Siphoning money out of the productive economy, keeping a chunk of it for admin, then spending the rest… isn’t “investing” in anything. It’s wasting. Especially if you use any of it to create even more government jobs, which are costs to us.
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That is a HUGE “chunk”, not to mention the kickbacks that get laundered back to the corrupt politicians and their family and fiends.
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ICYMI…
Often it’s not even a chunk. It’s all of it.
Recent examples? The water issue in CA, the 7 charging stations they spent billions on, the “internet for the downtrodden” that installed exactly zero high-speed internet connections.
How about that black lesbian married to Warren Wilhelm JR who spent 1 billion dollars of NYC money that cannot be accounted for.
There are many, many more examples. They aren’t wasteful, they are theft. Full stop. They are literally just stealing 99% of the money and lining their own pockets.
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I for one, would still like the government to invest in roads and bridges and other infrastructure that helps commerce. I have never driven all plowed fields to an inspection, and for that, I am grateful. Also, investments in border security, national defense, education, space exploration, law enforcement, and a multitude of other things are pretty useful to us average joes. You may not see a direct benefit in your pocketbook everyday, but trust me, you are benefitting.
I just read about this today. It looks like it’s going to be YUUUGE, like some 5 million sq ft under roof and they’ll be building military drones and autonomous air vehicles.
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Not me. I’d rather have the $9 trillion the feds spent on attacking the wrong two countries after 911. Give that money back to the states and watch the amazing bridges we build and still have $8.5 trillion left over for law enforcement and state parks or whatever. Every dollar in taxes we give to the federal government harms America.
Remember, $9 trillion is 9 times 1,000 billions! And a billion is 1,000 millions! Imagine if we had access to all that capital with interest for all these years. No homelessness, no hunger, awesome roads and bridges, immaculate parks, absolute paradise.
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I agree the government is the issue.
That said, we do/did have access to all that capital. It wasn’t all sent into a rat-hole. The stuff we gave away to the Taliban, the munitions that blow up, sure, that’s all gone.
Much of that money though you see on a regular basis. When you see a million+ house with $500,000 in cars in the driveway, there’s your money.
Ever wonder why the richest county in the USA is near Washington DC? There’s your money.
Every wonder where these dopey trust fund dillweeds and their idle rich friends get their money? There’s those trillions too.
All the defense contractors and the supporting companies got a piece of that. All those reps that went into congress with a net worth of $100,000 who are now multi-millionaires got a piece of that.
It wasn’t so much that the money disappeared, it was simply who got it and who got to spend it. Public loss, private profit.
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I agree, but the Military Industrial Complex and their Lobbyists might have a problem with that.
Any estimates on where the National Debt will be in the next 2, 3, or 4 years?
We’re currently a little over $36 Trillion today and climbing. Will it break throught the $50 Trillion point by the end of Trumps term?
Yeah, that’s fine. But money spent by the “states” is still government investment. You didn’t differentiate federal from state government in your original post. So what you really mean is, you want state government to grow, and federal government to shrink. I don’t have an issue with that necessarily.
It’s going way up. But more importantly, the interest we pay on it becomes impossible to pay without printing trillions. Inflating the money supply to pay interest on our debt creates more debt. It’s a feedback loop that we can’t get out of now. We’re in a black hole with only one way out: Inflation.
I’m going to post the national debt regularly to emphasize that Trump and Musk have no mathematical way of slowing it.
I disagree. It’s all about cutting spending and raising taxes, like Clinton and the Republican Congress did back in the 90s.
The problem is no one is willing to make cuts, or raise taxes, so yea, we might be okay, but future generations, not so much. That’s not to say the whole house of cards won’t calapse tommorow.
Republicans used to be the fiscal hawks of the two parties, unfortunately that’s not the case anymore.
But a look at the numbers – and the history – shows just how difficult balancing the budget will be.
Doing so requires the federal government to generate enough income to pay for all its spending. The U.S. has managed this feat only twice in the past 60 years – and both times involved raising taxes, something Republicans are loath to do. President Lyndon B. Johnson managed to do it in 1969, and President Bill Clinton created a surplus that ran from the fiscal years 1998 to 2001, when he left office.
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That is because there is only one party. They use the two party system to get elected and advance their greed. But in the end, they all fall in line with one another.
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I agree.
Until the money is taken out of politics, nothing will change.
I think they’ll vote to give themselves term limits before they ever take out the $$$, fat chance of either ever happening.
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Piers Anthony wrote a short story some years ago.
The ultimate premise of the story was that the leaders of a particular society were incorruptible.
The society was very egalitarian, very orderly and money, sex, favors and whatever could not sway the leaders.
Anyone could become one of these leaders. You would simply submit yourself to the proper authorities and you would be made incorruptible.
They did this by slowly and methodically, torturing you. They removed your arms, legs, eyes, one ear, your skin, tongue, nose, genitals, etc. You were able to listen with one ear and grunt approval or disapproval for something based entirely on it’s merits. No pleasure remained for you, it was a state of pure logic. Most people would stop part way through and become an ambassador or such. Few made it to the end.
It was called “On The uses of Torture” and it was one of the most disturbing stories I’ve ever read and I’ve read many thousands of books.
I’m ready to apply the same method for people who want to rule 
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Somethings never change
That really is disturbing stuff.
That being said, I’m all for a pre-requisite like that being applied to anyone who wants to run for Congress. 
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Pretty ridiculous and farfetched. Anticipation of an event, occurrence, behavior, etc. is usually more significant than the actual event. In this case fear, loathing, dread, disgust would prevent anyone from submitting to such atrocity. Humans come pre programmed for survival and self protection. This survival algorithm fails us at an astonishing rate but we have it nonetheless.
It is likely that if such a situation were to exist, some group of corrupt players would conspire and defeat it.