Credit Where Credit is Due: a shout out thread for Things Trump Did Right

[ZiprHead]

I’m pretty sure they have no intention of returning the “wasted” tax money to us.

Not directly. But if and when the government becomes more solvent, fed monetary easing may become a thing of the past. Just NOT printing any more money means the middle class will no longer have to pay an inflation tax on top of all our other taxes that have caused normal people to be in debt up to their eye balls.

You believe that Trump/Musk shit???

House Budget Would Increase Costs and Hardship for Many While Providing Huge Tax Breaks for a Wealthy Few

The House Republican budget passed today calls for massive cuts in health coverage, food assistance, and help paying for college, among some other areas, to pay for huge tax giveaways for wealthy households and businesses. This betrays President Trump’s campaign promises to protect families who struggle financially, as well as his specific pledge to not cut Medicaid, which provides health coverage for 72 million people. While raising costs for families and increasing both poverty and the number of people without health coverage, the budget would swell deficits — all to further Republicans’ expensive and skewed tax agenda.

Both the House and Senate budgets significantly miss the mark on what should be their basic goals: lowering costs, increasing opportunity, and responsibly addressing our nation’s long-term priorities, including reducing future economic risks associated with high deficits. But the enormity of program cuts called for by the House budget stands as a singular threat to the well-being of people in every state, city, and rural community, threatening to take away their health coverage, make health care more expensive, and make it harder to afford food and college.

The quick math on the House budget shows a stark equation: the cost of extending tax cuts for households with incomes in the top 1 percent — $1.1 trillion through 2034 — equals roughly the same amount as the proposed potential cuts for health coverage under Medicaid and food assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Under what set of values does a budget target those who struggle to pay their bills for severe cuts, while giving an annual tax cut averaging $62,000 for those who make $743,000 or more a year? The tax cut for these wealthy households is greater than the annual family incomes for most of the 72 million people — 1 in 5 people in the U.S. — who have health coverage through Medicaid. And the $62,000 figure doesn’t account for the likelihood that this budget would shower large corporations with more tax breaks, given that it allocates $900 billion more than extending the existing tax cuts would cost.

 

[lostone]

I'm still waiting the hear about what the orange Turd did or is doing right

 

[Shadowy Man]

I'm still waiting the hear about what the orange Turd did or is doing right

The penny thing wasn't enough??? Sheesh.. no satisfying some people I guess.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Overall Musk and his team have been finding significant fraud and waste though.

Cite?

I would cite all the X posts Muck has made (which is substantial) but that wouldn't satisfy you. It would not satisfy you because Rachal Madow didnt say it.

But if you really want to know all the ridiculous amount of fraud that has already been discovered just read what Musk has said on X. He is in charge of DODE so what he has discovered is about the best source you can get.

We know he's claiming to have found tons of fraud and waste. In reality he's the fraud.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Here's another challenge for you: Are you familiar with the government's Inspectors-General? They are the high-ranked officials charged with finding and eliminating fraud and waste!! ! EXACTLY the goal that you and Trump supposedly favor. Yet these Inspectors-General -- many appointed by Trump-45 himself -- were the first to get cut right after the Inauguration. I guess you think Musk's hackers would be more competent at this?

Yeah, you want to reduce fraud and waste, the inspector generals are the way to go. They should have a lot more autonomy and their mandate should specifically include publicly identifying pork barrel spending. Organizations are not good at inspecting themselves, there should be a separate department of inspecting the government with the minimum of government ability to control them.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I would call this a listing of porn corruption. It is an utter and total embarrassment of our Congress.

And here is how I would handle this if I were Trump. I would first enlist someone like McConnel who is learned with the parlor tricks of congress and then I would go to the American people on X, Truth Social, and Joe Rogan. I would say "Do you want to get rid of inflation or do you want to spend money on this shit?" "Do you want government to borrow money for your health care or do you want to borrow money for this shit?" "Do you want better infrastructure for America or do you want this shit?"

And then I would let congress vote on an omni-bus bill to REMOVE spending on all of your list of corruption. And I would advertise and mock whoever did not vote for getting rid of this.

If an uninformed layman like myself can think of a solution like this, you can bet Musk and/or Trump will know what to do. Musk has the brains and Trump has the experience in hardened corruption to be the first to undo what Congress has farted out on the American people.

How do you get any of that as corruption?

Most of that is about fostering wellbeing and democracy. (Yes, circumcision is. It provides a fair barrier to HIV transmission. Nothing like perfect but far better than nothing and with zero ongoing costs.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

@RVonse --

Who is more likely to be expert on the regulation of food and drugs? The head of the FDA, Donald Trump, or Musk's teen-age hackers? Or, in your "libertarian" mindset is the very idea of regulating food and drugs a bad idea?

Here's another challenge for you: Are you familiar with the government's Inspectors-General? They are the high-ranked officials charged with finding and eliminating fraud and waste!! ! EXACTLY the goal that you and Trump supposedly favor. Yet these Inspectors-General -- many appointed by Trump-45 himself -- were the first to get cut right after the Inauguration. I guess you think Musk's hackers would be more competent at this?

Anyway I offer you what YOU were UNABLE to offer US: A look at some of the "fraud" and "waste" that Trump-Musk have uncovered. The linked video may be too remedial for most Infidels, and RVonse probably won't even click when he learns it's from MSNBC, but if we can somehow open RVonse's eyes and help him understand that Trump the Stable Genius is neither stable nor a genius, we'd be able to celebrate! One American saved from the cesspool of fascist adoration, 59,999,999 to go!

I don't trust the "deep state" aka bureaucracy to do anything but help themselves to the tax paying hog trough. And you shouldn't either.

The Heritage Foundation is the deep state! You just voted them a lifetime appointment at the hog trough.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Musk has the brains

Musk is an idiot savant. His brain is no better than yours or mine. That brilliant mind took a company valued at $19 billion and reduced its value to $670 million. THAT is what you should be looking at as he takes "the Twitter methodology" to our government. Brainless idiots can still be rich...just look at Trump. Musk contributed two things to Tesla...the "open butthole" voice command to open the charging port and the Cybertruck. The rest came from people LOADS smarter than him.

And the shitter methodology actually does a horrible job, leaving a very brittle system.

We've seen the likes of Musk before: Mao. That was a dark enough time I'm not willing to ask my wife about her experiences.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I agree we do not know it is fraud for sure but it looks extremely suspicious and corrupt. That being said, I think it is appropriate to withhold funding until Congress does vote to continue spending this suspect money. No different than the police stopping a criminal until their day in court. And even you should admit the executive branch should be qualified under the Constitution to do this.

You need probable cause to stop a criminal and there's no indication of wrongdoing, just things you don't like.

Everyone who thinks we have somehow lost democracy with Trump. How come when I wake up everything looks a lot like it used to look like? I have not noticed the tyranny in my life yet. Musk or Trump hasn't told me I can't run my business yet. I haven't lost my right to vote yet, they have not eliminated any candidates I like either. I can still print my feelings on this forum too. Nor have they said I have to be vaccinated or lose my job.

You have lost your vote, you just don't know it.

And very repressive states look at a lot like free states on the surface.

Let's wind the clock back 50 years. We had a run-in with the police in Romania. Fundamentally, their official messed up, we had "overstayed" our permission to be in the country. It wasn't hard to demonstrate that we had complied with the rules and they had simply written down the wrong thing--in Romanian, a language none of us knew (and thus we could not have seen their error.) After much back and forth in very broken German it was settled other than they expected us to write up a report on it. In Romanian, a language it was already established we knew none of. Oops, nobody would touch the translation with a 10' pole because it was a police matter. (Finally a businessman from Vienna overheard and came to our help--because he knew we would have no chance of getting local help. Note that this was long before the era of Google.) That's a police state, but there was nothing on the surface that looked out of line.

Or lets look at China, something like 25 years ago. Even amongst family and in their homes (not a hotel room that might be bugged by China State Security), not in a public space there clearly were topics not to be discussed. Nothing that could be remotely negative about China. Inadvertently hit one and they would either just go quiet or change the topic. But there was the day in the market where my wife was looking for DVDs of TV shows. Tons of DVDs of movies, but almost nothing to be had of long-running shows. She was a bit naive about how things had changed and didn't realize that her words could be interpreted as looking for pornography (not legal, but more than once I saw street-corner sellers with porn movies openly displayed) and when I realized the communication error and pointed it out she immediately walked on. The seller of course did not understand me and was unhappy at the thought of what he thought was a good customer walking away and followed after us until shooed off by a policeman. That's a repressive state but not a police state.

As far as I can see, the only tyranny being experienced are the grifters and thieves of our government who aren't getting paid for doing nothing anymore. And they are ones doing the lions share of squawking right now too. I wonder why?

Except they aren't grifters and thieves. And look at the critical systems he's tried cutting with his scream test approach. He wrecked shitter, now he's taking the same approach to the United States. Safety systems and backup systems will look like waste to a scream test.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It is necessary, and it hasn't been referred to Congress by Trump. Musk has no legitimate authority approved by Congress, and his transparency is that of a murky swamp. When legitimate government is restored to USA there will be investigations of Musk's activities by Senate committees and Musk will face charges for breaking the law and for engaging in subversive activities. He will go to prison and then be deported to South Africa.

When? I certainly hope that will occur but I don't expect it to happen.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Piketty... well, Jesus. I'm not sure this thread is the place for a discussion of what does or does not constitute capital.

I'm not arguing about what is capital. Piketty shows there are people at the top and pretends without presenting any evidence that they are the same people.

 

[Politesse]

Piketty... well, Jesus. I'm not sure this thread is the place for a discussion of what does or does not constitute capital.

I'm not arguing about what is capital. Piketty shows there are people at the top and pretends without presenting any evidence that they are the same people.

It has an immediate bearing on the statistic in question. Thomas Piketty promotes a very unique and dubious personal definition of capital, which strongly impacts the question of how much of American capital was in enslaved human form according to same.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

It is necessary, and it hasn't been referred to Congress by Trump. Musk has no legitimate authority approved by Congress, and his transparency is that of a murky swamp. When legitimate government is restored to USA there will be investigations of Musk's activities by Senate committees and Musk will face charges for breaking the law and for engaging in subversive activities. He will go to prison and then be deported to South Africa.

When? I certainly hope that will occur but I don't expect it to happen.

That's pessimistic. Taken at literal face value you seem to be saying that democracy will never be restored to USA. Alternatively, that even if it is, that as often happens the perpetrators will somehow escape justice. But the crimes in this case are so huge that there will be millions demanding justice, and they won't be quite. In fact they will see that a precedent has been set, that if you are not happy with what is done that you can storm the capital, so I think the new authorities will realize that to avoid repetitions of past actions that they need to act with the full force of the law (and the Supreme Court better comply or they can also face consequences).

Regarding the latter point, the forces of democracy will be so strengthened by people observing the example of non-democracy, that it is quite possible that they will be granted the authority to dismiss members of the Supreme Court and make new rules about how long judges can serve and limits on their power via strong rules about ethics.

 

[lostone]

It is necessary, and it hasn't been referred to Congress by Trump. Musk has no legitimate authority approved by Congress, and his transparency is that of a murky swamp. When legitimate government is restored to USA there will be investigations of Musk's activities by Senate committees and Musk will face charges for breaking the law and for engaging in subversive activities. He will go to prison and then be deported to South Africa.

When? I certainly hope that will occur but I don't expect it to happen.

That's pessimistic. Taken at literal face value you seem to be saying that democracy will never be restored to USA. Alternatively, that even if it is, that as often happens the perpetrators will somehow escape justice. But the crimes in this case are so huge that there will be millions demanding justice, and they won't be quite. In fact they will see that a precedent has been set, that if you are not happy with what is done that you can storm the capital, so I think the new authorities will realize that to avoid repetitions of past actions that they need to act with the full force of the law (and the Supreme Court better comply or they can also face consequences).

Regarding the latter point, the forces of democracy will be so strengthened by people observing the example of non-democracy, that it is quite possible that they will be granted the authority to dismiss members of the Supreme Court and make new rules about how long judges can serve and limits on their power via strong rules about ethics.

You are very hopeful. I have seen little in my life to justify so much hope. I see more reasons to believe that we face another Dark Ages, of a thousand years or more. Do not neglect or underestimate the power of the new Christian Dominionism. But i am hopeful that you may be correct.

 

[ideologyhunter]

We are certainly up against two full years of the Repubs running rampant while they have unchecked power. They will wreck as much as they can of the fed gov in the vain and perhaps purely performative quest of justifying their tax cuts for the billionaire crowd. Why hold back, while they have the power? And why fear any public backlash when they just got a felon and traitor elected? When that felon just got his picks confirmed for the most ridiculous and brain-addled cabinet in American history? They can sell anything to the rubes. They can talk and gaslight their way out of anything.
The question, when this wave washes over and past us, is how much of the government is reparable, how many allies we have left, (and which of them will ever trust us again), and how much deeper in debt we find ourselves. Plus who's still alive after bird flu, measles, Covids 10 through 15, Kennedy worms, Slovenian Melanienza, and AITS (acquired idiocy Trump syndrome.)

 

[RVonse]

I'm still waiting the hear about what the orange Turd did or is doing right

Apple will spend more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years

Apple today announced plans to spend and invest more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years.

www.apple.com

Apple will spend more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years​

 

[RVonse]

I'm still waiting the hear about what the orange Turd did or is doing right

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/lilly-plans-invest-27-billion-new-us-plants-trump-threatens-pharmaceutical-2025-02-26/

Lilly plans to invest $27 billion in new US plants as Trump threatens pharmaceutical tariffs​

 

[KCFlyer]

I'm still waiting the hear about what the orange Turd did or is doing right

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/lilly-plans-invest-27-billion-new-us-plants-trump-threatens-pharmaceutical-2025-02-26/

Lilly plans to invest $27 billion in new US plants as Trump threatens pharmaceutical tariffs​

Great...the drugs will be here, but how much of this investment will be charged back to those needing those drugs? Cheaper or more expensive?

 

[GenesisNemesis]

It is necessary, and it hasn't been referred to Congress by Trump. Musk has no legitimate authority approved by Congress, and his transparency is that of a murky swamp. When legitimate government is restored to USA there will be investigations of Musk's activities by Senate committees and Musk will face charges for breaking the law and for engaging in subversive activities. He will go to prison and then be deported to South Africa.

When? I certainly hope that will occur but I don't expect it to happen.

That's pessimistic. Taken at literal face value you seem to be saying that democracy will never be restored to USA.

It may be but I may not live to see it if I die in another pandemic due to these batshit insane people in power, or if there's a third world war, due to these batshit insane people. So for all intents and purposes I'm living as though I will not live to see it.

 

[lostone]

I'm still waiting the hear about what the orange Turd did or is doing right

Apple will spend more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years

Apple today announced plans to spend and invest more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years.

www.apple.com

Apple will spend more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years​

What I do see is that Trump knows how to grab the attention of the media, hold it, and then use it to his advantage. I also see that he can take ideas and polices that were previously so poisonous that those ideas were off the table, even in Conservative circles, and revive them in a creative manner.