The Trump Presidency - how I stopped worrying and learned to love the Hair

LeVeL said:
5% of a million is a higher number than 5% of $50k? That's your argument? Seems pretty obvious that in absolute dollar terms higher earners got more of a break - that'll always be the case. What you're missing completely is that a 2-3% increase in take-home pay isn't "table scraps" - it's literally hundreds if not thousands of dollars more in our pockets.
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That is, unless you live in a state with high taxes, which you can now no longer deduct.

In my case, this wiped out the alleged cuts entirely, and amounted to a mild increase in effective tax rate.
 
EyeMWing said:
That is, unless you live in a state with high taxes, which you can now no longer deduct.

In my case, this wiped out the alleged cuts entirely, and amounted to a mild increase in effective tax rate.
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So vote for politicians that lower your state level taxes or move.

Look at it this way, under the old tax plan your (and mine) state taxes were essentially passed on to states with lower taxes. Does that seem fair to you?
 
LeVeL said:
Debt is rising simply because people are spending money they don't have
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You are right here, they are spending money they do not have.

There is a caveat, though:

Again, if people stopped spending so much unnecessarily prices would fall, meaning real wages would increase.
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Not really. If people stopped spending unnecessarily, companies would stop selling unnecessary things, so they would stop producing unnecessary stuff, so they would fire redundant workers, so the added competition would lower wages, so their real wages would stay equal, or get lower.

Debt works as doping for the economy: you spend (or invest) money you do not have yet. Everybody feels richer, and everything works fine as long as your investments pay out. Of course, failed investments or plain spending, coupled with debt, bring along innumerable problems.

So you are perfectly right in saying that people are spending more than they have: they have all been - pushed - to make countless debts to cover expenses ratther than investments, though, and now they can't keep up. They will stall, and you can't really blame them, unless you also blame those who lied to them and tricked them into giving them their money.

Of course, it will problably be the standard people getting the worst, because they have less power than the rich: they will be told they are stupid, they spend too much, they now have to pay for their own misery.

Yet not once it is said that those who deceived for so long are crooks now enjoying undeserved money.

That part is always forgotten because "hey, it was their choice to make debts to pay for the luxury phone, wasn't it? It surely wasn't my psychologically manipulating ad campaign!"

You can retire as a millionaire by investing $100/mo but people would rather lease the latest car, upgrade their cable package, etc.
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I suspect the US are a different world, but how could you do, this way? You are right, though, on saying that people would still be preferring short-range rewards.
 
prizrak said:
So vote for politicians that lower your state level taxes or move.

Look at it this way, under the old tax plan your (and mine) state taxes were essentially passed on to states with lower taxes. Does that seem fair to you?
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I actually quite appreciate the things my taxes get me and the people and things that I love.

That said, I don't appreciate politicians and their supporters and propaganda outlets wagging their dicks about how everybody is getting a tax cut when it is just completely and demonstrably untrue. Half truths are fucking exhausting, and I'm done with them. They go right in the bucket with "lying to my face".

I'd be quite happy paying more. If you want to debate tax policy with me, my answer is "the same or more". If you want to debate budget with me, my answer to quite a lot of the US federal outlay is "what the fuck is this shit?"
 
EyeMWing said:
I actually quite appreciate the things my taxes get me and the people and things that I love.
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That's an opinion you are completely entitled to but then you can't bitch about being in a high tax state. Additionally what are those things that taxes get you that you couldn't pay for yourself?

EyeMWing said:
That said, I don't appreciate politicians and their supporters and propaganda outlets wagging their dicks about how everybody is getting a tax cut when it is just completely and demonstrably untrue. Half truths are fucking exhausting, and I'm done with them. They go right in the bucket with "lying to my face".
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Tax code is complicated what can I say? Majority got cuts, some people got shafted (funnily enough despite what @Blind_Io posted*, all the ones I know who did are very comfortably in the 1%) you can certainly debate whether the ROI was worth it or not.

*My organization has a very flat structure and the C-level folks are rather approachable.
**I'm not saying that my anecdotal data is more correct, just find it ironic

EyeMWing said:
I'd be quite happy paying more. If you want to debate tax policy with me, my answer is "the same or more". If you want to debate budget with me, my answer to quite a lot of the US federal outlay is "what the fuck is this shit?"
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That is a contradictory statement, either the government is spending money [more] wisely [than you would] in which case it makes sense you are OK with your tax buden. Or the budget is "wtf is this shit" in which case why would you be OK with paying for things that don't make any sense?

I understand that taxation on some level is necessary, though there are states that don't have any income tax and are doing rather well, but I am not willing to subsidize wasteful spending for things we don't need, like the F-35....
 
prizrak said:
Tax code is complicated what can I say? Majority got cuts, some people got shafted (funnily enough despite what @Blind_Io posted*, all the ones I know who did are very comfortably in the 1%) you can certainly debate whether the ROI was worth it or not.

*My organization has a very flat structure and the C-level folks are rather approachable.
I'm not saying that my anecdotal data is more correct, just find it ironic
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... or your anecdotal data is not representative of national trends. You and Level keep saying that the information I posted about how the tax cuts have actually worked is wrong, but I have yet to see any data from either of you that shows otherwise. It's just more of "Taxes went down! That's good!" But if you go back and look at my posts, you will see that I acknowledge that taxes went down, just that the reduction is so small that the cut is not helping most people. I've posted multiple independent sources showing that the tax cut primarily benefited the rich and corporations, reports of how companies and the wealthy are spending that money - and that, despite all the claims form partisans, it is not "trickling down".

All I've heard in response is continued pounding on the philosophical position that lower taxes = better. No data, no evidence, just citing people who agree with that philosophy of economics without any proof. Anecdotes are not proof. I don't care about your personal finances, I don't care about the finances of people you know. Show me representative data that accurately represents the nation's population or GTFO.
 
Blind_Io said:
... or your anecdotal data is not representative of national trends.
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You literally bolded the part where I said I am not arguing against the info you posted... So I am assuming you read it but didn't understand it?
Blind_Io said:
You and Level keep saying that the information I posted about how the tax cuts have actually worked is wrong
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When did I actually say your information was wrong?
Blind_Io said:
the reduction is so small that the cut is not helping most people.
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And I didn't argue against that point, whether something helps somebody is an opinion and I see no point in arguing with it. I personally wouldn't mind an extra $100 or so a month.
Blind_Io said:
philosophical position that lower taxes = better.
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Do you think higher taxes is better?
 
prizrak said:
You literally bolded the part where I said I am not arguing against the info you posted... So I am assuming you read it but didn't understand it?
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And I bolded the section in which you cited anecdotal information, demonstrating a lack of consistency.

Do you think higher taxes is better?
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This is an oversimplified and reductive question. It depends. If those taxes are being used to support evidence-based programs that improve the quality of life and health of the population as a whole, then absolutely. If they are being squandered on endless foreign wars, bloated military spending, and corporate handouts - fuck no.
 
Blind_Io said:
And I bolded the section in which you cited anecdotal information, demonstrating a lack of consistency.
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It doesn't demonstrate anything but lack of reading comprehension on your part. I very specifically stated I am not using them as supporting evidence for an argument, in fact I didn't even make any argument whatsoever.

Care to answer my other question?
Blind_Io said:
This is an oversimplified and reductive question. It depends. If those taxes are being used to support evidence-based programs that improve the quality of life and health of the population as a whole, then absolutely. If they are being squandered on endless foreign wars, bloated military spending, and corporate handouts - fuck no.
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Can't speak for @LeVeL but to me less tax means that it has to be as low as practical.
 
LeVeL said:
He's been trying to keep us out of war, despite the defense hawks pressuring him to bomb everyone.
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Yes, he stopped an attack that he ordered, on advice from hawks that he appointed, based on information that he should have asked before he ordered the attack in the first place.

All of this was also a consequence of his pulling out of a deal and imposing more restrictions on trade with Iran...

He is clearly playing the world like a fiddle while dancing a jig and boning the next woman he will have to pay off.

Except he is continuing to erode US relations with allies, and open up holes for enemies to exploit.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/23/world/europe/trump-iran-usa.html
 
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/24/7354...-new-economic-sanctions-against-irans-leaders

Iran Says Trump's New Sanctions Have Ended Diplomacy

Updated at 4:30 a.m. ET Tuesday

Hours after the White House imposed new sanctions against Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a televised speech, President Hassan Rouhani called the move "outrageous and idiotic."

Rouhani called the sanctions a sign that the Trump administration had "become mentally crippled." Earlier, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said in a tweet that the latest "useless sanctions" marked "the permanent closure of the path of diplomacy."
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It's a bit amusing seeing so many people offering to aid and comfort poor old oppressed Iran during all this...

One of our closest allies provided evidence that Iran never stopped developing nuclear weapons, which they've officially restarted since Trump ended the deal Obama unilaterally made with them. Now Iran has attacked a few ships in international waters, shot down one of our drones over international waters, according to our intel agencies, and they're complaining that we increased sanctions? Seems to me that they know just how hyperpartisan the west has become against Trump, that people would actually ally themselves with Iran over all this. Crazy.
 
Iran took American hostages in the late 70s.

Because of Trump pulling out of that treaty and imposing more sanctions, what pro US and west feelings that existed there is now minimal.

Their currency value is down almost 60% and inflation is up about 40%. This does not hurt the people in control. It does swing the minions to follow them though.
 
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