DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus $1.2 Trillion later, we can keep the gubment open. Woohoo!

... til September.

That's right, now the government can stay open til September.

Just to put that in perspective, if you're the average taxpayer, that's $10,000. $10,000 from you, 10G from your spouse. 10G from all 120,000,000 of us that pay taxes... for a six month stay. 🤣

How did we arrive at this glorious day, you ask? A "bipartisan" (that's the magic word these days) spending package was introduced and voted on less than 24 hours later (just in time to save the day!). It's over 1000 pages, but don't worry, it's all good! "Act quickly" says Schumer, "we'll need bipartisan cooperation to pass it before Friday's deadline and avoid a shutdown."

As I close my eyes and thank my lucky stars that we avoided this "shutdown", I start to imagine a world...

A world where someone knocks on my door waving a six-inch-thick book around. He smiles and tells me "this is great news for you, now hand me a check for twenty grand and I won't bother you til September."


WE DESERVE THIS until we do something to stop it.

I use to be concerned about the debt til I realized that nobody in government or the elite class is actually worried about it.

They clearly know something we don’t for years now.

Right? I'm starting to come to the same conclusion as well.

I would really like some bipartisan, well respected, well written economic experts to explain how this all may play out.

Agreed. I think you had agreed with me before that the American people deserve the government to do a national sit down with the people an explain current economics as it functions. Especially with AGI right around the corner, Data is clearly the most valuable currency in the world.

100. We have all the tech required to do this ten years ago. It won't happen until we demand. We won't demand until we get off the couch.

I get older and (hopefully) wiser. I can't help but constantly go back and wonder how much better off we may have been if the whole $h*thouse went up in flames in '09.

I had always speculated that it was just them not caring about the distant future and wanting to maximize short-term gains to hoard for themselves.

If they told us it was all make believe, it wouldn't work. It works because people blindly believe it works. Another example of too big to fail.

No one wants to call us on it because we're the crazies that actually dropped nukes on people.

Don't look at me. I've been rooting for a shutdown since this whole thing started. I could sit on the couch all day while my family goes to work and school

There's a lot of ways that political math never added up. I've never seen a time when someone in real life that was heavily in debt claimed that cutting their income would help lessen their debt. Unless it was a politician talking about the national deficit.

Yes, it’s a fiat currency connecting the world like monopoly play money, not worth the paper it’s printed on. And they don’t even need your tax money, but by making us pay tax in US dollars, they make us desire/need their money. Governments, the elite, and bug corps all know it’s just a money game, and they choose the winners and losers by systematically making sure you don’t get to hoard or keep what passes through your hands. But it beats trading in wampum.

I think this shows that we have some politicians that actually care about this country.

Or they at least want to keep their gravy train rolling.

For you and OCD:

Straight up, you think AI is gonna morph our currency into something unrecognizable?

Yeah, you are right. Let's not fix any pot holes ever again. Let's not repair bridges. Let's not feed hungry children. Let's not sponsor medical advancements. Let's not assist out allies that fought and died along side out troops. Let's not fun the military, I mean, how many way can Putin stretch his forces. I could keep going but by now, I"m sure you got my drift.

Sure, there is waste. No question about it. Gotta get that out of here. I recognize it as a fact. But still, I think we need to fix our infrastructure.. Doing that increases employment with good pay. And what happens with that pay, well taxes get paid.

So we have to be vigilant in rooting out waste, but we also have to have a functioning government.

Oh don't worry, if we had starving people in our streets they would still be heavily funding the military.

I think they knew it a decade or two back and before., now they just assume and or hope.

What they knew is we could just keep printing money. That works just fine if your currency is more or less the standard. The US Dollar is the benchmark, and still is, but not by as much as it was. If and or when it isn't, then we are in for a big problem.

You know the saying..being a millionaire isn't what is used to be. I remember when a 100,000 dollar home was a heck of a home. Now it isn't even an average home. Probably borders on fixer upper.

He’s far more qualified to talk about that than I am. I know very little.

I think most of those things could be better handled at the local level than federal. Without all the waste we could get a lot more done. It's easier to spot the waste when it's not buried in bazillion page documents that even the people voting on them don't read and couldn't if they wanted to as the "bills" are rushed through so fast at the last minute. All they seem to worry about is what they are getting out of it at that level. As long as their pork/gravy/whatever got in, they'll vote without reading the rest.

As poorly as potholes get fixed, they don't seem to be getting their money's worth. It's true for most things in your list. As much money as they spend on fixing those things, you'd think some of them would actually stay fixed for a bit. Unfortunately, in practice, it seems to be more about spending the money than actually fixing things. It's planned obsolescence writ large. It's budget bloat and ultimately waste. Waste on top of waste. Instead of doing things once right to last, they do them poorly over and over again, each time more expensive than the last. All to keep the house of cards that is our economy ever "growing" (really stagnating/regressing, as we're frequently sacrificing quality) until we run out of things to consume.

To me, people should have more control over where their money goes. There should be more oversight of what that money actually produces. The people in a community can better see what that community's needs are than some one size fits all monstrosity of graft and profligate spending.

Edit: A functioning government would be a big improvement over the malfunctioning one that we've had. That'd be great.

What's the difference on who taxes us. Federal, State or local. A tax to fix a road or a bridge is still a tax...

I don't think the government functions badly at all. Are there problems,sure. Are there things we could do better, you bet.

But in my dealings with the federal government (IRS, FBI, DOJ) I've found them to be pretty damned competent.

This entire country is NOT perfect. But there is nowhere else I'd rather be.

I don't mind paying taxes.

I think the problem is corruption exists at all levels of government. When one breaks it down to the state or local level you just have a different group of special interests involved. And the concept of people having more control about where their money goes would only work if you put every dime spent on the ballot because even in a town, city or state people aren't going to agree on where the money should be spent. You simply end up with the exact same problems, only spread out in a lot more locations.

We're 34 trillion in debt. I don't see how any can consider the government functioning well.

Government should break the budget into needs and wants. The needs will be the funds the government needs to operate. Everything else, set up a go fund me page and let people that like paying taxes fund those things. Maybe the government should start selling war bonds again.

City and state governments don't have access to the money printers the feds have. They have to manage money better. It's easier to see results at the local levels. If they raise taxes and the work doesn't get done, people will notice. If the feds do it, the money just goes into a black hole. Been almost 2.5 years since the infrastructure bill was passed, I'm still avoiding the same potholes. Where did that money go? I've noticed very little improvement.

The issue I see there is local and state governments simply do not have the funds to accomplish all the things that need to be done. In order to do that the feds would have to hand over a lot of federal dollars to state and local governments. Much of the infrastructure money is yet to be spent. It's rather hard to expect two things to happen at once. It is true that all the infrastructure money could have been distributed quickly and just hope it all worked out. But by doing that there's no way you could have plans that were well thought out or orchestrated. The only way to possibly get any bang for your buck, you can't simply just go out and spread the money around without even more waste and a lack of solid planning.

As for potholes local and state governments are responsible for local and state roads. Only the interstate system is federal.

It's hard to claim on one hand you want more efficiency and better results for your tax dollars and then say hurry up and spend it on the other hand.

I've had a very different experience with the federal government. Last time I tried to go to the IRS for tax advice, the guy they gave me an appointment with had the same answer for every question. "Let me look." 15 minutes later. "Ummmm. I don't know." He was a nice enough guy. We traded military stories. We both had been down in Biloxi. As I was getting ready to leave, he told me I should try to get a job there. Said he was making $30 an hour. $30 an hour to tell people "I don't know" sounds like a pretty sweet gig if you can get it. (actually kind of soul crushing.) Our tax dollars at work.

Honestly, I think usage taxes make more sense for a lot of "infrastructure" things. Corporations can afford to chip in more on things like roads and bridges. Plus their heavy vehicles are likely responsible for the largest proportion of non-weather related damage (so scale the tax with vehicle weight.) Additionally, if corporations were paying for it, you can bet they'd be looking for ways to drive down costs. Hopefully, by doing repairs more effectively. I also think in many cases it makes more sense to produce things locally (mainly food.)

An undue burden is placed on individuals with corporations reaping undue reward. Taxpayer pays for medical research. Pharmaceutical company turns around and charges the taxpayer ridiculous prices as soon as possible. Why should we subsidize millionaires' profits?

Unfortunately, government is in the pocket of the rich.

Occasionally they throw out bread and circuses to appease the masses.

So you are saying I'm right then LOL

Honestly, a state like Kentucky wouldn't survive if everything they needed done would be local and state taxes.. When you look at what Federal taxes are put in by Kentucky, they have a giant shortfall against what the Federal Government puts into that state. I think I read that California brings in more that it uses in the way of Federal taxes. I don't feel like looking it up, but I think that's what I read.

So you really do need to spread it out. It won't work otherwise.

Overtime we've seen where some states want to leave the union. Most of them wouldn't survive on their own. Some would do pretty good.

I don't suppose that the Trump tax breaks had anything to do with that. Or maybe a pandemic either for that matter.

In this millenium, we have avoided adding to the deficit one year. It was the very first measurement (The 2nd Bush's 1st year.) link Trying to twist that into a Trump-specific issue seems a pretty weak argument.

Trump definitely added to the problem. But, it's an ongoing problem that started before his time in office.

Maybe throwing millenia into it is a little cheap (even if factual), but 23 out of 24 years isn't a one president problem. It's a systemic one.

It's certainly not "one president". But the false claims that cutting your income, taxes, because you can't pay your bills is just not honest and has never worked. Things have never "trickled down".

I've never made those claims.

Most people have little control over their income. What they can control is their spending. (To a point) Unfortunately, the government has control of "their" income, (a big part of most people's spending) and they don't even try to control their spending.

The government is kind of like a person on food stamps driving an Escalade. And they can keep printing themselves more food stamps. Unfortunately, normal people can't.

I agree with you. I didn't mean to imply that you had agreed with, supported or claimed that trickle down economics works. However I do think those that supported huge tax cuts only added to the problem. And I think we agree that just printing more dollars only weakens and dilutes our currency.

Just my humble opinion--- I knew a long time ago which countries held most of our debit-- don't know now. Imagine a world where we are held accountable for our debit--- several countries use OUR money as theirs-- the world monetary system is based on dollar-- if it is worthless what next-- what country takes our place-- currently there isn't one-- China- Russia- England- Germany......none are CLOSE....and if the US falls---what happens to our NUKES.....the world CAN'T let us fall--- I don't know how it ends--- I'm glad I'm nearly 80----- McDonald fries were .15 now 2.00....in 2050 will they be 100.00....will Americans still be eating fries or will AI have taken over......I'll be dead.....what changes lie ahead for our children.....world keeps changing.

The truth of the matter is that we can't decrease revenue and we can't increase spending. That seems like the Economics 101 stance to overcoming a huge debt/deficit.

I think my biggest problem with Trump - and this actually goes to my fiscally conservative stance - is that he both decreased revenue and increased spending. Like you said, he's not alone in his spending dilemma, for sure. However, those who associate him and modern Republicans with fiscal conservativism are gravely mistaken. You can't spend money like that and call yourself fiscally conservative. It's a complete oxymoron. However, I think the Republicans have been veering from that path all the way back to Reagan. It just took me a while - and a lot of pride swallowing - to come to that realization.

It appears most politicians had somebody else taking that class for them.


Fortunately (or unfortunately,) I've pretty much always been in the what are all of these idiots (as far as fiscal responsibility) doing camp, and never really identified with either party. Of course, not experiencing the Republican party before Reagan probably made it easier to see.

I think AI will end all current economies. Everything from traditional jobs to the money we use will change. Do I think it will be soon? Depends on being able to prepare people for what is coming. I believe AGI has already been achieved at OpenAI, and they are sitting on it because the world, governments, economies, and people are completely unprepared for the pace of advancements and automation.

This is a tricky turning point because you can’t simply automate away all jobs (wage earner income sources) without a plan for people to live and adjust. Meanwhile corps and governments are in a race to be first to control AGI then ASI as a country or business. That race certainly isn’y slowing down, and the poo poo crowd is ignoring AI’s rapid pace to their own detriment. The age of AI and mass automation is here. They are already planning fully automated warehouses, factories, and delivery systems. All of that will be here in 2-5 years or at the most within the next decade.

Governments are looking at UBI which will create a welfare state like none before, unless it is tied directly to some kind of work equity program. Personally, I think this will look more like the era of the robber barons. People will have to be entrepreneurs to navigate tomorrow’s economies, running small AI powered businesses to compete or becoming parts of equity based projects where their talents earn a small slice of major works. Those small slices would be like stock, earning a steady reoccurring income, and those types of things will stack over time. When a project/product earns, you earn, when it fades that income stream fades. This is my best guess at what it will look like in the near future. But no idea how we get from A to B without major growing pains and the lazy cryinng about needing to learn new skills.

Letting any other country attain this tech before us would be suicide. That’s the way the big boys view it. Each country and to a degree companies will pursue it’s own interest’s while the rest of us figure out how to financially navigate a new world. I’ve been focusing on this looking for solutions to comoditize, as I’m sure are many others.

100K homes around here border on being dumps. Just saying. And I remember my parents buying a home for 17K, they sold it years ago but today it’s worth almost 350K. And the house my dad built for $140K is worth just a little more than $350K. It’s about 20 years old now.

I wasn't around before Reagan either. It just came from looking at the before-and-after facts and looking at the debt/deficit trend. Math doesn't lie unfortunately.

Where were we at the end of the Clinton years?

The graph on the Treasury Department website started in 2001. I couldn't figure out a way to successfully go back further there. A Clinton White House "puff piece" seems to indicate we produced a few surpluses during his Presidency. link Good on Clinton for fiscal responsibility. It also said the national debt had quadrupled from 1981 to 1992. I don't think pointing back at Clinton changes the facts about the current trend, though. But, yeah, look at that chart. The economy during the Trump Presidency definitely did Trump things. Racked up that debt.

We should probably ask what caused the Obama years Spike then decline?