Also pretty light by recent US historical standards.
Maybe taxes need to be raised, but both parties need to stop the crazy spending. Raising taxes is needed now because the interest payments are so high. But we need to get this under control. Itās time to have a balanced budget. No more borrowing. No new debt.
Donāt bothsides this shit when the GOP has the trifecta and have consistently pushed revenue down and expenses up every chance they have had while campaigning on reducing the deficit every two years.
If you actually care about a balanced budget, you need to vote for Democrats over Republicans and stop voting for the culture war nonsense with hope and prayers on this one.
Theyāre both hopelessly spendthrift, but yes the Rs are clearly worse for anyone who spends the time to review the last 30 years.
Problem though is every program you add becomes very hard to remove. Rs basically just cut taxes, Ds add programs.
No, Iād actually prefer a third party to finally get a real share of the votes. Both parties are hopelessly corrupt.
Pretty easy to get 80% agreement on this when itās so nebulous.
I canāt help to think that the closest thing we have had to a viable third party candidate was the political outsider Donald Trump that brought with him promises of fixing all these problems. He was a former D supporter who became an R, representing the middle.
Be realistic. We have a two party system that is not going to change because it is the fundamental option given the structure of our Constitution. What has and will happen is that a party will transform itself to represent something new. Occasionally, they will change their names, and often, they will trade priorities to achieve their coalition to reach 50%. Like with Trump peeling off blue collar workers over to the Rs and Ds largely capturing educated professionals.
Just to be transparent, I assume people who argue tor a third party option to fix the deficit donāt actually have that very high on their priority list and will happily vote for the culture wars bullshit as their #1 which is absolutely a bothsides worthy issue.
Democrats are todayās only viable option to āfix the deficitā. If spending is your concern, itās a toss up. If culture war bullshit is your thing, keep doing your thing.
I agree with your take on Trump, and that was why I voted for him in 2016. In 2024, I think he really went off the deep end, and is legitimately crazy.
I agree that the system wonāt change. Not because of the Constitution, but because of money. The system is rigged. We really should get rid of parties entirely. Let members of Congress run on their own merits, without being part of a party. Let people vote for the person, not the party behind the person.
Look at what happens when you go against the party line. In the Republican Party, weāve seen what happens to those who oppose Trump. On the Democrat side, look at Fetterman - when he ran, we were assured over and over again that he was healthy. Then he says heās willing to cross the aisle and try to work with Trump and the Republicans. Now I keep seeing reports of how Democratic leadership is concerned about his health, maybe he needs to be replaced, etc. If he was following the official line, this wouldnāt be happening. Same thing with Mayor Adams in NYC - he went against the immigration policies of the Party, and was abandoned.
I donāt think Democrats have any real plans to fix the deficit. If they try to put in more taxes on the ultra-wealthy, then those people will just leave the country for somewhere thatās friendlier to their situation. Democrats donāt know how to cut spending - they just want to keep raising more money through taxes to pay for the new programs they implement.
The US really has no hope now when it comes to the deficit. Weāre already spiraling the drain. They can try to delay, but eventually we will default on it.
This always cracks me up. Absolute codswallop.
Do you truly believe that if even a single ultra wealthy person in China wanted to leave with their money, Xi would just whine and cry? Get real.
Who is āweā in this scenario, and what power do they have? People have always had the option of āvoting for the personā, but it makes being a citizen a full-time job. You canāt meaningfully investigate the backgrounds of every candidate, thatās the whole point of parties. Itās a shortcut so voters can have at least a vague idea of how candidates will try to represent them. The time to be railing against this was before the Citizens United case sold off our political process to the wealthy. The only way out is to vote for like-minded candidates who want to try to reverse the damage. If it was actually important to you, you would have done the research and been voting for Democrats for the last many elections. The Republican party started their descent into fascism decades ago, and they finally got bold enough to say the quiet part out loud when they realized their voters were actually into it.
Crying about this problem now is a start, so kudos for making it to step one. Welcome to the resistance.
Tax rates for the wealthy in the US are vastly lower than in every other Western nation. They can be massively increased and still provide a financial incentive for the wealthy to move here.
LOL I did do my research into candidates, and thatās why I didnāt vote Democrat in most elections. As I said, Trump was the outsider in 2016, who wasnāt beholden to the big corporations. Hillary was as corrupt a politician as Iāve ever seen.
I tend to disagree with Democrats on most policy issues. I donāt believe healthcare is a right for everyone. I am against abortion in most cases. Iād like to get rid of, or at least scale back, many of the social welfare programs that we have. And donāt even get me started on DEI.
This is a laugher. Heās been the most for sale president in history. Itās grift on grift.
This is laughably false, tells us a lot about your media diet I guess.
So sounds like you care more about culture war issues than the deficit.
I think itās fair to say that the Clintons have had a bit more than their share of corruption alleged, and some of the claims (e.g. Whitewater) may have had some merit.
I also think itās fair to say that Fox News, et. al. have amplified and occasionally exaggerated/misrepresented the Clintonsā issues.
Itās hard to objectively say that Hillary or the Clintons-in-general are more corrupt than average among politicians, but I do think thereās a reasonable chance theyāre on the wrong side of the median.
(Dear Leader, on the other hand, seems to be doing a pretty good job in defining the tail of that curve. And, of course, corruption of one politician or a group of politicians does not excuse or justify corruption of another poltician/group.)
Agree with this, and thatās why I made the comment I did. History is replete with far more naked corruption than was ever alleged against the Clintons. The rise of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh type personalities really ruined our media discourse and the Clintons in particular bore the brunt of the coverage. All the media moguls are laughing all the way to the bank though.
Right-wing news sources and alternative media galore.