[satisfaction]

IF they truly believe they have more to gain from the welfare state and big government they are mistaken. Maybe someone who need immediate help will benefit from the welfare state but the best long term plan is always self reliance and hard work, the goal should be to create a robust and free economy such that the individual is free from reliance on the government. This is the root of the conflict in the US now, democrats want to foster a system that increases reliance on the government and republicans want to reduce this reliance.

[jeromegv]

Less reliance on government in the public health sector has been a great strategy in the fight on COVId, hasn’t it?

Also, you say that republicans have fought to reduce reliance on government but in the last 4 years there’s been a big increase in the federal budget to spend more on military. Aren’t they doing the opposite of what you said? And how is that a free economy when tons of new tariffs have been introduced?

I feel sometimes that people don’t realize that the government has been doing the exact opposite of traditional republicans orthodoxy.

[satisfaction]

Re Covid, I'm not sure what the government can do, the news of the virus was plastered all over the news. I don't need to government to tell me that if a novel virus is circulating that I need to avoid contact, the people who continued to live normally decided to roll the dice at their own or elderly family members expense, those people made personal decisions and the poor souls they cam in contact with are paying the price, it's not appropriate to blame the government for those actions of private citizens. There is simply no legal precedent to order people to stay home, would you have declared martial law and arrested anyone seen outside their home?

I'm speaking about republican citizens, not "republican in name only" politicians, don't conflate the two. Politicians of all parties are guilty of saying and doing different things.

People absolutely realize the government has been doing the exact opposite of what orthodox republicans want, that is what made Trump seem worthy of a dice roll, he campaigned on a bunch of goals that claimed to try and reverse those decisions.Those goals were either thrown out once he realized how difficult it would be to actually accomplish them or thrown out because he never cared to give it a real go. Given the long time government employees that either quit or were fired and the resistance from establishment politicians both D and R I lean towards the first reason.

Indeed the military budget has been increased, that is driven by our need to fight two full-blown wars on two fronts, our military strategy is based on a worst case scenario. That is the goal that is not talked about publicly but is true. We can expect the military budget to continue to increase.

Re tariffs, they are the right strategy. The primary job class that has been reduced is manufacturing. A large chunk of those jobs were lost to China, the only way to bring those jobs back is to make those Chinese government subsidized imports less attractive to buyers. The tariff strategy can work but it looks like we need to tax imported goods that could feasibly be made in the US by 100-300%, only then will you go to Wal-Mart and find that the US Made goods are in the same price range as the Chinese goods. This is the same strategy that Euro zone and Asian countries use to keep their citizens buying local. Our politicians sold us out circa ~1979. The implementation of these tariffs was a half-measure, it takes years to plan/design/build/ a factory and bring those products to market, Trump should have focused on a 20 year plan that both parties agreed to continue after he left office.

[cambalache]

So poor and disenfranchised people want a more equal redistribution of all the economic output and the rich class prefers the status quo, you just have blown out my brain.

[satisfaction]

Poor people mostly want opportunity. For 2 hundred years that opportunity came in the form of middle pay manufacturing jobs, those job mostly don't exist. Ask a non-disabled non-drug addicted person next time you have the chance, they would rather work and earn their way than get a government check. This has been proven many times going back the Milton Friedman/ Thomas Sowell debates. But you are correct, the rich class prefers to stay rich, that much is bloody obvious. If they could stay rich and have the goods the sell manufactured in the US, they would do that. But the politicians sold us out.