[rashidae]

Because making the U.S. solvent is critical to preserving democracy. A country drowning in debt with an inefficient government is weak. If the U.S. collapses financially, who do you think fills the void? China? Russia? Do you trust them to uphold free speech and individual rights?

Fixing the system isn’t just about economics… It’s about ensuring that democracy doesn’t get replaced by something far worse.

[insane_dreamer]

> Because making the U.S. solvent

1. None of Elon's actions have anything to do with making the US solvent. Congress sets the US budget, not the president. And they're raising the debt ceiling to pay for tax breaks (primarily benefitting the wealthy) not lowering it. That's where any savings (which are minimal) will go.

The real savings -- if Congress does it -- will be to gut Medicaid. That has nothing to do with DOGE for one, and secondly, it will have a huge negative impact on not only lower income Americans but many others (because of the knock on impact of reducing funding to nursing homes etc.)

2. The US is the larger debtor nation, but because it issues debt denominated in its own currency, it essentially holds a get out of jail card.

[lemon_zest]

I don’t think you have a solid understanding on how government works and are conflating many things here. Fiscal balance is not going to cause the USG to gonna blink out of existence (unlike a company). While there is certainly the need to increase efficiency and solidify government operations, you don’t fix democracy by unilaterally gutting the federal government and regulations and concentrating power on a handful of rich individuals. That’s going in the opposite direction of a democratic system. Try more reading a history book and less of Elon’s feed.

[IAmGraydon]

[flagged]

[lawn]

So you're saying the $4T tax break they plan to implement harms democracy?

Yeah, you have a point there.