It's a very strange phenomenon, where people are doing things that appears to help them short term, while actually just screwing themselves entirely. Dooming their entire segment of the population because they simply don't have anyone standing there with violence on hand, telling them: NO! Pretty fucking weird, it would be like me, a dude angry from actions taken against me, harassing my neighbors by stealing their packages. It's definitely going to get the wrong kind of attention, and no ones gonna be on my side for doing it... That's what the GOP is doing. Fucking morons.
this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
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Trump specifically said medicare and medicaid will be protected at all expense. Just last week. We shall see.
Hurt the poor and reward the rich?
Mission Accomplished!!!
/s
A lot of people are going to die under this regime :/
It’s not a bug, it’s a feature of reinforcing the hierarchy the conservatives all believe in.
The whole aim of the GOP is to benefit rich people. They're bought and paid for by the 1%. All of their culture war fear mongering is set up as a distraction from the fact that we're losing the class war.
Thanks for catching up to the rest of the class. 🙄
Normal GOP budget.
Same is it ever was.
The thing I don't really get is that we've got a few people on their way to being trillionaires. That's more money and assets than the human brain is capable of fathoming, I can guarantee it. What's even the point? Anything they could possibly want or need is provisioned for, they've got enough money to do all the fun little side projects their hearts desire, and they've still got far more money beyond that. They literally can't even give it away fast enough if they tried. What on earth is more tax breaks for the wealthy going to achieve, even for the wealthy? It just feels pointlessly evil at this point.
Remember that those evil billionaires don't actually care about the money itself. If they did, they would have stopped at $100 million or some much lower number, because that's already more money than anyone could ever spend. To them it's about power, prestige, and control. They are addicts, and they'll never give up the chance for more.
It's a mental illness
It's a mental illness that is worshiped by an unfortunately large population of people.
Right. It's just hoarding, but it's money, so it's ok apparently?
I think they're like mold or cancer cells, or even a fire. You can't decide to be a billionaire just like a plant species can't decide to grow in crack in the pavement. It's a system of interactions that decides that. Pure chance and a lot of failures that had as much right to succeed as any other.
Billionaires are byproducts of our system weaved into a physical human body. It has a human life to confuse you and camouflage what it really is. It has a human brain and human emotions to generate reasons why it deserves to exist. It looks and feels like a person.
Reminds me of mandrakes from Harry Potter. They scream like they're alive but they're just there to be harvested.
Reminds me of mandrakes from Harry Potter. They scream like they're alive but they're just there to be harvested.
Funnily enough, this is exactly how billionaires view us.
yeah, we know.
but thanks anyway to the economists for making it official with numbers.
I have family members who moved from state to state around 20 years ago until they found one that would approve their disability statuses so they no longer had to work and would qualify for the whole smorgasbord of government assistance programs including medicaid.
They think most people who are receiving these benefits are just lazy and that there would be more money for people like themselves who need that money if these programs were slashed. They believe only those other (i.e. lazy) people will lose benefits.
There's literally no reasoning with that mentality. They seem to think this is all entertaining.
I guarantee you that once they are personally affected, and I'm pretty sure they will be affected at some point, they'll turn on this administration.
I have many problems with this, but the hardest pill to swallow is that I'm going to have to be the bigger person and accept them with open arms because at the end of the day there's no stopping this unless we're all united.
I guarantee you that once they are personally affected, and I’m pretty sure they will be affected at some point, they’ll turn on this administration.
Will they?
What are their news habits? Facebook? Cable TV? Are they politically active?
A root cause of all this is that scamming/influencing is extremely effective with modern tech, especially on vulnerable people. If something bad happens, they will just get pushed down the rabbit hole waiting to suck them in.
Nothing will change until that’s regulated away, which is not going to happen now that The owners of Twitter and Truth Social are president, and Meta has their ear.
Public assistance does not pay anything but poverty wages. Certainly not enough to move from state to state shopping for the best food stamps and Medicaid deals. While I don't disagree with your judgement of their character I do take issue with "smorgasborg" of government assistance.
Adult public assistance, SNAP, Temporary Assistance for needy families are all very limited. They are resource tested and income approved as well. Not to mention work requirements for any cash assistance except APA. BTW APA benefits are usually around $400-600 a month. Sounds very lucrative considering it is designed to supplement people making less that $1,200 a month in Social Security Benefits.
Anyone who has had to apply for disability knows it is a crap shoot as well. It is common for people to apply over the course of several years before being approved for an amount no human can live off of without subsidized housing. That is if they can even find subsidized housing.
If my statement could be interpreted in any way congruent to your first paragraph, then there's clearly been a significant degree of miscommunication and/or misunderstanding.
I've reread my statement and there's no mention of shopping around for the best deal, so I'm going to chalk that one up to you misunderstanding what I wrote. As for the use of smorgasbord, I understand that it might suggest abundance in some way, though in my part of the world it generally conveys the concept of variety more so than abundance. Either way I chalk that up to miscommunication on my part.
I appreciate your candor about your family members and your illustration of their hypocrisy.
My reply was just to clarify the reality of getting disability and public assistance. You definitely have misconceptions starting with saying your family members moved from state to state until they got their disability status approved.
Disability is approved through Social Security, there is no need or advantage to moving state to state. It is okay to have misperceptions of disability and public assistance. It is pretty normal actually.
I happen to help people navigate these systems everyday for a living. I was working with this woman today whose total income was less than $600 a month.
It doesn't matter one way or the other, but there's either some manner of miscommunication / misunderstanding going on here or that's not completely accurate / applicable to the relatives I mentioned.
For instance, I found this:
A couple of things to note: I did actually look around a bit and found multiple sources that suggest the same, just that the one I linked to said it most concisely and one of the states my relatives lived in is on that list. Obviously I'm not claiming that those sources are more accurate than your professional expertise, and I'm aware that just because it's on the internet doesn't make it true. Also, wanted to reiterate that this happened decades ago, which makes me wonder if things could have been a little different back then.
I appreciate your interest and research in this matter. When it comes to disability this determination is done at the Federal level through social security. This is how people get disability cash payments which is what most people think of when they say they get "disability".
While you are correct that individual states may have different means testing for SNAP, Medicaid, APA, etc. all cash benefits are mostly tied to this disability determination. Generally all states have strict income and resources limitations and in the case of TANF/SNAP also have work requirements. TANF is also limited to 60 months total in your lifetime.
All this money is usually from Federal sources although states will often be required to match funds. This is also why the rules are very similar since they are often dictated by the Federal government.
There really is no misunderstanding as you yourself admit it happened long ago and the details are murky at best. This is what I would call family mythology and helps to inform your world view. I was just pointing out that there is some inconsistency with this view.
I hope they get what they voted for. And I will NEVER accept them. They made this mess, it’s on their shoulders, pocketbooks, and well-beings to fix it.
Maybe.. Or you tell them to get fucked and pull themselves up by the boot straps. Why have shitty people in your life?
I already mentioned it: I firmly believe that if there's any chance of stopping this mess, it's going to require working together and finding common ground with everyone who has been harmed, regardless of voting history, political affiliation, morals, and rationale. Divided we fall. We've already seen how being divided works out.
More "reach across the aisle" horseshit. Fuck'em.
I'm honestly sad that anyone would feel this way, because of the implications. Having said that, I understand why you'd feel that way, even if the presentation is regrettable.
It's not merely a belief, it's the reality. The fuck'em mentality serves the 1% nicely and keeps us subservient. The dumb fucks like your relative weren't born dumb fucks. Babies have no idea what's going on in the socioeconomic system. They're educated by society to be dumb fucks. Now let's take a look at who's paying to get them to believe dumb shit. And who's paying to get us to believe they should be taking individual responsibility. And let's observe who benefits from putting that together.
Like it or not, the only leverage we have is in numbers and it seems we don't have the numbers without helping our dumb fuck brothers and sisters out of the mental prison they've been put in.
Divided we fall. ✊
What's fucking wild is Medicaid helps rural communities more than them big cities.
Are they sure they want to piss off people who have more guns than teeth? This is gonna be Luigi ×500.
They're also trying as hard as they can to piss off the military. I don't get it
I like your optimism. I don't think anything could change these people's minds though. Somehow they will be convinced Obamacare took away their Medicaid, and Trump is working his ass off to fix it, but all these regulations and taxes and government employees are gumming up his operation.
Just watch... Like I said I like the optimism. Hopefully one day I can call some of the hundreds of thousands of hicks in my state comrades.
I think its more likely than people on here think. I hear whispers within the party. Theyre about to be rudely awakened I think with this medicare social security stuff
Removing regulations and dismantling the government doesn’t help anyone but the rich.
I once stumbled on a discussion, on Reddit I think (or maybe it was Twitter) from a small-time farmer who basically admitted that most farmers in his position realized regulations were important and could be a force for good, but large agri-businesses constantly flouted rules and never got anything more than a slap on the wrist when caught. A sort of "rules for thee, not for me" situation. And so all the small time farmers had to cut corners and ignore regulations to remain competitive and viable.
Overly complex regulations could increase the barrier of entry for newer companies, small time entrepreneurs, etc. In some instances it can actually be in the interest of large, established companies to maintain overly complex regulatory environments as it keeps competition out of the market.
Insightful simplification of regulations that increases their effectiveness while reducing unnecessary burdens might be feasible, and also, beneficial for society as a whole.
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we're going to get that with this administration. They're just going to smash and break, and at best, they might realize they broke some important things and perhaps repair it to a limited extent.
edit: clarified a few points.
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