Opinion Don’t Take The $5000 Bribe

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Don’t Take The $5000 Bribe​

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Don’t take the $5000 bribe. Now, what I call a bribe, the White House calls a ‘dividend’. According to Forbes, “Elon Musk, head of the Department of Government Efficiency, hinted at the possibility of issuing $5,000 checks to American taxpayers—a concept dubbed the ‘DOGE Dividend.’ This proposal, originating from investment firm CEO and DOGE adviser James Fishback, suggests allocating 20% of DOGE’s projected savings and distributing it to taxpaying households.” When I issue the warning — don’t take the $5000 bribe! — what am I trying to say to you? Well, read on.

The Two-Bump Pickpocket​

Have you ever been pick-pocketed on a crowded city sidewalk? You get bumped twice. First, the decoy bumps you on your left shoulder. You turn immediately to the left. The decoy on the left grabs your attention by apologizing for the bump. While you’re conversing with the decoy, the second pickpocket removes the wallet from the right rear side of your pants. When you depart and walk on, you do not even realize you have been robbed.

Right now the Whitehouse is pickpocketing you, me, our nation, and the next two generations to come. How? The decoy is bumping us. The decory is drawing us to watch news about outrageous happenings in Washington such as the fireing of civil servants. Why are government workers losing their jobs? Because they are allegedly “lunatics,” “criminals,” and “vampires” who waste government money. On February 19, 2025, the current president announced that “We live in a corrupt country.” His country is corrupt, he says. This alleged corruption justifies eliminating jobs and plunging public discourse into confusion, chaos, and concealment. As you watch and listen, you are being secretly robbed.

There is a second decoy. The U.S. President has just announced that Ukraine’s president, Volodimer Zelenskyy, is a “dictator.” Furthermore, Zelenskyy is responsible for the war against Russia. This justifies a new alignment that unites Russia with America and both against not only Ukraine but also Europe. Are you outraged? If anything would draw your and my attention away from the theft of our wallet, this would.
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There is a third decoy. This is the most important decoy. Washington Republicans announce that with the help of DOGE they plan to balance the budget. The smokescreen of draconian cost-cutting is the principal decoy. How does this work? Even at the maximun, DOGE success could account for only a fraction of deficit spending with no repayment. Even the most optimistic expectation of cost-cutting would come as close to balancing the budget as a maple tree comes close to winning a spelling bee.

To make matters even more sinister, the White House is letting a near demonic temptation loose on the public, namely, the prospect that every income tax payer might receive a $5000 dividend from this fictitious cost-cutting. When you and I turn our heads to look toward a balanced budget and celebrate a net personal profit of $5000, we will not notice how our pocket is being picked. In fact, we’ll even take the bribe gladly so as to approve the gargantuan theft.

People are marching in cities across America. Protestors hold up signs that emphatically reject White House cost-cutting. So, in order to regain public support, the White House is dangling the $5000 in front of us.

Don’t Take the $5000 Bribe​

To take the $5000 bribe would amount to the first bump in a series. What’s the second bump? The second bump is the immediate theft of $4 trillion in national debt. While depositing your $5000 White House bribe, you might not notice that the national budget has not been balanced. You might not notice how the money that might have gone for services to your grandchildren and great-grandchildren will have been stolen by today’s Washington oligarchy. If you do notice, you’ll think of yourself as a beneficiary of the robbery. As complicit. As a co-conspiritor.
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I admonish you: do not believe the lie that the White House intends to balance the budget. What is the truth? The truth is that the Republicans plan to cut the tax rate to 15% on the billionairs who paid to put the 47th president in the White House. This amounts to a revenue loss of $4.5 trillion. Even if DOGE could save as much as $1.5 trillion, we must ask: who will pay the remaining $3 trillion? The answer: the national debt increase. Your and my progeny in the future will pay for the greed and luxury of today’s oligarchy.

The House GOP budget plan is awash in red ink. It includes increasing the national debt at a rate that will lead to a deficit of $150 trillion by midcentury.

By accepting the $5000 bribe today, you would become complicit in the largest corruption caper in America’s history. Because of the bribe, you would not want to vote against the briber. You might even approve a proposal to grant to the 47th president the Oval Office for life. You might be motivated by the vain hope that you’ll someday receive another $5000 bribe.

Conclusion​

Don’t take the $5000 bribe! For that matter, don’t watch the daily news that covers outrage after outrage. Each day’s outrage is a decoy, a diversion, a smokescreen. If you and I become fixated on the first bump, we will either not notice the second bump or we might approve of it with a gesture of gratitude for the bribe we have already taken.
 
I just want my money back. It’s not a gift if someone steals your wallet and later on gives you some of what they stole back.
Outside my price range, right now. I'll keep looking, but I will keep you in mind, should circumstances change.

Quality watercraft for domestic animals are so hard to find these days...
DO NOT REDEEM SAR.
 
Don’t take the $5000 bribe!
I'm taking the $5000 bribe, thanks. I do it partly because I think Musk's idea is genuine and well-intentioned and partly because I could really use $5000 right now. I took Biden's COVID bribe too, knowing it was a bad faith move by his handlers to bolster his sagging poll numbers. So what? Money's money. It didn't change my low opinion of Biden and won't likely move the needle on my comparatively high opinion of the Trump Administration.

Many pundits on the right also think the $5000 dividend payment is a bad move for fiscal reasons but I would guess most or all of them are personally well-off and consider $5K chump change. Fuck that and fuck them. It isn't.
 
Many pundits on the right also think the $5000 dividend payment is a bad move for fiscal reasons but I would guess most or all of them are personally well-off and consider $5K chump change. Fuck that and fuck them. It isn't.
That's the thing, I can talk to anyone I know about that payment and they all have things they'd immediately use it on. It's what happens when the working class was outright struggle sessioned for the past four years straight.
 
Many pundits on the right also think the $5000 dividend payment is a bad move for fiscal reasons but I would guess most or all of them are personally well-off and consider $5K chump change. Fuck that and fuck them. It isn't.
It might be less good in the long run.

1. It might cause some transitory inflation issues.
2. Most people will waste it on useless luxy goods and be worse off at the end due to a newfound sense of blowing money haphazardly.
3. You are still moving backwards in deficit spending, that would help.
4. You are moving even further back in debt spending as the deficit is not even dealt with.
5. A possible increase in crime since the scum know people have more cash.
6. A person may pass a threshold to go further in personal debt due to the extra money.
7. It leaves this as a one time payment as the deficit reductions are not spelled out in Congress, and that $5000 today could cost you 5 times that amount in 15 years.

Many more.

The best move for a government that out of control is austerity, like New Zealand did in the 80s, no matter who it pisses off. Budget surplus and debt payment from that surplus is the only way things will improve.
 
I'd honestly rather see the money go into reducing the national debt. Reducing America's near trillion dollar interest payments will make the money I make normally go probably more than $5000 further.

That said, when the reservations started the casinos up, they split the profits amongst the tribal members and there was a massive die-off from all the drug overdoses. Please President Trump, give every daquantavious and sharkniqua a fatal overdose worth of money.
 
I thought that was technically impossible, as the tax brackets only tax you for money exceeding the bracket. Like if you make 110K you are in the 24% fed bracket but it doesn't mean you pay 24% it only means you paid 24% on the money you made which exceeded the 24% cut off which is around 101K. So only 9K of your earnings are taxed at 24%.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from my understanding this is how it works and eliminates situations where you could potentially lose money by making more money.
You are correct. There are some pitfalls like there where increasing your income might mean you no longer get SNAP or some other bennies and put you at a net loss but those are pretty rare.

Even more retarded is the built in assumption that this check from the government would be counted as income in the first place.

Second the deficit as we see it is caused by a spending problem and the military budget will have an axe taken to it.
No cheating and looking it up first: How much of the federal budget do you think goes to the military?
 
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>Bribe
Oh boy. Calling it now. Nobody is going to see a cent except for defense contractors and the Israeli political class. First it was 50% when they first started talking about it; then it went to 20%. I'm sure in the next news cycle they'll just stop talking about the kickbacks and pretend they were never a thing in the first place.
 
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No cheating and looking it up first: How much of the federal budget do you think goes to the military?
It's also printed on the backpage of every tax instruction booklet where they show a pie chart that breaks down where your taxes went for last FY's budget, so they're already transparent with it that even the 5 folks who can't get on the internet yet have no excuse for not knowing.


Suddenly, the thought occurs to me.

If this is a bribe?

How is forgiving student loans not?
 
Suddenly, the thought occurs to me.

If this is a bribe?

How is forgiving student loans not?
Forgiving student loans was a bribe to get votes. I honestly don't remember anyone even contesting that. The bigger problem was it was a bribe only to certain people, ie. useless faggots who got worthless degrees like grievance studies with no earning potential and financed all of it.

The problems for the Dems is that everyone in that category already voted D, it made everyone else not getting bribed angry, and wasn't feasible to do anyway. Similarly the idea really ticks off people that sacrificed to pay down their loans already. Plus when they did try to half-ass it they didn't try to fix the root cause of this (that being that student loans aren't dischargable in bankruptcy) which made them look stupid (-er).

This is also a bribe for votes but if implemented as just a flat check for everyone it's significantly less retarded politically. No one will be upset that someone else got more than they did. A huge windfall for socio-economic factors will continue to expand trump's inroads with them. Timed properly - say when DOGE is finished in 18 months AKA summer 2026 - it could literally show up a couple months or weeks before the midterms which is very savvy.

For the record I'm against both of these. I also think this article might be trying to set unreasonable $5000 in the public's mind to poison the idea because "20% of DOGE’s projected savings" over the entire population is nowhere near that. But given the choice I'd choose this over forgiving student debt by a mile.
 
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I'll take the bribe, thanks. It isn't like I have to worry about voting for him next time anyways. And if they want my vote next time...they can bribe me again and I'll think about it.

There is no cost-cutting taking place at all. And I'm sure it will be wondrous how on Earth we got to 40+ Trillion in 3 years with all this cost saving. But if they are going to spend big time, send some my way.

cheers.
 
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