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I've been thinking about why some people are terrified of Trump while others, like me, are more indifferent. I mostly tune out Trump news because I assume much of it involves scare tactics or misleading framing by his detractors. When my wife brings up concerns about his supposedly authoritarian actions, my general response is that if what he's doing is illegal, the governmental process will handle it - and if it's legal, then that's how the system is supposed to work. I have faith that our institutions have the checks and balances to deal with any presidential overreach appropriately.
This reminded me of a mirror situation during 2020-2021 with the BLM movement, where our positions were reversed. I was deeply concerned about social media mobs pressuring corporations, governments, and individuals to conform under threat of job loss, boycotts, and riots, while my wife thought these social pressures were justified and would naturally self-correct if they went too far. The key difference I see is that the government has built-in checks and balances designed to prevent abuse of power, while social movements and mob pressure operate without those same institutional restraints. It seems like we each trust different institutional mechanisms, but I can't help but think that formal governmental processes with built-in restraints are more reliable than grassroots social pressure that operates without those same safeguards. Furthermore, the media seems incentivized to amplify fear about Trump but not about grassroots social movements - Trump generates clicks and outrage regardless of which side you're on, while criticizing social movements risks alienating the platforms' own user base and advertiser-friendly demographics.
There needs to be a differentiation between the regime and then nation. The country can continue on with a new regime, the regime can't survive without the nation. Lots of countries have changed regime. The US can survive with a different form of government.
The US needs to avoid going bankrupt. It needs to avoid being over-run by migrants. The US should worry less about institutional restraints and realize that the US needs to reform radically to survive. The checks and balances arguments are like people in Russia in 1912 and France in 1785 talking about the need to respect the old ways. If France had been able to overcome people worrying about formal procedures in 1785 they could very well have avoided the revolution.
The US won't be able to solve its debt crisis if all procedures and checks and balances have to be followed.
Ok but Trump is not addressing the debt crisis, he's giving tax breaks that far exceed any cuts and hamstrining our industries with hare brained tariff schemes while demonstrating no understand of economics whatsoever. The old ways made us the richest nation earth has ever seen. I certainly favor some reforms, and even some stuff the Trump admin has done, but if your overriding concern is the budget then Trump is not using his smashing of norms to actually address that.
Be that as it may, the literal only cuts that would make a difference would have to be to entitlements. Slice the defense budget to ZERO and it wouldn't actually fix the issue.
And reducing entitlements is the political equivalent of navigating a field of nuclear landmines.
And for this same reason, raising taxes would directly imply taking money from productive sectors of the economy to give to the nonproductive sectors. Which is not exactly a formula for growth.
So if you think Trump is not doing enough, please, PLEASE specify exactly which programs he should start making drastic cuts to, and then go and explain to the voters who will see their benefits reduced why this is important and necessary and they SHOULDN'T revolt at the ballot box.
Or, alternatively, explain to the various taxpayers why THEY should be on the hook for programs they generally don't receive a direct benefit from.
Simple problem to solve, I'm sure.
(Incidentally, I suspect that part of the plan RE: Tariffs is to help spread around the tax burden in a way that most Americans won't see as a direct extraction from their wallet, so as to avoid the outrage that would come with congress passing an actual income tax hike)
The position I'm responding to is that Trump cracking a few eggs of norms is worth it if that's what it takes to get the debt under control I'm pointing out that we're getting eggs cracked and the debt is not being taken under control. I'm sure we could have some debate about how best to get the debt under control, I agree some reductions in entitlements, particularly the absurd wealth transfer from the young to the old that is medicare and to a slightly less absurd degree social security come to mind. But as far as I can tell we have a bunch of cracked eggs and rather than a balanced budget omelet we have nothing to show for it. Of course the most obvious place to start would be getting rid of the literal trillions of dollars(over a decade) in tax cuts that he passed.
I would like the extra costs to be put towards paying down the debt, having a lower debt burden is in fact a way us tax payers are benefiting.
Yeah, so tying tax increases with actual entitlement spending cuts would in theory be palatable. But you're going to piss off the groups who rely on that spending, who can then vote for people who promise to restore the spending and keep the taxes high.
So the promise of "I'm raising your taxes, but don't worry I'm only using it to decrease the debt" is not intrinsically reliable.
That's the Gordian knot, as it were.
You don't have to actually cut entitlements at all. You can just raise taxes and use that money to pay down the debt(or at least close the deficit so you aren't creating more debt). The guy in the the white house can make that call. My point is we're currently breaking eggs and receiving no omelet.
I think various high-tax European countries are showing how that process doesn't really work.
Doubly so if your country's entitlements can be hijacked by racially-motivated interest groups.
Entitlements tend to be 'nonproductive' spending. Taking money out of productive investments to spend on nonproductive ends is... not going to grow GDP, which is going to hurt tax revenues over the longer term.
Europe's problem is strangulating regulation. I should note that I don't love taxes and prefer they be low. My only point is that you can't forgo tax revenue and then bemoan the national debt. You pay for the debt with taxes.
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