Category: Budgets

Bribe Not Needed

Budgets, Politics

So The Donald wants to give us $5,000 after the November midterm elections:

“If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them, because of our… tremendous economic success, like in history we’ve never had anything like what’s happening, but because of our tremendous strength and success economically, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000,” Trump said on night one of the convention, comparing the move to “a successful company” that does a “cash distribution to its shareholders.”

I know what I’d do if I were a shareholder in a company drowning in debt and unfulfilled obligations and the CEO stated that he wanted to pay a cash dividend because of a recent short-term upturn in sales.  I’d tell him to do something better with the company’s money, like retire some of the debt the company has been incurring under his stewardship — firstly, from 2015 to 2019, and likewise from 2025 until today.

Failing that I have a question:  how, exactly, is he going to fund this so-called “dividend”?

Look, it’s all very well to dress up this little bit of voter bribery in corporate-speak, but the fact remains that it’s essentially a political action, and therefore it’s going to be paid by the Treasury.

Memo to the President:  what you really need to do, Mr. President, if you want to offer us a bribe, is not offer us cash — cash which, by the way, we’ll have to pay taxes on — but instead promise us to pass a permanent cut in the tax rates (all brackets) after the mid-terms.  Drop the top rate (37%) to 25%, and by similar percentages all the way down the line.  (The DSA Communists want to increase our taxes; make the Republican point of difference to lower taxes.  See which one works better come election time.)

If you thought the economy was doing well before, see what happens after that.

And when the tax revenues increase hugely as a result — and they will, of course —  use that growth in income to pay down the debt, buy back T-bills from foreign investors (like China), or use at least some of it to fund the terminations of federal employees.  (I know you’ve been doing okay so far in terms of the latter activity, but you need to do better.  Try to get the non-Defense federal workforce to fall to the equivalent levels of, say, the Coolidge Administration.)

On that topic, feel free to get rid of the busybody government departments — you know, the ones that have crippled industry and innovation by adding more and more federal regulations.  (And on that topic:  FFS, why are the Dept of Education and ATF still in existence?)

Anyway, to return to the main point:

Don’t give us a cheap “dividend” that is only valuable until it’s spent;  give us lasting relief through lower taxes.

We’ve been doing our bit to help you by eliminating ur-Democrats and RINOs like that Cornyn weasel in the Republican primaries.  When Ken Paxton gets to D.C., he’s going to be on your side, I promise you.  He’s not the best we Texans might have done, by the way, but he sure as hell is going to be a better MAGA Senator than Cornyn.  And he sure as hell will be a “yes” vote on lower tax rates when that legislation come up for a vote in the Senate.

We’ll do our best in November to get you the Congressmen and Senators that you’ll need in 2027 and onwards;  do your best to lower taxes and get government off our backs.

That would be a real dividend for us.

Cutting Fat & Fraud

Budgets

Over among the Big Brains at American Thinker, Rhys Read offers these ideas for cutting back government spending and getting our spending deficit under control:

First, eliminate the fraud in the system, which is estimated at between $200 billion and $500 billion per year.

Second, end the subsidies and government control regimes implemented to “combat climate change.”   Total spending on these programs total about $300 billion per year.

Third, moving to individual health accounts would reduce much of the middle-man expenses and regulatory expenses imbedded in the Affordable Care Act.  Eliminating these unnecessary bureaucratic expense and bloated health care costs would save about $300 billion per year.

Then we need to tackle the big expense: the cost of the bloated bureaucracy.  A one-third reduction in staffing plus a one-third reduction in average total compensation would save about $600 billion per year.

As for getting additional moolah into the system:

I propose increasing the Medicare tax from 1.45 percent to 2 percent and the Social Security tax from 6.2 percent to 6.5 percent. In addition, I propose tripling the FICA maximum, currently at $184,750, with a new 7.5-percent crediting rate to preserve the defined benefit nature of the payouts. Implementing these increases would generate about $300 billion per year.

And so on.  As the man once said (adjusted for inflation):  a (hundred) billion here, a (hundred) billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about serious money.

How much of this has any chance of ever happening?

Yeah, right.

Excellent — Or Funny?

Budgets, Politics, Trumpism

I see that the U.S. is finally going to get serious about our energy infrastructure:

One announcement Trump is set to make is the allocation of $425 million in Defense Production Act (DPA) funds to aid 13 coal plants in Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, per the official. Funding will also support coal mines in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

The official noted that funding will enable coal plants to extend their operational life through investment in upgrades, strengthen grid reliability, and prevent electricity prices from surging with demand.

So because it’s being funded by the DPA (as it should be), there’s no haggling with Congress required.  But the very next little addendum is what got me giggling:

The president is also expected to tell reporters that $75 million in DPA funding will help construct a coal-export terminal in Oakland, California, the official said.

One wonders what the Watermelons in California will think of their beloved Golden Shower State becoming a conduit for the EEEEVIL COLE to be sent out to pollute other nations’ air.  Maybe their feelings will be assuaged by this:

The West Gateway project is anticipated to create 1,400 on-site jobs and support thousands more in the western states.

…not that California ever cared about those icky blue-collar jobs, though.

There’s a lot more good news, but read the rest of the thing to get it all.

I personally think that the coal-mining industry would be far better served by the elimination of most if not all of the tiresome Obama/Biden-era EPA restrictions, but that would involve Congress and we all know what horrors, foot-dragging and tantrums that would cause.

Motive Laid Bare

Budgets, Gummint, Taxes and Theft

Ambrose Bierce once said something along the lines of:  “Whenever politicians talk, no matter what the topic, it’s always about money.”

In that spirit therefore, I offer up this little piece of shit masquerading as a pearl:

Democrats have moved to enact legislation that would establish retroactive liability for American energy producers through so-called “climate superfund” laws which penalize companies for lawfully providing energy that Americans rely on every day.

Beyond potential political challenges, the Democrat plan to punish energy producers also faces significant legal hurdles.

The Justice Department and Vermont in late March faced off in the federal courts over the 2024 climate superfund law that would require fossil fuel providers to pay for the alleged costs of climate change. The Trump administration has sued to block the law, claiming it violates the Constitution. The administration believes that climate superfund laws are unlawful attempts to regulate emissions that cross state lines. API and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have filed their own lawsuit against Vermont.

Jonathan Rose, who represented Vermont at the late March hearing, said, “We don’t need to convince the court that climate change presents serious challenges to the state of Vermont. The act is intended to recover some of the costs it’s going to need to adapt to climate change,” he said. “What it doesn’t do is, it doesn’t try to mitigate climate change, stop climate change, or otherwise impact global emissions or anything like that.”

Yeah, it’s not even attempting to paint itself as having “noble” intentions (i.e. staving off Global Cooling Climate Warming Change©);  it’s a naked grab for money, pure and simple.  The accepted “fact” that Global Cooling Climate Warming Change© is actually a thing simply gives the theft a foundation.  (Corollary:  if Global Cooling Climate Warming Change© is not real — it isn’t — then all this bullshit should go away — it won’t — because they’ll always clamp onto some other imaginary catastrophe as a pretext for their theft.)

A cursory look at a couple of other states trying to do similar:  New York and Hawaii.  Both Bluer than Paul Newman’s eyes, both stuck with massive Democrat government-created spending deficits.

Not Much For The Grunts

Budgets, Military

I read this post at Insty’s place, wherein some people are complaining that the Pentagon is spending money on things like steak, ice cream, donuts and… lobster tails?  Go ahead and read it, because there are some telling points made.

However.

I have no way of checking on this, let alone quantifying it, but I think I’d sell my AK-47 if much (or any) lobster was being served in the enlisted men’s mess halls around the world.  In other words, I’m betting that those pricey lobster tails are being consumed by generals, military contractors and other REMFs, and not by the troops on the ground or at the sharp end.

Just so we’re all clear on my position on this:  I want the boys doing the hard work to eat whatever they want and whatever we can get to them. If that includes steak, ice cream, donuts or fucking lobster tails, then so be it.  But my concern for the diets of the aforementioned brass, leeches and REMFs drops off a cliff when it comes to said items.

To paraphrase some French* queen, let them eat Spam.

*I know, Marie Antoinette was Austrian.  Shuddup.