The Next President is...

[GKinnear]

1 hour ago, Banzai said:

What would you cut? These are nice thoughts, and I’ll admit I had the same, but then when you look at the budget there are not just a couple hundred billions of savings anywhere. And good luck just telling the defense contractors to give you everything cheaper. Sounds nice on populist pulpits or forums but is absolutely inane when tried to be applied to real life. I challenge you to identify realistic cuts that allow us to do what we want as a superpower that aren’t just “make the budget smaller:”

Here’s the Air Force ($188B):

https://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/FM-Resources/Budget/Air-Force-Presidents-Budget-FY25/

O&M - $75B You gonna cut our building restoration money? Doubt it, our buildings suck

You gonna cut maintenance? You fly the F-35, don’t kid me

You gonna cut flying hours? F that, we barely fly

Maybe you’ll cut SAPR or something - okay, sure, but that saves like $0.5B

Military pay - you gonna cut military pay? Doubt it

RDT&E - it’s “only” $37.7B for major upgrades to include Sentinel, LRSO, NGAD, CCA, and a ton of other things. We still have tons of gaps like recapitalizing our tanker fleet, CC5, base defense, upgrading our logistics or SOF fleet, replacing the A-10, etc that aren’t funded because you cannot that in. You gonna cut this when China is rapidly creating military capabilities that challenge us and flying sixth gen fighters?

Procurement - $29B for F-35, T-7, KC-46, F-15EX, and tons of weapons. You gonna cut this when we are at our smallest and gearing up for conflict with China?

MILCON - $4B - You gonna cut this?

 

You all know this, but we in the military need more high quality people, we need to fly more, we need to have better things to fight with, we need more weapons, and we all think we shouldn’t take a pay cut (and some think we should be paid more). To highlight some of the cognitive dissonance around money: half the dudes on this forum are trying to find ways to be 90% VA disabled while still flying for the airlines. Or people are advocating for $100k bonuses (I don’t disagree). The military has infinite money when it comes to “budget dust for me.” But simultaneously it should be able to be reduced by 20% easily. Go with game plan.

In reality, you want to be a military superpower, you have to fund at superpower levels. China on PPP is already spending about 60% of what we are spending:

https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/chinas-military-rise-comparative-military-spending-china-and-us

Cuts now = capitulation. We can do that if you want, but you have to admit to second/third order effects.

Those are topline numbers only...there are multiple discrete program elements that can be offset and not reduce mission effectiveness in that area,

O&M has long been an easy cut to balance the portfolio...cut an FHP here, reduce an exercise by a day there...and BOOM!...a balanced budget.

Or shit, go the Kendall route and just wholesale cut programs like the U-2 to pay for other shit...Sentinel ICBM missile silos aren't going to pay for themselves when you don't account for them.

Edited February 16 by GKinnear

[BashiChuni]

9 hours ago, nsplayr said:

Reminds me of Nixon, "Well, when the president does it … that means that it is not illegal."

This didn't work out well for Nixon and it won't work out well for Trump either.

wait till you deep dive the watergate story...eye opening

[GKinnear]

More US Hockey excellence...maybe we need a hockey thread to go along with football and the field fairys thread

 

 

 

[SocialD]

47 minutes ago, Banzai said:

100% agree. Let’s institute reforms for PPBE and GSA. 

 

Yes take a look at the pots of money concept.  Also, mil construction regs need gutted....being forced to make an alert facility ADA compliant is beyond ridiculous.  Also, taking the vastly more expensive option for remodeling a building because the cheaper option is funded from a pot of money you don't have is insane.  So many anecdotes we all have seen that, by themselves aren't big $$$, but would probably equal big money if applied across the entire DOD and Federal government.  

[HeloDude]

With regards to progressives complaining about the cuts, this is nothing new.  In 2013 Pelosi said there wasn’t room to cut anything…and now we’re paying for DEI stuff overseas, promoting trans nonsense in other countries, paying hotels for illegals here in the US, on and on.  It’s almost hard to fathom how the left is defending this crap, but that’s just who they are/how they think.

https://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-now/2013/09/pelosi-says-the-cupboard-is-bare-173214

[brabus]

@Banzai I’m not saying you’re wrong in general, and you have valid points. If I truly sat down, went through the data, and DOGE’d this thing, what could the savings be? I did not get that number from any research or math, just thrown out as a starting point, knowing full well the number could, and probably would be less.

- cut 1/2 the civilians and save approx $40B (based on average salary). Obviously I wouldn’t just blindly cut that right now, but i bet if you went full DOGE you’d find near half are unnecessary/not remotely earning their paycheck. Go work on the staff - that number is about 90-95%. Directly related to this problem are the processes of course, so you’d have to streamline our BS processes which in turn would nullify the need for the guy who provides the 3rd rubber stamp prior to sending the request to Bob

- Industry: I think you’re wrong on that, fuck yeah we could tell them GFY and actually sign contracts that are judicious use of tax dollars. The F-35 program has doubled in cost for 1/2 the initial buy (and likely will continue to shrink), and all we do is throw billions at LM while they laugh at us. What if we signed all contracts with cost+ limits and delays/setbacks were 100% eaten by the company? You say no company would sign that? OK cool LM, we’ll go to your competitor, or we’ll just chill for 5 years on all your potential contracts - how’s that bottom line doing now? Industry is incredibly greedy - I’m a huge fan of capitalism, but capitalism does not mean you have to completely take it up the ass with a smile on your face. Long story short: many TRILLIONS saved over a few years if we took this approach across the DOD. Walk out of the car dealership - the dealer will call you more often than not.

Theres a lot more, just two big ones off the top of my nugget.

 

 

[Weapons Away]

@blueingreen

"particularly those in the South, have the largest concentrations of people who are significantly more likely to be poor and rely on government benefits on a per-capita basis: Black and Hispanic people. This isn't to say that there aren't poor White or Asian people who rely on federal programs; In fact, Whites receive more benefits overall than anyone else in absolute terms, but their per-capita consumption rates are far lower"

Genuinely curious as to where you are seeing this data at. Everytime I've checked the census on this particular subject, I haven't seen the per capita numbers you describe. I'm seeing the following:

Among the population receiving social safety net benefits in 2022 (most recent data) 75.6% white, 13.4% black, 6.3% asian, 4.6% some other race (https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/05/who-is-receiving-social-safety-net-benefits.html). When paired with most recent census data on the racial makeup of the U.S. population (2020), I'm seeing the white alone non-Hispanic population at 57.8%, hispanic population at 18.7%, and the black population at 12.1% (https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/2020-united-states-population-more-racially-ethnically-diverse-than-2010.html). Unknown if the white population in the safety net numbers included white hispanics, but assuming it does for now, those population numbers seem to align with the social safety net numbers.

What am I missing?

Edited for spelling

Edited February 16 by Weapons Away

[CaptainMorgan]

[mention=82854]blueingreen[/mention]
"particularly those in the South, have the largest concentrations of people who are significantly more likely to be poor and rely on government benefits on a per-capita basis: Black and Hispanic people. This isn't to say that there aren't poor White or Asian people who rely on federal programs; In fact, Whites receive more benefits overall than anyone else in absolute terms, but their per-capita consumption rates are far lower"
Genuinely curious as to where you are seeing this data at. Everytime I've checked the census on this particular subject, I haven't seen the per capita numbers you describe. I'm seeing the following:
Among the population receiving social safety net benefits in 2022 (most recent data) 75.6% white, 13.4% black, 6.3% asian, 4.6% some other race (https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/05/who-is-receiving-social-safety-net-benefits.html). When paired with most recent census data on the racial makeup of the U.S. population (2020), I'm seeing the white alone non-Hispanic population at 57.8%, hispanic population at 18.7%, and the black population at 12.1% (https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/2020-united-states-population-more-racially-ethnically-diverse-than-2010.html). Unknown if the white population in the safety net numbers included white hispanics, but assuming it does for now, those population numbers seem to align with the social safety net numbers.
What am I missing?
Edited for spelling

I think your numbers are only showing the number of people, and not the amount they receive.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Prosuper]

2 hours ago, Weapons Away said:

@blueingreen

"particularly those in the South, have the largest concentrations of people who are significantly more likely to be poor and rely on government benefits on a per-capita basis: Black and Hispanic people. This isn't to say that there aren't poor White or Asian people who rely on federal programs; In fact, Whites receive more benefits overall than anyone else in absolute terms, but their per-capita consumption rates are far lower"

Genuinely curious as to where you are seeing this data at. Everytime I've checked the census on this particular subject, I haven't seen the per capita numbers you describe. I'm seeing the following:

Among the population receiving social safety net benefits in 2022 (most recent data) 75.6% white, 13.4% black, 6.3% asian, 4.6% some other race (https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/05/who-is-receiving-social-safety-net-benefits.html). When paired with most recent census data on the racial makeup of the U.S. population (2020), I'm seeing the white alone non-Hispanic population at 57.8%, hispanic population at 18.7%, and the black population at 12.1% (https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/2020-united-states-population-more-racially-ethnically-diverse-than-2010.html). Unknown if the white population in the safety net numbers included white hispanics, but assuming it does for now, those population numbers seem to align with the social safety net numbers.

What am I missing?

Edited for spelling

Why do we need 44 Four stars. Didn't we win WW2 with 7?

[Weapons Away]

1 hour ago, CaptainMorgan said:

I think your numbers are only showing the number of people, and not the amount they receive.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Fair point, but I have not seen any breakout of dollar amounts by race. I've gone through the census site a few times to look and filter specific data using the site's interactive data tool.

[Weapons Away]

2 minutes ago, Prosuper said:

Why do we need 44 Four stars. Didn't we win WW2 with 7?

Growth? Bloat? Combination?

Not sure how that ties to my question about social safety net data though.

[O Face]

2 hours ago, GKinnear said:

More US Hockey excellence...maybe we need a hockey thread to go along with football and the field fairys thread

 

 

 

 

hockey 

 

 

[Lord Ratner]

11 minutes ago, Banzai said:

I have worked on the staff. I have worked on F-35 acquisitions. I am a fighter pilot.

Here’s the problem with your argument. Yes, Lockheed sucks. But who will you turn to?

Let’s quit Lockheed now. No more F-35. Who will you turn to?

Boeing? That will take 5-7 years to get a prototype fighter. And Boeing sucks. Northrop? Same thing. No one can just spin up a fifth gen fighter.

Maybe a new start? Anduril or something? Sure. Oh. They have no experience in anything related to fighter aircraft production? Now it’s gonna take a bigger investment and a longer lead time to essentially finance their institutional knowledge. Maybe they could make a 4th gen airplane in 5-10 years. They ain’t making fifth or sixth without nationalization of Lockheed/Boeing/Northrup or an unacceptable amount of time of money footed by the taxpayer.

The biggest problem with your argument is the belief that the free market could be used to your advantage in these negotiations. It can’t. If you made a call NOW to cancel the F-35 it would result in a 5-10 year bathtub of fighter capability because this stuff doesn’t just exist off the shelf.

With some things, like the KC-46, it’s more reasonable (we could have gone with A330s or something). But the truth is a lot of our warfighting capability is essentially held in bespoke companies that we cannot just tell to pound sand.

The solution is to accept what we have (shitty Lockheed/Boeing) while diversifying into new starts. This is not a fast process or one you can jump into in many cases. It’s going to take 10-15 years.

And - contentious opinion here - if Lockheed and Boeing essentially have monopolies on critical national defense systems, we need to seriously consider government control of those things while we fix the free market that we allowed to essentially wither away post Cold War. They can have their bespoke defense arms portions of their companies back when we have essentially trust busted these shitty organizations.

I'm no fan of the f-35, but I think this downplays how much the government itself is responsible for what a shit show that program is. It wasn't Lockheed who demanded a VSTOL version in the same basic chassis. And it wasn't Boeing who signed off on the ridiculous digital boom pod on the kc-46. 

 

The problem is a bunch of generals and bureaucrats who have never existed in the business world putting insane wish lists together and just assuming that it all happens somehow. 

 

And that ignores changing the requirements halfway through the program, or never mentioning that one of the primary requirements is that the plane looks cool, so you start doing all sorts of mental gymnastics to pick the airplane that you just want to win. 

 

And we need to start locking people in prison for the rest of their lives if they abuse these programs for personal gain. No more getting a job at the contractor whose product you selected, and that includes your family.

 

Basically, let's continue the "fix the government" crusade first, then we can worry about which airplanes we buy. 

[ViperMan]

4 hours ago, Weapons Away said:

Genuinely curious as to where you are seeing this data at. Everytime I've checked the census on this particular subject, I haven't seen the per capita numbers you describe. I'm seeing the following:

Among the population receiving social safety net benefits in 2022 (most recent data) 75.6% white, 13.4% black, 6.3% asian, 4.6% some other race (https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/05/who-is-receiving-social-safety-net-benefits.html). When paired with most recent census data on the racial makeup of the U.S. population (2020), I'm seeing the white alone non-Hispanic population at 57.8%, hispanic population at 18.7%, and the black population at 12.1% (https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/2020-united-states-population-more-racially-ethnically-diverse-than-2010.html). Unknown if the white population in the safety net numbers included white hispanics, but assuming it does for now, those population numbers seem to align with the social safety net numbers.

What am I missing?

You're quoting a summary statistic that conveys information about groups who use any program and collecting it all underneath one metric. This incorporates social security. Which basically includes anyone who worked and paid taxes at some point in their lives. It's a bit of a stretch to consider SS under the same banner as food stamps, SNAP, WIC, or Section 8 benefits. Anyway, the more subsets you include in any statistic, the more it will display convergence towards the underlying population. So that's the literal, mathematical reason you're seeing that effect.

The same exact site you provide allows you to answer your own question. If you select "Filter by Characteristics - Race" you'll be able to dig into the stats. For instance, you can see what @blueingreen is talking about if you look at WIC/SNAP by race:

Section 8 benefits show a similar pattern. Effectively, you're missing examining the underlying populations, or stated differently, not restricting the data by subset.

Edited February 16 by ViperMan

[Weapons Away]

9 minutes ago, ViperMan said:

You're quoting a summary statistic that conveys information about groups who use any program and collecting it all underneath one metric. This incorporates social security. Which basically includes anyone who worked and paid taxes at some point in their lives. It's a bit of a stretch to consider SS under the same banner as food stamps, SNAP, WIC, or Section 8 benefits. Anyway, the more subsets you include in any statistic, the more it will display convergence towards the underlying population. So that's the literal, mathematical reason you're seeing that effect.

The same exact site you provide allows you to answer your own question. If you select "Filter by Characteristics - Race" you'll be able to dig into the stats. For instance, you can see what @blueingreen is talking about if you look at WIC/SNAP by race:

Section 8 benefits show a similar pattern. Effectively, you're missing examining the underlying populations, or stated differently, not restricting the data by subset.

Ah gotcha, appreciate the breakdown!

[brabus]

56 minutes ago, Banzai said:

Let’s quit Lockheed now. No more F-35. Who will you turn to?

I was more addressing the way forward, using the failures of the F-35 program as an example of what not to repeat. How are relatively recently written contracts written, and have we learned anything from previous fiscally retarded contracts (the answer is no)? Many weapons programs are also great examples of what not to repeat. We absolutely can start today not signing contracts that don’t include favorable condtions for the gov. We kick cans down the road so egregiously already, so fuck it, I’m fine with kicking some stuff down the road a few years until primes start bending the knee a bit. 

 

1 hour ago, Banzai said:

And - contentious opinion here - if Lockheed and Boeing essentially have monopolies on critical national defense systems, we need to seriously consider government control of those things while we fix the free market that we allowed to essentially wither away post Cold War. They can have their bespoke defense arms portions of their companies back when we have essentially trust busted these shitty organizations.

I’m with you on that. There does need to be some trust busting done with the big primes. It has become well out of control. I read a book about industry leading up to WW2, the differences in mindset is staggering - they were whole heartedly pro-America; current day LM, Boeing, etc. execs do not GAF about America. 

[blueingreen]

4 hours ago, Weapons Away said:

Genuinely curious as to where you are seeing this data at. Every time I've checked the census on this particular subject, I haven't seen the per capita numbers you describe. I'm seeing the following:

Among the population receiving social safety net benefits in 2022 (most recent data) 75.6% white, 13.4% black, 6.3% asian, 4.6% some other race (https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/05/who-is-receiving-social-safety-net-benefits.html). When paired with most recent census data on the racial makeup of the U.S. population (2020), I'm seeing the white alone non-Hispanic population at 57.8%, hispanic population at 18.7%, and the black population at 12.1% (https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/2020-united-states-population-more-racially-ethnically-diverse-than-2010.html). Unknown if the white population in the safety net numbers included white hispanics, but assuming it does for now, those population numbers seem to align with the social safety net numbers.

What am I missing?

Edited for spelling

Fair question. The Census Bureau's interactive data visualization site isn't my favorite. The tool itself doesn't work too well. Try selecting specific categories of welfare programs to do a more granular analysis and the tool starts spitting out "no data available" depending on the combination of programs you select. And like you pointed out, it puts Hispanics and Non-Hispanic Whites into the same category, which isn't helpful. I'm not entirely sure how they built this tool, but it seems like they're not accounting for the relative size and scale of each program. When presenting data without weighting important information like beneficiary counts or spending shares, you can easily create a misleading sense of equivalence between programs like Medicaid (85 million beneficiaries, 50% of welfare spending) and smaller programs like TANF or WIC (less than 2% of welfare spending). This lack of context is pretty obfuscating. 

The Census data itself isn't bad -- it's great and offers a tremendous sample size, but the Bureau does a poor job of communicating that data. There are other organizations that take the same valuable data and communicate it better. Let's look at some of the biggest public assistance programs to get an idea of what's going on:

Medicaid

Spending FY 2023: $880 Billion

Utilization: White 39.5%, Black 18.5%, Hispanic 29.9%, Asian 4.7%, Native American 1.0%, Multiple Races 6.0%

Source: Kroger Family Foundation (Utilization), Kroger Family Foundation (Spending)

 

Medicare

Spending FY 2023: $1 Trillion

Utilization: White 72.3%, Black 10.1%, Hispanic 9.8%, Asian 4.6%, Native American 0.4%, Multiple Races 2.7%

Source: Kroger Family Foundation (Utilization), CMS.gov (Spending)

 

Social Security

Spending FY 2024: $1.5 Trillion

Utilization: I couldn't find a simple breakdown except for at the Census Bureau site. Their numbers are: White 81.1%, Black 12.1%, Asian 3.7%, Other 3.0%. We know that non-Hispanic Whites are probably a large majority of that 81.1%.

Source: CBPP (Spending), Utilization (Census Bureau)

 

SNAP (Food Stamps)

Spending FY 2023: $113 Billion

Utilization: White 35.3%, Black 26.0%, Hispanic 15.1%, Asian 3.7%, Native American 1.4%, Multiple Races 0.6%, Race Unknown 17.6%

Source: USDA (Spending), USDA (Utilization, Table 3.6, Page 29)

 

There's a pretty clear pattern emerging here: Universal public assistance programs designed for old people who have worked and paid taxes their whole lives are utilized the most by Whites, but not at exceedingly disproportionate rates when you account for the racial demographics of the elderly (75% of Americans age 65+ are non-Hispanic Whites). Other public assistance programs are disproportionately used by Blacks and Hispanics, often at rates that are 1.5 - 2.0x higher than you would expect for a population of their size; AKA higher per capita consumption.

[Weapons Away]

50 minutes ago, blueingreen said:

Fair question. The Census Bureau's interactive data visualization site isn't my favorite. The tool itself doesn't work too well. Try selecting specific categories of welfare programs to do a more granular analysis and the tool starts spitting out "no data available" depending on the combination of programs you select. And like you pointed out, it puts Hispanics and Non-Hispanic Whites into the same category, which isn't helpful. I'm not entirely sure how they built this tool, but it seems like they're not accounting for the relative size and scale of each program. When presenting data without weighting important information like beneficiary counts or spending shares, you can easily create a misleading sense of equivalence between programs like Medicaid (85 million beneficiaries, 50% of welfare spending) and smaller programs like TANF or WIC (less than 2% of welfare spending). This lack of context is pretty obfuscating. 

The Census data itself isn't bad -- it's great and offers a tremendous sample size, but the Bureau does a poor job of communicating that data. There are other organizations that take the same valuable data and communicate it better. Let's look at some of the biggest public assistance programs to get an idea of what's going on:

Medicaid

Spending FY 2023: $880 Billion

Utilization: White 39.5%, Black 18.5%, Hispanic 29.9%, Asian 4.7%, Native American 1.0%, Multiple Races 6.0%

Source: Kroger Family Foundation (Utilization), Kroger Family Foundation (Spending)

 

Medicare

Spending FY 2023: $1 Trillion

Utilization: White 72.3%, Black 10.1%, Hispanic 9.8%, Asian 4.6%, Native American 0.4%, Multiple Races 2.7%

Source: Kroger Family Foundation (Utilization), CMS.gov (Spending)

 

Social Security

Spending FY 2024: $1.5 Trillion

Utilization: I couldn't find a simple breakdown except for at the Census Bureau site. Their numbers are: White 81.1%, Black 12.1%, Asian 3.7%, Other 3.0%. We know that non-Hispanic Whites are probably a large majority of that 81.1%.

Source: CBPP (Spending), Utilization (Census Bureau)

 

SNAP (Food Stamps)

Spending FY 2023: $113 Billion

Utilization: White 35.3%, Black 26.0%, Hispanic 15.1%, Asian 3.7%, Native American 1.4%, Multiple Races 0.6%, Race Unknown 17.6%

Source: USDA (Spending), USDA (Utilization, Table 3.6, Page 29)

 

There's a pretty clear pattern emerging here: Universal public assistance programs designed for old people who have worked and paid taxes their whole lives are utilized the most by Whites, but not at exceedingly disproportionate rates when you account for the racial demographics of the elderly (75% of Americans age 65+ are non-Hispanic Whites). Other public assistance programs are disproportionately used by Blacks and Hispanics, often at rates that are 1.5 - 2.0x higher than you would expect for a population of their size; AKA higher per capita consumption.

Awesome explanation. I was getting those "no data available" results when I tried to filter the data down initially. Your point about the per capita consumption makes sense though given the data.

Greatly appreciate the thorough response and additional sources of info!

[brabus]

39 minutes ago, Banzai said:

we can rip the bandaid off but must be aware we are consciously taking a hit in our war fighting capabilities over the next decade.

 

I’m in that camp. There will always be threats and there is never a good time. I think we can do it without crippling ourselves, but maybe that means we don’t go shoot X% of WRM at OWA drones from Iran, we don’t spread ourselves around the world at the rate we have for so long (e.g. where did 20+ years of spending like a drunken sailor in OEF, OIF, OIR, OFS, etc. get us), we stop sending hundreds of billions around the world and getting little to nothing in return, etc. There will be tough decisions to make, we can’t “save them all,” and bad things will happen to good people. We won’t turn off the lights by any means, but we will tighten the belt. We’ll come out much better on the other side in the mid 2030s.

Edited February 16 by brabus

[Guest nsplayr]

Re: international competition & budget cuts, I honestly believe Trump will do us a huge favor in terms of needing to spend to keep up with the current pacing threat. I really think based on what he's said that he'll just let Xi walk into Taipei unopposed, which will really save us in terms of ships/aircraft/missiles.

The downside is completely abandoning Taiwan to Chinese domination and the global economic and military consequences of that. But if I were a betting man, I would bet that's what will happen if/when China kicks off their long-planned "reunification" campaign.

So I guess what I'm saying is we can go ahead and slash PACOM joint exercises, JASSM purchases, shipbuilding, etc. 🙄

To be clear - I do not support this course of action.

[Guest nsplayr]

Honest question for those here who sincerely believe we need to reign in the budget. The framework GOP proposal for their NLT March 14th spending bill is $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, with $1.5 trillion in planned discretionary spending cuts and a "goal" of $2 trillion in additional mandatory spending cuts. The net effect, even absolute best case, is a $1 trillion increase in the annual deficit compared to baseline now i.e. the TCJA expires on time. Let alone getting to a balanced budget, let alone paying down the national debt after running a surplus, etc., all of which Trump has at various times talked about or promised, albeit I'm sure unseriously.

Does that plan work for you? Do you support adding $1 trillion annually to the deficit? And that's AFTER severely cutting discretionary spending, which includes DoD spending? AND after cutting mandatory spending, which as you know is unlikely to be popular with older folks either.

My POV is that every time a Dem is in the white house, a large segment of the GOP wants everything paid for, cut, trimmed, etc., but as soon as a Republican is in the seat they will happily deficit spend (usually by cutting taxes, but also spending on other things they like) with nary a peep. I know many of you here are likely more intellectually honest and consistent than your average member of Congress, so I'd love to hear a rationale for what is likely to happen on or around March 14th.

My plan would be to raise taxes modestly and keep mandatory & discretionary spending relatively flat. Perhaps work around the edges of mandatory e.x. raising the social security age by 6 months or a year for the youngest workers today, etc. That has a much bigger long-term effect than cutting the EPA or CFPB down to zero.

[BashiChuni]

Look at the waste doge is finding and convince me the government deserves more of my money. 

[Guest nsplayr]

26 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

Look at the waste doge is finding and convince me the government deserves more of my money. 

The government deserves more of your money, especially if you are a high earner, based on what the American people expect the government to do and provide. If you want to become a second-rate power relegated to the sidelines of world affairs, go ahead and austerity yourself there I guess. I however do not want that fate.

We need more ships, more jets & flying hours, more munitions, more space launch & satellites, more primary care & preventive medicine, more rural hospitals and medical providers, more support for farms & farmers, better disaster response, more basic scientific research, more investment into AI and AI safety, and more support for hungry and poor children in particular. Just the first handful things off the top of my head.

If we can find efficiencies, which we can, great, I'm for it. We've all seen wasteful stuff in the course of government employment. I've also seen waste in the private sector that would rival any government department.

But "finding efficiencies" is not a mission for an axe, that's a mission for a scalpel. Our capitalist economic system and the overall entrepreneurial drive of Americans can provide a lot of that stuff (for a price), but the government needs the resources to make that stuff happen too - you don't get a new sub or F-35 or rural hospital from the free market alone. You don't get any of that stuff by wantonly firing government employees, cancelling contracts, or otherwise destabilizing an otherwise steadying piece of our overall economic castle. Burn it all down with vague promises to built it back better & more efficient is a strategy you can try with a little bird app or a small company - it's not a good idea for the government of the world's premier superpower. There's a reason some things are designed to move fast and other things are designed to move slow.

That's my view - I'm very sure I can't convince you of anything though so I'm sure you will disagree.

Edited February 17 by nsplayr

[Smokin]

7 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

The government deserves more of your money, especially if you are a high earner, based on what the American people expect the government to do and provide. If you want to become a second-rate power relegated to the sidelines of world affairs, go ahead and austerity yourself there I guess. I however do not want that fate.

We need more ships, more jets & flying hours, more munitions, more space launch & satellites, more primary care & preventive medicine, more rural hospitals and medical providers, more support for farms & farmers, better disaster response, more basic scientific research, more investment into AI and AI safety, and more support for hungry and poor children in particular. Just the first handful things off the top of my head.

If we can find efficiencies, which we can, great, I'm for it. We've all seen wasteful stuff in the course of government employment. I've also seen waste in the private sector that would rival any government department.

But "finding efficiencies" is not a mission for an axe, that's a mission for a scalpel. Our capitalist economic system and the overall entrepreneurial drive of Americans can provide a lot of that stuff (for a price), but the government needs the resources to make that stuff happen too - you don't get a new sub or F-35 or rural hospital from the free market alone. You don't get any of that stuff by wantonly firing government employees, cancelling contracts, or otherwise destabilizing an otherwise steadying piece of our overall economic castle. Burn it all down with vague promises to built it back better & more efficient is a strategy you can try with a little bird app or a small company - it's not a good idea for the government of the world's premier superpower. There's a reason some things are designed to move fast and other things are designed to move slow.

That's my view - I'm very sure I can't convince you of anything though so I'm sure you will disagree.

The government doesn't "deserve" anything and telling high wage earners that they need to pay more so we can give their money away to people that didn't earn it is what started our country down this dangerous road that we're currently on.  Wealth redistribution (Social Security, Medicare, Medicade, and other income security programs) in 2023 expended 75% ($3.3B) of the tax collected ($4.4B).

You will never find enough efficiencies with a scalpel.  I don't think an axe is a big enough tool.  I'd prefer they use a bulldozer.  Bureaucracies naturally grow bigger and try to empire build, it is just part of the build of a bureaucracy.  Go cut a small chunk of the mold off of old bread and the next day it'll have grown back again.  Our government bureaucracies have grown to the point that we need to cut entire agencies to stem the growth.

[blueingreen]

1 minute ago, Smokin said:

The government doesn't "deserve" anything and telling high wage earners that they need to pay more so we can give their money away to people that didn't earn it is what started our country down this dangerous road that we're currently on.  Wealth redistribution (Social Security, Medicare, Medicade, and other income security programs) in 2023 expended 75% ($3.3B) of the tax collected ($4.4B).

You will never find enough efficiencies with a scalpel.  I don't think an axe is a big enough tool.  I'd prefer they use a bulldozer.  Bureaucracies naturally grow bigger and try to empire build, it is just part of the build of a bureaucracy.  Go cut a small chunk of the mold off of old bread and the next day it'll have grown back again.  Our government bureaucracies have grown to the point that we need to cut entire agencies to stem the growth.

Couldn't agree more. The scalpel-based approach would have worked maybe 60 years ago, probably even longer. But the cancer has metastasized beyond belief and we're now at the point where the whole system is going to need to suffer to rid ourselves of the rot. It's easy for me to say as a young and healthy guy with little invested / little to lose thus far, but I would gladly forfeit social security, medicare, and medicaid entirely if it meant that future generations wouldn't have to deal with the consequences of our irresponsibility. We're headed into South Africa territory where a shrinking subset of the population is going to be called upon to shoulder an increasingly impossible financial burden.