American Politics

[Canada]

So poor ol' dumb but well-meaning Donald Trump and, for that matter, every other Repub president of the past 100 years, wants deep deep in his heart to improve the lives of the ordinary American working men and women but, darn it all, it keeps turning out that their policies and stewardship have instead produced every Great Depression, Great Recession, historic jobs destruction, skyrocketing unemployment rate and now Great Pandemic of the past 100 years and none of the great economic recoveries, great economic expansions or historic jobs creation.

And in the case of Donald Trump, also darn it all since he is so well-meaning deep deep in his heart and never intended such a thing since 1987, to make himself, his Crime Family and any cronies to whom he likely owed significant amounts of lost Trump Scams Investment money, massively wealthy to the tune of Billions by leveraging his threats to foreign countries and international corporations to impose otherwise blitheringly irrational Trump Tariffs in exchange for bribes and favors.

Wow. Just wow. Lolol..

Tariffs are not only working to equalize the trade deficits but it is also bringing in hundreds of companies from several countries moving their manufacturing to USA. So far 42 Canadian companies have moved their manufacturing to Canada. Japan and South Korea have moved numerous companies to USA. GDP is increasing monthly and USA has finally evened to trade tariffs with most countries. Most people are smart enough to see this but sometimes their TDS just deteriorates their minds. USA is winning and it's fun to watch. What a difference from the Biden fiasco.

[HotDog666]

I'm not taking a dogmatic position on being a high tax rate nation- I was simply refuting your made up assertion that the US is a high tax rate country when it clearly isn't, and Trump's assertion that the US needed tariffs to pay down the national debt. That clearly wasn't his intent, and the fact is he didn't have any idea on what his intent was, he shaped shifted his way through the tariffs and why they were necessary (to pay down the debt; no it's because we're being raped by China; no it's because we need to bring back industry; no it's because.) and he didn't follow through with consistent policies on anything; and in fact carried out adverse and contradictory policies concurrently with the tariffs.

See, that's my real beef with you Tiny and Elvis. That you persist in bending yourselves out of shape to find some semblance of rationale or logic or consistency to this fool when there simply isn't any. You don't see the commonality in capricious shape shifting that he did on tariffs and that on the Iran debacle but I do because it's freaking undeniable.

Oh and I don't know where you carry on finding your facts from; I asked both Gemini and Perplexity whether your assertion about the TCJA was correct re providing relatively better cuts to the lesser off; the answer is with the exception of those on Generally no; I'll provide the full summary below. The reality is a lot more nuanced than you're presenting it.

Did the tcja reduce tax for lower income more than higher income people?

Generally, no: the TCJA did not cut taxes for lower-income households *more* than for higher-income households in dollar terms, and many analyses find the largest dollar benefits went to higher-income households. But on a percentage-of-tax or percentage-of-income basis, some low- and middle-income groups saw larger relative reductions, so the answer depends on how you measure "more. ".

How the effects differ.

Low- and middle-income households benefited from the larger standard deduction and expanded child tax credit, which helped many working families. Higher-income households benefited more from rate cuts and some provisions that were more valuable at the top of the income distribution, so their total dollar gains were often larger.

What this means.

If you mean "who got the biggest tax cut in dollars," the answer is usually higher-income households. If you mean "who got the biggest cut relative to what they paid," some lower-income groups did better, and one analysis found the bottom half saw a larger percentage reduction than the top 10 percent.

Plain-language takeaway.

So the fairest short answer is: the TCJA was not mainly a bigger tax cut for lower-income people overall, though it did provide meaningful relief to many of them. The distribution was mixed, with relative gains for some lower-income families but larger total benefits concentrated higher up the income scale.

URL's removed as these don't seem to go through.

Well, you should move to France then. Sirioja likes it, although he doesn't want you there. Raise the tax take in the USA to the level of France and a couple of decades later America would be about 25% or 30% poorer than it would be otherwise. The private sector produces growth and jobs. Put more money in the hands of a wasteful federal government and the economy doesn't do as well.

I haven't looked at the correlation between tax revenues and GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power. But I have looked at the correlation with total government revenues and expenditures as a % of GDP. Kick out the petrostates like Norway and small places like Monaco and Luxembourg, and the most prosperous advanced economies in the world have historically been Singapore, Switzerland, Ireland and the USA. These countries also historically had lower government revenues and expenditures as a % of GDP, compared to other advanced economies..

[Sirioja]

I'm sad though. I thought for sure we'd be at WW3 by now, with nukes raining down all around us. But nada, zilch, zero, nothing. Still alive, living this shitty shitty life. Everything that's been happening, it was our best hope for the end of the world, but there's still 2 and a half years left. Nuclear armageddon could still happen, let's keep our fingers crossed OK?

But with Trump and China, death will arrive fast for most, from heat from pollution. Check your lungs and heart performances. High heat will be a good test to know who will survive or not. Same like in savana, strong and weak. This will be new WW arriving soon. After trying to rob their petrol, I hope Trump will help Venezuela now, when he wants to give 300 billions to mollahs still leading Iran.

[Newton York]

Forget all this politics stuff guys, what really matters now is the question of who is Sadie Sink playing in the new Spiderman movie. I'm voting for Jean Gray!

[Newton York]

I'm sad though. I thought for sure we'd be at WW3 by now, with nukes raining down all around us. But nada, zilch, zero, nothing. Still alive, living this shitty shitty life. Everything that's been happening, it was our best hope for the end of the world, but there's still 2 and a half years left. Nuclear armageddon could still happen, let's keep our fingers crossed OK?

[Elvis 2008]

Re Tariffs-there is precisely no economic rationale to tariffs- the average hick thinks that China or wherever are paying the tax and not him.

LOL. Hot Dog, what do you think happened with the Trump tariffs? All the critics said prices would skyrocket, and they did not. Furthermore, Trump collected so much money he was going to give back $2000 to every taxpaying American. The businesses paying the tariffs ate them. It was the exact opposite of what you and so many econmists said then. It was a tax on thei rich and the money would have been going to everyone including the poor. Your TDS and economic theory has blinded you to this reality.

The Supreme Court ordered Trump pay back the tariffs to the businesses AKA the rich. You have such bad TDS that you do not even acknowledge that. Had Trump involved Congeress with the tarfifs, he could have gotten some part of what he wanted passed. That is part of why he gets a F in execution.

What China is and has been doing is produce goods so cheaply that they lose money in the short term and drive people out of business. Then they screw you once they are your sole provider of that good or service. Ideally, the tariffs work to end that game.

But the other reason Trumg gets a F on execution is he flew off the handle and acted so impulsively. I got an argument with some economist about how we were all going to have pay more for shoes, and I told him that he was full of it. If tariffs drive up the price, and they did not by the way, people would downgrade, buy used, or go without. Shoes have very elastic demand.

While I was saying that, someone chimed in and said that they could produce shoes as cheaply as China in a fully automated factory in the USA for $9 a pair. But if I were going to build that plant or invest in one, I would need to know the China tariffs were going to hold. They did not. The other thing is I want a fixed idea on what my costs are. Given many items that you need to build an automated factory come from abroad, then I would to know what my costs were, and that was impossible to know given that Trump was changing tariff rates every other day.

So the long term goal of tariffs was getting the USA less dependent on imports and moving factories back home was a complete dud. There was no uptick in investment in American factores with the tariffs and IMO it was Trump's lack of guidance that caused that to happen.

ROn Israel, your excuses for him are ringing hollow. To let Israel commit the horrific crimes that it has against the Palestinians, to move the American embassy to Jerusalem, to have Huckabee as ambassador who has literally erased the Palestinians identity and who endorses lebansraum by Israel: ""would be fine if they took it all" referring to large chunks of the rest of the Middle East being taken by Israel, not just Palestine, to. I could go on. Callous is an understatement. "Impetuous" is a joke.

I have already raved about Seymor Hersh and his sources. The headline is Trump breaks with Bibi. This is part of what was written: The MOU between Iran and the USA marks a historic rupture.

It had been an American political ritual, like kissing babies when campaigning, to support Israel in all things, as did President Joe Biden after the horrific Hamas attack inside Israel on October 7, 2023. There was no second guessing then from Washington, only a commitment of US arms, as Netanyahu initiated what would become years of bombing in Gaza, a campaign that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian women and children, leading to public censure of Israel around the world.

An Israeli combat hero, whom I've known for decades, and who over the years has repeatedly expressed admiration for the United States, bitterly described Trump's actions in "reorienting" its Middle East policy to make Iran the lynch pin as a "betrayal of Israel by our best ally. " he added, sadly, that "Iran has oil and control of two waterways," referring to the Strait of Hormuz and a second choke point in the Horn of Africa off Yemen, an Iranian ally. "This will not be Bibi's final blow," the Israeli added, referring to criminal charges against the Prime Minister that are still pending.

My understanding of the current reasoning of Trump and Vice President JD Vance, who has emerged as the president's well-spoken envoy and confidant on all things Iranian and, now, oil, is that Netanyahu's expanding air and ground war in Lebanon was seen in Washington as an unwanted obstacle to US rapprochement with the Iranian leadership. "If Bibi can't win in Gaza" over Hamas, I was told by the US official, "how can he beat the Iranians? Trump has done something no one else could dohe has taken on Bibi, who overplayed his hand. Israel is no longer a dominant issue and Trump is telling Bibi, 'My place in the world is more important than your place.'

End of link. IMO Trump made a massive error listening to Bibi and starting the war, but he also admitted it was a mistake and bailed. To admit you are wrong is a rare thing for a pol to do.

[Tiny 12]

Re Tariffs-there is precisely no economic rationale to tariffs- the average hick thinks that China or wherever are paying the tax and not him. This is the same stupid belief that Trump was under and if the "Reciprocal" term in his tariffs highlights his disingenuity as well as his ignorance. I'm a strong believer in Ricardian economics and this, not tariffs, should be the means of ameliorating any trade deficits.

On the matter of tax, interesting statistics you have there. How do ya like them cherries? The figures you should be focused on is the TOTAL tax as proportion of GDP, anything else is rotten cherries, my friend. And I've asked both Perplexity and Claude where the US lays here, and it's not where you claim.

Country.

Tax revenue as % of GDP.

France.

46%.

Italy.

43%.

Germany.

39%.

UK.

34%.

Canada.

33%.

Brazil.

33%.

Japan.

33%.

South Korea.

32%.

Argentina.

30%.

Australia.

30%.

United States.

28%.

South Africa.

27%.

Russia.

23%.

Trkiye.

21%.

China.

20%.

Mexico.

17%.

India.

12%.

Indonesia.

12%.

Saudi Arabia.

8%.

This is from Perplexity. Claude gives similar results. America is far from the European levels of tax. Besides, Tariffs as a means to reduce the tax burden is one of the dumbest ways of doing things. It's no wonder that they haven't worked.

Trump made a case that he was going to reduce the national debt via tariffs, and instead he reduced the tax on the wealthiest. Please don't give any excuses of how "he didn't really mean to". Either he's ignorant or he's incompetent. Either way it's not pretty is it?

On Israel, your excuses for him are ringing hollow. To let Israel commit the horrific crimes that it has against the Palestinians, to move the American embassy to Jerusalem, to have Huckabee as ambassador who has literally erased the Palestinians identity and who endorses lebansraum by Israel: ""would be fine if they took it all" referring to large chunks of the rest of the Middle East being taken by Israel, not just Palestine, to. I could go on. Callous is an understatement. "Impetuous" is a joke.

Well, you should move to France then. Sirioja likes it, although he doesn't want you there. Raise the tax take in the USA to the level of France and a couple of decades later America would be about 25% or 30% poorer than it would be otherwise. The private sector produces growth and jobs. Put more money in the hands of a wasteful federal government and the economy doesn't do as well.

I haven't looked at the correlation between tax revenues and GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power. But I have looked at the correlation with total government revenues and expenditures as a % of GDP. Kick out the petrostates like Norway and small places like Monaco and Luxembourg, and the most prosperous advanced economies in the world have historically been Singapore, Switzerland, Ireland and the USA. These countries also historically had lower government revenues and expenditures as a % of GDP, compared to other advanced economies.

As to your statement "he reduced the tax on the wealthiest," compare the 2017 tax tables to current tables. Tax rates would have reverted to 2017 levels without Trump's Big Beautiful Bill (BBB). You'll find that the TCJA (the Trump tax cuts) reduced tax rates in % terms (as a % of tax paid) more for lower income groups than higher income groups. In other words, the tax system would have become more regressive without the BBB. There are some people with pass through business entities that did benefit from the BBB. And I don't think those deductions, for so called "Qualified Business Income," should have been extended, or ever enacted. They qualify as pork IMO.

Yes, in absolute dollar terms, the wealthiest benefited more. That's what happens when 1% of the population pays 40% of the income tax.

I'm not sure why you're arguing. You maintain Trump imposed tariffs because he's evil and I think it was because he's ignorant. Either way we agree the tariffs were a mistake. We both believe in comparative advantage and disapprove of crony capitalism.

[HotDog666]

Re Tariffs-there is precisely no economic rationale to tariffs- the average hick thinks that China or wherever are paying the tax and not him. This is the same stupid belief that Trump was under and if the "Reciprocal" term in his tariffs highlights his disingenuity as well as his ignorance. I'm a strong believer in Ricardian economics and this, not tariffs, should be the means of ameliorating any trade deficits.

On the matter of tax, interesting statistics you have there. How do ya like them cherries? The figures you should be focused on is the TOTAL tax as proportion of GDP, anything else is rotten cherries, my friend. And I've asked both Perplexity and Claude where the US lays here, and it's not where you claim.

Country.

Tax revenue as % of GDP.

France.

46%.

Italy.

43%.

Germany.

39%.

UK.

34%.

Canada.

33%.

Brazil.

33%.

Japan.

33%.

South Korea.

32%.

Argentina.

30%.

Australia.

30%.

United States.

28%.

South Africa.

27%.

Russia.

23%.

Türkiye.

21%.

China.

20%.

Mexico.

17%.

India.

12%.

Indonesia.

12%.

Saudi Arabia.

8%.

This is from Perplexity. Claude gives similar results. America is far from the European levels of tax. Besides, Tariffs as a means to reduce the tax burden is one of the dumbest ways of doing things. It's no wonder that they haven't worked.

Trump made a case that he was going to reduce the national debt via tariffs, and instead he reduced the tax on the wealthiest. Please don't give any excuses of how "he didn't really mean to". Either he's ignorant or he's incompetent. Either way it's not pretty is it?

On Israel, your excuses for him are ringing hollow. To let Israel commit the horrific crimes that it has against the Palestinians, to move the American embassy to Jerusalem, to have Huckabee as ambassador who has literally erased the Palestinians identity and who endorses lebansraum by Israel: ""would be fine if they took it all" referring to large chunks of the rest of the Middle East being taken by Israel, not just Palestine, to. I could go on. Callous is an understatement. "Impetuous" is a joke.

Trump absolutely did not implement the tariffs to make "the average Joe fund tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. " He was just ignorant. He's been strongly pro-tariff since at least 1987, and believes tariffs improve the lives of everyday Americans. Largely what he ended up doing instead in his first term was drive up prices on everyday Americans. When faced with tariffs on clothing, toys, cheap electronics and the like, importers increased prices. And the Chinese built factories in places like Vietnam, and raised prices to pay for the capex and the inefficiencies of their new manufacturing hubs. The overall effect on American jobs, wages, GDP and purchasing power was negative.

So did Biden remove the tariffs? For the most part, no he did not.

In his second term Trump got wilder. China wasn't necessarily the target. He tariffed everybody. He changed the tariffs and the rules frequently, making business planning difficult.

Don't get me wrong, tariffs can be useful in promoting national security and the national interest. For example, Trump and Biden and Obama should have had policies in place, including tariffs, to promote mining and processing and manufacturing of rare earth elements and magnets and the like in the USA and friendly countries, which are essential to defense and industry. Trump IMO was extremely unwise for entering into a trade war with China without having this base covered.

Otherwise tariffs tend to promote crony capitalism. Many countries impose them to help privileged elites, who can raise prices sky high when protected against foreign competition. Again though, I don't believe Trump realizes this.

So, back to your point about revenue raising. Yes, tariffs effectively are regressive taxes. However, if you believe the highest end of mankind is to raise revenues for all encompassing government, you're not going to be able to milk the rich for much more than the USA already is. The maximum tax rate (federal + state + local) on ordinary income is 40.8% to 54% and on long term capital gains 23.8% to 39%, depending on location. That's close to Western European levels. Total tax rates (income tax + sales tax + property tax) on middle income Americans are much lower than European levels. You can't raise anywhere close to what Progressives like AOC and Bernie Sanders want by upping taxes on the wealthy. They just don't have the money. And you end up with self-defeating policies, that lower investment and incentives. If you want a European welfare state, you need to do what the Europeans do, impose a Value Added Tax, which is similar to a sales tax. A VAT, like tariffs, is regressive.

About your comments on Israel, I'd attribute the problem not to Trump's callousness, but rather to his impetuousness. There's a book being released today, Regime Change, by two New York Times reporters that says Rubio and the CIA both thought Netanyahu's plan to accomplish regime change in Iran was half baked. Unfortunately, Netanyahu had Trump's ear, and the rest is history.

[SubCmdr]

Based on the most recent 2024 Census data, Oklahoma ranks as the 8th poorest state in the United States, with a poverty rate of 14.9%.*

*This represents an improvement from the 2023 ranking of 6th poorest (15.9%) and the 2022 ranking of 8th poorest (15.7%).*

Key details regarding Oklahoma's poverty status include:
Current Rate: The 2024 poverty rate is 14.9%, meaning more than 1 in 7 residents live in poverty.*
National Comparison: The national poverty rate in 2024 was 12.1%, placing Oklahoma significantly above the average.*
States with Higher Poverty: In 2024, the states with higher poverty rates were Louisiana (18.7%), Mississippi (17.8%), West Virginia (16.7%), New Mexico (16.4%), Kentucky (15.6%), Arkansas (15.5%), and Alabama (15.2%).*
Child Poverty: Oklahoma had the 9th highest child poverty rate in 2024, with 18.9% of children living at or below the federal poverty level.*
Demographic Disparities: Poverty is disproportionately higher among Black Oklahomans (22.8%), American Indians/Alaska Natives (19%), and Latino Oklahomans (18.3%) compared to white Oklahomans (12.9%).*
https://okpolicy.org/2024-census-data-oklahoma-ranks-as-8th-poorest-state/

Not interested in your commentary Mr. Republican I don't think you personally are a racist or a hypocrite. If I did our interactions in the past would not have gone so well. Check my post again. You will have difficulty finding your name. But I do think the political party you are affiliated with is mostly racist and hypocrites. I am allowed my (compound profanity redacted) opinion even if Republicans want to silence me and take away my vote and voting power through political means drawing maps crazy. Even the former governor of California (one of the few Republicans that I respect) is against it.

You want to talk about the census. Love your spin on the numbers. For a party that does not like big government, you certainly do rely on data that comes out from it. So convoluted it makes absolutely no sense. There are no state ranks contained in that link you posted (yes I looked at it). Nothing you wrote invalidates the following statement:

OK is poor and it is run by Republicans

When a Republican is confronted by facts. What does he do? Scream for Security. Then tells them: shut that uppity (racial slur) up!

My data comes from the site below:

https://okpolicy.org/2024-census-dat...poorest-state/

Somebody is lying to you brother. ChatGPT perhaps?

Inflation is theft Are Republicans doing anything about it?

Open your eyes.

In the land of Republicans the one eyed man is king. And they want to count me as 3/5 of a person again.

The Defense Rests!

And the mother (profanity redacted) Democratic Politicians who want to steal it from me can go (profanity redacted) themselves.*

Hi SubCmdr,

Esteemed board member Canada visited Oklahoma shortly before the Second Iran War and the price of gasoline was about $2. 20 a gallon. At that time most Californians paid north of $4. 00 a gallon.

The cost of living in Oklahoma City and Tulsa is a hell of a lot lower than San Francisco and LOS Angeles. Your figures do not take that into account.

You should be looking at the Census Bureau's Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) which adjusts for price differences, taxes, government benefits, and out-of-pocket medical expenses. See Appendix 3 here, for averages for the % of the population living below the SPM in various states: https://www2.census.gov/library/work...-wp2025-14.pdf

California and Louisiana, both at 17.7%, lead the list. Oklahoma clocks in at 19th place at 11.6%.

Oklahoma's population is increasing. And California's is decreasing, albeit slowly. Why the hell is that? California has mountains, beaches, movie stars, and hot and cold running women. Oklahoma is an armpit. Still 11,600 more people left California for Oklahoma than vice versa in 2024 according to ChatGPT. California has tons of homeless people and Oklahoma has relatively few.

Whoever you quoted complained that Oklahoma chronically underfunded public education, ranking 49th in the nation. ChatGPT tells me it was actually the 4th lowest, spending $12,162 per pupil in 2024. California spent about $25,000, twice as much. What did it get for it? NAEP test scores that were equal to or only slightly higher than Oklahoma's. And this is from the state that gave us Stanford and Caltech.

I don't believe that Oklahoma leads the USA in food insecurity, whatever that is.

Do you think Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson and Thomas Sowell are racists? If the USA elects its first Hispanic president in the next decade, he'll probably be a Republican.

*Please note that I harbor no ill will towards Democratic voters, particularly fellow board members. It's the politicians I despise.

[Sirioja]

Congress ask Trump to stop his war in Iran, when he made messe and inflation for world economics. What about 300 billions USD? Trump wants to give to support mollahs who are still there, same than before war.

[EihTooms]

Trump absolutely did not implement the tariffs to make "the average Joe fund tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. " He was just ignorant. He's been strongly pro-tariff since at least 1987, and believes tariffs improve the lives of everyday Americans. Largely what he ended up doing instead in his first term was drive up prices on everyday Americans. When faced with tariffs on clothing, toys, cheap electronics and the like, importers increased prices. And the Chinese built factories in places like Vietnam, and raised prices to pay for the capex and the inefficiencies of their new manufacturing hubs. The overall effect on American jobs, wages, GDP and purchasing power was negative.

So did Biden remove the tariffs? For the most part, no he did not.

In his second term Trump got wilder. China wasn't necessarily the target. He tariffed everybody. He changed the tariffs and the rules frequently, making business planning difficult.

Don't get me wrong, tariffs can be useful in promoting national security and the national interest. For example, Trump and Biden and Obama should have had policies in place, including tariffs, to promote mining and processing and manufacturing of rare earth elements and magnets and the like in the USA and friendly countries, which are essential to defense and industry. Trump IMO was extremely unwise for entering into a trade war with China without having this base covered.

Otherwise tariffs tend to promote crony capitalism. Many countries impose them to help privileged elites, who can raise prices sky high when protected against foreign competition. Again though, I don't believe Trump realizes this..

So poor ol' dumb but well-meaning Donald Trump and, for that matter, every other Repub president of the past 100 years, wants deep deep in his heart to improve the lives of the ordinary American working men and women but, darn it all, it keeps turning out that their policies and stewardship have instead produced every Great Depression, Great Recession, historic jobs destruction, skyrocketing unemployment rate and now Great Pandemic of the past 100 years and none of the great economic recoveries, great economic expansions or historic jobs creation.

And in the case of Donald Trump, also darn it all since he is so well-meaning deep deep in his heart and never intended such a thing since 1987, to make himself, his Crime Family and any cronies to whom he likely owed significant amounts of lost Trump Scams Investment money, massively wealthy to the tune of Billions by leveraging his threats to foreign countries and international corporations to impose otherwise blitheringly irrational Trump Tariffs in exchange for bribes and favors.

Wow. Just wow. Lolol.

BTW, the only thing worse than imposing Tariffs with little rhyme, reason or logic for imposing them in terms of tax revenue that would be far more effective if sourced from somewhere else is to whipsaw in and then back out of them unless they are so damaging to the domestic industries that removing them is imperative just to keep them afloat. By the time Biden mercifully was elected and took office many industries on which Trump had imposed ill-advised tariffs had already laid off the American working men and women they had to lay off in order to offset the damage done by Trump's Tariffs and had readjusted pricing all through the manufacturing, shipping and retail chain to accommodate them. TACO Trump is the whipsaw business models into paralysis King. Not Biden.

And, unlike Trump, incoming President Joe Biden, like every other incoming Dem following an outgoing Repub for the past 100 years, did not have the luxury of strolling in under stable and improving economic and national security conditions, start play golf, goin' fishing, clearin' brush down at the ranch, ride ponies and play more golf. Like every other incoming Dem following an outgoing Repub of the past 100 years, Joe had to hit the ground running to reverse the historic economic decline and crashing markets he was handed to reverse and recover the millions of ordinary American working men and women's jobs the outgoing Repub's policies and stewardship had just wiped out or had merely never created over the Repubs' 4 to 8 to 12 year stint in the White House.

Whipsawing American industries out of all of Trump's irrational, self-serving Trump Tariffs maneuvers was not as high a priority as making sure as many Americans had access to the vaccines Trump was still discouraging anyone from bothering to take, stimulating the economy, recovering American jobs and thereby revive the global supply-chains that Trump's well-meaning and deep deep hearted concern for the common man and woman decisions as far back as 2018 and 2019 had totally collapsed.

[Tiny 12]

And the mother (profanity redacted) Democratic Politicians who want to steal it from me can go (profanity redacted) themselves.*

Oklahoma is a Republican State where 1 in 7 people live in poverty.

This is the Republican answer to social problems. Let them fend for themselves. Most of the people claiming the Republican party posting in this thread are hypocrites and racists. But that the core of the Republican Party that I have known for as long as I have been alive.

If the red elephants want to impress me, they can start by showing me how since 2004 the Republican party has improved Oklahoma.

Time to put in some work!

Hi SubCmdr,

Esteemed board member Canada visited Oklahoma shortly before the Second Iran War and the price of gasoline was about $2. 20 a gallon. At that time most Californians paid north of $4. 00 a gallon.

The cost of living in Oklahoma City and Tulsa is a hell of a lot lower than San Francisco and LOS Angeles. Your figures do not take that into account.

You should be looking at the Census Bureau's Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) which adjusts for price differences, taxes, government benefits, and out-of-pocket medical expenses. See Appendix 3 here, for averages for the % of the population living below the SPM in various states: https://www2.census.gov/library/work...-wp2025-14.pdf

California and Louisiana, both at 17.7%, lead the list. Oklahoma clocks in at 19th place at 11.6%.

Oklahoma's population is increasing. And California's is decreasing, albeit slowly. Why the hell is that? California has mountains, beaches, movie stars, and hot and cold running women. Oklahoma is an armpit. Still 11,600 more people left California for Oklahoma than vice versa in 2024 according to ChatGPT. California has tons of homeless people and Oklahoma has relatively few.

Open your eyes.

Whoever you quoted complained that Oklahoma chronically underfunded public education, ranking 49th in the nation. ChatGPT tells me it was actually the 4th lowest, spending $12,162 per pupil in 2024. California spent about $25,000, twice as much. What did it get for it? NAEP test scores that were equal to or only slightly higher than Oklahoma's. And this is from the state that gave us Stanford and Caltech.

I don't believe that Oklahoma leads the USA in food insecurity, whatever that is.

Do you think Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson and Thomas Sowell are racists? If the USA elects its first Hispanic president in the next decade, he'll probably be a Republican.

*Please note that I harbor no ill will towards Democratic voters, particularly fellow board members. It's the politicians I despise.

[KeviKev68]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=990RXnk8X-U

How many white male police officers have fucked up on the job? What do you categorize that?

[Tiny 12]

Just when I was about to say you're more balanced than I thought, you had to just blurt this out:

"I think Trump's plan on tariffs was actually the right idea but instead of implementing them the legally correct way and going through Congress, he signed executive orders and acted in an incredibly impulsive way when doling out said tariffs. So I give him an A on the idea and a F on execution."

The tariffs were probably the 2nd or 3rd most stupid things this moron leader of yours did. Ostensibly they were to "reduce the American debt". How's that working out? Be honest Elvis, they are a mechanism for making the average joe fund the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. You accuse me of TDS, but you're suffering from TMS- Trump Messiah Syndrome, seeking to find logic in the dumbest of moves. He's not the Messiah. He's a very naughty boy.

I agree though that Kamala Harris was a daft choice and that's on Biden. As for the ME, no in honesty I can't excuse or justify the conduct of most of his predecessors but the one thing you can say is he's upped the volume to 11 on everything. It's on his watch that Israel has conducted itself with such impunity that it's now victimizing and brutalising the Palestinian christians. Still there is a silver lining to everything, and America is finally opening up to seeing what Israel is and has been doing. This is consequential of Trump's callousness but of course does not mean he deserves any credit for changing the American mindset.

Trump absolutely did not implement the tariffs to make "the average Joe fund tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. " He was just ignorant. He's been strongly pro-tariff since at least 1987, and believes tariffs improve the lives of everyday Americans. Largely what he ended up doing instead in his first term was drive up prices on everyday Americans. When faced with tariffs on clothing, toys, cheap electronics and the like, importers increased prices. And the Chinese built factories in places like Vietnam, and raised prices to pay for the capex and the inefficiencies of their new manufacturing hubs. The overall effect on American jobs, wages, GDP and purchasing power was negative.

So did Biden remove the tariffs? For the most part, no he did not.

In his second term Trump got wilder. China wasn't necessarily the target. He tariffed everybody. He changed the tariffs and the rules frequently, making business planning difficult.

Don't get me wrong, tariffs can be useful in promoting national security and the national interest. For example, Trump and Biden and Obama should have had policies in place, including tariffs, to promote mining and processing and manufacturing of rare earth elements and magnets and the like in the USA and friendly countries, which are essential to defense and industry. Trump IMO was extremely unwise for entering into a trade war with China without having this base covered.

Otherwise tariffs tend to promote crony capitalism. Many countries impose them to help privileged elites, who can raise prices sky high when protected against foreign competition. Again though, I don't believe Trump realizes this.

So, back to your point about revenue raising. Yes, tariffs effectively are regressive taxes. However, if you believe the highest end of mankind is to raise revenues for all encompassing government, you're not going to be able to milk the rich for much more than the USA already is. The maximum tax rate (federal + state + local) on ordinary income is 40.8% to 54% and on long term capital gains 23.8% to 39%, depending on location. That's close to Western European levels. Total tax rates (income tax + sales tax + property tax) on middle income Americans are much lower than European levels. You can't raise anywhere close to what Progressives like AOC and Bernie Sanders want by upping taxes on the wealthy. They just don't have the money. And you end up with self-defeating policies, that lower investment and incentives. If you want a European welfare state, you need to do what the Europeans do, impose a Value Added Tax, which is similar to a sales tax. A VAT, like tariffs, is regressive.

About your comments on Israel, I'd attribute the problem not to Trump's callousness, but rather to his impetuousness. There's a book being released today, Regime Change, by two New York Times reporters that says Rubio and the CIA both thought Netanyahu's plan to accomplish regime change in Iran was half baked. Unfortunately, Netanyahu had Trump's ear, and the rest is history.

[MarquisdeSade1]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=990RXnk8X-U