Trump’s Rust Belt voters bail as his Ohio rally plays to empty seats: 'I fell for it'

[zymurgy]

You assume that deficit spending is caused only by overspending and not by undertaxing.
I strongly disagree.

Your attempt to obfuscate is noted.

We spend money we don't have. That is what creates deficits and adds to the debt.

You can call it "undertaxing" all you want, but that doesn't change the fundamental problem: government keeps authorizing spending it cannot pay for.

And as I pointed out earlier, by the standards of the Nordic model you support, it's America's lower-middle and middle classes that are undertaxed. Those countries expect ordinary working people to help fund their generous government programs.

That's precisely why we need enforceable fiscal discipline, not excuses for avoiding it.

 

[CasualLurker]

U.S. Military Budget vs. Second-Largest Spender (2025)​

In 2025, the United States spent about $929.2 billion on its military — roughly $594.2 billion more than China, the second-largest spender, which allocated $335.0 billion

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Saw the above online; this is ok. A national health service isn't.
If the federal government had its own government-owned factories and farms instead of throwing money at war-profiteering corporate oligarchs, we'd be able to afford a national health service.

Devotion to American-style capitalism is like any other religious superstition.

 

[zymurgy]

U.S. Military Budget vs. Second-Largest Spender (2025)​

In 2025, the United States spent about $929.2 billion on its military — roughly $594.2 billion more than China, the second-largest spender, which allocated $335.0 billion

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Saw the above online; this is ok. A national health service isn't.
If the federal government had its own government-owned factories and farms instead of throwing money at war-profiteering corporate oligarchs, we'd be able to afford a national health service.

Devotion to American-style capitalism is like any other religious superstition.

You complain about $929 billion in military spending while ignoring that American governments spent roughly $2.5 TRILLION on healthcare in 2024.

And we're not just the largest government healthcare spender among comparable developed countries. We're in a league of our own.

In comparable 2023 figures, government healthcare spending in the U.S. was roughly FIVE TIMES Japan's, the next highest.


More spending isn't a substitute for accountability.

 

[QP!]

You complain about $929 billion in military spending while ignoring that American governments spent roughly $2.5 TRILLION on healthcare in 2024.

And we're not just the largest government healthcare spender among comparable developed countries. We're in a league of our own.

In comparable 2023 figures, government healthcare spending in the U.S. was roughly FIVE TIMES Japan's, the next highest.


More spending isn't a substitute for accountability.

American spending on healthcare flows mostly in to profits and not care and that is by the systems design due to lobbying.

So simply saying 'look how much we spend' in that area is largely meaningless. If you triple the amount but send all that extra to profits care still does not improve.

Fix the US HC system and cut military spending significantly and start actual audits of where tax payer money is going (such a joke that so much military money spent is totally unaccounted for) and you can have an America much closer to other countries with much better care and social safety nets.

 

[QP!]

Your attempt to obfuscate is noted.

We spend money we don't have. That is what creates deficits and adds to the debt.

You can call it "undertaxing" all you want, but that doesn't change the fundamental problem: government keeps authorizing spending it cannot pay for.
...

And what he said prior is not obfuscating and DOES matter.

If you and your spouse are managing but barely to pay all your bills and keep your house and car and your spouse tells you they decided they will give 15% of their pay to a charity each month, and you object that you cannot afford that, if they reply back 'this is not a problem of how much money we bring in, we need to downscale our living and spend less'.

You pointing out this is a income (revenue) problem and all you need to do is reverse on giving our revenue away is an appropriate response.

 

[tigerred59]

Donald Trump went back to Ohio to rally support for Republicans in the Rust Belt, where entire sections of a hockey arena sat mostly empty, and some of the voters who helped power his rise say they’ve stopped buying what he’s selling.

The Washington Post reported that the upper levels of Youngstown’s Covelli Centre, home to the Phantoms junior hockey team, were largely empty during the rally, and Trump, who often brags about the size of his crowds, said nothing about the attendance.


“I think he’s just lost in the sauce,” Akel added. “He sees [AI] as a way to make more money. … They’re putting billions and billions into all that. Where’s it all coming from? You’ve got people starving here.”

Brian, a 54-year-old from Liberty who voted for Trump in all three of his elections, lost his welding job of roughly 25 years and called the local job market a “ghost town.”

“I’m extremely disappointed in him,” he told the Post. “I fell for it.”

He now plans to vote only in local races, and he also doubts Trump’s promise that tech companies will cover the extra electricity costs that come with data centers.

“We’re going to pay for all of this,” he said. “We always do.”

MSN

 

[tigerred59]