U.S. Debt Hits $40 Trillion

Bottom line.......back in 2015, Trump was seen as a candidate who might could disrupt the slow demise of the country. The non-political guy. Well, it didn't work, without getting into personal stuff. His first tenure was chaos. Biden came in, things stabilized into the slow decline again. Trump 2 - even more chaos.

So, it was a gamble, and we lost. Time to embrace the slow decline. The system is what it is, and cannot be fixed. It can be slowed by electing conservatives, as long as they know how to play the game. Trump is actually learning, and now falling in line a little bit. But the damage is done, and we know the blue wave is coming. And that doesn't even matter, but I'd rather pretend we still have some sense rather than discussing the idiotic shlt the far left does.

Villagedawg said:

Social Security is funded entirely through FICA tax. To speak of it as if it's part of the budget Congress passes each year misrepresents it. SS operates for the most part on the 1983 Social Security Act amendment which was the last time major changes were made to it. They pretty much changed it to have baby boomer pre financing their retirement. They didn't quite collect enough, and that gets us to the current projected shortfall.

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It counts as government debt. And the trust fund exists on paper. When it started we had around 15 people contributing to every retiree and, at the time, people didn't live as long. Now it's like 3:1. It can be reformed by increasing FICA taxes but few seem willing to do that and Republicans, at least publicly, are opposed to tax increases. Or we can reduce benefits. Good luck with that. The elderly are a powerful voting bloc.

Darryl Steight said:

That's true, but you kinda have to factor in that some of this stat is solely due to an era in time, or "progress" as some would call it. It's like saying Kevin Durant is a much better basketball player than Wilt Chamberlain because he scored more points. Some of that is just due to the eras they played in.

Do you honestly think the next President will magically stop this snowball from running down the hill and solve our debt issues? It's getting harder and harder as it picks up steam.

I'm not excusing any of it, but blaming 25% of all US historical debt on Trump is a little disingenuous too.

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I think the next president will have to reduce the debt. It will be too much of a burden. The point about Trump is largely true because he's not concerned about government debt even though he stated that he'd reduce it dramatically and that DOGE would save trillions ( not true). Biden certainly increased the national debt but not as much. A little debt and a small deficit are no big deal. We're not there and we don't have anyone doing much about it. The guy in office deserves some blame along with a Congress that doesn't seem to question him and treats him likes he's some sort of American savior. As someone mentioned earlier, this is civil and I'm not interested in making anti-Trump posts for the sake of making anti-Trump posts. It's just that people need to realize that his biggest flaws aren't making writing mean tweets. And yes Dems do love spending on welfare programs, something they can't seem to get enough of. They aren't like Clinton was.

Villagedawg said:

It's every president and Congress since 2001. ALL OF THEM.

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If they're all equally bad then why choose a candidate?

OG Goat Holder said:

Bottom line.......back in 2015, Trump was seen as a candidate who might could disrupt the slow demise of the country. The non-political guy. Well, it didn't work, without getting into personal stuff. His first tenure was chaos. Biden came in, things stabilized into the slow decline again. Trump 2 - even more chaos.

So, it was a gamble, and we lost. Time to embrace the slow decline. The system is what it is, and cannot be fixed. It can be slowed by electing conservatives, as long as they know how to play the game. Trump is actually learning, and now falling in line a little bit. But the damage is done, and we know the blue wave is coming. And that doesn't even matter, but I'd rather pretend we still have some sense rather than discussing the idiotic shlt the far left does.

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Trump is learning ? give (Croom) Trump time*

when you add up the hundreds of billions in senseless war costs, you need to include the enormous economic destruction…it’s going to be in the trillions. This is not in our national interest. Add to that the destruction of the GOP. he’s a disaster.

Villagedawg said:

That's the projected 75 year shortfall that the 1983 amendment did not collect enough to cover.

Nope. Self-financed by law. The trust fund is what SS has in funds mostly treasury bills. Money from the general fund services debt that social security has financed. It's actually to opposite of what you are implying. SS is funding the general fund. Not the other way around.

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You're just incorrect. The general fund has been topping up social security benefits for several years now.

And social security holding treasury bills is about as meaningful as writing IOUs to yourself and saying your retirement is funded. It is hugely important politically. If the "trust fund" wasn't there, congress would have to appropriate money to top up social security benefits. Social security doesn't have normal tbills in a trust fund. They are not marketable securities and cannot be sold and all they do is allow social security to draw on the general fund without additional appropriations. Again, at the end of the day, it's an accounting mechanism. Congress could zero out social security benefits tomorrow and that "trust fund" would just sit there and it would have zero impact on the world at all because there are no assets there to distribute or use.

Villagedawg said:

It's a different issue in that it isn't part of the $40 T debt other than part of that $40 T was borrowed from Social Security. Eliminating the cap without giving those payers the benefit credit would cover about 70% of the shortfall.

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Villagedawg said:

Eliminating the cap and giving those payers credit covers about 50%. Raising the FICA tax 1% covers roughly the other 50%. All of those things are more popular than cutting benefits to cover the shortfall.

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Ah yes, screw those other tax payers. Always somebody else to pay. That's why we're in this problem. But yes, if we increase marginal tax rates by ~26% to ~17%, certainly that won't be a problem. Or if you really mean eliminating the cap on the employer side also, then increasing marginal taxes by ~52% to ~34%.

Podgy said:

If they're all equally bad then why choose a candidate?

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The difference between bad and worse is more salient than the difference between good and better.

I can't wait for the next presidential debate season:

Republicans: our way out of this is to lower taxes (knowing they don't know how to reduce expenses to pay for it).

Democrats: our way out of this is more spending on social programs (knowing they don't know how to increase taxes to pay for it)

We're going to continue this nonsense until it breaks. At which point we are going to have to hope that we bring everyone else down with us and figure out a way to come out on top in a global reorg. Would be nice if we hadn't spent the last several decades dismantling the industrial base and ignoring our infrastructure. Instead we are going to have to rely on the one thing we did heavily invest in: our military assets.

DesotoCountyDawg said:

The line graph earlier showing the steady rise since Clinton is more of a representation of what’s happening than pinpointing one president. Biden’s looks pretty similar to Trumps given the same parameters.
View attachment 1400717

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Agreed. The question is when do we vote someone in who will actually work on flattening the curve? Even if someone for 8 years made every perfect move, the deficit will continue to grow because it’s going to be like turning an ocean liner, but dear god this is ridiculous

85Bears said:

Trump is learning ? give (Croom) Trump time*

when you add up the hundreds of billions in senseless war costs, you need to include the enormous economic destruction…it’s going to be in the trillions. This is not in our national interest. Add to that the destruction of the GOP. he’s a disaster.

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It's definitely too late. But honestly, this Iran War and all that is 'learning', i.e. falling in line with the agenda.

HailStout said:

Agreed. The question is when do we vote someone in who will actually work on flattening the curve? Even if someone for 8 years made every perfect move, the deficit will continue to grow because it’s going to be like turning an ocean liner, but dear god this is ridiculous

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Never. The spending spigot is wide open and the handle broke off.

johnson86-1 said:

The difference between bad and worse is more salient than the difference between good and better.

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Sure but who determines what's worse or better? It doesn't seem like our hyper-partisan population knows.

HailStout said:

The republicans currently own every branch of gove

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And got there on a "inflation and high gas is bad" "Epstein accountability", and "no more war" messaging. I say they know the empty promise game very well. To their credit - they are following through on a lot of their immigration promises.

And before I get guff from republicans, no, I don't think democrats will be any better when we hand power back to them. They'll over promise and not deliver as well.

ckDOG said:

And got there on a "inflation and high gas is bad" "Epstein accountability", and "no more war" messaging. I say they know the empty promise game very well. To their credit - they are following through on a lot of their immigration promises.

And before I get guff from republicans, no, I don't think democrats will be any better when we hand power back to them. They'll over promise and not deliver as well.

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Both parties have identity crisis’ and don’t know how to handle it.

Podgy said:

If they're all equally bad then why choose a candidate?

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I didn't say they were equally bad. I was saying every one of them contributed "bigly" to this $40 T debt. Every one. In 2000 Bush campaigned specifically on taking that surplus and "giving it back" in tax cuts which they promptly enacted in 2001 then again in 2003, 2012, 2017, and last year. That's about 37%. Then huge increases in spending. Medicare, Afghanistan, Iraq, Chips, Infrastructure Bill. About 33%. Then response to recession is about 28% of it. Plus interest that keeps piling up. We will spend more in interest this year than we do on defense. Just about all of this was done with bipartisan support.

What people fail to mention about the Clinton presidency is that it was the last one where the two parties worked together. For the last 6 years of his presidency both houses of congress were Republican. Both sides worked together and ***shocker*** things went well. Since then both sides have just thrown feces at each other and *****shocker**** things haven’t gone well.

johnson86-1 said:

You're just incorrect. The general fund has been topping up social security benefits for several years now.

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A quick google search can correct your misconception here. It's just wrong. It is, by law, self-funded. They buy treasury bills because it's a safe investment (at least for now). Same reason every financial institution, investor, and even China does. Buying treasury bills is literally financing the debt FOR the general fund. Not them financing you.

johnson86-1 said:

And social security holding treasury bills is about as meaningful as writing IOUs to yourself and saying your retirement is funded. It is hugely important politically. If the "trust fund" wasn't there, congress would have to appropriate money to top up social security benefits. Social security doesn't have normal tbills in a trust fund. They are not marketable securities and cannot be sold and all they do is allow social security to draw on the general fund without additional appropriations. Again, at the end of the day, it's an accounting mechanism. Congress could zero out social security benefits tomorrow and that "trust fund" would just sit there and it would have zero impact on the world at all because there are no assets there to distribute or use.

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They could cut all benefits tomorrow, and they would still be paying SS every year because they owe them what they borrowed. Paying back what you have borrowed with interest is not "topping off" the trust fund every year.

johnson86-1 said:

Ah yes, screw those other tax payers. Always somebody else to pay. That's why we're in this problem. But yes, if we increase marginal tax rates by ~26% to ~17%, certainly that won't be a problem. Or if you really mean eliminating the cap on the employer side also, then increasing marginal taxes by ~52% to ~34%.

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You might want to read what I said more closely. Eliminate the cap and benefit, or eliminate the cap and keep the benefit. Not sure what you mean by eliminating the cap on the employer side, because employers only pay as long as employees pay. Plus increase the tax by 1% pretty much covers the shortfall. Or you could, of course, eliminate the benefits all together. That would fix it too, but I doubt many people want that.

OG Goat Holder said:

Biden came in, things stabilized

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Say what now


I assume you're talking about only "the slowdown of the demise of the economy" as stabilizing? Because as far as I can recall, the rest of everything was going quickly to hell in a handbasket. I guess we traded economic instability for everything else instability. We can debate which is worse, I guess.

Podgy said:

Sure but who determines what's worse or better? It doesn't seem like our hyper-partisan population knows.

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Having a fiscal crisis later rather than sooner is better. As bad as Trump is, he's basically Biden on spending but doesn't pair it with other disastrous policies for the most part. If the next republican candidate is Rubio or Vance, they will both be better than Trump on spending. Politics probably won't allow the next president to actually be responsible. But they are both smart enough and young enough to recognize that slowing the train barreling towards a cliff is in their best interest as well as the best interest of the country.

HailStout said:

What people fail to mention about the Clinton presidency is that it was the last one where the two parties worked together. For the last 6 years of his presidency both houses of congress were Republican. Both sides worked together and ***shocker*** things went well. Since then both sides have just thrown feces at each other and *****shocker**** things haven’t gone well.

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They worked together because Clinton had to triangulate to save his presidency. He didn't decide to be more fiscally responsible. He decided it was smart politics to be more fiscally responsible. There unfortunately is not that pressure any more.

dorndawg said:

We have different memories of how the Clinton administration and the gop-led congress worked together.

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They definitely worked together on "welfare reform" and reducing the deficit to $0. But they also impeached him for lying about a BJ.

johnson86-1 said:

Having a fiscal crisis later rather than sooner is better. As bad as Trump is, he's basically Biden on spending but doesn't pair it with other disastrous policies for the most part. If the next republican candidate is Rubio or Vance, they will both be better than Trump on spending. Politics probably won't allow the next president to actually be responsible. But they are both smart enough and young enough to recognize that slowing the train barreling towards a cliff is in their best interest as well as the best interest of the country.

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He doesn’t pair it with disastrous policies ? His insane foreign policy is worse than anything the feeble puppet Biden even thought about doing.

johnson86-1 said:

They worked together because Clinton had to triangulate to save his presidency. He didn't decide to be more fiscally responsible. He decided it was smart politics to be more fiscally responsible. There unfortunately is not that pressure any more.

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100%. And credit to him for doing so. He got his *** handed to him in the midterms and listened to the message the American voters had given him. Thats how it should work, but, as you stated, it just doesn’t anymore

Villagedawg said:

They definitely worked together on "welfare reform" and reducing the deficit to $0. But they also impeached him for lying about a BJ.

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I didn’t say they were best friends.

Darryl Steight said:

Say what now


I assume you're talking about only "the slowdown of the demise of the economy" as stabilizing? Because as far as I can recall, the rest of everything was going quickly to hell in a handbasket. I guess we traded economic instability for everything else instability. We can debate which is worse, I guess.

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Yes, he got us back to the slow demise that Clinton, Bush 2 and Obama had us on. 25 years minimum, and you can probably go back further.

Trump was supposed to be a disruption to that. And you can say maybe he succeeded in some ways, until COVID. Trump came in, disrupted again, but appears to have now shifted back to the demise and maybe even made it accelerate a little bit.

I think my debt is approaching the same

Villagedawg said:

A quick google search can correct your misconception here. It's just wrong. It is, by law, self-funded.

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If you are not trolling, you need a new googler. Current receipts cover about 90% of benefits. That's going to go down in the near future. Projected to be something like 78% when SSA can no longer draw on the general fund without new appropriations. It is self-funded in the sense that there is a dedicated revenue source. But it is not self funded in the sense that that dedicated revenue source covers promised benefits.

Villagedawg said:

They buy treasury bills because it's a safe investment (at least for now). Same reason every financial institution, investor, and even China does.

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You would see interest rates be quite a bit different if you tried to sell financial institutions, investors, and China non-negotiable, non-marketable Tbills. There probably was a time that those peolple would have purchased non-negotiable, non-marketable Tbills. They still would at some interest rate and for some duration. But you are fundamentally misunderstanding what his happening. You are confusing what is essentially intragovernmental accounting with the buying and selling of assets.

Social Security taxes used to provide more revenue than needed for benefits. They could have structured the law where the government actually invested those surpluses in assets that could be drawn down when needed and thereby reduce the monies needed from the general fund to pay benefits.

They could have said, 17 it, this is all a scam anyway, so we're just going to spend the surplus and we'll deal with shortfalls when they get here, either by passing new legislation dedicating more general fund money to social security benefits or by letting benefits be reduced.

They could have said 17 it, this is all a scam, but let's at least track the surpluses in a spreadsheet and allow social security benefits to be funded automatically when their is a shortfall, up to the amount of reduced borrowing the surpluses accounted for.

They could have said 17 it, this is all a scam, but let's at least track the surpluses in a spreadsheet and allow social security benefits to be funded automatically when their is a shortfall, up to the amount of reduced borrowing the surpluses accounted for, but let's call the numbers on the spreadsheet "nonmarketable, non-negotiable TBills" to confuse some people into thinking there are actually assets there as opposed to us just doing some intragovernmental accounting. Guess which one they chose?

Villagedawg said:

Buying treasury bills is literally financing the debt FOR the general fund. Not them financing you.

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Yes, when a third party does it. When you are buying debt from yourself, you're just doing accounting. I mean, I certainly feel better about myself when I say that my retirement fund has millions of dollars worth of promissory notes issued by my cocaine and hooker fund, but at the end of the day, all those promissory notes are not really going to help me, just like the "TBills" held by the social security administration doesn't help the government fund social security benefits.

Villagedawg said:

They could cut all benefits tomorrow, and they would still be paying SS every year because they owe them what they borrowed. Paying back what you have borrowed with interest is not "topping off" the trust fund every year.

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Sorry. My cocaine and hooker fund is going to have to pay back what it owes to my retirement fund, not top it off. That's certainly better and using that terminology is going to meaningfully improve my retirement.

Villagedawg said:

You might want to read what I said more closely. Eliminate the cap and benefit, or eliminate the cap and keep the benefit. Not sure what you mean by eliminating the cap on the employer side, because employers only pay as long as employees pay.

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If you eliminate the cap on both sides, you are effectively raising the marginal tax rate by 12.4 percentage points for people making $186k per year. A lot of people say they are going to eliminate the cap and then talk as if they are raising taxes by 6.2 percentage points (or a ~24% increase in marginal tax rates for the lower range of earners exceeding the cap) while talking about the funds raised that reflect the full 12.4% percentage point increase. Just wasn't sure if you were doing that.

Villagedawg said:

Plus increase the tax by 1% pretty much covers the shortfall. Or you could, of course, eliminate the benefits all together. That would fix it too, but I doubt many people want that.

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85Bears said:

He doesn’t pair it with disastrous policies ? His insane foreign policy is worse than anything the feeble puppet Biden even thought about doing.

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His tariff stuff is terrible. The Iran war is actually what he deserves the most credit for out of anything I think he's done. It would have been much better for him politically to allow that to fester and run the risk that a future, feckless administration does what Obama/Biden tried to do and allow a path to them being a regional hegemon and nuclear power. Instead, he took the political hit to try to address it now.

I don't get why anyone cares about national debt at this point. We'll be dead, social security will gone, and AI will be treating us like their slaves in about 20 years anyway

johnson86-1 said:

His tariff stuff is terrible. The Iran war is actually what he deserves the most credit for out of anything I think he's done. It would have been much better for him politically to allow that to fester and run the risk that a future, feckless administration does what Obama/Biden tried to do and allow a path to them being a regional hegemon and nuclear power. Instead, he took the political hit to try to address it now.

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unbelievable. He deserves credit for attacking Iran and shutting down the flow of oil ? you need to stop watching Fox News.

Trump 2.0 = Polk 2.0

johnson86-1 said:

His tariff stuff is terrible. The Iran war is actually what he deserves the most credit for out of anything I think he's done. It would have been much better for him politically to allow that to fester and run the risk that a future, feckless administration does what Obama/Biden tried to do and allow a path to them being a regional hegemon and nuclear power. Instead, he took the political hit to try to address it now.

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I think he got false confidence from a non-comparable situation in VZ (which is going pretty well - thanks, Rubio) and Leroy Jenkinsed into Iran and underestimating how long they could resist. There's no doubt we dominated from a conventional military perspective but it didn't result in the nuclear objectives we thought it would. The long term strategic goals are still in limbo. Can we still achieve them? Yes, but I doubt he would make the same decision again knowing now how long the war has lasted and how much energy disruption it forced globally.

On a bright note, a nice looking Major was in my annual Suicide Prevention training this morning and she very strongly resembles Topanga in all areas. So yaay.

I still struggle with the Iran thing.

I feel like that regime had to be met with force at some point. They were determined to be a nuclear power and their rhetoric and the reality of things they’ve done just makes them and nukes unacceptable.

But Trump is a nightmare as a commander in chief during an actual protracted engagement.

85Bears said:

unbelievable. He deserves credit for attacking Iran and shutting down the flow of oil ? you need to stop watching Fox News.

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Who the **** still watches Fox News, or any news for that matter? If I can't verify something from more than one source I dismiss it.

Ok. Maybe we are talking past each other. Current receipts are not what I am talking about. Let me try to be more clear rather than just responding to different posts. And let me also be clear that I am not placing this in any partisan way. This is a problem that both parties have created and that both have been unwilling to address for years.

Social Security conducts its operations under the Social Security Act which last had major amendments in 1983. That year Congress was proactive in realizing the boomers were going to retire in the next 30 or so years. Therefore, they amended the act so that boomers would essentially pre pay for the benefits SS was expecting to pay out to boomer when they retired. Of course this was all based on projected collections and projected pay outs. By law, Social Security has to be self-funded. The collections they have made over the years including the current collections from out paychecks (FICA) go directly into the trust fund. They cannot go anywhere else. Congress, year to year, really has no power to change any ot this without amending the Social Security Act. SS goes on collecting and paying no matter what Congress does otherwise with the Federal Budget.

Over the intervening years, Congress has continued to spend more money than they took in in income and other type taxes (FICA is not part of this). In order to spend more than they took in, they borrow that extra money. One way they borrow it is by issuing special treasury bills to Social Security in exchange for Social Security's money from the trust fund. They must also by law pay this back. This makes some people claim that we are having to pay to cover social security every year. The fact of the matter is that Congress is having to pay every year to pay for whatever previous Congresses spent in excess of what they collected. They are paying SS back for what was borrowed in the past. SS is a HUGE creditor of the Federal government. Bad idea, we may say, but the fact remains. Congress has continued to do this no matter what party is in charge. Then scream that social security is such a huge part of our budget! We can't keep paying this! While the truth is you are paying SS for what you borrowed for many previous budgets.

The 1983 amendments were intended to cover the boomer retirements, but the projections did not quite hit the mark. They didn't quite collect enough on the front end. They are going to be short on the 75 year projection. THAT is where the shortfall comes from. Not because Congress is having to pay the fund back what it borrowed. That shortfall will either have to be made up in an amendment to the act like in 1983. As I said before most likely the easiest way to do that is some combination of elimination of the cap and a small increase in the FICA tax. Of course it would have been less painful if they had been far sighted like they were in 1983 with boomer retirements on the horizon, but the politics right now probably eliminate that possibility. But here we are.

As far as SS related to that huge national debt, it only does so because we have continued to borrow from Social Security and others in order to spend more than we take in.

Editing to add: Current receipts should have been enough if the 83 projections were more accurate (they were close, but you know projections AND Congress had not borrowed so much of the trust fund.

johnson86-1 said:

His tariff stuff is terrible. The Iran war is actually what he deserves the most credit for out of anything I think he's done. It would have been much better for him politically to allow that to fester and run the risk that a future, feckless administration does what Obama/Biden tried to do and allow a path to them being a regional hegemon and nuclear power. Instead, he took the political hit to try to address it now.

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Iran? Are you being serious? The Iran conflict has been an unmitigated disaster.

I think almost everyone would agree something had to be done about Iran but the execution has been one 17 up after another.

johnson86-1 said:

As bad as Trump is, he's basically Biden on spending but doesn't pair it with other disastrous policies for the most part.

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I am shocked that people dont consider many of his actions/declarations/policies to be disastrous.

- His inability to understand the difference between a trade deficit and a subsidy has resulted in a near 2 year long economic fight with Canada, that has continually resulted in him saying in various ways that Canada should become part of the USA.(not gonna list out the insane Greenland threats that seemed to come around the same time)

- His handling of tariffs will be studied in history and economic classes as example A for what not to do. Speaking of Canada, I saw he just announced that a 50% tariff on them is paused for now(of course it is). His abuse of tariff power on the world has made the US a complete joke. Everyone still has to trade with us and put up with us because we are valuable, but we are a total joke. The wiplash everyone has had to sit through over the last 18mo as he would declare tariffs, add to them, reduce them, add new ones atop current ones, pause them, implement them the same day others announced they were paused, then add new ones again because nobody can even keep up on what is tariffed, has been awful. Simply awful. It has been completely unnecessary. Placing tariffs on places on the map that arent even inhabited is just another level of bonkers.

- The lies, misinformation, and weaponization of DOGE has hurt us as a country. The break first ask questions later(if ever) approach was reprehensible. Meanwhile the GAO couldnt provide supporting data for 96% of grant savings claimed by DOGE. Countless people were fired from very necessary jobs, only to possibly be brought back because the jobs were actually necessary.
And all of the publicized DOGE drama ultimately 'saved' nothing at all close to what was initially claimed, and not at all close to what was subsequently claimed.

- We are in a worse place for global health than we were before Trump 2.0 because we arent as collaborative on disease work, which is irresponsible. We have reduced access to real-time global data and we have reduced global disease tracking...which hurts Americans.

- Trump's legendary grifting has generated billions for family and friends, and policies he holds as President are directly responsible for that. The Crypto scheming his family partake in, and his positions and policies on said marketplaces, is one of many specific examples.
It is all being done to benefit him and those around him, at the expense of improving the lives of Americans.

- Trump's war with Iran is so completely unreal that it is difficult to even know where to start. He and his administration just straight up lie countless times a day, they gaslight and attack when presented with reality, and he has threatened war crimes(actual established war crimes) more times than I can count.
It is a total disaster. Even if it ended tomorrow(I hear the Strait is fully open and has been...yet barely anything is moving), it will go down as a total disaster of a war/wars/operations(whatever they are cheekily calling it at a given moment). The war of choice, and it absolutely was a choice, has hurt international relations and cost Americans BILLIONS.
Right now, we are trying to just get back to how things were before the war and not come out even worse off. Seriously, that is the current best case scenario...returning to the status quo.

- His continued support of RFK's work to undermine medical best practices, and the policies that have come from said support, is disasterous and abhorrent.

- His policy for him and his administration to berate, insult, lie about, and attack basically any questions or criticism that pokes holes in the obvious lies they are telling, is disgusting. The fundamental destruction of decorum is disasterous.

johnson86-1 said:

His tariff stuff is terrible. The Iran war is actually what he deserves the most credit for out of anything I think he's done. It would have been much better for him politically to allow that to fester and run the risk that a future, feckless administration does what Obama/Biden tried to do and allow a path to them being a regional hegemon and nuclear power. Instead, he took the political hit to try to address it now.

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"The Iran war is actually what he deserves the most credit for out of anything I think he's done ."
Actually, I think increasing his personal net worth by about 4 billion while the country is circling is the most "impressive" thing he's done . ****