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I'm not a Republican, but I'll bite.
The U.S. is kinda in a bad spot right now. Not just politically but economically as well. Our National Debt is the highest it's ever been. While I'm 100% for taxing Billionaires and their Trillion dollars companies more, by like, a lot, the Billionaires of course don't want that. So they're trying to cut what they can and wheel and deal. Why support Climate Change (French EU thing, I don't remember) acts when you can [pocket the money] use that to pay down debt? The War in Ukraine has unfortunately been drawn out too long for us to stay financially invested in it. Our allies across the sea won't be able to help our country balance our debt when they have Ukraine to worry about as well. So they've decided to put pressure on every external source of revenue while cutting what they can without getting lynched.
Let's talk about Canada and Mexico, but first, a bit of H I S T O R Y. Back in the 90s or 00s the Clinton Administration implemented NAFTA. The agreement sounded good on paper: Strength our border countries. Lifts us all up by giving all the countries jobs, more opportunity, more demand. While outsourcing our manual labor we can focus on the future: Technology! Hindsight is 20/20 though. Why not move our business to a country where we pay lower wages and will end up with higher profits for future investments (like yachts)? Why not get cheaper parts instead of paying the U.S. prices? A ton of manual labor jobs were lost, and many cities (car manufacturing cities, steel cities, etc.) simply never recovered. NAFTA stayed in place more or less until Trump Trumped it into the USMCA in 2020. That gets renegotiated in 2026 with all 3 countries either coming to an agreement or dissolving the agreement.
From all accounts, NAFTA certainly seemed harmful to the American industry at the time, but can that industry recover, and should it? Personally, I don't think so, but they seem to think so. So, from my point of view, the reason they're alienating allies is to extort them for money to help pay down the National Debt and hopefully grow back American industries lost over 2 decades ago.
The ''aid'' we send to Ukraine is the US goverment using US money to buy US products and have the military drop them off. Those millions we send to Ukraine is money we have and keep in our economy, why conservatives are so fucking stupid they can't figure this out is infuriating. Yes. Saw off you legs to lose weight. You'll lose SO much.
It's a bit more complicated than that. We're not just sending missiles, some of it is logistical, funding, training - some of it doesn't just come back into our economy, and not in full. For example, there is a fund in the billions for Ukraine and allies to buy weapons from us on a need by basis - but like not immediately. It has been years, it could be years.
More importantly though a good portion of these funds were out of bounds of the National Budget causing National Debt to grow. Now, I'm not saying Ukraine is the sole reason the National Debt is out of control, it's been a long time coming, but we're peaking. We print more money, the value of the dollar drops, things get more expensive not just national but worldwide since the dollar is an international currency reserve.
This faux concern about the debt is so fucking disingenuous, and I wish people would stop claiming it because you're embarrassing yourselves.
Republicans are ALWAYS worse for the debt.
The National Debt has been on a steady growth since Obama, through Trump, through Biden. Like, it's an issue that spans multiple presidencies and parties. The U.S. dollars is a global reserve note. So, not only do we need to account for paying it down in our National Budget, but we also can't just print more money at the problem either. I fully support Ukraine. Russia should not have invaded them, and either we or the EU should have had a stronger opposition than just throwing money at the problem. If we want to continue to support Ukraine, if we want to pay down our National Debt, if we want to continue supporting our Nations social services we need to fucking tax Billionaires and their Trillion dollar companies. Like, corporations buying politicians is a problem.
That National Debt isn't some invisible barrier, it affects our every day lives, our future, what programs we can support, and the global economy. I don't know, unless you can explain to me me why the National Debt doesn't matter, and how we can continue to support Ukraine. I'm here for a discussion.
It has always and will always grow. GOP are also the party that when they hold a majority spend like fucking mad, Bush paying for Iraq, Trump's crippling tax cuts that explicitly shifted tax burden onto the poor and middleclass. They do not care, they only pretend to care and use that as an excuse for more spending, or tax cuts for the owner class. They never fucking care when they have the ball.