Trump & Democrats work out $2 trillion spending deal
The coming dark age: President Donald Trump and Congressional Democrats have come to a preliminary deal for spending an additional $2 trillion for “infrastructure.”
The dozen Democratic lawmakers in the meeting with the president called it a constructive start. They said Trump agreed that infrastructure investments should go beyond roads and bridges and include broadband, water systems, and enhancements to the electrical grid.
Democrats also put the onus on Trump to come up with a funding source, and said they would meet again in three weeks, when the president will present his ideas. The nation’s top business groups and labor unions support increasing the federal gasoline tax, currently 18.3 cents a gallon. It was last raised in 1993. [emphasis mine]
Everything about this deal illustrates the corruption and bankruptcy in Washington. They all think money falls from the sky like rain, and can be spent freely without any thought or discipline. Instead of looking for available cash to pay for this work, they will make a deal to spend the money, and hope new gas taxes will pay for it. They won’t, not by a long shot, and we will fall deeper into debt, even as we cripple the already handicapped citizenry with more taxes.
Worse, most of this spending is for local projects that should be paid for by local governments, as had once been the tradition. Now every Senator and Congressperson is making deals to bring federal cash back to their state or district, even if the federal government doesn’t have the money. And Trump is joining in the game, to win votes and claim he helped rebuild the country! No one mentions that we are going bankrupt, including the bankrupt press which joins the politicians in playing this gamel.
The politics of this deal also illustrate the corruption that is rotting the heart of the country. Too many voters cheer this wild spending on, voting for these very politicians because they bring home this bacon, even though it is bacon no one can afford. It is why the politicians spend the money. They benefit from it at the voting booth.
A dark age is coming. Be aware.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The coming dark age: President Donald Trump and Congressional Democrats have come to a preliminary deal for spending an additional $2 trillion for “infrastructure.”
The dozen Democratic lawmakers in the meeting with the president called it a constructive start. They said Trump agreed that infrastructure investments should go beyond roads and bridges and include broadband, water systems, and enhancements to the electrical grid.
Democrats also put the onus on Trump to come up with a funding source, and said they would meet again in three weeks, when the president will present his ideas. The nation’s top business groups and labor unions support increasing the federal gasoline tax, currently 18.3 cents a gallon. It was last raised in 1993. [emphasis mine]
Everything about this deal illustrates the corruption and bankruptcy in Washington. They all think money falls from the sky like rain, and can be spent freely without any thought or discipline. Instead of looking for available cash to pay for this work, they will make a deal to spend the money, and hope new gas taxes will pay for it. They won’t, not by a long shot, and we will fall deeper into debt, even as we cripple the already handicapped citizenry with more taxes.
Worse, most of this spending is for local projects that should be paid for by local governments, as had once been the tradition. Now every Senator and Congressperson is making deals to bring federal cash back to their state or district, even if the federal government doesn’t have the money. And Trump is joining in the game, to win votes and claim he helped rebuild the country! No one mentions that we are going bankrupt, including the bankrupt press which joins the politicians in playing this gamel.
The politics of this deal also illustrate the corruption that is rotting the heart of the country. Too many voters cheer this wild spending on, voting for these very politicians because they bring home this bacon, even though it is bacon no one can afford. It is why the politicians spend the money. They benefit from it at the voting booth.
A dark age is coming. Be aware.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
referencing gasoline-taxes;
Our new democrat Governor here in Michigan (Gretchen Whitmer) wants to raise our State gasoline-tax by 45 cents a gallon, ostensibly to “fix our roads, once and for all.”
I truly despise bills like this, they’re part and parcel of why our debt is what it is.
They’re just as bad if not worse on the local level, school projects come up on the ballot with the claim that it will “only increase local taxes by XYZ/year, as the rest of the money will come from the state/Fed.”
Who do they think the state and the feds get money from?
The real issue with the flat revenue from the gas taxes isn’t that the tax hasn’t been raise, it’s due to the increase in fuel economy. Higher MPG, lower amounts of gasoline/diesel sold, lower tax revenues. This is why the truly draconian concept of taxing people by miles driven via GPS has come into play.
Raising the gas tax won’t raise enough revenue to pay for it, it will cause another return to small economy cars and or hybrids/electrics, and revenue will be flat from the tax. It’s basic economics.
I truly want a representative who is in favor of eliminating the deficit through CUTTING the budget, but the way the defense and federal contractors have their footprints managed, that won’t happen.
My “favorite” sign as I drive in to work every day is a Federal highway contractor’s home base campus who has a sign on the outside of the building complaining about the federal debt…
Hoppewave
“Absurdistan” The Music Video
https://youtu.be/8CvbDOJT1ro
4:33
2 trillion for infrastructure? The first thing I thought of is a rerun of Obama’s “shovel ready jobs”… Or billions to solenda to “think” about making solar panels… Remember the 2 billion that went to find a cure for the Zika virus? Once Congress gave the money, the problem disappeared with the money…
In Utah, we voted to turn down a sales tax increase and a gas tax increase. We just been notified that the schools need more money. In our district, house taxes will go up $150 a year to give the teachers a $5000 pay increase. No debate on the issue, no vote, they just did it without any regard. They said they needed the money so they’re taking it. We do not have a choice.
I haven’t looked it up lately, but I believe 100% of the federal taxes does not even pay the “interest” on the national debt.
The one good thing coming out of this deal is the hardening of our infrastructure against an EMP. an electromagnetic wave that will take down our power grid, phones and Internet. One well-placed terrorist nuclear weapon, or Carrington event from the sun, could take down our electrical grid for years. Millions would die.
The devil is in the details, is there a green new deal hidden somewhere in all of this?
“A dark age is coming.”
It’s here. An empire the size of the US takes decades to fall.
Here is Trump, trying to spend more money and apparently going to raise taxes to do it. Wasn’t someone trying to convince me, a few years back, that he is a conservative? His actions are more like President Clinton’s. Sometimes he does what the conservatives want, but mostly he is still a 2006 Democrat. He only looks conservative when compared to Obama. Or most of the current Democrats. Or many of the current Republicans, who are trying to go as far left as possible as fast as they can because that is where the Democrats convinced them the votes are located.
Fiscally It’s already too late. They’ll tax us to death to try and save it, but too much is owed already. What’s a few extra trillion among ‘friends’?
I think the reason 1% growth with 0% interest is pitched as the “new normal” is because any interest quickly shows how unsustainable the national debt really is. Raise rates to control inflation in a growing economy, and soon you’re paying hundreds of billions on the debt.
And since when does the legislative branch tell the executive branch that taxing and funding is your responsibility. You have one job, and most of the time you can’t even pass a budget, much less a balanced reasonable one.
John-
Good stuff.
tangentially– while private-sector GDP growth is impressive, we can’t grow our way out of this hole and spending must be slashed dramatically.
https://usdebtclock.org/
What wild spending? In a couple of weeks the politicians will begin waffling and a month or so later the notion of spending 2 trillion bucks on infrastructure will be thoroughly dead. The Democrats will spend the next year and a half telling their constituents “Our country needs new roads and bridges and sewer systems and protection from global warming, and we’ve tried to them for you but Donald Trump was never serious about funding such programs, so vote for us, please.” And the Republicans will trumpet that “Our country needs awe inspiring infrastructure but the Democrats haven’t been serious about cooperating, so vote for us!”
Everyone will be happy except for people who want potholes filled and sewage systems that actually carry sewage away, and your taxes will NOT go up.
Actually they came to an agreement sort of.
trump has a few weeks to come up with the money in a new budget. No money no agreement. And its all supposed to come out of existing programs.
The dems will NEVER agree to anything Trump proposes.
The money can’t come out of existing programs, there just isn’t $2 trillion to be found and repurposed in the Federal budget without causing some serious fallout.
If there IS $2 trillion to be found, instead of spending it on infrastructure, just re-purpose it to pay off $2 trillion of the debt.