DawgTalkers.net Forums Thread Like Summary - $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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

On the edge of a bubble.

Two bubbles... Dot bomb, and the unknown-at-the-time real estate bubble.