Trump Presidency Round 2

sixstar

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At minimum, he has the veneer of being a serious, forward-looking person.


Hopefully he cares about more than just DEI. Without going into details, there are numerous issues in Defense that need to be fixed, and DEI is relatively minor in comparison.
 

GATTACA!

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you can't just take the money and blow it on more bombs or government pet projects.
giphy.webp
 

NorthDakota

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step 1: eliminate the motivators that encourage orgs to spend their entire budget every year.

Every org gets a yearly budget via the POM process. If the org doesn't spend the entire budget, they will 1) lose current year money to another org who needs it, and 2) have their budget cut in future years. This intrinsically forces every org to spend everything they get. And it leads to "end of fiscal year Christmas" in AUG-SEP, where nearly 70% of Government spending occurs as orgs try to allocate excess budget. It's normally very wasteful spspending.
When I worked at DoD EOY spending was insane nonsense
 

JadedDomer

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Let's assume they end Dept of Ed ($250B) and the above. That's 3/4 Trillion/year and the DOGE doesn't even exist yet and was announced less than 24 hours ago.

My estimate of $1T/year in savings may have been low. And it's two geniuses, one being the most productive person alive, and the other an energetic self-made billionaire in health care/IT with a law degree. I like their odds.
 

Irish#1

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I was excited to see Trump come in as an outsider the first time. It appears to me that he has learned from the positives and negatives of his first term and is taking a new approach with what and how to change things. Having the Senate and House should help get these programs implemented, but he's going to have members from both whining when the cuts affect their states.
 

Irish#1

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Let's assume they end Dept of Ed ($250B) and the above. That's 3/4 Trillion/year and the DOGE doesn't even exist yet and was announced less than 24 hours ago.

My estimate of $1T/year in savings may have been low.
You might slow the roll a little. The DOE may get eliminated, but there are programs and functions that can't be eliminated and will get moved to other agencies. What the real net gain is, is hard to estimate, but it should be a good chunk.
 

TorontoGold

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Let's assume they end Dept of Ed ($250B) and the above. That's 3/4 Trillion/year and the DOGE doesn't even exist yet and was announced less than 24 hours ago.

My estimate of $1T/year in savings may have been low. And it's two geniuses, one being the most productive person alive, and the other an energetic self-made billionaire in health care/IT with a law degree. I like their odds.

I think there's a possibility it could play out horribly for Trump if goes too well. If the wrong things get cut and working class people feel the effects, I wonder how Bill in rural Penn is going to feel when the money cut isn't going into things that directly benefit him.

Of course "Bill" signed up for DEI getting removed, DoE getting shutdown, and "waste" being removed. But if there isn't substantial savings there or they have to go in a different direction, how do you sell that?

Let's say hell freezes over and the Democrats discover how to message tangible ideas to people that are actual policies and not just "omg he's a rapist criminal" because we know people don't care for that. If the Dems run in 2026 "Two billionaire's that weren't elected by you just took away your X/Y/Z. They were supposed to drain the swamp, but instead they joined the swamp and paid contracts out to their buddies". How do Republican's counter that? And yes I know if by some grace of god that Trump runs a budget surplus that is a good counter, but people are generally selfish and what does it matter if the deficit didn't increase as much as it used to to Joe Schmoe.

Democrats could win over the populist voters by messaging "We aren't going to waste money on dumb shit, we're going to make your dollar more efficient and spend the cost savings on you." but will they do that? Probably not because they're incompetent AF.
 

IrishLax

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I assume he checked to see if he had the votes before nominating her, but wow. This is the first nomination that is someone who should be nowhere near a cabinet.
 

ulukinatme

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Hegseth is only identified as a Fox News host by people questioning the appointment, but he's spent 20+ years in the military with time spent in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo. He's got 2 Bronze Stars. Graduated with an undergrad from Princeton and later got his Masters at Harvard. Current Army Officer with the rank of Major. There are more qualified candidates out there, but that's doesn't mean he's not qualified.

The people crying about the Defense pick aren't serious people. Lets not forget.

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NDVirginia19

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That being said, at least Gaetz isn't going to weaponize the FACE act to jail pro life protestors praying in front of abortion clinics
 

TorontoGold

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Matt Gaetz... Now we get to the disastrous picks lmao. Would be incredibly surprised if he has the votes in the senate, but I think the house republicans would love to get him the hell out of their chamber
"Mr. Gaetz, these venmo payments - what are these for?"
 

JadedDomer

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Gaetz is an attack dog. Would not want to be a beaurocrat who hid something of significance the last few years.
 

Giddyup

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Dems will get dirty of course. As long as he’s honest and not an establishment shill I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. He may get killed dough.

We get it. You can stop posting tweets from idiots I’ve never heard of.
 

Giddyup

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You can. Just didn’t need three tweets saying the same thing.
 

TorontoGold

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Dems will get dirty of course. As long as he’s honest and not an establishment shill I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. He may get killed dough.

We get it. You can stop posting tweets from idiots I’ve never heard of.
NDVirginia19 is not an establishment Dem lmao. If he is making jokes of these appointments that should raise your eyebrows. Don't listen to anyone on the Left.

Just say you'll blindly support anything from DJT on move on.
 

NDVirginia19

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Most judicious interpretation is that he's a sacrificial anode to make other picks that could get more scrutiny receive less scrutiny.
 
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