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.
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.
My prediction: This is how America finally gets highspeed trains, but they’ll only be used to deport people faster.
Worked for Germany…
Nah, they’ll just burn them alive when they have enough control that no one can fight back. Unless they can work… then maybe they’ll allow them to work to death as a favor.
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.
“Responsible Spending” 🤣
You heard it wrong. You thought they said “here’s responsible spending” however they actually said “irresponsible spending”
Or as Nazi Germany had, the SA, who are later replaced by the SS
The Democrats are already drafting up a cutting, sternly worded letter.
What does this have to do with the Democrats? Or did you just want to shoehorn them in?
They funded ICE because of the scary brown people for the last 25 years.
They could filibuster the bill and shut down the government, which would be an objectively better outcome than allowing the gestapo to sweep through the nation. They won’t though.
It is not possible to filibusterer this. Republicans are specifically using techniques to avoid having to deal with the filibuster under Senate rules. The whole thing is DOA if they do.
They helped pass budget bills for Trump before.
They attack politicians who want to do something tangible about Fascism like Mamdani and Sanders, instead of fighting fascism.
I bet Susan Collins will be concerned about it (but still vote 100% for everything)
There’s still 50 million of us, $200 billion, what’s that? 40k brownshirts?
Just for comparison: NASA got $25 billion per year for the last 10 years or so. source
Spoiler alert: they’re going to enforce a lot more than immigration.
deleted by creator
Lies are truth
The Gestapo.
Oh… it’s already there
Fucking bingo.
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 think (and hope) that one key difference here is that the US is much more divided politically and culturally then Nazi Germany was. At least right now, there is no way the US declares a war of aggression against a former Ally and doesn’t fall into Civil War. It will take a hell of a lot of internal suppression for that to change, the act of which will likely ignite the Civil War itself.
My hope is that the next few years will be less “What if the Nazi’s controlled the most powerful nation in history?” and more “What if Francisco Franco controlled the most powerful nation is history?”
Europe and China likely have time to prepare, and they really fucking need to. If they’re smart they’re already covertly looking into ways to arm and fund internal opposition in America.
At least right now, there is no way the US declares a war of aggression against a former Ally and doesn’t fall into Civil War. It will take a hell of a lot of internal suppression for that to change
A $200 billion army explicitly created to suppress US citizens ought to fix that.
This take makes a lot of sense, fair enough.
I guess I’m just expecting the worse because of all the norms they’re breaking. Maybe not a war, but I would not be surprised if the CIA leans on us a little more heavily than they already have (allegedly, but let’s be honest, very likely).
the US is much more divided politically and culturally then Nazi Germany
Is it? Hitler couldn’t even win an election before his rise to power. He siezed power after being appointed to a position of power. Trump won the popular vote, if we can believe election results
I think Nazi Germany looked more unified than it was because we focus of the WW2 years, well after Hitler had consolidated power
I’ve seen MAGAs post gleeful memes at the idea of immigrants being eaten by alligators. It’s sick.
Yeah, that is SS funding money, complete with a Waffen SS branch.
Tax strike. Immediately.
All of which is going to be funneled directly into the pockets of Trump’s tech bro friends via contracts with data companies like Palantir.
Acquire weapons. Melt the ice.
That’s actually one of the better scenarios.
Currently; it looks like MAGA is building the world’s third largest military force that’s greenlit to operate on US soil kidnapping and disappearing ANYONE without given reason, no legal process, and 0 recourse.
You’ll be fucking lucky if that money just disappears into some billionaires pockets.
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.)
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.
an americans seemigly will bravely bend over and take it
A lot of us aren’t/won’t
if you are not planning or participating in a general strike or a full city take down… you are just in the “thoughts and prayers” useless wagon
Hate to burst your bubble…
Don’t draw attention to yourself.
That’s not the bubble.
…I mean… one guy tried, but he’s dead now. The rest of us are either bitching into the void, or actively loving all the evil shit coming from this administration.
So, my money’s on we’ll just continue to bend over and take it.
