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Comment by polski-g | Hacker News Reader

We have a 2tn deficit. If Congress wants to fund this, they need to make it mandatory spending and raise taxes.

That's a good idea to raise during the budget time or with some warning ahead of time. But even discussing the cost of CVE program itself is likely a waste of time and money. When trying to deal with 2tn deficit, looking at things that historically got ~$5M is just a distraction. And the lack of it may cost even more given how many existing agreements/contracts rely on cve to be a thing - maybe just in gov lawyers having to rewrite things.

Selling bonds is not the same thing as a family budget being in the red. Either you know this and you're making this argument in bad faith, or you don't and, well...

Or cut from $877B in defense spending instead?

https://usafacts.org/government-spending/

Listen, I hate the debt, but we have an income problem, not a spending problem. The military looks like a waste, but it does more than build bombs i.e research etc.

The issue we have is that republican every chance they get since the 1970s have cut taxes. And then blamed democrats for causing the deficits. We don't need smaller governments. We need a reasonable tax system that taxes people. It can be progressive like it was before we decided rich people just need it easier than poor people.

Yes, I will pay more taxes sign me up, especially if they can finally fix the roads and fund research. The problem is my taxes as a middle-class person go up and rich people get a tax cut. It's stupid. I like water provided by government utilities, I like planes that don't crash into stuff because there are air traffic controllers. These things used to work because we paid for them. When you buy cheap you get cheap.

Military also employs a bunch of people who otherwise would be poor. Also provides a gentrification path for a bunch of previously poor people extending throughout their lives.

Yes, a big part of the size is because the military is a massive and horrendously inefficient jobs, education, housing, and healthcare program.

Don't forget all the beak-wetting that happens along the way when signing contracts etc. That's where an actual difference could be made.

Yeah republicans claim to want to run the government like a business, but the first thing a business should do when they have a deficit is raise revenue! And especially in the case of the US government, the the only barriers to doing that are self-imposed.

This is an absolute pittance compared to the total budget. And considering the current administration wants a $4T tax cut they are not interested in trimming the deficit at all.

Yep, DOGE is a song and dance distraction. If they were serious about lowering the deficit they wouldn't have laid off ~12K IRS workers (whom show a 7x ROI per head.) They also wouldn't be asking to increase the military budget to $1 trillion per year. Trump has spent 1/3 of his days in office so far golfing; $30 million+ so far paid to Trump properties for the privilege of that. This is the biggest capture in US history and it's all out in the open.

Dear god, you don't just stop running government completely because you have a deficit.

Republicans control Congress, this is bait

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