I really wish I could say, "Let it happen and show people what they voted for". But that's abominable.
So what we're going to get instead is adversarial: horrors are called for, everybody else has to fight to minimize them, and so only some horrifying things happen. And for a lot of people, as long as those horrors don't affect them directly, they'll say that everything worked the way it was supposed to.
So, adversarial is what it's going to be, then. Onward.
Unfortunately, "letting it happen" other than of course many people potentially suffering or dying, it presumably wouldn't have much of an affect on voters, as it would simply be spun that it's somehow the previous Administrations fault, or the other parties fault etc. Thankfully we still have the courts, even as more bias judges get seated.
The Daily Show's Jordan Klepper had a sad clip of a Trump supporter demanding to know where President Obama was during Katrina, and that he should be investigated for his failures.
(The answer, of course, is "he was a state Senator in Illinois at the time".)
I'm on the fence about this kind of talk, to be honest. I ask myself sometimes, is it fair to demean those who have been let down by the state they were educated in? I know that generally Americans are uninspired and under educated, but a lot of that comes from systematic and cultural issues rather than it being a fault of the person itself.
I think it's worth thinking about a long term distribution of outcomes in a democratic system. It's a dynamic process, how does it evolve, what are the summary statistics?
Well, we know there is some autoregression, some reversion to the mean, some rich time structure.
But crucially, it's an online learning system, with a decaying memory. Voters forget populists are bad, and vote for them from time to time. Then one of two things will happen: either we're all wrong and populists are actually ok, or they really are terrible, they do their terrible stuff and eventually get ousted, with voters memory refreshed.
It's not that it's a good thing, rather it's baked into how democracy works. Same as winters are baked into the progression of seasons, and there's no point despairing about them every year.
So it's a "let it rip", not as a vindictive response, but rather that's a sad but necessary part of democracy.
Well, no, those are not the only two options. Another option that we've already seen play out in a number of democracies worldwide is that a radical populist embeds himself in the government together with some die-hard loyalists, then destroys all checks and balances against him and neuters the opposition by leveraging the executive like a scythe.
For democracy to be preserved, political players have to have respect for democracy as a prerequisite. The Heritage Foundation and their oligarch friends have absolutely no interest in that, and the rest of the Republican party mostly just nods along while collecting their paychecks.
"We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."
When it comes to economic matters and running the federal government, I say we should let them open the door. Americans desperately want to try dumb things and democratically voted for it, I say we let it happen and fail of its own accord. At the end of the day it's just money and they won the vote - let them smoke the whole pack.
When it comes to political retribution, dismantling independent news, rewarding cronies, attacking democracy - we should personally oppose it whenever we can, but I cannot go into a room and be the only one who cares. I will not stop robbery on my own.
When it comes to real matters - our friends and family who have lives here and may be deported back to hostile warzones because of racist BS - this is the hill I am dying on and for this I will keep my powder dry.
> Q: Is this a freeze on all Federal financial assistance?
> A: No, the pause does not apply across-the-board. It is expressly limited to programs, projects, and activities implicated by the President’s Executive Orders, such as ending DEI, the green new deal, and funding nongovernmental organizations that undermine the national interest.
This administration is playing Calvinball. What funding does or does not qualify is being completely made up on the spot.
As an extra layer on dumbness, because the administration is stupid like a fox, they get to walk back anything they want to. They could decide next week that FEMA was never actually cancelled, and they will walk up to a podium and accuse everyone of overreacting and the news for lying. Despite the fact that they controlled the narrative the entire time.
They've been working on this for years. They weren't prepared in 2017; they never expected to have this much power. This time they knew what they were getting, and had all the ducks lined up in a row.
"they" will lose their majority far sooner than that. Everyone up for election in the midterm (the entire house) is going to be worried that if they don't defect not they will be voted out. Of course they are balancing that against those who vote against them for defecting. Still I expect to see defections happen in a couple months.
I don't expect to see very many defections. This is what the voters asked for. I don't see the voters changing their minds.
Nor do I see any of them developing a conscience. If they do, there is a very good chance that they will lose a primary challenge.
The legislature may change hands just because it's closely balanced and things do tend to swing a bit. It's not so much about voters switching, as about small amounts of turnout making a big difference.
So as far as I can tell, expect to see more of exactly what we were told was going to happen.
I don't think we'll see defections per se, but we will see some "retiring to spend more time with the family" or "looking for new opportunities in the private sector."
the incumbant has a big advantage and so it isn't hard to beat that. Besides the reason they will defect is fear of loss - those who defect are likely aware that they won't get reelected if they don't. They might lose a primary but if whoever wins support trump they are unlikely to win. That is the whole point of defecting - if you don't you lose for sure.
> Medicaid provides more comprehensive benefits than private insurance at significantly lower out-of-pocket cost to beneficiaries, but its lower payment rates to health care providers and lower administrative costs make the program very efficient. It costs Medicaid much less than private insurance to cover people of similar health status. For example, adults on Medicaid cost about 22 percent less than if they were covered by private insurance, Urban Institute research shows.
> Over the past 30 years, Medicaid costs per beneficiary have essentially tracked costs in the health care system as a whole, public and private. In fact, costs per beneficiary grew more slowly for Medicaid than for private insurance between 1987 and 2017, and are expected to continue growing more slowly than for private insurance in coming years, according to the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission.
Right, healthcare costs have been growing faster than overall inflation for many years and the industry now constitutes 17.6% of GDP. If it goes much higher it's going to start displacing more essential industries. So obviously costs will eventually be cut somehow. That will probably be some combination of care rationing, provider wage cuts, and prescription drug price fixing. Regardless of whether anyone thinks those measures are good ideas or not, the math is inescapable. My guess is that the crisis will come when large self-insured employers refuse to continue absorbing most of the annual cost increases for employee health plans.
Medicaid is reportedly well run, though? Yes, it is a big number, but it has not been the source of any budget problems. Quite the contrary, it has been a good lever in controlling health care costs.
In terms of game theory, I'm very interested to see where this ends up. It's difficult to know what constitutes standing under the circumnstances: certainly if the system of government isn't wildly changed, this makes sense.
If it is wildly changed, what to? And in light of that, do the attorneys general have any role in what might not be entirely a legal question?
> Sincere and probably very naive question: won't this put a squeeze on insurance companies?
To the extent that many state Medicaid plans rely to some degree on private insurance providers as the direct insurers, and those private insurers receive monthly capitation payments from the state, possibly, though for Medicaid specifically the direct impact would be to the states, who are the direct recipients of the federal dollars as reimbursement for the federal share of the joint state-federal program. But Medicaid is typically a very large portion of state spending, and the federal share of Medicaid costs varies by state and subprogram but is at least 50% -- so if reimbursement stops it produces a cash flow problem very quickly.
Well yes and no. Many state Medicaid agencies outsource at least some of their plans to commercial insurers. Sometimes there is a degree of risk sharing between the entities.
It will put the squeeze on the doctors and medical facilities. There are reports already that doctors can't access the payment portal for the work that they're doing.
It amazes me how much the bottom and middle class are infatuated with Trump. I recall seeing him in NYC with a look of disgust when he passed by doormen. The guy never said hello, and grew up with a sense of entitlement that is truly mesmerizing. The guy ripped off students with a scam college a la Andrew Tate. Yet, I saw an older gentleman just this morning wearing a white MAGA hat, and driving an old rusted truck. I am dumbfounded really. He is denying funding for these programs while siphoning our taxes into his golf resorts. Utterly disgraceful, yet half the country wanted him. I wish I could understand the delusion people go through. Mental gymnastics that is worthy of graduate studies. I now understand how people can live under Stalinist and Nazi regimes. The ridiculous becomes mundane
People in power spend a lot of money and effort for propaganda so that middle and lower class people think what they do is actually good for them. "I can become rich too, and then I also don't want to pay taxes and yield power with impunity"
Also, they keep working class folks occupied with work and just poor enough, so that working class people don't have time to engage in politics, don't have time too think too much about the future, and mainly worry about paying this month's rent and feeding their families.
So, I don't blame the people, I blame the system that working exactly as designed. Question is, how can we change this system?
I really encourage people to look at it from the opposite angle. What does that older gentleman dislike so much about the status quo that he’d rather engage in strenuous mental gymnastics than accept it? I don’t claim to have the one true answer, but I bet you can identify a couple plausible ones.
I agree with your sentiment. It is just hard for me to comprehend how a billionaire who's shown time and time again he cares little for normal folks, can have such an impact on their perception. His cabinet was filled with billionaires with country club membership. This is easily accessible info. Normal folks would rather elect those who deny them entry to that club, because of how they feel about the status quo. Not sure how this is the answer. I bet if their social security was cut in half, they would see it as a force of good because Trump said so. Amazing really. If that's not a cult of personality, I don't know what is
One of the important factors in Trump’s rise is that he’s the first Republican leader in decades who doesn’t talk about cutting Social Security. Not talking about it doesn’t mean it can’t happen, of course, and I personally think there’s reason for concern. But it’s a big shift. Matt Yglesias calls it “unhinged moderation”, and I think that’s basically correct; imagine telling someone in 2004 or even 2014 that a Republican would appoint a gay Treasury secretary.
A gay Treasury secretary is not much surprising and even less substantial.
Bush before 2004 with little controversy appointed several gay people. By 2014 moderate Republicans accepted gay soldiers and civil unions. Trump's 1st administration argued gay people could be fired for being gay. And failed to persuade 2 of 5 Republicans on the Supreme Court
Federal funding freezes probably have a real tangible impact on the day to day of YC readers since research programs often rely on federal funding. Cybersecurity programs and government agency security are also impacted by freezes and targeted "DEI" purges.
You can decide how you feel about outsiders strolling into federal agencies and hooking up random hardware to the network. It makes me nervous! A compromise of critical government infrastructure could destabilize the economy and could jeopardize most of our jobs.
Lots of things impact the day to day of YC readers. The LA wildfires probably affected them, last December's earthquake/tsunami warning in the SFBA probably did, etc. HN isn't the place for this kind of content, there's tons of other forums out there that can be places to discuss US politics. HN isn't the place to discuss government infrastructure or the US job market.
I think we have different views on what this site should be. The article is flagged now so there's folks here who agree with me.
In particular, US politics always brings in low-quality, emotionally-charged comments. That's why I don't like bringing it into a space that isn't ready to moderate those discussions properly.
That may be, but you're probably the first I've ever seen here to complain that the job market is off-topic for a site that tends to be obsessed with the job market. It's run by a venture capitalist firm.
I understand not wanting politics on the website but if i.e. the FTC going after GoDaddy is fair game it seems logical that federal funding for things like technology research or cybersecurity would also be YC content. I understand that the line is blurry and it's probably especially annoying for non-Americans to see more US nonsense on the front page...
Personally I hate that all of these topics get flagged on HN and I wish we could discuss it here. So from my perspective, you are making HN worse by stifling interesting topics.
I think you’re going to, and if you’d prefer not to you’re taking up the complaint with the wrong people. I’m far from an “everything is politics” guy, but it would be very HN-worthy if the government paused all emergency funding for some other reason, and it doesn’t become less so because it’s happening as part of a political program.
> California leaders also took no issue when the prior federal administration pressured tech companies to censor speech on their behalf, which was a massive violation of first amendment rights.
Even this SCOTUS knows that's a bullshit assertion.
So what we're going to get instead is adversarial: horrors are called for, everybody else has to fight to minimize them, and so only some horrifying things happen. And for a lot of people, as long as those horrors don't affect them directly, they'll say that everything worked the way it was supposed to.
So, adversarial is what it's going to be, then. Onward.