this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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Politics

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House Republicans unveiled a budget blueprint proposing trillions in spending cuts over 10 years, targeting steep reductions to Medicaid and food assistance programs. The plan seeks $2 trillion in Medicaid cuts and $800 billion from SNAP. It also calls for establishing a commission to propose changes to Social Security and Medicare. Democrats criticized the proposal as pushing "cruel cuts" that will hurt access to healthcare and raise costs for many. If enacted, the budget would slash nearly $5 trillion from discretionary spending and $9 trillion from mandatory programs over a decade. However, the proposal is unlikely to become law given Democratic control of the Senate. The resolution indicates Republicans remain committed to large cuts across many public services and low-income programs.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (6 children)

How about we cut the salaries of all elected officials in DC to zero? They don’t work for us so why should they get paid out of our tax dollars? They get paid plenty by whoring themselves to the highest bidder.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

Because this only harms the ones who aren’t corrupt and doesn’t do anything for the ones who are corrupt.

What they should be doing is getting rid of lobbying and disallowing corporate and business interests in politics, but we fucked that up decades ago, so I’ll settle for forcing politicians to wear tracksuits that have patches from every single person and company that had paid them.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The actual answer is that not paying your public officials makes them even more susceptible to corruption.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Yup. I'd rather if failure to create budgets was defined as failure to enact their duty and then we held new elections.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No.

The elected officials who actually give a shit about you and are trying to help aren't millionaires and this will severely impact them.

The elected officials who don't give a shit if you die starving in the gutter are already millionaires and won't give a shit about their salary.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

They also don't get paid much. The real money's in the bribes and insider trading

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

So you want them to be bought out... more?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The solution is to create a system where their political prostitution is both illegal and unnecessary.

That’s the only way you get to shift politicians into working for “the people” and not their backers.

https://youtu.be/PJy8vTu66tE

Obviously not a guarantee, but if they could stop spending 40% of their time worrying about being re-elected and financing their re-election that would probably be a boon. Maybe they could even read some of the legislation they’re passing.

Even after fixing this issue you have the other one where you have a shitload of politicians which seems to be members of a cult, not a political organization and millions of Americans voting for them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

You vote them out. Unfortunately you are just one person in one district. But volunteering for campaigns of people you believe in, and donating to their campaign fund are two ways to help.