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Editor:
We, dearly, love the standard of living we enjoy. To maintain this standard, we have put $36-plus trillion on our children’s credit card, and are on schedule to add another $2T this year.
How much is a trillion?: It would take over 31 thousand years to reach one trillion seconds! (You can look it up.) The interest alone has now exceeded $1T.
So, when someone tries to help correct this idiocy, the good citizens of Edmonds get out their marching shoes, vulgar signs and call people a fascist!
Let’s all go key a Tesla.
Cliff Ruthrauff
Edmonds
The national debt skyrocketed under the last administration and continues to grow, with the current administration on track to add even more—leaving future generations to bear the burden. At some point, we have to ask: Who’s actually working to fix this?
Regardless of party, if our state’s members of Congress aren’t willing to make tough financial decisions, maybe it’s time to look for fresh leadership. A sustainable future requires real solutions, not more of the same.
Happy to sit for coffee and discuss this further—these are conversations worth having.
Scott, the problem seems festered in all the government levels. We can see by the recent federal administrations spending like drunkards and the previous one even egregiously bringing illegals illegally, many already criminals, into this country and giving them very generous welfare to remain here.
It goes down to this state illegally condoning that and even paying over $120k in welfare to those illegals (while crying that the state ran out of money and needs to raise taxes for the latest $80bi budget.
It goes down another level to Edmonds’ administration (mayor and CC) not only also spending irresponsibly but also pushing their responsibility (e.g. fire and EMS services) to their cronies and stealing money that was allocated for that to cover their shortcomings. Add that one CCM even brazenly declared here on MEN that “old men sitting on piles of cash must pay”, while another poster before said that “who cannot afford should move away”.
That shows how bad the situation is. It’s almost impossible to act on the federal level and very difficult on the state level. However, on the city level we can vote NO to this RFA-joining insanity and madness and demand that those individuals take responsibility for the roles they asked for the population’s trust. So far they have showed no willingness for doing what they promised to do.
Cliff, Your brief comments are spot on. The actions of last Saturday are hopelessly misguided and self righteous. The good citizens of Edmonds would do well to study the differences between the Germany of 1933 and the United States of 2024(or 2016). The War Guilt clause, stabbed in the back theory, huge indemnity (finally paid off in 2010) and runaway inflation and unemployment are just a few examples.And the quickest way to lose your credibility is to compare Donald Trump(or any American president) to a monster like Adolph Hitler.(Are you listening Rick Steves?)
I think a quicker way to lose credibility would be to not acknowledge that the actions taken by Trump are right out of the authoritarian’s playbook. I’m talking about neutering the justice system, removing dissenting voices from the press corp, crippling higher education, stacking federal agency leadership with loyalists, declaring emergency power when no true emergency exists, etc. Yes, Trump is not Hitler – comparisons to Putin are more valid – although people will die because of his shortsighted decisions to defund USAID and cut medical research. And to criticize Rick Steves for his views – someone who I would bet has a good deal more experience researching authoritarian governments than most people and is a student of history – is foolish. You might do well to acquire Timothy Snyder’s book “On Tyranny,” or study other writings on this topic.
For those who scoff at protestors, what EXACTLY are you doing to curb governmental destruction? At least we are doing something to put attention on the idiocy of the moment. It IS spurring on our legislators. See Cantwell tariff bill. I agree not enough and too late but change starts with the people showing dissatisfaction. Many protesters are also forcing town halls with Cantwell and Murray to push them to action (I know cuz I have attended both in person and phone). Instead of scoffing, how about suggesting better ideas!! Love to hear anything that will help.
During his address to the rally, Rick Steves called out a number subjects the crowd reacted to. When he said are “are you for waste, fraud and abuse”, the crowd was silent.
The inference from some commenters is wrong on all counts. No one is against eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. Or reducing debt. People are against how it’s being done and by whom – a unelected ketamine addict. Not that it’s being done. No need to re-describe the how. MAGA does not care about the truth and reality of what Trump and Musk are doing. They ignore the fact no one has been charged with fraud from Doge’s “findings”. Nor do they care where this enormous debt came from – all of us.
Since 1913, Republican presidents added about $1.4 trillion per four-year term, compared to $1.2 trillion added by Democrats. Fairly even. Trump added a then record 7.8 trillion.
The problems of this country need to be fixed by those we elect. If they don’t, elect someone else. No where in the constitution is there an allowance for a Doge run by the richest man in the world that has contracts with US. Another 5.2 billion just announced.
But hey, enjoy trump’s $100,000,000 parade he is throwing for himself this summer.
I don’t think anybody- including those who were protesting on Saturday- think waste and fraud in government, or anywhere else is ok. If cutting waste and fraud was the goal, it would be done carefully and methodically, not with a chainsaw.
So let’s see…. the way to tackle the growing national debt is by cutting funds for cancer research, veterans’ benefits, weather forecasting, medicaid, social security, university research, Head Start, foreign aid, NATO, etc., etc., while advocating for another 5 trillion or so dollars to be added to the debt for tax cuts for the wealthiest people in our country (who already pay very little in taxes)???
If you can’t see the hypocrisy, not to mention the outright stupidity and cruelty of this approach, by the person who “tries to help correct this idiocy” than I think I know where the real idiocy resides. March on, people – resist!
Rick Steve advocates for climate change while he flies around the world? Freedom of a one sided press, while calling conservative news source fake news. Rick is filthy rich, he had the crowd chant cutesy chants ding dong ruff ruff the billionaires are rich enough. Rick spoke about Tariffs and borders bad, even though every Country has them. Rick said with Trump everything is a transaction, how did Rick make his money? How does the corner pub run his business ? How do you make peace deals Steve without negotiating?
When did we stop talking about the founding fathers? Are we allowed to again without being told they were all racist? The big lie Trump is cutting social security, when actually the government is trying to get undocumented immigrants off our American benefits before there is nothing left. You’re for the children? What about the failing schools? Lower graduation rates? What about all the children who are trafficked, raped and murdered?
Who is a dictator? Washington State stripping parents rights is fascist. Hate Speech laws are fascist, as the law makers use hate speech but want to silence anyone who doesn’t agree with their agenda. Your cute chants sure over look a lot of hard truths.
The wheels turn slow in DC what some call waste and abuse others call necessary spending. Not entirely but generally the government has a pot of money and states and cities and NGO’S and colleges and even people apply for grants the government either approves or denies nothing generally fraudulent about it except if the person authorizing the grants is giving them to friends or family or maybe not giving them to one side because they don’t like the politics. DOGE is identifying things we are spending money on and stoping what they can or feel are unnecessary. Congress will now decide what is going to be important going forward. I hear some people may be prosecuted but not many so far I hear a lot of the so called fraud is people getting Medicaid when they shouldn’t be or using a SS number that isn’t theirs to receive benefits I am guessing most people will just be cut off and not prosecuted. I haven’t seen any call from the left since Clinton to cut spending except for military spending. The debt didn’t get there by itself both sides have over spent. Generally the left wants to raise taxes as the answer to debt and budget shortfall. I say what is being done is generally good although some may not like the method.
What I find interesting as I read all of your comments is that we all seem to have adopted positions that are extreme. I wonder what happened to more centrist views and values when conversation and collaborate on issues that are important to all of us were possible? We are first and foremost neighbors and people interested in the future of this region and country.
So if it is an all peaceful Trump rally it is automatically a good thing but if it’s a Rick Steves’ support Demcocracy all peaceful rally it’s automatically a bad thing.? Sounds like a “Dictatorship in the bud” situation to me. It’s taken me 70+ years to figure it out, but all extreme party politics (Left and Right) are bad news and more apt to create problems for the average person than to solve any. As to the news, we’ve sort of devolved into an information in a preferred bubble system where if you believe what you are being told it’s real news but if you don’t believe what you are being told it’s fake news. We used to believe Walter Cronkite no matter what; but now we don’t believe anyone but the person who spouts back all our preconceived notions and ideological beliefs to us. Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out how blowing up the stock market and causing me to lose a good deal of money I’ve saved for retirement with the help of good government tax deferred IRA’s is somehow solving the national debt? Oh I see, only the great and all powerful Trump is capable of solving the National Debt and I should just take his word for it. Thanks for the useless advice, but I’ll pass on it.
The New York Times reported recently that “the administration intends to spend as much as $45 billion over the next two years on new detention facilities for immigrants. In the last fiscal year, the total amount of federal money allocated to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement was about $3.4 billion. The new facilities will be in private hands and will operate with lower standards and less oversight than current detention facilities.” Musk has deep conflicts of interest with the federal gov’t contracts and didn’t mind one iota hurting thousands and thousands of people with his lack of knowledge & his chainsaw, and possesses some weird thinking, and so for him to call bs on the tariffs is rather jaw dropping. Speaking of trillions, the stock markets have lost trillions of dollars (look it up) due to the tariffs. I was a participant in the protests Mr. Ruthrauff. When you speak of idiocy, how about a kakistocracy right here right now?
DOGE official website …. https://doge.gov/savings
…just sayin’
DOGE has been a complete disaster.
Instead of saving money, it will cost us Billions extra, and is on track to kill thousands of innocent Americans.
Getting rid of Meals on Wheels, fire fighters, air traffic controllers, and disease control staff will just cost us more overall, and the thousands of innocent Americans that Trump/Elon killed will have died for nothing.
Trump was elected to clean up the corruption that led to mass pardons by the last administration. They literally pardoned themselves for corruption. The Democrats should listen to the voters and stop whining about the loss. Bottom line they were rebuked by voters. Stop blocking roads and screaming at people. Look what they did with the CHOP zone and all the riots and looting. Defunding police. The Covid mask madness. No wonder the voters had enough.
J. F. Nobody is calling this a crash. Some of us are calling it a stupid sell off because Trump has no idea of what he’s doing and just winging it like he has always done. You won’t lose any real money unless you sell off in a panic which is what is happening. The long term movement trend of the stock market has always been up. This short term stuff is meaningless and a fools game if one chooses to play it. Bringing manufacturing back home with Tariffs, even if it does work, which it won’t, would only create more ultra rich corporations and CEOs and jobs for AI robots.
36 trillion dollars in debt and 1.3 trillion in annual interest payments and growing. More than the defense budget. Recipe for bankruptcy. What do the well organized marchers offer as a solution? Name calling and chanting. Cantwell and Murray voted for every Democrat spending bill that just kept boosting the debt. Long overdue that we try something different and that is what a majority of the voters voted for. That is democracy. I heard no Democrat leaders complaining when Biden repeatedly issued Executive orders to forgive student loans after repeated court rulings that he had no authority to do so. It was a ploy to get young voters, nothing more.
Think about what the left stands for…Men in Woman’s Sports, Sex Change operations for Children, allowing and supporting millions of Illegals entering our country, using tax payer dollars to support and house those illegals, banning the gas engine and stopping all oil production, telling us what cars we have to drive, using hand selected (mall shopping) federal judges to subvert the Executive branch of Government who is elected by the people (unanimously, I might add), covering up the mental decline of a President, encouraging violence against those who disagree with you, supporting the murder of a healthcare executive, supporting Hamas and celebrating the killing of innocent Jews, defending illegal gang members who rape and kill young girls and then protesting their deportation. I could go on and on. It’s no wonder the left has a 21% approval rating. The majority of people in this country do not support these extreme views as evidenced by the last election. You have every right to have these views, but you don’t have the right to call those that disagree Nazi’s or Fascist, or Racist. These overused those words have no meaning anymore because of the Left. It’s ironic that those that use these words to describe their political opponent, also support a terrorist group like Hamas who wants to wipe Jews off the face of the earth.
The Extreme Right in America now has the Presidency, both legislative branches and ideological control of the Supreme Court. So far what they have done with this power is basically throw out the rule of law that says no man is above the law and go to a system of rule by decree (Executive Orders) and our Executive branch is just ignoring the judgements of our co-equal judicial branch when they think it suits their purposes. The extreme Right has allowed the creation of an entire temporary branch of government called DOGE led by someone with a major stake in government contracts as part of his extreme wealth. None of this is good, and it is not going to end well. Nor will these people solve the national debt as they claim. To round up millions of people who are here illegally will cost billions upon billions of dollars and end any sort of true Democracy that has ever existed here. Have a nice Edmonds Kind of Day everyone and dream on in your little fantasy perfect world.