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5,000 for every American citizen? Might sound farfetched, but the president just proposed it https://apnews.com/article/trump-dividend-5k-5000-check-republicans-cc80644e3168acd31c892129fb849436
First of all this is obviously retarded, there's no ability to mince words here, it would be about 1.3 trillion dollars almost doubling the annual federal deficit, causing massive inflation, and generally fucking the economy. Second of all, it's obviously not happening just like the DOGE dividend and tariff dividends and all the other free money constantly promised. We all know it, there's no need to pretend that this isn't just constant lying.
Rather I'm more interested in what this suggests, here's some thoughts.
Trump is really worried about the midterms to the point he's trying to outright suggest bribing voters. This concern makes sense given the Dems have a 50% chance of a complete sweep. Trump arrived, disappointed Americans, and his legacy is already ending.
As I spoke earlier about the plan to pay parents to stay at home, it's another highlight of how modern "conservativism" just doesn't give a shit about money anymore. The entire concept of fiscal responsibility is just a joke now. If we take the president seriously (which I would hope we could given the prestige of the office but obviously we can not), it's one of the most destructive singular policies someone could possibly suggest.
Likewise, there's not even an attempt to hide the corruption anymore. I can not even imagine how much more blatant he could get that this is attempted bribery. People can play the whataboutism game of former admins if they want, but at least those had the shame to hide it behind closed doors a bit.
The magical tariffs continue to do everything. Trump has promised so much with tariff revenue (a number I can't even cite him on since like many of his claims, it fluctuates widely). CATO has an excellent list of everything they're claimed to fund. It's not just fiscal responsibility that is a joke, the entire idea of government funding has become one.
And this isn't occuring in isolation, it's another sign of the GOP transformation into a populism powered welfare socialist party. Fiscal responsibility is a joke, redistribution from the rich to the poor in bribes is based, trade is evil and companies should be owned by the government.
And what political coalition now exists to point out the obvious and say this isn't smart? The stereotypical conservative response before was "how will we pay for that?" in regards to big sending. The response now is crickets. Negative polarization has gone so far that the DSA, a group that literally calls themselves socialist are now the most free trade voting bloc, so will we reverse polarize ourselves into a small government balanced budget "socialist" president at some point?
But most importantly, what does this say about politics now where promising $1.35 trillion in direct payments to voters is presented as the conservative campaign message. How much further into the slop can we possibly descend, and how we can ever pull ourselves out of it? Maybe the Dems can just promise 5,001 dollars or something.
You're getting a lot of push back, rightfully so, on grounds that you almost certainly support Democratic party actions that similarly raid the public purse for their preferred spoils. And sure, complaining about when the other guy does it is as gay as the day is long, but it appears an observable truth to me that such mere complaining in this form has not been beneficial for either side. Nor are the discussions that tend to follow, as they mostly descend into finger-pointing.
I don't know that I've entirely given up on finding a true solution, and perhaps there are others, but let me suggest that there might be one. The core problem is a credible commitment problem. Both sides see each other complain when they're out of power, but cannot believe that they will commit to not doing likewise once they regain power. If FC's particular brand of doomerism is not controlling (and it might be), then perhaps the most suitable tool in our Constitutional Republic for the task would be a Constitutional amendment.
So draft a suitable amendment. Provide a text. Argue convincingly that this draft text, if adopted, will actually constrain Democrats when they're in power as well as Republicans (this will be a hard task). Show that you can garner enough Democratic votes (in Congress and the States) to adopt an amendment that will almost certainly gore many future Democratic party oxen as well. Honestly, you will probably have to gore some current Democratic party oxen, too. Do some productive herethetics and show that if you split the issue differently, there can be more people on the side of, "Both of these parties need to knock it the hell off," than on the side of, "We'll gleefully do it for our team and constantly complain when it's their team." I'm personally happy to be on the side of, "Both of these parties need to knock it the hell off," but I probably doubt that you are. So just show me a draft text to make it apparent which group you're in.
If you find this unpalatable and cannot bring yourself to credibly commit to goring enough Democratic party oxen in the process, then the answers to most of your questions become readily apparent. The same goes for the other side.
I've said probably dozens of times at this point here that I am a reaganite libertarian, not a big government progressive. There are more viewpoints than the two mainstream ones of being a sheeple following the political waves of whatever one's favorite culture war party shifts towards.
There is no shortage of content criticizing the Democrats for this sort of nonsense, the Republican party used to be one of the biggest critics of socialism and free money handouts! Now it's not, and us critics are few.
Could you link your criticism of the Inflation Reduction Act?
Can you explain back to me why I may be asking for that link?
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