The assertion was "When have taxes ever paid for more than a quarter of what the government spends?"

I answered that. ("approximately always", where the exceptions were during existential crisies such as, oh, WW2. but even then I imagine )

So you moved the goalpoasts with "Can you please look at that and tell me tax receipts are not any kind of limitation on spending?"

I also answered part of that ("state and local governments generally have to have balanced budgets as a matter of law"). the federal governement doesn't have that sort of direct restriction (beyond the "debt limit" political football that only seems to matter when Democrats are in charge), but the feds still have to pay back their own debts -- debts nearly entirely owed Americans, I might add. Levied taxes (which includes tariffs) is effectively the only way they can do that. Technially there are other ways, eg investment profits (including interest on loans given out) or direct gifts to the government, but those are a proverbial drop in the bucket.

As for your "print the money and index inflation away", that only works when they keep the actual inflation rate below the rate of return on treasury bonds. When we have competent, reality-based elected officials that work to better the nation as a whole, that tends to happen. Not so much at the moment.

So I once again repeat my point about not letting facts get in the way of your hyperbole.

Uh, most (if not all) of this country's entire existence?

For example, in FY2024 federal taxes paid for about 3/4ths of the government expenditures, and that is historically pretty high. State and local governments tend to generally break even ("balanced budget") as a matter of law.

But let's not facts get in the way of your hyperbole.

That would require giving said software engineers actual *power* to go with their now-crushing *responsibilities*

Including (and especially) the power to say *no* to management's fantastical (and usually self-contradictory) demands.

if 60% of surveyed folks say they are paid at market rate, and 6% above market, that's very different than 6% at, and 60% above. or even 33/33.

Talk about intentionally sloppy statistics. But that makes sense given that its source is a consultancy for _employers_ who will gladly slash salaries at any opportunity.

The alternative to "no up front costs, pay a percentage of revenue" is "pay [potentially a lot] up front, whether or not you make any revenue."

(At which point the poor widdle mom-and-pop developers like Epic with their mere $5 billion or so in annual revenue [1] will complain even more)

Talk about biting the hand that feeds them.

[1] _After_ platform commissions, mind you.

If you think the app maker will discount their prices by 30% because they're not forced to pay apple a cut, you're delusional.

The most likely outcome here will be that the price to the end-user will be exactly the same, only the app maker will make more profit.

(Note: I'm talking about stuff that's only accessed via apps, not subscriptions to services that can be used in a web browser on a PC or whatever. Incidently, for some time now, Apple takes a much smaller cut of recurring subscriptions)

I'm all for banning tracking... if it applies to *EVERYONE*.

But banning only Google from that... just ensures that someone else (and likely much worse!) will take Google's place.

Uh.,.. it's been the law that products show their country of origin for far longer than you or I have been alive. What exactly is an executive order supposed to accomplish beyond that?

Meanwhile, Amazon already shows the country of origin on every listing, under (oddly enough) "Country of Origin" under the "Product Information" section. (Of course, they are reliant upon their suppliers to provide this information.

They couldn't even make the sacrifice of wearing a mask or not getting a haircut in the middle of a pandemic.

Haven't they been bleating from the rooftops that The Feds Have No Business Interfering With Educatuon, Which Is Best Left To The [Red] States That Clearly Know Best(tm).

Yet here we go with Federal mandates for state+local education curricula.
.

Building web browsers (or even browser engines) has been a money-losing proposition for nearly thirty years. Once Microsoft started to bundle IE with Windows, that was effectively the end of independent browser makers being able to directly charge for the browser itself.

You can't "compete" with "free" unless you have a different way of making money on the back end. Google does. Apple does. Microsoft does. Mozilla does not.

(Microsoft is an interesting example; even with their near-total coroporate desktop monopoly, decided that mainiaining their own engine was too expensive. Now their browser is a Chrome reskin, except all datamining goes to MS instead of Google)

Uh, what marketplace is this exactly?

(hint: when the "price" of every option is capped at $0, you're the product, not the customer)

Um... you're complaining that Mozilla isn't attempting to diversify while simultaneously dumping upon their attempts to diversify.

Please, oh wise congressional panel, tell us which models on the market today _aren't_ at least partially made in China.