US politics: Alabama Jones and the Temple of Moore

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Johnson is a no.  So that's interesting.

[Fez]

3 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Johnson is a no.  So that's interesting.

Well, he is a former accountant. Josh Barro was saying almost a month ago that he thought Johnson would end up being a problem for Republicans http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-tax-plan-problem-small-business-2017-10

 

[Morpheus]

Trump just blew himself on live TV. He gave one of the most self-aggrandizing speeches I have ever seen, trumpeting how great his first year has been and how amazing his Asia trip was, he even referred to himself in the third person. It was all about Trump, Trump, Trump and how Great he is for America. No mention of Roy Moore.

[Trebla]

16 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

So this is where Greg Marmalard ended up after he got out of prison.

At least Neidermeyer is still dead.

And on the lighter side of the news, 'member when Trump made fun of Little Marco for needing water during a speech? 

Why do I ask you say? Well...

[lokisnow]

1 hour ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Yes - Democrats seem to believe that a magical pixie fairy will fill in the gaps once they tax the rich enough because taxation of the rich alone is enough to cause enough growth to fill in the gap.  So.much.magical.thinking.  And look, I'm not as bought in on the welfare state as you are.  I think that large parts of it as currently constructed are inefficient, counter-productive and create perverse incentives. That doesn't mean I think there should be NO welfare state, but I'm skeptical of it in its current form.

That's interesting.  So who else gets to be a no vote and are there too many?

I think democrats need to openly advocate for a more robust social security, medicare and medicaid system and they should be upfront that these are "YOUR" (the electorate's) retirement and health insurance, not Trumps, to a certain extent, you're going to have pay for your retirement.

That would entail first of all not eliminating the cap on social security (which would be needlessly painful for the upper middle class) but getting the cap on social security up to an actuarily sound level.  The CBO said last year (I think) that the cap should be at 180,000, not the current 120,000. 

Now taxing another 60,000 at 6.2% (or 12.4% if you're self employed) works out to $3800 in additional taxes (or $7600), which is about an additional $75 / week withheld from your check if you make 180,000 or more (or 150).

Now even if you are so lucky to make 180,000, an extra 75 (150) is quite a lot of additional taxes. this is a heavy policy lift.

But the cap on social security goes up at the rate of inflation.

But what if the language were: the cap on social security goes up at the rate of inflation or 5%, whichever is greater?

with a 5% annual increase on the cap we reach 185,000 by year nine. 

that works out to $750 more in taxes a year instead of $150 a year, or a tax raise of $600 a year (every year for nine years).

So for the weekly cost of an upper middle class venti latte, we can get social security to an actuarily sound cap, without soaking the wealthy and harming the upper middle class with a major hit.

but this also makes sense because this makes social security more robust for upper middle class folks which will increase the political security of social security.  Additionally these upper middle class folks live the longest and thus draw down social security for a longer period, which is why the cap needs to be higher than its current level. 

***

unrelated, but the extremism of the republican tax bill has convinced me that capital needs an additional redistribution on it, which is why I also think an Obamacare esque tax on capital gains that funds social security is now a political MUST for democrats. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

Oh come on. There is no "polling" in these journalists' impressions at all. What they are doing is not a "poll" in any scientific sense and the methodology and sample size are not just "imperfect", they are absolutely laughable. Even if doing a real poll by interview was most accurate (which I am not sure is correct), this is not any sort of interview poll because there is no "sampling" here at all. 

You’re correct, I was being a bit glib there to suggest that it was similar to actual polling. I still find the narrative that I’m hearing to be troubling though. It feels oddly similar to how the Access Hollywood tape release played out.

[Guest]

Alabama GOP steering committee meeting now to decide Moore's fate. I imagine they will keep Moore on, hope he wins and is then booted by the Senate so Ivey can name a replacement.

[Guest]

Another allegation of sexual assault by Moore.

According to Johnson, he asked questions about her young daughters, including what color eyes they had and if they were as pretty as she was. She said that made her feel uncomfortable, too.

Once the papers were signed, she and her mother got up to leave. After her mother walked through the door first, she said, Moore came up behind her.

It was at that point, she recalled, he grabbed her buttocks.

"He didn't pinch it; he grabbed it," said Johnson. She was so surprised she didn't say anything. She didn't tell her mother.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

While I'm certainly no fan of cutting the taxes for the rich, long term all this stuff simply can't be payed for by just taxing the wealthy, I don't think. If you like your Social Security, and Medicare, and Universal Health coverage, chances are its going to require a bit more from most us. Now it's true that a lot of the future tax burden could be relieved if we are ever able to fix our god awful over priced healthcare system, and I'd hope we would continue to reform it, but simply taxing the rich isn't going to work. And some of the burden could be relieved if we get better wage growth, which we should pursue. Generally speaking, people in this country like Social Secrurity and Medicare. But, isn't going to come from the tooth fairy.

 

3 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Yes - Democrats seem to believe that a magical pixie fairy will fill in the gaps once they tax the rich enough because taxation of the rich alone is enough to cause enough growth to fill in the gap.  So.much.magical.thinking.  

Yep, except I don't think we should be cutting taxes on the wealthiest among us right now. The hard truth is we have to find a way to reduce spending in a reasonable way while also asking everyone above a certain level to chip in a little more, within reason. We probably need to revisit Simpson-Bowles and find a way to make that framework a little more generous. 

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

 

Yep, except I don't think we should be cutting taxes on the wealthiest among us right now. The hard truth is we have to find a way to reduce spending in a reasonable way while also asking everyone above a certain level to chip in a little more, within reason. We probably need to revisit Simpson-Bowles and find a way to make that framework a little more generous. 

Of course not. I’m not suggesting that we should, particularly at this time when there are legitimate concerns about growing wealth inequality. In fact, we might thinking about raising taxes  on the wealthy, not just because of only revenue concerns but because higher taxes might to a certain extent combat rent seeking behavior.

But anyway, the Democratic Party needs to think about how its going to fund stuff in the future. And it cant just simply say were going to do this and then do the old Paul Ryan asterisk which says “details to be fleshed out in the future.” Now I don’t think finding extra revenue has to be particularly painful. I mean fixing our damn health care would solve a lot of problems. And social security isn’t in as bad shape as many conservatives would claim and there are some policy options, like allowing the Social Security Trust Fund to buy some Equities (and yes I’m aware of Chile and don’t want to do the Chile thingy) that might be explored.

There is some time to get this resolved. But, the Democratic Plan, in my opinion, needs to tell us what he game plan is and the numbers need to work.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Alabama GOP steering committee meeting now to decide Moore's fate. I imagine they will keep Moore on, hope he wins and is then booted by the Senate so Ivey can name a replacement.

Just to reiterate, if they pull his nomination then this will be the most likely result:

Quote

Under state law, it is too late to remove Moore’s name from the ballot or replace him with another candidate. If his nomination is withdrawn but he still gets the most votes in the Dec. 12 election against Democratic nominee Doug Jones, it’s unclear what happens. Some interpret the law as saying the election would be null and void and the governor would need to call a new one, while others say the second-place finisher would be declared the winner, whether that’s Jones or a write-in. Lawsuits would be likely…

https://hotair.com/archives/2017/11/14/report-alabama-gop-steering-committee-meet-decide-moores-fate/

Someone mentioned the other day that you can run once per year for office in Alabama. I went through the state's election laws and couldn't find that provision, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. My question is, if it's true, would that mean that Moore couldn't run again if a new election was called (though this would most likely be moot since it would have to take place in 2018)? And what happens if Moore can run again and wins the next primary? 

[Kalbear]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

Someone mentioned the other day that you can run once per year for office in Alabama. I went through the state's election laws and couldn't find that provision, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. My question is, if it's true, would that mean that Moore couldn't run again if a new election was called (though this would most likely be moot since it would have to take place in 2018)? And what happens if Moore can run again and wins the next primary? 

Here's an article that talks about the sore loser proviso, I believe. It looks like Strange can't be on the ballot but can be written in. 

I think that if Moore ran again he would be running as an independent. Good luck with that.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

18 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Of course not. I’m not suggesting that we should, particularly at this time when there are legitimate concerns about growing wealth inequality. In fact, we might thinking about raising taxes  on the wealthy, not just because of only revenue concerns but because higher taxes might to a certain extent combat rent seeking behavior.

But anyway, the Democratic Party needs to think about how its going to fund stuff in the future. And it cant just simply say were going to do this and then do the old Paul Ryan asterisk which says “details to be fleshed out in the future.” Now I don’t think finding extra revenue has to be particularly painful. I mean fixing our damn health care would solve a lot of problems. And social security isn’t in as bad shape as many conservatives would claim and there are some policy options, like allowing the Social Security Trust Fund to buy some Equities (and yes I’m aware of Chile and don’t want to do the Chile thingy) that might be explored.

There is some time to get this resolved. But, the Democratic Plan, in my opinion, needs to tell us what he game plan is and the numbers need to work.

Here's step 1:  get rid of the stupid capital gains preference.

Here's step 2:  except for amounts left to  minor children dependents (which would become taxable upon achieving age 25 with some exceptions for qualified educational trusts) and for the care of disabled adult dependents, inheritors pay a hefty tax on receipt of estate proceeds.  This includes amounts left to charity.  Can have installment plans/exceptions for certain illiquid assets

[Martell Spy]

Quote

Yep, except I don't think we should be cutting taxes on the wealthiest among us right now. The hard truth is we have to find a way to reduce spending in a reasonable way while also asking everyone above a certain level to chip in a little more, within reason. We probably need to revisit Simpson-Bowles and find a way to make that framework a little more generous.

 

The problem is we are never going to get spending in control because there are not many actual deficit hawks in Congress, just a lot of fake ones. Our politics of the last few decades has basically been cycles of Republicans insisting on austerity during the time of Democratic administrations. Then, during Republican control of Washington they allow the Republican President to pull out the credit card for wars and tax cuts, along with massive payments to the military industrial complex.

I recall a poster in here around 2013 or 2014 I think it was, bragging how the Republicans were forcing us to control the budget. Yeah they did do that and it was to prepare for this.

The only real interruption to this cycle was Obamacare, which was a massive redistribution from the wealthy to the poor. And it's apparently driven conservative donors nuts and they want revenge.

That's great news about Johnson btw, assuming he doesn't cave again like last time.

[Martell Spy]

I don't disagree with  getting rid superdelegates. Seems a dumb fight to have right now though with Obamacare targeted yet again. There was a big deal made of them during Obama vs. Clinton and nothing came of it. Obama won anyway.

Kaine calls for eliminating superdelegates
Hillary Clinton’s VP sides with Bernie Sanders in a fight that’s divided Democrats.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/15/tim-kaine-end-superdelegates-244944

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

/Gospel of Suess, FTW

[OldGimletEye]

On 11/15/2017 at 6:32 PM, Martell Spy said:

I recall a poster in here around 2013 or 2014 I think it was, bragging how the Republicans were forcing us to control the budget. Yeah they did do that and it was to prepare for this.

Yeah, austerity doesn't do much for the long term deficit when your at the ZLB or in a liquidity trap. 

20 Trillion dollars seems like a lot. And conservatives always really tell us its a lot. But basically that is not our problem so long as the G>R condition holds, which I expect to last a while. Our real problem is meeting the future demographic challenges ie baby boomers retiring and an older population, and at some point G>R might flip, and that is when things get scary.

[Martell Spy]

Tried to call Dave Reichert and his voicemail box was full, so I guess he's getting an earful.

[LongRider]

F'ng Republicans, just gotta be cruel bastards for your multi-billionaire masters.

 

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, Nasty LongRider said:

F'ng Republicans, just gotta be cruel bastards for your multi-billionaire masters.

 

The thing to understand about chickenhawks is: They love the idea of war.

Cleaning up the aftermath of war? Well not so much.