268 Comments

I am all for dispersing the 20% it as long as it goes to "Tax Paying Households" and not to illegals, deadbeats, criminals, etc. Plus the remainder must be used to pay down national debt. This is a band-aid that just could work but it also is simply another way of kicking the can down the road, so to speak. We need to SERIOUSLY reduce spending. Spending your way out of debt is not possible. Look at your own budget; it does not work that way.

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Amen. It must ONLY go to American citizens who actually pay federal income taxes. ONLY. ONLY. ONLY.

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Reduce spending. That is the core problem here. And who wants to increase the spending? The GOP by the looks of the proposed budget bills. Mike Johnson is, as I have said here a dozen times so far, a lightweight backbencher without the will to fight. He is part of the problem, a RINO in waiting. If the GOP can’t seize on this revolution and instill the will in congress to get serious about our debt, this is all for nothing.

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After what "Spineless Johnson" said at CPAC, his constituents should be burning up his phone and threatening to both primary him - and tar and feather him - if he doesn't support this rebate to the taxpayers! What a(nother) worthless waste of oxygen!

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Heck they (and the Dems) are resisting the proposed 8% cuts at DOD. WHY? Have to believe that there is moolah involved--not for us but for them and their donors.

Off topic but what the heck, Don, economist Brian becoming Jessica? (not that I know this guy...I trust Kevin Hassett and Russ Vought more than any hack hired by MSM.

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Has to be that way…taxpayers…

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If we convert to a tariff / sales tax based revenue system a DOGE rebate check would increase tax revenues ; as always in a free enterprise environment an increase in sales will cure a lot of ills .

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Yes.

Fair Tax.

Even the drug dealers pay.

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Obama said it wasn’t debt when you borrowed from the Federal Reserve. We could spend our way out of debt, and millions of the stupid inhabitants of this country believed it. I’ve yet to see anyone spend their way out of debt.

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02/21/25: Hunter Biden dropped by to vote the poll repeatedly for his getting all dough.

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"Reidl said, “It is completely impossible for DOGE to save $2 trillion. Two-thirds of the $7 trillion federal budget goes to Social Security, Medicare, defense, veterans and interest on the debt—all of which has been taken off the table by President Trump.”

DOGE is addressing rampant WASTE, FRAUD, and ABUSE. Those are three different things. The exposure of USAID illustrated examples of each of these three categories. When Trump said Social Security and Medicare were off the table, I am sure he meant benefit payments people legally qualified to receive will not be cut. He's not taking away any benefits. However, there is significant Fraud in Social Security and Medicare . . . and Medicaid. I know of people who fought for years to be approved for Medicaid disability who are perfectly healthy. Medicaid is the early retirement plan that just keeps paying with monthly checks and healthcare. FRAUD must be addressed across all government programs. Those fraudsters should be prosecuted and live their 'easy' life in prison.

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You are correct. The budget is bloated BECAUSE of the waste, fraud and abuse. Add back in what W,F&A use up and the five grand to certified taxpayers is a drop in the bucket.

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Douglas, that is not correct. We spend more than we take in. If we reduce the fraud and waste, that is a savings only if we do not spend it elsewhere. If we have a budget that is balanced, then five dollars in savings or a reduction in cost is a savings. If we simply take the savings and don’t reduce to expenditure, there is no savings.

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You certainly have to not only save the money but then reduce future allocations so that it is sustainable. The fraud in SS is probably not that great, once you get past SSDI, which I do think is rife with abuse. Medicare probably has between 5-10% questionable reimbursements, but you aren't finding $500B in savings there.

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Who knows after seeing the ages of folks still on the SS rolls (though perhaps not being paid, still to be determined)

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I'm sure there is a small amount of dead beneficiary social security payments still being made, but I would be surprised if it was a large amount. We hear about random stories every now and again. I am curious if some SS officials have been selling SSN to illegals.

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I agree that we probably aren't paying folks that are 110 + y.o. There may still be payments to relatives of the now dead original SS recipients.

You are correct, though that the big money is in illegal users of SS numbers. IIRC there were 384 million SS numbers active int a country of 334MM people...that is where I suspect the DOGE folks are concentrating--btw along with the help of a Soc Sec employee who was threatened by the former head of SS for helping DOGE. Same guy is now Acting Head while former Dir of SS was fired.

So much winning!

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They can save the $2T by NOT borrowing the money we have every year. We do not have a balanced budget, we have a deficit budget. If you don’t borrow a dollar, in congresses screwed up system, you saved a dollar. We need a drastic cut in spending and only congress can do that. And right now, they have no will to do so. Disgusting.

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My daughter has Down Syndrome, and she has to go every 5 years to make sure she is still eligible. Like I told her case worker. She has freaking Downs it's not going away.

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When my brother was dying of ALS, he received a letter from Social Security that read, “You claim to have ALS… .” With a full press legislative lobbying efforts by family and friends, Congress waived the 2 year waiting period for disability payments after ALS diagnosis. Most ALS patients die within 3 years.

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My husband had liver cancer and was expected to live one to two years. It took almost a year to get his SSD. He lasted six months after receiving it. They are almost impossible to work with.

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Yeah, what if half of Social Security, Medicare & defense payments are fraudulent? Then $2T would be easy.

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They aren't.

The question would be if there are other expenditures in those departments - grants and stuff - that are larger than we would know. That they just shouldn't be spending. $2T is a big lift.

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“A one-time rebate of $200 billion to taxpayers next year would stimulate the economy and likely produce more tax revenue as well as reducing the need for welfare.”

And if it comes around July of 2026 just before the midterm elections it could potentially mean that MAGA retains control of the House and Senate. It’s about time the stupid party did something smart politically that the evil party does on a regular basis.

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who knows what they find? could be $5K this year and $10K next year.. there is alot of waste

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The stupid party. Spot on.

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1dEdited

How is that any different than what the left has done for ever? You don’t believe the taxpayers are smarter than that? If the taxpayer sees the congress serious about reducing the debt, they will vote for them.

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Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett replied, “No. We are not in the business of giving out money, and honestly, I don’t know what $5,000 will do for you.”

Wow. Crockett is a Dem, yes? "Giving out money" is the Dem brand. Or did she tell Biden she didn't support his profligacy with freshly-printed mad stacks?

And I suppose that for someone who is probably already a millionaire, thanks to her political grifting, $5000 is chump change.

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Crockett makes AOC look sane.

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I am submitting AOC and Jasmine Crockett to DOGE as examples of waste, fraud and abuse. They should be cut from the budget and from government 'service'.

If a government employee isn't going to work everyday to fulfill the will of the voters (whether they agree with who is in charge or not), they are (1) wasting taxpayer funds, (2) fraudulently serving their oath of office, and (3) abusing the citizens of this country that are paying their salary.

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They keep getting re-elected because too many of their voters don’t have skin in the game. Time for a flat tax so everyone pays something. Otherwise we are just electing fools.

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Fair Tax

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Heck they hired them, (84K IRS agents) put them to work.. AUDIT congress members.

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When pigs fly!

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Add Maxine Waters please.

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I just can’t go quite that far. They are both nut cases that need to be swept into the trash can.

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Two peas in same pod. Both communists at heart. Don't give a rip about this country or you and I. Its just about the power.

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Probably has an allergy to an honest day's work with a large dose Bernie syndrome .

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Pure commie.

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That's a tall order. Is it even possible?

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Time to show the insider trading, special interest money, and “perks”. This is just organized crime. The list of the guilty is very long.

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Yes and WC is right JR.

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Per wackopedia, Crock-o went to college intending to become an anesthesiologist but switched to law after experiencing a series of hate crimes and being represented by the Cochran law firm. Wacki also goes on to state that the Tennessee Star found no record of reported hate crimes at Rhodes nor involvement by Cochran. This leads me to conclude that her victim never reported the crime and Cochran reviewed her potential case and turned her away.

Yes she is crazy, on a scale of 1-100 with 100 being batshit she hovers at the outside edge of 100 which means the scale needs to expand to 101. This in NO WAY makes anal-oral crossconnected, sitting solidly at 99.897 appear even remotely sane.

Speaking of AOC, the rumors of her having a second brain cell have been confirmed. Will she have a baby or an abortion? Let's hope she puts the kid up for adoption.

That's like saying that compared to an EF5 an EF4 is just a light breeze.

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Typical Dem. Remember, they always accuse the other side of doing exactly what they themselves are doing. Plus, she's an idiot.

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Me thinks you are being exceedingly kind here.

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I bet half the households do not have $5,000 in the bank and the same households have more than $5,000 in credit card debt, so it IS a big deal to them.

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A let them eat cake moment if I ever heard one. I didn’t think it was possible for the Dems to come up with a candidate even more annoying or stupid than Harris. I was wrong.

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It's their brand. It's only $5000, only a few buildings, it's only...

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Sing it, Don. SHUT UP MIKE. I will take the $24M sent to Mozambique for condoms. Pardon my vernacular here: what a fucking joke our government is. The problem is that it is a dangerous, cornered government.

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Like a rabid skunk.

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Congress knew what was going in but were too damn lazy to fix it. Now they should all wear a big black “L” on their foreheads for Loser.

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“At $2 trillion in DOGE savings and 78 million tax-paying households, this is a $5,000 refund per household..."

Oh Lordy. Can you imagine how it will play on NPR if people who don't pay taxes miss out on the DOGE dividend?

Oh wait, NPR will have been defunded by then :·)

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We hope so MDM.

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These fraudulent payments were not funded with taxpayer payments. It’s like a mortgage on your house. And it’s an underwater mortgage because the neighborhood has gone to beans and no one wants to buy the house. It still needs to be repaid.

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That is why you need at least one smoker in the household and store your surplus paper towels, toilet paper & gas grill propane tanks in the garage. Poof, the house goes up in flames due to someone not putting out the cigarette. To the insurance company, I don’t want to rebuild. I’ll take the check & sell the lot or let it sit vacant. That’s if I were a criminal & would make me a prime candidate to run for political office.

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That's Speaker Mike's sensibility, and initially I agreed with him. But Don has persuaded me that throwing some of this money around will make this much more real to voters.

However I think 5k is unrealistic, and I also think there will be massive resistance to the idea that non-taxpayers don't get any DOGEbucks. This could be a problem, if Mittens' 47% of Americans do not pay taxes.

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Pie in the sky free money distributions are always inflationary. Demonstrated recently by Covid and everything authorized in the Biden era budgets. If the original payments were inflationary, so are any repurposed payments.

Of course your mileage may vary.

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Every damned dime is borrowed. And it’s about to be refinanced at hideous rates, thanks to Yellen. Pay down the damned debt.

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This is true.

We need to wait to see how much in real savings can be wrung out of the budget. WTH can't we pull back to 2019 spending levels? We are up $2T (supposedly from COVID, but I have to believe that the crazy spending uncovered by DOGE is part of that). Pulling that spending back would take us to a balanced budget.

Repaying the debt is a different issue, which won't be accomplished in the short term, mostly aided by bigger growth and increased revenues if we can accomplish same. Seems that part of Trump and Bessent's idea is to use additional ideas (such as sharing in profits from rare earth mineral extraction in Ukraine) to advance the time frame for debt repayment.

AND if we can get interest rates down via energy policies (lowering inflation) as well as better outlook for gov't spending (also lowers market's expectation of future deficits, hence reducing med/long term bond rates), that also helps.

It is, so to speak, a multi-variable equation.

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Bravo!!!! Yes! Sending a kiss because you get it.

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And any distribution would be inflationary- just like the original money printing borrowing.

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For years we’ve been telling the government we know how to spend our money better than they do. I don’t know if that’s true but, this would be a good time to find out.

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We paid taxes for national defense, a functioning infrastructure, and a safety net for fellow American citizens. Instead we have funded forever wars, a crumbling infrastructure and a money laundering machine for politicians and their families.

When a thief is caught red-handed and the money is given back to its rightful owner, that will not cause inflation. It creates trust and confidence in the government, two things that are crucial to a functioning society. Where was Mike Johnson the last eight years regarding oversight?

Give it back.

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NEVER trusted the guy.. bad spirit.. I hoped I was oversensitive/misreading.. there have been highs don't get me wrong.. but I've seen this sinewave my whole life.

As the Bible says "nothing is new under the sun"

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Johnson is no different than his predecessor, a liar, a scammer and no balls.

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He's definitely a big step above Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy had been a central player in the grift system for many years. His forte was "raising money" and then using it as a sword over prospective and newly-elected, and even veteran, House Republicans, forcing them to "play along". It was a major triumph to get him out--on a par with getting Mitch McConnell out. Yes, we still want to go further, but Mike Johnson is a vast improvement over McCarthy.

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One thing is sure, Trump has him. Unlike the execrable Paul Ryan who frustrated so much of Trump's first term agenda (along with the horrible Russia gate players in Congress, the media, the IC, etc etc

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As you know, my question re Mike Johnson was rhetorical. Tucker Carlson's interview of Tom Massie after Johnson caved to allow more billions to Ukraine exposed Johnson as either a member of the uniparty or a coward. Johnson claimed he changed his mind because of a "high level intelligence briefing" in a SCIF.

When Johnson made that announcement publicly, Massie said he went up to Johnson and said (I am paraphrasing), "Mike, what the hell did you learn in the briefing? I was in the same briefing. It was just a bunch of high level generals and intelligence heads pretending we were being given exclusive intelligence to puff up our egos and keep our mouths shut. Everything they disclosed was old news any one with a search engine could find in 2 seconds." Johnson had no response.

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I had SO MUCH hope tho..

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The Speaker has his own golden teat exclusive of the rest.

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A DOGE dividend would be nice, however, the one big thing that I wish for is a balanced budget from Congress. DOGE is the vehicle to uncover this fraud and wasteful spending, but if Congress can’t get its house in order budget wise, in the long run, it will all be for naught.

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👍👍👍👍👍

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Thin the herd solution: Complain about the government sharing the savings from DOGE with tax payers and you are eliminated from the rebate thereby increasing the rebate amount to even more than $5,000 per taxpayer.

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Really? This is how you view those of us who differ in opinion? In your view, then this is all about me me me?

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Oh stop it. The money was yours to begin with.

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The way I look at the DOGE rebate is that it was money that was stolen from taxpayers with deception and duress from the IRS. It was theft via money laundering.

That money belongs in my retirement account and the bastards that took it, secretly re-directed it to their own use, should be prosecuted and jailed.

Start with the program managers at USAID.

Then, hold both houses of Congress liable.

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Mike approved of 30B to Ukraine because it is “the right thing to do”. Ticks me off to this day. Give me my 5K and vacate Mike Johnson.

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But the problem is, MAGA has not yet taken over the state Republican Party apparatuses, so they are still putting forward and supporting RINOs. Even if we're unhappy with Mike Johnson, we have not given Trump & Co. much to work with in the way of alternatives.

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Leave it alone. We only have a slim majority in the House and so far they have stuck together which is rare for Republicans.

I'll take the 5 but leave Johnson alone for now.

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She suddenly opposes welfare, food stamps and housing vouchers. Does that extend to reparations?

Need to add foreign aid to that list. ESPECIALLY the money given to Ukraine.

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They don’t call her crazy Crockett for nothing. Who ran against her anyway, Pee Wee Herman?

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Probably - and he's dead. So actually, he probably voted for her from his address in the cemetery.

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Amen, and amen.

I put this in the same category as disclosing secrets that never should have been kept from us in the first place.

It’s paying back a portion of what’s been stolen at gunpoint. The 80% is for our kids & grandkids.

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Steve, we run trillion dollar deficits every year. They are proposing to give you back in essence, borrowed money. How does that make sense?

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It doesn't make sense, I thought the same with the Stimi checks. It is the public spending the tax/borrowed money instead of the Gov't. but we the public still have to pay the debt off. (But everyone feels good about it & loves The Boss.).

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I defer to my betters- Don & Elon- to answer your question.

It’s a good question, but I think they have a good answer. (Hint: its higher level math than arithmetic)

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What would I do?

Pay down debt.

The single smartest thing one can do with a windfall.

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I believe I read somewhere that US credit card debt is one trillion.

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