Comment by Dalewyn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Dalewyn | Hacker News Reader

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>Even during election night his approval rating was only 46%, the supposed peak of honeymoon.

I would advise you that pollsters have quite literally never managed to accurately measure him, so poll numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. One reason the Democrats lost is because they assumed the polls were usefully accurate.

>Well "take down the treasury" was defiitely not part of his campaign.

It is, broadly speaking. Trump is continuing his "Drain the swamp!" promise from 2016 in addition to pressing for efficiency in government which is all-encompassing. No part of the Executive Branch, of which the Treasury Department is a direct subordinate to the President, is off limits save for Social Security, et al. as mentioned.

If the House actually works together with Trump on this, then truly no part of government is safe except for Social Security, et al..

>He mostly focused on lowering grocery prices and ending inflation based on my conversations with everyman republicans

Indeed, that was the biggest reason for his victory and hopefully we will see all that brought to fruition soon along with all the other things.

>cutting defense spending (unthinkable)

The Pentagon apparently never passed a financial audit in recent history, which is patently indefensibly ridiculous. It should get investigated thoroughly and the defense budget appropriately slashed in due course. They are not (should not be) safe because the only things Trump promised to not touch were Social Security, et al..

If this leads to NATO and other "allies" whining something fierce, well I don't really care. I'm honestly tired of subsidizing other countries' defense budgets when they clearly don't appreciate it.

If the Military Industrial Complex whines, I really don't care.

>No part of the Executive Branch, of which the Treasury Department is a direct subordinate to the President, is off limits save for Social Security, et al. as mentioned.

firstly, that's not how the treasury works. secondly; Yeah, I don't trust them. if they just want to break into classified areas, who's gonna stop them from touching social security?

>nd hopefully we will see all that brought to fruition soon along with all the other things.

How soon? He passed 100 EO's day one and couldn't add in a price control for eggs, probably with a huge subsidy to make up for loss revenue? He had the priority to remove intelligence members who "conspired against him" but can't take the time to make sure DOGE is appointed as usual? He could give a half a trillion grant to AI but also wants to "reduce spending"?

His actions do not agree with his words. And of course some of his actions are beyond his control. He can't force the FEDS to reduce the interest rates (not that that would lower inflation. Quite the opposite).

>If this leads to NATO and other "allies" whining something fierce, well I don't really care.

Well I'm glad you're accepting of World War 3. I'm not going to acquiesce as easily.

This also isn't 1850, so if we have a Civil War 2 we will not survive whoole. Whoever "wins" gets overwhelmed by China and we lose a huge chunk of America to the East. At the very least we no longer have a "West Coast" and we're in a trade nightmare. NATO won't help out because we decided to piss them off and dismiss them as "crybabies". Canada won't help out because we keep pissing them off because "tarriffs" is trump's favorite word in the dictionary (his words, not mine); heck, Having China as a nearby trading partner would probably benefit them more than US at this point.

I live on the West Coast so I care a lot more about that than you would. I don't want my house under Chinese territory just because you're mad about not being on the congress board to argue over spending. That issue is fixable for you if you wish to go that route. The way our geography is basically means we need to defend all of North America at the bare minimum. defending a continent isn't cheap.

>firstly, that's not how the treasury works.

Firstly, that's how the Treasury works. It is literally the Department of the Treasury, headed by the Secretary of the Treasury who serves at the pleasure of the President.

President Trump can be his own Treasury Secretary if he were so inclined, he just doesn't have to.

>who's gonna stop them from touching social security?

Literally President Trump whom Elon Musk answers to and serves at the pleasure of. Trump made safeguarding Social Security, et al. a campaign promise and he is, by and large, a man of his word to a far greater degree than any other politician.

>He passed 100 EO's day one and couldn't add in a price control for eggs

If circumstances like the bird flu get too severe he might have to play hard ball, but in the interests of the free(er) market it probably is better to be less conspicuous.

Regardless, it's not even 1 month into a 4 year term. If Trump thinks that cleaning the government out is a more pressing matter than lowering grocery prices, I can't say I disagree, I voted for that policy too.

>can't take the time to make sure DOGE is appointed as usual?

He doesn't need to ask for Senate confirmations because the law doesn't say so.

>He could give a half a trillion grant to AI but also wants to "reduce spending"?

That $500 billion is private money coming from the companies who signed on to Project Stargate. I'm going to assume this was just simple naivety and wasn't deliberate mischaracterization.

>Well I'm glad you're accepting of World War 3.

Biden's policies brought us closer to World War 3 than ever before. Contrasting that to the only President in my lifetime who has not started a war of his own, I'll take this any day of the century over the prior status quo.

>I live on the West Coast

Me too. As a Japanese-American I share your sentiment that China is an enemy to be appropriately feared and respected.

I personally suspect Pax Sino is coming some time this century regardless of anything we do at this point, though. The ship already sailed out.

>The way our geography is basically means we need to defend all of North America at the bare minimum. defending a continent isn't cheap.

Our defense budget pays for significantly far more than just the United States of America, let alone the North American continent (this should be an equally shared responsibility between the US, Mexico, and Canada.)

Our defense budget pays for defending the entirety of NATO and all our other allies; we effectively defend the better part of the entire fucking globe. And yet our "allies" continue to whine, especially NATO. I'm tired of it, I'm sick of sending our servicemen to serve in other countries who don't even want them and seeing our tax dollars spent on countries who don't appreciate it.

Obama already declared we aren't the world police anymore, the world can fend for itself while we figure out our god damn finances. If that means accelerating Pax Sino, well, "I don't really care, Margaret."[1]

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy7rk8djJek

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