[Pain] HUGE, self-inflicted Recession incoming due to Trump/Musk

"Profiles in Courage Cartilege"

 

You're not wrong, but I'd maybe point out that a "white moderate" in 1963 is just a tad bit different than a "white moderate" in 2025.

 

A few quick observations:

1. There is essentially no spending cut. The MUSK confidence expression that he can cut $1 trillion this year is fake news, given this CR. We've been lied to - but hey, that’s standard practice now.
   
   
2. There are no spending cuts, but the executive branch may now have much more discretion in allocating funds appropriated by Congress. To what extent this is true, I don’t know - I don’t have time to read through the actual CR.
   
   
3. In terms of spending, it’s pretty much business as usual from both Congress and the Executive.
   
   
4. The DEMs will come to regret it when this administration uses the funds to build "freedom cities" and hand out $500 checks to everyone (for their obedience), or ....

IMO, this was not only worth fighting over but also politically easy to fight over. The CR gives Musk the power to take funds and do as he wishes, while taking government services offline, stealing your private and sensitive data for who knows what, and tossing federal workers, including veterans, into the street like discarded trash. We won't be enabling this.

The old men in Democratic leadership need to go and make way for more vital and fresh thinkers.

OLD men and both parties --> This CR and the political maneuver over is pretty hilarious. Business as usual. It's as if everything is political theater.

Below is Perplexity’s response on how H.R. 1968 (CR) affects the executive branch’s power of the purse (the format is weird, but it’s just a copy/paste).

Spoiler

"It's important to note that the President does not have the constitutional authority to unilaterally impound or prevent the expenditure of funds appropriated by Congress for specific purposes. The debate around H.R. 1968 centers on whether its provisions might indirectly enable such actions, rather than explicitly granting new powers to the POTUS."

H.R. 1968, the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025, significantly impacts the balance of power between Congress and the executive branch, particularly concerning the "power of the purse." Here is an analysis of how it affects this constitutional authority:

Key Impacts on Congressional Power

1. Increased Executive Discretion Over Spending:
   • The bill grants the Trump administration broad discretion to allocate federal funds without requiring explicit Congressional approval. This effectively weakens Congress's constitutional role in deciding how taxpayer money is spent

• • .

• Creation of "Slush Funds":
  • Critics argue that H.R. 1968 creates mechanisms for the administration to redirect funds toward its priorities, bypassing traditional Congressional oversight. This could allow the President to use federal dollars to further specific agendas without legislative input

• • .

• Undermining Spending Mandates:
  • Provisions in the bill do not explicitly require the administration to spend appropriated funds as directed by Congress. This raises concerns that funds for programs Congress intended to support could be withheld or redirected entirely

• • .

• Empowerment of Executive Agencies:
  • The bill aligns with recent executive orders that centralize decision-making within agencies under the President’s control, such as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). These orders allow agency heads to review and modify contracts, freeze federal credit cards, and cut programs, further consolidating spending power in the executive branch

• • .

• Weakened Oversight and Guardrails:
  • By ceding control over spending decisions to the executive branch, H.R. 1968 reduces Congress's ability to oversee how funds are used. This lack of accountability has been described as a "blank check" for the administration

1. • .

Broader Implications

• Erosion of Checks and Balances: The bill shifts significant fiscal authority from Congress to the President, undermining the separation of powers established in Article I of the Constitution.
  
  
• Potential for Abuse: Critics fear this discretion could lead to politically motivated funding decisions or cuts to essential services like education, healthcare, and veterans' benefits

• .

• Partisan Divide: The bill has been criticized by Democrats as a partisan measure that prioritizes executive power over democratic accountability

• .

In summary, H.R. 1968 significantly diminishes Congress's power of the purse by granting unprecedented spending flexibility to the executive branch, raising concerns about accountability, oversight, and constitutional checks and balances.

 

Destroying the economy to own the libs and his braindead supporters eat it up @Space Ghost

 

What do you want them to do?

 

Nothing, the purpose to the tariffs is to weaken the US and western economies. Also Trump and co short positioned the stock market - so they want to drive the markets down to make money.

This is why they don't care about the stock market performance of late, and make up stuff like fentanyl as the reason behind the tariffs.

 

With how much gold he decorated the White House I wouldn’t be surprised how holdings they have in gold. You know Trump loves gold.

 

Destroying the economy to own the libs @GOATuve

 

Good luck to them if that's their intention. Everyone hates taxpayer fueled bailouts and Fed puts until they see their 401ks. Trump will likely pivot and this guy will be thrown under the bus.

The deliberate, wonkish Wall Street veteran who once called for the gradual implementation of new trade barriers has transformed into a bullhorn for President Donald Trump’s MAGA 2.0 agenda, making it clear that short-term market reactions are secondary to administration priorities such as sweeping tariffs.

As financial markets suffered the most precipitous drop in years this week, Bessent went on television earlier this month and argued that the U.S. needs to “detox” itself off government spending. And he raised eyebrows in a recent speech by declaring that “access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American Dream.” He also said he was “less concerned” about the short-term economic impact of tariffs.

When pressed on a recent market sell-off that pushed down the S&P 500 by more than 10 percent from its recent peak, he said that “corrections are healthy.”

“What’s not healthy is straight up, that you get these euphoric markets. That’s how you get a financial crisis,” he said during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “I’m not worried about the markets. Over the long term, if we put good tax policy in place, deregulation and energy security, the markets will do great.”

This wasn’t what many on Wall Street expected.

“He definitely has not played the role to date that the markets had expected,” said Sarah Bianchi, a senior managing director at investment bank advisory firm Evercore ISI. “It’s always hard for anyone to figure out when and how to go to the president and say you need a big course correction — and it’s particularly hard in Trump 2.0.”

Bessent’s muted reassurances to financial markets shows there may be no one in the administration willing to stand in the way of Trump’s emboldened mandate for reshaping U.S. economic policy. Stock market convulsions, along with the advice of conventional economic policymakers like Trump’s first Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, helped temper the president’s protectionist and potentially calamitous priorities during his previous stint in the White House.

Now, “whatever the guard rails that were in place the first administration no longer exist,” said one former Trump administration official, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

​

 

Our debt and interest expense is simply not sustainable. Without DOGE slashing spending, our country will be in financial ruin. Trump is doing what other Presidents have lacked the courage to do. Take the political heat by slashing federal spending in order to literally save the country in the long term. There is no greater patriotic act.



GOOD DAY

 

Doge has only found 8.6 billion dollars of waste while house Republicans added 4 trillion dollars in deficit induced tax cuts.

Why does MAGA everyone is just as braindead as they are when they speak in public. Were not morons and were not in a cult. You can't fool us with your garbage

Complain about interest payments while passing trillions in cuts.

 

Rationalize?

You act like Trump is the one concocting these plans.