President Trump went on the attack against the government’s air traffic controllers in a social media post, in response to understaffing issues that have plagued aviation over the past five weeks.
While air traffic controllers aren’t getting paid, many are doing gig work to generate an income though it’s expected that they’ll also get paid once the shutdown ends. Some are working extra jobs and showing up to work (perhaps fatigued).
One air traffic controller earns cash by hanging Christmas lights for his neighbors. Another stocks grocery store shelves for six hours before heading in for his shift. A third drives for DoorDash after clocking out.
Hundreds of air traffic controllers across the United States have taken on second jobs driving for Uber and Lyft, delivering food, or working in restaurants as the government shutdown stretches past five weeks, according to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a union that represents nearly 20,000 aviation safety professionals.
…For a controller in the Midwest, most days this week have begun with a 4 a.m. shift stocking ice cream, frozen vegetables and pizza at a local supermarket. When his shift ends at 10 a.m., he heads straight to the airport, where he directs traffic from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
In addition to some controllers not showing up for work during the government shutdown – they are considered ‘essential employees’ whose jobs continue, with pay deferred until the shutdown ends – his administration reports a spike in controllers retiring from their jobs.
Before the shutdown, an average of 4 controllers retired a day.
That number has now jumped to 15 to 20 a day.
It’s pretty simple — when Democrats vote 14 times against controllers getting paid, it’s hard to convince them to stay in the profession.
End the shutdown NOW. pic.twitter.com/7MpQhPnFIO
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) November 9, 2025
The President announced on ‘Truth Social’ that:
- any contrller who doesn’t go to work will have their pay docked.
- those who show up and take no time off during the shutdown will be recommended for $10,000 bonuses.
- those who took time off “will have a negative mark” on their record, in the view of the President, and those who leave in the near future will receive “no payment…of any kind.”
- those who leave will be quickly replaced.
- problems with air traffic control are Joe Biden’s fault, because they failed to fix the system.
All Air Traffic Controllers must get back to work, NOW!!! Anyone who doesn’t will be substantially “docked.” For those Air Traffic Controllers who were GREAT PATRIOTS, and didn’t take ANY TIME OFF for the “Democrat Shutdown Hoax,” I will be recommending a BONUS of $10,000 per person for distinguished service to our Country. For those that did nothing but complain, and took time off, even though everyone knew they would be paid, IN FULL, shortly into the future, I am NOT HAPPY WITH YOU. You didn’t step up to help the U.S.A. against the FAKE DEMOCRAT ATTACK that was only meant to hurt our Country. You will have a negative mark, at least in my mind, against your record. If you want to leave service in the near future, please do not hesitate to do so, with NO payment or severance of any kind! You will be quickly replaced by true Patriots, who will do a better job on the Brand New State of the Art Equipment, the best in the World, that we are in the process of ordering. The last “Administration” wasted Billions of Dollars trying to fix antiquated “junk.” They had no idea what they were doing! Again, to our great American Patriots, GOD BLESS YOU – I won’t be able to send your money fast enough! To all others, REPORT TO WORK IMMEDIATELY. GOD BLESS AMERICA! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
Some readers have complained that this blog’s perspective is “View From The Right Wing” while others have taken great exception when I criticize President Trump. It is not my intention to be political, but politics certainly involves itself in transportation (and airline heads go to the government for favors). And I do my best to shed light on events, regardless of who that makes look good or bad. Plus, I worked in D.C. for 18 years and have written under the signatures of more than one Majority Leader in Congress.
So with that out of the way, this statement is – in the most generous read possible – misinformed, misleading, and unhelpful.
- The President can’t unilaterally bonus air traffic controllers who don’t call out sick. Secretary Duffy recognizes that there’s no power to award bonuses, and he’ll have to “work with Congress to reward” them.
Cash awards come from agency appropriations and must follow federal rules and each agency’s policies and in this case collective bargaining agreement. A President can “recommend” but cannot obligate funds without appropriations, otherwise it’s in violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act.
- The President can’t “dock” pay or disadvantage people who retire. Discipline for taking leave must be taken by the employing agency, conforming with the collective bargaining agreement. Retirement is a statutory entitlement that cannot be withheld by presidential fiat. Contra the President’s reference to “severance” that is for involuntary separations and generally doesn’t apply to retirements.
- The President can’t reward or publish “patriots” for their actions for or against the “Democrat Shutdown Hoax”. While the President is not covered by the Hatch Act, almost everyone else in the federal government is. Any agency action that rewards or punishes employees based on partisan politics would be a prohibited personnel practice – a legal landmine for anyone who tried to implement the President’s statement here.
- The President cannot ‘quickly replace’ departing controllers. The FAA has been short controllers for decades and hasn’t been able to solve this. Overtime costs are up over 300% since 2013. New controller applicants have wait to wait over a year to get into the FAA academy, although there are claims that some ‘top candidates’ are now moving at a pace of ‘only’ 8 months. On the whole it’s going to take 1-3 years of on-the-job training after the academy before becoming a fully certified controller.
- Antiquated air traffic control is not uniquely ‘Biden’s fault’. “NextGen” modernization efforts date to 2003, with major development funded from FY2007 forward. Little progress was made during the first Trump administration [the ADS-B Out requirement took effect during that time, but the rule predated his term]. He proposed privatizing air traffic control, and that failed to pass Congress.
In short, every piece of the President’s message was questionable. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg offers a far less nuanced take on the President’s social post:
The President wouldn't last five minutes as an air traffic controller, and after everything they've been through – and the way this administration has treated them from Day One – he has no business shitting on them now. https://t.co/JLi1J26dSC
— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) November 10, 2025
“The President wouldn’t last five minutes as an air traffic controller” is not a good take. Neither would Secretary Buttigieg. Even fully trained, I have no expectation that I’d be signed off on at New York TRACON for that matter.
The President’s statement is problematic, but there’s little to suggest the President treated air traffic controllers poorly “from Day One” and complaining about what seems to have the effect of an illegal coordinated job action is not itself inappropriate for a President.
The president’s idea to award bonuses to ATCs with strong records is awesome. This is the way that smart business people operate.
Additionally, he didn’t claim to have the authority to award such bonuses, he said he would make recommendations. Nothing wrong with that. I hope the ATCs that busted their butts receive these bonuses. They are well deserved.
For those that have deficient performance records, it’s also appropriate for punishments to be administered.
does anyone expect a 34 count felon ,and worse, to do anything( or promise) anything legal?
This guy is a demagogue; the very thing the Founding Fathers warned about, and tried to implement ample checks and balances in our system of self-government. Those guardrails are nearly all gone. Appeasement never works.
Pay ATC. Pay the active service members. Pay the TSA. The CPB (the folks who ‘welcome’ you at immigration, when you return from a nice trip overseas. Pay them all.
We abolished slavery. No one should work for free in this country.
We need better worker and consumer protections. Healthcare is a human right. Time for Progressives to lead. Enough uni-party mercenaries-for-billionaires corporate shills. It’s not a culture war; that’s a distraction; it’s always been a class war. Wake up.
I think the primary issue for the sick-out ATC Controllers – in their unprofessional minds – is that they work, and eventually will get paid, whereas all the furloughed non-essential folks get six weeks off, but will also get paid.
Seems like faulty logic. They are fortunate that there is an ATC shortage so that they don’t get the Ronald Reagan treatment.
He is a complee worthless fool, and everyone who voted for him!
@David — That’s a nice idea you got there… except, for as much as #47 pretends to care about ‘merit,’ and the working man, it’s all about ‘loyalty’ to him. Look no further than his entire cabinet from the first administration (#45). He’ll reward those who are ‘loyal’ to him personally, and punish those he (even wrongly) believes aren’t ‘loyal enough.’ It’s the whole anti-woke/’DEI’-lie all over again. It’s classic malignant narcissism. Facts and reality don’t matter to folks like that.
The reality is that we desperately need to retain, hire, and train more ATC, not ‘punish’ them. Watch today’s National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) press conference; Nick Daniels rightly said, “No American should ever be forced to work without a paycheck.” He also said of the pre-existing, severe staffing shortage, 3,800 certified professional controllers short and 91 percent of facilities do not have the proper staffing.
@Mark — The ‘faulty logic’ is that ATC are pawns in these situations; they shouldn’t be. Period. Stop threatening these essential workers within our industry. We need immediate, robust legislation that protects them in the future; that should be the bi-partisan solution that comes out of this mess.
Throughout my 45 years in business there have been situations in which people came to work, often in jobs that had to be done during difficult times and got a nice stipend in the end for doing so. Those that came in during a snowstorm. Those that worked Christmas and New Years Eve. If a controller came to work during this period, they should be rewarded. At some point a government shutdown will occur again and you’d like to encourage those providing critical services to slog it out.
Working when you’re not getting paid is tough. Most people don’t do their jobs for grandiose ideas. They do it because they have bills to pay and living expenses to cover.
“‘The President wouldn’t last five minutes as an air traffic controller’ is not a good take. Neither would Secretary Buttigieg.”
God help me for jumping in to defend Buttigieg of all people, but he doesn’t say that he would! He is saying that its a hard job and that we should have respect for the people who do it.
@1990 – Oh, here we go again… the tired “class war, billionaires bad, healthcare is a human right” sermon. Let’s start with that one. Healthcare isn’t a “right” if it requires forcing someone else to work or provide services on your behalf. A right is something you possess inherently, not something that demands another person’s labor. Calling it a “right” doesn’t make it free, it just hides who’s footing the bill.
And yes, we tried your dream version of government-run healthcare already. It’s called Obamacare. It was fully funded, subsidized, and force-fed to the country. Premiums skyrocketed, deductibles exploded, and competition vanished because the math doesn’t work when government bureaucrats set prices and insurers can’t operate under real market conditions. It didn’t fail for lack of funding, it failed because it ignored basic economics.
As for your “class war,” the only thing being destroyed is the middle class by the very regulations and taxes you cheer for. Every time progressives promise “protection,” they strangle opportunity. You don’t lift workers by punishing productivity. You don’t create fairness by making success a sin. You get growth by freeing people to build, compete, and keep what they earn. It’s not by chanting slogans about billionaires in between your Starbucks lattes and Amazon deliveries.
Get a life.
Grandpa yells at cloud again. He pays ICE thugs attacking law-abiding immigrants in blue cities, sent $40B of taxpayer dollars to Argentina that we’ll never see again, but he refused to pay such essential workers like Air Traffic Controllers. Donny is fully responsible for this situation.
@Mike Hunt — Living the good life, bucko.
There’s plenty of money; we’re the wealthiest country on earth. We can afford to provide healthcare to our people; we can also afford to pay healthcare workers a thriving wage. You are selling the lie of ‘false-scarcity.’
The middle class was gutted by de-regulation, not reasonable, common sense regulations; we used to agree on this, but, I guess you’re just taking a contrarian position to anything I write. Okie doke.
And, finally, the Reagan quote is “There you go again”… at least get it right.
@Sco — Let’s be real, any mention of former Secretary Buttigieg is often just rage-bait, ‘red meat’ for the right-wing base. (I guess they can’t handle a well-spoken, competent centrist, who happens to be gay, married, and have children.) And, he is courageous to go on right-wing media, defend his positions, regularly. So, yeah, I’d gladly take Pete any day over the current reality-TV star, Duffey, who withholds key data for partisan purposes as we’ve seen recently….
@Gary “Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg offers a far less nuanced take on the President’s social post:”
Buttigieg is a large cause of the problem. Don’t look at someone whose largest political responsibility was running a town with 13 bus routes to run something like the FAA.
Great summation, thanks,
@1990 – You’re proving my point without realizing it. “There’s plenty of money” is the slogan of every failed central planner in history. I can also show you $1.82 trillion to prove it’s wrong. Wealth isn’t a giant pot the government can scoop from; it’s produced by people who risk, innovate, and work. When you strip incentives through endless redistribution, you shrink the very pool that funds your ideal system. That’s not morality. It’s math.
Obamacare is the perfect case study. It was fully funded and sold as the fix to all healthcare woes. What happened? It distorted supply and demand, forcing young healthy people to overpay to subsidize others, while choking private competition with bureaucracy. The result wasn’t universal access, it was unaffordable access.
And deregulation didn’t “gut” the middle class, inflation and stagnation did. Fueled by government overspending and debt. You can’t regulate your way to prosperity any more than you can tax your way to equality. The more government “protects,” the more it suffocates. The middle class thrives on freedom, not on promises written by bureaucrats who’ve never run a business in their lives.
Folks like you will never accept the reality a vast majority of problems that happen in American’s lives are simply not solvable by government intervention. But that’s reality.
Since when did the criminal in chief care about laws or legality. He is looking for headlines and distractions to draw away from his legacy.
He is is only speaking because the ceos reached out to him about the havoc he is creating for their companies, not because of the hunger, healthcare losses or inconvenience to the citizens caused by his gifts to his wealthy donors.
Expect more lawlessness because it is the consequence of giving into a bully.
“but he refused to pay such essential workers like Air Traffic Controllers.” So, you contend that during the shutdown, Trump can/could have paid ATC (absent Congressional action)? That doesn’t sound legal. Please point me to a source if I’m wrong. I have no difficult criticizing him when he’s wrong (ample cases of that) or I think he’s wrong, but I don’t believe he had a legal way to pay ATC. Oh, and if he could have legally done so, but let this hit the fan, I’ll add that to his WTF? demerit list.
To the President Trump haters, Democrat leaders love you! They are never wrong, it is always President Trump’s fault. And you say we are in a cult.
@Mike Hunt — Naw, believe it or not, you prove all my points, any time you speak. I should be thanking you, and wearing a suit. Or, leading with such absurdities does nothing. Either way, it’s kinda fun, no?
On the actual issues, of course we still disagree, and you are wrong, yet again. Your Chicago School economic theories may be better than the Austrian wackos, but, pal, we gotta do better than this; the economy is broken for most people. More tax cuts to the ultra-rich (centi-millionaires and billionaires) is not the solution. You’re practically pitching socialism for the rich, and feudalism for the rest of us.
Anyway, did you see they’re referring to those 8-shills as ‘The Hateful Eight.’ Love that movie. As Sheriff Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins’ character) says, ‘no, no, no… now you got me talkin’ politics…’
Who’s gonna come to your rescue, Mike, and give you an ‘atta boy,’ or a ‘1990, you should self-censor’… is it OneTrippe or the Pilot? Either way, fellas, add your own two-cents from the peanut gallery.
Ah, the classic retreat into snark when the facts don’t cooperate. “You prove my point every time you speak” isn’t an argument, it’s a participation trophy for losing the debate. You can toss around “Chicago School” or “Austrian wackos,” but none of that changes the reality that the economy breaks every time the government tries to centrally plan prosperity.
You say tax cuts for the rich don’t work, yet the top 10% already pay more than 70% of all federal income taxes. Meanwhile, the same “ultra-rich” you demonize are the ones investing, building, hiring, and underwriting the very pension funds and union portfolios your side claims to protect. When you punish capital, you kill jobs. When you overregulate, you freeze growth. That’s not “socialism for the rich,” it’s the consequence of progressives waging war on productivity.
And the “economy is broken” line? Sure, it’s broken! By the very spending, deficits, and protectionist gimmicks your ideology pushes. But hey, keep quoting Tarantino. It’s easier than arithmetic.
@ Doug — Law, what law? Only applies to us peons, not to the morons ruining out country.
The 1990 vs Mike Hunt battle has officially ceased to be a contest. Mr. Hunt continues to run roughshod over the clearly overmatched, slogan-spouting leftist. Honestly, it never really had any chance of being a true competition.
@Mike Hunt — You’ve still got nothing, Mike. Where are you spending all your energy? Clearly, it’s not in these responses to me. Bring out the reserves. And not the ‘standard’ bottle. Go with a magnum! Where’s your plan for healthcare? Oh, right, it doesn’t exist. Just austerity. Oof. The people are not gonna like that, sir. So, yeah, again, proving my point, go on about how the ‘economy is broken’… because Republicans broke it. And, now that they have, like the Trojan Horse they often are, they’ll seek to ‘privatize’ everything. Oh, it’ll ‘fix’ things alright… fixed further into the pockets of the oligarchs, kleptocrats, and grifters, #47 included. I’ve said before, look no further than post-Soviet mafioso-Putin’s Russia; yet even those ‘billionaires’ still have to watch their backs… ‘open windows’ become a big threat for them. No, Mike, we don’t want any of that here. We need reasonable guardrails to ensure such corruption is prevented and punished. Come back to reality. (‘Come home… to Simple Rick.’ You can ignore that one if you don’t get it.)
@Mike Hunt the “middle class” was a 20th century phenomenon brought about by a combination of high marginal tax rates on the wealthy, strong labor unions, and a meaningful minimum wage (you could also throwin antitrust laws and compulsory secondary schooling). All three of those things were attacked by Ronald Reagan, and that’s when the hollowing out of the middle class started. It’s not a coincidence. Now, I’m not saying that all three of those things are without their own issues, and maybe the situation wasn’t sustainable, but those things supported the middle class. Outsourcing and automation were equally responsible for the disappearance of the middle class. One thing I know wasn’t was government overreach. It was the opposite. I’m as much of a capitalist as the next guy, but the reality of capitalism is that when left to evolve organically results in capital being highly concentrated in the hands of a few. Redistribution to avoid economic collapse is not a bad thing, that’s what taxes, labor unions and minimum wages do, they redistribute money from the top back to the middle and the bottom, and the cycle continues. That’s how it ought to work.
@Mike P — So, like Lyin’ Ted or Lil’ Marco, after #45 trounced them in the 2016 GOP primary debates, you stand behind your new daddy, Mike Hunt. (‘Get ’em daddy!’) Well, at least we can once-and-for-all put your anarcho-libertarian nonsense to rest. Mr. Hunt’s classic pretend-intellectual conservativism will just have to do for you for now, eh. (Or, you can tell us again how Sowell isn’t an Uncle Tom… maybe I’d actually agree, because, he’s worse; he actually knows better.)
@Gene — Yup, for the 1%, the law protects but does not bind them; for the rest of us, the law does not protect, but very much does bind us. It’s crony-capitalism; it’s the spoils system; it’s bad. We need to fight back, regain a sense of greater equity in our country, for all people, not just those at the top.
@ Mike Hunt — Regardless of what you or any of the other Facists believe, taxes will be rising sharply on the wealthy and fairly soon. No on else can afford it, and our government debt problems are just getting started. There is no where else to extract the needed money to fund Social Security and Medicare. Too bad for the mega-wealthy.
@LAX Tom — Well said, and thank you. Well-reasoned and realistic. Pardon my attempts at humor with Mike Hunt above; it’s hard to take some of the resident-conservatives’ disingenuous anti-worker, anti-union, anti-people propaganda too seriously.
@Gene – Cute prediction, but here’s reality: you can’t tax your way out of a spending problem. The math doesn’t work. Even if you confiscated every dollar from every billionaire in America, you wouldn’t fund Social Security and Medicare for even a few years. The issue isn’t too few taxes; it’s too many promises made by politicians who can’t count.
@Mike Hunt. Good luck at trying to reason with Democ”rat” cult members. Their idea of a strong argument is to call a stupid fascist.
Every time @George Romney and I agree, I think we’re on to something.
I agree 100% that any federal employee who continued to report to work while they weren’t getting paid deserves a hardship-hazzard-thank you bonus. You knew the job you signed up for and when things got tough you stepped up and continued to do your job with professionalism. That behavior is to be encouraged.
Now, if you called in sick, I get that you might have had to seek work elsewhere to pay your bills, but no bonus. Backpay, yes. With interest, sure. But a bonus, no.
@1990 also with you that the law should be changed to ensure that essential workers are paid during government shutdowns. The Constitution needs to be amended to ensure Congress never gets paid during a shutdown.
@ LAX Tom: You seem to have confused nostalgia for economics. The mid-century boom you’re romanticizing wasn’t powered by 90% tax rates or union muscle; it was powered by post-war industrial dominance, a shattered global economy we alone could supply, and cheap American energy. Reagan didn’t “kill” the middle class; he inherited a stagflation-ridden mess created by the same overregulation you folks now seem to want more of, and he unleashed growth by cutting taxes, taming inflation, and freeing capital to move.
Capital concentration isn’t some bug in capitalism; it’s what happens when success compounds, and it’s self-correcting when innovation and competition are allowed to thrive. The real hollowing out came when government decided to pick winners, bail out losers, and tax productivity to fund dependency. That’s redistribution, which is not the same thing as prosperity.
You say redistribution “keeps the cycle going,” but that’s like saying siphoning gas keeps the engine running. You don’t build a middle class by punishing the people who create jobs; you build it by creating opportunity. The problem isn’t that capitalism evolved; it’s that some among us keep trying to devolve it back into bureaucracy.
@1990 – You’ve gone from economics to Rick and Morty quotes, which tells me the intellectual tank hit empty long ago (if it was ever even fueled). Let’s get this straight: shouting “oligarchs,” “kleptocrats,” and “Trojan Horse” doesn’t make you profound; it makes you sound like a freshman who just discovered Reddit.
Your “plan for healthcare” is the same one we’ve heard for decades now: government runs it, taxpayers fund it, costs explode, quality collapses, and everyone blames “greedy corporations.” We’ve already lived that experiment with Obamacare, which promised affordability and delivered an expensive, bureaucratic disaster. Austerity isn’t the problem; your fantasy of infinite free stuff is.
Also, please spare us all the Russia comparisons. The irony of warning about kleptocracy while cheering for a government big enough to control healthcare, wages, and entire industries is staggering. You don’t stop corruption by giving more power to the same politicians who cause it. You stop it by letting people keep what they earn.
Keep in mind that in the long run no federal employee is “working for free”. Yes, their pay is delayed but they’ll ultimately all receive every penny of their backpay. Nobody will be stiffed.
Several yrs ago during another govt shutdown only personnel deemed to be in “essential” positions were required to show for work. At the time I was working as a low-level drone processing disability claims at the VA, which somehow fell into the essential category. At the same time I had a friend who had a high-ranking job with the FAA overseeing flight operations at UPS – somehow this job was deemed NON-essential. So he sat at home for a few weeks, and when the shutdown eventually ended he was still paid in full for essentially sitting on his ass. He loved rubbing salt in my wound saying I had to work in my shit VA job during the shutdown while he was being paid 3x more for literally doing nothing.
@Mike Hunt — Aww, took you awhile, but you’re finally getting something.
Now, get this, liberal populism is just starting. It’s been kept down by lies and distractions. Not anymore. The people are finally realizing that the establishment Dems are mercenaries for corporations. So, the people are gonna get rid of all those shills. And, like #47 did to the Republicans, the old party will be no more; and the Progressives that replace it are gonna actually deliver economic populism. So, soon enough, America will have an actual left, not a pretend-opposition.
So, please do keep sharing your faux-intellectual conservative ‘white papers’ on economic and legal theory; we know that it’s all smoke and mirrors. There isn’t enough propaganda in the world to make your turds not stink.
“Come home to the unique flavor of shattering the grand illusion. Come home to Simple Rick’s.”
@ 1990 – Ah, the revolution fantasy again! The great populist awakening that never actually arrives. Every time it ends the same way: big promises, bigger spending, and an economy in flames. You’re not describing progress; you’re describing Venezuela with better Wi-Fi.
Your “liberal populism” is just repackaged class envy. You rail against corporations while demanding the state take over what they built. You attack “establishment Dems,” but what you’re really mad at is reality refusing to conform to your utopia. When the bills come due, you’ll discover that feelings and the best intentions can’t fund entitlement programs.
And as for my “faux-intellectual white papers,” they’re called facts. You can sneer at economics all you want, but it doesn’t change the scoreboard. Capitalism lifted billions out of poverty; socialism massacred millions. You can chant Simple Rick all night, but it won’t make your idiotic ideology any less cartoonish.
@Mike Hunt — Revolution? The only ones talking about that are your buddies at the Heritage Foundation… Kevin Roberts, ‘if the left allows if.’ Psh, I wish there was an actual left in the USA. I think they’re finally waking up. #47 and Mamdani have awakened them. People see corporate Democrats really are just a controlled opposition. Time to clean house. I’m excited. You should be concerned. ‘Come home…’
@ 1990 – You keep calling it “waking up,” but what you’re describing is the same recycled fantasy every ideological movement clings to right before it collapses under its own contradictions. The “actual left” you dream of isn’t new; it’s the same central-planning, wealth-redistributing machine that’s failed everywhere it’s been tried. You don’t clean house by burning it to the ground.
And if your idea of hope is Mamdani and a handful of Twitter slogans about “controlled opposition,” that’s not a revolution; that’s performance art. Heritage isn’t your enemy, basic f***ing math is. The reason your “awakening” never materializes is because hard numbers, markets, and incentives don’t care how righteous your hashtags sound.
Be as “excited” as you want. History already tested your theory. Repeatedly, in fact. It has always ended with empty shelves, runaway inflation, outright death, and people risking their lives to escape the systems you now stupidly want to resurrect.
@ Mike — Get your numbers straight. Increasing taxes paid by the top 1% by 50% would roughly cover the shortfall in social security each year beginning in 2023/2024. So, if the top 1% are paying 26% now, increase that to 39%, and you have enough funding for Social Security. Easy peasy.
Confiscating all billionaires wealth is much different math as it would impact way less people than raising taxes on the top 1%, and without doing the math I think such a solution would be absurd.
#47 forgets he was also #45 and did phucking zero to fix the FAA.
@ Mike — Meant 2033/2034….
@1990 – You are wrong on the fundamentals. I have actually read the Social Security Trustees report. Have you? It says the program would need an immediate 3.65-point hike in the payroll tax, from 12.4 percent to about 16 percent, or a 22 percent cut in benefits to remain solvent over 75 years. That’s not a small gap, it is full-on structural collapse.
The cause isn’t greed or “corporate shills,” it’s demographics. The worker-to-beneficiary ratio has dropped from about 8.6 in the 1950s to under 3 today. Social Security is pay-as-you-go. It is not a savings account. So fewer workers per retiree means the inflow can’t meet the outflow, no matter how much you target the wealthy.
As for your “just tax the top 1 percent” fix? A reminder: Social Security is funded by payroll taxes on wages up to a cap, not income taxes. Raising the cap helps only marginally, because higher contributions trigger higher future benefits. You can’t keep the promise with math that doesn’t add up. And math always wins. It’s not “easy peasy,” 1990. Again, it’s arithmetic.
You can shout “tax the rich” all you want, but no slogan in history has ever beaten a calculator.
@ Gene – Typo. That was meant for you, not 1990. And correct, the trust fund depletion date is projected around 2033 to 2034, and when that happens, incoming payroll taxes will only cover about 77% of scheduled benefits. That means automatic across-the-board cuts for everyone, not just the wealthy. The math doesn’t magically change in 2033; it just hits the wall you folks keep pretending isn’t there.
You can adjust the calendar all you like, but not the calculus.
@ Mike — I know very well how Social Security works, and yes I have read the report. The law could be changed to fund part of the benefits through other means, like a 50% increase in raxes on the Top 1%, diverted to the Trust Fund. I’m sure there are other methods to place that burden on the Top 1%, too. Clearly raising payroll taxes to cover the entire shortfall is an unacceptable burden on workers. Cutting benefits in pay status is a non-starter. Wanna crash the econony? A 22% cut on all retiree benefits would do it. The solution has to include taxes on the wealthy. Obviously, other things must change, too, like the retirement age, but that couldn’t take effect immediately. This is a time bomb that probably 95% of Americans are oblivious to, and it will go off very soon. Socialists will suddenly become very popular.
@ – Gene, it’s Mike Hunt, not Mike. Please stop misgendering me.
In all seriousness, you’re half right. And that’s the dangerous part. Yes, the shortfall is a ticking time bomb, but your “solution” is lighting a different fuse. Diverting new income taxes from the top 1% into Social Security sounds painless until you realize those same people already fund roughly 40% of all federal income tax revenue and most private investment that fuels job creation. Hitting them with a 50% hike wouldn’t “stabilize” the system, it would slow growth, shrink the tax base, and ultimately deepen the deficit we desperately need to fix.
You can’t fund a trillion-dollar entitlement with a political slogan. Social Security is system built for a 1950s workforce with 16 workers per retiree, not today’s 2.7. You could confiscate half the income of the top 1% and still face insolvency in a decade unless you reform benefits and eligibility. Raising the retirement age, indexing benefits, and modestly adjusting payroll taxes are the only sustainable levers.
The “soak the rich” plan has been tried everywhere. It ends the same way every time: lower growth, higher unemployment, and eventually, less revenue. You don’t fix Social Security by punishing the productive; you fix it by facing arithmetic before arithmetic faces you.
The time bomb won’t make socialism popular. It will make reality unavoidable.
So, there’s this nasty thing that’s been negotiated by NACTA and the TSA union – when there’s a budget lapse like this, everyone will get their back pay whether the worked or not. I know of someone who is actually doing just this, he’s not showing up for work – he and other corworkers have been doing this for the last 2 shutdowns.
There need to be a clause like the one Trump is talking about – you only get backpay if you *actually* showed up for work.
@Mike Hunt
Keep on typing. I am enjoying your facts on this matter.
Well said, @Gene. I take it you’re on the West Coast, because at some point, I gotta rest over here in NYC; they say we’re the city that never sleeps; psh.
@Coffee Please — Another cheerleader, eh? Are you the Lil Marco along with Mike P’s Lyin’ Ted? ‘Daddy Mike Hunt, tell us who to hate!’ …mediocre.
@Mike Hunt — The billionaires aren’t ‘productive,’ they’re just hoarders; their workers are productive, but they’ve been disempowered, defunded, and are basically modern-day indentured servants for these kleptocrats. $999,999,999 is enough for any individual, honestly. Share equity with others. #47 seems fine with forcing Intel to nationalize at least 10%. Wild. Most ‘socialist’ President of my lifetime. Oh no! ‘Re-distribution!’ Ah! We might have to pave new roads, feed starving children, and fund air traffic control! The horrors! Ahh!!
If you’d asked Republicans in 2010, after the Senator for Illinois (sorry, I think Gary may have put his name on auto-mod) defeated McCain, who they thought would be the leader of their party in 5 years or 15 years, no one would have said #45; they’d’ve gone with typical fiscal conservative, social moderates like Romney. But, things start small; maybe it was the Tea Party (which felt super astroturfed to begin with, clearly backed by big money, and really social media algorithms, micro-targeting, hate-based coalitions, Comey, etc. got him in). And even during his first term, few who supported #45 expected or wanted the excessive cruelty and attempts to become a dictator that #47 has already tried already in his first year. So, here we are. The GOP no longer exists. It’s a death cult for one incredibly flawed individual, just so the 1% can grift off the rest of us. It’s gonna fail.
Now, in 2000, no Democrats would have expected the Senator from Illinois; and in 2016, no one would have expected the ‘Autopen’ (again, I think his name is auto-mod, too). Yet, in both of their administrations, corporate shills held back from universal healthcare (which would actually solve the majority of the healthcare problems in this country for the poor) and from more climate initiatives in the Build Back Better infrastructure bill (which would actually transition us to a renewables economy, more jobs, better for the environment, compete with China, not hand them a major win.) Every step of the way, wealthy donors, thanks to Citizen United, have steered the Democrats away from actual economic populism from the left. Progressives haven’t been driving since the 1960s at best, or more so, the 1930s.
Long way of saying; none of us really know where any of this is going, but, to suggest the left is not going to take over the Democratic party after what #45/47 did to yours is just naive and willfully ignorant. People are fed up, and they should be. Enough is enough. We’re gonna clean house.
@1990 – Impressive wall of text, somewhere between a political manifesto and a YouTube comment section. Let’s unpack your utopia before it collapses under its own contradictions.
The “billionaires are hoarders” line is complete and total fantasy. Wealth isn’t buried in a vault; it’s invested in businesses, employees, and markets that create value. You’re posting this from a device built, shipped, and connected by those same “hoarders.” Capital, not collectivism, created the infrastructure you use to condemn it. You don’t lift workers by destroying the very system that employs them.
Your “redistribution for fairness” argument is just a polite way of saying government should decide who deserves what. That’s not justice, it’s control. Every society that tried it ended up poorer, weaker, and more corrupt. You can’t fund compassion with confiscation, and you can’t feed children with an economy you’ve strangled.
And your “death cult” rant about Republicans is pure projection. You accuse conservatives of authoritarianism while cheering for a government powerful enough to dictate wages, industry, and speech. That’s the irony of the term “progressive” in this context; it’s actually regression. The “real left” taking over the Democratic Party wouldn’t be a renaissance, it would be an economic suicide pact. All falsely dressed up as virtue.
Resentment doesn’t redistribute wealth; it destroys it. You can’t build equality by tearing down success. The only thing your “clean house” revolution would sweep away is prosperity for EVERYONE. I’m sorry you are too blatantly ignorant of history to comprehend this.
@Mike Hunt — It wouldn’t be a ‘Mike Hunt’ rebuttal without claiming your opponent is ‘stupid’ or attacking ‘method/style’ as opposed to substance. Anyway…
You’re not effectively addressing the very real corruption by billionaires and their mercenaries that has overtaken politics, media, and the economy, especially in the last 10-40 years (since Reagan, especially). This most recent global far-right coalition of nativists, nationalists, and tech-oligarchs is great at concocting distractions and scapegoats, while they steal from the people, everywhere.
These kleptocrats and, yes, some are in-deed modern-day early-30s fascists, are not ‘investing,’ they are leeches, extracting public resources and funding from the rest of us. None of their industries need subsidies or tax cuts to be prosperous; yet, we still give big oil, big pharma, etc. unlimited money while our people starve. Absurd. And enough about ‘no, no… they’re investing…’ Capitalism won; we all ‘invest’ in our own ways (some of my money is ‘making money’ in a certificate of deposit, psh), but that’s not the actual issue.
Let’s also be clear, it’s the workers who build infrastructure, not the billionaires. You can have all the money in the world, but Bezos himself isn’t building a literal bridge (strawman alert!) Wage stagnation (by design, through your team’s horrible policies) have lead to increasing wealth and income inequality. It’s unsustainable; people are hurting as a result, so you then use scapegoats (brown-trans-illegals!) to distract them. But, in reality, you and yours are advocating to bleed dry the middle class and nearly all consumers, but-for maybe the top 10%. Our consumer economy will diminish, if not, outright fail, like it is already starting to do.
The solution is a robust social safety net. A new New Deal. Equality of opportunity requires a floor, not just a ladder. Quality and abundant shelter (affordable housing), universal healthcare (Medicare for All, like our Congresspeople receive), free, accessible education, and perhaps universal basic income, for all. Workers rights, consumer protection. We’re the wealthiest country on Earth; to fail to do this, is a deliberate choice by careless people at the top, not a lack of ability or vision.
@ 1990 – You’re right about one thing: people are hurting. You’re just catastrophically wrong about why. The problem isn’t capitalism or “tech oligarchs,” it’s government bloat, overregulation, and a political class addicted to spending other people’s money to buy votes. You blame billionaires for “extracting resources,” yet the real extraction happens when Washington siphons trillions from taxpayers to fund programs that barely work. You’re mad at the symptom, not the disease.
You say workers build infrastructure. Of course they do. But who organizes it, funds it, and assumes the ACTUAL RISK? The people with capital do. Without investors who are willing to roll the dice, engineers don’t get paid, factories don’t open, and construction stops. Pretending capital and labor are enemies is Marxist theater. Every country that has tried it discovered that when you punish success, investment disappears, wages fall, and unemployment rises.
As for your “new New Deal,” we’ve already seen that movie. Trillions in spending, inflation through the roof, and a shrinking middle class. The government cannot give you what it hasn’t first taken from someone else. There’s no such thing as “free” healthcare, housing, or education; there’s just a bigger bill hidden in someone else’s paycheck.
You call this vision compassion. I call it coercion. Equality of opportunity comes from freedom, competition, and accountability, not dependence on a state that can barely balance a budget. You want a safety net, fine. But you can’t build one strong enough to hold a nation that’s forgotten how to stand. And you definitely can’t do it while both parties keep spending like drunken sailors and pretending debt is compassion.
@Mike Hunt — I want actual government of, by, and for the people, not a corporate shill collective, like you (and a few misguided others) keep pushing on here. It’s not 1985; we now know that ‘trickle-down’ is just piss.
We’re living through the consequences of decades of bi-partisan/uni-party/billionaire failures. When you punish working people and reward kleptocrats, eventually someone’s going to notice. The fire is already burning, pal. (Hot, hot-hot!!) We’re just trying to put it out before your anarcho-libertarian “free market” burns the whole house down. But hey, keep polishing those faux-intellectual turds; maybe one day they’ll shine. (What’s that smell?)
Also, once again, are you sure you aren’t using AI to draft your replies to me? You just said, “You (referring to me) call this vision compassion.” Sir, check the tape; I never used that language. Rather, it is YOU who has used the word ‘compassion’ twice above, and once earlier before, not me. Now, that sounds like AI, not understanding who’s who in this ‘debate.’ C’mon, man.
@1990 – Ah, there it is again… the “corporate shill,” “trickle-down,” and “AI must’ve written that” routine. When the facts get uncomfortable, accuse your opponent of being a robot or a sellout. It’s the oldest trick in the progressive playbook: dodge substance, hurl slogans, then call it a victory.
Here’s the problem with your “government of, by, and for the people” line: you’ve confused it with “government spending endlessly for the people using money from the people.” The free market you’re mocking is what built every innovation, every job, and every tax dollar your social programs depend on. You can’t fund your utopia by attacking the very system that pays for it.
And about “trickle-down”? What’s trickled down from your side is debt, inflation, and dependency. You can sneer at capitalism all you want, but every time the state tries to play savior, it ends up playing arsonist. You say the house is burning; maybe stop pouring gasoline labeled “redistribution” on it.
Let’s talk data, shall we? The top 1% already pay about 45% of all federal income taxes, while the bottom half pay less than 3%. Federal spending has ballooned from $4.4 trillion in 2019 to over $6.5 trillion in 2025, yet the poverty rate has barely moved. The national debt now exceeds $35 trillion, interest payments alone are approaching $1 trillion per year, and inflation has wiped out nearly a decade of wage growth for working families. Meanwhile, private investment still accounts for roughly 85% of all U.S. capital formation. That’s the “free market” you think is the problem. It is holding the entire system together while DC continues to write checks it can’t cash.
@ 1990 – Believe it or not I actually do work for a living, so I’ll leave you with this excellent quote by an author I dearly love and respect:
“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”
– Thomas Sowell
@Mike Hunt — I prefer Nathan J. Robinson’s quote on Uncle Tom Sowell: “His work is a pseudoscholarly sham, and he peddles mindless, factually unreliable free market dogma.”
Keep working, sir! Climb that ladder! Eventually, you’ll be a billionaire, too! If not, you can always make a decent living cherry-picking, right?
@ 1990 — Nice relief pitching. Thanks!
Aw, cute. You two deserve each other.
@Mike Hunt — Can you help us get Chuck to resign from the Senate early? Or do you want a quisling, controlled opposition? You prefer a state Duma, or wanna actually compete on ideas?
@Mike Hunt. I just read all your comments. Wow, that is a lot of work on your part. Excellent work. It was actually very funny for me. I read your post and wondered what the frequent poster would reply. I skipped past those replies, as I now always do (I read everyone else’s replies to you). Then, I read your reply to the reply, and, darnit, my prediction was so often right (when your dealing with a limited deck of cards, you need to deal the same cards frequently). I will add the following for others, as I’m sure you are aware of this data. In a study over 44 years of the same people, they found that 73% were in the top quintile of income for at least a year. Since 20% started the 44 years in the top quintile, this means essentially at least 32.5 % (and likely more) of the people who start in the bottom 40% made it to the top 20% at some point [math on request]. And, 11%, 36%,, 53%, and 70% of Americans will made it into the top 1%, 5%, 10%, and 20%, respectively at some point (maybe just a year) by age 60.
@This comes to mind – That’s an incredibly thoughtful and well-informed comment. Thank you for adding real data and perspective to the discussion. I really appreciate that you took the time not only to read through everything but also to expand on it with actual longitudinal evidence about mobility. Those numbers are exactly the kind of reality check this debate needs, and they illustrate beautifully that the American economy, while imperfect, still allows upward movement on a scale most of the world can only dream of. Excellent contribution.
@Mike Hunt, @This comes to mind — “That’s an incredibly thoughtful and well-informed comment…” is literally what most LLMs start with when you enter your comments into their prompts. So, are you both just using AI? C’mon fellas. Do better. Stay human.
@1990 – No AI prompts here, just genuine appreciation for someone who brought facts instead of feelings to the table. The only reason you’re crying “AI” is because you know full well you got completely smoked in this debate and need something to blame it on besides your wanton ignorance and stupidity.
@Mike Hunt — Facts? Interesting, because all I saw above was a barrage of conservative ‘hot takes’ from you on government, economics, and social programs (or lack thereof), like usual. Maybe that’s enough for anarcho-libertarian cheerleaders, like @Mike P, but that’s a pyrrhic victory. I wouldn’t celebrate just yet, especially not heading in 2026…
The fact is that historically, a progressive tax structure, robust social safety net, strong unions, worker rights, and consumer protections are the common sense reasonable regulations that enabled the American Dream and built the middle class, not billionaires; your ‘team’ has tried to wreck all of that while consolidating power in the hands of the few, starting in the 1980s, and accelerating to this crony capitalism under #47 and his kleptocrats that we see damaging the global economy and societies worldwide today.
So, what’s your actual ‘plan’ to actually solve healthcare? I’m still waiting on a real response to that. You ready for Medicare for All like our Congresspersons receive, or just gonna let people die?
@1990 – The “progressive tax structure” you glorify already exists. Again, the top 1% of earners pay about 45% percent of all federal income taxes, while the bottom half pay less than 3%. If throwing more money at problems actually solved them, the Great Society would have turned America into Switzerland. It didn’t.
You claim the 1980s “wrecked” the middle class. The 1980s produced an average GDP growth rate above 3.5%, inflation fell from double digits to under 4 percent, and 19 million new jobs were created. That is not destruction, that is prosperity! The “crony capitalism” you blame on free markets is actually the predictable result of government overreach. When the state grows powerful enough to decide who wins and loses, corruption follows. The left’s solution to corruption is always to give even more power to the same bureaucrats who caused it.
Now, on to healthcare. Medicare is already running a $78 billion annual deficit and faces insolvency within a decade. Expanding it to every American would cost roughly $32 trillion over ten years, more than the entire federal budget. That would destroy private innovation, drive doctors out of the system, and replace choice with rationing. The real solution is not more government control but smarter market reform. That means allowing insurance to be sold across state lines to increase competition, expanding health savings accounts so individuals can manage their own care tax-free, and reforming pricing transparency so patients know costs before treatment. It also means promoting direct primary care models where patients pay physicians directly for routine services, cutting out the layers of bureaucracy that drive up costs.
So no, I am not for letting people die. I am for letting them live by giving them control over their own healthcare decisions, not turning their lives over to the same government that bankrupted Social Security and the VA. The answer is not more bureaucracy. The answer is more freedom, competition, and accountability. Why is this so difficult for you to get through your head?
Question, is Mike Johnson did not call his party intercession for almost 7 weeks. Are they all not getting paid also? Should they leave their positions? Is there no other issue in the government that they could’ve come in and worked on perhaps Healthcare? Somethings wrong with this picture.
@Mike Hunt — We all want ‘freedom and liberty,’ actual fair ‘competition,’ and real ‘accountability’ in business, politics, society. How we get there is the real question.
Let’s be clear the market alone is not gonna fix this; wealth and power inevitably just consolidate to a few (oligarchy!) That’s why anarcho-libertarian pure laissez-faire doesn’t work. Likewise, no one is reasonably advocating for totalitarian, communist dictatorship either. Please.
So, back to reality, yeah, let’s avoid unnecessary bureaucracy (Abundance!) It’s not about ‘no governance,’ it’s about ‘better governance.’ We need competence and effective oversight.
On healthcare, a single-payer system actually eliminates the massive bureaucracy of dozens of competing insurance companies, their marketing, denial of claims, and endless administrative overhead, replacing it with one streamlined payment system.
Innovation is part of the solution. Yet, this admin is picking culture war and personal loyalty fights by defunding public and university-led research. Like, c’mon, all sorts of progress came from that; it gives us our competitive edge; think national security; the market alone doesn’t do that stuff. Instead, we’re funneling billions to private profits, allowing corruption, grifting, etc. It’s sad.