This analysis came out earlier this month, and it’s the mother of all wake-up calls. Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” would appropriate $200 billion to ICE, which the Cato Institute has called an “unimaginable sum.” Some relevant quotes:
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the bill will direct an astounding $168 billion of the budget to immigration and border law enforcement, and there is even more for agencies that indirectly support immigration law enforcement.
The $168 billion is, by itself, an unimaginable sum. Without H.R. 1, Congress had already appropriated twice as much money to America’s border police as all other federal law enforcement combined. In FY 2025, immigration and border enforcement accounted for at least two-thirds of all federal law enforcement.
In FY 2025—again, before H.R. 1—Congress allocated nearly $34 billion to immigration and border enforcement agencies. That’s 36 times more than what is provided for tax and financial crimes enforcement (IRS-Treasury), 21 times more than funding for firearms enforcement (ATF), 13 times more than drug enforcement (DEA), and 8 times more than the FBI budget to enforce effectively everything else. The level of border police spending is already so extreme that it has swamped nearly all other criminal law enforcement priorities for the federal government.
The House plans to distort this wildly out-of-whack law enforcement system beyond recognition. H.R. 1 appropriates $168 billion to agencies whose primary purpose is immigration enforcement. It adds $1.2 billion to all other law enforcement for the Secret Service. This sum comes on top of the $33 billion, meaning that if this bill passes, about $200 billion will be made available for immigration enforcement starting in FY 2025.
$200 billion dollars is equivalent to 1/5th of our entire military budget ($960 billion). It’s more than Russia’s entire military spending in 2024 ($149 billion). To say that Trump would be creating a 7th branch of the military operating on US soil would be neither an overstatement nor a conspiracy theory.
For context, this article was published by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank originally founded by Charles Koch (among others). The fact that these guys are ringing the alarm bell should be a warning unto itself. You can read the full text of the bill (H.R. 1) here.
Imagine if we allocated that much money to housing people. Ha, right?
7th branch of the military operating on US soil
Seventh National Army
It’s just a pun. Nothing to worry about.
Well done America, you had a pretty decent country with some major issues (healthcare, cost of living) but you’ve all decided you need a bit more racism and hate in your lives. Congratulations on your incoming authoritarianism.
The issue some of us take with that is no, we did not all decide we needed more racism and hate. In fact, more and more evidence is being found that shows the entire thing was rigged, and the true majority decision was not acknowledged by the folks who had mostly been behind the scenes before.
America has been sliding further and futher away from being a democracy for decades, eroding rights and corporate lobbys have put business over people, he was elected TWICE even if there was voter rigging. The democratic party is dead and your political system is broken. The Heritage foundation has long been planning this and none of this was a secret. While YOU may note have voted for this, this is what the face of America is to us foreigners,
Sure ok but that’s pretty meaningless at this juncture.
Rigged machines aren’t going to save us
Trump said it was rigged when he won (Elon fixed the machines in Penn)
What violence against him have you seen from these presumed non-supporters?
For context, this article was published by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank originally founded by Charles Koch (among others). The fact that these guys are ringing the alarm bell should be a warning unto itself. You can read the full text of the bill (H.R. 1) here.
I don’t think it should be a warning into itself. They basically provide a libertarian view on everything which doesn’t seem to be augmented by real world politics. I’ve noticed they do that in many situations, some mostly unnoticed by most people in western countries, and some politically heated. That’s a very good commendation IMHO, that they are still doing what they were supposed to do.
About the thing itself - border police also seems to be one military structure in your country relatively less accountable than those 3-letter agencies wearing black and fighting aliens and loudly breathing in our phone calls.
And it’s possible that Trump wants to have it as his own terror force, like some Gypsy baron gone dictator.
Can’t have food for starving infants but we’ll spend a fifth a trillion on the masked, jeaned gestapo to kick the American gulag and genocide project into high gear.
For context, this article was published by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank originally founded by Charles Koch (among others). The fact that these guys are ringing the alarm bell should be a warning unto itself.
https://lp.org/platform-page/ section 3.4 outlines a loose border policy. The US Libertarians may have diverged from most global Libertarian thought, but while shy of open borders, borders aren’t something any Libertarian is fond of.
Well, ancap world is basically like a cyberpunk dystopia, except turned into an utopia by a few rules.
And since cyberpunk dystopia we already live in and it’s not optional, maybe ancap deserves a second chance, due to being better prepared for it? Ple-ease, ple-ease
Sorry.
(And technically one can also make a case for the spiral of humanity being again over the same place on the ground as in Marx times, thus marxism also surprisingly having become relevant.)
why would? i thought it was just passed?
It passed the house but not quite yet the Senate and it looks like it will have to go back to the house because the Senate has changed it.
“Responsible Spending” 🤣
You heard it wrong. You thought they said “here’s responsible spending” however they actually said “irresponsible spending”
https://www.stripes.com/branches/marine_corps/2025-06-26/marines-budget-2026-18253650.html
The [Marines] $57.2 billion budget request is part of the Navy’s $292.2 billion overall proposed spending plan for fiscal 2026, which begins Oct. 1. The budget request reflects a more than 6% increase from the 2025 request.
More then three times the budget of the Marines.
Well, those Florida swamp death camps won’t pay for themselves.
But nothing for healthcare, of course. That would be communism, or some such bullshit.
Cato probably agrees with that statement, but at least they have some actual principles about small government rather than small government for good things and big government for bad things.
In German, these people and groups are called “Steigbügelhalter”.
If your meaning is that Cato institute somehow laid the path for Trump to come to power, then I’d say that from the outside it looks like the liberal-centrist Democratic Party made much more of that, and also from the outside it looks like the consequences of all actions seem to be, in this case, just how they’d evaluate those, and also it wouldn’t seem clear why would you even claim it.
See, being against people\things you consider “good” is not supporting people\things you consider “bad” any more than you yourself are doing that.
It doesn’t only refer to those laying the path, but also to those that enable and make alliances with fascists because it’s the convenient thing to do or some of the goals align. E.g. our centrist or rather formally centrist party is sometimes referred as that because they shift the discussion to the right and enact anti-social policies that drive people to the extremist parties though they don’t coalise.
OK, then I’m not sure if it’s even possible to see a society most of politics in which weren’t “stirrup holders”.
This is what America chose. Enjoy it, idiots.
Imagine the USA being the new North Korea, Donald Jr. eventually following his father to the throne. Ostracized by the world. Global hacker scams and their own version of Juche. The parallels are astounding, esp. if you make a few simple deductions into the near future: distribution of wealth, collapsed economy while claiming it’s booming…
Tankies will get their dreams delivered though, to live in DPRK. I think they’ll actually appreciate it and with wise-wise faces talk how you don’t understand marxism and that it’s not worse than our current libtardism or whatever words they use.
Especially when these right wing libertarian morons get to enjoy what they supported.
They did?
Spoiler alert: they’re going to enforce a lot more than immigration.
Yeah, that is SS funding money, complete with a Waffen SS branch.
If ICE was a military, it would be the third most funded military in the world with this budget. Right behind US and China and about $50 billion more than Russia.
We are looking at concentration camps for real.
I feel like what the rest of the world doesn’t understand (I am from the "rest of the world), is that the USA is VASTLY more powerful than the Nazis ever were. Barely any country is sounding the alarm seriously. Just “oh we’re concerned about what’s happening”.
We are truly fucked.
And we’re under the US’ thumb (Australia).
At least we’re majority white… maybe that’ll keep us safe, temporarily.
I hate this timeline, so very much.
I’ve seen MAGAs post gleeful memes at the idea of immigrants being eaten by alligators. It’s sick.
The Gestapo.
Oh… it’s already there
Fucking bingo.
doubleplusungood; refs unpersons; rectify
Lies are truth
MAGA is building its own secret police SS force. What a surprise that absolutely no one could see coming /s.
I dunno, “secret” doesn’t seem to be exactly the word.
At least some people are beginning to realize what I (and you probably) have been saying for months, and we aren’t just crazy.
Try years…
In fascism, you don’t need disabled, Sick, old, or excessively poor people. No need for Medicare or Medicare when they can be shipped off to the concentration camps and disappeared. One big beautiful final solution.
And eventually, nobody will get sick or old anymore! Miraculously, they’ll just stop appearing entirely!
Because we’ll all be dead.
