US Politics: What's a couple hundred billion between friends?

[A True Kaniggit]

4 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

This will always depend on the situation in your in. But sometimes embarrassment and ridicule works. Now, I don't know what kind of conservative sorts of people you deal with, but the ones I've dealt with have been raised to think that liberals are there to be there whipping boys and everything that is "liberal" is illegitimate, aided and abetted by some liberals that decide to call themselves "progressives".

I've found at times that by being tough with conservatives that they end up having a new found appreciation for "civility".

Specifically my target audience is 18-25 year olds. People who only identify as Republicans because they were raised that way, but actually identify with Democrats on social issues.

[Dr. Pepper]

11 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

I see your point, but that's just a bit too much for me.  But then, down south it just might work.  Don't see@Dr. Pepper being able to bring herself to buy any tho, but of course, I could be wrong.  

I'm no longer down south, but still found myself in the middle of Trump country in a super battlefield state (woohoo, if there is another election my vote will count!).  There are some massive Trump posters on neighbor's houses nearby and I'm not above stealing them.  I bet raising a fake Trump flag will go a long way in the Trumpocalypse.  I'll lure in my prey easier that way. 

 

[LongRider]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

I'm no longer down south, but still found myself in the middle of Trump country in a super battlefield state (woohoo, if there is another election my vote will count!).  There are some massive Trump posters on neighbor's houses nearby and I'm not above stealing them.  I bet raising a fake Trump flag will go a long way in the Trumpocalypse.  I'll lure in my prey easier that way. 

 

  "Plan your work and work your plan."   You got this!

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Specifically my target audience is 18-25 year olds. People who only identify as Republicans because they were raised that way, but actually identify with Democrats on social issues.

Sounds like your dealing with a bit younger and saner crowd than what I've dealt with.

To be honest, I don't bring up politics first in personal dealings, as I don't like starting shit and people that just throw out their unsolicited political opinions can be annoying and I don't want to be that guy.

But some of the conservative sorts of people I know or even ones I don't know (I think I'm bit of an unsolicited conservative opinion magnet as I guess I look like I'm part of the tribe), just can't help themselves and start in with all types of conservative nonsense. And I get a bit like Popeye where I've taken all I can stands and I can't stands no more.

[A True Kaniggit]

26 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Sounds like your dealing with a bit younger and saner crowd than what I've dealt with.

To be honest, I don't bring up politics first in personal dealings, as I don't like starting shit and people that just throw out their unsolicited political opinions can be annoying and I don't want to be that guy.

But some of the conservative sorts of people I know or even ones I don't know (I think I'm bit of an unsolicited conservative opinion magnet as I guess I look like I'm part of the tribe), just can't help themselves and start in with all types of conservative nonsense. And I get a bit like Popeye where I've taken all I can stands and I can't stands no more.

Nah. Truth is I'm lazy and take the easy battles. I find that the older people get from that age range the more ingrained the racism/homophobia is. So I don't bother after a certain point. (I've already been in one shouting match with a crazed asshole with a rifle. Though I won that round, I don't feel the need to test my luck on a regular basis)

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

Well you could lower their taxes. You can even use the tax system to make payments to people that aren't paying much taxes. However, in order to do this, it helps to first resist the urge to give enormous tax cuts to the rich every ten years or so.

Trump Wants to Dismantle Elizabeth Warren's Agency. Good Luck With That.
The CFPB is the most powerful new agency in decades—and stacked with loyalists.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/03/trump-cfpb-elizabeth-warren-215997

That power is why having a solo director for the agency was held to be an unconstitutional action by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.  I’m very interested to see what the en banc DC Circuit Court has to say about this issue.  Oral arguments took place back in May.  I have to wonder whether the fight about appointing a new director of CFPB will have an impact on the outcome of the en banc rehearing of the case:

https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/phh-v-cfpb-en-banc-oral-argument-recap-38369/

[Mexal]

Another good thread worth reading.

TLDR: People don't believe the GOP is as bad as they are because they cannot believe the GOP would be as bad as they are.

 

[Martell Spy]

Quote

 

Similarly, high net worth individuals (like Trump himself and like many of the best-paid CEOs) have an astonishing array of legal tax loopholes they can utilize, from the carried-interest break to estate tax loopholes to the freezing of trusts to the gaming of capital-gains rules to dozens of others.

As Jesse Drucker reported years ago, this is how the 400 people with the top adjusted gross incomes went from paying an effective 30 percent rate in 1995 to 18 percent in 2008.

So with the global economic system riddled with loopholes for corporate taxpayers, and with our own domestic code a similar Swiss cheese of legal exemptions for rich jackasses like Trump, the meaning of the "nation-state" has increasingly been denuded.

A "nation" will soon just mean a geographic protectorate within which the localized incomes of the less wealthy are trapped and taxed at inflated levels.

This new Republican bill represents that vision with perfect cruelty. If you don’t have the means to move your money abroad, they’re showing they will just keep finding ways to take more – even if you’re already struggling, like grad students and student debtors.

Increasingly, this is what it will mean to be an American: a person who pays inflated tax to subsidize the companies and one-percenters who don't. Are you feeling proud yet?

 

 New Tax Plan Contains Even More Bad News for Student Borrowers
The Republican plan to crush students further unmasks the con of the Trump campaign

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/taibbi-new-tax-plan-contains-more-bad-news-for-student-borrowers-w512423

[Swordfish]

9 hours ago, Yukle said:

I understand your point and agree for the most part, except for this: America's taxes are much too low. Income tax rates and corporate tax rates mask how few people actually pay any taxes. Very little of anything is fully funded. For all of their hatred of socialism, the plain and simple truth is that when it comes to borrowing for large infrastructure projects, nobody can accrue debt as cheaply as a government. Ordinarily it is because a government will also be the most reliable institution to pay it back. Although in the USA that has changed of late.

I think the same thing is now happening in most liberal democracies. Tax cuts are nothing to do with economics and everything to do with being re-elected. They demand tax cuts and then wonder why education, healthcare, infrastructure and disaster relief are now underfunded, almost as if the taxes were being put to good use after all...

There is more than enough tax revenue to accomplish all the necessary large infrastructure projects the country needs.  the problem is not lack of funds for infrastructure, the problem is federal spending.  If you want to dismantle the evil capitalists, you must first cast  aside the statists.

It's astonishing top me that even with all that is going on right now, people cling to the teat of centralization of power.  It's the most co dependent relationship in the history f the world.

 

Quote

So with the global economic system riddled with loopholes for corporate taxpayers, and with our own domestic code a similar Swiss cheese of legal exemptions for rich jackasses like Trump

And Clinton.  And Sanders. And Buffet. And etc, etc etc.....

[OldGimletEye]

Rich CEO guy who probably was all about Trump and all about the Republican Party, now doesn't like the Republican tax bill.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/12/rd-tax-credit-falls-victim-to-republican-vote-payoff-orama/

Quote

….Murray Energy Corp., an Ohio-based firm and the largest privately held U.S. coal-mining company, complained that the AMT decision and the Senate’s tougher limits on interest deductions made a “mockery out of so-called tax reform.”

Robert Murray, the company’s chief executive officer, said the Senate tax plan would raise his tax bill by $60 million. “What the Senate did, in their befuddled mess, is drove me out of business and then bragged about the fact that they got some tax reform passed,” Mr. Murray said Sunday. “This is not job creation. This is not stimulating income. This is driving a whole sector of our community into nonexistence.”

And all I can do is:

 

[LongRider]

1 hour ago, Swordfish said:

And Clinton.  And Sanders. And Buffet. And etc, etc etc.....

You forgot Soros!  Oh, wait, never mind, he spends all his extra money on financing libitard and antifa demonstrations.  Yeah, that's the ticket. 

[Mexal]

1 hour ago, Swordfish said:

And Clinton.  And Sanders. And Buffet. And etc, etc etc.....

Yea but they aren’t asking for a tax cut.

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, Nasty LongRider said:

You forgot Soros!  Oh, wait, never mind, he spends all his extra money on financing libitard and antifa demonstrations.  Yeah, that's the ticket. 

 

23 hours ago, Mexal said:

Yea but they aren’t asking for a tax cut.

Hey man, Both Sides!

#bothsides

[LongRider]

1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

Rich CEO guy who probably was all about Trump and all about the Republican Party, now doesn't like the Republican tax bill.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/12/rd-tax-credit-falls-victim-to-republican-vote-payoff-orama/

Quote

….Murray Energy Corp., an Ohio-based firm and the largest privately held U.S. coal-mining company, complained that the AMT decision and the Senate’s tougher limits on interest deductions made a “mockery out of so-called tax reform.”

The dork must of believed the Orange Shit Things lies about bringing back coal and that tax (ahem) reform was about job creation.

Dumb ass.

[Altherion]

2 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

 New Tax Plan Contains Even More Bad News for Student Borrowers
The Republican plan to crush students further unmasks the con of the Trump campaign

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/taibbi-new-tax-plan-contains-more-bad-news-for-student-borrowers-w512423

There must be quite a bit of schadenfreude regarding college students and college graduates targeted by this tax plan. The majority of the college-educated have abandoned the working class hand hoped that it's only the latter who would be screwed (as was the case for the past couple of decades). Of course, it doesn't work that way and now the time has come to pay up.

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, Altherion said:

There must be quite a bit of schadenfreude regarding college students and college graduates targeted by this tax plan. The majority of the college-educated have abandoned the working class hand hoped that it's only the latter who would be screwed (as was the case for the past couple of decades). Of course, it doesn't work that way and now the time has come to pay up.

I don't see why there would be schadenfreude, given that college educated voted significantly more for Democrats than Republicans. I don't think you understand what that word means. 

[Mexal]

10 minutes ago, Altherion said:

There must be quite a bit of schadenfreude regarding college students and college graduates targeted by this tax plan. The majority of the college-educated have abandoned the working class hand hoped that it's only the latter who would be screwed (as was the case for the past couple of decades). Of course, it doesn't work that way and now the time has come to pay up.

Yea no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. Nothing in that tax plan helps the working class. Screwing college students does nothing but screws people trying to get an education to pay for tax cuts for the 1%. I’m sure the working class are jumping up and down with joy.

[LongRider]

4 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Yea no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. Nothing in that tax plan helps the working class. Screwing college students does nothing but screws people trying to get an education to pay for tax cuts for the 1%. I’m sure the working class are jumping up and down with joy.

Because no one from the working class, ever, worked hard to get through a Baccalaureate program so as to be able to go on to a graduate or professional school of one kind or another.  Nope, nada, nope.  No students from grad programs ever delivered pizza, worked tables or washed cars to help get them through school, even with the tax break.  Nope, nada, nope, never happen.  

Nobody with a Master's degree or a Phd. ever taught in a public school or a community college to educate the working class.  Nope, nada, nope.  No scientists ever ran programs for kids from inner cities to discover science.  No doctor ever helped out the poor or an attorney worked pro bono.  They were all just too damn busy spurning the working class.

Oh the schadenfreude.

[Swordfish]

1 hour ago, Mexal said:

Yea but they aren’t asking for a tax cut.

oh yeah...  i forgot...  The democrats are the party of the people, who steadfastly oppose evil, rampant capitalism at every turn.  they've all become rich IN SPITE of their opposition to BIG MONEY.

Apologies, i don't know what i was thinking.

 

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, Altherion said:

There must be quite a bit of schadenfreude regarding college students and college graduates targeted by this tax plan. The majority of the college-educated have abandoned the working class hand hoped that it's only the latter who would be screwed (as was the case for the past couple of decades). Of course, it doesn't work that way and now the time has come to pay up.

Just a few pages back, I posted an article about the devastation that the last financial crises caused, particularly to those in the working classes. As a close observer to all the arguments that were made over the last 10 years I do recall:

1. One side wanting to use fiscal stimulus to restore employment. While another resisted it, like say John Bonehead talking about "crowding out" which was absurd. That same side told  little conservative fairy tales about Swabian Housewives and such and said things like "everyone agrees that the deficit is our biggest problem right now!" (looking at your Carly Fiorina).

2.One side wanted to use aggressive monetary policy to restore full employment. While another talked of "inflation just being around the corner". And when that didn't pan out switched to conservative asset mispricing concern trolling.

3. One side wanted to set up an apparatus to prevent any future financial crises and in the event of another one should happen having a credible mechanism of dealing with it. While another talks out of its ass and thinks that bankruptcy court should be able to handle a credit crises just fine. I assure you that will not happen and that kind of delusional thinking will lead to the no strings attached bailouts we saw the last time.

4. One side tried to expand healthcare coverage, which would benefit many in the working class, and likely took a severe political beating for it. Another side resisted it fiercely and blatantly encouraged every goober possible to protest while dressed in some kind of ridiculous Paul Revere get up.

5. One side was willing to extend food stamps and unemployment benefits as they understood they were a needed life line for many folks. Another side spent it's time complaining about them and spreading conservative fairy tales about how they were the cause of unemployment (no it wasn't. even if Casey Mulligan says so)

In addition,

1. One side supports higher minimum wage laws. Another side doesn't.

2. One side talks about growing wealthy inequality. While another side just scoffs at the idea.

3. One side doesn't go out its way to crap on unions. While another does.

4. One side doesn't want to hand out a ridiculous amount of cash to the already well off. While another side does.

But you know, keep on doing both sides. 

#bothsides

Anyway college graduate status was a strong predictor of how one voted. And how they tended to vote wasn't for the side that tried to fuck over working class folks every chance they got.