https://www.c6f.navy.mil/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Sixth_Fleet

Federal taxes are mostly spent on welfare like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, & SSI.

adamc said "budget is mostly A + B" and the response was "no, its mostly W + X + Y + Z"

So the middle class is now the 50+ age group?

This explains everything.

Calling Social Security "welfare" is some weird political stance.

If Europe tried to do what America does for Europe it should dump military equipment onto various central and South American countries so they can fight among themselves and create droves of refugees traveling North.

The US has benefited from this situation since WW2. It’s one reason why the US economy has been so successful.

It’s also only now that the US has exploited these markets that they can question the purpose to continue their military imperialism.

TLDR: the US military across the globe wasn’t done out of altruism. It was to expand US economic power.

At zero cost? Ask the families of those who have been killed by american millitary.

>If Scandinavia had to pay for that

Other than the Scandinavian soldiers killed, and millitary gear lost in the different wars? Other than the thousanda of refugees scandinavia and europe have taken in from the destabilized middle East?

>it would have far less money available to spend its money on Scandinavia First policies.

There are no Scandinavian first policies.

Again, why should Scandinavian countries pay for Americas geopolitical activities more than is already done?

Look at how badly run are the high tax cities and states in the US. Talk of taxing more without discussion of bad governance is a non starter.

Turns out those taxes actually build nice places to live.

I know that state and local governments are responsible for inspecting restaurants. Also I know that NYC banned transfats in restaurant food. Is that what you mean by "food safety and health guidelines"?

I’m far from a “disaffected rural White American Trump supporter” (yes I’m purposefully using a cliche). None of those adjectives describe me. But a lot of people on the left (which I am when it comes to social issues) are very self unaware.

I don’t agree with the over and mostly dumb regulation of tech from the left and I think they over index on the wrong issues and the reason we are where we are now is because old folks on the left wouldn’t exit the stage when they should have - Supreme Court justices and Biden specifically.

I’m pro Vax and have been shot up with every vaccine imaginable including multiple Covid boosters. But the anti-vax movement was exasperated by Democrats trying to force the Covid vaccine on people

And this is not a statement for or against immigration, but in response to what some people have said (not PKop, to whom I am replying): non-citizen immigrants do pay at least some taxes, in the form of sales tax. And, depending on how they are paid (cash or paycheck) they will also be paying taxes on their own pay. If they are getting cash it is easier to avoid taxes. It is harder if they're receiving a salary.

Housing migrants in Hotels in US cities, paid for by citizen tax revenue, or guaranteed emergency health care, paid for by citizen tax revenue, among other examples are bad policy and unfair to Americans.

Taxation is based on where you live, not your citizenships. (Well except US citizens who have to pay federal taxes even if they live abroad but that's an exception).

So what I am talking about is not what the legal requirement is, but to what degree it is followed. But to the degree these people pay taxes while here they are not getting a completely free ride when they take advantage of our tax-supported services.

On a related note, I would be happy for illegal immigrants to get at least some medical support, such as vaccinations and treatment for communicable diseases, as that benefits everybody.

"Like, the same font, right? And she points this out to the HR manager, and they’re like, Yeah, that means that this person’s the most qualified, because it’s the exact same language. And she’s like, This person is clearly unqualified because they didn’t even know to reformat. And this is not an outlier. Like, this happens a lot.

So first they’re looking for these exact matches. And then they take everybody who was really close in language—and also, by the way, who has something called a government resume, which is different from a private-sector resume, and you have to know that somehow, magically, before you apply. Then from that pool, they send everyone a self-assessment questionnaire, and everybody who marks themselves as master, and I literally mean master—I think that’s the top rating in a lot of these—they make the next down select, so they move on to the next pool."

This is not necessarily what I would consider transparent or fair. FWIW I do think government can provide value, but I think folks who don't live in America don't understand how dramatically different and worse the implementation of government is in America from many other countries who sometimes do get value from some aspects of government even if the goals are similar.

I mean, we don't have to go far to see this. Nepotism is illegal in many countries for public institutions, and rampant on private ones.

This narrative that private corporations are better "just because" is so silly. We simply see the inefficiencies of the government and can't see the same ones on private entities. Especially the big ones.

I've never worked at a company that didn't have many absurd processes, incompetent people, useless bureaucracy and so on.

Then that was forced away by the reaction (class struggle) of the most right-wing capitalists and ideologues which ultimately lead to neoliberalism.

So sure, there are some set of relatively enlightened capitalists that want more of a social democratic status quo for the stability it brings. But the material conditions are not there.[1] So people like Jeff Atwood will write opinion pieces and give what is the grand of scheme of things token material support. But it can’t realistically happen right now in the US.

Of course the same principles apply to Scandinavian countries. They’re (our) false ideology is called the Nordic Model.

[1] Look at Bernie Sanders. The Independent senator who ran for the ostensibly left-wing Democratic Party as a mere social democrat and was shot down by the Establishment. Now that he is too old to run again and the presidential election is done for you see people in the Establishment say things like, huh I think that guy had a point!

Actual change will not come easily and it is opposed mightily by the ruling class