Why Does It Cost Us Taxpayers $1.2 TRILLION To Fund The Government Of The United States For Just ONE Fiscal Year? That's $100 Billion A MONTH! WHAT?

[NYCQuestions1976]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/congress-rushes-approve-final-package-040118634.html?.tsrc=daily_mail&uh_test=0_00

I don't care if you're a conservative, liberal, Republican, Democrat, libertarian, moderate, independent, or anything in between. This budget for fiscal year 2024 is completely unacceptable! $1.2 TRILLION to run the federal government for 12 months? We're spending $3,278,688,524.59 a DAY! Are you seriously KIDDING me? We're all nuts!

Oh and before all of you start blindly blaming "the other side" for 100% of this nonsensical insanity, here's the voting breakdown:

House Democrats: 185 yes, 22 no, 6 abstentions.

House Republicans: 101 yes, 112 no, 6 abstentions.

Senate Democrats: 49 yes, 2 no.

Senate Republicans: 25 yes, 22 no, 2 abstentions.

Total House: 286 yes, 134 no, 12 abstentions.

Total Senate: 74 yes, 24 no, 2 abstentions.

President Biden is expected to sign this latest ridiculous financial albatross into law today. I'll add that this vote took place only 6 months late, which means we get to go through this lunacy again in as little as another 6 months from now. Lucky us.*

*Definitely not lucky us.

We've all lost our collective minds.

I like spending trillions of dollars, and complaining about it doesn't matter, because inflation has made our money worthless anyway.

Updates

1 mo

I had an event to attend today. I promise I'll respond to everyone at least once by tomorrow evening. Thanks for participating!

A quick blanket response: I know some of you have mentioned the military defense portion of this bill, which is a whopping 70%. I can't wait to find out how much of the 70% is earmarked for actual defense (which is still a lot), and how much is going to be spent on crap like DEI training and funding Ukraine. I support Ukraine, but not for billions of taxpayer dollars.

[Daniela1982]

Gotta pay for all those illegal loafers some way. Too bad it's the States that pay for most of it. With all that money being dished out, how much of it goes into lawmakers pockets to buy their votes? 🤔 And you notice that every time the Government spends like drunken sailors and we are about to shut down, they raise the debt ceiling once again by a trillion or two. 🙄😫🥱

[NYCQuestions1976]

It's all okay though, because inflation has made our money worthless. 👍😉😂

[exitseven]

@daniela1982 In 2023 the federal government spent (wasted?) 460 billion dollars on services for illegal aliens. That is what they will admit to. That is almost a half a trillion dollars that could have been used to help elderly and veterans. They were put at the bottom of the list once again.

[NYCQuestions1976]

@exitseven Bingo! Our government at all levels treat illegal immigrants better than they treat people who immigrated here legally, our homeless military veterans, poor people who were born here, and citizens with ongoing mental health issues.

[jennifer_bloom]

It's simple.

70 years ago 50% of American tax payers dollars went towards health care. Now you have health care, education, road maintenance, homeless shelters, commercialism and tourism advertising, police maintenance, FDA guidelines, digital police, national parks and museums, and military work, tax auditors, a complicated legal system, and digital media monitoring, as well as mental health support.

[NYCQuestions1976]

Unfortunately we spend more money caring for illegal immigrants than any of the other things you mentioned.

[Jersey2]

We protect all of the other Nato members which costs an enormous amount. There is corruption and gross inefficiency in government and government expenditures.

And, the government spends al LOT more than the 1.2 trillion stop gap measure which avoids a government shutdown. And Biden, he thinks being a President means spending trillions more which is why we and the rest of the world have inflation.

[OtterMan68]

in what year of Trump's presidency did he reduce the deficit?

[Jersey2]

@OtterMan68 He didn’t spend d2 trillion like Biden did that was wasted through programs like PPP and others. He was focused on the money for the US which is exactly what is needed. Do you even pay taxes? Half of the country doesn’t pay federal taxes and those people tend to vote blue.

[Jersey2]

@NYCQuestions1976 Interest on the debt is the largest item of the debt which now exceeds military expenditures. This is because the Fed and Biden said inflation was transitory and inflation doesn’t exist anymore. Yes it does and they know that now I suppose after they “printed” so much money… well they didn’t actually print the money because that would be impossible so they just changed some numbers on a computer.

[OtterMan68]

he brags about how great the economy was duing his presidency, and every economist worth his PhD will tell you when times are good, you pay down the deficit.

[OtterMan68]

so Trump was wrong to print so much money in 2020?
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL

[Jersey2]

@OtterMan68 we had and will have a better economy for the people with Trump. People knew it then and they know it now. Biden signs money away for votes. He is not leading, just spending. Trump as a candidate has gotten Europe to start spending in defense which will lessen our burden, Biden did nothing.

[OtterMan68]

so I guess Trump will cut military spending? Why should I expect Trump to cut spending since he did not do it the first time?
Also, he printed a record amount of money in 2020 which led to inflation

[Jersey2]

@OtterMan68 pay some taxes will you. Serious taxes. Then see how you vote. But thats not likely, now is it.

[OtterMan68]

Why should I vote for any president who not only did not reduce the debt and deficit but expanded it, thus, adding to the interest the taxpayers have to pay on it? BOTH Trump and Biden increased the debt and deficit BOTH. Why can't you accept that?

[OtterMan68]

The GOP only cares about the deficit when there's a democrat in the White House. Put a Republican in the White House and it's spend, spend, spend!

[Jersey2]

@OtterMan68 Bottom line is Trump will be better for the economy which then in turn produces more taxes. Same can be said for good trade deals Trump will do.

[OtterMan68]

Trump is a mercantilists. His steel tariffs raised prices for consumers and producers. Trump's trade wars were bad for the economy. Anyone who understands how tariffs work predicted this
PROOF taxfoundation.org/.../

[Jersey2]

@OtterMan68 I pay a lot of taxes, from creating a lot of income, I i ow very well how things work and do not need your tutelage.

[OtterMan68]

you clearly don't know who pays tariffs. You are clearly not a free-market capitalist.

[Sasahara]

@OtterMan68 How is "the defict when there’s a democrat in the White House " a unborn baby or a billionaire donor, in your opinion GOP only cares about those two things
Why do Democrats claim to have so much "compassion," but only seem to have compassion for illegals and not the people who are paying their salaries? ↗

[OtterMan68]

@Sasahara They pretend to care about the deficit. Better?

[Jersey2]

@OtterMan68 Trump wins in the economy. Even the faulty polling shows that as people really know it. We have Biden and Trump. People know Trump is better for the economy. Its the economy, stupid.

[NYCQuestions1976]

It's like our government's serious argument is my sarcastic argument: Our debt doesn't matter because inflation makes our money worthless. 😂

[BCA6010]

That bill is actually only about half of the package, and a HUGE chunk is getting sent overseas (and likely back into the pockets of campaign funds, family members and such).

The US debt interest is so high right now that it eclipses the entire military budget. But sure, go ahead and keep telling everyone that funding for government programs doesn't need to be cut...

[NYCQuestions1976]

If we eliminated funding that supports illegal immigrants over our own citizens and legal immigrants, we probably wouldn't need to eliminate or cut many government safety net programs.

[strateguy632]

did you notice who is president? who is controlling the senate 51 to 50? democrats are absurdky and recklessly spending.

apparently wise people are rare so majority of sheep-ple believe msnbc/msdnc n voted the harmful democrats.

[NYCQuestions1976]

You're definitely not wrong, but a lot of Republicans who identify as anti-spending conservatives also voted for this albatross bill.

[monorprise]

This is new dept, the Federal Government takes in around 4+ trillion in taxes a year.

We are living by as much or more beyond our means.

[NYCQuestions1976]

It's financial insanity, and eventually it's going to be financial suicide.

[DextroShade]

This ridiculous, we need someone like that Milei guy to take a chainsaw to the bloated departments of the federal government. And anything DEI-related needs to fucking go and we need to seize all assets of DEI firms to get our money back!

[NYCQuestions1976]

Agreed. Excellent response!

[Juxtapose]

This needs to stop. Let's balance the budget like Andrew Jackson!

[NYCQuestions1976]

Lovely thought, but it'll never happen. I'd be thrilled if we could get to the level of "less than obnoxious" spending at this point.

[legalboxers]

Its to pay off some of the folks who are unelected and anointed. That is their paycheck thats why its so much

[NYCQuestions1976]

It's like bureaucracy keeps us all employed.

[legalboxers]

@NYCQuestions1976 vicious cycle

[JacobJordan]

Worry not the money the US is spending doesn't even exist

[NYCQuestions1976]

Sadly that's probably true.

[RoronoaZoro8]

Cause you guys spend bonkers amounts on the military

[Juxtapose]

[NYCQuestions1976]

As I mentioned in my update, the military defense portion of this bill is a whopping 70%. I can't wait to find out how much of the 70% is earmarked for actual defense (which is still a lot), and how much is going to be spent on crap like DEI training and funding Ukraine. I support Ukraine, but not for billions of taxpayer dollars.

[msc545]

The last military budget was a trillion $. Do the math.

[NYCQuestions1976]

As I mentioned in my update, the military defense portion of this bill is a whopping 70%. I can't wait to find out how much of the 70% is earmarked for actual defense (which is still a lot), and how much is going to be spent on crap like DEI training and funding Ukraine. I support Ukraine, but not for billions of taxpayer dollars.

[msc545]

I don't think we're ever going to know about that stuff unfortunately. I sure would like to know how much of it goes for payoffs and other corrupt activities. You know like years ago there was a lot said about $600 screwdrivers. For instance. I imagine that screwdriver's cost $25,000 today. Somebody's making a lot of money from that.

[NYCQuestions1976]

Oh you've got no idea just how correct you are about this. However it's not only straight-up corruption. It's also a great deal of bureaucracy, incompetence, and nonsensical requirements. I work in the construction industry in New York City, and about 15 to 20 years ago, for about 5 to 10 summers in a row, there was a lot of renovations going on in many of New York City's public schools. Each summer during this renovation program, each eligible school was allotted a certain amount of funds for the work, which obviously had to be done before the school reopened in September. In many cases, that meant work was going on every day and around the clock from approximately June 20th to Labor Day weekend, to guarantee that whatever was started, was finished before the school reopened. Obviously there was a lot of overtime on these school jobs. Expensive, but so far understandable, correct? Well here's where the stupidity comes in. For whatever reason (corruption, bureaucracy, incompetence, or some combination thereof), for a school to qualify for more funds for more renovations during the following summer, that school had to spend THE ENTIRE AMOUNT that was granted to them for that current summer, or they risked not getting any money or enough money for the work the following summer. So there was a lot of deliberate wasteful spending. It's completely ridiculous. This is just a small example as to why we're in mind-boggling debt as a country.

[exitseven]

most of thr stuff in the bill is a waste of money. Then a good amount goes to overpaid bureaucrats wwo could be eliminated and nobody would notice. Both parties are to blame.

[NYCQuestions1976]

Agreed. We should be doing what Argentina's new president has been doing. Unfortunately that's probably wishful thinking.

[Bklynbadboy12]

Defund the government there doing a horrible Job that goes for Democrats and Republicans

[NYCQuestions1976]

Agreed. It's like we all live and exist in a giant DMV building.

[NathanDavis]

freedom isn't free... it costs money

[Juxtapose]

The deficit under Bush when he first started was 4 trillion. Now it's over 30 trillion.

So for all the years before Bush, it all accumulated to 4 trillion. Just think of how fucked it is how much that is increased since then.

[NathanDavis]

@Juxtapose just so you know.. nobody ever comes to collect this "debt". and nobody will ever pau it either... lol

also... is not like the debt resets every presidential term... it only adds up... and by 2050 the debt could be up to 100 trillion and still... nobody ever will come to collect it and nobody will pay it so it doesn't really matter, don't worry about it

[Juxtapose]

If that was true then nobody would loan anything to the United States because it won't be paid back.

[NathanDavis]

@Juxtapose okay... just so you also know...

the United States mostly gives money to itself... so yeah that is the main reason why it is never collected, you are just paying yourself as a country

also... whichever amount of debt or loans are on foreigners hands.. the USA owns as much debt from them so again... if foreigners come to collect the USA will collect from them too

[Juxtapose]

www.pgpf.org/.../what-is-the-national-debt-costing-us

[NathanDavis]

@Juxtapose "costing us"

[NathanDavis]

don't know about you... but the last time I paid a check for the national debt was -never before-

and don't know about your state... but, for as much as Texas spends as a government, we still have a surplus of 30 billion dollars at least, so...

don't worry much about the national debt... you are not paying it any time soon

[Juxtapose]

Your tax dollars literally pay interest, where do you think the government gets its money when it doesn't print it? Taxpayers like you.

All you're advocating for is kicking the can down the road and passing the buck.

[Juxtapose]

We're screwing the future generations with these interest payments and unsustainable spending.

[Juxtapose]

www.pgpf.org/.../...ries-over-the-next-decade.jpeg

[Juxtapose]

It didn't embed.

[NathanDavis]

@Juxtapose but we're also giving future generations control over the world, and resources... ever since Bush... we stole a whole lot over the Middle East and colluded with the Saudi, have we not?

and we have started 10x the conflicts world wide, so we can sell all of our weaponry and bombs, and what not... have we not?

it is just the way we do things as a country... . so don't worry much about it, you won't have to personally pay such debt, nor you have to go invade some country for il or rare earth

or soldiers will do it for us... which is by the way, where most of this trillions are spent, so like I said

our freedom is not free, it costs money... if you do not want to pay the cost of freedom, then there's a lot of countries out there with a lot less freedom, maybe you want to go and have a taste of that, lol

[Juxtapose]

You're just throwing your hands up in submission! "It is what it is homie, just accept it."

No, I hate warpigs too. Why should we be using our military for ANYTHING other than self defense? Why are we selling out the future generations and dooming them? Why are losing more and more freedoms?

Because evil triumphs when good people do nothing.

[Juxtapose]

*are we losing more

[NathanDavis]

@Juxtapose then go vote for Bernie Sanders... nobody stopping you from that, certainly not me

[NathanDavis]

complaining about here at G@G, accomplishes nothing at all...

[Juxtapose]

Bernie Sanders sold out to Clinton after his wife was blackmailed by the DNC (according to WikiLeaks).

These problem requires a complete overall of our current system. Corruption is a very serious problem but an inevitable one that we the people must address.

[Juxtapose]

Complaining online is essentially engaging in the public square which is now digital. The American revolution was planned in bars and whatnot which was the public square at the time. We gotta figure shit out.

[NathanDavis]

@Juxtapose should we storm the Capitol then?

what exactly are you proposing?

should we go and protest outside of Blackrock? Vanguard? who do we stop and how?

[Juxtapose]

I am glad you asked!

1. Inform people of corruption and keep it up across generations.

2. Once you have enough people willing to act, you organize peaceful resistance & keep up with it. Be very inconvenient to the establishment & use all of our leverage and power.

3. Protect crucial people from assassination. The CIA will JFK important people if they can get away.

4. Only become violent if it's life or death.

5. Don't surrender your constitutional rights & if you are compelled by violence to do so then peacefully resist and only fight back if it's life or death.

[Juxtapose]

*get away with it

[NathanDavis]

@Juxtapose who are these crucial people we have to protect?

[Juxtapose]

People like those we lost. JFK & MLK Jr. Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and others should currently be protected.

I strongly suspect Donald Trump is sincerely working against the deep state and I think while he's not ideal, he's a valuable asset and clearly intimidates the establishment. It's possible he could be controlled opposition but it's difficult to tell for sure.

[spartan55]

I truly enjoy when you two debate politics. I actually learn something.

[NYCQuestions1976]

Okay sure... but THIS MUCH money, for just 12 months? Our spending is ridiculously out of control.

[Juxtapose]

@spartan55 aww thank you, I appreciate it! It's nice to know other people are enthused about this like I am & like what I say.

[jahaims]

Because politicians launder money obviously

[NYCQuestions1976]

Yes, and outright waste money also.

[OtterMan68]

Last president to reduce the deficit was?

[Juxtapose]

The only president to ever balance the budget was Andrew Jackson and he had to be very aggressive to do so.

I wish I could resurrect him..

[Juxtapose]

[NYCQuestions1976]

Andrew Jackson, as @Juxtapose mentioned.

[bobby_bush_eater]

It's a scam

[NYCQuestions1976]

I agree, but can you elaborate?