American Politics

[Tiny 12]

Repubs' classic tax cuts for the wealthy are "piddly" because they have yet to produce an economic boom, more often than not precipitate another Great Repub Recession and Massive Job Destruction and are often not even demanded by the wealthy because they barely notice a difference. Trump's latest utterly useless ones were permanent for corporations and the very wealthy and were set to sunset within a few years for everyone else. So it was a clever ruse for them to make those temporary ones look ok this time around. Just enough to get them past a couple of election cycles:

Trump Tax Cuts Helped Billionaires Pay Less Taxes Than The Working Class In 2018

https://www.forbes.com/sites/camilom...class-in-2018/

Republicans Now Plan to Pass Permanent Tax Cuts for Corporations and Temporary Tax Cuts for Everybody Else

https://slate.com/business/2017/11/g...yone-else.html

The extensions during Trump's Pandemic's worldwide economic disaster? Those were Democrat tax cuts that Repubs never intended to be given.

Sigh.

I've read 47% of Saez and Zucman's "The Triumph of Injustice" according to my Kindle, which is what your Forbes link is all about. Saez and Zucman are French and like their colleague Thomas Piketty want to convert the USA into France. Maybe Saez and Zucman, who indoctrinate young minds at Berkeley, are French plants, part of a scheme to bring USA Standards of living down to the French level, which is about 25% to 30% lower based on GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power.

Actually Francois Hollande tried to implement the Piketty / Saez / Zucman playbook, and had to back off because measures like their 75% supertax and wealth tax actually resulted in less government revenues, as the high income earners left France or just stopped realizing high income. Anyway, from what I've read so far in their book, the mother fuckers are full of shit.

I don't recall the particular passage from the book in question, or haven't gotten to it yet, but it most likely assumes income is really "increase in net worth." Thus, for example, Elon Musk back when Tesla stock was on the rise paid very little income tax compared to his increase in net worth. Saez and Zucman are advisors to Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Their solution to this great mass of alleged untaxed "income" is to impose a tax on wealth. Sanders would tax someone like Musk at a rate of close to 8% of his net worth. So Musk, and other extremely successful entrepreneurs, would constantly have to sell off parts of their businesses to pay their tax. So I guess that, indeed, America, which historically has created such great and innovative companies as Microsoft, Oracle, Google, Facebook, Walmart, could become just like France.

And to what avail? The government's going to get 40% of everything these people have when they die anyway, that they don't leave to charity, through the death tax. Apparently that's not enough for thieves like Saez, Zucman, Warren and Sanders.

These stupid shits also apparently believe that money paid to the Federal Government would do more good than the charities people like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and Charles Koch leave their money too. The federal government flushes a huge part of what it spends down the toilet. Gates and Buffet, for example, do a lot of good with their giving.

Back to reality. Our tax system, including sales taxes, state taxes, property taxes, and the employees' share of payroll contributions, is highly progressive compared to other countries until you get to the top .01% of income earners. And the top .01% still pay at a higher rate than the middle class and upper middle class. Why? Well, the actual people in the top .01% of taxpayers must change a lot from year to year. I'd suspect a high percentage are people who sold very successful businesses, that they may have spent lifetimes building, and so pay at the 23.8% capital gains tax rate. If you indexed capital gains for inflation, their income would be considerably lower, so the 23.8% is misleading.

As to your second link, as you've said, the tax cuts for individuals were piddly. The federal corporate rate cut, from 35% to 21%, was not. With state income taxes, the average rate was around 40%. This was much higher than every other country in the developed world. The corporate rate needed to come down, and was accomplished with other tax reform measures like the GILTI tax that closed loopholes and made it more attractive, from a tax perspective, to do business and add jobs in the USA instead of foreign countries. I'd attribute part of the booming economy in 2019, with low unemployment and higher middle class wages, to improvement in business conditions that resulted from the corporate tax cut, which took effect at the first of 2018. During the Biden administration we're still benefitting from this, and even Biden's smart enough not to entirely kill the goose that laid the golden egg. His proposals would only bring the rate back up to 28%.

Your favorite politicians and media sources are pulling the wool over your eyes. You should learn to research and think for yourself.

[PVMonger]

Well, OK, I'll weigh in again then. For some reason, you and Spidy refuse to accept that Chris' estimate of 10 deaths by handgun per death by long run is reasonable. And you apparently want to impose the same laws on Wyoming that you do on Washington D.C. I suspect many Democrats think similarly. Until they change their views, there will be no progress.

You overstate the threat of right wing terrorism greatly. However, if you start taking away peoples' shotguns and rifles in places like Texas and Wyoming, your worst fears may be realize. The only truly horrendous right wing terrorist incident in the USA was related to this issue. The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms decided it was going to take the guns away from the Branch Davidians. People died in Waco as a result. And that was the impetus for Timothy McVeigh to bomb the federal building in Oklahoma City. That's a precursor of what we'll be looking at if the Feds get overzealous about taking guns.

Going back to the UNODC data, for homicide rates by country, look at the top 30 countries. Of these, 15 are islands with restrictive gun laws. The USA Virgin Islands, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Anguilla, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin, Dominica, Montserrat, Duracao, St. Kitts and Nevis, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and Barbados. If gun laws aren't doing a good job of reducing homicides on islands, why would enforcing restrictive gun laws in places like Wyoming (homicide rate 2. 2 per 100,000) reduce homicides in a places like Washington D.C. (homicide rate 23.4)? In passing, please note gun laws are more restrictive in Washington D.C. than Wyoming..

There you go again. Putting words in my mouth.

My post was talking about handguns only not shotguns and long guns. I even said so.

What I also said was that any time the talk of control of any type of weapon comes up, the gun nuts say "2nd Amendment" and shut down. Any type of weapon.

SCOTUS has virtually ruled that no type of firearm can be restricted anywhere. They just ruled that crazy people have just as much right to own a firearm as anybody else does which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Your argument re: the Caribbean Islands is rather spurious. As is DC. It is, frankly, a code for "Black people commit most crime so let's restrict their access to handguns". As well, your contention that the Waco mess was caused because the Feds wanted to seize the Branch Davidian's guns is incorrect. The Feds suspected that the Branch Davidians were modifying AR-15's with M-16 lower assemblies in order to make the AR-15's fully automatic. They obtained a search warrant based upon those suspicions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege.

[ChuchoLoco]

Sorry to hear that. I've had it happen to me in the past and so much like the ISG editor, it's as annoying as hell.

But that said, I now use either MS Word, Notepad or some text editor facsimile, to markup/edit my long posts and then cut-in-paste to ISG, to avoid those dreaded errant premature "ISG sign-outs" and lost of long reports, while in the midst of writing. Now if we can only do something about the editor?

Hope that helps!

Yes it helps, Thanks!

[Spidy]

Like Switzerland, where every adult citizen has a rifle by law. No, wait.

Is it any wonder, red states illiteracy rates are so high, when we have dudes (that supposedly don't have a "low-IQ) thinking, Switzerland, is a G7 country.

[Tiny 12]

Nothing was "fixed. " Hillary Clinton got at least 2. 5 million more votes than Bernie Sanders did in the primaries, fair and square, nothing to do with the Super Delegates.

Does Clinton really have 2.5 million more votes than Sanders?

https://www.politifact.com/factcheck...ore-votes-san/

Besides which, did you know that Bernie Sanders isn't even a a member of the Democratic Party? Nope, he isn't. Are you shocked? Maybe you just discovered this.

Bernie switched from being an Independent, what he might characterize as being a member of the Democratic Socialists of America Party to the Democratic Party just long enough to run as a Dem in the primaries, enjoy the DNC's debate schedule and media attention and then, sure enough, switched right out and back to his supposed Democratic Socialists of America Party as soon as the primaries were over.

Is there really any wonder why The Democratic Party, not talking about the DNC here that demonstrated no pro-Hillary Clinton, anti-Sanders bias, wasn"t falling all over itself to praise and tout someone who hadn't even been a member of the Democratic Party and everyone had every reason to suspect would dump the Party as soon as he got his nomination or not, which he did, but instead chose to side with a longtime, genuine Democrat?

I'm not a Democrat or a member of the Democratic Socialists of America Party. This is not my monkey. Please take it up with venerable contributor ChuchoLoco.

Please note there were 712 superdelegates, all unpledged Democratic party insiders, and only 43 supported Sanders. Many of the superdelegates announced their support for Hillary when the winner was still in doubt. Support in primaries tends to coalesce around the candidate(s) who gets the most delegates early on.

Maybe before criticizing the electoral college Democrats should get their own house in order.

[Spidy]

Wrote a more detailed reply but I keep losing my sign-in and lose the reply so I'll keep this short. Like Ed Macman (spelling) used to tell Johnny Carson doing the Carsony skit, "You are correct sir".

Sorry to hear that. I've had it happen to me in the past and so much like the ISG editor, it's as annoying as hell.

But that said, I now use either MS Word, Notepad or some text editor facsimile, to markup/edit my long posts and then cut-in-paste to ISG, to avoid those dreaded errant premature "ISG sign-outs" and lost of long reports, while in the midst of writing. Now if we can only do something about the editor?

Hope that helps!

[Spidy]

Exactly the same low-IQ obfuscation ...

Speaking of people with low-IQ, Chris P, since you know so much about low-IQ, it shouldn't come as any surprise to you, that the red states, have the highest illiteracy rates in the country. 12 out of the top 20 states are illiterate red states. (Note: The others were 3-Blue, 4-Swing States, 1-Independent).

Illiteracy Rate by State: In 2023, Red States continue to have the highest levels of illiteracy.
https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings...rate-by-state/

That's a massive difference of 75% of worst illiteracy, found in red states to those found in the blue states.

Here's a novel idea, perhaps QAnon/Repubs, you should try advocating for putting more books (of higher learning) in the hands (and minds) of our youth and kids, instead of the newest "kiddy friendly" AR-15's, guns and firearms or the latest magazine edition of "Guns N' Ammo".

Oh, what's that you say now, Chris P, "...we're in the Ron DeSatan book banning era". Right!!! That's like, very 1933 Nazi book burning of him, don't you think?

[Spidy]

{...same drivel, drivel, drivel...}

Repeating yourself with the same pathetic drivel, expecting a different result, is indeed madness. Definitely a clear sign of senility or is it just "low-IQ"?

But since you supposedly don't have a "low-IQ", I'm sure you're "smart enough", to find the answers to your question else where. So go google to your hearts content.

Attaboy and Good Luck!

[EihTooms]

Yes, you have to buy Democratic Politicians off to get them to treat American businesses fairly.

The Chamber of Commerce, wisely realizing that Democrats would retain control of the House in 2020, endorsed 23 House Democrats along with 29 House Republicans. All of the Chamber's $2 million in outside spending up to 9/1/20 however went to Republicans, along with $40 million in 2018 and 2016. The Chamber contributed $168,000 to Republican Senatorial candidates in 2020, compared to "0" to Democrats. (They probably thought the Republicans were going to win the Senate. And if Trump hadn't fucked up the Georgia Senate races they would have.).

https://ktla.com/news/politics/marki...use-democrats/

Fast forward to 2022. The Chamber endorsed 23 Republicans and 4 Democrats and donated $3 million to Mitch McConnell's PAC.

https://thehill.com/business-a-lobby...ew-leadership/

Why are you criticizing a marginal tax cut for the wealthy if it was piddly? The decrease in marginal rates in percentage terms for the middle class was greater than for the wealthy BTW.

Believe it or not, Republicans favor reasonable regulation of pollution. Since you kind of brought it up, please note that Democrats have given the EPA $102 billion to spend on climate-related projects over the next 18 months. What's wrong with that? Well, the usual annual budget of the EPA is about $9 billion per year. How efficiently do you think that money is going to be spent. As one community organizer put it, "They passed all this stuff, and they committed funding for all this stuff, but then they didn't actually write out how it's going to work. Everybody's just kind of waiting for that to come out."

Wasteful Democrats. They think money grows on trees.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/epas-10...article_inline

Fast forward to 2022 and the Chamber of Commerce likely expected the same Red Tsunami many expected but never happened. However, the Redrawn Districts Pink Tinkle still tinkled out a 5 vote advantage in the House. To be sure, that is a historic embarrassment for the "out" party at such a midterm, but they did redraw enough districts to produce a tinkle.

So now the Chamber of Commerce's more favorable Repub donations bought them bragging rights to siding with the Repub "winners" who will again threaten to and this time around might actually succeed in defaulting on the debt they racked up, shit on the full faith and credit of the USA, crash worldwide economies, few more so than the USA, and ultimately make China richer.

They must be very proud to have placed the easy bet on the "favorite" in 2022 and, having done so, might very well have squeezed that little pink weenie just right and just long enough to produce its pink tinkle.

Repubs' classic tax cuts for the wealthy are "piddly" because they have yet to produce an economic boom, more often than not precipitate another Great Repub Recession and Massive Job Destruction and are often not even demanded by the wealthy because they barely notice a difference. Trump's latest utterly useless ones were permanent for corporations and the very wealthy and were set to sunset within a few years for everyone else. So it was a clever ruse for them to make those temporary ones look ok this time around. Just enough to get them past a couple of election cycles:

Trump Tax Cuts Helped Billionaires Pay Less Taxes Than The Working Class In 2018

https://www.forbes.com/sites/camilom...class-in-2018/

Republicans Now Plan to Pass Permanent Tax Cuts for Corporations and Temporary Tax Cuts for Everybody Else

https://slate.com/business/2017/11/g...yone-else.html

The extensions during Trump's Pandemic's worldwide economic disaster? Those were Democrat tax cuts that Repubs never intended to be given.

[Tiny 12]

Wasteful Democrats. They think money grows on trees.

Sorry gentlemen of the left, I meant to write wasteful Democratic politicians.

[Tiny 12]

The people you mentioned will mouth platitudes like "2nd Amendment" and shut down. The simple facts are that all of what I said in my original post are true. Unfortunately.

Well, OK, I'll weigh in again then. For some reason, you and Spidy refuse to accept that Chris' estimate of 10 deaths by handgun per death by long run is reasonable. And you apparently want to impose the same laws on Wyoming that you do on Washington D.C. I suspect many Democrats think similarly. Until they change their views, there will be no progress.

You overstate the threat of right wing terrorism greatly. However, if you start taking away peoples' shotguns and rifles in places like Texas and Wyoming, your worst fears may be realize. The only truly horrendous right wing terrorist incident in the USA was related to this issue. The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms decided it was going to take the guns away from the Branch Davidians. People died in Waco as a result. And that was the impetus for Timothy McVeigh to bomb the federal building in Oklahoma City. That's a precursor of what we'll be looking at if the Feds get overzealous about taking guns.

Going back to the UNODC data, for homicide rates by country, look at the top 30 countries. Of these, 15 are islands with restrictive gun laws. The USA Virgin Islands, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Anguilla, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin, Dominica, Montserrat, Duracao, St. Kitts and Nevis, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and Barbados. If gun laws aren't doing a good job of reducing homicides on islands, why would enforcing restrictive gun laws in places like Wyoming (homicide rate 2. 2 per 100,000) reduce homicides in a places like Washington D.C. (homicide rate 23.4)? In passing, please note gun laws are more restrictive in Washington D.C. than Wyoming.

Anyway, I do agree with you, that restrictions on hand guns would likely reduce the homicide rate in places where that's a problem. I think it makes sense to restrict handgun ownership in Washington D.C. , but not necessarily Wyoming. Or rather, let the people of Washington D.C. and Wyoming decide for themselves. Don't impose a federal mandate.

I believe we could get some agreement here, if you and Spidy were on board with my initial two points. Chris, Elvis and the Marquis would probably be onboard with taking handguns away from Democrats in places like Washington D.C.

[Tiny 12]

2-3 years ago somebody at America's largest business organization finally got around to looking at the past century pattern of results and came to the inescapable conclusion that the Repub Party's supposed expertise in accomplishing what only on the surface sounds like it ought to be great for business, see quote below, in the hands of Real Repubs in the Real World turns out to produce pro-business results notably inferior to that of the Dem Party, at best, and more often than not produces demonstrably horrific results of the worst economic downturns, massive jobs and business destruction in history:

McCarthy, Scalise go to war with U.S. Chamber after group backed some Democrats

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/06/kevi...ndroidappshare

Yes, you have to buy Democratic Politicians off to get them to treat American businesses fairly.

The Chamber of Commerce, wisely realizing that Democrats would retain control of the House in 2020, endorsed 23 House Democrats along with 29 House Republicans. All of the Chamber's $2 million in outside spending up to 9/1/20 however went to Republicans, along with $40 million in 2018 and 2016. The Chamber contributed $168,000 to Republican Senatorial candidates in 2020, compared to "0" to Democrats. (They probably thought the Republicans were going to win the Senate. And if Trump hadn't fucked up the Georgia Senate races they would have.).

https://ktla.com/news/politics/marki...use-democrats/

Fast forward to 2022. The Chamber endorsed 23 Republicans and 4 Democrats and donated $3 million to Mitch McConnell's PAC.

https://thehill.com/business-a-lobby...ew-leadership/

Yep, dangling some piddling, utterly useless to the point of being counterproductive marginal tax cut for the wealthy before the eyes of the electorate while, for example, making it easier for industries to pollute the air and water....

Why are you criticizing a marginal tax cut for the wealthy if it was piddly? The decrease in marginal rates in percentage terms for the middle class was greater than for the wealthy BTW.

Believe it or not, Republicans favor reasonable regulation of pollution. Since you kind of brought it up, please note that Democrats have given the EPA $102 billion to spend on climate-related projects over the next 18 months. What's wrong with that? Well, the usual annual budget of the EPA is about $9 billion per year. How efficiently do you think that money is going to be spent. As one community organizer put it, "They passed all this stuff, and they committed funding for all this stuff, but then they didn't actually write out how it's going to work. Everybody's just kind of waiting for that to come out."

Wasteful Democrats. They think money grows on trees.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/epas-10...article_inline

[Spidy]

There are no data (at least that I could find) that broke out the number of handguns from the number of "firearms" per capita in the US. Only some vague assertions that there were more handguns than long guns. One source says that 60% of murders were by handgun, 3% by rifle and 1% by shotgun. But then there's the pesky "remainder" of 36%. Is it the same percentage? Larger? Smaller? But if the percentage is 51%-49% or 80%-20% is unknown and probably unknowable. We already know that there are 120+ firearms per 100 people in the US. https://pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20...hs-in-the-u-s/.

But the problem with firearms in general is their availability and their ease of acquisition. Firearms are obtained through legal gun dealers, through gun shows, from private sellers, from out-of-state and from theft. The simple problem is that other than obtaining a firearm through a legal dealer (which sometimes requires a background check and sometimes requires a license), none of the other means of acquisition require diddly-squat.

But let's say that the US decided that they'd had enough of the violence and that they were going to "crack down". If we ignore the handwringing from the right about how the US was going to confiscate every firearm in America, what can be done?

How about requiring a background check and a 30-day waiting period for every handgun sold by every dealer, private individual or gun show seller? How about registering every handgun / buyer combination so that it becomes a matter of record if someone from Illinois goes to Indiana to buy a handgun today and goes to Wisconsin to buy a handgun next week. Since people have only two hands, nobody needs more than two handguns. And you'd better damn well have both if you've bought both because you'd need the paperwork.

How about firearm laws that are tough and equal from state to state? The largest problem now is that many states have very lax firearm laws. That means that a handgun that is easy to obtain in one state may be difficult to obtain in another state so it make absolute sense for somebody to obtain it where it is easy to do so and resell it where it is difficult to obtain. I cannot find the article that referenced how tough gun laws in every state would have an effect on lowering crime because of the price of a handgun. The basic premise was that if handguns were extremely difficult to obtain, the supply would go down and the price would go up. That's, you know, ECON 101. Would the price go to $1000? Who knows. But common sense says that the price would go up dramatically.

Now, to theft. I read one article that said that 300,000 firearms were stolen each year from retail establishments. Really? What do these morons do? Do have a neon sign that says "Premises unlocked so come and take what you want"? And stolen from homeowners? Any homeowner who doesn't have a hand gun in a locked safe ought to be shot on sight.

I have seen nothing, from either side of the aisle, about tackling the problem. Dems won't do it because they know that handgun legislation simply can not get passed. Repubs won't do it because handgun legislation will infuriate their base.

Excellent post! Excellent questions and spot on summation.

Yep, it's not like the Dems haven't done anything to fend off the proliferation of handguns. But why beat your head against the wall, only to yield the same results.

[EihTooms]

Something similar happened in the 2016 primaries. The powers that be decided Hillary would be a better general election candidate than Bernie so they made that happen. I seem to recall the Democratic Party had a large number of super delegates who were selected by the party bosses? I'm not sure if they fixed that?

They are there. If you define "qualified" as Tooms does, more than in the Democratic Party. I'm partial to blue state Republican governors, like Charlie Baker, Larry Hogan, and Chris Sununu. They're all popular, they're not divisive, and they've all done a good job. John Kasich and Nikki Haley too, although they hail from red states.

Nothing was "fixed. " Hillary Clinton got at least 2. 5 million more votes than Bernie Sanders did in the primaries, fair and square, nothing to do with the Super Delegates.

Does Clinton really have 2.5 million more votes than Sanders?

https://www.politifact.com/factcheck...ore-votes-san/

Well, with the Wisconsin vote not yet in, based on the Fair Vote totals, the primary tallies stand at 8,746,692 for Clinton compared to 6,049,960 for Sanders. This gives Clinton nearly 2.7 million votes more than her rival.

Besides which, did you know that Bernie Sanders isn't even a a member of the Democratic Party? Nope, he isn't. Are you shocked? Maybe you just discovered this.

Bernie switched from being an Independent, what he might characterize as being a member of the Democratic Socialists of America Party to the Democratic Party just long enough to run as a Dem in the primaries, enjoy the DNC's debate schedule and media attention and then, sure enough, switched right out and back to his supposed Democratic Socialists of America Party as soon as the primaries were over.

Is there really any wonder why The Democratic Party, not talking about the DNC here that demonstrated no pro-Hillary Clinton, anti-Sanders bias, wasn"t falling all over itself to praise and tout someone who hadn't even been a member of the Democratic Party and everyone had every reason to suspect would dump the Party as soon as he got his nomination or not, which he did, but instead chose to side with a longtime, genuine Democrat?

[PVMonger]

So you can't define men and women. Noted.

As anyone can see, I said don't and you said can't.

Those are two different words with two different meanings. Please learn the difference.

Dems do not "define" men and women because when we do, we get douches asking questions like "Then why can't you define them?

Or douches making transphobic statements like "Trannies are mentally ill".

Or douches who think that using the term "globohomo" is, somehow, funny when in reality it is simply homophobic.

Or douches who continually post "opinions" and believe that they are facts.

Or douches who believe that because Tucker Carlson is watched a lot it means that he is correct in his opinions. Dogs get more information from sniffing another dog's butt than anybody gets from watching Carlson. Those same people seem to ignore the fact that Carlson's own lawyers argued in a courtroom that nobody with an ounce of common sense would believe a word that Carlson says. But since there are a lot of people who believe every word that Carlson says I guess that means that there are a lot of people without an ounce of common sense.

Or douches who don't understand that "heritage American" is a code-word for "white people". The only "heritage Americans" living in the USA are those who pre-dated the white man by 10,000+ years. I might even accept the term "heritage American" if someone can prove their lineage back to the original Pilgrims. But, in general, unless you are a "Native American", you aren't a "heritage American".

Or douches who are afraid that an immigrant with a 6th grade education will somehow "steal" your job that requires a Master's degree". This is xenophobia.

Or douches who believe that the 2020 election was stolen, even though there is absolutely no proof of that plus the statement of the then-Attorney-General who said that talk of a stolen election was "bullshit".

Or douches who believe that Jews will replace them.

I could go an and on but every Dem already knows. And every Dem also understands who does not understand what I just posted. And they also know who can not understand what I just posted.