Most Terrible Issue Facing America Today ? (1 Viewer)

[Mr. Blue Sky]

I debated whether or not to put this into some other discussion, but i think it’s worth its own thread.. there are many different threads here covering a variety of very pressing topics.. Which two or three, for you, are the most immediate and ‘fire alarm’ type issues today, as i type this in mid March of the year 2025 ? To be clear, almost every issue that comes out every day is horrible, but i am trying to prioritize my horror .. My list:

1) the environment .. with almost every single regulation being rolled back and the EPA soon be eliminated, expect absolutely no action on climate change and expect even more hurricanes, tornados , wildfires etc al and premiums to be even more sky high and unaffordable , IF you can even acquire insurance at all .

2) Having a megalomaniac Russian asset in the White House with the nuclear codes.. ‘Nuff said .

3) Social Security.. I’ve been paying into it since im 14 yrs old working fast food, if they want to cut me a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars (plus interest) and call it even, then that’s fine .. otherwise, it looks like the Republicans will finally get their wish to “privatize” Social Security .


.. sorry to denigrate Immigration, the economy, racism, LGBTQ+ and everything else.. hopefully we can figure out a way to address all of these things.. but what are your top two or three ?

 

[TampaJoe]

People throw around these conclusions that "we have identified all the waste, fraud, and abuse" but there's been very little evidence of that - in fact, any time that this current attempt (i.e. DOGE) is pressed for evidence of those claims, what they do produce is so unconvincing that it begs the question of what they're really doing because they're obviously lying about the fraud they have "uncovered".

Here's the issue as I see it and it has been this way for years: Yes, the federal government apparatus is large, bloated, and wasteful - and when I say wasteful, I mean that it doesn't do things efficiently and there are often overlapping programs (more than one office doing virtually the same thing) or programs that lack meaningful oversight. This isn't human negligent wastefulness, but it is institutional waste. BUT there's only one effective way to address these symptoms: you have to do the hard work of breaking down the authorities that give rise to these programs and change them. Most of these programs have either statutory authorization, regulatory authorization, or policy-based authorization. The policy-based ones are easy to cut, but the other two have force of law and if you don't appeal or revise them, you haven't gotten rid of them - no matter how many stuff you cut.

This approach that this administration is taking to the executive branch is a failure because it doesn't actually reorganize the government - it only reorganizes the staff. The programmatic requirements stay the same and that means the agencies are going to be constantly working to try to be able to regain the ability to do them - because they're required to by law! So after this spasm is over, it will return to business as usual. No well-run company would re-organize like this, they would do a thoughtful analysis of how to reorganize in a sustainable way - you don't just cut the staff at the factory, you re-tool the factory to work with fewer staff. So this whole idea that that this is some exercise of fiscal responsibility like a business would do is not persuasive - it's one of those rhetorical devices that appeals to people who only require superficial rhetorical ideas to throw their support behind but the substance is highly questionable and quite damaging along the way.

And in fact, many of the programmatic activities that are being trashed are relied upon by large numbers of people and provide substantial public good. Fine, if the minor savings of getting rid of those programs is what they want to do, then say they need do it - and take the political accountability. The fact is that Trump did not run on getting rid of most of these programs (admitted that he did some) and he even said he wouldn't be getting rid of them. I think it's dirty pool when a presidential candidate is aloof, opaque, or even outright denies certain ambitions in the campaign and then turns around and claims a mandate to do these things because people voted for him. It wasn't informed consent.

I don’t disagree. I didn’t mean to imply that anyone has identified all the waste fraud and abuse has been identified. In fact, I believe it is the opposite. Perhaps I could have phrased it better without the shorthand.

As I said, I believe it needs to be done. I don’t necessarily agree with the “how”.

If doing the hard work you describe requires agreement in the legislature, I have serious doubts it will ever happen to a meaningful degree. Just a personal opinion.

 

[cuddlemonkey]

Been through a few. My experience is that a 10% RIF has little to no impact. So that would be 240,000. I’ll be surprised if they RIF that many.

So 240,000 people are unemployed and likely seeking unemployment benefits while they scramble to find jobs that potentially pay less than they were making before, reducing their spending power drastically while also stripping them of their health insurance benefits, thus increasing the chances that they have conditions that go untreated because they can't afford private insurance now. That's not even counting the fact that the people remaining now have an increased workload because firing a bunch of people doesn't mean the work stops. Do you seriously think that has little to no impact?

 

[Dragon]

I don’t disagree. I didn’t mean to imply that anyone has identified all the waste fraud and abuse has been identified. In fact, I believe it is the opposite. Perhaps I could have phrased it better without the shorthand.

As I said, I believe it needs to be done. I don’t necessarily agree with the “how”.

If doing the hard work you describe requires agreement in the legislature, I have serious doubts it will ever happen to a meaningful degree. Just a personal opinion.

One way to combat fraud is by ensuring transparency regarding the economic and political ties of leaders, secretaries, and politicians.

In Denmark, this information is easily accessible—just two clicks away. You can see which organizations they are members of, their past and present employment, and which companies they own stock in. This transparency extends not only to the politicians themselves but also to their spouses. The purpose of this disclosure form is to ensure the greatest possible transparency regarding ministers' personal financial interests, thereby helping to maintain public trust that their official duties are not influenced by improper considerations.

For example, you can view detailed information about our Prime Minister here: https://www.regeringen.dk/ministrene/statsminister-mette-frederiksen/

 

[coldseat]

One way to combat fraud is by ensuring transparency regarding the economic and political ties of leaders, secretaries, and politicians.

In Denmark, this information is easily accessible—just two clicks away. You can see which organizations they are members of, their past and present employment, and which companies they own stock in. This transparency extends not only to the politicians themselves but also to their spouses. The purpose of this disclosure form is to ensure the greatest possible transparency regarding ministers' personal financial interests, thereby helping to maintain public trust that their official duties are not influenced by improper considerations.

For example, you can view detailed information about our Prime Minister here: https://www.regeringen.dk/ministrene/statsminister-mette-frederiksen/

I wish we had that kind of transparency and accountability here.

 

[UriUT]

I wish we had that kind of transparency and accountability here.

We did have them. We allowed politicians to ignore those rules. Worse, we allowed severe gerrymandering that swept in significant numbers of nutcases safe from ousting hell bent on destroying the constitution with their constant whataboutism and faux outrage. And that straw that breaks the camel's back? We have feeble opposition leaders willingly cave when the occasion demands it.

Schumer has been on CBS, the view, msnbc, and probably more that I didn't catch. He's there to defend his meek leadership. According to ocasio-cortez, he deliberately sabotaged their agreed strategy. How can one show so much resolve to appear on every news show now but fail to defend your oath???

The Sharks Circling the Boat

From Marc | Donald Trump’s “flood the zone” strategy is designed to overwhelm us.

www.democracydocket.com

Here's Elias giving a grim outline. Trump is like the hiv virus. He's targeting the white blood cells of our republic, including private lawyers in firms that brought cases against him.