The Next President is...

[brabus]

19 minutes ago, Banzai said:

I am for high earners paying a proportionally higher amount of their income or net worth in taxes, yes. It’s called progressive taxation, and it is highly popular. And I’m bothered that rich people and corporations don’t pay enough in taxes

The top 1% pay nearly 50% of federal taxes, top 10% pay over 75%, and the bottom 50% (I say again, HALF of tax payers) pay less than 3% of total federal taxes. The top 50% pay over 97% of the taxes.  It is pure insanity and completely illogical to argue “the rich don’t pay their fare share.” But it’s a nice progressive talking point to be absorbed and repeated by ignorant, intellectually dishonest, and/or unintelligent people.

Other related points…

- We need to rein in spending on a historic scale. Should Medicare/SS be shuttered? Well I do believe we need a social safety net (we agree on that), but these are horribly ran programs, and as of now all of my SS witholdings across adult life are literal theft because the program will be completely insolvent and defunct by the time I’m of age…unless they fix it. We need a new system along with a SS sunset

- I’m OK with taxes staying flat for a short time while we solve spending problems and reduce the deficit. But reality is we the people are currently being taxed 100s of billions that are paying for utter bullshit. Thats 100s of billions that need to be back in taxpayer pockets via cuts as soon as feasible. We can’t right the wrong of the past (because we need to reduce deficit), but we should at least start righting it ASAP (e.g. start with a clean slate)

- General point: conservatives aren’t anti-tax, but we are anti-tax to fund bullshit the federal gov has no business funding, let alone managing/controlling. For example, Dept of Ed had a $238B budget in 2024…that dept shouldn’t exist at all and $238B is either not required by the gov (and therefore tax reduced) or I could see still collecting it to pay down deficit (again, for a short timeframe, not forever). That’s one example from a large sea of examples. 

 

 

[blueingreen]

1 hour ago, nsplayr said:

Then we need to build many, many more homes (YIMBY), built and import more cars, and build many, many more utility-scale renewable energy facilities since those are the cheapest form of new energy production.

I'm all for building new housing. I'm also a bit of an architecture nut, so I'd love to see a revival of classical architectural ideals instead of the utilitarian concrete and steel we see nowadays. There are some up and coming studios in places like Charleston, SC that are working wonders. I'd also like to see real estate become less of a speculative asset owned by mega-corps like BlackRock. The incentives are all wrong, people and companies alike shouldn't be holding on to their homes with the expectation that it's going to appreciate in value. Just let a house be a house. When it comes to renewable energy, I'm not willing to entertain any discussion that excludes nuclear. The backbone of renewable power grids in the future is going to have to be nuclear, and people need to get over their unfounded fears about it. The improvements in safety that have been made in the past 5 - 10 years alone are remarkable. We literally have meltdown-proof reactors and reusable nuclear waste.

1 hour ago, nsplayr said:

I got $64K from 1914 dollars to 2025. Also doesn't include the land, actually building the house, windows, doors, etc. Also no central HVAC, it's less than 1,400 sq/ft, etc. Do you want electricity? That's not likely included, ~10% of homes had electricity in 1914.

Apologies, that was my mistake. I thought that image was from the 1940 Sears catalog. It's actually from the 1924 catalog, which means the inflation-adjusted price of that home is... $36K. Even if it was $64K, that's still a fantastic price. As for the price of plumbing, heating, and electricity, take a look at this 1927 Sears Modern Homes catalog (Full Catalog Link)

1 hour ago, nsplayr said:

Should we build lots more "starter homes" that are < 1,500 sq/ft and don't cost an arm and a leg...yes! Would love to discuss what policy changes are needed to make this happen. Liberal states have failed on this utterly and some more conservative areas of the country have done better.

I agree that part of "The American Dream" includes buying and owning a home, I would love to discuss how we can make that dream a more achievable on a median income, that should be the goal.

I don't disagree with anything you say here. People don't need such large houses. I think the appetite for smaller starter homes is there, but nobody builds them and I genuinely don't know why. I'm not a housing policy expert, but it seems like the regulations on housing have ballooned since the days of the Roebuck homes. I live in a kit home in the Northeast that was built in 1963 and it's largely unchanged / unrenovated since then. I have no complaints about heating, electricity, etc., but these kinds of homes are no longer built today for some reason.

1 hour ago, nsplayr said:

Going from the great depression of the 30s to the Leave It To Beaver American Dream of the 1950s did not happen by accident and it definitely didn't happen by lowering taxes and spending. You cannot austerity yourself to greater prosperity.

During the New Deal era, our country had a larger share of people who were economically productive. It was all hands on deck. Today we have people committing PPP loan fraud, starting companies called "Free Money Inc." and "Hellcat LLC". I know that's just one small example, but it's indicative of a completely different mindset. There is so much fraud and waste that has accompanied the general decline in our morals and standards.

Spending is only complex in the sense that there are a near-infinite number of ways to allocate resources, which can cause a headache. In another sense, it's dead simple: There are givers and takers. Working people who pay more taxes than they take out in benefits are givers. Children, the elderly, and the poor are usually takers. Does that mean we should exile all children, elderly people, and poor people to the Mojave Desert or something? No. But we need strike a balance between respecting the contributions of the productive class and helping the needy. As the ratio of givers to takers approaches 1:1, or even less, we become increasingly screwed. Our current demographic trends are moving us closer to that 1:1 ratio.

If I truly felt that giving up 40 - 50% of my income would guarantee fast, widespread, and safe public transit, walkable neighborhoods, beautiful and affordable homes, low crime, high social trust, etc. I would agree with you. I've been to Denmark, I've been to Japan, I've been to places that have these things. But the sense that I get and that many other honest and hard-working Americans get is that we're being shafted, which doesn't encourage me to give more of my money to the government. It's going to take time for the government to regain the trust of the American people.

Edited February 17 by blueingreen
spelling

[busdriver]

22 minutes ago, Banzai said:

Your assertions about how relatively progressive our tax system is is not backed up by the data.

https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality-before-and-after-taxes

 

That data set has nothing to do with how progressive a tax system is.  The countries the left likes all have less progressive tax systems.  Everyone pays a crap load.

[Guest nsplayr]

On 2/15/2025 at 8:30 AM, ClearedHot said:

So you do think we should buy Greenland!

Honestly this is the least dumb random idea Trump has advocated for 😅 We bought Alaska from the Ruskies and that has turned out amazingly well. We shouldn't invade Danish sovereign territory in order to do it, but if they wanna sell it (they don't, but hypothetically), we should buy it.

[17D_guy]

So we all cool with the Democratic Mayor of New York City getting his bribery case dismissed since he jumped on the immigration band wagon?

Then the DOJ getting the resignation of the primary prosecutor, then firing the prosecutors who wouldn't dismiss the case?

Nice Quid pro quo.
 

[Guest nsplayr]

3 minutes ago, 17D_guy said:

So we all cool with the Democratic Mayor of New York City getting his bribery case dismissed since he jumped on the immigration band wagon?

Then the DOJ getting the resignation of the primary prosecutor, then firing the prosecutors who wouldn't dismiss the case?

Nice Quid pro quo.
 

I have been a long-term hater of Eric Adams since I saw him plant drugs in a bookcase in a campaign ad. The fact that he's the Dem mayor of NYC is neither here nor there. He's a corrupt asshole and the charges against him are very sound - he should face trial.

Trump should not pardon or drop cases against corrupt politicians, but we all know why he does.

 

Edited February 17 by nsplayr

[SocialD]

29 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

Should we build lots more "starter homes" that are < 1,500 sq/ft and don't cost an arm and a leg...yes! Would love to discuss what policy changes are needed to make this happen. Liberal states have failed on this utterly and some more conservative areas of the country have done better.

 

I've been pouring over a bunch of zoning information today (horrible reading), you're right, LOTS of work to do on this.  Sadly, it's tough to even find someone willing to build such "small" houses. 

 

29 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

Disagree on this. You are going to have an impossibly hard time achieving the above goals without more and better spending. The "ideal life" most folks here probably envision was in the 1950s, right? Single working father buying a home and a car and providing for his family while his wife would SAHM with 2.5 kids and white picket fence right? I'm not saying that's the only good life, but it is a good one and one I personally live pretty much!

 

The problem with that "ideal life" is that wasn't really all that idealistic as we want to remember.  Or maybe we just come from different classes, but my parents upbringing wasn't exactly "ideal," based on what they were required to do to raise a family on a single income.  

 

break break

 

When you factor everything right down to things like real estate tax, etc...(taxed money on taxed money), we already pay a huge portion of our income to taxes.  After looking at my needs and this years final tax bill, I'm already working less this year lol.  Anyway, I'd entertain backing higher tax rates if I knew it would be spent wisely.  Based on what I've seen after a career in the military, some of the things we fund coming out lately and having a family member heavy into an industry that is heavily subsidized by taxpayer money, I just don't believe that will happen.  On the latter point, I sure wish my family had a few hundred acre of land because govt subsidized cheese is great for many landowners right now...

[blueingreen]

1 hour ago, Banzai said:

How is giving more money to the owning class and taking away resources from the working class going to get us back to the affordability you claim existed in the 1940s?

Firstly, your framing is a little disingenuous. I don't "claim" this kind of affordability existed in the past... it simply did. I provided receipts on housing prices in my previous post which you can peruse at your discretion.

What is the difference between the "owning class" and the "working class?" In my mind the "working class" is a class of people who are certainly not rich but are still net contributors, and are therefore part of the "owning" or "productive" class. If the net economic output of your work is less than zero, how can you even call that "work"?

I'd also refer you to what @brabus mentioned earlier. The top 50% of earners pay over 97% of the taxes. It's absolutely insane that half the country essentially contributes nothing to our finances.

1 hour ago, Banzai said:

Do you see people making $30k a year working a minimum wage job as members of the society you live in? Or are they just sucking up your resources?

My hope is that a person making $30K a year is on the first rung of a long and illustrious career ladder. If that person is incapable of earning more than $30K for their entire life, it is indeed likely that they are a net fiscal burden on our society. I would also wonder if there might be an element of cognitive and/or physical impairment at play. 

[blueingreen]

2 minutes ago, Banzai said:

And if you yearn for the 40s, why would you not support 90% marginal taxes on top earners and less income and wealth disparity? After all, that was when America was great, right?

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/

I'm not some TradCon type looking through rose-tinted glasses who thinks 1940 was the cultural and economic peak of civilization. But yeah, it was great in a lot of ways. Can you provide a rational explanation for why a good house in a safe neighborhood was more affordable in 1927? Genuinely, what am I missing? We've made all this cultural and economic "progress" for what? As I said, I would be happy to pay more taxes if I knew it went to a good cause and I was able to see the return on my investment in the society around me. I just get the sense that the quality of our society has not improved in fundamental ways that should be commensurate with our increased rates of taxation.

Taxing the rich at 90% sounds nice until you actually try implementing it and all the billionaires move to Switzerland or Dubai. Look what happened to Norway after they passed their billionaire tax in 2023. Could the rich give us more of their money? Probably. How far do we go before we risk driving them away, though? It's a legitimate question that deserves an answer. The combined wealth of all US billionaires is only $4.5 trillion, and if we confiscated it all, we could run the government for less than a year. How about the bottom 50% of earners. Could they do more? I think the answer to this question is the hardest. Is ability innate, environmental, or both? Maybe ability or "hard work" doesn't even correspond to outcomes as you suggest. If we assume that our society continues to increasingly rely on tech-savvy people in the age of AI, and we know that cognitive ability is normally distributed, then where does that leave the increasingly large class of people who will simply struggle to survive in the modern economy? What do we do with them? Should we restructure our immigration process to only screen for those on the right tail of the distribution? Lots of questions that we as a country need to answer.

[ClearedHot]

3 hours ago, nsplayr said:

Honestly this is the least dumb random idea Trump has advocated for 😅 We bought Alaska from the Ruskies and that has turned out amazingly well. We shouldn't invade Danish sovereign territory in order to do it, but if they wanna sell it (they don't, but hypothetically), we should buy it.

I agree...at first I thought it was another Crazy Ivan but when you peel the onion back a little bit it makes a lot of sense.  Obviously the strategic location issue but I had no idea about all the rare earth minerals, once that I came to light I was curious why Denmark wasn't harvesting everything on their own, apparently the capital investment is a bit to steep for them.  interestingly the Chinese are aware, they have a heavy presence on the ground right now.  What was truly surprising the extend of the independence movement in Greenland, a majority of the residents have wanted to be independent for some time.  Everyone is throwing shade at Trump for bringing this up but the United States tried to buy Greenland in 1947 for $100 million.  Just like we tried to buy Cuba in 1848 and again in 1854.

[BuddhaSixFour]

This is where the conversation jumps the rails. The “rich” pay their fair share and the tax system is highly progressive through the bottom 99%. Then it falls off a cliff and the “stratospherically wealthy” pay far less. I’m super fortunate to have the first world problem of getting taxed hard. Hell, I vote D 90% of the time so I even fully admit I enable it. What chaps my ass is when people who make less than me say I should pay more while the people above me proportionately pay half as much. Scott Galloway has a great discussion on who the “tax mules” are, and it’s the $500k to $2M on W2 wages crowd. A few years of that and investment income takes over at cap gains rates, plus the shenanigans you can play there. 

[Sua Sponte]

30 minutes ago, BuddhaSixFour said:

This is where the conversation jumps the rails. The “rich” pay their fair share and the tax system is highly progressive through the bottom 99%. Then it falls off a cliff and the “stratospherically wealthy” pay far less. I’m super fortunate to have the first world problem of getting taxed hard. Hell, I vote D 90% of the time so I even fully admit I enable it. What chaps my ass is when people who make less than me say I should pay more while the people above me proportionately pay half as much. Scott Galloway has a great discussion on who the “tax mules” are, and it’s the $500k to $2M on W2 wages crowd. A few years of that and investment income takes over at cap gains rates, plus the shenanigans you can play there. 

Galloway also has a good article on why Elon is government subsidies welfare queen.

https://www.profgalloway.com/elon-musk-welfare-queen/

[BuddhaSixFour]

Yeah, never met the man but I have three first degree connections. Two think he’s the devil. One he knocked up. 🤷

if DOGE can find billions of dollars in fraud, waste and abuse, within the confines of the law, more power to them. But we all really want them to adhere to the law because two of those folks who know him believe Elon is going to need to be checked hard at some point. 
 

But I think he’s Trump’s Sin Eater. See how far he can go, let him do all of the things you want to do but can’t. Then when he goes too far and finally finds the boundary, under the bus he goes. That’s wild conjecture though. 

Edited February 18 by BuddhaSixFour

[ViperMan]

The core problem in our society boils down to one thing - too many people have no skin in the game. It's reflected in this conversation right now. We are lamenting the 69 people who don't pay enough in taxes. Roger. I get that, and they should pay more than their 15% or whatever it is they're paying - it's a lot less than the 40-50% you and I pay. That said, there is far, far, far, faaaaaar greater moral and social consequence to the functioning of society when 50% of us pay nothing, or next to nothing. I'm not saying don't tax Elon, Jeff, and Bill more - at least to parity. But we absolutely *must* start charging people for what they consume. Want welfare benefits? Cool. Here's welfare and a 40-hour per week job filling up pot holes. The free lunch has to stop. Benefits have to go hand in hand with some sort of exchange of labor, long-term debt, or generational/familial accounting. Free has to end.

[Sua Sponte]

1 hour ago, BuddhaSixFour said:

Yeah, never met the man but I have three first degree connections. Two think he’s the devil. One he knocked up. 🤷

if DOGE can find billions of dollars in fraud, waste and abuse, within the confines of the law, more power to them. But we all really want them to adhere to the law because two of those folks who know him believe Elon is going to need to be checked hard at some point. 
 

But I think he’s Trump’s Sin Eater. See how far he can go, let him do all of the things you want to do but can’t. Then when he goes too far and finally finds the boundary, under the bus he goes. That’s wild conjecture though. 

Elon gets to cosplay as POTUS since he can't be one. He also gets to dismantle agencies, some illegally, that give him grief (i.e., EPA, SEC, IRS, etc.). He gets to "audit" competitors within the DoD/NASA and their contracts, and more importantly, he gets to data mine American data to train the data sets on his Grok 3.0 AI. If he gets in trouble with the Feds, Trump will order the DOJ to turn the other way, like Eric Adams, or use the pocket pardon he probably promised Elon. Trump, on the other hand, gets to just go after the people who wronged him with the DOJ since the SCOTUS said he's got a "Stay out of Jail" card for official acts.

Plus he's a lame duck POTUS after this term, so he doesn't give a shit about anything else other than making him, Elon, and fellow billionaires richer. Fuck the working class with tariffs that the rich can afford day-to-day, then when the working class sells their property to survive after the economy crashes, have all the private equity billionares circle like vultures to buy it all up for pennies on the dollar. Farmer and ranchers that largely voted for Trump? Fuck them. Make it almost impossible to farm or ranch, so private equity billionaires could come in after they sell and scoop up all their property. Then they go and rehire the illegals that ran away to begin with. Capitalism baby. 

Congress *could* check Trump's power with an impeachment, but the GOP isn't going to do that since Elon said he'd spend $100M to primary any GOP member of Congress that opposed Trump. They're all going to turn their heads and look the other way. McConnell voted against RFK, but I can almost promise you had he been the deciding vote, he would've voted to confirm. It's a lot easier when it's not as close as that. 

Russell Vought gets to finally live his Christian Nationalist dream by deporting the browns and having the GOP and Elon push their breed kink to have a lot of kids. Gotta replace the working class/proletariats to work for the bourgeoisie billionaires that now own everything. 

Edited February 18 by Sua Sponte

[Sua Sponte]

2 minutes ago, ViperMan said:

The core problem in our society boils down to one thing - too many people have no skin in the game. It's reflected in this conversation right now. We are lamenting the 69 people who don't pay enough in taxes. Roger. I get that, and they should pay more than their 15% or whatever it is they're paying - it's a lot less than the 40-50% you and I pay. That said, there is far, far, far, faaaaaar greater moral and social consequence to the functioning of society when 50% of us pay nothing, or next to nothing. I'm not saying don't tax Elon, Jeff, and Bill more - at least to parity. But we absolutely *must* start charging people for what they consume. Want welfare benefits? Cool. Here's welfare and a 40-hour per week job filling up pot holes. The free lunch has to stop. Benefits have to go hand in hand with some sort of exchange of labor, long-term debt, or generational/familial accounting. Free has to end.

Do you support a means test for VA compensation?

[ViperMan]

6 minutes ago, Sua Sponte said:

Do you support a means test for VA compensation?

Let me caveat this with my current understanding of VA compensation: I don't know anything about VA compensation.

My opinion? Yes, probably. I see guys I work with who are 100% disabled and still fly F-16s. YGBFFFM. Seriously bro?

In their defense, it's also been explained to me that "disability" is probably the wrong word to use to describe what's going on. Most people aren't disabled according to the MW definition of the word. The legalistic, lawyerly, VA definition of "disability" has more to do with how much damage you've sustained over a career. Fair enough.

Back to my opinion. When someone who is able to claim 100% disability can still fly a 9G jet and stands next to someone who is 100% disabled who had all four limbs blown off in AFG, I think that's a bit sick, frankly. Something is wrong with the system.

Edited February 18 by ViperMan

[Sua Sponte]

1 minute ago, ViperMan said:

Let me caveat this with my current understanding of VA compensation: I don't know anything about VA compensation.

My opinion? Yes, probably. I see guys I work with who are 100% disabled and still fly F-16s. YGBFFFM. Seriously bro?

In their defense, it's also been explained to me that "disability" is probably the wrong word to use to describe what's going on. Most people aren't disabled according to the MW definition of the word. The legalistic, lawyerly, VA definition of "disability" has more to do with how much damage you've sustained over a career. Fair enough.

Back to my opinion. When someone who is able to claim 100% disability can still fly a 9G jet and stands next to someone who is 100% disabled who had all four limbs blown off in AFG, I think that's a bit sick, frankly. Something is wrong with the system.

My boss in OGV ran a marathon, was in great shape, then the next week was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer. I wish the VA would a different term than "disability" since not all of them are visible. A means test would be if you made a certain amount in income, regardless of the disabilities you have while in the military service, you would either be paid a reduced, or even zero, amount of compensation by the VA.

[Guest nsplayr]

34 minutes ago, ViperMan said:

Want welfare benefits? Cool. Here's welfare and a 40-hour per week job filling up pot holes. The free lunch has to stop.

This is largely the case already - work requirements exist for the majority of welfare programs unless you are elderly or a single person caring for children younger than school age. This was Bill Clinton’s whole third way welfare to work thing in the mid 90s…it’s been this way more or less (state dependent) for 30 years.

I’m sure you can make additional tweaks or tighten things up if you’d like, but the big fiscal problem isn’t welfare and the poor not paying enough taxes, they don’t have any money anyways, that’s why they are poor! The big fiscal problem is Congress wants to spend lots of money on things and fails to raise taxes enough to account for their spending.

My solution is keep most of the spending because I support a robust national budget to enable an advanced, first-rate country for us all, and to just raise taxes enough to fund it. And if you are going to raise taxes, you have to have it affect people that actually have money. Start at the stratospheric top since they already pay less than your high-earning W2 folks and also have a shit ton of money to start with, but I would also not have cap on SSDI taxes and would be open to modestly higher federal income rates at all income levels.

That’s my take - just pay for what you want to spend, because austerity does not work. You will cut the legs off of your own economic engine and end up doing less with less in a downward spiral. And deficits & long term debt truly aren’t the devil if you are the worlds reserve currency and preeminent military power, it really is fundamentally different than a personal or family budget.

Edited February 18 by nsplayr

[uhhello]

I'm all for making a giant cut in the fraud/waste/abuse of my tax dollars before we start talking about increasing or decreasing taxes.  I don't think that's too much to ask.  On the flip side, I've read/heard firsthand from a lot of the cuts with an ax that were made where they quickly learned those positions weren't what they thought they were and had to immediately ask for the people to come back.  Let's take a breath and maybe start firing people with at least a scalpel instead of an ax.  

[Guest nsplayr]

27 minutes ago, Sua Sponte said:

A means test would be if you made a certain amount in income, regardless of the disabilities you have while in the military service, you would either be paid a reduced, or even zero, amount of compensation by the VA.

Checks.

OMB / Project 2025 / Christian Nationalist Russ also wants to end concurrent receipt of mil pensions and VA disability payments.

https://www.heritage.org/budget/pages/recommendations/2.600.22.html
 

Needless to say I don’t support that policy idea. You earned your mil pension as delayed compensation and part of your overall benefits package for serving, and if you become disabled as the VA defines it, you should receive those payments as well. The two are not in any way connected (one is for your service, the other is for your disabilities; you can serve for 20+ and be 0% or you can do a single enlistment or less and be 100% or any combo inbetween) other than serving in uniform is a prerequisite for both.

[Guest nsplayr]

9 minutes ago, uhhello said:

I'm all for making a giant cut in the fraud/waste/abuse of my tax dollars before we start talking about increasing or decreasing taxes.  I don't think that's too much to ask.  On the flip side, I've read/heard firsthand from a lot of the cuts with an ax that were made where they quickly learned those positions weren't what they thought they were and had to immediately ask for the people to come back.  Let's take a breath and maybe start firing people with at least a scalpel instead of an ax.  

One man’s FWA is another man’s important and necessary job, it just depends on who does the deciding and how informed they are.

We all know there is wasteful spending in the government. I think the vast majority of us also know sending your organization to a randomized wood chipper and then trying to carry on with your mission with whatever remnants you get is not the way to address any FWA that previously existed.

Shit for all Elon knows he’d fire half the pilots in the squadron but keep all 5 AGR slots we have in ARMS as well as open full-time chaplain 🙄 Needless to say our ARMS troops and Chappy aren’t gonna be able to successfully put warheads in foreheads.

DOGE should have been what it was supposed to be - a commission that would work with the new administrations senate-confirmed agency heads to first identify any FWA or other desired cuts based on the new admins political & policy preferences, then work within the law and with the GOP-controlled Congress to shape the executive branch as able to better suit what the president and Congress want to do. You don’t fire people at random, try to delete agencies and departments created and funded by Congress by executive fiat, and endless and thoughtlessly harass and denigrate federal workers who largely want to do important work serving their country for below industry-standard wages.

Edited February 18 by nsplayr

[Sua Sponte]

3 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

Checks.

OMB / Project 2025 / Christian Nationalist Russ also wants to end concurrent receipt of mil pensions and VA disability payments.

https://www.heritage.org/budget/pages/recommendations/2.600.22.html
 

Needless to say I don’t support that policy idea. You earned your mil pension as delayed compensation and part of your overall benefits package for serving, and if you become disabled as the VA defines it, you should receive those payments as well. The two are not in any way connected (one is for your service, the other is for your disabilities; you can serve for 20+ and be 0% or you can do a single enlistment or less and be 100% or any combo inbetween) other than serving in uniform is a prerequisite for both.

Which is wild since his father was a Marine. Russ is a weird (read: sack of shit) cat. Dude despises government employees, yet has only worked in the government and government-centric NGOs his entire career. 

[Sua Sponte]

11 minutes ago, uhhello said:

I'm all for making a giant cut in the fraud/waste/abuse of my tax dollars before we start talking about increasing or decreasing taxes.  I don't think that's too much to ask.  On the flip side, I've read/heard firsthand from a lot of the cuts with an ax that were made where they quickly learned those positions weren't what they thought they were and had to immediately ask for the people to come back.  Let's take a breath and maybe start firing people with at least a scalpel instead of an ax.  

Elon and Trump are desperately trying to find ways to slash the government since they're cutting taxes to preserve those 2018-era tax cuts that largely benefit the billionaires that expire in 2025. 

Edited February 18 by Sua Sponte

[Sua Sponte]

3 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

DOGE should have been what it was supposed to be - a commission that would work with the new administrations senate-confirmed agency heads to first identify any FWA or other desired cuts based on the new admins political & policy preferences, then work within the law and with the GOP-controlled Congress to shape the executive branch as able to better suit what the president and Congress want to do. You don’t fire people at random, try to delete agencies and departments created and funded by Congress by executive fiat, and endless and thoughtlessly harass and denigrate federal workers who largely want to do important work serving their country for below industry-standard wages.

I'm waiting to see if I'm fired tomorrow since I'm a probationary GS-11. I run the orders writing cell for AFRC, which writes all orders (AT, MPA, RPA, PCS) for IMAs in AFRC. I have two GS-09s that work for me and are on probation as well since they just became new supervisors. Each of them supervises four GS-07s, with four of them being on probation. I also have about 10 Reservists on RPA orders that work for me as well. 

As of now, the DoD hasn't had any of the DOGE firing of probation employees, but I told all my employees on probation to be ready to lose their jobs tomorrow. If that happens, there won't be enough order writers to write orders for the 8,000 IMA population in AFRC since we average about 40-80 orders requests per day. 

I chuckle when I hear the MAGA bots say, "Well, now you can get a real job in the private sector." I left the private sector this past fall, where I made $35K more than a GS-11, for government work. A majority of the folks who work for me are veterans, retired veterans, military spouses, etc. But all of them love the work they do for reservists, and the Air Force support the DoD's mission. That's just job satisfaction you can't get a lot of the time in the private sector.