The New York City comptroller’s office, which first noticed the missing money, said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had unilaterally taken the funds from the city’s accounts.

To be clear: this isn’t the “we stopped paying promised grant money” but is literally the federal government yanking money out of an NYC bank account.

  • Placebonickname@lemmy.world
    251·
    14 hours ago

    I don’t want a tax cut. I wanna reimbursement because the truth is, we authorized our government to spend that money years ago. In some cases like USAID -we authorized the spending of that money decades ago.  if the United States government doesn’t want to spend that money anymore than there should’ve been legislature, but also they don’t get a free check to just spend it on whatever the fuck they want. They should have to pass new legislation before they spend any more taxpayer money on new projects. And since they haven’t passed any new legislation, they should give us our money back. 

    if we set the precedence that the government can change, budget funding strategy like this, it would allow the government to raise billions of dollars for one purpose , and then suddenly take that billion dollars, and spend it on something that it wasn’t originally meant for.

    Edit;; corrected word precedence. 

        • libertyforever@lemmy.world
          114·
          12 hours ago

          We have a huge deficit. A refund might make some sense if we end up with a surplus. We are nowhere near that.

          • Placebonickname@lemmy.world
            81·
            11 hours ago

            The fact that we have a deficit is immaterial to me. Just cause we have debts doesn’t mean the Gov can keep the money AND cut the programs. Rules on the books for new taxes are in place for a reason, if they aren’t going to use the tax money for its intended purpose, give it back…or pull the Senate and House together to authorize the new spending. BTW, they would have to tell us where that new spending is, and I don’t think Trump wants to do that, I think he wants to just keep the money like it’s his own, and loan it out in exchange for favors down the road.

          • CouncilOfFriends@lemmy.world
            21·
            4 hours ago

            Trump ran budget deficits every year he was president, added trillions to the national debt with a tax giveaway to the wealthiest humans in the history of our planet, and before he was president a second time was trying to make Republicans shut down the government if the debt ceiling wasn’t eliminated entirely. Don’t hold your breath waiting for those tax cuts to trickle down, or for any cuts to ‘defense’ which is nearly half of all discretionary spending. The GOP plan is to further increase defense spending by an additional $100 billion, and $1.5 trillion in spending cuts which is not even half of their proposed $4.5 trillion tax cut. They only care about spending cuts when they can dogwhistle and lie to their base about $50 billion going to USAID just for condoms, despite their entire budget for aid to prevent foreign instability amounting to like, 3% or discretionary spending, because they have a very low estimation of their voters’ math abilities.

            • libertyforever@lemmy.world
              15·
              7 hours ago

              The Democrats pretty much never reverse Republican tax cuts, because they actually like these tax cuts. They know trickle down economics works even though they can’t say it out loud.

              • CouncilOfFriends@lemmy.world
                4·
                4 hours ago

                So you agree tax cuts for the rich are bad, or do you actually believe the wealth inequality and political bribery this enables is a net good? It’s clear the trickle-down bullshit doesn’t work as evidenced by stagnant wage growth.

                I would recommend supporting progressive candidates instead of simping for the people who enacted the laws which have destroyed our middle class. Pointing out corporate Democrats exist and vote with Republicans to protect their shared donors is valid, as long as you can recognize that Republicans cry about the deficit whenever they are not in power, and when in power spend like drunken sailors, increase military spending, and continue to use the deficit they grew as a cudgel to dismantle only the parts of the administrative state they disagree with. I’m not that stupid, and I doubt you are either.