That didn't take long--Elon jumps ship

Nines, if only there was a way to reduce the government workforce legally. If the government plans on using illegal conduct as a template, why should anybody else follow the law? 

Bill Clinton did it legally and Trump did it illegally. That is the key distinction. 

Looking at your template, why put a guy in charge that has a serious drug problem that was well known inside the Trump administration?

These cuts were done in a very haphazard fashion. Nobody, looked at who was a critical employee and who was not. That's how they ended up offering buyout offers to air traffic controllers and their support staff. Look at the resulting devastation to commercial air travel. How many hundreds of billions is that going to cost to fix? 

How many hundreds of billions is it going to cost to restart these closed agencies that weren't shutdown legally?

And yes because there isn't going to be any real savings, (they only netted 25 billion) how on earth does it make sense to spend 4 to 5 trillion on a tax cut that benefits billionaires and millionaires as we enter a recession? 

What is that going to leave to pull us out of the recession? 

I guess you are unconcerned that Trump's economic policy resulted in a downgrade to our national credit rating which again will result in more costs. 

The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump asked his advisors if the DOGE cuts were all bullshit after seeing the results. Isn't that a question he should have asked before he handed the keys to a guy that took so much ketamine that he fucked up his bladder? 

But yeah use the "all bullshit"

method as your template. 

Stupid Tom...by your logic, we should fire EVERY government employee... right? 

Short staffing and the curtailing of services COSTS money, in both the public and the private sectors. Idiots like Tom don't realize that making people wait for services COSTS money. It's not as simplistic as arbitrarily reducing payroll, but when someone has to wait in line for four hours instead of twenty minutes, that's a direct monetary cost.

Stupid, ignorant Tom.

Yeah, the credit rating has been downgraded..I know that. The drug stories are bothersome..I don't know all the facts. A  key point here is I've always agreed that Congress MUST be involved in these processes; it's my hope that the courts will sort out some justifiable outcomes and that forced chaos lessens a bit.

Bullshit templates are commonplace in DC, btw. From either / both sides of the aisle. The bastards take turns.

I think its been a fantastic exercise in arithmetic and how much Republicans suck at it.

2 Trillion was the big target number estimated in savings.    That was all tied up in the salaries of Hurricane forecasters, park administrators, food inspectors, IRS agents, TSA workers, etc.    

And now we see that firing all those "non-essential" cancer researchers yielded not even 5% of that.    According to Google Gemini the actual count of documented itemized savings is 65 billion....of which only 32.5 billion has actual evidence.

But even if you believe Tom's bullshit number of 200 billion dollars in DOGE savings - thats all completely neutered by a single line item in the Trump "Big Beautiful Bill".      Nevermind the rest of the bill - just the estate tax cut for billionaire trust fund brats is estimated at 200 billion.    That kills even the most generous estimate of DOGE savings.       

So when we have another hurricane and FEMA shows up with a limp dick.....you can rest easy and say we cut government spending to offset Eric Trump's inheritance burden. 

What you don't understand is that the DOGE slashing was haphazard and arbitrary...while previous such efforts were done with more care and justification. Elon's shit was more along the lines of, "Everybody who was born on a Tuesday, you're fired." And aside from the thoughtlessness...there's the illegality of what he did. And...hiring a teenager who calls himself "Big Balls" to run the whole show. I mean....Jesus!

So I reject your MAGA false equivalence argument...just like I reject "Well, yeah, Trump raped twelve women and tried to blackmail Ukraine with $350 million of taxpayer money...but Hunter had a magical laptop."

Elon fucked over all of us in general and a lot of us in particular. I'm sure we didn't hear a hundredth of the blowback he received. Now he's running home to South Africa to build his Mars Barge or whatever he's calling it. Good fucking riddance. Asshole.

So you folks on the other side..what's a reasonable overall solution for the debt situation? Or is it not  a concern? Not a single solitary Democrat voted for reupping the tax cuts or various elements of spending cuts in this recent bill. So I'll assume you and your fellow D congresspersons don't think the debt is an issue at all. You ask questions about consequences? What happens when debt continues to escalate, interest rates rise in response to curtail it, debt spirals, dollar devaluation, worsening credit worthiness..all partially expected outcomes from massive debt?

For those who believe the debt is a problem, how do we fix it? Evidently you and your reps have no,zero, zilch interest in spending reductions/ waste cuts ( excepting cuts in defense spending which most of you are likely in favor of). You can't get there soon enough without these cuts, imo . Hike taxes on everybody to generate more revenue? How high should the tax rate/s be for different income groups to address the debt?  Implement new taxes? Simplifying the tax code? Cut / wipe out all the conservative approaches to everything / anything? Do we further EXPAND the government reach to address the debt? How in the hell?

You despise the conservative approaches to reduce the debt so..what would you do specifically?.

Fifty + percent tax rates don't interest the great grand majority of the US population, btw.

Trump impeachment again? Forgot that one..always an alternative for y'all..

Yeah, well. I reject just about everything you say, too. The true bubble level says we're even and at a standstill.. You seldom  have a reasonable approach to anything..you're all about the far left. Which is your choice...you always seem to be festering..like a blister nearing the pop stage. That's your choice too...have at it.

Here's what I would do to deal with the DEBT DEBT DEBT DEBT DEBT HORRIBUL HORRIBUL DEBT DEBT DEBT DEBT DEBT EEEEEEEK!

First, I would restore the corporate tax rate to what it was pre-Turd. Poof! There went $2 trillion of the debt debt debt over the next decade.

Second, I would honestly evaluate the debt in the only reasonable way--not as an absolute number (EEK EEK EEK EEK EEK!!!), but rather, in terms of the cost of carrying it. Now,, the true cost of debt is (interest rate - inflation rate). It follows that carrying debt is a sound policy when inflation is high, borrowing costs (interest); are low, or both. Right now, inflation is moderate but the interest on government debt is low--because there is still strong worldwide demand for it.

Thus, I would recommend government policies that keep the dollar strong. Obviously, trade helps with that, and tariffs crush it. So, no Trumpiffs. I would endeavor to lower trade barriers.

Third, I would do my utmost to make this issue nonpartisan. That would include exposing the hypocrisy of the Republicans constantly yeeping HORRIBUL HORRIBUL LIBURRUL SPENDIN' while handing out tax cuts that do far more to bloat the deficit. It would also include reducing spending on programs that only benefit a tiny portion of the citizenry (I believe in utilitarianism).

Fourth, I would honestly evaluate what we get from this borrowed money. Does it keep us healthier? Safer? Make us live longer? Make us happier? ALL OF THOSE ARE LEGITIMATE REASONS TO BE CARRYING THE COST OF DEBT.

The alternative is to just look at the number and complain about it.

Sounds like you don't have a legitimate answer. The David Miller escape hatch--pitch insults.

I keep making the mistake of talking to MAGA as if they were intelligent. That's like asking a jockey to dunk a basketball.

Better way to balance the budget?

-Lowest hanging fruit is to go after the 600 billion on unfiled tax returns.   That requires hiring more IRS agents instead firing them

-Carried interest tax.   Trump was for that at one point.    Not sure what happend.

-Get rid of Pharmacy benefit mngrs.   Trump was for that at one point.  Not sure what happened.

-Continue to lower drug prices in Medicare

-Adopt a healthcare system similar to the one used by the rest of the industiralized world which costs half as much as ours.  You would cut Medicare and Medicaid spending in half right there.  It also makes it alot harder to commit fraud.

-Have universal tax brackets for all kinds of income so people who collect dividends pay the same rate as people who collect pay checks.

-Carve out provisions on military spending which allows the Pentagon to reject Congressional Bills that spend money on things the Pentagon doesnt want.

Just off the top of my head/