Play_Neck

was not aware.

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I got a pm from him for a comment I made

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Sorry to hijack, but we have PMs ? :lol:

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The use of tariffs is not intended to reduce prices. It’s to reduce or eliminate income taxes.

Hopefully you don't really believe this.

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Last I checked, we collect like 2-2.5T in income taxes and only import like 4.25T in foreign goods. If we tariff all imports at 100%+ to fill, (a) people will stop buying foreign shite, (b) foreign people will stop buying our shite, (c) the global economy will crumble (last example of trying this was 1929 - maybe not exact cause, but def. correlation to the G Depression), and (d) as a result the deficit would be even bigger than the 1.6-1.7T we have now (although we somehow added 2-3T in debt 12 months trailing, which is more than the alleged annual deficit) because you can't generate tariff revenue if no one imports anything.

TLDR: If DJT really means what he said, it won't work.

Voyager Mission(s)

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Which resort are you staying at?

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and what's your SSN ?

sheesh

charge by the hour

that pic of the long hair dude In Israel that's been circulating is pretty convincing, visually

FY 26 to date spending, from the treasury site (i.e. October 2025 to date--so roughly 1/4 of a year (data likely collected through Dec.)):

$402 B Social Security
$270 B Net Interest
$267 B National Defense
$261 B Health
$254 B Medicare
$166 B Income Security
$114 B Veterans Benefits and Services
$39 B Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services
$33 B Transportation
$23 B Administration of Justice
-$2 B Other

That's total about 1.83T spent in 3 months; and we have about 1.22T in revenue for the same period. That means deficit this year of 1.8 to 2.4T, if we continue that pace.

Max DOGE cuts were projected at less than $100B, even if brutally thorough. (I know Musk said 2T before election, but that's more than we spend total and was just grandstanding. April 2025 max estimate was $150B and late 2025 was projected at $63B.) IMO, no matter how much you cut, it's not enough--not to say we shouldn't be careful and cut spending, too. We'd have to completely get rid of Social Security and Health assistance to get near breakeven, which some folks are okay with....

We likely don't take in enough revenue b/c low tax, which is fine, but it costs us long term. Further concerning with a shrinking population.

Tariffs only fill the gap so much and at some point are counter productive. We imported roughly 325B in goods last year. Even if we tariffed 100% (which would cause the imports and likely our GDP to drop, so at some rate, counterproductive), that's only 1/6 of the current deficit.

The debt isn't unsustainable yet as GDP grows, but we're projecting that way in the near term.

Hence the theories that DJT is crippling the dollar to make borrowing cheaper and/or, as Putin accused us, of dumping some debt into crypto and then killing whichever coin they use for the debt. IDK how there would be enough buyers though.

In short, agree with whoever said our kids are screwed.

A+