President Trump Optimism thread

Coming soon to a country run by corporate sockpuppets …

The Impact of State Taxes on Pass-Through Businesses: Evidence from the 2012 Kansas Income Tax Reform

Abstract
In 2012, Kansas undertook a large-scale tax reform that excluded certain forms of business income from individual taxation. In theory, these changes enhance the incentives to undertake more real economic activity such as new business formation or increases in employment or investment. But, the reform also shifted the incentives to avoid taxation by recharacterizing income sources. This paper provides evidence of these effects using federal administrative taxpayer data. Drawing on these data from 2010 to 2014, we find evidence suggesting that, at both extensive and intensive margins, the behavioral responses were overwhelmingly tax avoidance rather than real supply side responses.

Optimistic thought of the day: nobody is better than Trump.

This is pretty encouraging especially when taken in conjunction with the very rapid decrease in Republicans who strongly support President Trump

Donnie shouldn’t be too happy that his party is defending him with “Sure, he’s ignorant, reckless, and incompetent - but he hasn’t done anything illegal.”

Because while that might get him out of impeachment, it’s also quite deliberately creating wiggle room for his own party when it comes to the 25th Amendment. If and when that card gets played - “Poor man, he’s just not up to it. He’s tired. He needs a rest” - it will come with terrifying speed and finality. And unlike impeachment, Donnie can’t pardon his way out of it.

25th Amendment is a fantasy, you guys. Total fantasy, unless he does something so insane he’d be impeached and removed even by this Congress.

The fantasy is over. There will be no impeachment or resignation. We need to live with this for at least 3.5 years. Hopefully not longer but voters might still be interested in punishing the US for the sin of having a black president for 8 years. Trump is here to stay.

I don’t think we should speculate it’s over. His approval and support numbers are continuing to drop every month, and it’s only beginning. The fox/breitbart bubble is not impervious; it can slow the “fake news” and provide counter-rationalization, but the soft support is still eroding. If his support among his core audience continues to erode, congress will be unable to ignore it. They will have to either stay attached to a collapsing support block, or separate themselves and create a new new Republican normal. And this is before any report or feedback comes from the Muller investigation, which will be slow but (I think) impossible to ignore.

Quite the opposite.* Unlike impeachment, with the 25th Amendment there’s no need to build a legal case, no need for hearings with embarrassing questions about Russians helping Republicans, no long, drawn out process. It’s basically a vote of confidence. It can be done quite quickly if need be, and it’s 100% about Donnie personally and his capacity (or lack thereof) and not about the Republican party.

Much easier to sign GOP members for that. Plus, they get to pretend they care about Donnie’s well-being. (“Poor man. He used to be amazing, the greatest. But these days … well, it’s shocking and sad, really, It’s in his best interest.”)

Of course it requires half the Cabinet and 2/3 of the Congress. But I’m pretty sure half the Cabinet would jump at the chance (Sessions, for example, has probably joined that list by now) if they believed Congress would confirm their call.

And while 2/3 of Congress is a big ask indeed, I can’t categorically say it’s impossible that Trump won’t do anything between now and the next election to make him unpopular enough for Republicans to dump him. Never underestimate Donnie’s awfulness.

*To be clear, I’m saying the 25th Amendment is more likely outcome than impeachment; but neither is all that likely. Donnie keeling over from too much KFC or resigning in a huff to go live in Saudi Arabia where they appreciate him properly are much more probable results.

25h Amendment absolutely won’t happen. Before it were to be a possibility, Trump would be persuaded to resign “for reasons of health.”

Impeachment could happen in 2019 if the House swings. Won’t go anywhere in the Senate, though.

Naw Trump is too stubborn and too narcissistic to listen to people and resign. “He is a fighter” Plus most of the reason to invoke the 25th amendment is because he has some type of mental illness and/or dementia that makes it necessary to remove him. If actually listened to his staff and advisor at least half of his problems wouldn’t have happened.

As far as resign goes the best we could hope for is him not fighting the judgment of the cabinet and forcing a Congressional vote.

I think it is really hard to imagine an impeachment vote in the House prior to 2018 election. No matter how badly the Republican screw up they are very unlike to lose more than 3 senate seats since they are only defending 8.

The Republican during Comey hearing pressed Comey on few things regarding and his interpretation. But the two things they didn’t do is challenge Comey’s credibility or seriously push back on the narrative that President was a liar and behaved inappropriately. If the cabinet has the balls to remove him, I don’t think its big stretch to find at least 1/2 the Republican more than happy to replace him with President Pence.

For me personally, I’d consider odds to be 2-1 against him being removed before 2020 and 25th amendment is the most likely way of removing him.

Well, this being the Optimism Thread, we can hope that he has a truly monumental fuckup in the future.

This is like hoping that the sun will come up tomorrow, or that the universe will continue to exist.

As long as said fuck up doesn’t get us into a shooting war out of pure ignorance. Doubly so for not getting into one with a nuclear power.

Have you SEEN what’s going on with Qatar? That situation has the potential to develop into all of that, and he is directly involved in fanning the flames.

The “won’t back down” thing is a myth. Is he stubborn, narcissistic, and combative? Yes. Does he give up and abandon tasks? Yes, all the freaking time. He just won’t admit it.

He’s a blowhard, in other words. He’ll run away from nasty consequences like a frightened child, but to his dying day he’ll deny it. I can easily see him resigning if thing get bad.

… And the very next day telling the media he didn’t mean it, he was tricked, this is all unfair etc. etc.

Those are fair points, and to the extent that I don’t think he actually believed that he’d be President, it may be easier to simply resign, than fight. I’m not 100% convinced it would happen, but certainly would be best for the country and since this is the optimism thread. Trump resigns after being told cabinet is going to remove him is the most optimistic scenario for ridding the country of this plague.

The fact that he’s incapable of getting anything done is the most optimistic I can be about another three years of this dipshit in office. And although I would enjoy bigly seeing him impeached or 25th Amendmented, I actually don’t want that to happen. Because the alternative is people who might actually implement more of the GOP’s destructive, cravenly self-serving, regressive agenda. So the longer Trump makes the Republicans look as useless at governance as they actually are, the better for 2018 and 2020. It sucks that my country lost all its political capital in the world, not to mention an entire branch of government for four years, thanks to the idiots who elected Trump and especially the idiots who lined up behind him. But I’m coming to terms with the idea of them having to own their mistake for its full term.

But, yeah, then there’s stuff like Qatar. Hey, rest of the world, can you guys simmer down while we work out our bullshit?

-Tom

#BurnItDown 2020