this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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[–] GreatTitEnthusiast@mander.xyz 139 points 1 week ago (4 children)

In addition, government research in the sciences is miniscule. You could cut ALL of science funding and be no where close to the 1 trillion that Musk claims he'll be able to reduce the budget by

[–] TheDoctor@hexbear.net 66 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Now if he could start making cuts to the military…

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 45 points 1 week ago (2 children)

How dare you threaten the poor defense contractors.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

also, entire military is just under 1tn - all of it, including completely nonmovable things like nuclear silos and submarines. ripping enough copper from the walls to get 2tn would involve massive cuts to social security and healthcare, and maybe education. but nooo heavens forbid that progressive tax on income be introduced

[–] frezik@midwest.social 19 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The DoD itself spent $820B in 2023. To get over $1T, you also have to include veterans benefits, like the VA hospital system.

The full bill for Vietnam started coming 20 years after the fact as all those veterans got older and started heavily using the benefits they were promised. From the start of the War on Terror, we're about at that same point right now. So unless the plan is to rug pull those benefits from people who really need them, then there's going to be a huge bill coming that no amount of efficiency trimming can ignore.

If Democrats did the rug pull, Republicans would cry bloody murder. If Trump did it, they will cheer him on while veterans suffer.

[–] Kuori@hexbear.net 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

oh nooo all the butchers who went overseas to shoot at brown children will suffer for their choices

what a terrible fate for a bunch of terrible people

[–] frezik@midwest.social 6 points 1 week ago

While I understand the sentiment, US veterans are in many ways victims of the capitalist system themselves. At 18 years old, they're pressured by family or school administration to go into the military. They may have grown up poor and have no viable career path once they leave high school. College is a pipe dream. Combine that with recruiters who will use every high pressure tactic in the book and outright lie to get you to sign ("sure, you can get leave later on to be the best man at your friend's wedding"). All this is happening before they're legally allowed to drink, and they certainly haven't finished developing into their adult self.

They go off to the military. Most will get through with nothing more traumatic than boot camp (which can be pretty traumatic) and some shitty food, but some will die, and others will be injured or have PTSD.

Keeping those services and improving them is part of cleaning up our mess. So is dismantling the capitalist system that creates more of those veterans.

[–] Evilsandwichman@hexbear.net 0 points 1 week ago

The full bill for Vietnam started coming 20 years after the fact as all those veterans got older and started heavily using the benefits they were promised. From the start of the War on Terror, we're about at that same point right now. So unless the plan is to rug pull those benefits from people who really need them, then there's going to be a huge bill coming that no amount of efficiency trimming can ignore.

Pulling the rug out from under exactly when they need it most is almost the most based of praxis; the government giving them the wall is 100% based praxis.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

i, for one, would like to see more air defense assets going to Ukraine

[–] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Genuinely why bother at this point

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (6 children)

"hey why bother going against a nationalist land grab? i am the real antiimperialist" gee i wonder

most of the rest can be made in europe, even if it would require some scaling up of production

e: i can see you have came here with your instance-issued portable public opinion influence brigade. will you bitch and moan again when you get defederated from another instance?

[–] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 19 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

nationalist land grab

Is that what you actually think this is? Russia, famously lacking land.

If your "defence of democracy" requires replacing a democratically elected government with a nazi puppet regime in a violent coup, supporting that regime as it commits 8 years of terrorism against its minorities, and forcing it to kidnap old men to the front lines to keep the profitable meat grinder going...maybe you're not actually doing anti imperialism? Just a thought. Like when the swastikas came out and the genocide in Palestine kicked off, you should have realized we're the baddies, and baddies lie.

But epistemology aside, why bother from a practical standpoint? The war is over. Anything sent over at this stage is either going to the scrap heap or a military warehouse in the Russian Federation. Also lol, you will not be scaling up domestic weapon production to any meaningful degree, because we, the US, blew up Europe's pipeline and ate it's energy sector, and now Volkswagen can't even keep making it's cute little nazi cars.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 week ago (5 children)

The point is not gain of land for Russia but removing land from another state, as a punitive measure for trying to get away from russian influence. This is also not the first time it is happening. Because of how nationalist Putin's supporters base has become over time, he chose to use small invasions like 2008 invasion of Georgia as a tool to increase his domestic popularity. This parallels 1999 false flag bombings and response in form of second Chechen war and 2014 invasion of Donbas. In all these cases, as well as for two first weeks of 2022 war, approval rating of Putin's government soared which was exactly the point the entire time. Because of how much of that comes from nationalists, he can't back off because he'd come across as weak and lose support, he can't advance much faster because he's physically unable to, and his best bet is this kind of slow grind like we see now. Any western military aid will make it harder, so of course russian influence operations are directed against it, and you know that too

Also you will not be scaling up domestic weapon production to any meaningful degree

Speak for yourself. Orbital ATK buys european explosives, we have scaled up weapons manufacture in France, Germany, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Czechia and few others, there are new Rheinmetall plants in Ukraine too.

Ukrainians don't lack resolve. In 2022, something like 85% (iirc) said that fight should go on if nuclear weapons were used by Russia. Even now 80%-ish don't think that any territorial concessions should take place in any peace agreement. They have some of their own defense industry, lots of things (other than mostly air defense, and parts of aircraft manufacture) we can do in Europe, even if it requires some scale up, then there's South Korean deliveries and few other things that still can happen.

Like when the swastikas came out and the genocide in Palestine kicked off, you should have realized we’re the baddies, and baddies lie.

who the fuck "we" is supposed to mean there? in middle east i wish everyone involved regime change, situation is fucked with any of current people in power staying in power. Put Netanyahu, Assad, Erdogan, Khamenei and their cabinets and top people from Hezbollah in Hague then we can talk. but it's severely off topic so maybe don't

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 21 points 1 week ago

Love to see a Westerner demanding regime change in Arab countries and calling other people imperialists.

Didn't realize George W Bush was computer literate enough to use a reddit clone.

[–] TheDoctor@hexbear.net 14 points 1 week ago

Put Netanyahu, Assad, Erdogan, Khamenei and their cabinets and top people from Hezbollah in Hague then we can talk.

So what you’re saying is Assad must go? who-must-go

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

in middle east i wish everyone involved regime change, situation is fucked with any of current people in power staying in power. Put Netanyahu, Assad, Erdogan, Khamenei and their cabinets and top people from Hezbollah in Hague then we can talk.

Great man theory doesn't stop being great man theory if you add "and their cabinets" after.

At some point you need to engage with the problem of why things are the way they are, and the answer isn't "The bad guy is in charge (and his cabinet)"

[–] ikilledtheradiostar@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The point is not gain of land for Russia but removing land from another state, as a punitive measure for trying to get away from russian influence.

it-is-known

we have scaled up weapons manufacture in France

we fedposting farquaad-point

[–] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The point is not gain of land for Russia but removing land from another state, as a punitive measure for trying to get away from russian influence

I started laughing here and havent stopped yet. Your explanation for the historical developments of the last few years are so stupid, so hilariously, irretrievably movie-brained in their simplicity and ignorance of material incentives, and every time they completely fall through you rubes fail to learn anything.

How many times has the Russian military "been on the verge of collapse"? "Run out of shells"? "Run out of soldiers"? How many more big offensives full of terrified conscripts with guns at their backs have to grind themselves uselessly to paste before you death cultists get it through your heads that this shit is nothing but a national, generational suicide bombing? Just one more doomed advance, bro. Surely the righteousness of our (inherently superior, somehow) troops will make up for inadequade tactics, nonexistent diplomacy, grim manpower shortages and staggering logistical disparities.

You credulous liberal dipshits stink up every social sphere with smug ignorance expecting to be welcomed, and then when people push back against your unpromted chauvinistic, fight-to-the-last-Ukranian bullshit, you can only whine and complain about some tankie brigading conspiracy. Anything but your dumb ass having been refuted in the marketplace of ideas.

[–] 2Password2Remember@hexbear.net 12 points 1 week ago

shut the fuck up you stupid liberal. fuck off

Death to America

[–] brain_in_a_box@hexbear.net 11 points 1 week ago

The US is helping Israel annex Gaza and West Bank as we speak, spare us the "opposing nationalist land grabs" nonsense.

[–] Kuori@hexbear.net 8 points 1 week ago

oh look a sexist nazi

what a surprise

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago

can see you have came here with your instance-issued portable public opinion influence brigade. will you bitch and moan again when you get defederated from another instance?

brigading

Look, I originally came in here to look at dunks on my-hero and then I saw it back in my feed with like, quadruple the number of comments it had when I originally saw it.

We're not brigading just because we're all in agreement that someone calling for regime change in some of the only countries and organizations who are resisting a modern Holocaust is a bad person undeserving of respect. I just wanted to read some Elon Musk hate and you decided to talk about how the Arabs should have their leaders chosen by the enlightened white Westerners.

[–] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I leave for an hour and you come back with some snide edit to cosplay as inglorious basterds? Weird thing to do in the middle of -and I cannot stress this enough- supporting actual, seig heiling nazis in a war.

[–] rockerface@lemm.ee 5 points 1 week ago

I, for two, would like to see the same

[–] BossDj@lemm.ee 52 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Regardless, he'll claim he cut 500 bajillion dollars no matter what he ends up doing

[–] BananaOnionJuice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 42 points 1 week ago (2 children)

My bet is that if he expects to cut 2 trillion, he will end up increasing the budget by 4 trillion.

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

No no, you don't understand. This is what people have actually been asking for this whole time. Nobody wanted the budget randomly cut, they wanted it distributed

Sadly we already know it will be distributed to the friends of the 1%

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

He'll cut 2 trillion out of the general budget, redirect it into his own holdings, and demand praise for his genius leadership. Oh, and he may or may not actually eliminate some programs along the way.

[–] callouscomic@lemm.ee 30 points 1 week ago (1 children)

He actually claimed 2 trillion.

[–] Jumpingspiderman@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I knew Elongated Muskrat was a dumbass but I didn't know he also can't do math.

[–] MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.world 24 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don't think he even attempted to do math. Someone asked him about it and said what the current budget was, and he just rectally sourced 2 trillion. I assume he said that because it's big enough to sound huge, but less than half of spending so people don't panic that everything will be cut.

It's meaningless bullshit until he actually says specifically what will be cut. Republicans have been claiming they can cut huge chunks of spending for years, but it never materializes. They only know how cut government income without paying for it.

[–] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Still waiting for that ACA replacement promised on week 1 of trump's presidency. It was supposed to be so easy. Now we're 8 years out and they have "concepts of a plan".

[–] MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm sure with control over all government branches again they'll have the ACA completely replaced in no time. For real this time.

[–] chaogomu@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

The plan is to repeal it first, and then figure out what to do from there.

Probably whatever makes the most money for insurance companies.

[–] 21Cabbage@lemmynsfw.com 10 points 1 week ago

The goal's more about cutting all the science funding than reducing spending. These are people who bitch about Ukraine when they don't even plan on spending that money on something else they're just guzzling Russian propaganda.