Comment by refurb
8 days ago
This is just a long list of excuses.
How hard is it to understand we shouldn’t be spending money on foreigners when Americans go without? That seems like a basic rule that everyone agrees with.
And “most of FEMA’s money” is a cop out. 0% of FEMA’s money should be spent on anything other than Americans in need after a disaster.
It’s this kind of “oh, come on it’s not a big deal” that resulted in the trouncing the Democrats got. It’s talking down to Americans like they are stupid.
You can ctrl+f 'shelter' in the bill. It was not really FEMA's money, it was U.S. Customs and Border Protection money that was transferred to FEMA to disburse (probably for efficiency because FEMA already did similar work).
"I-don't-want-to-fund-sex-changes" is an emotional and possibly moral argument, it's made to get people angry at how their money is being spent.
Not wanting to spend money on foreigners at all is a completely different argument, that's generally not made probably because you get similar emotional arguments of feeding starving children. Or you get non-emotional arguments like projecting soft power and fighting disease epidemics before they reach us.
We're a nation of laws. The USAID and FEMA money is set in law by Congress. I disagree with how a lot of money is spent too. But that's why we vote and communicate to our representatives and have them change the law.
Bill Clinton's administration reduced the deficit and had a surplus. It reduced the federal workforce. It decreased spending and increased revenue. But it was done legally by working with both parties and unions and passing bills in Congress.
Money is fungible. All the hand waving about “it was really X agencies money” falls pretty flat when Americans go without.
Yes Congress sets spending, but the executive is responsible for executing on the law. Biden should have gone back to Congress (if needed) and said “no, this money is for Americans”. But he didn’t even try.
Which is why nobody should be surprised so many voters support what Musk and Trump are doing - they are doing what many voters think is the right thing to do.
Americans are just tired of politicians excuses.
If Trump is our fiscal savior then why did he let Congress create that spending under his administration?
There's a FEMA program, created in 1987 for Americans, call the Emergency Food and Shelter Program.
In 2019, during the first Trump administration, Congress passed additional funding for EFSP-H (Humanitarian) to expand the program to migrant families.[1]
Then in 2022, under the Biden administration, Congress decided to move that into a new separate CBP/FEMA program which is the Shelter and Services Program.[2]
I would be all for an administration that forces Congress to create a budget that decreases spending and increases revenue (or at least maintains revenue) in order to decrease the deficit (or at least decrease the rate of deficit growth).
So far there's no evidence this administration is doing that. But we don't have a fleshed out budget bill to look at yet either.
Americans might be tired of politicians' excuses but it's my opinion, from the (lack of) evidence so far, that we're being misled: the rich will get richer, government services will be worse, our democratic rules will be weaker, and the national debt will still increase. Hopefully my opinion is wrong.
[1] https://www.fema.gov/grants/emergency-food-and-shelter-progr...
[2] https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47681
> How hard is it to understand we shouldn’t be spending money on foreigners when Americans go without?
Cool, so you're cutting all corporate welfare, closing all US military bases in foreign countries, and ceasing sending bombs to Israel then, right? Or does it only count as spending money on foreigners when it's something you don't like?
This is a nice idea but the people doing the cutting are not looking to provide for the people. Part of what they’re cutting is Medicaid, for instance.
If they had communicated they wanted to balance the budget to provide for Americans that would be one thing, but they have communicated they will instead cut taxes for corporations with the money saved from Medicaid and foreign aid. Americans will have to go without more.
This would make sense if they introduced any policy to actually help Americans lol. They are trying to cut benefits to Americans and foreigners. The current administration has literally talked about conditioning aid to California for the wildfires. What an absolute joke.
Strange that elsewhere you're asking people to provide "adult arguments", but as soon as people actually provide solid arguments you immediately devolve into rants and emotions.
America doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It is in American interests to have a stable, prosperous, happy rest of the world to engage with.
> How hard is it to understand we shouldn’t be spending money on foreigners when Americans go without?
How hard is to start with this argument? Elon Musk is certainly making more Americans "go without" than he is cutting off "overseas sex changes".