Are you just going to keep predicting the future?
Ah, OK. I thought you were doing the whole mean Dad standing next to the kid at the pool, tossing him in. ;)
Oh, and welcome Venjer!
Thanks! Neat place. Nerdy. I like.
Haha no way! If it was the forum’s alter ego I going to ask how you came up with Venjer for the forum overlord and how long til we all die as the forum became sentient.
Trump didn’t do it alone. People have helped him.
Well, yes, specifically the people who voted for him and, more importantly, the people in office who are refusing to put the country before their own personal ambition.
Counting chickens before they hatch. Is that 1-2% compound interest or simple interest?
If you come out of a national emergency mostly intact, you can profit greatly afterward. I think this is basically the Trump Administration’s plan, even if they haven’t fully articulated it to themselves.
Anyway, in the meantime Trump will just do something more outrageous to distract us from the current outrageous thing.
When you get a chance please post here. Welcome.
I don’t love this strategy. It’ll be good to at least get some departments up and running but, specifically the IRS will take pressure off the Republicans. Make them sweat. It should be all or nothing
I agree 100% with everything you said. That said, as others have pointed out, they’re too incompetent to actually do anything with that money and I would give it to them secure I. The knowledge it won’t build anything significant in exchang for a huge win like comprehensive immigration reform
That may be the trap that Pelosi is building.
If they open one, you can start ripping them for putting low priorities on other departments, because it turns out they all do things that are very popular.
You get Treasury/IRS reopened, and you’ve established that you’re the party and house of congress that really wants to govern and do the job they were sent to Washington to do.
I would imagine that’s the plan, at any rate.
My daughter works seasonally for the IRS. They have already postponed her refresher training, it was to start on the 7th.
I’m with you. Also, when those SNAP benefits stop flowing real soon here, a whole lotta Trump supporters are gonna be among the people affected. Not to mention a lot of farmers and ranchers whose livelihood depends on stuff in the farm bill and whose lives are being complicated by Trump’s idiotic trade war.
Dude, it’s five billion dollars.
That’s not chump change. That’s an immense amount of money. That’s a quarter of NASA’s entire budget.
I’m not willing to give that to him to waste.
Hell, you know he’s just gonna grift a massive amount of it. It’s gonna go directly to him, personally.
No, fuck that. It’s not a hundred bucks. It’s five billion dollars.
They are already getting screwed, because the shutdown is delaying the USDA’s annual crop reports, that are used by both investors and farmers themselves to plan for the upcoming season.
You’re proving the efficacy of that strategy. That’s all another department that will need appropriations.
See? Every department that is closed, we’re now seeing how useful they are, and that’s what Pelosi is going to tap into. If the GOP in the Senate is dumb enough to open Treasury and not other departments, it helps ratchet up the pressure.
Yeah, and the idea that all spending should be tied together in giant all or nothing bills is a bad strategy to begin with. It’s the same kind of hostage mentality that Trump is using.
Spending should be considered on its own individual merits, not threats of everything coming crashing down.
You guys have sold me on the strategy.
And Timex, yes, I’m with you. I’m just trying to console myself by saying they won’t know how to spend it if they get it. That said, while it’s a pipe dream, I would absolutely give Trump $5 billion and tell him to go fuck himself in exchange for programs that accelerated a path to citizenship for people who wanted to come to America and for policies and laws that would ease the suffering of people who are in desperate need of it. He could fucking spend it all on KFC if he wants. Fuck him but it would be worth it.
Not to mention the farmers getting screwed by the Chinese tariff stuff.
If you give a bully $5 today, he will ask for $10 tomorrow.