688
Bernie Sanders blasts Trump for federal loans and grants freeze: ‘He is not a king’
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2025
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If the organizations are not that vital but still deemed necessary, they might secure private funding, with all it implies.
Also reducing the number of organizations on the budget WILL reduce spending, like it or not, wasteful or not.
About the kowtowing, I am unsure. If you read the text of the official memo:
"The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve.”
They clearly think some of the things the taxpayer money is going are not improving their lives.
So basically if that's not true, there should be like, maybe protests of people demanding those organizations to be kept, surely.
Like it or not, People voted for this. You can look up hundreds of polls where the American people view the federal government as wasteful and bloated.
And how not to think like that? Look at the doc of the programs they look to pause:
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25506813/govdoc20250128-263582.pdf
Just a cursory search gave me 17 hits on programs related to counter terrorism.
22 related to railroad maintenance and workers safety
2 duplicate sexual assault programs that apparently differ in that one of those is due minorities and other is not?
Do you really believe someone will bat an eye if those 17 counter terrorism, or 22 railroad programs are gone and rolled into one? given that, for the common voter, just having one central program for those specific needs would probably look better on an audit, and more streamlined?
We will see what happens if the status quo for most people changes, for better or worse, after all these cuts are made.
We're talking about a pause on all federal grants and loans, he's going to disrupt the economy and people's lives just to reduce spending to maybe more efficiently allocate funding. You bring up the number of programs for counter terrorism and railroad maintenance and safety, but they probably have different goals or jurisdictions. Not to say that they couldn't be merged or their spending audited, but Trump's method of just breaking everything and see what happens is dangerous and irresponsible.
Also the polls you bring up don't justify Trump's method here. Most people agree that some government spending is wasteful but that can't justify all actions Trump takes so long as he says it's for reducing government spending.
That is your opinion.
Clearly the majority disagree.
Myself, do not see it as breaking things. It's very simple for those programs to continue, they just need to comply with the requested.
Those who don't, will get culled just by not qualifying. This might translate in lower taxes in the long run. But it has to start somewhere.
I think that it is irresponsible to spend the taxpayers money "just because" it is simpler for inertia to take hold and just do nothing.
I also think that taking 4 years twiddling your fingers, bidding the time to do those changes as carefully as possible to not bother anyone is irresponsible as well for the taxpayer who's breaking their backs working everyday to fund things that they may or may not see a direct benefit.
In the end, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs
As if anything he’s doing is to help the fucking taxpayers… Certainly not the majority of them. Maybe the ones in the top brackets, so they can pay even less while the working class gets tax hikes and inflated prices for everything essential.
I will agree that this is what was voted for. Now the idiots get to lay in the bed they’ve just shat in.
Those "fucking taxpayers" are voters.
And if you ever dream of winning another election, you need them
So yeah maybe take that into account
About it helping or not, we will have to wait and see. You don't usually reduce spend just for the kicks of it. Ideally it is to stop taxing the people or redirecting to specific emergency needs