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Trump Dictatorship and All Things Politics


Polls showing where Americans, including Republicans, think the country is spending TOO LITTLE on major government programs.

About two-thirds of Americans say the U.S. government is spending “too little” on Social Security and education, according to a January AP-NORC poll. Another 6 in 10, roughly, say too little money is going to assistance to the poor. A similar share say spending is too low for Medicare, the national health care insurance program for seniors, and most also say Medicaid is under-funded by the federal government. About half say border security is not receiving enough funding.

The perpetual challenge for lawmakers is that although U.S. adults mostly think the government isn't spending enough on key issues and programs, they are broadly in favor of cuts to the federal budget. AP-NORC polling from March 2023 found that 6 in 10 U.S. adults said the U.S. government was spending “too much” overall.

Foreign aid is one area where there is broad consensus that the U.S. is overspending. The 2023 AP-NORC polling suggests that Americans tend to believe too much money is going to other countries.

Roughly 7 in 10 U.S. adults said the government was putting too much money toward “assistance to other countries.” About 9 in 10 Republicans and just over half of Democrats agreed that the country was overspending on foreign aid at the time.
At the same time, polling has shown that U.S. adults tend to overestimate the share of the federal budget that is spent on foreign aid. Surveys from KFF have found that, on average, Americans say spending on foreign aid makes up 31% of the federal budget rather than the actual answer: closer to 1% or less.

On both sides of the political aisle, very few U.S. adults think the country is spending too much on Social Security and Medicare, according to the January AP-NORC poll.

Republicans tend to want more money for border security, Social Security and the military. About 8 in 10 Republicans say too little money is allocated to border security, and about two-thirds say that about Social Security.

Strong majorities of Democrats say the U.S. government spends “too little” on assistance to the poor, education, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. They are divided on funding for border security — about 4 in 10 say the funding is about the right amount, while 3 in 10 say it's too high and about 3 in 10 say it's too little — and tend to say federal law enforcement agencies such as the CIA and the FBI are getting the right amount of funding.

Basically, the thing all americans are so upset about and the reason some are fine with Musk doing what he is doing is foreign. Which we spend next to nothing on lol (1% or less of the budget)

From the comments: In general, people are not well-informed about how much the government spends on what. We hear via DOGE about specific horror shows but we are not getting an overall picture of spending and what we get in return. I suspect that a smoke screen is being created so, behind the smoke, "true believers" can eliminate entire programs.

For example, you can learn that this administration sends $118 billion to foreign countries for "military and economic aid." And yet, Musk and Trump shut down USAID over its $40 million budget.
 
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I have a question. So lets say this whole DOGE thing works out perfectly beyond all of our wildest dreams for all americans. Musk is completely trustworthy and doing everything on the up and up and for the sole benefit of the citizens of the USA. He finds ALL the waste and eliminates all of it flawlessly. Now there is no longer any waste at all. The perfect amount of money is being spent on the perfect programs etc.

What are we thinking that would look like for the average american like myself? I assume we are thinking that would mean money coming back into our pockets or less money leaving our pockets (no/less taxes)

So now every american in the USA has lots more money (spending power). Does a combo meal from wendys stay at 11 bucks or whatever it is now? Or does the owner of wendys realize that we all have way more spending power and raise the price to 25 bucks for a combo meal?

Does that new chevy silverado stay at the 60,000 dollar price (or whatever it is currently) or does the owner of chevy realize that there is way more money to be made in a capitalistic economy where there was a recent huge influx of money to each person and raise the price to 90,000?

Rich would continue to rich and poor would continue to poor is my guess. I think a lot of the poors think that Musk is going to help them get rich with what he is doing. I dont think that is what will happen.
 
fishonjazz said:



For example, you can learn that this administration sends $118 billion to foreign countries for "military and economic aid." And yet, Musk and Trump shut down USAID over its $40 million budget.
Click to expand...

That's 2950:1.

They could also save billions I'd they really cared about people instead of the richest people who finance their campaigns. "Aggressive tax planning" is a cancer worldwide. It's actually socialism for the rich. Some might say stealing, but I won't, bc that might hurt their eMoTiOnS
 
Step-Back Lauri said:
That's 2950:1.

They could also save billions I'd they really cared about people instead of the richest people who finance their campaigns. "Aggressive tax planning" is a cancer worldwide. It's actually socialism for the rich. Some might say stealing, but I won't, bc that might hurt their eMoTiOnS
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Yep.
I mean musk could simply take his 118 billion that he got from the US government over the last decade and split it equally amongst the whole country and we would all be multi millionaires while he would still have hundreds of billions.

Of course like I said in my previous post, that wouldn't truly do anything other than cause inflation to increase by 100,000,000% and then you would just have millionaires who were the poor people in society and the those with hundreds of millions would be the middle class and only billionaires would be rich etc etc. Plus it would be complete chaos lol.
 
fishonjazz said:
I have a question. So lets say this whole DOGE thing works out perfectly beyond all of our wildest dreams for all americans. Musk is completely trustworthy and doing everything on the up and up and for the sole benefit of the citizens of the USA. He finds ALL the waste and eliminates all of it flawlessly. Now there is no longer any waste at all. The perfect amount of money is being spent on the perfect programs etc.

What are we thinking that would look like for the average american like myself? I assume we are thinking that would mean money coming back into our pockets or less money leaving our pockets (no/less taxes)

So now every american in the USA has lots more money (spending power). Does a combo meal from wendys stay at 11 bucks or whatever it is now? Or does the owner of wendys realize that we all have way more spending power and raise the price to 25 bucks for a combo meal?

Does that new chevy silverado stay at the 60,000 dollar price (or whatever it is currently) or does the owner of chevy realize that there is way more money to be made in a capitalistic economy where there was a recent huge influx of money to each person and raise the price to 90,000?

Rich would continue to rich and poor would continue to poor is my guess. I think a lot of the poors think that Musk is going to help them get rich with what he is doing. I dont think that is what will happen.
Click to expand...
The reality is the U.S. has been overspending for a long time. We were all born into the national debt racked up by prior politicians and our kids even moreso. We need to cut spending (always talked about by both sides, but this is the first time I've actually seen any real effort to make it happen).

Unfortunately taxes need to go up too. The wealth tax is a popular populist idea, but I worry the impact will all trickle down from increased cost of goods, etc.

We also need to get a better educated workforce, which means investment in education for those willing to put in the effort.
 
TheGoldStandard said:
The reality is the U.S. has been overspending for a long time. We were all born into the national debt racked up by prior politicians and our kids even moreso. We need to cut spending (always talked about by both sides, but this is the first time I've actually seen any real effort to make it happen).

Unfortunately taxes need to go up too. The wealth tax is a popular populist idea, but I worry the impact will all trickle down from increased cost of goods, etc.

We also need to get a better educated workforce, which means investment in education for those willing to put in the effort.
Click to expand...
All true. The question was: What would it look like for the average american if DOGE succeeded beyond everyones wildest imaginations and all waste was eliminated completely? Would there be no more poor people? Would we live a utopia free of crime or civil unrest?

imo nothing would really even be any different. I feel like those that are strong supporters of DOGE are cheering him on like "ya ya, you go musk! This is going to be so awesome for our country after you clean everything up!" What is going to be so awesome though? Do I get to live in nicer neighborhood with a better vehicle and a boat or something? What do we all get once the waste has been eliminated?
 
fishonjazz said:
I have a question. So lets say this whole DOGE thing works out perfectly beyond all of our wildest dreams for all americans. Musk is completely trustworthy and doing everything on the up and up and for the sole benefit of the citizens of the USA. He finds ALL the waste and eliminates all of it flawlessly. Now there is no longer any waste at all. The perfect amount of money is being spent on the perfect programs etc.

What are we thinking that would look like for the average american like myself? I assume we are thinking that would mean money coming back into our pockets or less money leaving our pockets (no/less taxes)

So now every american in the USA has lots more money (spending power). Does a combo meal from wendys stay at 11 bucks or whatever it is now? Or does the owner of wendys realize that we all have way more spending power and raise the price to 25 bucks for a combo meal?

Does that new chevy silverado stay at the 60,000 dollar price (or whatever it is currently) or does the owner of chevy realize that there is way more money to be made in a capitalistic economy where there was a recent huge influx of money to each person and raise the price to 90,000?

Rich would continue to rich and poor would continue to poor is my guess. I think a lot of the poors think that Musk is going to help them get rich with what he is doing. I dont think that is what will happen.
Click to expand...
The average American would get fewer government services, a smaller and weaker safety net and would still have to get up at 4am every day to go to work to make ends meet or face loosing everything.

People talk about freedom a lot. I don't think the average American has ever known what freedom is. We've been conditioned to believe that our dependance on a wage is a virtue and that working harder and longer for someone else's profits is the best measure of our worth as a human. If that's freedom I want something different than freedom, because this sucks.
 
BabyPeterzz said:
www.dailymail.co.uk

DOGE leaks secret information about intelligence agencies

Elon Musk 's Department of Government Efficiency's latest attempt at creating change in the Washington swamp has seen classified information posted to its website.
www.dailymail.co.uk

Who knew as part of Musk’s federal employee reduction, he would be outing intel officers. Woooops!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Let's all keep in mind that Musk is an American citizen for business reasons, not because he has any concern or loyalty to the U.S.. Billionaires are world citizens and exist in a different reality than us normies.
 
fishonjazz said:
Yep.
I mean musk could simply take his 118 billion that he got from the US government over the last decade and split it equally amongst the whole country and we would all be multi millionaires while he would still have hundreds of billions.
Click to expand...
I'm assuming you're being sarcastic or deliberately misstating things.

There are 335 million people in the US. That means each person would get about $350. Enough for dinner and an electric bill.
 
gandalfe said:
I'm assuming you're being sarcastic or deliberately misstating things.
Click to expand...
Neither. I was just way way off lol. And I was thinking more along the lines of splitting by household rather than every man woman and child but it still wouldn't be that much.

Point stays the though which is, whatever money and spending power is provided to the masses simply gets absorbed in cost of living (inflation) raises.
 
fishonjazz said:
All true. The question was: What would it look like for the average american if DOGE succeeded beyond everyones wildest imaginations and all waste was eliminated completely? Would there be no more poor people? Would we live a utopia free of crime or civil unrest?

imo nothing would really even be any different. I feel like those that are strong supporters of DOGE are cheering him on like "ya ya, you go musk! This is going to be so awesome for our country after you clean everything up!" What is going to be so awesome though? Do I get to live in nicer neighborhood with a better vehicle and a boat or something? What do we all get once the waste has been eliminated?
Click to expand...
We are overspending like crazy. It has to stop. It may help us keep a strong country that can continue to pay its debts without devaluing our currency (printing money).

If this waste had been stopped years ago perhaps we'd be in a much better fiscal situation in this country.
 
fishonjazz said:
Neither. I was just way way off lol. And I was thinking more along the lines of splitting by household rather than every man woman and child but it still wouldn't be that much.

Point stays the though which is, whatever money and spending power is provided to the masses simply gets absorbed in cost of living (inflation) raises.
Click to expand...
That's the thing. These dollar amounts seem huge, but when you look at them from the perspective of the largest economy in history, they're tiny.
 
TheGoldStandard said:
We are overspending like crazy. It has to stop. It may help us keep a strong country that can continue to pay its debts without devaluing our currency (printing money).

If this waste had been stopped years ago perhaps we'd be in a much better fiscal situation in this country.
Click to expand...
How does this "overspending " affect me? Because I'm not noticing it.
 
TheGoldStandard said:
We are overspending like crazy. It has to stop. It may help us keep a strong country that can continue to pay its debts without devaluing our currency (printing money).

If this waste had been stopped years ago perhaps we'd be in a much better fiscal situation in this country.
Click to expand...
I don't disagree with anything in your post but the question I posed remains unanswered.
 
TheGoldStandard said:
The reality is the U.S. has been overspending for a long time. We were all born into the national debt racked up by prior politicians and our kids even moreso. We need to cut spending (always talked about by both sides, but this is the first time I've actually seen any real effort to make it happen).

Unfortunately taxes need to go up too. The wealth tax is a popular populist idea, but I worry the impact will all trickle down from increased cost of goods, etc.

We also need to get a better educated workforce, which means investment in education for those willing to put in the effort.
Click to expand...
We have evidence that increased taxes on the rich and on corporations will not "trickle down" any more than tax cuts trickle down to help anyone. And that proof is the entire decades of the 50's and much of the 60's when we were growing on prosperity across all strata with the highest corporate taxes and personal tax rates on the rich we have ever had. Then in the 70's due to increased pressure from lobbying efforts, they started cutting taxes, which lead us to the deeply flawed "trickle down" theories to try to reduce the damage done by the decreased tax rates in the 70's and 80's reduced greatly from those of the 50's and 60's. But this is what the rich wanted, lower and lower taxes, and more wealth. Combine this with very effective efforts to stymy any increases in wages and we essentially gave handouts to the huge corporations, reduce regulations and oversight allowing oligopolies to develop in pretty much every area of our economy, and the biggest transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich we have ever seen, which is continuing to this day. We built this mess by allowing heavy deregulation and heavily reduced taxes to the upper class. Which is what they wanted when they started lobbying and paying off politicians, and putting themselves in power in the background, leading directly to what we have today with a puppet president being driven directly by the top oligarch on the entire planet.

So, tl;dr, the prosperity of the 50's proved we would have better outcomes across all levels of the population with higher tax rates for corporations and the rich coupled with better controlled spending.

I mean who knew that bringing in more revenue and spending responsibly leads to increased prosperity? All it takes is politicians to put the needs of their constituency above the desires of the billionaires who pay them off and keep them in power regardless of how ****** it gets for everyone else. Easy peasy!

In other words, ain't gonna happen.
 
TheGoldStandard said:
Yes, I answered it. It may help us keep the status quo.
Click to expand...
The question was what do I get from all the waste that musk finds and eliminates?
If your answer is the status quo then I get nothing that I wouldn't get if musk was never appointed by trump and Doge never existed.

Would have been more to the point to just say I get nothing.
 
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