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Trump / Musk (other than DOGE)

  • Thread starter Thread starter nycfan
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Silence Dogood said:
There's more to an economy than just taxes. You can't oversimplify it like you just did. Whether the "rich" is getting a tax cut is irrelevant considering the top earners are paying over 90% of the tax burden. The US has one of the highest corporations taxes. So cutting "rich" peoples taxes isn't really happening like you think it is. This has been debunked constantly. Democrat ran cities are struggling even you can't defend that garbage.
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But you were talking about taxes. What are you talking about now?

90% of the tax burden? Talk about debunked. The top 1% pay about 25% of taxes. 90% of the tax burden is paid by . . . the top 55-60% or so.

itep.org

Who Pays Taxes in America in 2024

America's tax system is just barely progressive, and not nearly as progressive as many suggest or as progressive as it could be. There is plenty of room for lawmakers to improve the progressivity of the tax code to combat economic, wealth, and racial inequality.
itep.org itep.org

As for the cities "struggling," don't you think it's odd that the people most convinced of this are also the people who don't live in cities? Or even visit them? I mean, how the fuck would you know if NYC is "struggling." I lived there for a long time and it was wonderful. I have friends there, and they don't have anything to complain about. We have posters on this board who live there, and they dispute your characterization.

One city that is definitely struggling is San Francisco. But that's not because of politics; it's because of work from home. Portland suffered from a progressive reform that turned out badly. The reform has since been rescinded, and that is . . . one city, and not a particularly big one at that.
 
Silence Dogood said:
Again, defending the status quo and ignoring the decades of incompetence because of your hatred towards one man
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What would you know about incompetence?

Here's what I would consider a signature example of incompetence:

1. Fire mission critical people who maintain the nuclear weapon supply because you don't know what they do;
2. Try to rehire them in a pinch
3. Struggle to do so because you forgot to (or chose not to) get a contact number of forwarding address.

THAT is incompetence.
 
Silence Dogood said:
Again, defending the status quo and ignoring the decades of incompetence because of your hatred towards one man
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You still haven't provided any evidence that the outlandish claims being made by DOGE are true. Just a website showing $55B in cuts that doesn't indicate any fraud or waste beyond what Musk doesn't like combined with general platitudes around how government is bad and tax cuts stimulate the economy. I ask again, any evidence that the claims being made are true? If not why do you believe anything they say?
 
Silence Dogood said:
Again, defending the status quo and ignoring the decades of incompetence because of your hatred towards one man
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I'm not sure where you gleaned from my post a defense of the status quo or a hatred of one man. I don't even know which man you're referring to - Musk or Trump. I do hate greedy billionaires who lie to the American people with the express purpose of enriching themselves, which covers both Musk and Trump. But I can promise you that there are numerous other people in the Trump admin I hate too - like Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, Russel Vought, etc. You know, all the Project 2025 people who Trump swore he knew nothing about, then as soon as he got into office he started implementing everything they suggested.

Regardless of whether you think government is incompetent, running around like a bull in a china shop firing people and abolishing agencies with no rhyme or reason (and without following the law) is not the way to fix it. This is not careful or considered reform. This is an attack on constitutional government writ large. The fact that simpletons like you celebrate it as anything other than that is just depressing.
 
rodoheel said:
Interesting, Do you think that means that your company is rife with fraud and waste? Because that's the logic you're applying to the government.

I mean you've been there since 2008 and the company keeps having these problems - do you think that means you need to be fired? That's the logic Trump and Elon are applying to the thousands of government employees they're summarily firing for no reason at all.
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I don't know if rife is accurate, but there's obviously some kind of effort and review process to adjust. Of course, we are also a publicly traded company so we have an inherent inclination toward efficiency. The federal government, as we can see from the national debt, does not.
 
Silence Dogood said:
There's more to an economy than just taxes. You can't oversimplify it like you just did. Whether the "rich" is getting a tax cut is irrelevant considering the top earners are paying over 90% of the tax burden. The US has one of the highest corporations taxes. So cutting "rich" peoples taxes isn't really happening like you think it is. This has been debunked constantly. Democrat ran cities are struggling even you can't defend that garbage.
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Buddy you were the one who said "tax cuts promote economic growth." This is your point we're discussing here, not mine. It's your "oversimplification" you're criticizing, not mine. If you think you can do this sort of goalpost-moving, shell-game-playing dance with me you picked the wrong partner.

Also it's laughable to call a tax cut on the rich "irrelevant" - we're talking about something like a $4 trillion tax cut here, with the vast majority going to the top 10% of tax payers. You want us to act like every cent the government spends inefficiently is a massive travesty then hand-wave away tax cuts that will cost the government trillions in revenue as "irrelevant." All while ignoring that the same lies about tax cuts fueling economic growth have been peddled for decades, with the evidence showing the opposite every time.

Like many modern-day conservatives you seem to just be looking for a boot to lick. What is the purpose of this idiotic loyalty to the Musk/Trump admin that causes you to talk in nonsensical circles trying to defend things that are indefensible? You're like a homeowner who gets mad that the general contractor is taking too long to repair your garage and decides that it would be better to see if shooting it with a bazooka will get better results. The status quo having some obvious problems doesn't mean the only option is to tear it down and start all over again - especially not in the way the Trump/Musk admin is approaching it.
 
NOVAHEEL13 said:
the government will need to rehire more people than most pubs realize. The effects will be a total shitshow. Indeed, most people have zero understanding how our fed gov works and why it needs the people it does
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Psst, the govt is doing more harm than good, it needs to be scaled back. We don't need more bureaucrats, more programs, more funding. Americans overwhelming just voted for Trump, you're dying on a crumbling hill.
 
Silence Dogood said:
There's more to an economy than just taxes. You can't oversimplify it like you just did. Whether the "rich" is getting a tax cut is irrelevant considering the top earners are paying over 90% of the tax burden. The US has one of the highest corporations taxes. So cutting "rich" peoples taxes isn't really happening like you think it is. This has been debunked constantly. Democrat ran cities are struggling even you can't defend that garbage.
Click to expand...
Shoot, I'm not even a "rich person" and *my* taxes are getting cut under the Trump administration's tax proposal. And I'm merely just a dual-high income W-2 earning household who maximizes every possible advantaged retirement and savings account possible. So if my taxes are getting cut, it is absolutely true that the actually "rich people" are going to make out like bandits.

Under the Trump proposal, the middle fifth of Americans would see a tax increase of 2.1 percent of their income while the poorest fifth would see a hike of 4.8 percent. The richest 1 percent would receive an average tax cut equal to 1.2 percent of their income. The next richest 4 percent – with incomes between $360,000 and $914,900 – would receive an average tax cut equal to 1.3 percent of their income. (source linked here)

It's like I said earlier, Republican tax policies overwhelmingly favor the ultra-wealthy and harm everyone from the working class through the upper middle class. Democratic tax policies overwhelmingly favor the working class and folks up through the upper middle class, and "disadvantage" the ultra-wealthy. Obviously it's all a matter of personal policy preference, but unless you're in the top 1-2% of income-earners in the U.S., you're voting against your own financials when you vote Republican.
 
Silence Dogood said:
Psst, the govt is doing more harm than good, it needs to be scaled back. We don't need more bureaucrats, more programs, more funding. Americans overwhelming just voted for Trump, you're dying on a crumbling hill.
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What do you think the word "overwhelming" means? Trump got less than 50% of the vote. And nobody at all voted for Elon Musk - who is unelected and currently completely unaccountable to any regulation or oversight - being given more power over the federal government than any other person has ever dreamed of.
 
ZenMode said:
I don't know if rife is accurate, but there's obviously some kind of effort and review process to adjust. Of course, we are also a publicly traded company so we have an inherent inclination toward efficiency. The federal government, as we can see from the national debt, does not.
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Government spending already has far more in the way of "review" and "oversight" than private companies do, even publicly traded ones.

Also, the whole point is that government shouldn't prize efficiency over everything else. The postal service has to deliver mail to every address in the country, not just the ones it's efficient to deliver to. Social security is set up, intentionally, to value certainty of payments in a certain amount over riskier investment strategies that would bring the opportunity for higher returns but also more risk.

The government isn't run, and shouldn't be run, like a private company. Its goal is not maximizing value for shareholders, it's serving the best interests of the American people. And it is very easy to look at the business world and understand that those two objectives are often very much in conflict. This conservative/libertarian obsession with government being run like a corporation is tiresome.
 
As this thread gets longer, it's worth remembering DOGE is, in many ways, one of Trump's biggest feints. It's not that we should ignore it, as the very concept of DOGE is creating a horrific precedent, and it's adding tremendously to the disinformation storm that Trump is using to cover his consolidation of power. But the money DOGE will "save" is insignificant in the big scheme of things. The REAL damage Trump's team is doing right now is in (a) foreign policy, where he's actively destroying our most important alliances and handing enormous power to our autocratic enemies, and (b) his dismantling of vital federal agencies and departments, which as I understand it is largely being done through Trump's appointees and his legal team, and not through DOGE. He will also wreak havoc on the economy, but he's not able to do that as quickly as the harm he's causing to our foreign relations and the infrastructure that keeps the government functional.

So, all good to point out DOGE's absurdities. But the hyperfocus on Musk's irrelevant vanity project is distracting a lot of attention from the things Trump is doing that really matter.
 
rodoheel said:
What do you think the word "overwhelming" means? Trump got less than 50% of the vote. And nobody at all voted for Elon Musk - who is unelected and currently completely unaccountable to any regulation or oversight - being given more power over the federal government than any other person has ever dreamed of.
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Beat Kamala by more than 2M votes probably more if California could count in a timely manner, won all the swing states, dominated electorally, and outperformed polling data.

No body voted for the inspector generals were trying to defend earlier either.
 
rodoheel said:
Government spending already has far more in the way of "review" and "oversight" than private companies do, even publicly traded ones.

Also, the whole point is that government shouldn't prize efficiency over everything else. The postal service has to deliver mail to every address in the country, not just the ones it's efficient to deliver to. Social security is set up, intentionally, to value certainty of payments in a certain amount over riskier investment strategies that would bring the opportunity for higher returns but also more risk.

The government isn't run, and shouldn't be run, like a private company. Its goal is not maximizing value for shareholders, it's serving the best interests of the American people. And it is very easy to look at the business world and understand that those two objectives are often very much in conflict. This conservative/libertarian obsession with government being run like a corporation is tiresome.
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Working backwards....

Efficiency doesn't imply lack of execution of responsibilities. The post office's responsibility is to deliver to every corner of the country, but there are obviously more and less efficient ways to do that.

"Government spending already has far more in the way of "review" and "oversight" than private companies do, even publicly traded ones."

Based on what?
 
Silence Dogood said:
Psst, the govt is doing more harm than good, it needs to be scaled back. We don't need more bureaucrats, more programs, more funding. Americans overwhelming just voted for Trump, you're dying on a crumbling hill.
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Psst. There's a reason you can't give us any significant examples of doing more harm than good. You've bought a myth.

1. Looking at it as harm and good isn't even a very helpful framework. In many cases, the government is doing what needs to be done. Another poster mentioned mail service. Or park rangers. You can't have national system of parks without rangers staffing it. And there isn't anyone else to do it. It's not good or bad per se; it's necessary for the choices that people make. If you don't want to have national parks, then that can be your opinion. I don't think it would be popular.

2. In economics, there's a concept called "public goods." These are goods that have broadly positive impacts on society, but won't be supplied by the market because no market actor can capture all the benefits. A great example is the Erie Canal. Toll revenue can only capture the value of the canal transport. The economic explosion of New York can't be monetized. Another example is the interstate highway system. That couldn't be built privately. I mean, it could, but it would be much less extensive. All the economic growth the highway system pursued is dispersed throughout the population, and can't be recouped by the builders. So a private interstate system would connect big cities on heavily traveled routes. Would there be an I-85 or I-77? Almost certainly not.

Much of government spending consists in the provision of public goods. The ultimate public good, of course, is a military. Roads. Parks. Rural electrification. So on and so forth. There are a million examples. Fishery management to prevent overfishing.

You benefit from these public goods every single day, without realizing it. I don't know where you live. Say you live in RTP. A generation or two ago, RTP was a backwater. How and why did it change? First, a concentration of government funded educational institutions. Second, a quality highway (I-40, not much traveled back in the day). Third, research support. And it was those factors that led Cary to transform from rural outpost to vibrant suburban community. When I was a kid, people called Fuquay-Varina "the redneck capital of the world." Not so much any more.

So everyone who works in or around RTP has benefited from the public goods provided by the government. Let's say you run a restaurant in Cary. Your restaurant only exists because of I-40, because the RTP only exists because of I-40, and your clientele is only there because of I-40. You don't see the impact because it's invisible to you in daily life, but the government support was critical.

3. There are thousands of examples all over the country, in all aspects of life, of society benefiting from the government's provision of public goods.

This might be why I don't get bothered by "waste" in government like you do. Could roads be better maintained by private actors than the state DOT? Maybe. Let's assume the answer is yes. But we'd have many fewer roads. The choice isn't between "good road" and "bad road." The choice is between "road" and "no road at all." Are there inefficiencies in federal research subsidies? Probably. But again, the choice isn't "efficient funding" versus "inefficient funding." It's between funding and no funding.

No amount of cajoling or auditing or whatever can remove all of the inefficiency. Leaving aside the significant inefficiency in private companies (note: I earned 90-100K per year during law school for about 10-15 hours of week of work because Bristol-Myers' IT staff was unable to complete relatively simple IT projects, so they hired it out to me and I did myself what 5-7 IT people would otherwise do, and better), inefficiencies in government are going to exist. You can't motivate people to work 60 hours a week for many years on a government salary. Government employees punch out promptly at closing time. Fine. It can be annoying. But again, the choice isn't "efficient versus inefficient." It's whether the service exists at all.
 
ZenMode said:
Working backwards....

Efficiency doesn't imply lack of execution of responsibilities. The post office's responsibility is to deliver to every corner of the country, but there are obviously more and less efficient ways to do that.

"Government spending already has far more in the way of "review" and "oversight" than private companies do, even publicly traded ones."

Based on what?
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1. DOGE seems to be ignoring the responsibility. It's doing the equivalent of cutting postal service, not making postal service more efficient.
2. See my post above for an explanation of the economics. The short version: the government has some inefficiencies, for sure. But the alternative isn't efficiency. It's nothing. Some vitally important things just can't be done by the private sector. They can't be done without inefficiency.

The internet exists because of the government. The internet could not have been built privately. There was no money in it. After it was built and established and people started using the web, it became possible for private companies to play in that space. But it could never have happened otherwise. Cable TV could never have happened without the government's rural electrification programs (cable TV started life as a way of bringing TV signals to hilly or mountainous communities).

There are many, many examples of these sorts of things. You can't see it in your day to day life, perhaps, but you feel it without knowing.
 
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