GPS_Flex
DP Veteran
- Joined
- May 20, 2005
- Messages
- 2,726
- Reaction score
- 648
- Location
- California
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Independent
n this depressingly unserious campaign season, it’s time — past time — to take Donald Trump seriously. In particular, to take seriously what passes for Trump’s domestic policy, aside from that wall.
Trump purports to care about the national debt. “We can’t keep doing this,” he said of the debt at MSNBC’s town hall Wednesday. “We’ve got to start balancing budgets.”Except, Trump — alone among Republican candidates — insists that he will leave entitlement spending untouched, although it consumes more than two-thirds of the federal budget.
On Social Security, for instance, Trump rejects raising the retirement age (a move he once endorsed), increasing payroll taxes, reducing cost-of-living adjustments and trimming benefits.
In Trumpworld, the solution to controlling entitlement spending is that refuge of lazy and dishonest politicians everywhere: waste, fraud and abuse. “It’s tremendous,” Trump said at the recent CBS News debate, citing “thousands and thousands of people that are over 106 years old” and collecting Social Security.
Reality check: A 2013 audit found 1,546 people who had received Social Security benefits despite being dead. Total cost? $31 million. Cost of Social Security that year? $823 billion.
Donald Trump’s utterly ridiculous budget plan
So when are the Trump supporters going to check back into reality and realize that anyone can promise pie in the sky results but talk is cheap and the real world requires complex and difficult decisions/solutions and that the attitude of a candidate is the worst thing you could possibly judge a presidential candidate upon? When are you idiots going realize that Trump will say whatever you want to hear to get elected while in reality, he either knows his promises (which never include any details on how he'll get them done) can't be kept because they're impossible or because he's so clueless he doesn't have a clue about what being POTUS entails? This is one voting group I just don't understand. Are you like Trump zombies who watch his reality TV shows and care more about the celebrity than the welfare of the USA or do you think Trump actually knows what he's talking about and can achieve his wild claims?
Donald Trump’s utterly ridiculous budget plan
So when are the Trump supporters going to check back into reality and realize that anyone can promise pie in the sky results but talk is cheap and the real world requires complex and difficult decisions/solutions and that the attitude of a candidate is the worst thing you could possibly judge a presidential candidate upon? When are you idiots going realize that Trump will say whatever you want to hear to get elected while in reality, he either knows his promises (which never include any details on how he'll get them done) can't be kept because they're impossible or because he's so clueless he doesn't have a clue about what being POTUS entails? This is one voting group I just don't understand. Are you like Trump zombies who watch his reality TV shows and care more about the celebrity than the welfare of the USA or do you think Trump actually knows what he's talking about and can achieve his wild claims?
Donald Trump’s utterly ridiculous budget plan
So when are the Trump supporters going to check back into reality and realize that anyone can promise pie in the sky results but talk is cheap and the real world requires complex and difficult decisions/solutions and that the attitude of a candidate is the worst thing you could possibly judge a presidential candidate upon? When are you idiots going realize that Trump will say whatever you want to hear to get elected while in reality, he either knows his promises (which never include any details on how he'll get them done) can't be kept because they're impossible or because he's so clueless he doesn't have a clue about what being POTUS entails? This is one voting group I just don't understand. Are you like Trump zombies who watch his reality TV shows and care more about the celebrity than the welfare of the USA or do you think Trump actually knows what he's talking about and can achieve his wild claims?
So when are the Trump supporters going to check back into reality and realize that anyone can promise pie in the sky results but talk is cheap and the real world requires complex and difficult decisions/solutions and that the attitude of a candidate is the worst thing you could possibly judge a presidential candidate upon?
Here is why Trump is where he's at.
1. Deportation of illegal aliens.
2. Build The Wall.
3. Halt Muslim immigration.
4. Jobs.
5. Middle finger to political correctness.
You've got some apples and oranges in the comparison bucket there. The article you cite states..."Reality check: A 2013 audit found 1,546 people who had received Social Security benefits despite being dead. Total cost? $31 million. Cost of Social Security that year? $823 billion...."
In reality...$31 million in fraud is a long way from an $823 billion SS payout. You also have to realize the SS payout is balanced by the FICA taxes being collected. That's WHY we pay FICA taxes.
So, you can go after Trump on a number of valid issues...just not the ones in that article.
Heaven forbid, we could actually end up with Trump as the GOP nominee and then we'd see the big donors shift from the other candidates to Trump in an effort to counter Hillary.
Fiscally, Trump is okay. It's his social policies and lack of foreign policy understanding that puts him in the risk category.
Donald Trump’s utterly ridiculous budget plan
So when are the Trump supporters going to check back into reality and realize that anyone can promise pie in the sky results but talk is cheap and the real world requires complex and difficult decisions/solutions and that the attitude of a candidate is the worst thing you could possibly judge a presidential candidate upon? When are you idiots going realize that Trump will say whatever you want to hear to get elected while in reality, he either knows his promises (which never include any details on how he'll get them done) can't be kept because they're impossible or because he's so clueless he doesn't have a clue about what being POTUS entails? This is one voting group I just don't understand. Are you like Trump zombies who watch his reality TV shows and care more about the celebrity than the welfare of the USA or do you think Trump actually knows what he's talking about and can achieve his wild claims?
No he's not. His tax plan is a $10 Trillion tax cut over 10 years, and he's of course not explained how he'd pay for that without borrowing it. So to the extent we believe his fiscal plan, it's a f'ing disaster.
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/2000560-an-analysis-of-donald-trumps-tax-plan.pdf
Donald Trump’s utterly ridiculous budget plan
So when are the Trump supporters going to check back into reality and realize that anyone can promise pie in the sky results but talk is cheap and the real world requires complex and difficult decisions/solutions and that the attitude of a candidate is the worst thing you could possibly judge a presidential candidate upon? When are you idiots going realize that Trump will say whatever you want to hear to get elected while in reality, he either knows his promises (which never include any details on how he'll get them done) can't be kept because they're impossible or because he's so clueless he doesn't have a clue about what being POTUS entails? This is one voting group I just don't understand. Are you like Trump zombies who watch his reality TV shows and care more about the celebrity than the welfare of the USA or do you think Trump actually knows what he's talking about and can achieve his wild claims?
Donald Trump’s utterly ridiculous budget plan
When are you idiots going realize that Trump will say whatever you want to hear to get elected while in reality, he either knows his promises (which never include any details on how he'll get them done) can't be kept because they're impossible or because he's so clueless he doesn't have a clue about what being POTUS entails? This is one voting group I just don't understand. Are you like Trump zombies who watch his reality TV shows and care more about the celebrity than the welfare of the USA or do you think Trump actually knows what he's talking about and can achieve his wild claims?So when are the Trump supporters going to check back into reality and realize that anyone can promise pie in the sky results but talk is cheap and the real world requires complex and difficult decisions/solutions and that the attitude of a candidate is the worst thing you could possibly judge a presidential candidate upon?
Donald Trump’s utterly ridiculous budget plan
So when are the Trump supporters going to check back into reality and realize that anyone can promise pie in the sky results but talk is cheap and the real world requires complex and difficult decisions/solutions and that the attitude of a candidate is the worst thing you could possibly judge a presidential candidate upon? When are you idiots going realize that Trump will say whatever you want to hear to get elected while in reality, he either knows his promises (which never include any details on how he'll get them done) can't be kept because they're impossible or because he's so clueless he doesn't have a clue about what being POTUS entails? This is one voting group I just don't understand. Are you like Trump zombies who watch his reality TV shows and care more about the celebrity than the welfare of the USA or do you think Trump actually knows what he's talking about and can achieve his wild claims?
Let me guess: Free ponies tomorrow,eh?
Before he gets my vote I'll have to see the ponies.
Cost of the Iraq War 2-5 trillion with some estimates even higher than that. Trump is going to put a stop to waste, fraud, and abuse and that would include things like indulging in wars of choice.
Cost of the Iraq War 2-5 trillion with some estimates even higher than that. Trump is going to put a stop to waste, fraud, and abuse and that would include things like indulging in wars of choice.
TPC, although they claim to be non-partisan, are biased. In addition, they don't have the ability to formulate macroeconomic studies. They put out questionable reports on Rubio and Romney as well.
That said, in the report you cite, they don't mention what Trump said he would CUT in order to balance the budget.
While I'm not a Trump fan, he was pretty open about scrapping NAFTA and negotiating trade agreements that benefit the US first and foremost. He's also suggested reducing our foreign aid, in the form of military investments, and asking our allies to step up and pay their fair share. He's talked about reducing exemptions on hedge fund earnings and cutting wasteful spending.
Why the TPC didn't mention those aspects is beyond me, but then again, they are biased.
I don't think the financial thing against Trump will go anywhere. He can talk fiscal circles around any of the other candidates. LOL
Anti-Trumpers need to revise their focus. In my opinion.
Or he could go for bankruptcy number five. LOL.
When you have the vast majority of Republicans still supporting wars of choice, and some even stating that they'd start WW3 to establish "no fly zones" in Syria, I'll take Trump. Many people were duped into supporting the war in Iraq, myself along with the majority of Americans included. So the point still stands. Trump is against wars of choice unlike Hillary, who has also said that she would start WW3.Tough argument to back-up with facts. He seems unable to recognize real waste and fraud and simply attack those the rabid right see as undeserving... :roll:
His own words don't seem very strong AGAINST wars of choice when the choice was being made, he seems to be against things only AFTER they fail.
Now a days I'd say ALL the candidates would claim to not be for wars of 'choice', but as we have seen some of our wars are based on the self deluded premise- 'we have no choice'...eace
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