US Politics: Let's Discuss US Politics

[Mlle. Zabzie]

4 hours ago, Maithanet said:

It would be honestly incredible to me if Republicans end up including a huge tax hike in their corporate handout tax bill.  It would be the ultimate example to the upper middle class that Republicans do not care about them. 

It will frankly be what ends up happening to a lot of people.  This plan has winners and losers.  And they are strewn across income tax brackets and are geography dependent.  There are actually some of the policy ideas that are not terrible.  Truly.  However, the problem is that they are trying to fit basically a $5.5 billion cut in a $1.25 billion hole.

4 hours ago, Frog Eater said:

I cant see the reduced 401(k) contributions passing through congress

most employees today depend on their 401(k) contributions to retire

I stress out now, fearing that I wont have enough to retire when I want to

if they reduce 401(k) contributions to 2400, no one will have enough, other than government employees receiving a defined benefit at retirement

the reduced contributions will force employers to start offering Roth 401(k)s, while that is definitely a valid option, you miss out on the time value of money on those tax deferred earnings. 

Oh totally - it's a time value play.  They don't have to count the decreased revenue collection outside 10 years, so it's like the perfect thing.  It's a huge kick in the teeth.  I think it is decently likely to happen.

1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

Today in: the dog ate our tax plan, just like he ate our health care plan.

Bad dog. Bad dog.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/1/16591312/tax-reform-delay

 

Well, only the stakes are higher.  Relatively sure SOMETHING happens.  They just need another 24 hours to negotiate who wins and who wins twice.

 

Also, looks like it's Powell for the Fed.

[OldGimletEye]

On 11/1/2017 at 4:35 PM, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Well, only the stakes are higher.  Relatively sure SOMETHING happens.  They just need another 24 hours to negotiate who wins and who wins twice.

I think you are right. I just couldn't help myself to crack a joke at their expense.

On 11/1/2017 at 4:35 PM, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Also, looks like it's Powell for the Fed.

Yup. I guess all I can say is it could have been much worse I suppose.

[GAROVORKIN]

5 hours ago, Frog Eater said:

I cant see the reduced 401(k) contributions passing through congress

most employees today depend on their 401(k) contributions to retire

I stress out now, fearing that I wont have enough to retire when I want to

if they reduce 401(k) contributions to 2400, no one will have enough, other than government employees receiving a defined benefit at retirement

the reduced contributions will force employers to start offering Roth 401(k)s, while that is definitely a valid option, you miss out on the time value of money on those tax deferred earnings. 

How is reducing 401(k) contributions a benefit to employees   ? I just cannot fathom  the thinking on this one? 

 

[Kalbear]

6 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

How is reducing 401(k) contributions a benefit to employees   ? I just cannot fathom  the thinking on this one? 

 

Depends a lot on who else benefits. If only 30% of the population uses 401ks, the other 70% could benefit if the return for them is better.

But it seems incredibly stupid to me, personally. 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

4 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

How is reducing 401(k) contributions a benefit to employees   ? I just cannot the thinking on this one? 

 

It's not.  It's definitively not.  They will replace with Roths so that they don't have to count the hit on the fisc when folks take stuff out of the Roth tax free.  It's a crappy deal - but they need to plug that $5 trillion hole somehow even with dynamic scoring.  Doing this is cheating, but it's one way to get there.  

[Tywin et al.]

23 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

It's not.  It's definitively not.  They will replace with Roths so that they don't have to count the hit on the fisc when folks take stuff out of the Roth tax free.  It's a crappy deal - but they need to plug that $5 trillion hole somehow even with dynamic scoring.  Doing this is cheating, but it's one way to get there.  

OK you did mean trillion, MZ. In the post at the top of the page you accidentally wrote billion instead of trillion. It threw me off by I figured you'd know better than me. 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

OK you did mean trillion, MZ. In the post at the top of the page you accidentally wrote billion instead of trillion. It threw me off by I figured you'd know better than me. 

LOL.  I had a Dr. Evil moment.

[Tywin et al.]

10 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

LOL.  I had a Dr. Evil moment.

Hahahaha! 

Unrelated, here's an interesting look into how Trump and the people around him are starting to view wonder boy Jared:

Quote

Trump, meanwhile, has reacted to the deteriorating situation by lashing out on Twitter and venting in private to friends. He’s frustrated that the investigation seems to have no end in sight. “Trump wants to be critical of Mueller,” one person who’s been briefed on Trump’s thinking says. “He thinks it’s unfair criticism. Clinton hasn’t gotten anything like this. And what about Tony Podesta? Trump is like, When is that going to end?” According to two sources, Trump has complained to advisers about his legal team for letting the Mueller probe progress this far. Speaking to Steve Bannon on Tuesday, Trump blamed Jared Kushner for his role in decisions, specifically the firings of Mike Flynn and James Comey, that led to Mueller’s appointment, according to a source briefed on the call. When Roger Stone recently told Trump that Kushner was giving him bad political advice, Trump agreed, according to someone familiar with the conversation. “Jared is the worst political adviser in the White House in modern history,” Nunberg said. “I’m only saying publicly what everyone says behind the scenes at Fox News, in conservative media, and the Senate and Congress.” (The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment by deadline.)

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/the-west-wing-trump-is-apoplectic-as-allies-fear-impeachment

I've been wondering for a while now if Trump would sacrifice himself to save Jared or would he sacrifice Jared to save himself. This blurb still doesn't answer that question, but it's starting to look like Jared's lost his favor with Trump.

 

[Which Tyler]

https://media.giphy.com/media/Yl5aO3gdVfsQ0/giphy.gif

[Fragile Bird]

Someone may be able to explain this to me. I heard on CNN that Mannafort had 3 US passports. Isn't that illegal?

Or do they mean he made so many overseas trips he had 3 passports because he had run out of pages from all the stamps, and had to keep getting new passports?

ETA:  He had 3 concurrent passports and had applied ten times in ten years for passports.

[Martell Spy]

10 legal experts on why Trump can’t pardon his way out of the Russia investigation
“It may prove to be one of the stupidest things he has yet done.”

https://www.vox.com/2017/8/29/16211784/trump-pardon-mueller-constitution-russia

Trump: repeal the individual mandate in tax reform. Top Republicans: oh no, please no.
The president wants to pay for tax cuts by increasing the uninsured.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/1/16591854/trump-individual-mandate-tax-reform

Trump won’t advertise Obamacare, so Obama is stepping in
The former president posts a video encouraging Americans to “get covered.”

https://www.vox.com/health-care/2017/11/1/16592274/obama-obamacare-video

Trump apparently wants to name his tax reform plan the “Cut Cut Cut Act”
Congress approached Trump due to his branding expertise. This is what they got.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/1/16592690/trump-tax-cut-cut-cut-act

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

25 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Someone may be able to explain this to me. I heard on CNN that Mannafort had 3 US passports. Isn't that illegal?

Or do they mean he made so many overseas trips he had 3 passports because he had run out of pages from all the stamps, and had to keep getting new passports?

Quote

 

A second passport is the exception to the rule. The general policy is that "no person shall bear or be in possession of more than one valid or potentially valid passport of the same type at any one time." There are a couple of circumstances in which a second passport is authorized by the United States Bureau of Consular Affairs

2. Youneed a passport for immediate travel because of delays in getting a travel visa or some other foreign governmental process that required you to submit your passport.1. You need a second passport if you plan to visit a country that will deny a visa due to the fact that your passport contains markings or visas showing you traveled to certain other countries.

a. There are rare situations in which travelers are granted more than one "second" passport.

b. A second passport is only issued if you are unable to complete your travel through a change of itinerary or you cannot cancel your current passport in order to obtain a new one.

There are a couple of circumstances in which the issuance of another passport is not considered a valid second passport.

1. A passport that is issued to replace one that is temporarily unavailable. It could be that your passport is locked in a safety deposit box or packed for moving. In this case, you have to submit the form for a lost passport and apply for a new one.

2. A passport that is issued to replace one that was lost by a foreign embassy or consulate in the process of obtaining a visa. Again, you have to submit the form for a lost or stolen passport and apply for a new one.

The validity of a second passport is limited to two years and cannot be extended

 

http://www.us-passport-service-guide.com/second-passport.html

[DanteGabriel]

30 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Someone may be able to explain this to me. I heard on CNN that Mannafort had 3 US passports. Isn't that illegal?

Or do they mean he made so many overseas trips he had 3 passports because he had run out of pages from all the stamps, and had to keep getting new passports?

ETA:  He had 3 concurrent passports and had applied ten times in ten years for passports.

I think it's probably evidence that Manafort is so crooked he screws on his pants in the morning.

I haven't read too much on the passport thing myself -- are we sure they're US passports?

[Fragile Bird]

1 minute ago, DanteGabriel said:

I think it's probably evidence that Manafort is so crooked he screws on his pants in the morning.

I haven't read too much on the passport thing myself -- are we sure they're US passports?

Yes, they are all US passports. He also had a cell phone under a phony name.

eta; Thank-you Lany!

[GAROVORKIN]

10 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

I think it's probably evidence that Manafort is so crooked he screws on his pants in the morning.

I haven't read too much on the passport thing myself -- are we sure they're US passports?

Someone under indictment and out on bail  and a potential flight risk ,  would likely be required to surrender their passport.

[The Anti-Targ]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Hahahaha! 

Unrelated, here's an interesting look into how Trump and the people around him are starting to view wonder boy Jared:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/the-west-wing-trump-is-apoplectic-as-allies-fear-impeachment

I've been wondering for a while now if Trump would sacrifice himself to save Jared or would he sacrifice Jared to save himself. This blurb still doesn't answer that question, but it's starting to look like Jared's lost his favor with Trump.

 

I think Trump would do many things to help those he viewed as loyal and worthy. But I don't think he'd ever sacrifice himself. Trump taking one for the team? Never. He'd expect the ultimate display of loyalty, which is one of the team taking one for him.

 

[S John]

Multiple passports definitely screams shady but I could see a legitimate need for that if you have business in a lot of different places.  The example that comes to mind is the Middle East with frequent Israeli stamps in your passport possibly getting you barred from some of the Arab countries (and vice versa maybe?).

[ThinkerX]

About the republican tax cut scheme.  Pretty much every article and post I have seen says they are pushing for speed above pretty much all else on this.  I find myself wondering...might they place so much emphasis on speed that crippling legal technicalities get overlooked?

 

I am remembering how one of the republican challenges to the ACA rested on a vague phrase that was pretty much overlooked.  Going this fast on something this major, I wonder if the republicans might accidently include what amounts to a self-destruct clause.

[Altherion]

13 hours ago, Rippounet said:

There's nothing abstract or debatable about economic segregation in the US. Here's a bit of research about it:

First, I wanted to mention that this it the most impressively bibliography I've seen posted on these forums over more than a decade. Congrats.

However... what is abstract and what is debatable depends in considerable extent on whom one is dealing with. For a considerable number of Americans, the people who wrote those articles and books are representatives of the evil that has corrupted American academia. Not only will they ignore the scholarly research, but they will be openly distrustful of any conclusions based on it. For a much larger number, these works are simply inaccessible -- even if they had the motivation to read them, they simply don't have the time. Thus, the vast majority relies on summaries given by their media source of choice and the latter are not unanimous.

13 hours ago, Rippounet said:

So I think what's "abstract, difficult to quantify and debatable " is "anti-white" discrimination. I'm not even sure why you believe in it that much.

It's not a matter of belief -- it is the avowed policy of both government and academia as well as quite a few corporations and I've witnessed it first hand. For example, I went to a high school for which admission was by examination: everyone takes the same test (a combination of math and English) and the people above a certain score get in... except that threshold for certain groups is lower than for everyone else. Since the total number of seats is limited, this is a zero-sum game and assistance to any one group is discrimination against others.

13 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Doing a bit of google, I think I found the article you were referring to earlier. This one, yes?
http://www.npr.org/2017/10/24/559604836/majority-of-white-americans-think-theyre-discriminated-against
Because the funny thing about that poll is that although 55% of whites say they believe in anti-white discrimination, only 19% say they have personally experienced it. And taking the quote from the Ohio man, I'm really not sure how and why government (of all organizations) would discriminate against poor whites.

Yes, that's the one. And government discriminates against poor whites in precisely the way I mentioned above: a significant fraction of the contests in our society are either over a fixed resource and thus zero-sum (e.g. admittance to a good university, most government funding, etc.) or over a diminishing resource (e.g. quality jobs in many geographic regions and several professional fields) and thus even worse than that. Government does not set out to discriminate against poor whites -- its putative motivation is to assist minorities -- but such discrimination is the outcome.

13 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Seems to me that the problem here is exactly what I was talking about: that these people don't realize that others are even worse off than they are. All the above research puts their impressions in serious doubt.

It is difficult to evaluate to which extent one individual is worse off than another and even if you come up with something resembling an objective measure, it is still difficult to determine to which extent their state is a result of their own actions. In any case, it doesn't actually matter whether their impressions are correct or not -- or in any case, it matters much less than the fact that there are a lot of them, they are angry and they're armed.

14 hours ago, Rippounet said:

That really wasn't the case. History shows that i) Democrats like Robert Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson truly believed that it was necessary to address racial inequality in the US and ii) the Civil Rights movement put tremendous pressure on institutions to do something about it.
There wasn't any divide-and-conquer policy. It was about redressing grievances for the victims and children of victims of what is essentially a crime against humanity.

You're flirting with the worst kind of historical revisionism here.

I fully agree with you that it wasn't the case half a century ago, but the multi-millionaire activists of today are a far cry from the people who fought (and sometimes died) for civil rights. The names alone are a dead giveaway.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Anti-Gillespie Ad In Virginia's Governor's Race Pulls Out All the Stops

/Yipe!

//Guess ya'll kind of asked for it

https://postimg.org/image/bcrbojvgp/