7 ms·

There's a lot of really scary stuff in there: - Cancel payments to U.N. climate change projects - Remove two existing regulations for every new regulation -

• kafkaesq 10y ago
  Remove two existing regulations for every new regulation On the bright side, this is a sure-fire recipe for deadlock.
  • pasquinelli 10y ago
    or for ballooning the size and complexity of each regulation, as each new regulation has to fold into itself two existing regulations that need to be removed for the sake of this plan.
    • spinlock 10y ago
      That's been happening forever. Have you ever wondered why the law that says you can keep your healthcare when you leave your job is called the Combined Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA)?
      • mrfusion 10y ago
        If it's cheaper for employers to buy insurance why is cobra always so expensive?
        • spinlock 10y ago
          It's not cheaper for your employer. Your employer will typically cover some of the cost of health care then leave the rest for you to cover. When you leave a job, you have to pay both the premium you've been paying plus the premium your former employer had been paying. COBRA is not a free lunch. It just means you're allowed to order off of the same menu as your former employer.
• Jtsummers 10y ago
  The hiring freeze for federal employees is concerning as well. One of the major issues is that we've had several hiring freezes in the US civil service in recent decades. It causes a bathtub effect. You do reduce the workforce through attrition, but eventually you have to hire again and hire almost exclusively junior people (< 25 or 30). So you end up with a massive gap spanning around 15-20 years of age and experience. You lose a great deal of institutional knowledge (particularly critical for civil service which has many long running programs (for various reasons both good and bad)). Contractors don't really suffice in this regard because they (the employees, not necessarily the companies) tend to move much more frequently. It's going to be a problem.
  • ep103 10y ago
    Are you telling me starve the beast doesn't actually work? Color me shocked. : )
  • dragonwriter 10y ago
    > You do reduce the workforce through attrition, but eventually you have to hire again and hire almost exclusively junior people (< 25 or 30). This wouldn't be true if government pay was competitive (low pay partially offset by, particularly, pension benefits means entering government mid-career except as a box-checking thing to move to a private position leveraging the knowledge of government is discouraged, but entering at a junior level for a full career is less discouraged.) Of course, the kind of people embracing starve the beast aren't going to mitigate the skill impact by improving pay.
    • Jtsummers 10y ago
      That's one of the things that would help. Particularly for scientists and engineers. The salaries are way below what they could achieve in the private sector (often doing the same or similar work with contractors, in the defense industry).
      • TheBeardKing 10y ago
        Depends on your area of the country. In tech-dense areas with high costs of livings, the adjusted cost of living to federal civilian salary doesn't nearly catch up. However, there are many, many bases in suburban and rural areas where an early career income is over twice the median income and you get a lot for the money.
• dragthor 10y ago
  - Cancel UN climate payments, use money instead on America water and environmental issues. Sounds good to me. Let China and India clean up their own mess, while we clean up our messes. - Yes. Too many regulations by unelected bureaucrats. Sounds good to me. I'd rather have one clear and meaningful regulation than two "up for random interpretation." - Yes. Tax cuts for all working people. Let people decide what to do with their own money (spend, save, donate, etc.). The bigger the government, the smaller the individual. - Massive immigration changes? Not really. The pamphlet seems to enforce existing laws regarding criminal illegals.
  • all_usernames 10y ago
    Tax cuts for all means reducing government resources, which means increasing the power of huge corporations. This is a hostile takeover of the American government.
  • GVIrish 10y ago
    > Tax cuts for all working people. Let people decide what to do with their own money (spend, save, donate, etc.). The bigger the government, the smaller the individual. Tax cuts are all well and good in a vacuum, but how are we realistically going to pay down the national debt when we enact a massive tax cut on top of a tax rate that is already at historically low levels? Some people say we can cut all of this government bureaucracy to make up for tax cuts but we'd have to take a figurative axe to all of our federal agencies to get to a point where we can afford a massive tax cut and pay down the national debt. Otherwise we'd have to enact big cuts to Medicare/Medicaid, defense, and Social Security as well, which people seem loathe to stomach.
    • MichaelBurge 10y ago
      Medicare and Social Security are funded through their own dedicated payroll tax, not the general income tax. Roosevelt intentionally did it this way to make it impossible to repeal. My working assumption is that the military is mismanaged, and spends trillions of dollars on wasteful projects. I think you can get a pretty big tax cut by just managing the military better.
• cowardlydragon 10y ago
  What happens when the world stops buying our debt
  • daveguy 10y ago
    Hopefully Trump will not be able to bankrupt the government in 4 years. Filibuster in the Senate is an option for 2 years and maybe there will be some shift in 2018.
    • jonlucc 10y ago
      The bad news is that the filibuster is very likely to be done away with because it is the only thing stopping the Republicans from doing literally anything they want. And the map in 2018 doesn't look good for the Democrats.
      • gozur88 10y ago
        No, they won't do away with the filibuster. Filibusters are theater - they allow Senators in the majority party to kill a bill and support it at the same time. Conversely, they allow people in the minority party to insure a bill passes and vote against it. We've seen this over and over from Senators in both parties. The filibuster is dumb as a procedural tool, but as a political tool it's invaluable for Senators who want to make a career out of the Senate.
  • mywittyname 10y ago
    The Fed buys it instead -- they have infinity money. The Treasury doesn't care if other banks won't lend them money, so long as the Fed will, and the Fed always will.
• doctorshady 10y ago
  Maybe I just don't understand how light touch government works, but wouldn't removing two regulations per new regulation help special interest groups in a lot of cases?
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
• krick 10y ago
  > Cancel payments to U.N. climate change projects I'm all green peace and pro-nature, but is it really such a bad thing? I have no idea, what that money is actually spent on, and UN seems to be pretty... well, pretty useless organization, to be honest. To what extent do these billions prevent/slow down melting of ice caps and drough? If they don't, then what's the matter? It seems to be better to spend money ob the lesser something, than on greater nothing.
  • pyre 10y ago
    On the flip side, Trump is putting a Climate Change-denier in charge of the EPA, and has promised to 'gut' the EPA... so I wouldn't necessarily trust judgement there on how effective the UN climate change projects are (instead of them just being opposed to them on principal, "Climate change is a hoax, so all climate change spending is wasted").