He sure likes the dumb ones

[Enzo]

Donald Trump has endorsed Herschel Walker - former pro football player - for Senator from Georgia. Go Herschel. Hersch asked, "If humans descended from apes, how come there are still apes?" Yes he did, bless his heart. He says evolution is obviously a lie. Obviously. He was good at football, though.

[Heid the Ba]

Did Walker play for Trump's team in the original USFL? I can't be bothered checking but Walker played for New Jersey and I think Trump was involved with them.

[Arneb]

In my West German, slightly blasé and anti-American intellectual bubble we imagine most Americans to be asking questions of this sort more or less every day. Especially after attending a four hour service with speaking in tongues at a 4,000-seat megachurch with a small town's worth of parking lot and fast food joints attached.

[Мастер]

Did Walker play for Trump's team in the original USFL? I can't be bothered checking but Walker played for New Jersey and I think Trump was involved with them.

My recollection is that he did, on a big $$$ contract.

[g-one]

In other 'likes the dumb ones' news,
'my name is Kiiiiiiid Rock!' (bawatiba)

[Heid the Ba]

At least Kid Rock was bright enough to get involved when Trump asked him what should be done about North Korea,

[Мастер]

At least Kid Rock was bright enough to get involved when Trump asked him what should be done about North Korea,

Is there a missing "not" there?

[Heid the Ba]

Yes there is.

[Enzo]

In my West German, slightly blasé and anti-American intellectual bubble we imagine most Americans to be asking questions of this sort more or less every day.

Oh, but we do, we do. I have heard that exact thing said here in the home. We are stupid. A large percentage or republicans still believe that Trump really won the last election.

One of my faves was the lady (we were discussing Bernie Sanders) who blurted "Oh, where has socialism EVER worked?" They think socialism is China or Venezuela. And I think, Oh you mean the social security check you get each month? And your medicare? And the federally subsidized apartment we live in right now? And the meals on wheels program who bring us a hot meal three days a week? And on and on. But they hate socialism.

[Arneb]

Weell, I wouldn't call THAT socialism either - of course, they would, and yes, they should hate it

[Мастер]

I would say the US definition of “socialism” is a large government sector. Not government ownership of industry.

[Arneb]

I would say the US definition of “socialism” is a large government sector.

I agree with that assessment. And, of course, at a Federal budget of 16 % of GDP and 6,600 billion dollars (a fifth of that going to defense), the U.S. only has a large government sector when Democraps are in charge.

[Мастер]

I would say the US definition of “socialism” is a large government sector.

I agree with that assessment. And, of course, at a Federal budget of 16 % of GDP and 6,600 billion dollars (a fifth of that going to defense), the U.S. only has a large government sector when Democraps are in charge.

I strongly suspect that you are getting your percentage figure by looking at revenues (mostly taxation) for 2020 or 2021. Spending is over 30% of GDP for these two years, although that is substantially higher than the recent average, which has been in the 20-21% range. (COVID?) I don't believe the federal budget expenditure has been below 16% of GDP since 1965. Revenues are so much smaller than spending because (1) the US has been running a large and persistent budget deficit for as long as anyone can remember, and (2) there was a very large increase in spending in 2020 and 2021, without a corresponding increase in tax receipts.

The US has a federal system, with at least three layers of government at most locations, and substantial expenditure at the lower levels; for example, education spending is largely at the local level. So total government spending is larger.

In recent decades, all this talk about cutting the size of government has largely been rhetorical. Much of the spending is essentially on autopilot. For example, social security payments have already been promised to the recipients; if you cut them, there will be all holy hell to pay. This is why cuts in such programmes are always disguised to try to make them look like they're not cuts, e.g., we're not cutting the benefits, we're just delaying the cost-of-living increase due to inflation. It is a permanent cut of 1% or 2%, but everyone pretends it's not really a cut. So-called "mandatory" spending was $2,739 billion in 2019, versus $1,305 billion in "discretionary" spending. More than half of the 2019 discretionary spending is military. So if you consider military off-limits, essentially 84% of government spending can't be touched. (Note - about 4% of the mandatory spending is for "veterans benefits". Presumably, if there weren't any veterans, there wouldn't be any veterans benefits, so this is spending that occurs because of the military. Yet it isn't included in the military budget, which is therefore understated by about 15%.)

So all the rhetoric about getting government spending under control is essentially about 16% of the budget, or about 32% if you consider the military to be fair game. (And after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, are we expecting many politicians in the US to say, this is a good time to make large cuts in military spending?) So at least 2/3 of government spending is off-limits to anyone who wants to take out the budget axe, and perhaps more like 5/6. You then have the issue that everyone wants to cut government spending in the abstract, but no one wants to cut any specific programmes. Needless to say, any cuts that actually get made end up being relatively small in the grand scheme of things.

The above numbers are from 2019; there has been a huge increase in spending (without a corresponding increase in revenues) in 2020 and 2021. I didn't find (and didn't look all that hard) for any breakdown of the 2020 and 2021 budgets, but I would guess that much of this increase is due to COVID-related spending; either directly to deal with COVID issues, or general assistance to individuals/businesses affected by COVID. The data source I found goes back to 1930, and as a percentage of GDP, the only years in which spending exceeded the 2020 and 2021 levels were 1943, 1944, and 1945; I suspect that was largely due to high military spending. (I think that statement is probably true even if we go back before 1930.) If the new 2020/2021 spending is largely COVID-related, then presumably what we will see in the historical record is a massive increase in government spending during the Trump administration, followed by a partial or total reversal during the Biden administration. (And will the post-COVID reaction be, emergency over, let's cut spending, or will it be, emergency over, let's divert all that spending to other programmes we want?) Now, to the best of my knowledge, not even the most shameless Democratic partisan hack tries to claim that Trump was responsible for COVID, so there is that. They can, and do, claim that he mishandled it - whether government spending would have been lower if it were handled better is a whole other question. One of the usual complaints was that the Republicans were against all these different restrictions - well, if there were more restrictions, would that have further slowed down economic activity, so that the government would have stepped in with even more spending? So I'm not sure you can blame this on Trump - prior to COVID, government spending as a percentage of GDP was quite steady during his presidency. But it certainly doesn't feed the narrative of Republican fiscal responsibility very well. The only president in recent history to have a substantial decrease in government spending as a percent of GDP was Bill Clinton, and in that case, I think it was more a matter of economic growth, rather than shrinking of the government in absolute terms. (And right after the Republican takeover of congress in 1994 is the only time in recent history there has been any serious attempt to reduce government spending. That attempt did not last long.)

So my expectation is that the level of "socialism" may change a rather small amount, but not significantly, no matter who is or is not the president or in congress.