(02-28-2025 04:37 PM)banker Wrote:  

(02-28-2025 12:35 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-28-2025 03:24 AM)banker Wrote:  The civilian workforce is over 168,000,000, so you could have zero federal employees and only raise unemployment 2%. 700,000 is less than one half of one percent.

The real question is what happens to employment and the economy if spending continues unfettered? What happens when the cuts become necessary because you can’t make payroll? The secondary question is what will unemployment and the economy look like if we can get a balanced budget, reduce debt, and cut taxes? Would you rather have one government employee getting paid or 50 families having an extra $2,000’a year in their pocket? If you cut 700,000 jobs that equals about $550 per taxpayer per year. Over a 40 year work life that compounds to $100,000 per tax payer.

We are already about 20 years too late with these actions and can’t really afford to wait to slowly roll them in over the next 20 years.

That house budget bill was as clear as it could be that cutting the deficit ain't serious. Massey proved to be the only person in the GOP house who actually means what he says regarding the deficit.

There is no world where you can get a balanced budget/reduce debt and cut taxes. Cutting all 1.7 trillion in discretionary spending wouldn't even get you a balanced budget with no tax cuts. There is no fantasy land where cutting taxes increases government revenue. There is no balanced budget that doesn't involve some kind of tax increases (along with spending cuts) unless you are going to seriously and drastically cut the things that are political death to try to cut.

You flaw is that you ignore the amount of waste in non-discretionary spending. You act like every dollar of Medicare and social security goes directly to a beneficiary.

In 2019 the US govt spent 4.5 trillion dollars. This year we will collect over $5 trillion in revenue. Don’t tell me we can’t balance the budget, instead tell me why it was necessary to increase spending by almost 70% in 5 years?

I mean, you can ask Trump. He dramatically ballooned the debt the first time, but now we're supposed to believe he's going to reduce it or the deficit. It's just nonsense. He increased the national debt by 20% before COVID even happened. Then he added another 4 trillion after COVID hit. Trump's total increase on the national debt in a single 4 year term was nearly 40%, one of the worst in Presidential history.

I'm ALL FOR lowering the deficit, but Trump and co are flat out not going to do it. Their budget shows they're not going to: They're increasing the deficit and increasing the debt ceiling. Sick of hearing the constant spewing of nonsense about waste, fraud, and abuse while they're STILL raising the deficit and debt, all while cutting poor and elderly programs. Democrat politicians have actually balanced the budget before while Republican politicians never do it because their one and only goal is helping mega rich people.

We've watched this same song and dance so many times before and it never works.

Look at our previous 7 Presidents alone:

Biden (4 years): 30.5% increase
Trump (4 years): 39.2% increase
Obama (8 years): 64.4% increase
Bush Jr (8 years): 72.6% increase
Bill Clinton (8 years): 28.6% increase
Bush Sr (4 years): 42.3% increase
Reagan (8 years): 160.8% increase

Largest increases per years in office:

Reagan (8 years): 20.1% per year
Bush Sr (4 years): 10.56% per year
Trump (4 years): 9.8% per year
Bush Jr (8 years): 9.08% per year
Obama (8 years): 8.05% per year
Biden (4 years): 7.63% per year
Bill Clinton (8 years): 3.56% per year

Republican Presidents are never good with the national debt or the deficit. If they were doing these cuts to the budget and not giving out tax cuts I'd actually support them, but they're not and they won't: because they're bought and fully owned by the mega rich. The whole deficit shite is just talking points they feed the right so they'll defend their actions online while they fleece the future of the country. Hell, the whole "Doge Dividend" nonsense should make you question their true intentions.

Now redo your post based on who controlled the power of the purse all those years.

(02-28-2025 01:23 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-28-2025 12:58 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(02-28-2025 12:35 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-28-2025 03:24 AM)banker Wrote:  The civilian workforce is over 168,000,000, so you could have zero federal employees and only raise unemployment 2%. 700,000 is less than one half of one percent.

The real question is what happens to employment and the economy if spending continues unfettered? What happens when the cuts become necessary because you can’t make payroll? The secondary question is what will unemployment and the economy look like if we can get a balanced budget, reduce debt, and cut taxes? Would you rather have one government employee getting paid or 50 families having an extra $2,000’a year in their pocket? If you cut 700,000 jobs that equals about $550 per taxpayer per year. Over a 40 year work life that compounds to $100,000 per tax payer.

We are already about 20 years too late with these actions and can’t really afford to wait to slowly roll them in over the next 20 years.

That house budget bill was as clear as it could be that cutting the deficit ain't serious. Massey proved to be the only person in the GOP house who actually means what he says regarding the deficit.

There is no world where you can get a balanced budget/reduce debt and cut taxes. Cutting all 1.7 trillion in discretionary spending wouldn't even get you a balanced budget with no tax cuts. There is no fantasy land where cutting taxes increases government revenue. There is no balanced budget that doesn't involve some kind of tax increases (along with spending cuts) unless you are going to seriously and drastically cut the things that are political death to try to cut.

1) its happened before. Reagan and HW and DJT cut taxes and the economy grew.
2) The vast majority is NOT cutting taxes. Its keeping them the same. The 2017 tax cuts are expiring.

Economy grew ain't government revenue grew. I'm going to assume you know those 2 aren't the same thing. Government revenue only comes from 1 place, taxes. To make government revenue grow you got to bring in more tax revenue. Sure, in theory you could get so much growth from a tax cut that you bring in more consumption tax revenue than you cut, but that's never happened.

It happened in all 3 of those cases. Government revenue grew. If the economy grows, taxable income grows. That increases the revenue, often enough to offset any tax reductions.

(02-28-2025 08:03 PM)banker Wrote:  Now redo your post based on who controlled the power of the purse all those years.

Republicans had full control when they added 20% to the debt under Trump from 2017-2019. Bush Jr had a trifectra for most of his term and took a Clinton surplus into a trillion dollar negative deficit. Republicans have a trifecta now and they're raising the debt ceiling and adding to the deficit while they scream that we're hurdling off a cliff of debt and interest payments. It's hard to take them seriously.

(02-28-2025 10:37 PM)ShrackUAB Wrote:  Republicans had full control when they added 20% to the debt under Trump from 2017-2019.

That increase was pretty much locked in by Obama. You can look up online the CBO economic and debt projection as of January 2017, which explicitly did NOT include any Trump policies, and see that the kinds of increases in Trump's first time were about 90% baked into the cake by Obama.

Trump can be faulted for not lowering the deficit and debt, but the increases are more on Obama than on Trump.

There is a way to eliminate the deficit and reduce the debt while keeping the lowest taxes in the developed world. I have outlined it on here several times in various posts, most recently in the thread on Medicaid cuts.

By theway, you need to be careful about terminology. Deficit refers to annual revenues versus expenditures, debt is the cumulative effect.

(02-28-2025 12:28 AM)TheDancinMonarch Wrote:  There is no one more anti big government than I am. The thought of 700,000 fewer people with government positions pleases me to the max. But.... It seems to me there has to be a better way than this mass firing. What will happen to the unemployment rate? It will go up for sure which will make the politicians look bad. What will happen to the economy when so many have less money to spend? It can't be good. And fewer with health insurance? Republicans lose a few House seats and "impeachment" will be coming out of the corral. And that's not good for any of us. There has to be a better way!

There are 7,000,000 jobs currently open in the US that the work force can't fill.

(02-28-2025 12:58 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(02-28-2025 12:35 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-28-2025 03:24 AM)banker Wrote:  The civilian workforce is over 168,000,000, so you could have zero federal employees and only raise unemployment 2%. 700,000 is less than one half of one percent.

The real question is what happens to employment and the economy if spending continues unfettered? What happens when the cuts become necessary because you can’t make payroll? The secondary question is what will unemployment and the economy look like if we can get a balanced budget, reduce debt, and cut taxes? Would you rather have one government employee getting paid or 50 families having an extra $2,000’a year in their pocket? If you cut 700,000 jobs that equals about $550 per taxpayer per year. Over a 40 year work life that compounds to $100,000 per tax payer.

We are already about 20 years too late with these actions and can’t really afford to wait to slowly roll them in over the next 20 years.

That house budget bill was as clear as it could be that cutting the deficit ain't serious. Massey proved to be the only person in the GOP house who actually means what he says regarding the deficit.

There is no world where you can get a balanced budget/reduce debt and cut taxes. Cutting all 1.7 trillion in discretionary spending wouldn't even get you a balanced budget with no tax cuts. There is no fantasy land where cutting taxes increases government revenue. There is no balanced budget that doesn't involve some kind of tax increases (along with spending cuts) unless you are going to seriously and drastically cut the things that are political death to try to cut.

1) its happened before. Reagan and HW and DJT cut taxes and the economy grew.
2) The vast majority is NOT cutting taxes. Its keeping them the same. The 2017 tax cuts are expiring.

DJT cut taxes and grew the deficit.

(02-28-2025 04:37 PM)banker Wrote:  

(02-28-2025 12:35 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-28-2025 03:24 AM)banker Wrote:  The civilian workforce is over 168,000,000, so you could have zero federal employees and only raise unemployment 2%. 700,000 is less than one half of one percent.

The real question is what happens to employment and the economy if spending continues unfettered? What happens when the cuts become necessary because you can’t make payroll? The secondary question is what will unemployment and the economy look like if we can get a balanced budget, reduce debt, and cut taxes? Would you rather have one government employee getting paid or 50 families having an extra $2,000’a year in their pocket? If you cut 700,000 jobs that equals about $550 per taxpayer per year. Over a 40 year work life that compounds to $100,000 per tax payer.

We are already about 20 years too late with these actions and can’t really afford to wait to slowly roll them in over the next 20 years.

That house budget bill was as clear as it could be that cutting the deficit ain't serious. Massey proved to be the only person in the GOP house who actually means what he says regarding the deficit.

There is no world where you can get a balanced budget/reduce debt and cut taxes. Cutting all 1.7 trillion in discretionary spending wouldn't even get you a balanced budget with no tax cuts. There is no fantasy land where cutting taxes increases government revenue. There is no balanced budget that doesn't involve some kind of tax increases (along with spending cuts) unless you are going to seriously and drastically cut the things that are political death to try to cut.

You flaw is that you ignore the amount of waste in non-discretionary spending. You act like every dollar of Medicare and social security goes directly to a beneficiary.

In 2019 the US govt spent 4.5 trillion dollars. This year we will collect over $5 trillion in revenue. Don’t tell me we can’t balance the budget, instead tell me why it was necessary to increase spending by almost 70% in 5 years?

I would like to see an audit of each medicaid recipient as of the age, gender (real, not imaginary), and number of children each recipient has direct custody of.