American Politics Discussion Thread

[darrelljs]

At the end of his next term, the government will be smaller than before the New Deal.

Darrell

[greenline]

That would be quite an accomplishment. Even Project 2025, which has people freaking out, still wants the intelligence and military branches of government to be emboldened rather than cut back. If Trump can manage to eliminate the department of education that would be a large enough victory on its own.

[superdeath]

Military SHOULD be cut back regardless.
Eliminating the DoE? A good thing? lol

[greenline]

Eliminating a whole department sure doesn't seem realistic with how the government is. But it would be a good thing to do if it was practical. Most of what makes people want to go to American universities is a factor of private schools like Harvard being good places for connections into elite financial jobs. There's a little bit of quality research that gets done at places like Bell Labs, but there is a whole lot more of degree mills and educators being given cushy pensions and all kinds of equipment to act as a glorified daycare that makes the average student get dumber each year. The military gets a lot of money to produce overpriced weapons for maintaining an overseas empire that doesn't need to exist, but at least the weapons tend to work pretty well.

[Mjmd]

Its a good thing education isn't a pillar of advanced economies or anything. I think its fair to want to reform, but to just slash and burn with no plans for after is stupid. Was listening to radio (doing a whole bunch of political interviews locially) and while I can't remember all 4 signs of a radicalized person they mentioned one of them was believing in simplified solutions and then an over reliance on those simple solutions. The world is complicated shockingly. BTW this was a party less Republican saying this.

On a separate note went to downtown Milwaukee today. Was SUPER weird as I've walked those streets a ton.

[Boro]

Eliminating a whole department sure doesn't seem realistic with how the government is. But it would be a good thing to do if it was practical. Most of what makes people want to go to American universities is a factor of private schools like Harvard being good places for connections into elite financial jobs. There's a little bit of quality research that gets done at places like Bell Labs, but there is a whole lot more of degree mills and educators being given cushy pensions and all kinds of equipment to act as a glorified daycare that makes the average student get dumber each year. The military gets a lot of money to produce overpriced weapons for maintaining an overseas empire that doesn't need to exist, but at least the weapons tend to work pretty well.

It sounds like a "clean up then rebuild from scratch" idea.

[greenline]

That's the idea. For example, if you think education is important, then the Department of Education is taking billions of dollars every year even though the most basic measures of education in the general population are declining. The US literacy rate has been going down for decades, so the department is taking billions of dollars from taxpayers to produce ever worsening education. It's a prime target for gutting.

[Mjmd]

So what is missing is any ACTUAL plan for said rebuilding from scratch.

EDIT: I'll note its easy to complain and poke holes and a lot harder to actually come up with solutions.

[greenline]

Solutions should only be attempted when one knows what the problem is.

The Department of Education is a problem because it wastes money and produces little of value. There isn't much need to draft a new Department of Education with new stuff in it because there isn't a way to know what problems there would be until one first removes the original department. For example, I called public education a daycare service, but it isn't actually proven that America's children really need a state provided daycare. It could simply be better to let the kids hang out on their own for most of the day. So it would be better governance to gut the DoE, and reserve some percentage of the money saved to address any problems that do crop up in the aftermath, instead of immediately rushing to solve problems that might not even exist.

[Mjmd]

I would argue burning down the current system should only be done when you have a plan on what you are replacing it with.

Its also very clear you don't have kids. Even in kindergarden my daughter learned reading WAY faster than the pace we were at home. We are prolific readers and she went in knowing her sight words. 1st grade math was broadening her problem solving thinking in good ways. Also, "let kids hang out on their own most of the day" is one of the funniest things I've ever read. EVER.