Comments by "Digital Nomad" (@digitalnomad9985) on "Elon Musk's Plan for the US National Debt." video.

@mobsiesixsixsix9785 Not as a percentage of INCOME, you didn't.
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Elon Musk doesn't have a yacht and lives in a small house. Everything he is involved in has a "save the world" angle from his point of view. I'm all for eliminating subsidies for "green" initiatives, which the big 3 get more of than Tesla while producing fewer electric cars. That wouldn't kill Tesla, it would improve their competitive position in the market segment. Wealth taxes would kill the economy and crash the stock market. The only problem that would solve is the would-be despots problem of somebody other than him and his cronies having assets and thus a competing power base. In general, billionaires are a good thing.
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There is great waste in the defense budget. And civilian authority orders the Department to spend on things they don't want. At that Defense is 13% of the federal budget, and probably the most efficient 13%. Defense needs an audit, and the procurement process needs a major overhaul, but that's a small fraction of the problem. There should not be a federal Department of Education. Our education system has declined precipitously since Jimmy Carter created the Department. There should not be government funds for Public Broadcasting or a National Endowment for the Arts. It is a fundamental conflict of interest for taxpayer money in a democratic republic to be spent influencing the voter on partizan political issues. And this is done a hundred ways. Public sector labor unions should not be legal. The government is doing a jillion things it should not be doing, and things are being done on the federal level that should be done by the states or at a more local level if at all.
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@RicardoTascon-r9t And the only reason folk keep buying our debt is because HISTORICALLY, we were actually more fiscally responsible than other countries, profligate as we were. One can live on reputation for a while, but not forever.
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Cars smaller than our current cars burn more gas per mile on the highway. That's because you can't make a smaller car in the proper aerodynamic shape and still fit a reference American in it. Subcompacts save gas in the city, because you burn the gas accelerating mass, but not on the highway because you burn gas fighting air resistance. We have cars as small as is practical. I'm against forcing folk to buy them, (even though I own one). It's not the government's business whether or not you generate value with the use of a pickup truck which can contribute to the economy. Government micromanagement wastes everything, including carbon emissions.
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Son, you don't inaugurate a despotism by downsizing government. Tax cuts are not authoritarian. Deregulation is not authoritarian. Downsizing government is not authoritarian. Free speech is not authoritarian. The right to keep and bear arms is not authoritarian. Freedom of religion is not authoritarian. Criticism of a government lapdog corporate media is not authoritarian. Speaking the truth to power in the face of persecution is not authoritarian. Opposition to the firing of employees, the cutoff of their access to funds or commerce, violence against their persons and property, and the restriction of their communication on the basis of their political beliefs is not authoritarian. All of these things are the diametric opposite of authoritarian. Conservatism is anti-authoritarian fundamentally and point by point. Leftism is authoritarian fundamentally and point by point. Republicans are on the freedom side of every issue except harming children. Leftists loved Elon Musk until he spoke out against over-regulation and championed free speech. The side that tries to settle a question of fact by the use of force is the obscurantist side, every time. That's how you know you're the bad guy.
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