Trump To End Biden-Era High-Speed Internet Program (nytimes.com) 199
President Trump on Thursday attacked a law signed by President Joe Biden aimed at expanding high-speed internet access, calling the effort "racist" and "totally unconstitutional" and threatening to end it "immediately." The New York TimesL: Mr. Trump's statement was one of the starkest examples yet of his slash-and-burn approach to dismantling the legacy of his immediate predecessor in this term in office. The Digital Equity Act, a little-known effort to improve high-speed internet access in communities with poor access, was tucked into the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that Mr. Biden signed into law early in his presidency.
The act was written to help many different groups, including veterans, older people and disabled and rural communities. But Mr. Trump, using the incendiary language that has been a trademark of his political career, denounced the law on Thursday for also seeking to improve internet access for ethnic and racial minorities, raging in a social media post that it amounted to providing "woke handouts based on race."
The act was written to help many different groups, including veterans, older people and disabled and rural communities. But Mr. Trump, using the incendiary language that has been a trademark of his political career, denounced the law on Thursday for also seeking to improve internet access for ethnic and racial minorities, raging in a social media post that it amounted to providing "woke handouts based on race."
00 DAYS (Score:4, Funny)
IT HAS BEEN |00| DAYS Since Trump Has Been AN INTERNATIONAL EMBARRASSMENT.
Re:00 DAYS (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you need to reduce the unit of time to HOURS. Or maybe even MINUTES.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I think you need to reduce the unit of time to HOURS. Or maybe even MINUTES.
I have a clock that jumps forward 5 mins whenever Trump does something that makes him a laughing stock. I'm using it as a fan.
Re: 00 DAYS (Score:2, Troll)
Re: 00 DAYS (Score:5, Insightful)
"TDS" would be something to invoke if people would mention Trump any random time. Which isn't the case, the article here is abotu Trump. Heck Trump is even the FIRST WORD.
Besides, "international embarrassment" is pretty much a fact at this point.My anecdotes:
I eat breakfast in front of news -- I specifically avoid reading anything about Trump, but headlines pop up anyway in front of me -- then I read things like "Trump re-opens Alcatraz" or "appoints a Fox news anchor as prosecutor", I'm the "Cereal Man" meme spitting breakfast out of laugh. And I can't help but feeling embarrassed for my dear US friends who do not only read about in the news, but live with the consequences for your country.
I'm have work meetings and there's always someone mentioning "the international conditions are not best for our activity right now", and then I watch the face of the people on the US side of the zoom meeting. Embarrassment. Embarrassment is totally the word when anyone mentions anything vaguely related to Trump in a serious context.
Re:00 DAYS (Score:4, Insightful)
You can write that on the wall in ink.
Re:00 DAYS (Score:5, Insightful)
From what I gathered from the process of distributing all that cash, it's such a convoluted, expensive system that to this day almost nothing has been actually accomplished.
Is that no longer relevant in today's world? That a bill not only sound good but actually accomplishes good things?
Or have Americans gotten so used to the method of attaching all kinds of things to nice sounding bills that they stopped even looking at the corruption that is happening in DC?
You can be in favor of the "Everyone gets broadband!" bill all you want, but if most of the expenditure ends up in bureaucracy and the military... I don't know if you should be rooting for it.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
SS, Medicare, and Medicaid are expenditures to the bureaucracy and the military? Hardly. It is clear you do not know where the money is going. This is precisely the attitude of Elmo when he started in cutting the government: fail to understand how the system works and then fuck it up by mindless cutting that accomplishes nothing except fucking it up.
Elmo started by claiming, with no evidence, that he could cut $2 trillion from the Fed. Gov. Then he lowered it to $1 trillion. Then he claimed $168 billion. Of
Re: 00 DAYS (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
From what I gathered from the process of distributing all that cash, it's such a convoluted, expensive system that to this day almost nothing has been actually accomplished.
And never will. An infrastructure project with an investment of the scale of trillions is a 10+ year investment. It would be unreasonable to expect a project of that scale to spend anything significant in the first 5 years or achieve anything in the first 5 years beyond paying the salaries of people who plan for project execution.
The problem in America is you would need a party to be in power for 3 election cycles to do something useful with a plan like that. Otherwise you're entirely at the whim of a party
Re: 00 DAYS (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: 00 DAYS (Score:5, Insightful)
Carney also had time to employ the finer points of British humor. Anyone watching the interaction with Trump was laughing at the backhanded "compliments" that were being delivered. Kind of surprising what flew right by Trump but I'm sure most of the audience (and Canadians) knew exactly what was being said.
Re: (Score:3)
Carney also had time to employ the finer points of British humor. Anyone watching the interaction with Trump was laughing at the backhanded "compliments" that were being delivered. Kind of surprising what flew right by Trump but I'm sure most of the audience (and Canadians) knew exactly what was being said.
Also prominently hinted at in British and international media is that Trump can't read (loads of theories ranging from he never learned to needs glasses and refuses to wear them) so it gets joked that the UK Prime Minister could hand him a card that says "you're a cunt" in big letters and tell him something completely different.
I've heard that privately Sir Kier Starmer is quite willing to swear, a quote of "oh fuck off, Jess" was once said on HIGNFY, in context it was a valid response to a jibe from MP
Re: (Score:2)
Well tell us, what is happening?
Well, Duh (Score:2, Interesting)
If it discriminates on race, it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. And any law repugnant to the constitution is void. It doesn't matter if you think it should be allowed. It is illegal. End of debate.
Re: (Score:3)
If it discriminates on race, ...
Just because he says it does doesn't mean it's actually so -- and that's for the Courts to decide, not him. Also, from TFS:
The act was written to help many different groups, including veterans, older people and disabled and rural communities.
Re:Well, Duh (Score:5, Informative)
"29.2% of households do not have wireline broadband such as cable, fiber optic or DSL. 35.6% of households with incomes below $20,000 are without an internet subscription. 22% of persons aged 65 and older do not have a computer or have a computer but no Internet." ... "“About a quarter of the population still does not have a broadband internet connection at home. And broadband non-adopters continue to cite financial constraints as one of the most important reasons why they forgo these services. Among non-broadband users, 45% say a reason why they do not have broadband at home is that the monthly cost of a home broadband subscription is too expensive. 92% of adults in households earning $75,000 or more per year say they have broadband internet at home. But that share falls to 57% among those whose annual household income is below $30,000.”" [digitalequityact.org]
Well look at that, Klan Fuckbag iggymanz is full of shit as usual.
Re: (Score:2)
The real problematic part, though, is "help" and "beneficiaries". Trump can't have that. Besides, some veterans and old people are black, so the US needs to shit on them anyway.
But I like how you think what's important to point out is that benefitting "blacks and hispanics" is what justifies killing it, no mention about how the program itself is discriminatory. It's the intention that matters. Yes, we know, the whole point is racism.
"Now maybe there is argument that could be an investment with payoff."
B
Re: Well, Duh (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"The judiciary gets the final say, barring amendment, but not the only say."
Do they though? Because recent due process cases say otherwise. SCOTUS declared the President immune from law, that ended the judiciary getting "the final say".
Also, any citizen can also "declare something unconstitutional and proceed as if it were" and "the judiciary gets the final say". This is not an insight. We generally call this "committing crimes".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Lots of laws have been written to protect minorities. Is that discrimination? SCOTUS doesn't think so, and if they don't think so, then the laws are in fact constitutional.
Re: (Score:2)
Try again. Laws that give minorities protections the majority are not privy to are illegal. Laws protecting everyone are what is constitutionally required by the 14th.
Re: Well, Duh (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Laws that give minorities protections the majority are not privy to are illegal."
Do you know what "privy to" means? You realize that law is not secret, right?
Give some examples of laws that provide "protections" that are denied to "the majority". Let's stop pretending there's any legitimate argument for your racism.
Re: (Score:2)
Fine. But that hasn't actually happened here. The idea that "helping poor people access the internet" somehow discriminates against a particular race is severe lizard-brain thinking.
Re: (Score:2)
Was that a lie then or ignorance?
Re: (Score:2)
"If it discriminates on race, it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment."
Citation please.
Also, discriminating based on race is now legal, as is denying due process. Furthermore, the President, and therefore the Executive branch, is not bound by the Constitution. The Supreme Court said so in Trump v. US. The President has absolutely immunity from law, the Constitution is merely the highest law.
We are no longer a country of law, the debate doesn't even exist.
Re: (Score:2)
That leads to being informed by more than nutjob talk radio and nutjob right wing cable news!
Can't have that, can we? Same reason public education needs to be gutted: an educated electorate is an electorate that votes for other people.
Re:Well, Duh (Score:5, Informative)
Or, if he had ever actually read the Constitution at any point during the 4+ years he took an oath to "preserve, protect, and defend" it, he would have seen that the first two words of the 5th Amendment answer that question quite firmly - no law degree required. Here's the condensed version:
No person shall be [...] deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
No PERSON. Not "citizen". PERSON.
Everyone gets due process of law; and the law dictates what that process is. This is a surprise only to him, as any kid in 7th grade US history learns this kind of thing. If he doesn't like the process, have his rubber stamp brigade of yes-men on the other end of Pennsylvania Ave. change the damn laws and regulations that define the process. That's how it works.
Of course, they could have done that with the Republican-written immigration bill that Trump killed, which is just delicious hypocritical irony.
Re:Well, Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Deportation is not criminal punishment, it is returning them to where they belong.
Do non-Libyans belong in Libya, in the middle of a civil war? Do non-Salvadorans belong in a nobody-can-ever-leave oubliette in El Salvador?
That sounds less like "returning them" anywhere, since they've never been there before in the first place, and more like a deliberately cruel and unusual punishment, intended to make an example of them in order to intimidate others.
Re: (Score:2)
Where do you live and why do you "belong" there, and why shouldn't "we" decide you "belong" somewhere else without the "same due process" that "we" afford ourselves? How are you part of "we"?
It is hard to find any aspect of your argument that isn't entitlement-based. Remove the racism and there is nothing left.
Re:Well, Duh (Score:4, Interesting)
You keep conflating 'different due process' and 'no due process'.
Some of what's actually happening:
- The US sent hundreds of people to a concentration camp in El Salvador with no hearings, and in several cases in direct defiance of court orders.
- DHS tried to get people from some countries in Asia to agree to be deported to truly horrific conditions in Libya. When they refused, DHS threw them into solitary confinement.
- A judge had to step in and re-iterate that the Libya deportation plans would violate an existing court order and existing law prohibiting some deportations to third countries.
- The Trump administration is openly refusing to obey court orders to request the return of people deported 'in error'.
Your 'actually it's not a criminal punishment' shtick rings hollow when compared to the facts on the ground.
Re: (Score:2)
Deportation is not criminal punishment, it is returning them to where they belong.
It absolutely is when the courts have ruled the person should not be deported, which means they belong at least for now in the US. Deporting someone away from where they belong absolutely is punishment.
because they are not being punished for a crime.
They had due process, it was ignored by the president. And all the "muh constichewushun" republicans are cheering it on. MAGA Republicans, which is now the whole party hate the con
Re: (Score:2)
"Deportation is not criminal punishment, it is returning them to where they belong"
Why does the government decide "where they belong"?
"The do not get the same due process as if they were being punished for a crime, because they are not being punished for a crime."
And yet you call them "illegal aliens", your very basis for them "belonging" somewhere else is your asserting that they are committing a crime being "here". And there's that "same due process" bullshit again. In order to determine that they "belo
Re: (Score:2)
Deportation is not criminal punishment, it is returning them to where they belong.
I think you belong in a deep, dark hole.
What, you disagree? Good thing there are courts, huh?
The do not get the same due process as if they were being punished for a crime, because they are not being punished for a crime.
It's good of you to admit that Trump is lying about them being criminals. Care to admit to any of your fuhrer's other lies?
Re: Well, Duh (Score:2)
But you would at the very least have to establish whether someone is actually a citizen or not, which requires at least that much due process. And even that seems to be missing at the moment.
Re: (Score:2)
They have that opportunity at their habeus hearing. Which they are getting. It takes a few minutes in front of a judge because the specifically spelled out bar for AEA deportations is extremely low. The government needs to have reason to believe (NOT be able to prove) that they are over 14, here illegally, and belong to a declared enemy of the nation. Needless to say if they have proof of citizenship on them, like a driver's license from a state that actually checks that kind of thing, they can fuck off on
Re:Well, Duh (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah nobodies saying that, that's Trumps stupid line of "we gotta give them all trials?"
Just like acres of case law there is many such acres describing what that due process is, the admin isn't following that. Obama and Biden deported plenty of folks and didn't have to violate the Constitution or employ a 3rd party work prison either. This admin is extraordinarily lazy, cruel and incompetent all at once.
https://constitution.congress.... [congress.gov]
aliens who have once passed through our gates, even illegally, may be expelled only after proceedings conforming to traditional standards of fairness encompassed in due process of law.
https://supreme.justia.com/cas... [justia.com]
. It is well established that the Fifth Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law in deportation proceedings. Famous woke hippie Antonin Scalia
Re: (Score:2)
The acres of case law you're referring to have nothing to do with it. It is not a criminal punishment. And the "due process" for deportation under the AEA is "Does the government have reason to believe you are 14+? Does the government have reason to believe you are here illegally? Does the government have reason to believe you're a declared enemy?" That is all of the due process you are entitled to at your habeus hearing.
Re: (Score:2)
But Trump has deported people without hearings, correct?
Re: (Score:2)
One that we know of, the rest have had them if they requested them. It slows things up but only a few minutes each.
Re: Well, Duh (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I guess we will find out when this gets appealed or pushed up.
https://storage.courtlistener.... [courtlistener.com]
The Court grants Petitioners’ motion for a preliminary injunction against removal. This Opinion gives the reasons. It discusses the whole of the AEA, and shows that the Presidential Proclamation, in mandating removal without due process, contradicts the AEA. The Opinion goes on to discuss the requirements of notice and hearing under both the AEA and the Constitution. And it concludes that since Respondents h
Re: (Score:2)
That is the due process specifically written into the AEA. Due process does not mean you get infinite hearings and appeals and get to sit around, especially when you're not being charged with a crime or punished, on the taxpayer dime. And SCOTUS has never ruled any such thing.
Re: (Score:2)
LOL so clearly you are not a lawyer either, and I love how he "was correct there", not because he was noncommittal but because of his excuse for being so. Trump does not hesitate to state his opinions on law despite not being a lawyer.
And the Constitution absolutely does ensure due process rights for "illegal aliens", Trump was not asked about any "same amount", he was asked about ANY amount at all. You are a liar.
Unilaterally end a law? (Score:5, Insightful)
President Trump on Thursday attacked a law signed by President Joe Biden aimed at expanding high-speed internet access, calling the effort "racist" and "totally unconstitutional" and threatening to end it "immediately."
Well... A king could do that, but not a president. As president, his job under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution is that, "he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed". Someone should explain to him that oath he took on Jan 20, 2025 and read him the pertinent parts of the Constitution. That way, he can't credibly say, "I don't know" when (repeatedly) asked if he has to "uphold the the Constitution" in interviews. Google: trump I don't know [google.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Well... A king could do that
And how did the first king get to be king? People around him were probably like "Yeah, let's blindly follow this guy unquestionably." Kinda neat that we're getting to see how that happened in real time. Not so neat that it's happening in our country.
Re: (Score:2)
And how did the first king get to be king? People around him were probably like "Yeah, let's blindly follow this guy unquestionably." Kinda neat that we're getting to see how that happened in real time. Not so neat that it's happening in our country.
Alpha leaders are common in many species. Competition among candidates decides who becomes the leader.
As humans went from small groups of itinerant hunters to larger groups that settled in certain areas, the mythology of the leader grew in order to make the larger group more cohesive.
Eventually leaders became kings, whose sovereignty was not questioned, and whose power passed down through their family line. They could be deposed, but only rarely. (When you strike a king, you must kill him. - Ralph Waldo Em
Re: (Score:2)
"People around him were probably like "Yeah, let's blindly follow this guy unquestionably." "
No, the first king became king by violence. And Trump's not different.
"Kinda neat that we're getting to see how that happened in real time."
No we're not. The fact that you think we are shows how what's really happened is hidden from view. Trump's very first move when he got the nomination was to take control of his party's financing, something he has never reliquished. Once he controlled the money, he had absolu
Re: Unilaterally end a law? (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure Ttump is using it in its original meaning. And thinks that since racism doesn't exist and black people are just losers, it's nonsense.
Re:As long as Democrats and the left wing (Score:4, Informative)
"Sad thing is about half the people here want that. They are old they don't need jobs because they're retired they are completely disconnected from the economy and so they think they can safely indulge in moral panics and culture war bullshit."
Cut the ageism bullshit out. Old people are not to blame for Trump. It takes a village of stupid for MAGA to exist. If it were up to the young, we may well have a Bernie presidency, and while Bernie's views are better than Trump's, Bernie is every bit the populist and he's one of the least effective legislators (and 1%'ers) in recent history. We'd be a lot better off than we are now but we wouldn't have a good president or an effective administration.
What the country needs is a Jasmine Crockett presidency. Won't be getting a Merrick Garland then.
Re: (Score:2)
Cut the ageism bullshit out. Old people are not to blame for Trump. It takes a village of stupid for MAGA to exist.
So who raised the young maggots?
If it were up to the young, we may well have a Bernie presidency, and while Bernie's views are better than Trump's, Bernie is every bit the populist and he's one of the least effective legislators
Yeah, he keeps proposing things that would help people. Of course those bills won't pass. But you blame Sanders for that instead of the fake-liberal Democrats? Clown.
How many people were connected: Digital Equity Act (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I can't find exact numbers, but I did find a recently published Princeton study [princeton.edu]. According to it, grant submissions for the Competitive Grant Program closed in September 2024 (for a bill passed in 2021), and "[a]s of January 2025, over fourty (sic) entities, including a varied mix of municipalities, school districts, trade associations, and a hospital, among others, have been recommended for award of a combined $369 million pending 'budget review and processing.'" There's also a table showing grant status.
A
Re: (Score:3)
There was an interesting interview between Jon Stewart and Ezra Klein (both liberals) in which Klein explained to Stewart why nobody had actually been given Internet access under the "Inflation Reduction Act" (in which this Digital Equity Act is embedded) because of the sheer levels of bureaucracy built into it.
Judging the programs success after "funds have been allocated" is crazy in itself, but in this case, "funds being allocated" doesn't even really have a clear meaning at all: there are literally over
Re: (Score:2)
Also it's conservative 's own fault that when they lie 999 times out of 1000, nobody wants to be deluged with bullshit to find the 1 true thing. Democrats lie, but not about 99% of everything 99% of the time.
Typi
Re: (Score:2)
Biden (Score:2, Insightful)
Biden really has a lock on Trump's mind. He is obsessed with him.
Re: (Score:2)
They're talking about bombing Iran soon unless they sign another nuclear deal because Trump didn't want to leave a treaty with Obama's signature on it. Can we get the deep state back in charge soon?
Re: (Score:3)
Completely fucking Irrelevant. We made a deal and by our own authorities and 3rd parties they were following the terms.
Also if it was so trash why didn't The Master Negotiator make a better deal in his 4 years and instead just let them rush for a nuke?
Penny is a freeloader (Score:2)
All lowercase, no spaces.
multi-millionaire or slave (Score:2)
You've got the wealth to run an end-of-the-world bunker for 2 years, or you're a white Christian/Jewish slave. Everyone else is left to die.
Total Idiot (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Total Idiot (Score:4, Insightful)
3 years 6 months can't come fast enough....
You're assuming that you'll even get an election.
I strongly suspect that by that time, you'll be handed pre-filled ballot papers like North Korea does.
Good. (Score:2)
The program did absolutely nothing except line a few bureaucrats pockets. I don't think they connected a single home with that money.
Racist (Score:2)
This "racist" program got me 1GB fiber to the house in one of the whitest reddest states there is.
Re:George Bush vetoed Little Timmy's future! (Score:5, Insightful)
You know why that is? Because we're almost $40T in the hole (that's 4e13 USD, folks) and the annual bill for interest on the debt is close to $500B.
Yet it's the US taxpayers who will be paying that debt for generations to come, not the Military Industrial Complex, the oligarchs or the corporations suckling on the government teat.
Even the impoverished low-waged US citizen cannot evade paying taxes on penalty of imprisonment and should be given a leg up. Whereas if a corporation pays actually taxes, it's time to get new accountants. Socialism bad, unless of course it's for the big corporations and oligarchs.
Re: (Score:2)
Did you miss that Trump talked yesterday about raising taxes significantly on everyone making over $2.5 million?
He's also firing most of the IRS, which means the wealthy just have to make sure their taxes are complicated to cheat, since the IRS won't have the staff to review anything complex. On paper they might owe more (even assuming he's not just blowing smoke, which he probably is, and even assuming he can get it passed, which he probably can't), but in practice gutting the IRS means they'll pay less.
At the same time his tariff policies are hammering the economy, which will reduce revenues, and he's cutting tax
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:George Bush vetoed Little Timmy's future! (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh and that's trillion with a t in every single example above. How much better would your life be if they didn't have that money? Yeah you wouldn't have all of it but I mean it's 80 trillion dollars. That's around $230,000 per American.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
(trump) raging in a social media post that it amounted to providing "woke handouts based on race."
You see, leon is a white illegal immigrant. It's ok to give him free handouts from the government.
Re: (Score:2)
Are we going to start with the handouts to Elon that are funding SpaceX?
I get that you're (rightly) pissed at Trump and Elon, but that's just dead wrong. SpaceX isn't getting any handouts from the federal government. They're getting launch contracts, yes, but at a lower price point than any other launch provider, ever. Hate on Elon all you like, but the Falcon 9 is the cheapest and most reliable orbital rocket ever built, and has reduced US space launch costs enormously, especially if you count the political costs of being beholden to Russia for space access. Or would you rath
Re:George Bush vetoed Little Timmy's future! (Score:4, Insightful)
Socialism for the poor = bad
Don't blame me for saying the quiet part out loud - it's the American Way (tm).
Re: George Bush vetoed Little Timmy's future! (Score:2)
Username checks out
Re:George Bush vetoed Little Timmy's future! (Score:5, Interesting)
The USA is $40T in the hole because (1) Americans are greedy and want lots of stuff, and (2) Americans are selfish and don't want to pay taxes.
These traits are multiplied one-hundred fold for the super-rich, which is why the super-rich are still getting handouts and tax cuts while everyone else is getting shafted.
Want to cut the deficit? Tax the rich a lot more. Tax everyone else a bit more. Cut spending on the military and other high-cost but limited-benefit items.
And then spend strategically by lowering the cost of university education and spending more on R&D to make the USA competitive again.
Trump, of course, is doing the opposite of all of these things and is sending the USA straight down the crapper.
Re: (Score:3)
For (1) a big portion of that is the military and wars. We could have been investing in our infrastructure but instead we blew up infrastructure
Re:George Bush vetoed Little Timmy's future! (Score:5, Insightful)
The USA is $40T in the hole because (1) Americans are greedy and want lots of stuff, and (2) Americans are selfish and don't want to pay taxes.
What does the everyday US taxpaying citizen get for their tax dollars? World class public healthcare?
**checks notes** Nope!
Affordable housing for those on minimum wage? Housing assistance comparable to that of many developed countries?
**checks notes again** Nope!
World class public education compared to that of many developed countries?
**checks notes yet again** Nope!
What do they get for their tax dollars? Unfettered military spending abroad?
Check!
Subsidies to corporations who take the money, pay employees as little as possible, and give nothing back?
Check!
Rather than being greedy, I suspect many taxpaying Americans would prefer the tax money be used to benefit... uh, y'know... taxpayers, and those fellow Americans who are falling on hard times, instead of the corporations and oligarchs.
Re:George Bush vetoed Little Timmy's future! (Score:5, Informative)
It's been a long, long time since the average American got fat at government expense. It's true that the US overspends and undertaxes, but is not spending on the middle class, it is stealing from the middle class. Reagan started that (along with the "welfare queen" lies), it's been happening so long Americans think that's all there is.
Honestly the debt isn't a problem (Score:3)
The stuff we all overseas is basically imperial tribute. It's how we prop up the dollar and force it to exist as the world's reserve currency. This maintains the Petro dollar which is why you can afford to drive that gas guzzling SUV you probably own or why you could afford to buy a fancy EV if you decided you wanted a cool piece of tech to
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, it's good to be the Hegemon: you're expected to keep the world running in a predictable and orderly fashion, but that means you are given lots of leeway to do things your way, and as a side benefit you get to take economic advantage of the world's faith in your competent leadership, in the form of cheap capital provided to you at very low interest rates whenever you sell Treasury bonds to foreigners.
That works fine (for the USA anyway) until the day the world loses faith in the USA's ability to run th
I saw the most appropriate political cartoon ever (Score:2)
The pile itself was labeled global economic and political stability.
The little tiny block that was about to give way was labeled "Democratic party winning 51% of the vote".
Re:Honestly the debt isn't a problem (Score:4, Interesting)
And Trump is so stupid, he thinks that looting the world of its material goods, which America does, is "ripping us off". Trump views taking wealth from others as an entitlement, why pay for anything you can take for free? And why pay a debt you can welch on it instead? You can sell us your goods so long as the money you get you give back to us in taxes. That's literally the tariff plan, half the trade imbalance "returned" in taxes. What moron thinks this works? An orange utan, that's who.
Smash and grab politics (Score:2)
He's not thinking anything except how he can get the most bribes and the most government contracts and the most tax cuts for himself and the most of absolutely everything from America.
The way I heard it described is the oligarchs are stripping the copper from our walls.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The USA is $40T in the hole because (1) Americans are greedy and want lots of stuff, and (2) Americans are selfish and don't want to pay taxes.
These traits are multiplied one-hundred fold for the super-rich, which is why the super-rich are still getting handouts and tax cuts while everyone else is getting shafted.
Want to cut the deficit? Tax the rich a lot more. Tax everyone else a bit more. Cut spending on the military and other high-cost but limited-benefit items.
And then spend strategically by lowering the cost of university education and spending more on R&D to make the USA competitive again.
Trump, of course, is doing the opposite of all of these things and is sending the USA straight down the crapper.
I'd recommend checking out: https://us.abalancingact.com/f... [abalancingact.com]
How I started to balance the current 2.0T deficit:
- Increase corporate tax rate to 21%
- Increase top 1% tax bracket by 3%, top 10% tax bracket by 3%. (Households making $150k+/year. Remaining 90% of earners tax brackets can remain "as-is" + keep the 2017 tax cuts).
- Eliminate Taxable Minimum of Social Security Taxes (impacts individuals who make $160k+ per year, not household income, individual income)
- Implement a Wealth tax (impacts $
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Yes, because there absolutely is never a return on investment for infrastructure spending.
You know this was essentially the 21st century version of rural electrification, yeah? I mean the 20th century version (actual electrification of rural areas) certainly paid no dividends...
Look past the end of your own nose, please.
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You have to look past the end of your nose to find the people you want to shoot at. Oddly, MAGA isn't even good at doing that.
Re:George Bush vetoed Little Timmy's future! (Score:5, Informative)
To be fair Obama had to deal with the economic crisis after 2008 and 8 years of Republican economics. And Biden had to clean up the post-covid mess left for him.
Almost like there's a trend of Democrats having to clean up the messes only for Republicans to scold them for spending money to clean up said mess. The only Democrat in my lifetime to be handed anything close to a reasonable economy was Clinton and he famously left with a surplus.
So maybe this isn't "both sides" after all and maybe the GOP has been lying to us for our entire lives for craven political power.
Re:George Bush vetoed Little Timmy's future! (Score:5, Funny)
"Almost like there's a trend of Democrats having to clean up the messes only for Republicans to scold them for spending money to clean up said mess."
This is literally what "Two Santas" refers to. There is a name for it, and it is deliberate and intentional. Republicans don't overspend and undertax when they have power because they are bad at governing, they do it because they are evil, because it puts money in the pockets of their base AND it gives them leverage to harm their opponents when they lose power. It's a NOW and LATER, it is two Santas.
Re: George Bush vetoed Little Timmy's future! (Score:2)
Re: George Bush vetoed Little Timmy's future! (Score:2)
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I see you are behind the times. The audit procedures for DoD are nearly completed and we know very well where the money goes, and very little of it goes for military bases around the world. Jesus, try doing a bit of research before mouthing Maggot talking points.
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Sure and Charlie Brown had hoes. Do show the worse health outcomes and finance statements of said countries and said healthcare systems. Which country has the highest per capita costs and by how much?
Re: Now do the US Military (Score:5, Insightful)
They do. The overwhelming majority of the budget is social programs, and interest on debt for social programs... and there is simply no way to control the costs of free Healthcare, every country that has it is almost insolvent because of it, and the Healthcare is substandard in the end anyway. Canada can't even manage an mri in under 6months, and the only way to get effective treatment is at a private clinic
Actually, the healthcare in most of those countries has far better outcomes than the US [arstechnica.com]. They also spend far less of their GDP [healthsystemtracker.org] doing so.
While I'm pro free market, I see that in this particular case - health care - it doesn't work. It's better to pay 10% of GDP in taxes for better healthcare than 15% of GDP through a mix of taxes (elderly), insurance, and out of pocket for worse outcomes.
Reasons for this might include that the buyers aren't rational (doh), that there are monopolies (patents, location, urgency), and that the costs are such that the large majority of the population needs insurance of some kind. The specifics of the market also means there are a lot of very bad incentives for the insurance companies to use pre-existing conditions or trying to deny coverage after the fact, and very strange and weird price/discount structures.
Re: Now do the US Military (Score:4, Insightful)
"While I'm pro free market, I see that in this particular case - health care - it doesn't work. It's better to pay 10% of GDP in taxes for better healthcare than 15% of GDP through a mix of taxes (elderly), insurance, and out of pocket for worse outcomes."
If only the media and politicians could make this point so effectively. Nothing is free, it's about what is better.
Re: Now do the US Military (Score:2)
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Re: Now do the US Military (Score:5, Interesting)
"The overwhelming majority of the budget is social programs, and interest on debt for social programs..."
False and false. First, the OP isn't talking about the overall budget, he's talking about the military budget. None of the military budget is spent on social programs, nor is the "overwhelming majority" of the overall budget spent on social programs. Second, the dominant "social programs" are self-funding, the "interest on debt" that you talk about is interest being paid back to the social programs because the "debt" is money borrowed from those programs. This is classic Republican propaganda.
"...and there is simply no way to control the costs of free Healthcare..."
Who mentioned "free Healthcare"? Another Republican talking point. Single payer healthcare, not that anyone is talking about that, is not free, it is better and cheaper. But the topic is military spending.
"...every country that has it is almost insolvent because of it..."
Ludicrous. Is that even possible? Every first world country has nationalized healthcare except the US. What is "insolvency" if every country is insolvent? And how is the US, with its massive debt, better? The reason tariffs got paused was the threat to the US bond market. The moment US bonds don't get bought the US becomes insolvent, the threat of US insolvency is something we just witnessed a few weeks ago.
"...and the Healthcare is substandard in the end anyway."
More lies. US healthcare is not remotely exceptional except for its price. Here, "substandard" must have a really interesting definition.
"Canada can't even manage an mri in under 6months, and the only way to get effective treatment is at a private clinic"
Ask an uninsured American how that's different. You like the US system because it hurts the right people.
Go back to school, professor, and say hi to SuperKendell while you're there.
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"Canada can't even manage an mri in under 6months, and the only way to get effective treatment is at a private clinic"
Ask an uninsured American how that's different.
Are there other things that don't work in the Canadian system? I've heard this example before, so I wonder if the only major problem.
Though I also heard if you need an MRI today, you will get an MRI today.