DOGE Tracker

[dbair1967]

Originally there were term limits but everything I've said and more built up demand to remove it and it took a constitutional amendment to get it done. So the reasoning must have been hella strong.

There's never been any term limits for congress.

The founding fathers never anticipated people would want to become career politicians/crooks

 

[Doomsday]

There's never been any term limits for congress.

I've been watching too much alternate universe stuff!

 

[yimyammer]

looks like Elon just went scorched earth:

 

[Dodger12]

looks like Elon just went scorched earth:

I didn't have a huge problem with the initial feud. Trump has to run the government and keep his promises and try to appease the scumbag Republicans with a thin margin in both the House and Senate. He supported Musk with South Africa. He pimped him at his rallies and election night. He gave him a daily seat in the Oval Office. But some of these Tweets crossed the line.

 

[yimyammer]

 

[Doomsday]

View attachment 18711

We funneh ain't we

 

[Creeper]

I guess you didn't read. Six years of worry free fraud and graft while the party has that six years to groom the replacement. How's that better other than just emotional satisfaction of seeing hated people have to step aside?

Meanwhile your guys and gals with no grift or fraud, doing a good job for their constituents, can't run again? Punished because grift and fraud exists or is perceived to exist elsewhere?

Just glad it's all but impossible to change.

I read your comment fine. I just do not agree with it. I believe if term limits passes it would result in a purge of establishment politicians who keep the system of corruption going. I also think it removes the idea that a given house or senate seat belongs to one particular politician. I am not so naïve to think that term limits eliminates corruption, but I do think forcing a change of the guard regularly makes the long festering corruption harder to maintain.

As I said, I used to believe that people voting was how term limits should be enacted. But there are too many examples of corruption politicians winning re-election despite their known corruption. I also believe that seats in congress should not be a career for someone like Bernie Sanders who never had a real job.

 

[Creeper]

Originally there were term limits but everything I've said and more built up demand to remove it and it took a constitutional amendment to get it done. So the reasoning must have been hella strong.

And yet, the 16th amendment was passed burdening the people with an income tax. Term limits would pass except for the people in congress who would be forced to give up their lucrative careers in Washington.

 

[Creeper]

There's never been any term limits for congress.

The founding fathers never anticipated people would want to become career politicians/crooks

This was one of the greatest oversights of an otherwise brilliant group of men who foresaw so many other perils of the future. I suspect they were men of honor in a time when honor meant something. They simply could not comprehend so many greedy scoundrels running the country.

 

[Creeper]

I didn't have a huge problem with the initial feud. Trump has to run the government and keep his promises and try to appease the scumbag Republicans with a thin margin in both the House and Senate. He supported Musk with South Africa. He pimped him at his rallies and election night. He gave him a daily seat in the Oval Office. But some of these Tweets crossed the line.

I didn't have a problem either, but both men escalated the conflict when both should have let it die or at least not make it personal.

I agree with Elon, but I understand Trump. I saw a comment from Elon claiming he recently realized the interest on the debt is greater than the entire military budget. I was a little surprised because this has been the case for several years. And it was very predictable. When interest rates were hovering around 0% we were paying about $250 billion per year in interest and about $700 billion for defense. Anyone paying attention knew that once the fed let up on rates, the interest was going to skyrocket. Under Biden were we paying almost $1.2 trillion in interest on the debt while the military budge has not increased appreciably. Where has Elon been?

So he is right, we have to cut spending. We cannot tax our way out of this. The problem is, no one is going to vote to cut spending on programs that are already in place. Once you start giving people free stuff it is impossible to take it back, politically. Democrats are already bitching about the Medicare reductions which are basically just kicking illegals and other ineligible people off the program.

 

[Dodger12]

I read your comment fine. I just do not agree with it. I believe if term limits passes it would result in a purge of establishment politicians who keep the system of corruption going. I also think it removes the idea that a given house or senate seat belongs to one particular politician. I am not so naïve to think that term limits eliminates corruption, but I do think forcing a change of the guard regularly makes the long festering corruption harder to maintain.

As I said, I used to believe that people voting was how term limits should be enacted. But there are too many examples of corruption politicians winning re-election despite their known corruption. I also believe that seats in congress should not be a career for someone like Bernie Sanders who never had a real job.

I don't disagree, especially with the bolded parts. But term limits would not protect us from the Liz Chaney types who backstab their base. The Dems will not fold or break. I'd rather have hard core MAGA Republicans than phonies who don't have to worry about reelection.

 

[Dodger12]

I didn't have a problem either, but both men escalated the conflict when both should have let it die or at least not make it personal.

I agree with Elon, but I understand Trump. I saw a comment from Elon claiming he recently realized the interest on the debt is greater than the entire military budget. I was a little surprised because this has been the case for several years. And it was very predictable. When interest rates were hovering around 0% we were paying about $250 billion per year in interest and about $700 billion for defense. Anyone paying attention knew that once the fed let up on rates, the interest was going to skyrocket. Under Biden were we paying almost $1.2 trillion in interest on the debt while the military budge has not increased appreciably. Where has Elon been?

So he is right, we have to cut spending. We cannot tax our way out of this. The problem is, no one is going to vote to cut spending on programs that are already in place. Once you start giving people free stuff it is impossible to take it back, politically. Democrats are already bitching about the Medicare reductions which are basically just kicking illegals and other ineligible people off the program.

But they are cutting spending to and adding work requirements to the free giveaway programs.

And I don't agree with Elon one bit. You don't publicly accuse the President of being a pedophile. You just don't insult the man when he's pimped you HARD. Musk came on the Trump scene in July, 2024 after the assassination attempt. He voted for Biden in 2020. He's a two faced dog.

 

[Dodger12]

Trumps plan, if I read it correctly (and I may be wrong), is to grow the economy to offset spending and the debt. He's also attacking the deficit with tariffs. we're at the point where we can't cut our way out of this problem. Trump is trying to bring industry and investment back to the US and I agree with the strategy.

 

[Doomsday]

This was one of the greatest oversights of an otherwise brilliant group of men who foresaw so many other perils of the future. I suspect they were men of honor in a time when honor meant something. They simply could not comprehend so many greedy scoundrels running the country.

They did comprehend it. They'd just recently overseen separation from one exact such tyrant government dominated by greedy scoundrels. A government that had term limits for its parliament. They write about this in the Federalist Papers.

I don't want the federal government telling you that you can't nominate your sitting senator or house member just on the fact of possible (proven? unproven? assumed?) corruption elsewhere - which again I believe will still be there anyway.

The rest of your argument and opinion is certainly acceptable to me. Term limits for Congress is a populist notion that really picked up steam in the 90s and continues to get batted around a little bit every session. It hasn't quite gone the way of the dodo like fiscal responsibility has, to cite one example.

 

[Doomsday]

Trumps plan, if I read it correctly (and I may be wrong), is to grow the economy to offset spending and the debt

Just like he saw happen in the 90s. Remember "Clinton's surplus?" Accomplished by Newt's leadership in congress pairing some near drastic cutting with exactly what Reagan championed - economic growth causing soaring revenue.

And hey - revenue ain't our problem. It soars. So he's got half if what he wants already. He knows what he's doing on economic policy.

 

[dbair1967]

Trumps plan, if I read it correctly (and I may be wrong), is to grow the economy to offset spending and the debt. He's also attacking the deficit with tariffs. we're at the point where we can't cut our way out of this problem. Trump is trying to bring industry and investment back to the US and I agree with the strategy.

And he is killing it in this regard. This is stuff that will pay off for decades to come too.

 

[Creeper]

I don't disagree, especially with the bolded parts. But term limits would not protect us from the Liz Chaney types who backstab their base. The Dems will not fold or break. I'd rather have hard core MAGA Republicans than phonies who don't have to worry about reelection.

Oh, I agree with this. In fact, term limits could create a more open and vocal environment, both good and bad. Lame duck politicians might be more willing to be outspoken knowing they cannot run again. The question is, would this be a good thing, or a bad thing. Probably a little bit of both.

 

[Creeper]

Trumps plan, if I read it correctly (and I may be wrong), is to grow the economy to offset spending and the debt. He's also attacking the deficit with tariffs. we're at the point where we can't cut our way out of this problem. Trump is trying to bring industry and investment back to the US and I agree with the strategy.

I also agree that economic growth and more domestic productivity will help reduce the deficit, but I do not think it will be enough to solve the deficit problem. I think we have let things get too far and it will take a long term solution which Trump cannot solve in 4 years. The belief that the debt can be controlled without a little economic pain IMO is folly. We need to cut spending and it doesn't have to be that traumatic.

For example, we have 72 million people currently on Medicaid. It is hard for me to believe that 25% of this country is too poor to afford medical insurance, or too disabled to go to work and pay for it. Getting illegals off Medicaid is a start but it is a mole hill rather than a mountain.

I would bet If we looked a every government handout we would find similar problems. The problem is, once you start handing out free stuff to people, they will fight you if you try to cut them off. But we subsidize housing, medical insurance, food, student loans, and lots of other stuff and we expended all of it over time because it sounded good during a campaign.

 

[yimyammer]

They are both blowhards and their acts are tired to me.

Rand Paul has been foaming at the mouth for years now over Fauci and hasnt done one fucking thing about it other than go on various news shows and piss and moan about him. He has done nothing to bring the guy to justice.

I don’t agree at all, they’re both against raising the debt ceiling and despise how high our debt has become, everyone should agree with this and be vigilantly working to drastically lower this debt, better yet, get rid of it altogether. Rand is making great points about the BBBill and I’m glad he’s pushing back on it to get it revised and spending cut where it can easily be done. He also wants the raising of the debt ceiling removed from this bill so that it can be voted on as a separate issue (and hopefully defeated)

I find Rand and Massie reasonable and cut from the same cloth I am

Here’s a good interview with Rand discussing the BBBill and Iran. He makes some interesting points about Iran but seems to imply sanctions, etc are going to keep them from getting nukes, I think all the deals done with Iran regarding nukes just kick the can down the road while they continue to work to obtain them. I’m not sure what the solution is because it kind of feels like we’re damned if we do something and damned if we don’t, so hopefully whatever Israel’s doing will work and a miracle happen where Iran falls (relatively) peacefully from within, and the country can return to a place where it was back in the 70s where it’s not an enemy and more moderate. The people seem great, all the Iranians I’ve ever met are awesome, fun and talented.

 

[Dodger12]

I don’t agree at all, they’re both against raising the debt ceiling and despise how high our debt has become, everyone should agree with this and be vigilantly working to drastically lower this debt, better yet, get rid of it altogether. Rand is making great points about the BBBill and I’m glad he’s pushing back on it to get it revised and spending cut where it can easily be done. He also wants the raising of the debt ceiling removed from this bill so that it can be voted on as a separate issue (and hopefully defeated)

I find Rand and Massie reasonable and cut from the same cloth I am

Here’s a good interview with Rand discussing the BBBill and Iran. He makes some interesting points about Iran but seems to imply sanctions, etc are going to keep them from getting nukes, I think all the deals done with Iran regarding nukes just kick the can down the road while they continue to work to obtain them. I’m not sure what the solution is because it kind of feels like we’re damned if we do something and damned if we don’t, so hopefully whatever Israel’s doing will work and a miracle happen where Iran falls (relatively) peacefully from within, and the country can return to a place where it was back in the 70s where it’s not an enemy and more moderate. The people seem great, all the Iranians I’ve ever met are awesome, fun and talented.

Massie is a punk. Tell me this...if he's so concerned with the debt and not grandstanding, then tell me why he voted to increase the debt ceiling under the previous administration that spent recklessly on the Green New Deal and other giveaways? Where were his principles then?

I have no doubt that there can be more cuts in this bill. But there's also a plan to address the debt ceiling with the increase in tariffs and GDP. If Trump thinks he needs to increase the debt ceiling, then I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt because I believe he knows the issues facing the country and has a long term plan to address it.

Trump at least has a history with the economy. His first term was derailed by COVID which I suspect was deliberate to alter the election. All of us here were probably better off during the first Trump term....at least I was, by far. He has to fix the mess that the fraud in the White House and the deep state with the auto pen left the county in.