volkris @volkris@qoto.org
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
It doesn't take two to play chicken?
Another practical way to think about the #debtceiling is as providing a halftime checkup of how budgetary estimates are actually working out, and one that gets triggered sooner the farther the Treasury is falling from those estimates.
If the government is running out of money faster than expected, you WANT that alarm to go off sooner so the situation can be addressed.
Remember, after spending is authorized the Treasury spends it throughout the year even as tax revenues continually come in. The Treasury's balance changes from day to day based on both flows out and in.
Congress authorizes spending based on estimates of both flows, what projects will cost AND how much will come in over time. That makes federal budgets doubly uncertain.
Should receipts fall far short of estimates, Congress would need to reevaluate as its planning was faulty. The #debtlimit would be triggered more quickly as a warning that couldn't be legally swept under the rug until it's too late.
It's vital that people understand the different roles of the different branches here. People are acting as if it all happens in Congress, but in reality, that's the other branch of government.
Not quite.
US debt is only increased by having the Treasury actually issue bonds and such.
Even after Congress votes authorize borrowing, the debt isn't increased until the Treasury actually goes out and borrows. Until then, it has legal authorization, but the debt hasn't changed.
The Treasury is part of the Executive branch, like all other executive agencies. So yes, the Executive Branch is responsible for increasing US debt; all the Legislative Branch can do is sign laws.
(And conduct oversight of how the Executive Branch is executing its laws.)
To put it a different way, it's not Congress saying that there is a debt ceiling but rather the Constitution creating a debt ceiling that Congress is to manage.
Since the Constitution specifically says Congress is the one with the authority "To borrow Money on the credit of the United States", then the total that they've borrowed IS the debt ceiling.
And again, Congress authorizes spending. That's disconnected from the actual spending that the Executive does, which is why the amount spent never matches the amount Congress has budgeted.
Right, I know about the setting, but I'm wondering why the content was indexed despite the setting.
The Treasury issues debt.
The Treasury is not part of the legislative branch of government.
So the way it works in the US government is that Congress writes legislation authorizing the coequal executive branch to take on certain amounts of debt.
I know, I really do wish reporters would be more clear about how the government actually functions and who's responsible for what.
But no, the legislative branch only legislates. The executive branch actually makes stuff happen.
Wow, where's the failure there?
Are the instance owners not setting something right, or is Google ignoring correctly set flags not to index?
volkris
boosted
People complaining about #search in the #fediverse and I'm LOLing here that Google indexes my posts in #mastodon replies to me from other people, even though I have `noindex`on my instance.
So maybe instead of shouting down people who do it with good intention, you should shout at the Mastodon Devs and instance owners who allow content to be indexed by the world's largest search engine 🤷♂️
#Mastodon doesn't go out and ask the remote instance for a list of replies.
It shows the replies that it's heard through the normal broadcast of content, but it doesn't have a way to go out and find others.
*(This is what I remembered, and my quick scanning of some github conversations confirm it)*
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @flexghost
We're not talking about a business, though.
We're talking about a political institution with politically defined rules and legally defined organization.
If we were talking about a business it would make a big difference.
"Congress sets the budget that the Executive can spend"
Yes, and this is the key.
Congress sets what the Executive **can** spend. Exactly. But it's still up to the Executive to do the actual spending, subject to availability of funding.
We have debt and deficits because through a different process, that Congress chooses to keep separate, Congress can authorize the Executive to borrow money.
So the budget is what Congress says the Executive *can* spend, and the debt ceiling is what Congress says the Executive *can* borrow.
Two separate things, but they're analogous.
Again, borrowing is done through the Treasury, an executive branch agency, not a legislative branch agency.
You could say that Republican presidents contributed to that and you'd be right, but the national debt is squarely a product of executive branch action.
We're letting an awful lot of people escape accountability by misunderstanding how the federal government actually operates, and which branch of government does what.
Because every day you take advantage of its specialist application :)
It's ubiquitous but specialized.
When Linux is running on a router you're not asking it to compute spreadsheets one second and play a first person shooter the next beyond its specialized role of getting data from one port through the other, which it does hour after hour, 23/7.
Anyway, the point is that Linux didn't live up to the hopes so many of us had of becoming the standard desktop OS, and there are lessons to be learned there for Mastodon.
GOP Congressional members (or anyone in that branch of government) didn't max out the debt ceiling, though.
That's a different branch of government, the executive branch.
Who... exactly do you want to impeach with the impeachment hashtag?
Great! Then Mastodon will have the exact same level of success, being used in niche communities!
Honestly, the take seems about right, with your response dovetailing nicely with it.
Linux was a failure *as a general purpose OS for the general public* and so Fediverse might follow the exact same path, for the same reasons.
You can both be right at the same time, one talking about the general public and the other talking about niche communities.
And sure, I'm aware that others say different things about what the Constitution says, but I would counter this particular "implicit permission to borrow" argument with the practical observation that Congress has a separate process for borrowing.
It would seem to me that the long history of congressional debate and action on explicit permission to borrow shows that it handles that question explicitly, not implicitly.
That Congress routinely expends effort to debate and answer the question shows that it doesn't intend the issue to be answered through assumption.
I'd say it would cause major disturbance should the president decide not to pay debts--and since the Treasury has enough income to pay debts that's his choice to make, Constitution aside--but the spending cap required by the debtceiling isn't nearly as catastrophic as politicians have been spinning.
It's merely the equivalent of Congress not having authorized quite as large an omnibus package in the last session.
It was a bad idea for Congress to have authorized spending of money that everyone knew didn't exist, but here we are.
The US can spend based on the previous baselines of spending, and the world will not end, and hopefully we'll hold accountable those congresspeople who voted for such foolishness.
Or, more likely, we'll reelect them.
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @flexghost
When the US Treasury (or any other debtor) retires debt it frees capital to be invested elsewhere.
But yes, having a positive balance sheet literally means ability to pay. Nothing shady there.
I owe $5 and I have $7, therefore I can pay $5.
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
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