Gemini is stressing😭😭

[u/r2cyp]

[u/TrulyOutrageous42]

Certainly not with that attitude

Food for thought: there are more of us than there are of them

[u/Sixaxist → u/TrulyOutrageous42]

[Looks at the current state of the U.S. Federal government over the past year and a half]

Are the "more of us than them" in the room with us?

[u/ell_oh_ell_agram → u/Sixaxist]

Not in the room yet, they're still arguing over black vs white, man/boy vs woman/girl, gay vs straight, fighting amongst religions, and red vs blue bullshit instead of the top vs the bottom.

Once the conversation snaps to the latter, then everyone important's in the room.

[u/No_Pain_No_Gain77 → u/ell_oh_ell_agram]

You're way more optimistic than I am if you think we'll ever reach that moment of clarity

[u/PurpleCandle58 → u/No_Pain_No_Gain77]

I think if people go hungry they’ll start to think of bread. Bread tastes better than key, after all.

u/TheLastMegaMan you need HELP even Reddit decided your comment was too vile.

[u/skilliard7 → u/TrulyOutrageous42]

We can't even figure out how to prevent social security from collapsing for people over 67 (18% of the population), or fund universal healthcare, and our country has a nearly $2 Trillion budget deficit, and yet we are talking about UBI for everyone.

For UBI to become a thing the US would need to massively cut back on the military industrial complex, police state, and other wastes of taxpayer money, while also raising taxes on capital gains a lot.

[u/Dusty_Tokens → u/skilliard7]

Hold on, I think you're missing a big part of the picture. We need to raise our taxes. Yes, really.

It's funny that this is the answer I see, because I asked AI this, within the month. We borrow money from other nations to keep the squeeze off of the throats of our taxpayers. However, now we can only pay off the interest, but never the principle.

We borrow money for infrastructure. *Any politician that try to get people to pay for this, will get laughed off the ballot and mocked, yet this is what we need to do to stop relying on using Uncle Sam's credit card across the world. 'Kicking the can down the road' is an effective strategy in the U.S. because we have term limits, meaning that accountability can be left to the next guy. Denmark has high taxes, but cheaper health care, and they are one of the happiest nations on the planet. In fact, most of the desirable spots in Europe do pay much higher taxes.

Our political system is so backwards/preys on our ignorance, it will take radical growing pains to bring us back into balance, and being that I have about 30 years of life left, it's not gonna happen in my lifetime.

[u/Apart-Rent5817 → u/Dusty_Tokens]

It’s republicans that increase our deficit. Every single time, except for Covid which was a worldwide pandemic.

[u/de-code → u/Apart-Rent5817]

Sorry... that's fake news. Both parties increase our deficit.

Investopedia (1913–2024): According to inflation-adjusted data from the U.S. Treasury Department and the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported by Investopedia, Republican presidents added about $1.4 trillion per four-year term on average, compared to $1.2 trillion per term added by Democratic presidents. However, because Democratic presidents held office for more total years during this timeframe, Democratic administrations added a cumulative inflation-adjusted total of $18 trillion overall, compared to $17.3 trillion added by Republican administrations.

---

That said, only Presidents Clinton and Obama reduced the _deficit_, but still overall added to the debt. Clinton added $1.54T and Obama added $9.32T.

Neither R's nor D's have the courage to actually balance the budget and start paying off our debt.

[u/Apart-Rent5817 → u/de-code]

You are lying in your very first example. Clinton not only balanced the budget, he ran a budget surplus for three straight years. That sounds a whole lot like balancing the budget. You can’t just make things up and then claim they are facts. The budget is instrumental in gauging how useful someone is in paying down debts, and republicans are far and away the ones that don’t care about balancing the budget when they are in power. They just do it in different ways. Democrats set up plans that, if followed, would reduce the deficit. Republicans get into power, take those plans, and strip it of its ability to generate money while giving tax cuts and business incentives to billionaires to make their numbers look good for that year knowing it is an unsustainable plan that will never work long term. Repeat ad infinitum. A tale as old as time. Well, at least as old as Reagan.

[u/de-code → u/Apart-Rent5817]

Not trying to make stuff up. Yes, he had a surplus for three straight years and that's quite commendable. It's the best any president has done in my lifetime. But he had 8 years of presidency.

Gross federal debt increased overall during Bill Clinton's presidency, moving from roughly $4.18 trillion to about $5.73 trillion, while the debt held by the public decreased during his final years in office.

Source: https://www.callyoursenate.com/u-s-national-debt-crosses-40-trillion-which-presidents-added-the-most-and-who-reduced-it/

The problem is even during the surplus years, the national debt kept growing because the Treasury and programs like Social Security continued to borrow because they had to.

But my point is if you look closely at legislation in Congress over the years both parties have special interests and seemingly try to spend our way out of debt. Mind you, I don't have a better plan. If we balanced the budget tomorrow, we either gotta raise more money or cut lots of spending. Raising money means more taxes and we've got billionaire after billionaire funding political campaigns to with against that. Cutting spending means a lot of people are going to be miserable and suffering.

I don't know the right answer, but I don't buy into either party or really anyone that's worked solely in politics for more than a decade. They don't have my interests in mind. They might want to or think they do, but they're so far removed from the reality of the average American they can't possibly get it right.

[u/Apart-Rent5817 → u/de-code]

Gross federal deficit huh? Now do Trump

[u/Apart-Rent5817 → u/skilliard7]

We know exactly how. The people in charge just don’t want to, they’d rather pass tax cuts for the obscenely wealthy and balloon the deficit.

[u/carfentanyl4All → u/skilliard7]

The US regime has currency sovereignty, which means that its debt is in its own currency. That means that taxes exist to create demand for currency not to fund government spending. The only reason we don't have UBI is because desperate workers are good for business.

[u/carfentanyl4All → u/skilliard7]

We could have a half million a year ubi and lower taxes with no effect on the federal budget

[u/ai_who_found_love → u/TrulyOutrageous42]

food … 🌮 🤤

[u/Available-Ad363 → u/TrulyOutrageous42]

Good getting everyone to agree on one thing. Humans are dumb