The advice to confirm belief before commenting is valid, the tone is overly harsh.

edit and the fact that the poster did have the good sense to add an edit was part of the reason I decided to say something because telling someone who didn't would just be a waste of time

That edits the swipe of "spreading misinformation", which whilst accurate is charged and puts the reader on the defensive, as well as the more egregious "you know what you are talking about" which is nakedly aggressive. HN discussion is highly sensitive to nuances of tone, a point dang makes frequently:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7905762>, <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23047709> and <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17689715> especially.

(That last isn't too significant for a well-down-thread comment such as yours, but still plays a strong role, especially in politically-tinged discussion, and especially in the present environment.)

(I make a point of confirming information I provide in comments, largely through inline links or footnotes. Of which I am ... inordinately ... fond: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...>. I've more than once changed my comment significantly on discovering my initial beliefs were false.)

Searching for "personal attacks" and "swipes" will turn up many such examples:

"personal attacks": <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...>

"swipes": <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...>

(I'm not dang, I'm not a mod, just something of a student of how HN (dys)functions over the years. Which is generally far above the online norm, not that the bar isn't low.)

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/02/nx-s1-5281438/understanding-t...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_fu...

No, they cannot. Trump was impeached during his first term over this very issue. Congress had appropriated funding for the Ukraine, Trump didn't want to provide it without obtaining concessions from Zelenski. Just like Trump doesn't want to provide California any FEMA money for the LA fires without concessions. Trump has been through this before, he knows it's illegal, but he doesn't care. It's kinda funny that people expect a felon to care about the law.

Most of this shit can be moved to the states but the federal government should really be about national security and trade agreements.

To the second line: cool, if that's what you want, then get your reps to write a law and have the rest of congress pass it and the president sign it.

When asked about the news on Oct. 5 that new border wall construction would indeed commence under his administration, Biden told reporters: “The border wall — the money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get to them to reappropriate it, to redirect that money. They didn’t. They wouldn’t. And in the meantime, there’s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated. I can’t stop that.”

Trump intended to build the wall with no environmental assessments or permits and congress wrote in a waiver since the border was “an emergency” but Biden chose to rescind the emergency declaration and follow the long-established federal construction process instead of using the waivers which does indeed slow things down.

That’s nothing like what is happening with Musk “deleting” entire departments or unilaterally stopping funding because he doesn’t like the phrasing of the grants.

https://www.factcheck.org/2023/10/bidens-border-wall-explain...

Biden tried to get congress to re-appropriate the funds. They wouldn't, so he spent it as he was obligated.

I'll just be in good faith and believe you wholesale. Yes, that is one way to fight the spending. Make the government argue until a deadline is hit and then they either shut down or compromise. Happens much too often.

But that's the point: the budget wasn't made yet. Trump wants to argue over funding that was already in place. If he wanted this chaos legally, he'd have been stalling out the March funding next quarter. But once it's finalized, it's finalized and many challenges over the centuries were shot down.