The List

[Gunnar]

Trump will take credit for the inflation rate that has been dropping like a rock over the last 2 years. Just like he claimed credit for the Obama recovery's record unemployment rate for black Americans. It was plummeting for the last four years and barely crossed over that "record" threshold just a few months after Trump took office, and he and FOX News gaslit the world into thinking it was because of Trump.

I can't wait until February 1st when instantly the Biden Economy suddenly becomes the "greatest economy the world has ever seen."

I'm so embarrassed for my country today. Wash, rinse repeat. Republicans destroy the economy, a Democrat comes along and cleans up the mess, and then we elect another Republican because.... something about tax cuts and trans kids.

Yes. I have no doubt that he will immediately take credit for the now thriving economy that the Biden Administration left behind and mess it up again, like they always seem to do. In the meantime, they will frantically do their best to make it difficult or impossible for them to be ever voted out of office again by systematically purging the voter roles of any who are unlikely to vote for them again.

[canpakes]

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One of the first challenges faced by the incoming Administration is ... math.

WASHINGTON — Entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have an ambitious agenda to cut federal spending with the help of their outside advisory council, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

But on their first joint visit to Congress on Thursday, the pair also likely saw some of the limits of outside influence on the workings of the legislative branch.

Crisscrossing Capitol Hill together on a marathon day of meetings with lawmakers, Musk and Ramaswamy got warm welcomes from Republicans.

Their overall message was popular, too: A smaller federal government, looser regulations and a private sector approach to the public sector have long been cornerstones of conservative governance.

But there was also an elephant in the rooms they visited: An unspoken understanding that Musk's stated goal of slashing federal spending by $2 trillion is already DOA.

The reason for this comes down to math.

In fiscal 2023, for example, the federal government spent a total of $6.1 trillion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Of that $6.1 trillion, about $3.8 trillion was already off limits for cuts on day one, legally obligated to go toward mandatory spending programs like Social Security benefits for retired workers, Medicare coverage and veterans benefits.

After that, roughly $650 billion was set aside to pay the interest on the national debt.

This left $1.7 trillion for everything else, known as discretionary funding. $805 billion of this was spent on national defense, a largely untouchable pot of money. Finally, the remainder was divided up among the federal departments that perform much of the visible, daily work of government, agencies like FEMA, NASA, and Customs and Border Protection.

While Musk and Ramaswamy went from meeting to meeting, Republicans close to the government funding process, like House Appropriations Committee member Rep. Steve Womack, Ark., said that while some cuts were possible, the $2 trillion that Musk talks about would likely be a bridge too far.

"If you're going to leave the social safety net programs alone and not touch them, that means you're going to try to cut hundreds of billions of dollars out of discretionary spending" if you want to achieve massive, DOGE-style reductions, he told CNBC in an interview.

"It would be very difficult to do that without cutting national security," said Womack.

Even proposing small cuts or changes to mandatory programs like Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid can prove politically dangerous for members of Congress who must run for reelection every few years.

Nonetheless, some Republicans are open to considering limited reforms to these programs. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, for example, said he was open to exploring potential work requirements for Medicaid recipients, and requiring stricter verification for Social Security benefits.

"Those are the kinds of things that we're also going to be looking at," Scalise told reporters after his meeting with Musk and Ramaswamy.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., kept expectations low, saying Thursday's meetings with Musk and Ramaswamy were "brainstorming" sessions, a chance to float some ideas with no pressure to reach a consensus.

Only when Republican President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, and Senate Republicans take control of their chamber, can plans really begin to move ahead.

Cutting spending will not be easy. Johnson's hair's breadth of a vote margin means he will only be able to afford a few defections from his conference on any given bill, and still pass it on a party-line vote.

Continues at https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/12/06/dog ... -cuts.html

[¥akaSteelhead]

I asked chatgpt what the economic impact would be if all of the "promises" Trump made re deportation, tariffs, and other policies re federal work force, and budgets and what not were actually implemented.

The short answer was higher prices and recession.

[Dr. Shades]

In the meantime, they will frantically do their best to make it difficult or impossible for them to be ever voted out of office again by systematically purging the voter roles of any who are unlikely to vote for them again.

How is that even possible?

[Gunnar]

In the meantime, they will frantically do their best to make it difficult or impossible for them to be ever voted out of office again by systematically purging the voter roles of any who are unlikely to vote for them again.

How is that even possible?

Hopefully it will prove not to be possible for Trump and the extreme right conservatives to achieve all their most extreme, anti-democratic objectives, but if you have been paying attention at all, you surely know that Trump makes no secret of the fact that he aspires to acquire dictatorial powers like Kim Jong Un, Putin, Xi and other authoritarian dictators he has often expressed admiration for. And there is little doubt that extreme right-wing conservatives have been trying to systematically purge voter rolls of minority and ethnic groups who they deem are unlikely to vote for Republicans or conservatives. The 2025 project, which it has become clear that Trump espouses or, at least, has sympathy for, is a blatant plan to turn our government into a strictly authoritarian, Christian theocracy, based on the Old Testament, with little tolerance for others who don't share their extreme version of Christianity.

It should also be obvious to everyone by now that Trump's main (if not only) qualification he requires in those he appoints to offices in his administration is loyalty to himself above all--not to The U.S. Constitution or the rule of law and order.

Several conservative state legislatures have passed (tried to pass) legislation that would, in effect, enable Republican majority legislators to overturn or nullify majority election results that they don't like. All of this does not bode well for the survival of democracy and individual liberty in this country. They apparently have little regard for the Constitutional guarantee of religious freedom and of speech and of the press except for only those who happen to agree with their extreme views.

[Moksha]

In the meantime, they will frantically do their best to make it difficult or impossible for them to be ever voted out of office again by systematically purging the voter roles of any who are unlikely to vote for them again.

How is that even possible?

What if Republicans moved to their dream proposal of one dollar one vote?

[canpakes]

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Regarding deportations, Trump has already decided to ‘one up’ his initial plan.

[Dr. Shades]

How is that even possible?

What if Republicans moved to their dream proposal of one dollar one vote?

Republicans have no such dream proposal.

[canpakes]

Given all of Trump’s ambitious-sounding and randomly blurted chatter over the last week or so - and possibly related to his realization that he can’t do squat about grocery prices - I may have to update his ‘List’ to include the following new goals:

- Buy or take over Greenland,
- Conquer Panama,
- Force Canada to become the 51st State,
- Change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America,
- Invade Mexico, for some reason or another.

That last one might be problematic, though. If the United States conquers and subsumes Mexico, then there’s no more ‘Mexico’ to mass-deport anyone to. Perhaps we’ll just conquer it and then leave, just for the practice.

[canpakes]

.
Well, it didn’t take long to walk this one back.

Elon Musk says DOGE probably won’t find $2 trillion in federal budget cuts

THU, JAN 9 20256:16 AM EST
NBC NEWS - David Ingram

Tech billionaire Elon Musk said Wednesday that his budget-cutting effort on behalf of President-elect Donald Trump would most likely not find $2 trillion in savings, backtracking on a goal he set earlier as co-head of a new advisory body, the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

Musk told political strategist Mark Penn in an interview broadcast on X that the $2 trillion figure was a “best-case outcome” and that he thought there was only a “good shot” at cutting half that.

Musk’s lowered estimate is a significant downgrade from his earlier view. At a rally for Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York on Oct. 27, Musk said he’d be able to cut the federal budget by “at least $2 trillion.”

That figure was quickly dismissed as implausible by budget experts, who said the entire discretionary budget was only $1.7 trillion.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/09/elon-mu ... -cuts.html