Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

assets.donaldjtrump.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

701–710 of 1001 posts

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#701

Post by vacri »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #43

Some of this sounds great - term limits on congress, a measure to reduce the revolving door effect of government officials going into lobbying. Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It might sound great if you don't think too hard about it. The scariest things for me are the backing out of cli…

> term limits on congress

Wouldn't pass in a million years. Why would congress pass such a law against themselves? And as a constitutional amendment, it would require a 2/3rds majority.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#702

Post by arzt »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #43

Some of this sounds great - term limits on congress, a measure to reduce the revolving door effect of government officials going into lobbying. Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It might sound great if you don't think too hard about it. The scariest things for me are the backing out of cli…

The tariff stuff freaks me out - it's a total idealogical paradigm shift.

Re the point of reducing regulation, Larry page actually recommended a variation of this to the president of South Korea to reduce legal complexity of its government:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2014/07...

"Reducing complexity, in fact, was a theme throughout the talk. Page recounted how when he was trying to simplify things at Google, he suggested the company take all of its rules and regulations and keep them at an easy-to-digest 50 pages. He even suggested a similar idea to the president of South Korea, Park Geun-hye. "I said, 'Hey, why don't you just limit your laws and regulations to some set of pages? And when you add a page, you have to take one away.' She actually wrote this down. She's great."

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#703

Post by laichzeit0 »

waterphone wrote: post #204
ben174 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can find more detail on how he plans to make Mexico pay for the wall here: https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/Pay_for_the_Wall.pdf Specifically, he will threaten to disallow wire transfer of money from US to Mexico by non-citizens. Since that is a revenue source they greatly depend on, he suggests they'd rather fund the building of the wall. If they agree to fund the wall, then the ban on transfers will go away.

Then they'll send money with Bitcoin.

How would they convert USD to Bitcoin? And before that, and before that, etc. at some point someone who's paying taxes is gonna have to engage in something that the IRS is gonna ask questions about.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#704

Post by pdonis »

e0m wrote: post #315

Given that the Republicans have a majority in BOTH the House and the Senate, it's likely a majority of these initiatives will go through!

The Republicans have a majority in the Senate, but just barely; it certainly isn't even close to being filibuster proof. And given how polarized the parties are now, I would expect the Senate Democrats to simply stonewall anything they don't like.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#706

Post by vacri »

ainot wrote: post #168
gdulli wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It's something that sounds simple and good to someone who not only isn't aware of the details of what it would mean in practice, but also isn't aware of their own inability to understand the details and nuance, or that there are details and nuance. It was a Dunning-Kruger election.

> The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority High brow smack (condescension) like that and "basket of deplorables" are what America revolted against. If the liberal left was truly smart, why did they allow the president to run up more national debt than all presidents prior...combined?

> If the liberal left was truly smart, why did they allow the president to run up more national debt than all presidents prior...combined?

Because the prez doesn't actually get a say. Congress sets the budget and the prez is obligated to pay it. If the taxes that congress sets aren't enough to cover it, the prez has to borrow the money. Given that Congress has been controlled by the Republicans for the past... 6?... years, you're barking at the wrong crowd.

Congress is in a sweet spot here, where they can blame the president for the huge debt that is congress's doing.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#707

Post by malz »

albinofrenchy wrote: post #215
ainot wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority High brow smack (condescension) like that and "basket of deplorables" are what America revolted against. If the liberal left was truly smart, why did they allow the president to run up more national debt than all presidents prior...combined?

> why did they allow the president to run up more national debt than all presidents prior...combined This isn't true even on the face of it; it went up from ~10 trillion to ~18 trillion. And aside from that; the national debt exploded due to the economic collapse that happened months before Obama was sworn in. The accusation is wrong on the facts and disingenuous.

And the debt was increased by actions like bailing out the auto industry, saving 800,000 jobs. All those workers then voted for Trump.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#708

Post by superbatfish »

throwawaymsft wrote: post #660
mywittyname wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Mexicans start using bitcoin, amazon gift cards, or something like that. Or we end up with "underground banks" that can effectively transfer money across the border without actually doing so, i.e., you buy a digital good at a physical location in the US, transfer it to a relative in Mexico, who then sells it back to the company at a slight discount for cash (which, as a side-effect, would be a great way to launder…

You realize this same logic could seemingly dismiss any regulation (assault weapons, child labor, tax evasion), right? "People will smuggle illegal guns from abroad. Or buy the parts and assemble them. Or get a machine shop and make them." A regulation, no matter its aim, does not require 100% compliance to be an effective deterrent. I'm not saying this plan will work, but a generic "people will get around it" argume…

>You realize this same logic could seemingly dismiss any regulation

Well, kinda, but not to same degree. Wired money is obviously way easier to smuggle than physical goods...

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#709

Post by williamle8300 »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #43

Some of this sounds great - term limits on congress, a measure to reduce the revolving door effect of government officials going into lobbying. Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It might sound great if you don't think too hard about it. The scariest things for me are the backing out of cli…

I think the idea is that his stance is not introducing new federal laws.

It probably could have been worded plainly instead of adding a conditional. Federal laws should be considered in their own right, not in comparison towards other federal laws.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#710

Post by malz »

gohrt wrote: post #676
oldmanjay wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's Nate Silver today trying to explain trump: > America hasn’t put its demons — including racism, anti-Semitism and misogyny — behind it. White people still make up the vast majority of the electorate, particularly when considering their share of the Electoral College, and their votes usually determine the winner. By intentionally continuing to attempt to associate support for trump with a litany of unacceptable…

Today we learned that racists and sexists are rebelling against ... being disliked for being racist and sexist. Yes, I supposed we could fix that by not complaining about them being racist and sexist.

That's exactly the railing against "political correctness" that got so much attention. "Not PC" is code for "freedom to believe and say hateful things about other groups of people."
Post reply on HN