US Politics Megathread

[Goodspeed]

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I'm still waiting on claims that Trump is better for the economy than the Biden administration (and/or Obama if you want).

See the overall discussion went from "why didn't we get harris" to which conservatives ask "trump better for economy, social and geopolitical issues be damned." From there the statement was made that Trump didn't do shit for the economy or as a president in general, which was turned around into a discussion regarding presidential influence on the economy. Having asked for substantive arguments from the conservatives, it appears that analyzing the economy is now "too hard" or very difficult for them. On what fucking basis did you vote then? See, I accused conservatives for voting over image instead of real policy. So now I'm asking which policies did the republicans have that made the economy so much better? and the onus of answering that question is on the conservatives. in my eyes "the economy" is still a cop-out and the red vote came from a place of emotion and hatred. I'm still more than willing to try to help the discussion move forward on president vs economy but to me the lack of real substance in the response of sensei/misha/etc. still kind of validates my suspicion that there is no substance. There is a semblance of substance but nothing actually there.

Like, if you voted for "the economy" and you've already voted, then surely it wouldn't be too hard to bring up why you voted for Trump. You argue it was an informed decision. Show what that information was.

I haven't actually stated the claim that Trump is better for the economy. You asserted that Obama deserves all the credit for the strong economy under Trump with zero supporting evidence. If you actually read what I wrote, all I say in recent posts is that it's quite hard to rigorously evaluate the effects of economy policy, so most conservatives default to their beliefs "tax cuts = growth" and democrats default to "trickle down economics = bad."

I hate answering with questions but:
- Do you think Obama's administration failed in its management of the 2008 sub-prime crisis?
- Do you believe that Trump inherited a poor economy when he took office in 2016?
- You haven't stated that Trump is better for the economy but then why did Trump get your vote?

I would say Obama did fine. He maintained an economy inline with inflation. Given the financial crisis in 2008 that's good.
Trump inherited a fine economy. IMO obama gave him a small loan of a million dollars and he built an even better economy from the perspective that money went further under trump.
Biden had covid to work through and his response to it led the country to where it is now. Sometimes you get blamed for things that are outside of your control, but when people are struggling it's hard to talk about theory or who to blame when the results are quite bad for the average American. The biden administration will be blamed for the bad economy during their time in office.

I'm well off so I can patiently wait until housing prices come down, but I know some friends that just will never own a house if things don't change. If I were to vote, I would have voted for Trump.

What is Trump gonna do about housing prices? This is not something a president can control in normal circumstances

[fightinfrenchman]

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I'm still waiting on claims that Trump is better for the economy than the Biden administration (and/or Obama if you want).

See the overall discussion went from "why didn't we get harris" to which conservatives ask "trump better for economy, social and geopolitical issues be damned." From there the statement was made that Trump didn't do shit for the economy or as a president in general, which was turned around into a discussion regarding presidential influence on the economy. Having asked for substantive arguments from the conservatives, it appears that analyzing the economy is now "too hard" or very difficult for them. On what fucking basis did you vote then? See, I accused conservatives for voting over image instead of real policy. So now I'm asking which policies did the republicans have that made the economy so much better? and the onus of answering that question is on the conservatives. in my eyes "the economy" is still a cop-out and the red vote came from a place of emotion and hatred. I'm still more than willing to try to help the discussion move forward on president vs economy but to me the lack of real substance in the response of sensei/misha/etc. still kind of validates my suspicion that there is no substance. There is a semblance of substance but nothing actually there.

Like, if you voted for "the economy" and you've already voted, then surely it wouldn't be too hard to bring up why you voted for Trump. You argue it was an informed decision. Show what that information was.

I haven't actually stated the claim that Trump is better for the economy. You asserted that Obama deserves all the credit for the strong economy under Trump with zero supporting evidence. If you actually read what I wrote, all I say in recent posts is that it's quite hard to rigorously evaluate the effects of economy policy, so most conservatives default to their beliefs "tax cuts = growth" and democrats default to "trickle down economics = bad."

I hate answering with questions but:
- Do you think Obama's administration failed in its management of the 2008 sub-prime crisis?
- Do you believe that Trump inherited a poor economy when he took office in 2016?
- You haven't stated that Trump is better for the economy but then why did Trump get your vote?

I would say Obama did fine. He maintained an economy inline with inflation. Given the financial crisis in 2008 that's good.
Trump inherited a fine economy. IMO obama gave him a small loan of a million dollars and he built an even better economy from the perspective that money went further under trump.
Biden had covid to work through and his response to it led the country to where it is now. Sometimes you get blamed for things that are outside of your control, but when people are struggling it's hard to talk about theory or who to blame when the results are quite bad for the average American. The biden administration will be blamed for the bad economy during their time in office.

I'm well off so I can patiently wait until housing prices come down, but I know some friends that just will never own a house if things don't change. If I were to vote, I would have voted for Trump.

What is Trump gonna do about housing prices? This is not something a president can control in normal circumstances

The idea is that housing prices will go down when all the illegal immigrants are forcibly removed

[Sensei]

I know you're just being flippant, but removing illegal immigrants is about deporting actual dangerous criminals and people who have come here and taken advantage of taxpayers while providing nothing in return to the communities they've invaded. At this point there are so many illegals that I think a path to citizenship should exist for those that are contributing or show a genuine interest in contributing. Once they're citizens I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of them started voting conservative based on their values.

[fightinfrenchman]

I know you're just being flippant, but removing illegal immigrants is about deporting actual dangerous criminals and people who have come here and taken advantage of taxpayers while providing nothing in return to the communities they've invaded. At this point there are so many illegals that I think a path to citizenship should exist for those that are contributing or show a genuine interest in contributing. Once they're citizens I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of them started voting conservative based on their values.

That's not what it's about at all, when has Trump or any one on his campaign mentioned a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants? He wants to deport them all. You're lying to yourself about Trump's policy and replacing it with something more sensible in your head

[Sensei]

I wasn't talking about Trump's policy I was providing my personal thoughts on illegal immigration hence the sensible parts.

[fightinfrenchman]

I wasn't talking about Trump's policy I was providing my personal thoughts on illegal immigration hence the sensible parts.

You said that removing illegal immigrants was about ones who are criminals, the Trump plan that you voted for doesn't make that distinction whatsoever.

[fightinfrenchman]

At this point there are so many illegals that I think a path to citizenship should exist for those that are contributing or show a genuine interest in contributing. Once they're citizens I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of them started voting conservative based on their values.

You don't really think this

[Sensei]

At this point there are so many illegals that I think a path to citizenship should exist for those that are contributing or show a genuine interest in contributing. Once they're citizens I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of them started voting conservative based on their values.

You don't really think this

Dont worry it is ok to call my take on illegal immigration sensible or even to agree with me. I won't tell anyone.

[Goodspeed]

So you disagree with Trump's immigration policy but voted for him partly because of it. Was Harris against deporting criminal illegals?

[fightinfrenchman]

At this point there are so many illegals that I think a path to citizenship should exist for those that are contributing or show a genuine interest in contributing. Once they're citizens I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of them started voting conservative based on their values.

You don't really think this

Dont worry it is ok to call my take on illegal immigration sensible or even to agree with me. I won't tell anyone.

It would be sensible if that was what you actually supported

[Sensei]

I know you guys won't believe me but you don't actually have to agree with 100% of what a candidate says in order to vote for them. You can actually use your brain and think about issues instead of adopting exactly what your prefered party says.

[fightinfrenchman]

You don't have to agree with anything a candidate says or does to vote for them. You can just pick at random

[Goodspeed]

I know you guys won't believe me but you don't actually have to agree with 100% of what a candidate says in order to vote for them. You can actually use your brain and think about issues instead of adopting exactly what your prefered party says.

You said you voted for Trump partly due to his stance on immigration and are now saying you don't fully agree with it; That means you disliked Harris' take on it even more, so I'm asking a question to figure out why. Instead of making this obvious straw man point about not having to agree with everything a candidate says, you could answer it.

[Sensei]

So you disagree with Trump's immigration policy but voted for him partly because of it. Was Harris against deporting criminal illegals?

Here are some of the specific parts I didn't like about Biden/Harris's immigration policies.

Harris was a part of the administration that supported sanctuary cities which effectively protected illegal immigrants including criminals by not reporting people that were arrested for other crimes to ICE. The Biden/Harris administration provided taxpayer money to these cities to support these illegals while neglecting Americans in need. Sanctuary cities also offer an incentive for more people to immigrate illegally and I believe contributed greatly to the number of immigrants coming in.

Biden/Harris ended the remain in Mexico policy which would keep immigrants in Mexico until there immigration court date and instead let them into the country with a promise to appear at a future court date aka "catch and release". Sanctuary cities compound the issue with this policy since people can just skip their court date and live in a sanctuary city.

Biden/Harris has also expanded his “parole” authority to let in 30,000 people per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to legally enter the United States and to remain here for up to two years. These people don't have a pathway to citizenship, so again sanctuary cities compound the issue with this policy since people can just stay past the two years and live in a sanctuary city.

Overall I don't think Biden/Harris did a good job on the border and finally trying to get legislation passed in the last year of his presidency on an issue he was polling terribly on isn't going to win me over. Based on the Biden/Harris policies above I do not trust them to actually secure the border and expel dangerous illegal immigrants even if their policy positions say that is what they intend to do and those issues are more important to me then the path to citizenship.

[Goodspeed]

Where did Trump cut spending to pay for his tax cuts?

Tried to look into it myself and found that the tax cuts were estimated to cost about 1.5t over 10 years, so let's say 150b per year. As far as where Trump cut spending to pay for this, it's hard to say without looking at the federal budget of those years in detail, but from what I've read so far it seems that he kind of just let the debt balloon.

So we would have to judge the tax cuts by doing some sort of cost/benefit analysis where the cost is a ballooning debt (which you pay interest on obviously), and the benefits are some type of growth to some degree which is probably documented in the study linked here. Basically: Was it worth it?

@Misha I can't help but notice you never mentioned the cost of these tax cuts, and were perfectly happy analyzing their effects on the economy and making a judgment without taking the cost into account at all. I wonder if you would have been as generous if a democrat spent federal money on something. I'm guessing the cost would be the first thing you think of then. Sound likely?

Anyway, the "was it worth it?" is hard to answer definitively because even economists have a hard time agreeing about the importance of fiscal responsibility. How bad is it that the US deficit was increased by 150b and how much should we fault Trump for ballooning the deficit at a time where the economy was doing well and it wasn't necessary? For contrast, under Obama the deficit increased sharply in 2009 (for obvious reasons) and then slowly decreased as the economy recovered. See chart below.

I've been meaning to read a book about fiscal policy because I want to understand this better, but haven't got around to it (and haven't found a book on this subject I'm excited about reading). Any informed takes or book recommendations?

What we can reasonably assume however is that, since the tax cuts mainly benefited people who were already well off and corporations, and the eventual spending cuts that will have to happen are likely to affect the lower incomes the most, the measure is likely to be a net loss for (what's left of) the middle class and below, and a net gain for everyone else. At the very least, it's unequivocally a measure that increased wealth inequality in the US. I would say wealth inequality is already at alarming levels so that's a bad thing, conservatives might disagree.

[Goodspeed]

Some debt math: Current interest on the US debt is about 3% per month (holy shit), so adding 1.5t to the debt would add about 50b per month in debt payments, 600b per year.

So: Are the economic benefits of the tax cuts worth 600b per year? This is about $2000 per year per capita of added debt payments. So it's costing you about 2k a year for the rest of your life if you pay your taxes in the US.

Edit: It's 3% per year, so the 2k is actually 178

[Goodspeed]

Countries are weirdly okay with paying insane amounts of interest on their debt

[iNcog]

I met a (genuinely) rich guy who once told me to buy bonds, which I believe is buying debt from governments. I think that maybe it was worth doing if inflation was under a certain metric, according to my own research. Government debt has never ceased to be a point of weirdness for me. I don't understand it as well as I'd like.

I'll say that governments taking on loans is probably a really different set of rules than say a mortgage.

[iNcog]

Sheinbaum just slapped down Trump like the moron he is. Trump back pedaled so hard. This guy is full of nothing more than hot air and bluster, it's insane to me that supposedly proud Americans stand behind him. Absolute insanity.

The exchange between the two leaders appeared to confirm for Trump the value of threatening to disrupt trade with import taxes. His initial social media post moved financial markets and gave him a response he was quick to describe as a win. Even if the proposed tariffs fail to materialize, Trump can tell supporters that the mere possibility of them is an effective policy tool and continue to rely on tariff threats.

Sheinbaum wrote on social media that the leaders “discussed Mexico’s strategy on migration issues, and I told him the caravans are not reaching the northern (U.S.) border, because Mexico is taking care of them.”

“We also talked about reinforcing cooperation on security issues, within the framework of our sovereignty, and the campaign we are carrying out to prevent fentanyl consumption,” she said.

Illegal migration across the Mexico border is down in part because the Biden administration secured some stepped-up cooperation from Mexico — the sort Trump seems to be celebrating.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-t ... e4bce16ed9

If both Trump and Sheinbaum Pardo aim to play hard ball, it would mark a departure from 30 years of cooperation on trade that have intertwined the U.S. and Mexico economies in ways that could be difficult to undo.

For example, the seats that go into vehicles assembled at plants in the U.S. Midwest may first crisscross the U.S.-Mexico border seven or eight times as components are added on one side and the other, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Both countries face economic fallout if a trade war ensues.

U.S. voters have endured years of high inflation, which has cut into their earnings gains and made even a strong economy feel weak for many households. Economists say tariffs, which function like a tax on goods, are often passed on to consumers and can inflate prices. Price tags could go up on everything from avocados and tomatoes, to cars and computers.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/pol ... 587148007/

It hurts me that people are stupid enough to believe the rhetoric instead of the facts. The stupidity could power the sun if that energy could be harnessed.

[Goodspeed]

I met a (genuinely) rich guy who once told me to buy bonds, which I believe is buying debt from governments. I think that maybe it was worth doing if inflation was under a certain metric, according to my own research. Government debt has never ceased to be a point of weirdness for me. I don't understand it as well as I'd like.

Yeah government bonds are a pretty safe investment but the yield is typically not that high. Then again, if the US is paying 3% interest per month, I suppose that should mean that the average yield you're getting as a US bond holder is 3% a month? That's actually really good, it's probably not that simple. I don't know how these rates are set, but it would make sense for them to be high right now because there is increased supply due to COVID (as we can see in the chart, the US government spent a lot of money during COVID) and possibly decreased demand due to worsening trust in the economy and in the US government.

I'll say that governments taking on loans is probably a really different set of rules than say a mortgage.

Similar concepts apply, I would think. You borrow money to invest, this is what governments do too. Every time they run a budget deficit, they are making the implicit claim that whatever money they are borrowing is going to be spent in a way that will bring a return on investment that outweighs the amount of added interest that will be paid.

[Dolan]

I've been meaning to read a book about fiscal policy because I want to understand this better, but haven't got around to it (and haven't found a book on this subject I'm excited about reading). Any informed takes or book recommendations?

The key phrase is "public finance". Any introductory textbook should do fine. If the book is a wall of text without tables of data, then avoid because it's most likely a 'perspectives on modern public finances' sort of book, in which they write their own theoretical approaches, so they won't provide the meat and bones on the subject.

This one seems usable:
https://www.uv.mx/personal/clelanda/files/2014/09/Hyman-David-2011-Public-Finance.pdf

You can probably jump directly to "Government Expenditures in the United States" from Chapter I and avoid too much theoretical BS about policy.
Basically focus on balance sheet, budgeting, revenue sources, structure of revenue and expenditure, fiscal constraints, monetary constraints, debt servicing.
Also important to note that while, on a general level, public finances are about the same everywhere, the specifics can vary a lot. For example, the relation between the US treasury and the Fed is unique to the US system, due to their history. So don't expect what you understand about how things work between the Treasury and the Fed will be recognisable in China or the Netherlands.

[Goodspeed]

That's probably too dry for me. I tried reading economics textbooks before but it was a huge bore. Usually what does well with me are stories/biographies about exceptional people who were involved in whatever subject I'm trying to expand my knowledge on. But I suppose people in this field are pretty boring

[Dolan]

It's definitely less boring than statistics and probabilities that you worked with in the prediction contest topic

[Goodspeed]

It's crazy that it's ever worth it for governments to run a deficit if the interest rate is this high. The US is paying almost a third of the entire debt in interest every year? This can't be right, what am I missing?

[Dolan]

It's crazy that it's ever worth it for governments to run a deficit if the interest rate is this high. The US is paying almost a third of the entire debt in interest every year? This can't be right, what am I missing?

If they keep running a deficit then a lot of that past debt is paid with new debt. Basically rolled over.
Deficits are always used to solve some pressing current issue by spending some revenue from the future.
If the economy keeps growing, then the burden of servicing the debt can also get eased by increasing revenue. But if you're adding debt faster than the econ grows, the interest can become a constant burden