It is exactly because 1) we have the obfuscating federal reserve, 2) lack the requirement for an annually balanced budget, and 3) have confiscatory taxes in the double-digits, that they were able to run up a $39 trillion debt, most of which went to grift, theft, and pointless programs that don’t benefit anyone.
We need to get back to none of the above, get taxes under 5%, and reassess what’s truly necessary to run a country.
One of my pet peeves has been that the government gets to hold patents on things that we taxpayers paid for! Additionally government employees, including military have benefited off of filing patents when the research has been paid for by our taxes. In my opinion, if our taxes paid for the research, then the results of that research should be available to all with no restrictions, including no patents or copyrights.
Universities also hold patents and profit from the handful that are actually valuable in the marketplace. But do they use these profits to reduce tuition. NO! Just like all the money they make off of their sports programs. The average student sees zero tuition savings; in fact it's the opposite - tuition has been growing faster than inflation for decades.
It's not so much the GOVERNMENT might hold a patent...it's more that shitweasels like Tony Fauci, a government EMPLOYEE (also taxpayer funded), got rich off of taxpayer funded patents. Sort of a double-tap in his case.
I'd have less of a problem (I was about to say no problem) if the US Government held patents in trust, somewhat like Social Security (but better). Any revenues from said patents could be used to fund research or as someone else said, pay down the national debt.
We have US Government research because someone got the idea that "research that would come in really handy for the federal government to know wasn't being performed at the scale desired or at all and that some 'seed money' to get things rolling would change the landscape." Human nature being what it is around free fountains, the seed money became the landscape. Instead of following their innate curiosities, scientists (who wanted to survive in academia) aligned their curiosities with "what's being funded" and tried to make it look natural.
What this is REALLY about--and driving the all-over teapot angst tempests--is the implied re-structuring of higher education which has grown fat off the "overhead" charged on REE'search brought in by its non-tenured "professorial class" struggling to prove their worthiness for tenure in the amount of "dough" they can deposit on the scale in the magical 7 years of evaluation.
Agree 100%! There is so much waste and graft. The government sits around thinking of more ways to spend our money. Our taxes never go down and we don’t really get much of a return.
Oh, well, yes, that's another way to not pay taxes. I prefer my way (which I don't actually practice because I think my taxes are funding a substantial part of the government waste).
I don't think that's enough. Spending on "Welfare / Healthcare" is absolutely staggering, as is spending on "Military". a substantial cut on both of those (although I generally call for an 80% cut... even a 10% cut could potentially stabilize our government).
A basic aspect of human nature is "corruption and graft". That is extremely hard to eliminate. Humans are far, far too easily tempted. This extends all the way down into small businesses.
The Feds take in 17% (+/- 2%) of the GDP in taxes without any regard to how the tax codes is written. They spend between 20% and 25% of the GDP every year. The difference is the deficit. In the last 60 years there have only been 3 when the deficit hasn’t been above 3% of GDP. So, we’d need to cut the Federal budget by 15% to get to a zero deficit. In Minneapolis, a Blue City of some 430K people the Feds have discovered somewhere between $10B and $20B worth of fraud. (That’s $23K-$46K per resident.) The fraud represents between 10% and 15% of the Federal spending in Minneapolis. In short, eliminate the fraud and you’d balance the budget.
Yes cheating is part of the human condition, but that is just ridiculous. There is no way in the world that we should be putting up with this crap. And no, Minneapolis isn’t the worst. Entire states (e.g., California, Massachusetts, NY) make the Minneapolis residents look like amateur grifters.
Get rid of the BS — like the $40 billion a year that USAID spent and the best they could show for it was a transgender comic book in Peru, an transgender orchestra in Columbia, condoms for Afghanistan and Elmo in Baghdad — and I’m sure we could actually make a dent in our debt problem.
I had to vote "other" because the number one place the money should go is back to the taxpayers. Until the government can balance it's budget and start reducing debt, every program needs *serious* cuts.
Great article! Dead on Jenna. Now is it too much to hope that something will actually be done and this isn't just more "hot air"?
Because the number one sneaky form of funding the government is "printing money". The Central Banks create money out of nothing and then loan it to the US Government and presto inflation!
So if we have to pay taxes, we feel the pain immediately, we see it and we can complain about it.
But yes, in essence I agree, we should cut the tax rates and the government should be forced to balance the budget based on the amount of tax revenue. No more "printing money".
Fiat money ending? I see no sign of that at all. Yes, a number of us propose schemes to get back to the gold standard and several nations (BRICS) are doing that but the majority of the world is not.
Can you provide a link where this is being speculated about?
Your question is the nub of it, John. It's been revealed that DOGE's amazing uncovering of billions in waste has gotten us zero inches closer to closing those doors it's all leaking through. My joy at Elon's hard work was quickly squelched…
Yes, a lot of hot air can be generated about "budget cuts" and "eliminating corruption" without making barely a scratch on the situation. We need something *substantial* like a solid cut of 10% on *every* government expenditure. No exceptions, no "this is important, we need this". The only way to eliminate the bickering and deal making is to make a comprehensive flat cut!
Whenever Jenna says “To be clear…” what follows is always worth the price of a subscription!
We only have a little time left for this administration to do as much damage to this “incestuous little gift exchange” as possible before “the club none of us are a part of” strikes back at the midterms with the help of all those who vote with scales over their eyes (or multiple times by “mail”)
What a world it would be if the “grift” of the expert class could finally be exposed fully w/ a heavy dose of bankruptcy, public shame, and a little jail time…
You are right - it hasn’t - two sides of the same political coin, it’s all theater.
RFK Jr and co were my only cause for hope since I woke up to all this - I pray there are a handful of “actual patriots” at work in DC that if given time (praying the impending mid term disaster is averted) can expose and hopefully move the Overton window in the direction of actual reform and accountability.
There are far more of us than them - they know it and do everything they can to make sure we are at each others throats every other November instead of building their gallows…
The Hamans think they are winning with all their distraction, mis-direction and loud mouths. Meanwhile, I think The Infiltrators are bagging the evidence to bring them down. The war is now an informational overload war and there is really no truth to be seen anywhere. Discernment is the key to peace and patience is the hardest thing to practice...
Global uncoupling - ha ha. How about government uncoupling from my wallet. Ultimate solution, imho, is to "starve the beast" a la Reagan. Let's downsize as in MAMA - Make America Manageable Again. Maybe MAMA to MAGA? Don't need all of this centralized government.
I agree with the Kid. Why is my money going to keep some “researchers” at universities who hold billions in assets in the grift game? These prestigious institutions, and I use that term loosely, should be funding their own research. My bet is they’d be a little more discriminating if they were footing the bill.
I have to laugh. If I don’t, I’ll cry because people who watch/stream/scroll “Ow My Balls” are angry because they want our tax dollars to fund research on how “Brawndo is better than water for our gardens.” It has electrolytes. Duh.
Thanks for keeping me awake and informed. Love ya Badass. 🤬🍑😘
which IS artistic in its way, but to look at it is to be immediately benumbed.
I mean an actual PHYSICAL art piece that FAR from numbing, actually engages and enrages... worthy of display on a sidewalk in Times Square, that just SCREAMS "WASTE!! WASTE!! WASTE!!" to all who see.
Something that shows an endless stream of Paper Money going into an insatiable, fiery toilet...
Something that couldn't be turned off and put out of mind? However, one tiny little GIANT ARTWORK won't do: I see that now. The "way" to make America's debt "real" to Americans is to "weigh" them down with it. "Performance art" I think they call it. Henceforth every American should carry a 50# pig wearing lipstick. When it gets too heavy, too bad, it will be getting heavier.
Here's the thing: the Unspoken, But Clearly Assumed by Leftist 'Science', Thing.
At the New York Times: "Democracy never Died in Darkness"--it was smothered by its keepers.
With Big Science, they have made it Abundantly Clear that: "If WE have to Pay for IT--By Ourselves, It is Sooo Dead Already." Scientific learning's self-appointed keepers have put it that, if their demand for free rein on the gravy train are not met, there will be no more "evidence-based science."
Why can't Science be more like PBS? Cut off at the knees, PBS doesn't whine; it simply quazippled its appeal to the people who like its kind of stuff and, if dying, is still keeping up brave appearances.
OTOH, why can't the FDA be more like Trump, and start cutting off Big Pharmaceutical companies at the knees, and letting them "go thou and be like PBS, and seek thy funding from someone who, fanatically, wants the 'product' thou peddlest?"
...mean while... research that people DO want goes undone.
Any "canners" among us? Try looking up pressure-canner settings for preserving cured ham and bacon in glass jars to get longer-term shelf life. You won't find any recommendations from the US Dept. of Agriculture, who's responsible for them, because "We haven't studied it. Yet. After ALL THESE YEARS. We KNOW you want it--you KEEP asking about it. But 'CONGRESS' hasn't given us ANY MONEY--SPECIFICALLY--for that. Boo-hoo! Poor us!"
Meanwhile people in social media pass along information about how their grandmothers did it. To be clear, USDA doesn't say, "NO! DON'T! IT'S TOO DANGEROUS!" They say, "We intentionally don't know because we intentionally have not studied it. We're the only ones who can. We might, but we won't right now. You are advised to Continue Waiting."
Ideally,the taxpayers but how is that even possible with our current system?
This is all optics. Clever marketing to convince the red team that the blue team is going to get less funding while the blue team is convinced that the red team is "anti-science". If Musk saved America billions, where did those savings go? What ever happened to stopping the clot shots? Radio silence and here we are years down the line with no justice for the global murder weapons.
This is all a show, folks. It's all pretend. The only difference here is that our taxpayer money is moving from one corrupted group of people to another corrupted group of people. They can track every single dollar that we make and spend when it comes to paying big daddy taxes, but when it comes to asking big daddy where that money went, we're told that it has somehow been lost between the cheetos and crushed beer cans lodged between the couch cushions.
And, to add to the insanity, all those government grants to universities et al are being funded by public money aka taxpayers, but the fruits of the labor if it produces anything worth money go to the grantees or the universities, not back to the taxpayers. Public money, but private profit. Ex: the patents are kept by the individual or the university, and the government (taxpayers) never see a dime of the profit from the patents or research even though we paid for it. One Big Grift!
I have said for years that the automatic withholding was the worst thing to happen to this nation and a precursor to the current rot, well, most of it. If people had to sit down and write a check every month to pay their taxes, there would have been a revolt long ago. But instead, people are so excited for their "tax refund" every spring, like it is a gift, when it was their own money to begin with. Stolen, Laundered and Returned. I. Can't. Stand. It.
If Men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and the next place, oblige it to control itself.”
In truth many men are demons. So, we have to have a Government to keep them under control. We got to pay for the Government , it’s not free. Our problem, since the Progressives came to town around 1890’s, is that the Government has shown no self control.
Since 1890, the “demons” have made themselves very comfortable in the halls of Government and the governed have abdicated their responsibilities every generation or so to purge them. Hoping that changes soon - There is a reason the Epstein Class has circled the wagons so thoroughly regardless of “Party”.
I suppose this a laughable question, but what would happen if a very large group of taxpayers sued the entirety of Congress if they refused to pass permanent tax reform to stop waste, fraud and abuse?
Better question:
Why does “federal research money” exist at all?
It should not.
It is exactly because 1) we have the obfuscating federal reserve, 2) lack the requirement for an annually balanced budget, and 3) have confiscatory taxes in the double-digits, that they were able to run up a $39 trillion debt, most of which went to grift, theft, and pointless programs that don’t benefit anyone.
We need to get back to none of the above, get taxes under 5%, and reassess what’s truly necessary to run a country.
One of my pet peeves has been that the government gets to hold patents on things that we taxpayers paid for! Additionally government employees, including military have benefited off of filing patents when the research has been paid for by our taxes. In my opinion, if our taxes paid for the research, then the results of that research should be available to all with no restrictions, including no patents or copyrights.
Universities also hold patents and profit from the handful that are actually valuable in the marketplace. But do they use these profits to reduce tuition. NO! Just like all the money they make off of their sports programs. The average student sees zero tuition savings; in fact it's the opposite - tuition has been growing faster than inflation for decades.
What if the income produced from government patents could be directed to paying down debt?
It's not so much the GOVERNMENT might hold a patent...it's more that shitweasels like Tony Fauci, a government EMPLOYEE (also taxpayer funded), got rich off of taxpayer funded patents. Sort of a double-tap in his case.
I'd have less of a problem (I was about to say no problem) if the US Government held patents in trust, somewhat like Social Security (but better). Any revenues from said patents could be used to fund research or as someone else said, pay down the national debt.
We have US Government research because someone got the idea that "research that would come in really handy for the federal government to know wasn't being performed at the scale desired or at all and that some 'seed money' to get things rolling would change the landscape." Human nature being what it is around free fountains, the seed money became the landscape. Instead of following their innate curiosities, scientists (who wanted to survive in academia) aligned their curiosities with "what's being funded" and tried to make it look natural.
What this is REALLY about--and driving the all-over teapot angst tempests--is the implied re-structuring of higher education which has grown fat off the "overhead" charged on REE'search brought in by its non-tenured "professorial class" struggling to prove their worthiness for tenure in the amount of "dough" they can deposit on the scale in the magical 7 years of evaluation.
Agree 100%! There is so much waste and graft. The government sits around thinking of more ways to spend our money. Our taxes never go down and we don’t really get much of a return.
All they research are ways to further destroy us and our languishing freedoms.
I was told that my ex-husband never paid his taxes.
Perhaps he was smarter than I ever thought he was.
{grin} Well, they do say that if you are rich enough you can find ways around almost all (income) taxes.
What’s funny is that he never had a pot to piss in.
He had been living with his stepfather.
Sadly, he passed away (alone - from cancer) still in debt.
Oh, well, yes, that's another way to not pay taxes. I prefer my way (which I don't actually practice because I think my taxes are funding a substantial part of the government waste).
I bet we could eliminate the deficit and start working down the debt if we got rid of the BS and the graft and corruption.
I don't think that's enough. Spending on "Welfare / Healthcare" is absolutely staggering, as is spending on "Military". a substantial cut on both of those (although I generally call for an 80% cut... even a 10% cut could potentially stabilize our government).
A basic aspect of human nature is "corruption and graft". That is extremely hard to eliminate. Humans are far, far too easily tempted. This extends all the way down into small businesses.
The Feds take in 17% (+/- 2%) of the GDP in taxes without any regard to how the tax codes is written. They spend between 20% and 25% of the GDP every year. The difference is the deficit. In the last 60 years there have only been 3 when the deficit hasn’t been above 3% of GDP. So, we’d need to cut the Federal budget by 15% to get to a zero deficit. In Minneapolis, a Blue City of some 430K people the Feds have discovered somewhere between $10B and $20B worth of fraud. (That’s $23K-$46K per resident.) The fraud represents between 10% and 15% of the Federal spending in Minneapolis. In short, eliminate the fraud and you’d balance the budget.
Yes cheating is part of the human condition, but that is just ridiculous. There is no way in the world that we should be putting up with this crap. And no, Minneapolis isn’t the worst. Entire states (e.g., California, Massachusetts, NY) make the Minneapolis residents look like amateur grifters.
Get rid of the BS — like the $40 billion a year that USAID spent and the best they could show for it was a transgender comic book in Peru, an transgender orchestra in Columbia, condoms for Afghanistan and Elmo in Baghdad — and I’m sure we could actually make a dent in our debt problem.
Never ask a bait salesman if the fish are biting.
I had to vote "other" because the number one place the money should go is back to the taxpayers. Until the government can balance it's budget and start reducing debt, every program needs *serious* cuts.
Great article! Dead on Jenna. Now is it too much to hope that something will actually be done and this isn't just more "hot air"?
ok, if the money should go back to taxpayers, why send it to the government in the first place?
Because the number one sneaky form of funding the government is "printing money". The Central Banks create money out of nothing and then loan it to the US Government and presto inflation!
So if we have to pay taxes, we feel the pain immediately, we see it and we can complain about it.
But yes, in essence I agree, we should cut the tax rates and the government should be forced to balance the budget based on the amount of tax revenue. No more "printing money".
Read Coffee and Covid. Might be coming to the end.
Lots of things might be coming to an end, like "cheap oil" and any derivative of it.
Fiat money ending? I see no sign of that at all. Yes, a number of us propose schemes to get back to the gold standard and several nations (BRICS) are doing that but the majority of the world is not.
Can you provide a link where this is being speculated about?
https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/bugs-wednesday-june-3-2026-c-and
Your question is the nub of it, John. It's been revealed that DOGE's amazing uncovering of billions in waste has gotten us zero inches closer to closing those doors it's all leaking through. My joy at Elon's hard work was quickly squelched…
Yes, a lot of hot air can be generated about "budget cuts" and "eliminating corruption" without making barely a scratch on the situation. We need something *substantial* like a solid cut of 10% on *every* government expenditure. No exceptions, no "this is important, we need this". The only way to eliminate the bickering and deal making is to make a comprehensive flat cut!
My exact thoughts!
Whenever Jenna says “To be clear…” what follows is always worth the price of a subscription!
We only have a little time left for this administration to do as much damage to this “incestuous little gift exchange” as possible before “the club none of us are a part of” strikes back at the midterms with the help of all those who vote with scales over their eyes (or multiple times by “mail”)
What a world it would be if the “grift” of the expert class could finally be exposed fully w/ a heavy dose of bankruptcy, public shame, and a little jail time…
Keep calling them out Jenna!
how has that voting one set of grifters out of office worked for you over the past say lifetime?
You are right - it hasn’t - two sides of the same political coin, it’s all theater.
RFK Jr and co were my only cause for hope since I woke up to all this - I pray there are a handful of “actual patriots” at work in DC that if given time (praying the impending mid term disaster is averted) can expose and hopefully move the Overton window in the direction of actual reform and accountability.
There are far more of us than them - they know it and do everything they can to make sure we are at each others throats every other November instead of building their gallows…
The Hamans think they are winning with all their distraction, mis-direction and loud mouths. Meanwhile, I think The Infiltrators are bagging the evidence to bring them down. The war is now an informational overload war and there is really no truth to be seen anywhere. Discernment is the key to peace and patience is the hardest thing to practice...
Global uncoupling - ha ha. How about government uncoupling from my wallet. Ultimate solution, imho, is to "starve the beast" a la Reagan. Let's downsize as in MAMA - Make America Manageable Again. Maybe MAMA to MAGA? Don't need all of this centralized government.
I agree with the Kid. Why is my money going to keep some “researchers” at universities who hold billions in assets in the grift game? These prestigious institutions, and I use that term loosely, should be funding their own research. My bet is they’d be a little more discriminating if they were footing the bill.
The Federal government should do only what is authorized in the Constitution. Period. All else is left to the States.
I believe in you, Bob. You can do this. 😜😂🤣
I have to laugh. If I don’t, I’ll cry because people who watch/stream/scroll “Ow My Balls” are angry because they want our tax dollars to fund research on how “Brawndo is better than water for our gardens.” It has electrolytes. Duh.
Thanks for keeping me awake and informed. Love ya Badass. 🤬🍑😘
Good morning. I believe "badly" should have been Bold / Underline / and Headline Size #3 🤣
...Flashing, Revolving Neon sign, accompanied by Flushing/Sucking sounds of BILLIONS going into the vortex.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Someone should make an artpiece and become instantly famous.
Maybe there's a federal program to fund "the arts" that would die out because they're stupid otherwise.
Whoops, there is THIS:
https://www.usdebtclock.org/
which IS artistic in its way, but to look at it is to be immediately benumbed.
I mean an actual PHYSICAL art piece that FAR from numbing, actually engages and enrages... worthy of display on a sidewalk in Times Square, that just SCREAMS "WASTE!! WASTE!! WASTE!!" to all who see.
Something that shows an endless stream of Paper Money going into an insatiable, fiery toilet...
And it even has an app! What could be better?
Something that couldn't be turned off and put out of mind? However, one tiny little GIANT ARTWORK won't do: I see that now. The "way" to make America's debt "real" to Americans is to "weigh" them down with it. "Performance art" I think they call it. Henceforth every American should carry a 50# pig wearing lipstick. When it gets too heavy, too bad, it will be getting heavier.
Here's the thing: the Unspoken, But Clearly Assumed by Leftist 'Science', Thing.
At the New York Times: "Democracy never Died in Darkness"--it was smothered by its keepers.
With Big Science, they have made it Abundantly Clear that: "If WE have to Pay for IT--By Ourselves, It is Sooo Dead Already." Scientific learning's self-appointed keepers have put it that, if their demand for free rein on the gravy train are not met, there will be no more "evidence-based science."
Why can't Science be more like PBS? Cut off at the knees, PBS doesn't whine; it simply quazippled its appeal to the people who like its kind of stuff and, if dying, is still keeping up brave appearances.
OTOH, why can't the FDA be more like Trump, and start cutting off Big Pharmaceutical companies at the knees, and letting them "go thou and be like PBS, and seek thy funding from someone who, fanatically, wants the 'product' thou peddlest?"
...mean while... research that people DO want goes undone.
Any "canners" among us? Try looking up pressure-canner settings for preserving cured ham and bacon in glass jars to get longer-term shelf life. You won't find any recommendations from the US Dept. of Agriculture, who's responsible for them, because "We haven't studied it. Yet. After ALL THESE YEARS. We KNOW you want it--you KEEP asking about it. But 'CONGRESS' hasn't given us ANY MONEY--SPECIFICALLY--for that. Boo-hoo! Poor us!"
Meanwhile people in social media pass along information about how their grandmothers did it. To be clear, USDA doesn't say, "NO! DON'T! IT'S TOO DANGEROUS!" They say, "We intentionally don't know because we intentionally have not studied it. We're the only ones who can. We might, but we won't right now. You are advised to Continue Waiting."
"Bureaucracy in inaction."
Ideally,the taxpayers but how is that even possible with our current system?
This is all optics. Clever marketing to convince the red team that the blue team is going to get less funding while the blue team is convinced that the red team is "anti-science". If Musk saved America billions, where did those savings go? What ever happened to stopping the clot shots? Radio silence and here we are years down the line with no justice for the global murder weapons.
This is all a show, folks. It's all pretend. The only difference here is that our taxpayer money is moving from one corrupted group of people to another corrupted group of people. They can track every single dollar that we make and spend when it comes to paying big daddy taxes, but when it comes to asking big daddy where that money went, we're told that it has somehow been lost between the cheetos and crushed beer cans lodged between the couch cushions.
The government should stop funding research, full stop.
the government should stop funding. the government should stop.
It's making my day that Bob from Accounting is currently beating out scientists and bureaucrats.
😂😂😂
And, to add to the insanity, all those government grants to universities et al are being funded by public money aka taxpayers, but the fruits of the labor if it produces anything worth money go to the grantees or the universities, not back to the taxpayers. Public money, but private profit. Ex: the patents are kept by the individual or the university, and the government (taxpayers) never see a dime of the profit from the patents or research even though we paid for it. One Big Grift!
Let me ask once again - why on God’s green earth are we paying taxes?
I have said for years that the automatic withholding was the worst thing to happen to this nation and a precursor to the current rot, well, most of it. If people had to sit down and write a check every month to pay their taxes, there would have been a revolt long ago. But instead, people are so excited for their "tax refund" every spring, like it is a gift, when it was their own money to begin with. Stolen, Laundered and Returned. I. Can't. Stand. It.
If Men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and the next place, oblige it to control itself.”
In truth many men are demons. So, we have to have a Government to keep them under control. We got to pay for the Government , it’s not free. Our problem, since the Progressives came to town around 1890’s, is that the Government has shown no self control.
Since 1890, the “demons” have made themselves very comfortable in the halls of Government and the governed have abdicated their responsibilities every generation or so to purge them. Hoping that changes soon - There is a reason the Epstein Class has circled the wagons so thoroughly regardless of “Party”.
I suppose this a laughable question, but what would happen if a very large group of taxpayers sued the entirety of Congress if they refused to pass permanent tax reform to stop waste, fraud and abuse?
CAN we sue Congress for:
1) they refused to pass permanent tax reform to stop waste, fraud and abuse
2) they refuse to pass the SAVE Act to ensure elections are for/by Americans
3) Bring lying grifter SOBs
♥️🎯👏🏻
That did make me chuckle 😊