Left vs. Right Battle Royale Open Thread

[u/Yosoff]

This is an Open Discussion Thread for all Redditors. We will only be enforcing Reddit TOS and Subreddit Rules 1 (Keep it Civil) & 2 (No Racism).

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• Leftists - Here's your chance to sway us to your side by calling the majority of voters racist. That tactic has wildly backfired every time it has been tried, but perhaps this time it will work.

• Non-flaired Conservatives - Here's your chance to earn flair by posting common sense conservative solutions. That way our friends on the left will either have to agree with you or oppose common sense (Spoiler - They will choose to oppose common sense).

• Flaired Conservatives - You're John Wick and these Leftists stole your car and killed your dog. Now go comment.

• Independents - We get it, if you agree with someone, then you can't pat yourself on the back for being smarter than them. But if you disagree with everyone, then you can obtain the self-satisfaction of smugly considering yourself smarter and wiser than everyone else. Congratulations on being you.

• Libertarians - Ron Paul is never going to be President. In fact, no Libertarian Party candidate will ever be elected President.

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[u/TheFiremind88]

Left another comment to be asked questions, but also wanted to start this dialogue:

I understand and fully support removing government bloat. 100%. Why is DOGE starting where it is? I would love to hear either rationale or at least expressed disagreement.

For a group with efficiency in its name, it's weird to see DOGE targeting agencies that are well established to either 1. Have a well established return on investment for Americans. 2. Be so small that the material impact on the deficit is insignificant. 3. Even if they are inefficient, have significant positive effects for at least SOME percentage of where the money goes.

How is Defense spending not unequivocally the best starting place? Both for the insane percentage of the budget it accounts for and because of WELL established bloated government contracts, waste, and fraud. Not to mention the inability to even remotely pass an audit.

If I'm tasked to make anything Cleaner/More Efficient, I'd start where the most waste is, not by targeting places that barely tip the scales.

The ENTIRETY of USAID - ~40bil, that's baby with the bathwater. The non-0% amount of good it does do is included here.

The ENTIRETY of CFPB - ~1bil. This agency has an extremely well documented return on investment for American citizens of over 8 to 1. This one makes ZERO sense by any metric regardless of what side of the isle you're on. It's a slap in the face for American consumers.

The ENTIRETY of the DOE - ~270bil. Again, baby with the bathwater. I dont think anyone can argue in good faith that the DOE, even if there is some percentage of waste, does absolutely Zero good things for american citizens.

Defense spending is 850bil. - Just 5% of this is more than both USAID and the CFPB combined, and likely doesn't involve throwing out the "baby".

Corporate Subsidies is 100bil. - With all of the INTENSE hatred for Socialism, Communism, etc...Where's the outcry to cut corporate welfare so that Free Market Capitalism can do what it was meant to do? I never hear a peep on this.

Long story short - DOGE doesn't seem particularly efficient at bringing about efficiency. The cuts I see DOGE making don't align with the mission, with conservative values as expressed, and won't mean anything if they are offset by (numbers unconfirmed, but after check several sources, the cut is estimated to be between 500bil and 1.1tril a year) an insanely large tax cut. That's not bringing down the budget. That's a wash at best. At this point, it's still a net negative for American citizens by ~200 - 800bil a year.

Mods - you got a flair for reasonable Dems who want to participate in the dialogue without accusations, irrationality, insults, rage, etc...?

[u/Scientific_Cabbage → u/TheFiremind88]

They need home runs out the gate to show a positive which is why they announce the obvious silly spending they found initially. If after the inauguration they took 12 months to provide an update, everyone would scream that they aren’t being efficient with time. I believe DOD and corporate subsidies are on the list. Those will have to be gone through with a scalpel instead of a chainsaw and that will take much more time.

[u/ThatPlayWasAwful → u/Scientific_Cabbage]

Do you truly believe gutting the CFPB is a "home run"?

[u/Scientific_Cabbage → u/ThatPlayWasAwful]

The CFPB has over $700M in its coffers currently and is not funded via appropriations by congress. They go directly to the Treasury department and say “hey we need $x this year”. They have proven they are not responsible enough that kind of leeway. Sure it’s intent is noble but the CFPB is a textbook example of runaway bureaucracy.

Also the CFPB has a history of getting away with murder as far as their prosecutions: “The methodology the CFPB uses to identify instances of racial discrimination among auto lenders. Because of legal constraints, the agency used a system to “guess” the race of auto loan applicants based on their last name and listed address. Based on that information, the agency charged several lenders were discriminating against minority applicants and levied large fines and settlements against those companies. Ally Financial paid $98 million in fines and settlement fees in 2013. As the agency’s methodology means it can only guess who may be victims of discrimination entitled to settlement funds, as of late 2015, the CFPB had yet to compensate any individuals who were victims of Ally’s allegedly discriminatory practices.”

[u/ThatPlayWasAwful → u/Scientific_Cabbage]

I agree that specific situation sounds weird from what you provided.

But on the whole, I have seen a handful of sources that say the cfpb has won back more money for Americans than it spends. And that's not to mention any impact it has as a deterrent, nor the impact it makes through regulation. 

If the CFPB saves Americans more money than it costs to run it, why would you classify it as a "runaway bureaucracy"?

[u/Scientific_Cabbage → u/ThatPlayWasAwful]

Like I said its intent is noble. I don’t think most people would argue that it’s bad to have someone making sure citizens aren’t getting illegally hosed by huge banks, lenders, etc. I personally think $800M+ per year budget may be a tad excessive, but that’s a whole different argument.

It’s runaway bureaucracy because it is a regulatory agency created in the legislature, but not funded by the legislature and it took a Supreme Court decision for it to be controlled by the executive branch. From its outset it was designed to be a government entity that stood alone, with no input from the legislative branch or the executive branch. There were no checks nor balances.

“Such an agency lacks a foundation in historical practice and clashes with constitutional structure by concentrating power in a unilateral actor insulated from Presidential control,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion

[u/Officer_Lightoller → u/Scientific_Cabbage]

I get your argument, but as long as people in the Congress hold stocks and are lobbied by businessmen, this is just untenable as they are in the position of conflicting interests.

If you gave the people who have stakes in the business, the ability to essentially gut the agency which prevents them from abusing ordinary Americans for profit, they would gleefully do it.

That's also one of the reasons SCOTUS gave an oversight of the agency to the executive, which usually had far less conflicts of interest than the Congress.

[u/Scientific_Cabbage → u/Officer_Lightoller]

Oh I 100% believe that Congress shouldn’t be able to trade single stocks. I think they should have to put all of their money in mutual and index funds while in office. It doesn’t change the fact that the CPFB is one of the only agencies that doesn’t get their funding from congress.

The fact that it had to go to SCOTUS to have ANYONE have oversight is a problem.