Political Roundtable Part XXI

[Wizardspride]

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[stilldropin20]

Just one thing about the tax cuts - because they are complicated. And, although the bill in general was bad there were pieces that were pretty good.

Complexity - This bill did nothing to simplify the tax code - it made it worse. This is bad, the more complexity the more we have to invest in folks that do accounting vs. those that actually produce goods.

Carveouts - This bill increased the number of carveouts - that is bad.

Personal Tax Cuts - This is bad. It drives up national debt and does nothing to spur the economy. Zonk, feel free to jump in here with studies on this.

Repatriation - This is good, there is no reason to leave this money off-shore. Regardless of how it is used, that is better than the money just sitting in foreign banks.

Corporate Tax Cuts - These were good, our corporate tax rates were way to high (although this is skewed by Complexity/Carveouts above). Unlike personal tax cuts, corporate tax cuts do spur the economy.

I give the tax bill a failing grade because it doesn't address the complexity in the tax code, fairness of the tax code or help address the national debt.

total federal revenue matters. All the new estimates that considers off shore money being repatriated and corporate head quarters being repatriated points to significant increase in taxable income...even though the %'s are lower...the total amount of federal income( $3.316T 2017) will remain at least at the same level and likely grow. I'm seeing estimates in the $3.4T range. <--and that's without the Trump Tariffs. I wont be surprised at all to see this number hit $3.5-3.6 for 2018.

For reference: we flat lined at about $3.2-3.3 for the last 3 years under Obama (with significantly higher tax %'s). So we'll see. As of now, your analysis is waaaaaaaaay off base and unfair to trump. We have had an overall deficit since Nixon. Nixon was the last president to run with an overall surplus. To his credit Clinton had annual surpluses in his last 4 years in office but did little to nothing to reduce the over debt.

Its intellectually dishonest to criticize Trump for a deficit run up to 20T before he stepped into office and cost drivers for nearly everything out of control at unsustainable levels. Just the burden of Interest thrust on Trump is quadripple that of Bush 2 and triple that of Obama.. These 2 past presidents bear most and almost all of the blame of our rediculous debt. It was $5.7 Trillion in 2001. We could have climbed out of that. But that stupid effing golf war!!! at a time when Clinton had cut military spending thoughout the 90's. We were not ready for that war. Bush not only jumped into like a traitor to our country but also prolonged it. Obama prolonged it. And left the military depleted by 2018.

Now we are left with $20 T in debt and a broken down military with a bunch of bombs used up that all need to be replenished. <--not trumps fault. Possibly not Obama's fault. Still though we over spent by 10-13 Trillion on that war.<--when all we had to do was mercilessly bomb the crap out of them for 6 months like trump did. Play the damn game to win. Political capital be damned! bush and Obama were too scarred or otherwise properly motivated to fight to win. traitors? Who knows?

Now we are at 21 trillion and the interest by itself is is over bearing at almost 8% of our annual budget. This was as low as 1% just a couple decades ago. Big difference!!!

[gtn130]

I see. So blacks are immune from criticism. You can criticize whites, Jews, women, Hispanics and everyone else (as Trump certainly does), but the minute he treats blacks the same way, he is racist.

When Trump goes after LeBron, Kaepernick, Don Lemon, Omarosa, etc. it's always a calculated dogwhistle intended to score points with his base. The language he uses is always intended to walk the racist tightrope where he can maintain plausible deniability while still winking to his followers. You're being manipulated, but you enjoy this stuff so much that you either don't notice or don't care.

[pancakes3]

please don't allow yourself to normalize what trump is doing.

even if you think that trump *is* an effective president on the issues, he can do so without the farcical melodrama that comes attached. and if he can't, there are 350 million other americans, at least 1 of whom can.

edit to add "million"

[stilldropin20]

I see. So blacks are immune from criticism. You can criticize whites, Jews, women, Hispanics and everyone else (as Trump certainly does), but the minute he treats blacks the same way, he is racist.

Cry me a river. Screaming "RACIST" doesn't work anymore.

Well, for one, now you can't criticize those others the same way. That's sort of the point. Whites aren't actually criticized the same way, though, no matter how much you want to put your head in the sand. The wealth disparity changes the dynamic and the responsibilities overall - racism punches down hard and punches up really weak.

As for Trump specifically, you're right, he (or those in his circles) absolutely criticize Jews, Hispanics, women, etc. I've never seen Trump criticize whites or men, the same way, though. Not even close. Charlottesville was really telling. He will call out the odd white individual or the odd man, but never with the same conviction, consistency or frequency relative total interactions.

As for whether or not screaming racist works or not anymore, I think that's entirely beside the point. Racism exists, and frankly, I'm going to suggest that absolutely everyone is racist, myself included. It's how we respond to the knowledge of being racist that matters. Trump... responds incredibly poorly, though that shouldn't have been surprise given his long track record even before becoming president.

That said, I will say that tweet, indirectly, represents a bit of an issue within the Democratic party. They all fight for their own causes but weakly at best take up the causes of others - and weirdly enough they often seem to guard their causes, making it harder for others to get on board because they aren't truly representative of the cause or whatever. This leads to a disparate unity and makes it very difficult to rally people together. It doesn't make that tweet wrong, or anything like that, or even the person who tweeted that horrible or missing out or anything like that. It's a far more macro picture I'm looking at.

Trump in particular is all about Trump. I've been saying it all along and I've seen no evidence thus far that changes my mind on the subject. Basically, he's discriminating against everyone through his actions, though weirdly enough, the one exception appears to be Russia where he treads really, really softly and basically has to be forced into anything that might be seen as acting in a manner Russia might not want. He just happens to be discriminating against some more than others and for a lot of voters, they appear to be okay with eating a **** sandwich if others have to eat a bigger **** sandwich at the same time.

humans are tribal. yes. Does that mean racists? it certainly can lead to that...depending on your tribe. My tribe is almost entirely made up of chicago's southside working class...most of which are black and brown and a few whites sprinkled in. That's my tribe. Thats who i fight for. I want them to succeed. I want them to have jobs. I want them to have high wages. I want them to have good dental insurance. UE numbers for my neck of the woods hit 30% in the Obama years and is still over 10%. Thats not good for me. I succeed when they succeed. We are tied together. The trump economy is working for them all right now and therefore working for me too.

That said, I also have offices in other areas. more upper class and significantly more white people. I want them to do well too. but they were NOT HURT by the obama economy. I'm sorry, but they weren't. They kept going to the dentist and kept spending, kept their jobs. kept their insurance. kept their homes. kept their credit in good standing. They just were not hurt nearly as badly. In fact, their were instead more divorces in the affluent white areas during the obama recession and those divorces led to a high number of smile make overs. so revenue was up slightly. 5%. And down by 50% in my bread and butter practices that ive owned for almost 20 years. finally, this past year revenue is back up to 2007 levels. 11 years later after being down 50% from 2009-2016.

In addition to that the number of shootings near my southside practice sky rocketed. quadrupled!!! The only reason that death went down is because local emergency responders adjusted with more EMT's, more one way streets to the hospitals, red lights coordinated with the EMT's, better training for the EMT's, fand quadruple the amount of staff and surgeons ready to respond in the ER and OS. killings didn't go down. the ability to mitgate the massive uptick in shootings increased.

All of this occurred on Obama's watch. I couldn't believe it!! I just couldn't believe it.

In addition to all the lost homes by black and brown people. And bailing out the damn banks in the process. Why not bail out the american people? We could have let the entire banking system crumble and wiped our debt with better policy and a president that had a backbone. instead we ended up with staggering amount of abortions in poor communities. staggering amount of shootings. staggering amount of UE. Staggering amount of homes lost to the banks. And staggering amount of small businesses like mine almost closing its doors. sad. sad. sad. state. I dont think the posters here are really "in tune" with how bad it was and has become in our inner cities under obama. methinks you guys live in the suburbs or something. It was bad, man. really really bad.

And infinitely better under trump. even the shooting are way down this past year!!! local UE on the southside is "decent" and manageable around 10%. credit markets are back open. people back to work. with dental insurance. and back in my offices taking care of themselves.

[stilldropin20]

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[stilldropin20]

I see. So blacks are immune from criticism. You can criticize whites, Jews, women, Hispanics and everyone else (as Trump certainly does), but the minute he treats blacks the same way, he is racist.

When Trump goes after LeBron, Kaepernick, Don Lemon, Omarosa, etc. it's always a calculated dogwhistle intended to score points with his base. The language he uses is always intended to walk the racist tightrope where he can maintain plausible deniability while still winking to his followers. You're being manipulated, but you enjoy this stuff so much that you either don't notice or don't care.

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[FAH1223]

Mercatus Study also finds Medicare For All drops provider payments by 10%

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[Wizardspride]

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[popper]

January 2018
me: popper, do you support the tax cuts?
popper: Yes. Also, don't forget, the CBO is often wrong!!!

Yesterday
me: popper, you went to bat for the tax cuts last year
popper: Wrong. I mostly only supported the corporate tax cuts

Today
me: Ok, let me show you this post where you broadly supported and defended the tax cuts.
[*shows post*]
popper: No inconsistency there!

Nice try. Here’s the accurate exchange and a simplified explanation so even you can understand it.

Me - it’s depressing that voters don’t seem to care about debt and deficits

Gtn - popper went to bat for tax cuts and therefore he cannot pretend to care about deficits

Me - you’re wrong again gtn

The reason you are wrong is because one can support tax reform and believe that the resulting jolt to the economy will lower deficits through increased tax receipts. This exact scenario would have taken place had congress and the president not increased spending. As your pathetic dredging operation shows, I have consistently supported tax reform (with certain reservations and caveats). This desperate gotcha game you play with me does nothing but discredit you. If you approach this thread with an open mind and stop trying to tear down those with differing viewpoints you could learn a lot from its diversity of opinions.

[dckingsfan]

Even then, it wasn't good tax reform - it just created an even worse tax code. And you save your bullets to jolt the economy when it is going into recession. And agreed, when your job growth is strong you don't spend yourself into oblivion and you don't do a tax bill that isn't revenue neutral and this one (even with dynamic calculations) can never catch back up to the deficits it will cause.

Time for the next administration...

[gtn130]

Popper, buddy, read your post from January again:

I was. I’ve also posted here in support of a wealth tax above a certain level (say 25 million) if we can do it without scaring wealth offshore. Do you want to LoL at that too. Why laugh at all? Why not just try to understand? Trump inherited a structural annual deficit of approx 700 billion. I think CBO says the tax cut adds 10 to 20 percent to that annual deficit. It’s a no brainer to me because IMO the economy should boom. Once the boom is fully underway then let’s see where we are. As you know the CBO is almost always wrong.

You provided zero caveats to your unbridled support of the tax cuts. You literally called the tax cuts a 'no brainer' in January, yet when I called you on going to bat for the tax cuts, your response was that I was wrong in that assertion.

Please point to where I was wrong or knock it off with this dishonest garbage. Did you go to bat for the tax cuts? Yes or no.

[Wizardspride]

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[Wizardspride]

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This doesnt prove racist intent but assuming he still feels this way, it does give us a window into mindset regarding race.

[popper]

Popper, buddy, read your post from January again:

I was. I’ve also posted here in support of a wealth tax above a certain level (say 25 million) if we can do it without scaring wealth offshore. Do you want to LoL at that too. Why laugh at all? Why not just try to understand? Trump inherited a structural annual deficit of approx 700 billion. I think CBO says the tax cut adds 10 to 20 percent to that annual deficit. It’s a no brainer to me because IMO the economy should boom. Once the boom is fully underway then let’s see where we are. As you know the CBO is almost always wrong.

You provided zero caveats to your unbridled support of the tax cuts. You literally called the tax cuts a 'no brainer' in January, yet when I called you on going to bat for the tax cuts, your response was that I was wrong in that assertion.

Please point to where I was wrong or knock it off with this dishonest garbage. Did you go to bat for the tax cuts? Yes or no.

I've consistently supported the tax reform package and still do. There are a number of things I don't like about it however. Have I shared all those reservations on this thread? No. I don't have that much time. I usually just try to post a sentence or three at a time. Brevity is good here. My comment about you being wrong was addressing your larger point that I can't care about deficits while supporting tax reform (inferring that would be dishonest or hypocritical). I hope that clears things up.

[GhostofChenier]

Brenan revoke ha. 2 many peeps crying wofl.

[stilldropin20]

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[stilldropin20]

black approval is waaaaaaaaay up for trump no matter how many people come out of the woodwork with this racist narrative bull crap. the american people dont care. hispanic approval for trump is up. white approval is up. polls have been 5-7 points low for trump the entire time.

economy en fuego!

UE en fuego!

Total tax income dollars is just as high if not higher under trump.

Jobs! jobs!! jobs!!! jobs!!!

credit markets are open.

Tariffs!! tariffs!! tariffs!!! They work. they have always worked.

Turkey economy tanking. Russia economy tanking. Iran economy tanking. China is being forced to manipulate its currency. again.

Trump!! Trump!! Trump!! trump!! Trump!!! Trump!!! Trump!!! wow!!! greatest thing that ever happened to the united states is donald effin trump.

You know its working because no human being has ever been attacked like this ever....from all angles....from all sides...from every single corner it can come in....no human being can withstand this....take this crap....unfortunately...we will likley never see an amazing president like this ever again....no one will put up with this crap. But trump did...i thank you every single day Mr. Trump. Mr President! Our Amazing president!!! Thank you Sir! I salute you!!

[montestewart]

Cracks me up. I just proved on the CA board how the 21% Trump approval among blacks being touted in right wing circles is a lie based on an intentional distortion of its source, and right wing response: "let's double it!" When you're only lying for people who believe anything you say and to troll people who disagree with you, you can just say anything.

Black support for Trump is up 1,000,000% to 100,000,000,000! WOO HOO!

[stilldropin20]

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This doesnt prove racist intent but assuming he still feels this way, it does give us a window into mindset regarding race.

look bud...liberals are unreliable narrators. wake me up...wake all of us up when back conservatives turn on trump. until you guys are just spewing hate. you are doing anything and everything you can to put a chink in the armor. and you cant.

support for trump is climbing in all sectors. I know your minds are blown. but democrats are just about done.

You know who used the N word on tape? LBJ!! in 1965...when he said he would have n-word voting for democrats for decades. Black people are finally waking up. They realize they have been taken for granted for decades with false hope from false prophets. Liars. You HAVE BEEN LIED TO BUDDY!!!!!

wake up!!! git woke, yo!!!

opportunity!! jobs!! For all!!! fair wages!!! low taxes!!! that is the way to personal prosperity!!!

eat right!! exercise!! and stay the hell away from a doctor!! just go to work...when your time is up? accept and pass your wisdom and wealth down to your children instead of giving it away to doctors and universities!! Universities are a waste of money unless you get a specific degree in need. For anything else? just go to junoir college and a cheap state school.

FTR, my dental hygienists earn $55 per hour and over $80K per year...on a 2 year degree!!! There are many schools out there like nursing, PA, DH, etc that are 2 year degrees and you can get a good job!!!

The key is scarcity of labor!!! which is a function of immigration!!!!! we need our own people...Americans born here to have good jobs first before we import labor!!!!

get rid of all the tuition assistance(loan programs) and watch the tuitions costs drop like a hot potato.

Once people go to college less? guess what happens?? Employers have to hire high school grads!!!!! imagine that!!!!! You dont need a college degree to manage a restaurant or a hotel. Anyone can do it!!!! Ive done both back in the day while I was still in school. And there is not a single job on the planet that i have ver come across except very high end degree specific jobs that require all this extra knowledge.

College for most kids is a waste of money. uneducated parents dont know better. they think its absolutely necessary. Its not. Anybody . can be trained to do 90% of the jobs on the entire planet. Only the top 10% of knowledge based jobs need the excessive education, doctors, engineers. etc.

Its all a joke. a waste. unnecessary. Everyone is waking up to it. Black, Brown, and white people. They have all been put to sleep with left wing nonesense for too long!!

Go to work. save your money. invest in our markets!! Thats it!!! thats all you have to do!! invest wisely and you will be a millionaire with 2 decades. I guarantee it. Again...I will coach anyone on here on how to become a millionaire in your own real estate market. I can teach you in 10 minutes or less. I can find you building to buy in your area. in 30 minutes. this aint rocket science folks!! you just cant waste your money on bull crap like excessive schooling without a specific job type degree nor excessive wasteful spending on consumables. and invest your savings in our markets.