Does anybody doubt Trump and Musk are crashing SS on purpose?

And the tax collected on it goes to help pay for the solvency of the fund.

To paraphrase Senator Dirksen; a billion here and a billion there and soon you are talking real money.

Sabotage the government by firing its workforce

Cutting 5% of the workforce is not sabotage.  Cutting useless contracts is not sabotage.

We had a balanced budget until Republicans decided to cut taxes for billionaires and corporations

Where did you get that fantasy from?

defunded the IRS so they let 600 Billion in delinquent taxes go every year.

The IRS has had 3+ years of additional funding and spending and still hasn't solved the problem.

Raising taxes and cutting the military budget in half,

Marxist Mark would like this as it would allow his friends in communist countries to take us over.  Military spending is already being cut back.

taking the cap off the earnings cap on SS,

Probably will happen

 ending stock buybacks, for corporations that organize offshore to avoid taxes cut off their access to the Federal Court system.

I believe Trump is allowing these companies to send their profits back to the US with no tax penalty

Stock buybacks are done to increase EPS and stock price.

As usual the usual suspects here have no realistic cost cuts but just increase taxes. Somehow the usual suspects believe that not a single dollar of the trillions spent is wasted.  

Tom doesnt remember the last time we had a balanced budget.   He deletes things from his memory that dont prop up his bullshit rewriting of it.    I cant help with that.       I'm also not dumb enough to believe it.

Tom hates raising taxes...but he likes tarriffs.   I dont have the heart to tell him how those two words are synonumous.   Maybe someone else can.

Tom does make one accurate claim about my position.....I support government workers who dedicate their lives to public service at an income that is far less than they can get in the private sector.   I dont kick dirt in their face or make up lies about how their salaries are at the heart of government expenditures.....and I sure as hell am not a big enough liar to call their jobs waste.     

As we've already discovered many times on this board.   Tom is graph illiterate.    He thinks the biggest part of this pie is salaries for Food Inspectors at the FDA.

Jerry, Jerry, Jerry...it was never meant to be some kind of pension fund. It may have been originally designed that way, but as the population aged and people survived much longer than anticipated, it became apparent that in order for SS to remain solvent, payroll taxes would have to be jacked WAY up....or there would be massive deficits and borrowing to compensate.

Fortunately, the dollar has remained strong enough that our cost of borrowing has been manageable. MAGA continually yeeps about the deficit. What matters is the COST of the deficit. As long as we don't do something criminally stupid, like impose blanket tariffs on all imports, we'll be OK...because who would be so dumb...

You've been paying, not for your own federal nest egg, but for Ferd and Thelma up the street so they can continue to watch Netflix and attend their weekly bingo game. And Mike and Sally will be slaving away when you retire, to keep you well-stocked with Depends and Mucinex.

Tom doesnt remember the last time we had a balanced budget

The last time the budget was balanced was 2001; the Republicans had Congress and Bush was president.

There are numerous components to federal spending which apparently is aboove pj's head.  Missing from the chart is debt service.

Compensation (wages and benefits) for the 3.8 million federal defense and nondefense workers accounts for 8 percent of spending

So we are talking some real money here.

More real money

The U.S. Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan Congressional agency, first published in March a report that estimated federal agencies had made $2.7 trillion worth of improper payments since fiscal year 2003

Even more real money

The federal government gives away $682 billion dollars in contracts each year

A Government Accountability Office report in July 2023 cited in the report found that the feds pay about $7 billion annually to lease and maintain office space — even as 17 of the 24 federal agencies are using as little as 9% and only as much as 49% of their buildings’ capacities.

But the usual suspects here don't think any of it is wasted.

Why is reducing the deficit necessary?

Before stupid Tom responds with the standard MAGA knee-jerk reaction DEFICIT AM BAD, I'd like to remind him that the deficit is basically debt...and that every major corporation carries millions, often billions in debt. If we, or a corporation, want to pay that down, we must increase revenue...

Or, we could shoot ourselves in the foot by slashing corporate and wealthy individuals' income tax in half, as stupid fuck Trump did in 2018.

So...don't like the deficit, stupid Tom? Good! Then I'm sure you support returning corporate taxes to where they were during the Obama administration!

Great Tom!   We have bad payments to people.    Since when is DOGE going after any of it?

You and DOGE are leading the charge to fire all the people who identify and go after those bad payments.   Elon's fitst order of business was to fire the inspectors general.   Who do you think gave the GAO all the data you just listed?  The same people you are firing.   Along with the IRS auditors.....and the FBI people chasing Medicare fraud.

Nevermind Tom has to rewrite history about balanced budgets.....the big problem is he thinks fewer cops retrieve more delinquent payments and fraud.     

And thanks for acknowleding the 8 percent of spending made up by government worker income.   20% reduction in that amount comes to less than 2% of the Federal Budget.    And thats where all of DOGE's efforts have been to date.  Thats pathetic and its insignificant to our deficit.    

I just want to know how dumb shit yeeping Tom thinks that indiscriminately firing 20% of all government workers is going to help cut back "fraud, waste, and abuse"--especially if those fired include employees whose job it is to find and stop waste, fraud, and abuse.

We have a few idiot MAGAs here who leap to defend ANY stupid thing Trumphole and Elonshit do. Why? Why be a fawning Turd lackey? Why worship and drool over the worst leader--AND THE WORST PERSON--this country has ever had?

I also want to know why we have an unelected and unqualified person who isn't even an American running around and destroying hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and why stupid Tom's OK with that.

Stupid Tom bleated and bleated and bleated every time Biden spent Sunday at the beach but never bleats when the Turd spends every Friday at the golf course. Double standards, stupid Tom?

Another LAM lie.

Musk is a US citizen and Trump does not golf on Fridays.  Today he is signing exec orders and meeting the press and taking questions for over an hour and attending a dinner.

Another LAM lie

running around and destroying hundreds of thousands of American jobs,

Did Musk abide by his student Visa?

"Trump does not golf on Fridays"?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

He is NEVER at the White House on Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays. He spends his three-day weekends at Mar El Asshole unless there's some kind of special event elsewhere, like his Putin dick-sucking gala.

And stupid Tom...poor, poor stupid Tom...

Today is a Thursday.

And I repeat...Musk isn't an American. He may be a naturalized citizen, but that's not the same thing. The President has to be an American. Why should the number-two man (unofficially, but with immense power) be exampt from that requirement? Why should a South African billionaire have the power to run around destroying millions of American jobs?

Tom really really really hates the mere existence of FEELTHY IMMERGENTS living in the same city as him, so you might expect he'd be more sensitive to an unelected unAmerican running around destroying our government.