alt Hacker NewsOh, I’m not letting them off the hook. I’m just saying that these policies are broadly unpopular outside a specific slice of the Republican Party. That’s relevant to lawmakers wondering about their job security in 2026.
Oh, I’m not letting them off the hook. I’m just saying that these policies are broadly unpopular outside a specific slice of the Republican Party. That’s relevant to lawmakers wondering about their job security in 2026.
That is missing the big picture. The US has a debt & deficit problem. There is no consensus policy on how to deal with it [0] and every slice of the population wants to handle it differently (generally by picking a different slice of the population to bear the burden).
The federal government tried printing money and that was a big contributor to the Biden administration getting voted out. Somewhat unfairly, but oh well. It wasn't working very well and the political appetite isn't there right now to be associated with monetisation.
Reducing the size and scope of government is being debated, but realistically the appetite doesn't seem to be there either.
Now the administration are going to try taxing foreigners. It probably won't go well either.
This is the US political process seeing a major problem and cycling through options to check for alternatives other than raising taxes on a voting constituency. None of the revenue raising ideas have widespread support - they all harm the economy and they're all going to have specific subsets of the population that support them. Pointing out a particular subset isn't particularly useful.
[0] I suspect there is a consensus on the debt part - don't pay it - but that still leaves the deficit to sort out.