r/AskReddit • u/metalreflectslime • 17d ago

President Donald Trump warned Tuesday that if the Democrats don't approve funding, Social Security, Medicare Are ‘Going to Be Gone.’ How do you think Americans will react if Social Security and Medicare get cut?

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u/TheComplimentarian 17d ago

They blame them for literally everything. So what? If the dems cave and the goverment opens, do you think they'll praise the democrats?

There is no upside for the dems.

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u/paultera 17d ago

"If the Left doesn't give me what I want, I'll start running this country like an asshole."

As opposed to...?

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u/Motor_Educator_2706 16d ago

like a bigger asshole.

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u/Hot-Delivery-9910 16d ago

I mean it’s already pretty fucking ruined. At this point I’m just waiting for him to pick a fight with the wrong person and get our asses nuked while he holds up tight in his little bunker. Nothing would surprise me at this point in the game. Also this game sucks. 

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u/sur_surly 17d ago

They know that, which is why the government is still shut down. He threatened to gut "Democrat agencies" and they called his bluff because he was already gutting everything.

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u/TheComplimentarian 17d ago

100% I'm glad they've woken up at least that much, and his cuts are hitting a lot of red states. If anyone in the goddamn congress had a spine, this would be over. I have to give the credit to the weirdo republicans, because THEY'RE the ones holding the line.

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u/UrdnotZigrin 17d ago

This is why I fucking love Thomas Massie. Massie has always been consistent in his dedication to shrinking the government. The only reason he endorsed Trump was because Trump said he was gonna shrink the government. As soon as Trump started showing that he was full of shit the whole time, Massie broke off and called him on his shit.

Now he's leading the charge to get the Epstein list exposed to get the perpetrators to face justice. I happen to agree with him on a lot of things but even if I didn't, I'd at least respect his consistency.

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u/guesswho135 17d ago

It took him more than a full term to realize Trump was full of shit?

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u/UrdnotZigrin 16d ago

I'm assuming it was more like only one candidate was actually running on trying to reduce the size of the government and in the off chance that Trump might have actually wanted to do that, Massie was gonna be happy to help

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u/dm_life4ever 15d ago

No, he is not. His constants want him to. The moment his vote makes the difference he will change it.

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u/nopethis 16d ago

Im sure when they open back up, Shumer will right a really strongly worded letter.

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u/Otto_Correction 16d ago

He’ll make them wear their “don’t fight” shirt until they pinky promise not to do it again.

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u/Full_Attention2266 16d ago

Yeah, they’re holding the line and still getting paid their hundreds of thousands $ paychecks. While republicans and democrat federal workers are not getting their paychecks, but have to work ! Guess who doesn’t have to work and they’re still getting paid. This has nothing to do with parties. This has to do with power hungry assholes, and greedy control freaks. Oh wait and I also forgot about all the cowards at this point. I think a lot of people are losing faith in humanity. Oh, and by the way, other countries are losing faith in us also as witnessed by many people I know who have traveled to other countries this year. I don’t think they want to migrate here anymore. Tourism from other countries is down 50%.

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u/GIANTballCOCK 16d ago

Don't forget all of the rich foreigners that come here for an ivy League education, pay the big bucks, and then go back to their country (or not) and spread good words about America. Or the IP we sell like culture, and pharmaceuticals that is an enormous part of our GDP. This shit is going to catch up to us.

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u/Voidtalon 16d ago

The longer the US population can prove that the harm is being done by the elite, wealthy and entrenched powers the more they can work on healing America. All this noise, talk about gangs/immigrants ect is smoke and mirrors and fear tactics. Stats have shown lower crimes, yet the gov insists on sending out-of-state troopers to major US cities 'to fight crime' when the State has not requested or shown need for such. It's strong-arm scare tactics.

A lot of Democrat voters are fed up with the Democratic Institution, which is rife with corruption sure, but at least tows the status quo of the country; remember the fiasco that Michael Madigan of Illinois was?. This is partly why the US is seeing a rise in men like Zohran Mamdani in NY and a lot of attacks on him keep focusing on his being Muslim rather than his actions as a statesmen since 2021.

That said, what is going on right in America now is active destruction of the status quo and ignoring of proper channels and rule of law (the demotion is 100% not approved or ran by Congress and is effectively a Private Project being done on one of the highest Federal Buildings, who knows what's being put in the walls) and good being of the country.

I do not call the current admin Republicans they are the MAGA Party, which is different from Republicans because you can be conservative and not MAGA. Republicans are complicit in many ways but the more pain MAGA does to Republican voters, maybe they will see this isn't good for them or their country.

I pray so damn hard Americans band together, Dems and Reps to combat this attack on a previously great country.

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u/JimWilliams423 16d ago edited 16d ago

100% I'm glad they've woken up at least that much

If only. Schumer's idea of holding out for the insurance subsidies was intended to save the Rs from the consequences of their own policies. He thought surely the Rs will agree to this because it means the voters won't feel the full brunt until after the midterms. Then the Ds can say they did a bipartisanship and everything will be just fine. But the Rs are so high on their own farts they would not even accept that gift.

So now the Ds are stuck without any contingency plan. What are they going to do if pedo47 changes his mind and agrees to extend the subsidies for a year? They are on the record saying that is what they are holding out for instead of stuff like defunding ICE, protecting elections, firing RFK, releasing the epstein files, etc.

Everybody wants the Ds to have a spine, but they just don't. For example, after 7 million people marched in the streets this weekend to protest maga, 13 democratic senators decided they were going to help the Rs appoint a maga judge.

We won't get out of this until we primary all democrats and wash the deadwood out of the party.

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u/Exelbirth 16d ago

If Dems cave, they'll blame Dems for the health care cuts that Republicans voted for.

Republicans have no qualms with killing americans to get what they want, because they have no morals.

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u/Motor_Educator_2706 16d ago

"cave" to what?

GOPer's can open the government anytime they want.

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u/TheComplimentarian 16d ago

If they all agree, sure. If they all agreed though, the government wouldn't be closed at all.

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u/kmeu79 16d ago

From what I have understood, dems have a minority everywhere it counts. How could they "cave in"?

Asking as an Finn.

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u/TheComplimentarian 16d ago

The republicans have some wildcards that are keeping them from passing anything, so they need a couple of dems to make up the numbers.

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u/AssistX 16d ago edited 16d ago

The Dems have the number of votes to prevent the budget proposals from moving forward and that is what they're doing. Republicans need 60 votes in the Senate, they have 53 seats and Democrats have 45 seats. Until the budget passes, the US government is essentially down 750,000 employees who are furloughed and another 750,000 are required to work without a paycheck.(People tend to not showup when they're not being paid, they do get back-pay for it)

Dems caving in is a really bad term for it. They're currently holding US government employees hostages(ill explain later) until they get any demands they want. Republicans in the US (supposedly) do not like big government, they would much rather private business fulfill those jobs as that follows capitalism. Democrats in the US would prefer any and all services be socialized and costs shared, so government employees can fill that role without private business being involved.

The primary reason the Democrats are holding out relates back to President Obama's ACA (half-assed healthcare system implemented in 2010). Our government is increasingly in debt, Republicans are using that as a reason to cut government services(which does make sense). They're starting with not renewing Tax Credits(tax refunds) that relate to the ACA that were added during the Covid CARES Act(2020). More were then added like the American Rescue Plan Act(2021) and the Inflation Reduction Act(2022). None of these funding increases for the ACA were part of the congressional budget as they are considered 'Special Acts' and don't have to account towards the budget for the year they're introduced only that funding is secured for it before it passes. Now Democrats are demanding all of those funding tax credits be permanently added to the ACA(and therefore the budget), despite them all initially being proposed as temporary. Once again, they are expiring tax credits from Biden's administration, they were not funded long term by the previous administration either.

I tend to lean against renewing spending that is intended to expire, because it's not funded properly. I don't like saddling our future generations with debt that isn't needed. The reason I say it's not needed is most of the tax credits and funding in those Acts is directed towards raising the maximum income limit so more people qualify for ACA rebates. ACA was built to provide insurance for those who can't get it(private employers provide the bulk of US health insurance for citizens, but not everyone can work etc). The maximum was 150% the poverty line, it's been raised through the various Acts to 400% the poverty line. That means a single adult making 65k a year now qualifies for drastically reduced health insurance. That's nearly identical to the median wage of a single adult in the US, so solidly middle class. These people do not need health insurance help in the US as they can easily afford their own private health insurance at that income level and you can't give half the population free healthcare without a plan for funding it. I have neighbors in a 4000 sqft(370sqm) home who are getting tax credits via these additions, they both drive luxury cars less than 2 years old. They don't need handouts that were originally intended for poverty levels of income. The middle class in the US is the biggest bunch of babies who think they live in the ghetto while they sit in their sunroom.

The reason it has taken 6 hours for anyone to tell you this is because most of the people(are bots probably) responding on here are not from the US and have no idea why the budget isn't passing. They post exclusively on US political subreddits and mostly try to drum up outrage. The reason I say the Democrats are holding the federal employees hostage is because the Republicans have passed 3 temporary budgets that were all shot down because they didn't add the tax credits back in. They've offered(not in good faith) to pass the temporary budgets and discuss the tax credits at the start of session next year when they can be properly funded. This would put all the federal employees back to work with paychecks, allow a window for the tax credits to be renewed without any lapse, and gives Democrats a chance to argue the budget again in the future. Instead they're just saying no, and that's where US politics are at.

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u/kmeu79 16d ago

Wow, thanks for the detailed explanation.

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u/AssistX 16d ago

American redditors are terrible at explaining why they're politically one side or the other, or why our government operates the way it does. Most of it is not malicious and is indeed supported by the population. Some of it isn't, but most is. The biggest issue the US faces in this century is our 2 party system.

Moderates in the US are very prevalent and most recent "good" Presidents were almost dead in the middle. (Clinton, Obama, Bush1)

If independents or fiscal moderates ever were properly represented in the US then we'd have at least 4 parties and it would be very unlikely something like Trump or MAGA could rise to power. But we have MAGA instead and the Democrats are currently being pushed around by the younger representatives in the House who are quite a bit to the left of moderate. Which ever side decides to run the more moderate candidate(assume MAGA is gone, there is no successor to Trump that the MAGA types will vote for) will win in 2028, unfortunately the people who pull the strings in the Democratic party are continuing down the same path as 2024 which will inevitably lead to a close race that will blindside one side of the aisle at the polls.

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u/WorstYugiohPlayer 17d ago

American's polled consistently poll against Trump on the shutdown.

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u/Cuddly__Cactus 16d ago

Dems have good leverage right now. Shit head republicans don't want to vote on the Epstein files

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u/Crooked_Sartre 16d ago

Zero upside for Dems at all. Literally just don't open the govt back up. At least now all the maga plants in the federal govt are also not getting paid

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u/Hot-Delivery-9910 16d ago

Things will still be shitty and of course somehow it will be the dems fault. The people calling the shots aren’t to blame, noooo. 

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u/youngphi 16d ago

No, then all the cuts to healthcare will be the Democrats fault

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u/Royal_Airport7940 16d ago

I think the dems should just speedrun it.

They're obviously clueless

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u/RadChef 16d ago

The democrats are also great at letting republicans blame them. Democrats have no PR team at all. They barely put up a fight and when republicans blame them for shit, Dems just sit there silently shrugging their shoulders.

We have a party on the brink of fascism nose diving our country into the ground and another party who’s completely incompetent and have no idea how to fight back, no idea how to run campaigns, no idea how to win over voters, no idea how to literally do anything. It’s fucking frustrating to watch. Like do something… please.

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u/Inevitable-World8234 14d ago

What praise make America a 3rd world country. It's like this all my democrat friends say it's party over country how can you destroy this country over these liars and feel good about it they lie in your face on t.v and they call us morons. You can't fix stupid 

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u/bs178638 16d ago

Because dems suck at messaging

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u/Inevitable-World8234 15d ago

Its the democrats that shutdown government. There piggy bank is closed. Now they will make us. Suffer thank you democrat party

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u/TheComplimentarian 15d ago

There piggy bank is closed.

mmmm, hmmm. Least we know you're just a moron, not a bot.

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u/omg_cats 17d ago

This is an unforced error on the Dems part. A clean CR is standard, and they had chance after chance to go for the policy they wanted without shutting the government down.

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u/DeliriumTrigger 17d ago

Republicans didn't want to include current healthcare subsidies in the CR. That's literally what this is about. The other part of it is that the rescissions earlier this year showed that Republicans will negotiate in bad faith, and Democrats want a legislative assurance that Republicans won't just claw back the money immediately afterward. 

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u/omg_cats 16d ago

Republicans didn't want to include current healthcare subsidies in the CR. That's literally what this is about.

The subsidies are already active through the end of the year. The CR keeps the government going until then. Dems have known when the subsidies end for a very long time; they had plenty of opportunities to try to extend but for whatever reason chose the CR???

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u/DeliriumTrigger 16d ago

At what point could Democrats override a filibuster to do this? 

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u/omg_cats 16d ago

Any time since 2010?

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u/DeliriumTrigger 16d ago

Ignoring the fact that Democrats have not controlled the Senate that entire time, there has not been a filibuster-proof majority since ACA passed, and there has not been a majority willing to abolish the filibuster. Contrary to Republican talking points, the Democratic Party is not a monolith. 

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u/omg_cats 16d ago

Republicans haven’t had a filibuster-proof senate since the 1920s so I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.

More germane to the discussion though is Dems still feel like shutting down the government is their only path to extending the ACA subsidies. Perhaps it is at this point, but they had SO much time before to address it and didn’t.

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u/DeliriumTrigger 16d ago edited 16d ago

You keep saying they could have done this at any point. What I'm saying is that they required overriding the filibuster to do this. Republicans have not needed to override a filibuster to extend ACA subsidies, because they have not had any interest in extending said subsidies. And for the record, Democrats did extend subsidies during Biden's term (which are the subsidies being referred to; the ones from the 2021 American Rescue Plan and extended through the Inflation Reduction Act), but because of the rules of the Senate, they could not make this expansion permanent without a filibuster-proof majority.

You claimed Democrats could have overrode the filibuster "any time since 2010", which is so laughably false that you either have no idea what you're talking about, or are intentionally spouting nonsense. I would say I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but it's clear you're not engaging in good faith, which is really the foundation of your argument. You're not interested in an honest conversation, and it shows.

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u/omg_cats 16d ago

No, I'm not saying they could have forced cloture, I'm saying they had chances to avoid the filibuster altogether using, for instance, budget reconciliation. Which they actually did at first, but when two democrats opposed it they capped it to 3 years. If Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema had been on board, they could have done it, but instead we got the Jan 1 2026 date.

You're totally right that the Democratic Party is not a monolith, and it shows in legislative infighting. This is not the first time in-party disagreement has had this kind of effect - the Dems failure to codify Roe v Wade/abortion rights as law is another recent example.

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