Donald Trump's Fantasy World (Reason Podcast)

Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, and Matt Welch talk deficits, Chuck Berry, Gorsuch, and the Bezos bot.

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Donald Trump's Fantasy World (Reason Podcast)

"We're using the rhetoric of cuts, and fiscal responsibility, and Republicans pairing things down to the bone for a budget that's not actually smaller than its predecessors," says Reason magazine Editor in Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward.

And thus we lose.

On our latest Reason podcast, Mangu-Ward, Matt Welch, and Nick Gillespie discuss a preliminary federal budget that "takes the things that lefties like and dumps it in to the things that righties like;" the "strangulation of Big Bird in his nest;" the existential despair at three-year-old birthday parties in Washington, D.C.; Jeff Bezos and the coming of the robot overlords; Chuck Berry as our cultural Apollo project (or is it Wikipedia?); the coming, extended, nauseating theater of the Gorsuch hearing; and the greatness of pop music as "an endless parade of freaks differentiating themselves."

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Comments

[$park? don't care bout yo mom]

I doubt I'll listen, I'm not sure I need to listen to libertarians navel gaze.

Someone else might like it though.

[Citizen X - #6]

I don't want none unless it's got Kmele Foster, son.

[Crusty Juggler - #2]

I may listen, I may not listen - I cannot predict the future.

[Meh.]

Completely unrelated to the podcast, in the shop related products pop-up, Amazon is trying to sell books about McCain, Bezos, and the founding of Amazon... and then a vintage sport and shave Ken Doll. Not too many related products for this one, or maybe it's just the first time I noticed it. Either way, it's funny.

[Agile Cyborg]

Steeping the collective cognitive capacity of a nation in decades of centrally-planned morality creates a superb magic hash of heightened social apathy toward what would normally and rationally lead one to consider an existential catastrophe.

Jesters, wizards, and geniuses are chuckling in gilded ivory precipices harvested from the decay and detritus of a nation slowly plundered of its individualism, independence, and integrity.

[DanO.]

F-

[Citizen X - #6]

I am getting this tattooed on my forehead and cheeks.

[$park? don't care bout yo mom]

Tattooed Cheeks was my nickname in college.

[Ken Shultz]

"We're using the rhetoric of cuts, and fiscal responsibility, and Republicans pairing things down to the bone for a budget that's not actually smaller than its predecessors," says Reason magazine Editor in Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward."

If we're spending more on defense than we're cutting from domestic programs, that isn't necessarily worse than last year. Some of those domestic programs genuinely stink to high heaven, and seeing their budgets cut is a good thing.

There's something elitist about focusing purely on quantitative analyses and ignoring qualitative considerations. The fact is that every idiot with a room temperature IQ is an absolute expert on his or her own qualitative preferences. I'm not an idiot, but I prefer overspending on defense rather than the EPA.

Point being, because we're spending more than we did last year doesn't mean this budget's changes aren't good or welcome. If the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the NIH, and the EPA are all losing funding this year, then that's a cause for celebration. If total spending goes up next year, but that group gets their budgets cut again, we should celebrate all over again.

[Hugh Akston]

I'm not an idiot, but I prefer overspending on defense rather than the EPA.

Half of that sentence is true.

[DanO.]

The Cheeto-nibblers have lost all credibility on this site:

If total spending goes up next year, but that group gets their budgets cut again, we should celebrate all over again.

It's all about Republican revenge fantasies, not good government.

[Ken Shultz]

Are you still worried about being deported, Hugh?

[Crusty Juggler - #2]

If total spending goes up next year, but that group gets their budgets cut again, we should celebrate all over again.

As long as we don't waste money in these areas, we should celebrate wasting money in those other areas?

[Hugh Akston]

There's no such thing as wasting money in the pursuit of scoring kulturkampf points.

[$park? don't care bout yo mom]

You've gotta be realistic, Crusty. Just the same way you should be cheering the Republicans for making government health insurance work right.

[Ken Shultz]

"As long as we don't waste money in these areas, we should celebrate wasting money in those other areas?"

Are you a Keynesian?

Are you one of these people who thinks it doesn't matter what we spend money on, the results will be the same?

That's ridiculous.

Because the effects of overspending on money supply, debt, inflationary pressure, etc. are all the same doesn't mean that wasting money or spending it on more productive things doesn't make any difference.

No, losing money at the tables in Las Vegas and spending it on an unneeded vacation home are not the same--because they both cost money. Believing that would be stupid. Don't be stupid.

[$park? don't care bout yo mom]

losing money at the tables in Las Vegas and spending it on an unneeded vacation home are not the same

And fuck you if you were planning to save that money instead of blowing it on something stupid, eh Ken?

[Ken Shultz]

That wasn't one of the options.

It's worth celebrating when anti-freedom, anti-captialist, and anti-libertarian things get defunded.

Certainly, not all things are qualitatively or quantitatively equal simply because they all put us into debt.

To argue that isn't even childish. It just shows that some of you have gone so far out into left field, that you can't even make sense of the world around you anymore.

I'd fire my receptionist if she said shit this stupid. Seriously, don't ever tell your boss that it doesn't matter what the company spends money on because the company is in debt . . . unless you want to be the new janitor.

[$park? don't care bout yo mom]

To argue that isn't even childish. It just shows that some of you have gone so far out into left field, that you can't even make sense of the world around you anymore.

Thanks for keepin it real up in here, homie. You are literally my hero.

I'd fire my receptionist if she said shit this stupid. Seriously, don't ever tell your boss that it doesn't matter what the company spends money on because the company is in debt . . . unless you want to be the new janitor.

I'm glad that you so consistently advertise that you have missed the point.

[Ken Shultz]

"I'm glad that you so consistently advertise that you have missed the point."

You wish I'd missed your stupid point.

[$park? don't care bout yo mom]

You wish I'd missed your stupid point.

Oh, you missed it alright. If my point were on a globe, you'd be all the way on the other side. That's how badly you missed it. If my point had been on a spinning wheel waiting for you to throw a knife at it, you turned around and threw the knife into the audience. That's how badly you missed it.

[DanO.]

Ken and John seem to be melding into one increasingly unhinged crackpot. And their guy won!

[loveconstitution1789]

Dan o. Your comments remind how many non-libertarians like you are on Reason.com these days.

[Procyon Rotor]

I'd fire my receptionist if she said shit this stupid. Seriously, don't ever tell your boss that it doesn't matter what the company spends money on because the company is in debt . . . unless you want to be the new janitor.

If I told my boss the company had no money and was on the verge of bankruptcy, and his response was, "Alright, we'll cut the advertising budget back a bit and shift that money over into R&D", I would jump ship faster than Chuck Schumer runs toward TV cameras.

[Agile Cyborg]

"... but I prefer overspending on defense rather than the EPA."

'Overspending' to your gentle logical mind has zero correlation with the vast unaccountable largess wallowing within the mighty walls of the military proven over and over to waste unconscionable billions on a litany of projects that offer not even a remote shadow of practicable defense.

Even supremely necessary government orgs like the military should never be presented with the lauding tones of 'overspending'.

Every dollar of confiscated citizen cash flows into governing coffers with a fleck of blood on its greasy scarred visage and should be spent with reverence accordingly, valiantly destroying even the hint of 'overspending', a term heavy with waste.

[Ken Shultz]

If the inflationary pressures, etc. are going to be the same one way or the other because of the overspending, I'd rather the money went to something that wasn't as destructive to the economy--like enforcing the arbitrary and absurd rules and interpretation the EPA metes out.

Yes, some things the government does are more destructive than others. And there are qualitative considerations to take into account. I think I'd rather fund the EPA than the NSA, as well--but then I don't like the NSA snooping through our communications without specific probable cause.

Certainly, if Trump cut the budget of the NSA, I would cry about it--because total spending went up anyway. I'd celebrate that the NSA lost some of its funding. Anyway, the idea that all overspending is equally bad because it's overspending is absurd. It's like the idea that eating candy is just as bad as being shot in the mouth because they're both bad for your teeth.

These people are being ridiculous.

[Cynical Asshole]

If total spending goes up next year, but that group gets their budgets cut again, we should celebrate all over again.

There's ~20 trillion reasons why we shouldn't celebrate spending more. Regardless of what it is or isn't for.

[ThomasD]

"We're using the rhetoric of cuts, and fiscal responsibility, and Republicans pairing things down to the bone for a budget that's not actually smaller than its predecessors," says Reason magazine Editor in Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward."

Is she equally disturbed when, stepping on her car brake pedal, it does not immediately go into reverse?

[$park? don't care bout yo mom]

I'd certainly be worried if when I stepped on my brake pedal it stopped the front tire on the driver's side while speeding up the rest.

[Not a True MJG]

Gotta spend money to save money!

[I can't even]

So, for the first time in my life, a sitting President has proposed real actual cuts to federal agencies. Serious downsizing at some the absolute worst bureaucracies and a real attack on the regulatory state.

Instead of celebrating, encouraging Congress to do it, and yelling for more of the same... we get a bunch of cosmos losers bitching about Trump.

[$park? don't care bout yo mom]

This may not be sarcasm so I'ma leave it alone.

[Crusty Juggler - #2]

I will put it in terms your little cosmo squish mind can understand: real libertarians should praise a huge increase in United States military spending.

[$park? don't care bout yo mom]

Sorry, I forgot about the "America, Fuck Yeah!" wing of the party.

[Sam Grove]

Are they going to use a pairing knife?

[Chupacabra]

Chupacabra's Fantasy World: two chicks at the same time, man.

[MarkLastname]

Ken, your head simply could not be further up your ass. Of all the wasteful bureaucracies out there, Defense is quite possibly among the worst. Paying people to sit around and twiddle their thumbs is indeed genuinely more productive than paying people to go around breaking things, which is essentially what the DoD does. Whatever the prospect of the NIH finding a cure for cancer with the next dollar of funding is, the extent to which the next Defense dollar makes the country safer is surely even more insignificant. There is no argument. The idea that all that money burnt on failed military projects or unnecessary bases is less of a waste than the other wasted money is pure fantasy on your part. Just because some of those defense contractors and DoD employees are gun-toting rednecks instead of arugula-eating hipsters doesn't make it somehow better when they fleece the taxpayers.

[Ken Shultz]

"Paying people to sit around and twiddle their thumbs . . ."

That isn't what the people at the EPA are doing, you twat.

[MarkLastname]

Meanwhile, those American Heroes at the DoD, with their shoestring budget of 70X that of the EPA are barely capable of keeping us safe from terr'rism, God bless them for trying.

You might want to move over and give Melania a go at Donald's cock. On second thought she's probably happy to let you go at it as long as you please.

[loveconstitution1789]

The EPA is breaking things. The US economy.

You might want to move over and give Mr. Schumer a chance at Chuck Schumer's cock.

[Rational Exuberance]

Of all the wasteful bureaucracies out there, Defense is quite possibly among the worst. Paying people to sit around and twiddle their thumbs is indeed genuinely more productive than paying people to go around breaking things, which is essentially what the DoD does.

Unfortunately, the EPA guys are not sitting around twiddling their thumbs; they are efficient agents of the progressive regulatory state: the produce volumes of regulation, engage in massive political corruption, and attack property rights. The EPA is not wasteful, it is actively harmful to US society.

Whatever the DoD breaks, it breaks abroad. And as you point out, it's quite inefficient at breaking things too. Mostly, as far as I can tell, the DoD is a job and training program for at-risk teenagers, and it seems to be doing a pretty good job at that.

[DanO.]

Ken's a Republican. There's no such thing as too much defense spending.

[loveconstitution1789]

Dan O. is a progressive. There is not government budget too big.

[cidomedif]

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