patrick.net

The US GDP is about $23 trillion. 1% of that would be about $230 billion.

We spend more than that on pensions alone.

Those pensions should be reduced or eliminated.

Note that we are already reducing the US national debt through inflation, which is a kind of default.

BTW, the forced transfer of massive amounts of money from taxpayers to government employees is itself a kind of Communism.

Patrick says

Those pensions should be reduced or eliminated.

I would not want to be the one to break the news to a bunch of retired navy Seals that they get no pension.

What I meant was that pensions should not be part of government employment benefits.

I'm not necessarily opposed to fulfilling existing pensions, but I think that government pensions as a part of promised employment benefits should be reduced or eliminated.

Patrick says

What I meant was that pensions should not be part of government employment benefits.

I'm not necessarily opposed to fulfilling existing pensions, but I think that government pensions as a part of promised employment benefits should be reduced or eliminated.

It would be a shame if a Captain of a ballistic missile sub staked his retirement on Bitcoin. He might take out life's frustrations on a goodly number of people.

Misc says

Comes nowhere even close to the amount raised by the income tax. We have about $3.5 trillion in imports.

Income taxes are about $2 trillion.

YEP. $350B is just what the government needs to pay for the military, courts, and roads. The Military is ludicrously bloated. At $250B for the military and $100B for everything else, we'd still be far and away the numbah won spender. Our military is bloated with leather interior luxury planes for Army and Air Force Generals, Littoral Combat Ships that never worked and ended up many times original projected cost, etc. We could have an unbelievable Army of divisions of infantry armed to the teeth with ATGMs, the latest nightvision gear, etc. etc. instead we have the shitty short bus Stryker and the F-35 Boondoggle whose stealth was obsolete against the latest crop of radars already deployed by Russia and China before it flew it's first combat mission, that manuevers worse than any 2nd gen fighter jet, and costs a small fortune to fly per hour, many times what an F-15 or F-16 costs even at their advanced age and parts costs.

Institute an AMT on Corporate Taxation of 7% for any corp with more than $10M in revenue. Despite CATO propaganda, Amazon, Google,etc.pay around 2-3%, nothing like the advertised rates. A waitress in a slow rural diner doesn't pay 2-3% in income tax. That'll leave some stuff for lowering the debt.

The best answer is to repeal the 17th Amendment, so State Governments can once again be represented at the Federal Government directly.

The interest on the debt (about $31 trillion) at 3% is about $930 billion.

Gonna have the US default and play who gets what and Why?

Misc says

The interest on the debt (about $31 trillion) at 3% is about $930 billion.

Gonna have the US default and play who gets what and Why?

France defaulted multiple times in the 19th Century and entered the 20th as a top 3 nation.

Default is a big deal but not the end of the world. It's a scare tactic by creditors, the same ones who got bailed out to the hilt while their mortgage forgiveness/flexibility was utterly optional for them to offer via HAMP/HARP/whatever it was called.

Prior to taking office in his first term, President Ronald Reagan stated that if he left office without closing down the Federal Department of Education (DOE) he would
consider his time in office as an abject failure.

Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt also believed the DOE should be disbanded and agreed to serve as Reagan's senior policy advisor to the U.S. Department of Education
during Reagan's first term. Iserbyt came from a family that was deeply entrenched in the ruling class of America; both her father and grandfather were members of Yale's
ultra-elite Skull and Bones. During her time at the DOE, Iserbyt repeatedly attempted to inform Reagan of the alarming, radical direction that the DOE was
moving. To her dismay, Reagan ignored her warnings. After experiencing much in the way of persecution from inside the DOE, Isebyt left the DOE, and wrote a book
about her experiences, along with exposing the nefarious plans of the elitists at the DOE.

It is well worth the read: the book is entitled "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America" and is available as a free PDF download here:

https://archive.org/details/pdfy-SYN9t0cHh1aFu8XV

The nice thing about being in America is that we will be able to kick back and watch how other countries play the default/who gets what and why game before we do.

The first batter up looks like it may be the UK. They are playing the game that if they don't make a budget, then nobody really knows how bad things are.

The sheer numbers of defaults there is gonna be something else.

Back of the napkin numbers are they have 8% GDP government deficit, 8% of GDP trade deficit and 6% of their economy tied to finance (yes, they go around charging each other varying amounts of interest and call it an economy).

Now they are at 100% of debt to GDP and looks like they are approaching the event horizon.

Another platform:

https://tobyrogers.substack.com/p/proposed-contract-with-the-medical

So here’s my proposal. Any politician who wants the medical freedom vote in 2024 needs to give us a seat at the table — that means having a say in the selection of the heads of HHS, FDA, and CDC and an ironclad commitment to passing the ten items listed below:

1. Repeal the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act that lets government officials and academics patent (and thus profit from) federally-funded research. So much of the corruption in our current system stems from this.

2. Repeal the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. No liability protection for pharmaceutical companies.

3. Permanently end the entire notion of a “vaccine schedule”. Forcing one-size-fits-all medicine on an entire population is savage and barbaric. Anything other than personalized (“N-of-1”) medicine is malpractice.

4. Provide Constitutional protections at both the state and federal level for medical autonomy so that this never happens again.

5. Prohibit the executive branch from seizing emergency powers under the guise of public health. The Constitution does not have a pandemic exception.

6. The First Amendment must apply to social media. Ban Pharma TV ads.

7. Withdraw from the WHO, disassociate from the WEF, and dismantle the FDA, CDC, NIH, DARPA, BARDA, and ARPA-H. Make all scientific knowledge and data open source.

8. Negotiate an international treaty to ban gain-of-function research.

9. Prosecute those who participated in the iatrogenocide and covered up its harms.

10. Force Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, Sanofi, Merck, and GSK to pay reparations to the vaccine-injured.

Another platform:

https://notthebee.com/article/this-straight--from-italys-pm-shows-how-left-wing-globalists-are-the-new-colonizers-and-right-wingers-fight-for-the-oppressed-

If you're a left-leaning person, understand this: This growing conservative movement isn't about lower taxes and corporate profits.

We are concerned about human rights abuses being committed by wolves in sheep's clothing.

We want to stop the exploitation of people by woke politicians and companies that use LGBT and climate campaigns to hide their use of slave labor.
We want to protect communities here and abroad by shutting down the human-trafficking trade on our southern border.
We want to expose money laundering and corrupt closed-door deals that have become the norm through Covid policies (see Andrew Cuomo in New York) and war zones (see Ukraine using Democratic mega-donor FTX to launder funds through crypto).
We want to protect the environment by making poor nations and communities as wealthy as possible as fast as possible so they have the resources to invest in environmental stewardship.
We want to stop the charade of "climate" policies being used as a facade by woke globalist hypocrites to keep the world's poor in the gutter while they get rich.
We want to invest in stable homes with loving mothers and fathers who are empowered to vigorously defend their children from those that want to use them as tools for ideological campaigns, movements, and sexual kicks.
We want regular families all around the world to be able to protect themselves from oppressive authorities by having access to weapons that will instill fear in the hearts of tyrants.
We want to protect freedom of speech and freedom of conscience, even when people disagree with us.
The cronies in mainstream parties like the Republicans don't realize that this is true, but the reality is that most of us young conservatives care squat about those stuffy old RINOs and their stale decorum.

Patrick says

eliminate all US military bases in foreign countries

https://nitter.pussthecat.org/72powpow/status/1596817933543518210#m

𝚁𝙰𝙶𝙴 𝙰𝙶𝙰𝙸𝙽𝚂𝚃 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚅𝙰𝙲𝙲𝙸𝙽𝙴
@72powpow
8h
🇺🇸"World Beyond War" shows an interactive map with US military bases around the world
"World BEYOND War has launched a new online tool that allows the user to view a globe pock-marked with 867 U.S. military bases in countries other than the United States."

Patrick says

eliminate all state and federal income and sales taxes, to be replaced with Georgist land value taxes and import tariffs

Ron Paul Rocks!

Patrick says

require all federal laws to be read in their entirety by all legislators before they may vote on them, to discourage lobbyist-written bills

https://notthebee.com/article/rand-paul-were-going-to-get-a-3000-page-bill-thatll-have-been-given-to-us-an-hour-or-two-before-no-one-will-read-it-itll-add-over-a-trillion-dollars-to-the-debt-next-year

Rand Paul: "We're going to get a 3,000 page bill that'll have been given to us an hour or two before... No one will read it. It'll add over a trillion dollars to the debt next year."

Patrick says

require all federal laws to be read in their entirety by all legislators before they may vote on them, to discourage lobbyist-written bills

Won't happen. I'm the treasurer for the board I'm elected to. I don't even read the accounting if I'm being honest. I just sign and move on with my night during board meetings. We're only talking $250k annually, most of which is salary and rent, so there's not much to it.

It's easy to manipulate the chain of command or not see underlings playing games. Doubtful, but Nancy Pelosi could be the most honest person and is just a moron that can't see the corruption within her own office/family. Far fetched, but not impossible as I do know she's a moron and could miss fraud.

We tend to think everyone sees what we see and read. We "assume" that the elite do as well. They might not. Not an excuse, but sometimes the handlers shield them from reality to keep them and their ego happy.

Back to your comment Patrick, even if you were given 4 months to read a bill, I can promise 98% of your elected officials might get through 100 pages of 3k. There's simply not enough time regardless of how fast you can read. House Reps especially. It's constant campaigning given the 2 year cycle. Our House Rep spent 3 hours with our board in a town of 2,200 people.... You know IL somewhat still I assume. She lives in Lake County. 60 Miles from our meeting point. You're not reading a bill in that time and the back and forth to DC, campaigning, holding babies, etc.

The bills are overly complicated which I think we all know. CA being the biggest state, I'd guesstimate that maybe, maybe 10-20 citizens read any bill in totality. To think bribed politicians will spend anytime reading this shit is laughable. It's not happening.

@WookieMan The point is to slow them down.

If they don't read the whole bill, they they shouldn't be allowed to vote on it.

The hoped-for result is much, much shorter bills that we all can understand clearly.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/lawmakers-push-term-limits-amendment

Lawmakers are once again advocating a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on members of Congress.

Members in both chambers are backing the proposed amendment, which stipulates that House lawmakers who have served three terms would not be eligible for election to the House again, while senators who have served two terms would no longer be eligible for election or appointment to that chamber.

Under the amendment, if a House lawmaker elected to fill a vacant spot fills the vacancy for more than one year, that would count toward their three-term limit — similarly, if a senator elected or appointed to fill an empty seat fills that vacancy for over three years, that would count as one of the two allowed terms.

A number of GOP senators and dozens of House Republicans are backing the proposal, as is Democratic Rep. Jared Golden of Maine.

Even if two-thirds of both houses of Congress voted to pass the proposal, three-fourths of the states would need to back the amendment in order for it to be added the Constitution.