New Senate Tax Plan

[red321]

3 minutes ago, Adam said:

Sure. There are what, 10 million or so republicans in this State, who were happy Trump was elected and looking forward to aspects of his agenda. The State government sought/seeks to disrupt that agenda, hurting the opposition party. 

strawman....There's a distinct difference between doing something somebody may not like vs. doing something to specifically to punish or negatively impact

[red321]

17 minutes ago, Thomas said:

The "no choice" rationale given by Democrats is about as transparent as glass. It sounds suspiciously like an addict explaining their choices.  Corporate ties as much as anything doomed Hillary's 2016 chances. It's utterly baffling that a political party in the current environment can't at the very least make a compelling case for why they are the better choice for the non-elite classes in this country. Yes the Republicans are playing dirty as far as skewing voter influence. However compared to the opportunities that would seemingly be there to form an overwhelming coalition of voters, these tricks seem trivial.

I tend to agree...Democrats should be able to craft a message on what they stand for, not just who they are against.

I'm not sure I agree some of these voter suppression "tricks" are trivial, studies have shown potential tens of thousands of lower income/traditionally Democratic voters lost access to the ballot or had voting made more difficult, though in the case of union funding I think some of this comes down to they need to better state their case on why they are still viable.

[Thomas]

1 minute ago, Mark68 said:

What is happening is something that I foresaw with the stupid Citizens United Supreme Court ruling. How money ever got equated with speech by a so-called "strict constructionist" like Scalia, I'll never be able to reconcile. But what this ruling did is make sure the playing field would be perpetually uneven. Money has always bought power, but there was always somewhat of a check on that. Now that unlimited campaign donations can be made by anybody, he who has the most gold can buy the most votes.

Who has the most gold? Corporations. Until campaign financing laws get a major overhaul, this is the new normal for both parties. Yeah, Bernie got an average of $27/donation. Where did it get him?

The Citizens United case wasn't that simple. If it was the ACLU wouldn't have supported the ruling. If the ruling had gone the other way the right would be able to do even worse things based on that decision. But yes a constitutional amendment specific to campaign contributions wouldn't be a bad thing.

[Mark68]

Just now, Geoff said:

So people with more money get more than one vote at the ballot box now?

 

 

No. They do get heard a lot more than John Q Voter. So if, say, GE wants something done and has the wherewithal (campaign donation $$) to get it done, it will get done.

If John Q Voter wants something done, he doesn't have the scratch to get it done.

The vast majority of this tax bill was written on K Street. That is the heart of the rot in our system.

[Thomas]

1 minute ago, red321 said:

I tend to agree...Democrats should be able to craft a message on what they stand for, not just who they are against.

I'm not sure I agree some of these voter suppression "tricks" are trivial, studies have shown potential tens of thousands of lower income/traditionally Democratic voters lost access to the ballot or had voting made more difficult, though in the case of union funding I think some of this comes down to they need to better state their case on why they are still viable.

They are trivial compared to the subset of the population that the Republicans aren't working for.

[Adam]

7 minutes ago, red321 said:

strawman....There's a distinct difference between doing something somebody may not like vs. doing something to specifically to punish or negatively impact

I hear you I just think motives are overrated. The democratic process is laughable. We have two primary cultures/worldviews in this country and they cannot coexist for much longer. 50 years ago there was a far greater respect for American institutions and the divide between right and left was pretty minimal. Now there are 2-3 different Rights and 10-100 different lefts and they all hate each other. Even the laughingstock that is the Libertarian community is divided a dozen ways. 

[Spirit]

1 hour ago, Mark68 said:

No. They do get heard a lot more than John Q Voter.

 

They get heard more.  Ok, I'd agree with that. 

You know, getting heard sounds a lot like the result of speech.  I guess money is speech.

 

 

Edited December 5, 2017 by Geoff

[Adam]

Actually, the Tax Bill is a pretty natural response to #resist

[Mark68]

3 minutes ago, Geoff said:

 

They get heard more.  Ok, I'd agree with that. 

You know, getting heard sounds a lot like the result of speech.  I guess it's money is speech.

 

 

By "heard more", I mean "heard".

Politicians no longer have to give two fucks about John Q Voter.

That makes this an oligarchy. At least the field was more level when there was a cap on donations.

[Spirit]

I hear you.  They are heard more because they have more money to plug into getting their speech out. 

 

[RallyMo]

1 hour ago, Catwhoshatinthehat said:

The state has also thumbed it's nose at the feds over the issue of sanctuary cities and other matters saying they'll fight yet they aren't too proud to ask for fed funds for some of their long overdue infrastructure repairs, when the dam up north was about to give and the list goes on.     

 

1 hour ago, fan_since79 said:

The feds are stepping in right now to help with the fires. I wonder if Brown will express any gratitude for that.

 

Yeah, who do they think they are, Texas?

[Tank]

8 hours ago, fan_since79 said:

The feds are stepping in right now to help with the fires. I wonder if Brown will express any gratitude for that.

 

Hopefully he'll tweet about it.

[floplag]

19 hours ago, Mark68 said:

What is happening is something that I foresaw with the stupid Citizens United Supreme Court ruling. How money ever got equated with speech by a so-called "strict constructionist" like Scalia, I'll never be able to reconcile. But what this ruling did is make sure the playing field would be perpetually uneven. Money has always bought power, but there was always somewhat of a check on that. Now that unlimited campaign donations can be made by anybody, he who has the most gold can buy the most votes.

Who has the most gold? Corporations. Until campaign financing laws get a major overhaul, this is the new normal for both parties. Yeah, Bernie got an average of $27/donation. Where did it get him?

While probably true it isnt a good example.  Bernie never had a shot at the nomination regardless of how much he got.  It was a done deal 8 years prior when Hillary stepped aside for Obama, thats as obvious as anything in recent years.  He was literally dead before it ever began.  The DNC made sure of that.

[nate]

On 12/3/2017 at 9:17 AM, fan_since79 said:

You know, when Obama raised the debt by $10 trillion nobody on the Democrat side said a word about it, but now that there's a projection of a $1 trillion increase in the deficit over the next ten years, it's like the end of the world is here.

 

So you are saying that other than this tax plan, the government is going to pass a balanced budget?  Otherwise this tax plan will add 1 trillion in ADDITION to what is added by repeated budget deficits over the next ten years.  

 

Btw your bae Trump has already spent almost 100m on golf trips this year.  

[nate]

On 12/1/2017 at 11:32 AM, Thomas said:

No, his companies have gone bankrupt. Which as Mitt Romney can assure can be a very profitable venture.

In this scenario then our country is one of his companies.  

 

If the US goes bankrupt then there is no coming back from it.

btw I’m sure trump doesn’t give a shit, he is making millions from our government right now.  If we go bankrupt he can cash out and go live on one of his foreign Trump towers

[Thomas]

18 minutes ago, nate said:

In this scenario then our country is one of his companies.  

 

If the US goes bankrupt then there is no coming back from it.

btw I’m sure trump doesn’t give a shit, he is making millions from our government right now.  If we go bankrupt he can cash out and go live on one of his foreign Trump towers

Yeah that's pretty much the entire downside of things. Well granted if Trump Tower goes bankrupt it won't likely get nuked. But you get the general idea.

[nate]

True, good thing we are finding new ways to add to it.

If you are going to go down it may as well be in a blaze of... well not glory, more like orange stained shit.

[Catwhoshatinthehat]

Unsurprisingly they already came to an agreement before they break for the holidays.  So far I'm reading that they met in the middle on mortgage interest deduction so 750K and when it comes to SALT they split it and are allowing you to deduct up to $10,000 in state and local property taxes or the same amount of income and sales taxes.  Both of those help us out and if we buy a more expensive place being able to write off the state income taxes which is more than property taxes will work in our favor.  

[nate]

Here is a small business accountant explaining that the new tax bill creates even more loopholes for large businesses and fucks over small businesses.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/14/opinions/gop-tax-plan-territorial-small-business-zimmerman-opinion/index.html

[Jason]

The thing that sucks most about any tax plan is that everyone doesn’t get to keep more of their money. If they did that would be ideal. 

[Catwhoshatinthehat]

The thing that sucks about any tax plan is the fact that they're always geared towards bringing in more revenue whether it's due to tax hikes or the failed trickle down theory.  The reality is politicians need to address deficit spending, SS/Medicare/defense and the national debt.  Even if the government seized the assets of the top 1% or taxed the hell out of the wealthiest people in this country that's not going to fix what 4+ decades of deficit spending have saddled future generations with.  Sooner or later they'll have no choice but to make draconian cuts and it's laughable that we're going broke paying ourselves.  

[nate]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

The thing that sucks most about any tax plan is that everyone doesn’t get to keep more of their money. If they did that would be ideal. 

Plus adding an extra $1 trillion+ to the deficit.

Also that it doesn't close any existing loopholes and instead adds new ones so it probably adds way more than that in the long run.

[mtangelsfan]

It won't hurt me personally but I still don't like it.  I still believe that the corporate tax rate could be taken down to 28% and the rest of the break given to the middle class and below.

You want to get the economy going better, then put more money in the pockets of the folks who spend it the most.  This seems so simple yet really never happens.

 

[nate]

11 minutes ago, mtangelsfan said:

It won't hurt me personally but I still don't like it.  I still believe that the corporate tax rate could be taken down to 28% and the rest of the break given to the middle class and below.

You want to get the economy going better, then put more money in the pockets of the folks who spend it the most.  This seems so simple yet really never happens.

 

28% is still high compared to other countries.

The thing is most countries have a 20-25% corporate tax rate, but the individual rates for the top 1% are much higher, that is where this bill double dips and hits the deficit by lowering the top tax brackets a ton.

I actually think lowering to 20% is good, it should help keep the US competitive for all industry and also combat against the higher wage costs here.  Just wish they would close loopholes and not lower the top tax bracket so much.

Edited December 15, 2017 by nate

[wopphil]

On 12/13/2017 at 12:22 PM, Catwhoshatinthehat said:

Unsurprisingly they already came to an agreement before they break for the holidays.  So far I'm reading that they met in the middle on mortgage interest deduction so 750K and when it comes to SALT they split it and are allowing you to deduct up to $10,000 in state and local property taxes or the same amount of income and sales taxes.  Both of those help us out and if we buy a more expensive place being able to write off the state income taxes which is more than property taxes will work in our favor.  

These changes help make the bill more palatable, and Little Marco's insistence on the increased child tax credit should make the overall effect of the bill beneficial to me. I am no longer opposed.