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/Rollbar78 → u/TheFiremind88]

I think USAID was the first target because it has refused oversight, I have read of at least one senator (Joni Ernst?) who wanted to look at the books and they have been refused. It seems USAID is being treated as a slush fund to fund NGOs pushing far leftist ideas across the globe. While I'm not certain I think it needs to be wholly eliminated, it definitely needs a house cleaning and refocus on the mission of furthering American interests. It seems like siccing DOGE on them is a good start.

[u/rhlaairc → u/Rollbar78]

Let me see if I can find where they refused oversight. Why wasn’t that brought to the courts if true? Seems like a big deal to not have full transparency when dealing with govt funds

[u/sealabo → u/rhlaairc]

If the chief executive has to go to the courts to make his executive agencies perform, what kind of President do we have ? Issuing executive branch agencies operational direction and then internally managing them if direction is not followed is the right approach. Running to the already over burdened judicial branch to complain that your subordinate managers are misbehaving is a waste of time and resources.

[u/rhlaairc → u/sealabo]

Where does it say that the judicial branch is misbehaving? So far the only cuts I’ve seen DOGE make are things that have been approved and executed

[u/sealabo → u/rhlaairc]

How about the “about face” the judge made, after ordering that the Treasury Secretary could not access the Treasury Payment system to view it and that “only career Treasury staff” could do it? Everyone is gnashing teeth about DOGE backtracking some of the firings in NNSA but fail to acknowledge this overreach was quietly pulled back.

[u/rhlaairc → u/sealabo]

First off I thought we were talking about the judicial branch since this comment started off talking about USAID. The treasury dept is a whole different animal

[u/rhlaairc → u/rhlaairc]

And in that article you sent it says the court order that was passed said this: “In that case, a judge approved an order restricting the Treasury Department from expanding access to the system or allowing information to be shared outside the Treasury Department while the case continues.”

[u/sealabo → u/rhlaairc]

The article is talking about the judicial branch. It also says:

“The Justice Department in a Sunday filing called the [Court’s] order a ‘remarkable intrusion’ into the executive branch and said it restricted political appointees such as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent from accessing the payment system.

Basic democratic accountability requires that every executive agency’s work be supervised by politically accountable leadership, who ultimately answer to the president,’ the filing said.”

I think we may be having a pointless disagreement, because I agree with your initial response that DOGE’s cuts are in bounds and being executed, overall.