11 minutes ago, Paul852 said:

"We control the senate, house, and WH but dems have made it impossible to do anything!!

That's cute.  We'll just ignore the fact that Biden leveraged the public sector unions to guarantee the jobs of 42,000 work from home government employees two days ago.  

It's not that you can't see it.  It's that you won't. 

For the record, DOGE is going to be BS performance theater that won't accomplish a thing. Musk is genius, but he's a moron when it comes to running a business for profit. And Vivek is just a flat out moron. He was basically fired from QVT.

But DOGE has no power. They'll produce reports and studies, and then Congress won't do a friggin thing.

Just now, The Norseman said:

That's cute.  We'll just ignore the fact that Biden leveraged the public sector unions to guarantee the jobs of 42,000 work from home government employees two days ago.  

It's not that you can't see it.  It's that you won't. 

You keep acting like it's the dems that prevent cuts. You should know better at this point.

1 minute ago, Phillyterp85 said:

Trump is in support of social security.  Did you read his quote I posted in which he demanded that the GOP not take away a single penny from SS funding? 

Blame the voting population that would revolt against any politician that attempts to reform the system.

3 hours ago, Kz! said:

Democrats create massive, unfundable entitlements that speed run the country to insolvency, but that people get hooked on for survival and then wonder why Trump can't fix the budget instantly. "Come on, just take all the welfare that we created away and commit political suicide already. What are you afraid or something."  

Trumpers: "We elected Trump because he's not like all those other swampy politicians who only care about staying in power and politics and spend our money and put us in debt.  He's different!"

Also Trumpers: "You can't expect Trump to make changes to social security!  That would hurt him politically!  Even though he's not allowed to run again so really there aren't any political consequences to him personally for anything he does.  But still it's not a good move politically to do it!"

1 minute ago, Paul852 said:

You keep acting like it's the dems that prevent cuts. You should know better at this point.

I didn't say they prevented them.  I said they make them near impossible. 

Just now, The Norseman said:

I didn't say they prevented them.  I said they make them near impossible. 

Republicans will not vote in favor of the cuts you want. At least not on the scale actually needed. You can save this post to bring up later if you'd like to try to prove me wrong.

2 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

Blame the voting population that would revolt against any politician that attempts to reform the system.

Yup.  And that's the thing.   That's one of the main reasons we have to have term limits IMO.  No politician is going to give up the potential of a life long job in congress in order to make the hard decisions and do the right thig.   But, if the option for a life time gig isn't on the table, then maybe they'd be willing to actually do it.  Probably not though, since they couldn't actually run on a campaign of reducing social security spending since they'd never get elected that way. 

2 minutes ago, Phillyterp85 said:

Trumpers: "We elected Trump because he's not like all those other swampy politicians who only care about staying in power and politics and spend our money and put us in debt.  He's different!"

Also Trumpers: "You can't expect Trump to make changes to social security!  That would hurt him politically!  Even though he's not allowed to run again so really there aren't any political consequences to him personally for anything he does.  But still it's not a good move politically to do it!"

There are literally hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars that could be cut before doing something that results in instant political suicide lol.

3 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

For the record, DOGE is going to be BS performance theater that won't accomplish a thing. Musk is genius, but he's a moron when it comes to running a business for profit. And Vivek is just a flat out moron. He was basically fired from QVT.

But DOGE has no power. They'll produce a reports and studies, and then Congress won't do a friggin thing.

Probably right.  But I maintain that the stiffest headwind they will face is the public sector unions.  You can't cut if you can't legally fire people.  

We have JFK to thank for allowing federal employees to collectively bargain. 

Just now, Phillyterp85 said:

Yup.  And that's the thing.   That's one of the main reasons we have to have term limits IMO.  No politician is going to give up the potential of a life long job in congress in order to make the hard decisions and do the right thig.   But, if the option for a life time gig isn't on the table, then maybe they'd be willing to actually do it.  Probably not though, since they couldn't actually run on a campaign of reducing social security spending since they'd never get elected that way. 

Your last sentence is the problem. People, for the most part, are stupid and lazy. A message of "you're responsible for your own lives" will never win.

1 minute ago, Kz! said:

There are literally hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars that could be cut before doing something that results in instant political suicide lol.

Yeah? Like what?

3 minutes ago, mr_hunt said:

Whhhhhaatttt? No way. 

32 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

The programming logic of the gen1 trumpbot is exceedingly simple:

if Trump == Succeeds:

   credit = Trump

elif Trump == Fails:

   blame = Democrats

 

COMMENT YOURE CODE N00B

The Rivians are very nice, but for the money the electric F150 is better imo. 

3 minutes ago, Paul852 said:

Whhhhhaatttt? No way. 

Don't get too excited.  He's targeting all of these federal loans to electric vehicle manufacturers. 

By the way, Rivian loses $40k per vehicle they sell.  Would you loan them your money?

1 minute ago, The Norseman said:

He's targeting all of these federal loans to electric vehicle manufacturers. 

 

So you're under the impression that Elon will suggest cutting his billions of funding for Tesla? Is that what you're telling me?

3 minutes ago, DEagle7 said:

The Rivians are very nice, but for the money the electric F150 is better imo. 

Don't fall in love with them. Ford's electric vehicle division is bleeding money and the dealers can't move the lightnings.  Those things, like Rivian's are going the way of the Dodo.  

2 minutes ago, Paul852 said:

So you're under the impression that Elon will suggest cutting his billions of funding for Tesla? Is that what you're telling me?

Tesla hasn't received a federal loan since 2010.  Moreover, it paid all of it's loans back to the government, with interest, 9 years early. 

 

22 minutes ago, Kz! said:

There are literally hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars that could be cut before doing something that results in instant political suicide lol.

1) Once again, there is no such thing as "political suicide" for a politician that can't run again. 

2) You all told us he was different.  He wasn't like those swampy politicians that only cared about staying in power and politics.  He wants to balance the budget!  He literally campaigned on erasing the entire national debt.  Not the deficit, THE ENTIRE DEBT. 

3) why couldn't he find those "hundreds of billion to trillions of dollars" to cut the last time he was president?  You realize the deficit shot up significantly after he was elected, right?  And I'm talking about before the pandemic hit.  Wait let me guess, this time he really really really means it when he says he's going to erase the national debt.  He pinky promised!

8 minutes ago, The Norseman said:

Tesla hasn't received a federal loan since 2010.  Moreover, it paid all of it's loans back to the government, with interest, 9 years early. 

 

Are you implying Tesla isn't benefiting from government funds?

10 minutes ago, The Norseman said:

Don't fall in love with them. Ford's electric vehicle division is bleeding money and the dealers can't move the lightnings.  Those things, like Rivian's are going the way of the Dodo.  

Ford isn't short sighted enough to scrap their electric vehicle department.  They'll keep them around. The Lightnings are probably the best bang for your buck when it comes to electric trucks out there. Smaller companies I can see folding. One of my good friends is a green energy writer for Axios. He's tested a few that were clearly rush jobs trying to tap the market. Lucid I think was one he singled out as especially bad. 

11 minutes ago, Paul852 said:

Are you implying Tesla isn't benefiting from government funds?

I'm not implying anything.  You compared the potential Rivian loan retraction to Tesla.  I told you that Tesla is not currently getting government loans.  

Just now, The Norseman said:

I'm not implying anything.  You compared the potential Rivian loan retraction to Tesla.  I told you that Tesla is not currently getting government loans.  

Yeah, you were very careful to include the word "loans"  For some reason I'm sure EVs will still end up costing the government billions of dollars after DOGE is done. Weird.