NO U.56
SOS UR FACE BRIAN
SHUDDUP POOPYFACE WHOS FACE IS MADE OF POOPS.
Just for myself this bill is all aces. Large tax break and that estate tax is going to work oh so nicely in my favor as well. Didn’t really need it, won’t turn it away.
I am sorry it’s going to impact so many of you negatively, and I firmly believe it’s a frighteningly large step in the wrong direction for the country. Frankly moving to Iceland or other progressive state sounds kinda nice.
Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!
I think is a completely unfair assessment of what is going on here. For one thing, there are wealthy people who opposed these cuts, and they don’t depend on anything… You’re just taking bias and inserting it into a conversation about taxes to bolster your view. There a lot of people who don’t use assistance who oppose lowering taxes for the wealthy because we don’t enjoy human suffering, nothing to do with needing or depending on the assistance itself.
I am not surprised , all remaining Republicans are morally empty after all, but it is striking how changing the tax code into a weapon to target Democratic states like this doesnt even raise an eyebrow amongst the Republican voter base any more. They are so stupid they cant even think two election cycles down the road and figure out what is going to happen when they are in the minority.
That might be what makes me the saddest of all. Govern by spite. It makes no sense and ultimately hurts everyone.
Bartlett argues that they are in point of fact doing just that. And it’ll be a repeat of last decade’s , “Oh, my stars and garters, look at all these deficits and mounting debt!! We must do something to save America from the Dems!!!”
Indeed. I think looking back at 2016/2017 this will be remembered as the time the Republican party decided it opposes the United States. I mean I know its been obvious for a while but Trump for example clearly is not the President of the United States, just people who voted for him. Thats all he openly cares about. He is happy when the majority of the country suffers or is angry, because they didnt vote for him.
The fact that Republican voters agree and now only care about “sticking it” to normal Americans whether it helps or hurts themselves or not is just striking.
Please somebody make it stop.
Not going to happen. It’s not like this hasn’t been done before (Bush 2, Bush 1, Reagan) and in numerous red states - not just Kansas, but WI, LA, OK et al are all suffering from GOP dogma on taxes. Only this time it’s on steroids - this bill is straight from the billionaire play book (one of the Koch brothers ran as VP for the Libertarian party in 80. Take a look at their platform, it’s very nearly what’s going on now.)
Democrats will then have to take the painful steps necessary to rectify this tax scam - and, as Triggercut correctly observes, will pay the political price because Republicans will just again start blurbing about Democrats raising your tax dollars, the dutifully pliant media will play along, and the cycle continues. Only now we’ll have the extra benefit of a judiciary system stacked with extremists right wing bloggers, nearly half the country brainwashed to the point that pedophilia and sexual predators are totally fit for office (so long and they’re in the right tribe), a massive federal deficit that will force pain on everyone but the wealthiest Americans, create a near-permanent underclass, and oh yes the ever growing impacts of climate change and environmental collapse that will lead to a refugee crisis the world has never seen.
I consider myself lucky I’ll be dead within 20-30 years and leave no children behind to pick up the pieces.
That is exactly what happened: the Bush tax cuts greatly cut federal revenues, then when the deficits predictably rose (WHO’DA THUNK IT?!–especially once the financial crisis brought on by banking/finance industry fuckery started), they blamed it on that nasty Obama, the new health care reform law, and the “Porkulus” aka the ARRA for causing the deficit increase and thus supposedly the financial crisis/Great Recession.
When we have the next downturn, there’ll be all kinds of wailing and gnashing of teeth and garment rending again about the (now greatly increased) deficit causing it somehow.
Look how HAPPY these fuckers are about reverse-robin hooding money from the poor to the already ultra-wealthy.
Diego
I would like to raise two points in regard to this.
First, you use the phrase “lower taxation, no matter who benefits” without mentioning any kind of detriment. The numbers have to balance, so if you lower taxes, you must either cut spending or increase the deficit. Both cutting and borrowing can have negative effects, depending on the situation. So I believe most tax cuts are going to be “who wins and who loses?”
Second, you say “people who depend on government assistance oppose lowering taxes for wealthy people.” That encapsulates the whole “makes and takers” meme which IMO is thoroughly discredited.
Let’s take a look at who the federal government spends on and how much. Here is a link to Trump’s budget proposal. The numbers for 2017 look like this (page 33 on that link):
Total spending: $4,065 Billion
Total revenue: $3,460 Billion
Deficit: $605 Billion
Spending by category:
Social Security: $946 Billion
Medicare: $593 Billion
(Please note at this point, Trump’s budget spends 38% of the total on just these two programs, which benefit both rich and poor, based on age rather than income.)
Defense: $592 Billion ( cannot tell if this includes veterans benefits or not, I believe it does not)
Medicaid: $378 Billion
Other Mandatory Programs $656 Billion (this includes food stamps, all the social welfare spending and I think it also includes veterans benefits but that is not specified)
If we assume the Other Mandatory category does not includes veterans benefits, then that is a total of $1,034 Billion or 25% that is spent on the basis of income. These are the “social welfare programs”. Veterans benefits are roughly 5% of the budget, so if that is not included, that means we spend about 20% on social welfare. Either way, the spending on those “who depend on government assistance” is at most 25% of the budget.
The last category is "non-defense discretionary spending"at $624 Billion which includes everything else - all the regulatory agencies, all of federal law enforcement and corrections, all of Homeland Security, all of the research grants and business subsidies, and spending on arts and sciences.
So here’s how the $4,065 Billion Trump Budget for 2017 breaks down in percentage form:
Social Security 24%
Medicare 15%
Defense 15%
Medicaid 9%
Interest on debt: 6%
All other mandatory programs: 16%
All other discretionary programs: 15%
So at most the “other mandatory” and Medicaid are paid to “those dependent” which is 24% of the budget. At a minimum, 76% of the budget goes to benefit all Americans. (I actually thinks its more like 20%/80% if you include veterans benefits as military rather than social spending.)
In other words, we are just not spending as much on “dependency” as many conservatives assume. We just aren’t.
We spend a lot of money on people over 65, about 38% of the budget, about 20% on military and veterans, about 20% on social programs, 6% on the national debt, and that last 16% is everything else.
So one issue for conservatives who believe we spend too much: if you really want to cut, the math demands that you cut Social Security, Medicare, and the military.
So much this.
Somehow republicans managed to convince 30% (whatever) of the country that the “death tax” will apply to them. Compared to that, this will be nothing.
Not only will they say that reversing the tax cuts on job creators will hurt the economy and that it will raise taxes on average Americans (even if it does no such thing), they will say that even talking about it causes uncertainty which hurts the economy. In fact, they will use the uncertainty Democrats supposedly cause by trying to fix this mess to explain why their “give everything to the top 1%” economic plan failed.
This is basically Bush => Obama all over again. Whoever takes over for trump (hopefully next election, but if not the one after) will inherit a shitty economy. They will work hard to improve it slowly and then a republican will win the next time (or the one after it) by blaming the poor economy they started with on the democrat.
This kind of goes back to what a lot of people have been saying. Trump is not the problem, it is the republican party. Almost everything he has been doing is something that your average crazy republican would do as well, they would just do it better and with slightly lower chance of nuclear war. Trump is a modern republican with less shame and more stupid.
Your problem is that you expect the GOP base to actually understand or care about the consequences and results of voting for Republicans. I don’t think he cares. Lower taxation = win! Doesn’t matter whom it fucks over or screws as long as taxes get lowered.
They would love to, and there have been some arguments that that is plan the behind this stupid bill. Push things to the breaking point and finally be able to gut social security and medicare.
Didn’t they/trump make some comment to the effect that they were looking to “reform” (used super lightly) medicare next?
Look who just hit 33% in the latest Gallup tracker, his new all time low:
I realize that it can be difficult to see when things get super shitty…but there is always a cost.