The economy

[hawkeyetraveler]

Let me stop you there. It did what it was intended to do, and it never had altruistic intentions.

Semantics that I could have worded better. I meant having an effort to cut costs is the right intention. You are 100% right that this effort was never intended to be that.

It was meant to be something very different where efficacy was never the goal. Political one-upsmanship was more the vibe of DOGE.

 

[hawkeyetraveler]

All the whining about "DOGE wasn't done the right way" is gross.

There is no right way to cut government cheese. No one will be happy to lose “free” things. NO ONE! When you cut your way, all the other people are going to scream and pitch a fit you didn't do it the right way. And nothing will get done.

That's the whole point of DOGE, you take away the free cheese. And looked what happened!

Oh well. Too late now. The Hyperscalers sold their soul to the AI Devil and we all will have to live with the consequences. It's too late to go back, the contracts have been signed. The choice was made when DOGE was rebuffed.

The constitution is pretty damn clear about who controls the purse strings. It has to go through Congress.

And yes that is slow. And yes maybe our constitution needs to have a relook on this and other fronts. But changing that would seem to go against the originalism espoused by the GOP. So like it or not you work through Congress or nothing gets done.

The bull in a china shop approach was doomed to failure from the start and it seems clear the objective was never really serious. If anything it was Trump giving Musk a governmental platform as payment for Musk’s money during the election.

 

[Billanole.]

The constitution is pretty damn clear about who controls the purse strings. It has to go through Congress.

And yes that is slow. And yes maybe our constitution needs to have a relook on this and other fronts. But changing that would seem to go against the originalism espoused by the GOP. So like it or not you work through Congress or nothing gets done.

The bull in a china shop approach was doomed to failure from the start and it seems clear the objective was never really serious. If anything it was Trump giving Musk a gocernmental platform as payment for Musk’s money during the election.

And, perhaps, access to a lot of data/personal info from agency data bases.

 

[bdgan]

and yet we keep spending, spending, spending

It seems as if only people on this board are concerned about the debt, not one in Congress appears at all concerned, and the Trump administration puts drunken sailors to shame...

I disagree partly about your comment that the Trump administration puts drunken sailors to shame.

1. I agree if you're talking about spending on the war
2. I only partly agree if you're talking about spending for ICE. I'm all for spending the close the border and for getting rid of criminals. I wouldn't spend as much on the rest. I'd stop work permits for illegals and make sure they can't collect benefits. If they can't work or collect benefits they'll self deport.

Other than that spending has been curtailed. Roughly 250k government jobs have been eliminated and work requirements have limited the growth of social welfare payments.

Federal Spending by year:
2022 $6.1 trillion
2023 $6.4 trillion
2024 $6.8 trillion
2025 $7.0 trillion

Interest on debt by year:
2022 $474b (average interest rate was 1.5%)
2023 $658b
2024 $882b
2025 $952b

You can't blame growing interest on the debt on the current administration. You have to blame it on all of the administrations over many decades. Interest payments are going to keep rising because the debt is rising AND because current interest rates are ~4% compared to only 1.5% in 2022. Things just get worse as the old debt matures and rolls over at much higher rates. I don't know what either party can do to stop that. $40 trillion x 4% = $1.6 trillion per year in interest expense and that's if we don't increase the debt.