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
Well this is social media. You can consider whatever the hell you want to.
But if you want to approach the real world, as you can see from the treasury departments report, as it says, it has plenty of money to service it's debts.
What you do with that is up to you. None of my business whether you want to promote the political spin of the party currently in power.
No I am all about the 14th!
Biden keeps threatening to default, but the 14th Amendment is very clear that to default would be a deer election of his constitutional duty. There's no choice there. He cannot default, as per the Constitution, as per the 14th Amendment, Biden must pay the debts.
I'm happy to keep reading because this emphasizes my point. Biden should not be threatening to default, as that would be honestly and impeachable offense
If you check out the report there's no mystery to this: Yes the money has to come from somewhere and this report lays out exactly where it comes from, the Treasury says that the money mostly comes from tax receipts, and those tax receipts are more than enough to service the debt.
Also, no, raising the debt limit is the opposite of printing more money. If Congress were to authorize it the Treasury could print money instead of raising the debt. You have that backwards too.
If you check out the graph on page 4 of the document that I shared with you it shows that the Treasury brings in more than enough money to service it's debts every month.
Farther down in the report it puts numbers to it, quantifying this fact, that again to restate, the treasury brings in enough money every month two service it's debts.
Regardless of what the political talking points may be.
For example, check out page four, I believe, to see how much more the Treasury has coming in compared to how much it needs to spend servicing its debts.
https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/files/reports-statements/mts/mts0423.pdf
Yeah definitely, regardless of whether I cite my sources, have personal expertise, or make solid arguments, yeah just ignore me because I am a "sub-50 follower troll".
Hello Idiocracy 
Keep in mind that according to the Treasury it has enough money to service its debt. That's what they say in their monthly statements. They don't need to borrow more in order to service their debt, again by their own words.
So this has absolutely nothing to do with servicing existing debts, since according to the Treasury they have enough money to service their existing debts.
I just want to restate that: Biden's own Treasury reports that it has enough money to service the existing debts.
Yes, politicians are being misleading about this subject. They are lying to us. As politicians do when they seek more power.
Anyway, yeah we absolutely have to call these people out on what they are doing. If Biden wants more power to borrow money against the US population then he needs to work with Congress to get it.
That is not relevant really.
The question is, if they are 10% government funded, is that 10% so important to them?
If it is so important to them, then I guess they are subject to being influenced by the government to keep it. If it is not so important to them, then maybe they ought to not take it.
It just comes down to their choice.
B government funded or don't be government-funded. It's up to them to decide how important that is, and if it is important then they are signing that deal.
They just need to be honest about it.
Right but they can't have it both ways.
Either they are government funded to a significant amount or they're not.
If the funding is significant great! They need to own that they are government funded. If the funding is not significant, then they need to cut it off because it doesn't matter because it's not significant.
They just can't have it both ways.
Well the case of that is understanding that the federal government doesn't incur debts all on a single day.
Every single day throughout the year the federal government buys things, and bills are created by that buying process that happens on a daily basis.
There has been a lot of misinformation based on the idea that the federal government creates bills all at once, but that's just not how it works.
So these bills have not yet been accumulated. It's not a question of I won't pay the bills we have already accumulated, because those bills don't actually exist yet.
Unfortunately the administration is trying to accumulate power based on that claim, and we really need to call them out on it being just plain false.
Not only is the debt ceiling constitutional, but it is constitutionally mandated.
The Constitution assigns to Congress responsibility for borrowing on the nation's credit, which makes sense because if generations might be on the hook to pay the money back, it makes sense to be sure that the representatives of the people really are on board with committing the people to that debt.
The debt ceiling is merely the shorthand we use to refer to what Congress has decided to borrow.
Far from irrelevant, the debt ceiling is a critical part of the operation of the US system of government.
volkris
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"The Congress shall have Power [..] To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;"
Article I section 8
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript
The excuses that NPR has been putting out have been particularly silly.
It just always strikes me that, if the government funding is so miniscule then the journalistic organization should stop accepting it just to kill that as a controversy.
But I guess the contributions must not be so minuscule since they keep accepting the controversy to take the money.
I don't know what makes her think lower court judges weren't constrained or that Supreme Court wasn't constrained. It clearly is.
What in the world is this person talking about?
It's funny that you would call for the abolition of the Senate since that is the chamber not subject to gerrymandering.
But no, our democracy is not dysfunctional. Our population is dysfunctional. Throughout the country we have serious disagreements in the population. The representative Congress is just representing the people and showing the very real disagreements that the people have.
Congress is working perfectly, in a way, really representing that people have very strong and honest disagreements.
It would be a malfunction if given the disagreements in the population somehow Congress was all in the same side. In that case it would not be representing the people.
No!
Well I'm slightly joking, but this is part of my point here, being specific about what science is. I say that science is a process, not any sort of concrete thing. It doesn't correct itself; it is the thing that does the correction.
It would be like saying sanding wood correct itself.
No, sanding wood is not the thing that is being corrected, it is the process by which wood is smoothed.
It's sort of like saying science is a verb, not a noun.
Science, as I promote the term, is a way of uncovering wrong ideas about how the world works. Science is not corrected. It is the thing promoting correction.
That wouldn't resolve the crisis because no matter what the tax rates are a year from now the president is still demanding to borrow more money today.
Also, mathematically, it wouldn't raise that much money compared to the total deficit.
Again you're overlooking the democracy part of the system.
Voters are very polarized, so we elect polarized representatives to represent our polarization.
There is not consensus throughout the country that any justice has misbehaved to the point of needing to be removed, so the democratic process reflects that by declining to impeach.
But no, we cannot treat justices like federal employees in other branches of government without violating the judicial independence of the Supreme Court.
Once the legislative and executive branches are allowed to punish a justice the justices become beholden to the other branches, which is exactly what is not supposed to happen in our system of government.
Why skip the democratic process of the impeachment vote?
Impeachment is there specifically to hold officials like justices accountable.
It's the only way to enforce accountability without sacrificing judicial independence.
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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