal future. And that signal is lit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
It would of course be better if you stuck to known facts instead of rumors from anonymous people on X. But even if misuse of USAID money comes to light, which I’m sure there is, wouldn’t it be better to understand al the facts, and change course if need be? The tactic right now seems to be to cause as much chaos as possible, to find and point to one silver lining and then to move on as quickly as possible. Ignoring a…
Social security and Medicare payments will continue to be made. That’s the essential stuff. Everything else can tolerate some disruption.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
A trillion is a million millions. A million to a trillion is like a tenth of a cent to a thousand.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I keep harping on this - but two points: 1) Our debt is above GDP and interest is rising faster than GDP growth. Debt is fine when being used as leverage but we are upside down at the moment. 2) We don’t have the ability to issue more debt at the moment. The government has no money. They are using employee pension funds to meet obligations with a promissory note. We have negative cash flow and have run out of the abi…
I feel funny to say it, but I think we have an income problem, not an expense problem. Republicans just spend money and then cut taxes. If people believe we need what we are spending on, we need to tax the difference. It sucks to pay taxes but we need to do it
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"We spend too much" is a political opinion, rather than a statement of fact. Only Congress can change the amount of money spent by the government, so the executive branch's actions are unconstitutional, no matter how large the crowd cheering it on. This is exactly the sort of mob rule that the Founders wanted to prevent.
[flagged]
"Can't" here is not a statement of fact. First off, the US government can and is paying the interest on the debt.
Second, the debt is denominated in US dollars. If congress were to authorize it, the US government could print money and pay off one hundred percent of the debt in a single day. This would have negative side effects, but it's clear that "can't" is not the correct term.
So saying that too much is being spent is indeed a qualitative assessment, not a fact.