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
Republicans trigger this meltdown?
Democrats are the ones who passed the appropriations bills above GOP opposition, there's a Democrat in the White House who's spent months threatening default, and finally it was Republicans who passed a way out of the mess.
You're looking at the wrong party acting in this farce.
volkris
boosted
Made this to show my impression of the new #Thunderbird #logo. Suffice to say, it's not great.
#foss #opensource #software #marketing #branding #design #linux #freesoftware #libre
Yeah? Now tell us about the price of tea in China, as they say :)
Presidents are elected by majorities of the EC, not by majorities of people. Like many other parts of the US system it's structured based on majority of representation, not population, for very good reasons.
Popular vote has nothing to do with presidencies. They don't get to override the majority rule of electors.
The piece is kind of all over the place, skipping back and forth between the debt ceiling argument, tax policies, and spending policies.
And yet it ignores the most straightforward part of the whole story, the appropriations legislation passed by the last Congress and the president that set this situation up.
The author seems too busy grinding a favorite ax to really consider where we are today and why.
I've always thought settling on tagging with, for example, USPolitics or UKPolitics, etc, would be a reasonable norm.
I mean yes, any and every American can refuse a request like this. That's always been the case, hence a long history of showboating around empty chairs in hearings, for example.
Congress has always been limited in its authority to haul people in as congresspeople see fit.
The post seemed to be all over the place, jumping around from the current debt ceiling issue to taxation and then over to spending and back again.
I found it really striking that it didn't mention the Democratic legislation that set this situation up. That's a far more straightforward description of where we are.
Anyway, yes, Biden must continue to pay US debts out of Treasury's tax receipts. He has no legal option not to, and shame on him for spending months threatening to default.
If #Biden were to try to issue additional debt without legal authorization, future presidents would be under no obligation to recognize those claims. In fact, it would be arguably illegal for them to pay out of the Treasury to retire such securities.
But also consider the complications of circulating a bunch of invalid notes alongside valid ones.
For example, a pension fund might report that it holds a million dollars in treasuries, but some of that is invalid... which part of it? How would auditing and public disclosure deal with that?
People pushing Biden to just unilaterally issue more debt miss how complicated that would be.
@undergrowthfeed@achrilock.social
Republicans already agreed to raising the debt ceiling.
Robert Reich hasn't been an honest speaker for quite a while now.
Refuse to let the US pay its bills? They already passed legislation authorizing more borrowing power so that the US could not only pay bills but take on more!
They're not refusing to let the US pay bills. They've actively worked to pay!
No. Republicans were the ones who voted to authorize borrowing, while Biden's the one who's been threatening default all this time.
The cartoon is out of line with facts on the ground.
And it is majority rule as throughout the country officials are elected based on majorities, and in both chambers of the US Congress processes proceed based on majority votes.
Uh huh
And yet, even with all of the things that you listed there, that remains a democratic process. It remains actual humans, actual constituents, voting through democratic processes for these results.
I know you might not like it. But that's the thing about democracy: It really stinks that other people don't agree with you, but in democracy, other people get a say.
If you want to say that elections are stolen and all of that stuff, you can go down that road, but I don't think that's a particularly fruitful direction to go. You just end up sounding like Trump. It's not a good look.
That take is clearly wrong because, if nothing else, it overlooks that in the design of the federal government the Treasury is in the executive branch, not the legislative branch.
I don't know who these professors might be, but we can quickly debunk the claim they're making on that point alone.
So the GOP has already voted in the House to authorize the president to borrow more money. It is really ridiculous for these professors to try to pick this hill that both confuses the legislative branch activity and also the executive branch functioning.
They already voted to raise the debt ceiling. They've already offered their solution.
I mean he has something going for him. Both Gaetz and Yellen are extremely politicized figures these days, with jobs that involve spinning the narrative.
A lot of people are frustrated with Yellen these days, not appreciating that she is now a political appointee and not the academic she once was
The official technical Treasury reports don't quite match what either of them say, but again, we all need to keep in mind that they are both politicians, so they have their own interests.
Well right, they raised the debt ceiling to fund the budget for that. The problem is, the last Congress appropriated money, and Biden signed off on it, but they did not raise the debt ceiling to pay for it.
Biden and the last Congress had every option to do so, but they didn't.
We are in this position now because of the choices of the president and the last Congress to actively put us here. The GOP voted against those appropriation bills, so they voted against us getting to this position.
I really think we need to hold those politicians accountable for having actively voted to put us here.
We re-elected almost all of them, so I guess we are good with this, but we need to be clear, the last Congress and the president signed the appropriations bills without debt ceiling legislation to put us in this place.
So it's not a conspiracy theory because this conspiracy theory has been going on for a long long time!
Yeah this is the sort of thing where we know very clearly that what you are saying is nutso seeing as the Republicans have passed things in the public record even as you are saying stuff about don't pass anything.
I'm sorry your conspiracy theory is just not even passing the lowest level of fact checking.
Why do you subscribe to these things? Why do you except these things as true when they are not only pretty far out but also so easily debunkable?
The Republican party is literally voted for by people, it is literally a democratic result whether for better or worse.
It's really funny to say that the way people vote is not democratic.
It would be nice if the post was at least coherent...
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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