The thing that gets me is if we did universal health and education we’d actually save money. To be honest though, the debt hawks didn’t seem like they were working in good faith. Every time they got power they spent worse than the Democrats. And they constantly trashed plans to make government more efficient in favor of handouts to corporations.
In fact the only people who seem to be operating in good faith on fiscal conservatism are the progressives and socialists.
Agreed, the debt hawks were just there to gather votes from fiscal conservatives. Then they privatized programs and cut taxes for the wealthy, claiming this would help the government reduce debt, knowing the average American wasn’t really paying attention to the results.
So much of American politics is pure theatrical bullshit and politicians get away with ridiculous behavior because the American people are, as a whole, mind bogglingly stupid.
So much of American politics is pure theatrical bullshit and politicians get away with ridiculous behavior because the American people are, as a whole, mind bogglingly stupid.
TBH one of the stupidest things politicians believe is that earnest, honest campaigning would win in an age of social media bubbles and extremely complex issues.
Trump screws up so much in his campaigns, and I find it amusing that everyone is scratching their heads trying to figure out how this helped him… It didn’t. He won in spite of beint a terrible candidate running a shitstorm campaign because he’s populist, and he didn’t campaign like its the 1950s.
You want to win, you have to lie through your teeth and pander enough to make an influencer blush, and Democrats are going to keep losing till they figure that out.
No one is operating in good faith on fiscal conservatism anymore, especially not the progressives/socialists. That’s their whole issue… the social programs come first.
There have absolutely been debt hawk voices in congress saying good things, but they have been increasingly drowned out over time… which is unsurprising, as voters apparently don’t care about it anymore. And just forcing nationalized healthcare is not going to work overnight either. It would stop things from racing away, sure, but the whole system needs to be squeezed and fixed without breaking it or it will just make things worse.
We need a sustainability party.
But not branded as that of course. They need a campaign so dirty it would make Trump and clickbait influencers blush.
Those social programs operate more efficiently which saves us money and they want to actually tax the wealthy which increases tax receipts. Many of them would also cut military spending, the one area we have broad discretion in cutting.
Wealth redistribution programs like minimum wage raises, chained pay, and monopoly busting mean money isn’t sucked into the top 1 percent where it disappears either. Broad tax bases provide far more revenue to fix debt issues than the trickle down the entire rest of the political system is enamored with.
Wealth redistribution programs are great and urgently needed. Medicine needs to be largely socialized. But doing that is not going to fix it overnight… all the inefficiencies and leeches stuck to the system will get worse unless they are progressively, individually addressed.
And cutting military only goes so far.
I am trying to reiterate that these social programs are not a magic bullet, and a little bit of that deficit hawk gutting and even “breaking” things is kinda needed too, especially in places neither party will like. Realistically, gutting the military would not cover it either.
Social Security: This popular program eats up 20-25% of total federal spending. It supports retirees, disabled individuals, and survivors. Trump has promised to never cut it. In fact, he wants to eliminate taxes on benefits, which would increase the deficit.
Health care: Think Medicare (for seniors) and Medicaid (for low-income individuals). This is another 25% of the budget. Trump has promised to protect Medicare and a lot of his working-class base benefits from these programs.
Defense: The Defense Department and related military spending constitute about 13-15% of the federal budget. Republicans typically want more defense spending, not less. And it’s hard to see the shift to space-based warfare costing less.
Interest on the national debt: This one sucks the most for America because you get nothing in return. Interest payments are growing rapidly, now around 8-10% of federal spending. The only way to save money here is to radically cut the debt. Trump’s agenda does the opposite.
Safety-net programs: Programs like food benefits (SNAP), unemployment insurance and housing assistance collectively make up about 10%. Trump won with the support of people who get these benefits, so cuts could be a hard sell.
Case in point: The expense for entitlement programs goes almost entirely to the benefits themselves, not any administrative bloat involved in issuing checks. For example, the administrative cost of Social Security is only about 0.5% of outlays, $7.2 billion last year, Neil Irwin points out.
So even if somehow you magically cut that in half, you’ve only cut $3.6 billion in spending — trivial in the context of the federal budget.
The article points out the futility of doge, but it also applies to “finding” money for massive increases of these programs.
The thing that gets me is if we did universal health and education we’d actually save money. To be honest though, the debt hawks didn’t seem like they were working in good faith. Every time they got power they spent worse than the Democrats. And they constantly trashed plans to make government more efficient in favor of handouts to corporations.
In fact the only people who seem to be operating in good faith on fiscal conservatism are the progressives and socialists.
Agreed, the debt hawks were just there to gather votes from fiscal conservatives. Then they privatized programs and cut taxes for the wealthy, claiming this would help the government reduce debt, knowing the average American wasn’t really paying attention to the results.
So much of American politics is pure theatrical bullshit and politicians get away with ridiculous behavior because the American people are, as a whole, mind bogglingly stupid.
TBH one of the stupidest things politicians believe is that earnest, honest campaigning would win in an age of social media bubbles and extremely complex issues.
Trump screws up so much in his campaigns, and I find it amusing that everyone is scratching their heads trying to figure out how this helped him… It didn’t. He won in spite of beint a terrible candidate running a shitstorm campaign because he’s populist, and he didn’t campaign like its the 1950s.
You want to win, you have to lie through your teeth and pander enough to make an influencer blush, and Democrats are going to keep losing till they figure that out.
No one is operating in good faith on fiscal conservatism anymore, especially not the progressives/socialists. That’s their whole issue… the social programs come first.
There have absolutely been debt hawk voices in congress saying good things, but they have been increasingly drowned out over time… which is unsurprising, as voters apparently don’t care about it anymore. And just forcing nationalized healthcare is not going to work overnight either. It would stop things from racing away, sure, but the whole system needs to be squeezed and fixed without breaking it or it will just make things worse.
We need a sustainability party.
But not branded as that of course. They need a campaign so dirty it would make Trump and clickbait influencers blush.
Those social programs operate more efficiently which saves us money and they want to actually tax the wealthy which increases tax receipts. Many of them would also cut military spending, the one area we have broad discretion in cutting.
Wealth redistribution programs like minimum wage raises, chained pay, and monopoly busting mean money isn’t sucked into the top 1 percent where it disappears either. Broad tax bases provide far more revenue to fix debt issues than the trickle down the entire rest of the political system is enamored with.
Wealth redistribution programs are great and urgently needed. Medicine needs to be largely socialized. But doing that is not going to fix it overnight… all the inefficiencies and leeches stuck to the system will get worse unless they are progressively, individually addressed.
And cutting military only goes so far.
I am trying to reiterate that these social programs are not a magic bullet, and a little bit of that deficit hawk gutting and even “breaking” things is kinda needed too, especially in places neither party will like. Realistically, gutting the military would not cover it either.
Axios broke this down much better than I could: https://www.axios.com/2024/11/16/elon-musk-trump-department-government-efficiency
The article points out the futility of doge, but it also applies to “finding” money for massive increases of these programs.
Nothing is going to fix it overnight. Except maybe letting the IRS off the leash. If that’s your criteria then we’re already done.