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US Politics: flaking out and coming uncorked


DanteGabriel

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1 hour ago, TheKitttenGuard said:

What does that matter? He decided to just end things before. 

Will like some expert on the agreement to be interview for I think there still be some "National Security" clause in the agreement though multiple agencies needed to sign off. I know the speculation on my part of this. However will think something this important will have some back out clause.

I thought this had to do with signing off a sale of a company. You can't cancel that once the sale has been completed. It's not like this was a trade agreement.

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39 minutes ago, S John said:

How could this be construed as anything but a slap in the face aimed directly at the middle class?  Pretty much nobody gets a pension anymore and people rely on their 401k to set themselves up for retirement.  In the meantime conservatives will work toward slashing public benefits for the elderly and anyone without a personal fortune will be screwed in old age, or work til they drop dead.  Maybe that's what they want.  

There's no way it can be construed as anything else. Zabzie would be able to give a more comprehensive rundown on the tax implications on both the employer and employee side, but employers are able to deduct from their federal taxes any matching contributions to employees up to a certain percentage of the total match distributed to all employees. Employers losing out on the deduction means fewer employers offering 401k matches, which is literally taking money out of the pockets of the middle class. 

For the sake of perspective, a $2,400 cap is equivalent to a 6% withholding on a $40k/year salary.

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1 minute ago, The Great Unwashed said:

There's no way it can be construed as anything else. Zabzie would be able to give a more comprehensive rundown on the tax implications on both the employer and employee side, but employers are able to deduct any matching contributions to employees up to a certain percentage of the total match distributed to all employees from their federal taxes. Employers losing out on the deduction means fewer employers offering 401k matches, which is literally taking money out of the pockets of the middle class. 

For the sake of perspective, a $2,400 cap is equivalent to a 6% withholding on a $40k/year salary.

Eh - I try not to touch the benefits stuff :)  But seriously, yes, this is intended to be a revenue offset to appease hard line deficit hawks who will want to be able to perceive this as more "neutral" (with or without the magic glass of dynamic scoring) so that corporate tax reform can occur, and, perhaps nearer and dearer to their hearts, top earners in Texas and Florida can have a tax cut.  Note that as people are currently interpreting the administration's aspirational bullet points, if the state and local tax deduction does disappear, high earners in California and New York will have a tax increase.  

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3 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Senate Kills Rule That Made It Easier To Sue Banks

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/24/politics/senate-cfpb-arbitration-repeal/index.html

 

/Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

And you know the Bill is good when Used Car Dealers like it.

https://jalopnik.com/auto-dealers-are-pretty-happy-the-senate-just-voted-to-1819846934

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26 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Eh - I try not to touch the benefits stuff :)  But seriously, yes, this is intended to be a revenue offset to appease hard line deficit hawks who will want to be able to perceive this as more "neutral" (with or without the magic glass of dynamic scoring) so that corporate tax reform can occur, and, perhaps nearer and dearer to their hearts, top earners in Texas and Florida can have a tax cut.  Note that as people are currently interpreting the administration's aspirational bullet points, if the state and local tax deduction does disappear, high earners in California and New York will have a tax increase.  

Yeah, I know that deductions for qualified defined benefit plans especially can get rather wonky.

Leaving aside policy considerations however, this proposal seems extremely boneheaded from a political viewpoint as I can't imagine how they'd sell it as anything but an attack on retirement savings, which is a point of concern for many middle class families.

The SALT deduction repeal doesn't seem like great politics, but I imagine that they can dangle the proposed AMT repeal as an offset for high earners being hit by the SALT repeal in order to keep the backing of blue state Republican donors and Congress critters, but I cannot fathom how they will try and sell the 401k cap.

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1 hour ago, S John said:

How could this be construed as anything but a slap in the face aimed directly at the middle class?  Pretty much nobody gets a pension anymore and people rely on their 401k to set themselves up for retirement.  In the meantime conservatives will work toward slashing public benefits for the elderly and anyone without a personal fortune will be screwed in old age, or work til they drop dead.  Maybe that's what they want.  

Yeah, we're all serfs who need to learn our place, and to be grateful to our wealthy/corporate overlords for what they allow us to have.

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I haven't really considered this aspect of the tax plan proposal before, but it seems like the crunching of tax brackets from 7 to 3 (or 4), also has the potential to hit retirees receiving distributions from their retirement plans. IIRC, in a traditional (non-Roth) retirement portfolio, your distributions after retirement tend to be taxed at a higher rate than your contributions would have been had you paid tax on them at the time you contributed since your income after retirement (and thus your effective tax rate) is typically higher than your income was when you started contributing to your plan 4 decades ago. It depends on the new standard deduction and how the new tax brackets will be implemented, but this could potentially affect middle-class retirees as well.

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17 hours ago, mormont said:

Let's be clear. Nobody who self-identifies as 'alt-right' is being 'lumped in with Nazis'. They are Nazis.

We're not talking here about Trump supporters. We're not talking about Republicans. We're talking about people who take for themselves the label that was specifically invented as a fig leaf for 'Nazi'. The Nazis absolutely already use the 'alt-right =/= Nazis' shit as propaganda to discredit the media. Acceding to it is not going to help. By the time the Breitbart-curious are labeling themselves as 'alt-right' it's too late to hope that soft words will win them back. This is not about attacking them. It's about telling the truth. 

Well to be clear, I was using the broadest definition possible, which includes people who'd say something like, "I don't know everything the alt-right stands for, but I know they support Trump too so they're good with me." I thought I made that clear, but apparently not. I absolutely agree that those who are thoroughly versed in what the alt-right is and self identify as such are either Nazis or something akin to Nazis. My point was that there are also a lot of people who really don't get it though and it's not productive to immediately label them as such because you might create a self fulling prophecy. 

Also, keep in mind that while you aren't lumping Trump supporters and Republicans in with the alt-right, a lot of people are (not so much here though). And they're using that as an excuse to call them all fascists and Nazis. 

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14 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I didn't know about this: the parable of "mouseland" by Thomas Douglas in 1944.
Don't really know who Douglas was (sorry), but it's a cool story, and for some reason I think it belongs right here*:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8EhbOLiv0Q
 

*and possibly in another thread or two. ;)

 

Umm... Tommy Douglas was voted the greatest of Canadians not that long ago.  By Canadians anyway. He was responsible for bringing medicare to Sakatchewan and then the rest of Canada. Everyone in Canada owes him a huge debt. 

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42 minutes ago, Paladin of Ice said:

Yeah, we're all serfs who need to learn our place, and to be grateful to our wealthy/corporate overlords for what they allow us to have.

And you know damn well that the conservative politicians of the future, when there's an uptick in the need for social services for the elderly, will be fighting tooth and nail against it on the basis of a lack of personal accountability while having neutered one of the best mechanisms to prevent that that necessity in the first place.  

I don't understand how any congress, let alone a conservative one, would think it is a good idea to break a program that allows regular people the freedom and personal responsibility to plan for their own retirement using the market.  And it's not like you don't get taxed on the back-end when you withdraw, or that that money won't ultimately be spent on taxable goods anyway.  It's painfully obvious that the only purpose of this is to use the additional taxes from 401k contributions to pay for other cuts that they want to make.  I don't know how this doesn't blow up in their faces, conservatives rely on 401k too.

My concern is that if this makes it into the final bill Trump will sign it, regardless of his recent tweets saying the 401k rules will not be changing.    

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13 minutes ago, S John said:

And you know damn well that the conservative politicians of the future, when there's an uptick in the need for social services for the elderly, will be fighting tooth and nail against it on the basis of a lack of personal accountability while having neutered one of the best mechanisms to prevent that that necessity in the first place.  

I don't understand how any congress, let alone a conservative one, would think it is a good idea to break a program that allows regular people the freedom and personal responsibility to plan for their own retirement using the market.  And it's not like you don't get taxed on the back-end when you withdraw, or that that money won't ultimately be spent on taxable goods anyway.  It's painfully obvious that the only purpose of this is to use the additional taxes from 401k contributions to pay for other cuts that they want to make.  I don't know how this doesn't blow up in their faces, conservatives rely on 401k too.

My concern is that if this makes it into the final bill Trump will sign it, regardless of his recent tweets saying the 401k rules will not be changing.    

At this point I'm completely convinced that anything that'll blow up in the GOP's faces is for the better, even if it'll harm people in the short run. Callous, yes, but I'm sick of counting small blessings in the shape of 24 hours going by without Trump causing major damage to someone somewhere. That's going to be standard fare for the next many years if Democrats don't win elections, and winning elections may require that Trump/the GOP go too far in screwing up regular people's lives.

 

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1 hour ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I haven't really considered this aspect of the tax plan proposal before, but it seems like the crunching of tax brackets from 7 to 3 (or 4), also has the potential to hit retirees receiving distributions from their retirement plans. IIRC, in a traditional (non-Roth) retirement portfolio, your distributions after retirement tend to be taxed at a higher rate than your contributions would have been had you paid tax on them at the time you contributed since your income after retirement (and thus your effective tax rate) is typically higher than your income was when you started contributing to your plan 4 decades ago. It depends on the new standard deduction and how the new tax brackets will be implemented, but this could potentially affect middle-class retirees as well.

I have always been told just the opposite -- that people's income after retirement is usually LOWER than it was while they were working, so deferring the tax until after they retire means they are paying at a lower rate than they otherwise would have. 

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11 minutes ago, denstorebog said:

At this point I'm completely convinced that anything that'll blow up in the GOP's faces is for the better, even if it'll harm people in the short run. Callous, yes, but I'm sick of counting small blessings in the shape of 24 hours going by without Trump causing major damage to someone somewhere. That's going to be standard fare for the next many years if Democrats don't win elections, and winning elections may require that Trump/the GOP go too far in screwing up regular people's lives.

 

I just can't underestimate the effect of tribalism in current US politics.  We are currently standing at a place before they've let the spin machine get hold of the issue and convince the rank and file how reducing the cap on their tax-free 401k contributions is actually a good idea providing more Individual FreedomTM.  I guess I'm saying I can see a path to all of us getting fucked on this one and it still not making much of a difference.  

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5 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I have always been told just the opposite -- that people's income after retirement is usually LOWER than it was while they were working, so deferring the tax until after they retire means they are paying at a lower rate than they otherwise would have. 

I'm going to have to remember where I read the article on this, and I certainly could be misremembering, but it was a comparison of the advantages of a Roth plan as compared to a traditional plan. I concede your point if you're comparing retirement income to the income of the years immediately preceeding retirement, but if I'm remembering correctly, the comparison was of retirement income to your average income over the course of your entire career.

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1 hour ago, S John said:

My concern is that if this makes it into the final bill Trump will sign it, regardless of his recent tweets saying the 401k rules will not be changing.    

He's already changed his tune.

Quote
President Trump said Wednesday changes to retirement savings accounts could still be included in the Republican tax plan, backing away from his previous insistence they not be touched. 
 
“Maybe it is and maybe we’ll use it as negotiating,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

The tune might change again tomorrow, surely there is some cruel way to make things worse.

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23 hours ago, IamMe90 said:

I like how instead of, say, repudiating the morality of "peaceful ethnic cleansing," or perhaps asserting that you do not wish for peaceful ethnic cleansing, you chose to point out that it simply isn't possible to ethnically cleanse the US peacefully. Hmmm. Lol.

6 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I love that your objection to peaceful ethnic cleansing is that it's not pragmatic enough, not that it's wrong.

I was assuming that I'm among people for whom the idea of ethnic cleansing in the US is as unthinkable as it is for me and thus it is unnecessary to state the obvious so I went for a more subtle point. Clearly, this assumption was unwarranted...

6 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Come on - you didn't use words like this?

Not exactly. Regarding the first quote, it's definitely not my lived experience, but at least half the country is tired of being lectured by the upper class and their higher-tier servants. Regarding the second one, I don't agree with the focus on China -- he's not entirely wrong, but this is merely a symptom of larger problems. Regarding the third quote, I disagree because the drawback of tearing everything down is that what rises after such a cataclysm is usually even worse... but it's not a bad thing to have him say it because the only way there will be meaningful change is if the establishment is afraid that the alternative is even worse.

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7 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

And McCain and Flake voted with their party, in case people were starting to feel warm and fuzzy about a pair of shitheels who decided to do the bare minimum human thing, at long last, and notice what a fucking monster they supported for President.

You know what? I'm willing to separate these two things here and give Corker and Flake some credit regardless. I don't expect them to not support the GOP party line bullshit. That doesn't diminish their speaking out in the manner that they have. It's really two different things. I think we should be lauding these guys for calling the President out on his bullshit in a manner that the rest of their party is not. 

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