My response to Republicans: If W Bush and Trump had not pushed tax cuts, the Federal debt would be gone by now.

[Midnight Writer]

President Clinton (D-Hope) balanced the annual budget, ran an annual surplus in his final years in office, and set the country on a course to fully pay off every dime of debt the United States had accrued throughout its entire history.

If W had not insisted on tax cuts targeted at the wealthy and corporations, the debt would have been retired during Obama's term of office. Trump's tax cuts, also tailored to benefit the richest Americans, pushed us further into debt.

As a wise man said, it's not that we can't afford for every citizen to have a minimum standard of living. What we can't afford is satisfying the lust of the rich.

[Walleye]

1. They will always try to do that. There is no logic to what they do.

They say we’re in debt and we’re going broke. So let’s reduce revenue.

[MadameButterfly]

2. Think how morally bankrupt and generally miserable you have to be

to be wealthy and want to get more by ruining the economies of poor and working people.

[Walleye]

3. I know, rich people always want more money, but I think the motivating force behind Elon is sadism. Or revenge

He probably still hates the United States for siding with Nelson Mandela and helping end apartheid. So of course, he hates all of us Americans, and like any big bully boy, he’s gonna hate the weak and vulnerable even more. These guys want to go around firing everybody. They don’t understand, you can’t fire your citizens.

[MadameButterfly]

5. I think he's confused and changing his mind

about what he wants. At one point he posed as an environmentalist. Being a tech pioneer was exciting to him. In Kamala's world, lead electric car/solar mogul, savior of Ukraine with Starlink, would have been an important role.

I wonder if he'd have wanted to rule the world if Trump hadn't come along. Under Trump, environment doesn't matter but vote rigging does, and usurping illegal power is a thing. Elon has always usurped power (getting rid of the inventors of Tesla, for example), but it took Trump's ambition, desperation, and dementia, for Elon to apply it to the whole government.

The evil racist narcissism was always there, of course, and I take your point about the US role in apartheid S.Africa. Probably he has been long harboring resentment. I just wonder if it would have played out in a different way if Trump hadn't paved this path for him.

[erronis]

8. I'm guessing the muskrat will do whatever he wants depending on his drug dosage, etc.

Trying to get inside the mind of someone like him is like trying to find shitty evidence inside a cesspool.

[underpants]

4. Weirdly we need some debt.

For example: What do you do with the money that comes out of people's paychecks for Social Security? Now, a lot of that money gets invested in –- you guessed it — Treasury bonds. If there are no Treasury bonds, what do you invest it in? Stocks? Which stocks? Who picks?

In the end, Seligman concluded it was a good idea to pay down the debt — but not to pay it off entirely.

"There's such a thing as too much debt," he says. "But also such a thing, perhaps, as too little."

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/10/21/141510617/what-if-we-paid-off-the-debt-the-secret-government-report

[MadameButterfly]

6. A weird strange problem which I wish we still had

Where was the Freedom caucus when Clinton was president? I'm guessing they were complaining about sexual improprieties.

[Mr. Mustard 2023]

7. Thank you. This is like a Zombie Lie as

Paul Krugman calls them, where for...reasons....no one admits the Republicans intentionally drove us into debt with their tax cuts for the rich.

Yet for.... reasons....it's a "both sides" do it meme and it's obvious because all one has to do is read a summary of year's budget.

But for ....reasons....ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, Radio, Social Media, Voters.... won't say the words you just said.

Republicons are like a deadbeat husband who runs up his wife's credit card then skips town, leaving his debt in her name. She has to make payments, and interest will increase her debt so she is responsible, and he blames her for being 'in debt".

Reagan added $3 trillion.
W. Bush Jr. added $12 trillion.
Trump first term added $8 trillion.

They're about to do it again.

[erronis]

11. Krugman zombie lies:

https://archive.nytimes.com/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/zombie-tax-lies/

[erronis]

9. "satisfying the lust of the rich" is an impossible task. They are addicted.

[markodochartaigh]

12. It is possible to satisfy need.

It is impossible to satisfy greed.

[erronis]

13. Is "lust" need or greed?

Getting into some interesting biological and philosophical territory....

[markodochartaigh]

15. I think that lust, like greed, is an emotion.

A negative emotion which, if not contained rationally, can get out of control and become destructive.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

10. Co-Prez Musk wants us to pay for his Mars dream.

I say let him pay back what the government paid to help Tesla and SpaceX get off the ground.

No more government funding until it is paid back for previous funding. With interest!!!

[Ol Janx Spirit]

14. Economics reminds me of religion: you can always find someone to tell you what you want to hear with

reasonable sounding explanations and footnotes from whichever text is relevant to the discussion. Rs will always argue back with some analysis that not cutting taxes would have tanked the economy and actually increased the debt. There is no winning an argument with the past or with fools. Even economists have a hard time overcoming the reality that things that stimulate the economy are inflationary because more people have more money to spend on a limited supply of goods, but somehow none of these tax cuts for big corporations or the wealthy have ever caused inflation that I am aware of. Republicans have always been happy to run up debt knowing that one day it would allow them to do exactly what they are doing right now....

[Chemical Bill]

16. Don't forget Saint Ronnie. n/t