2017 Democratic Thread

[Jenksismyhero]

Umm... can you provide examples of ways in which the Democrats have "pretended" to help the little guy? Because the ACA and Dodd-Frank both were pretty "little guy" friendly pieces of legislation just off the top of my head.

 

Your argument seems to boil down to the fact that discussing the wage gap means you are anti-wealth, and that by fundraising from the wealthy, you are explicitly refusing to help the poor. I really do not understand that logic.

 

I mean, I think that Trump actually did what you are suggesting - telling the little guy he was going to help them and bring back all the jobs while not pushing policies that actually accomplish that. But I fail to see where the Obama administration, and then the Clinton campaign didn't propose policies to help the little guy.

 

You can both help the little guy and not destroy the free market!

 

I'm not saying you can't do both. I'm saying I can see where Dems will be hurt when they campaign on certain positions (e.g., for Main Street and not for Wall Street). It makes that argument more difficult when leading Dems take $400k to show up at a Wall Street conference to give a speech. I don't know why you're contesting this. This is something that Hillary was attacked for during the primary and general and something that voters took issue with. It had an effect on her support.

 

Again, not saying Obama shouldn't/can't do this, just that I can see there being a consequence if it becomes routine.

[StrangeSox]

Looks like Net Neutrality is dead

[StrangeSox]

Trump's tax "proposal" is also hilariously tilted towards the wealthy and would personally benefit him and his children to the tune of tens of millions of dollars a year.

 

e: also apparently it's identical to what they released last fall, so they haven't actually been working on it at all.

https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/857294528017027081

 

Edited April 26, 2017 by StrangeSox

[BigSqwert]

Trump's tax "proposal" is also hilariously tilted towards the wealthy and would personally benefit him and his children to the tune of tens of millions of dollars a year.

 

e: also apparently it's identical to what they released last fall, so they haven't actually been working on it at all.

https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/857294528017027081

 

Amazing that there are still people out there who believe this con man.

[bmags]

Looks like Net Neutrality is dead

 

This had so much momentum behind it in 2006-2008 and really seems like the constituency for it fell out, or just assumed it was stable.

[StrangeSox]

This had so much momentum behind it in 2006-2008 and really seems like the constituency for it fell out, or just assumed it was stable.

 

Obama's FCC put the rules into place, but Trump's FCC announced today that they're going to dump them and return to regulating the internet the exact same way it was in 1996, just like it should be.

[ron883]

The proposed tax plan also doubles the standard deduction (making a couple's first 24K in earnings tax free) and eliminating most itemized deductions which are typically utilized by the wealthy. Also gets rid of the 3.8% Obamacare tax and the estate tax so family's will no longer be robbed by the government for the familial earnings when there's a death in the family.

 

I'll wait to see the actual plan before making my judgement on it but from what's leaked it looks to be good for the economy. If you like environments where businesses are more likely to thrive, grow and hire, you'll like the plan. If you like the government and would prefer they take more hard earned money from Americans to use inefficiently, this plan probably isn't for you.

How are we going to pay for the massive military increase and the trillion dollar infrastructure plan?

[LittleHurt05]

The proposed tax plan also doubles the standard deduction (making a couple's first 24K in earnings tax free) and eliminating most itemized deductions which are typically utilized by the wealthy. Also gets rid of the 3.8% Obamacare tax and the estate tax so family's will no longer be robbed by the government for the familial earnings when there's a death in the family.

 

I'll wait to see the actual plan before making my judgement on it but from what's leaked it looks to be good for the economy. If you like environments where businesses are more likely to thrive, grow and hire, you'll like the plan. If you like the government and would prefer they take more hard earned money from Americans to use inefficiently, this plan probably isn't for you.

 

I doubt very many families were robbed by the estate tax. The first $5.5 million are exempt, so it would only affect the wealthy. And most wealthy people have systems and trusts put in place to avoid paying the estate tax anyway.

[StrangeSox]

This tax plan will definitely represent a very efficient redistribution of wealth (upward).

[BigSqwert]

They should offer a place for people to increase their own tax rate if they're not fans of the plan. I'm sure there will be a lot of a dissenters and the government should make it possible for them to be taxed 50%, 60%, 80% or whatever it is they wish the system would tax individuals. That way everyone is happy.

 

So who pays for our aging infrastructure, abysmal school systems, and social safety nets for our enormous lower class?

[ron883]

They should offer a place on the form for people to increase their own tax rate if they're not fans of the plan. I'm sure there will be a lot of a dissenters and the government should make it possible for them to be taxed 50%, 60%, 80% or whatever it is they wish the system would tax individuals. That way everyone is happy.

Are you trolling? It doesn't take a genius to see how stupid this argument is. I don't even....

[StrangeSox]

Anyway this tax plan is *probably* DOA in the Senate since it'll need 60 votes to break the filibuster. What we'll most likely get instead is some 10 year sun-setting tax cuts just like the Bush tax cuts that turbocharged the economy bank accounts of the wealthy

[illinilaw08]

The country wouldn't have aging infrastructure if it invested in infrastructure instead of war. The lower class wouldn't be so enormous if the business environment wasn't so hard to compete in in recent years. These are questions that should have been asked when prior policy got us in this position. I don't see why you would perpetuate bad policy for the sake of keeping a bad system going.

 

Past that, I think the country would benefit as a whole if they reallocated military money to infrastructure but for some reason, both sides of the aisle love war though.

 

Well, no disagreement from my end that the defense budget should be cut to pay for infrastructure. But this tax cut proposal is especially absurd when combined with the massive increases in military spending that the Trump administration is proposing. You have to fix infrastructure before you gut the federal revenues...

 

As to the business environment point, I do think that the tax code needs to be simplified, particularly for small business owners who are taking salaries of $30k-$50k. But if you remove government regulation of business, we're back to the 1920s - those glory days for labor. The fact of the matter is that the '08 crash caused some pretty huge damage to the labor market, and the majority of the recovery flowed upstream, beyond the labor market. So I'm not sure what you mean by the business environment being so difficult to compete in.

[StrangeSox]

Well, no disagreement from my end that the defense budget should be cut to pay for infrastructure. But this tax cut proposal is especially absurd when combined with the massive increases in military spending that the Trump administration is proposing. You have to fix infrastructure before you gut the federal revenues...

 

As to the business environment point, I do think that the tax code needs to be simplified, particularly for small business owners who are taking salaries of $30k-$50k. But if you remove government regulation of business, we're back to the 1920s - those glory days for labor. The fact of the matter is that the '08 crash caused some pretty huge damage to the labor market, and the majority of the recovery flowed upstream, beyond the labor market. So I'm not sure what you mean by the business environment being so difficult to compete in.

 

We've been through a tough recession and then several years of barely ok growth that was accelerating only gradually and almost exclusively benefiting people with college degrees. If you don't have a degree, the recession never ended.

 

https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/amer...vided-recovery/

[caulfield12]

http://robertreich.org/post/159989553540

 

Five reasons the tax cuts are appallingly dumb.

 

The debate here isn't even about the estate tax, it's yet another misdirection.

 

Rabbit wants to pile on Obama for adding to the budget without acknowledging the complete mess that Bush left in January, 2009. Apparently, Rabbit would have preferred austerity, rather than the stock market advancing for nearly a decade.

 

Besides the fact that there's no historical evidence of tax cuts leading to growth. Reagan's in 1981 did the opposite. Clinton balanced his budgets the last three years because of larger capital gains taxes (imagine people wanting to sell high and take profits) as well as the estate tax being much much lower, around $575-625,000 in 1999.

 

Voodoo economics didn't work in Kansas. It didn't work for Reagan or the Bushes. There's no historical evidence from anywhere around the world of these policies doing anything more than increasing the wealth gap and blowing up budgets/creating more debt.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/opinion/...ection&_r=0

Zombies of Voodoo Economics

 

 

Plus, it won't even be allowed for three years because the $2+ trillion in debt added will still not be cancelled out ten years down the line by even (highly unrealistic) 3% top line growth without corresponding cuts somewhere else. That's the rule now, it can't be wished away. Not to mention there's zero chance the House Freedom Caucus would support this and still be faithful to their core mission statement, nor would the Tuesday Club.

Edited April 26, 2017 by caulfield12

[LittleHurt05]

It's still robbing even if the individuals are wealthy. If you are a married individual you can avoid up to ten million if you are prudent in your estate planning. That's true. So they can avoid it, to an extent. That doesn't mean it made sense to take from successful individuals. If I were incredibly productive and very rich, I would want to use that money to help my family and charities/endeavors of my choice as opposed to financing the unnecessary, never ending wars and increasing the power of the bureaucratic state.

 

I'm not necessarily for it either. I just think it gets paraded as this vital tax cut when so few people face it and it brings in way less money than it could because the rich easily outsmart the tax code anyway.

 

To be honest, I had no idea the exemption on it was so high until I met with an estate lawyer a few years ago. I always assumed everyone paid it. I imagine many others don't understand it either

[caulfield12]

And increasing the individual deduction will hit charities and cool down the housing market, as those two deductions will be comparatively less attractive.

 

Of course, Trump and his family could care less about charity. They believe it's more about PR, but often don't follow up public charitable pledges or, even worse, make them from the donations of others, but claim them as their own.

Edited April 26, 2017 by caulfield12

[StrangeSox]

I'm not necessarily for it either. I just think it gets paraded as this vital tax cut when so few people face it and it brings in way less money than it could because the rich easily outsmart the tax code anyway.

 

To be honest, I had no idea the exemption on it was so high until I met with an estate lawyer a few years ago. I always assumed everyone paid it. I imagine many others don't understand it either

 

The estate tax is good if you want to tempter the effects of aristocracy. Heck, you can even argue that it motivates the next generation to get out and do something for themselves rather than be a bunch of wealthy lay-abouts.

[caulfield12]

I'm not necessarily for it either. I just think it gets paraded as this vital tax cut when so few people face it and it brings in way less money than it could because the rich easily outsmart the tax code anyway.

 

To be honest, I had no idea the exemption on it was so high until I met with an estate lawyer a few years ago. I always assumed everyone paid it. I imagine many others don't understand it either

 

 

You can put it in a trust to avoid taxes....you can gift $10,000 max tax-free to each of your kids every year, as well.

 

And the argument that estate taxes causes "upper middle class" families (like you and me!!! It could be anyone victimized, right?) to have to sell family farms or split up businesses upon the death of a loved one applies in less than 4% of the cases. Those stories are put out there to provide cover for the other 96% of the wealthy who are extremely rich and wouldn't have been able to accumulate that money anywhere else in the world if not for the unique conditions created by the United States of America (such as military/defense spending/safety and protections from regulation in the banking industry.)

 

And 37-55% taxes still won't prevent the next generation enjoying a life of luxury and ease for those at the $10+ million mark and above, anyway. It will cut back their spending on luxury goods but still it doesn't force them to work at all.

Edited April 26, 2017 by caulfield12

[illinilaw08]

We've been through a tough recession and then several years of barely ok growth that was accelerating only gradually and almost exclusively benefiting people with college degrees. If you don't have a degree, the recession never ended.

 

https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/amer...vided-recovery/

 

I couldn't tell from that, but I would be curious to see the extent to which that is a reflection of the labor pool generally requiring a college degree for basically any entry level job, and the extent to which this is just an impact of the recession.

[illinilaw08]

1.) Estates don't allow you to avoid tax they allow the beneficiaries to face a lesser tax burden.. Beneficiaries are taxed on the distributable net income.

2.) The annual gift exception is $14,000 not $10,000.

3.) Source?

4.) "wouldn't have been able to accumulate that money anywhere else in the world if not for the unique conditions created by the United States of America (such as military/defense spending/safety and protections from regulation in the banking industry.) Capitalism.

5.) Source?

 

Where are you getting #1 from? I'm not an estate and trusts lawyer, but my understanding is that you can move assets into certain types of trusts to avoid the estate tax. Basically, you don't own the asset anymore, the trust does and therefore the asset isn't subject to the estate tax.

 

Now, you are right that beneficiaries under the trust might have to tax distributions as income, but that doesn't account for real estate or other assets that aren't liquid. Simple example. If I have a $10M estate, and $6M is comprised of real estate, if I transfer ownership of the $6M in real estate into a trust, the remaining $4M in assets in my estate will be exempt from the estate tax. The beneficiaries under the trust will have to pay taxes on the gain on the real estate when it sells, but they would have to do that under any transaction anyway, estate tax or no.

[caulfield12]

Still seeing no evidence that tax cuts for corporations and the top 1-10% do anything to promote economic growth.

 

More typically, they lead to stock buy backs by companies and more mergers and acquisitions that enrich investment bankers, lawyers and corporate executives.

 

 

Most of the biggest tax breaks currently go to individuals, according to the report, including the earned income tax credit for low-income households ($699 billion over five years), tax cuts on capital gains and dividends ($678 billion), 401(k) and other defined contribution retirement plans ($584 billion) and the child tax credit ($584 billion.)

 

Though the current tax code is full of tax loopholes for corporations, the biggest single tax break applies to deferred foreign income, which will cost an estimated $587 billion over five years.

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-change...-193158010.html

 

There's almost $1.3 trillion. Give a targeted tax break that's more equitable to the middle class (they are MUCH more likely to put that money back into the economy than the upper class, who tend to save/invest) and lowers the corporate tax rate into the 23-28% range and you might have something more workable.

 

Let's not forget that 57% of the jobs that exist today will be gone over the next decade due to automation. Corporations and the 1% are not looking to be job creators anymore, they're looking to automate the bottom 50% of American workers out of existence because it's simply more profitable (and allocatively efficient) over the long-term to replace the majority of human workers.

Edited April 27, 2017 by caulfield12

[GoSox05]

We should tax the rich 100%.

[caulfield12]

Well, most of the rich pay much closer to 0% than 100%.

 

Warren Buffett says even though he and other top earners are paying higher taxes this year, he thinks he's still paying a lower rate than his secretary.

 

In 2013, capital gains for those earning more than $400,000 ($450,000 for couples) will be taxed at 20%, up from 15%. And high-income households also will pay an additional 3.8% in Medicare taxes on their investment income for the first time. The top marginal tax rate also rose for the wealthiest wage earners, but since Buffett's income is from investment gains, not wages, that's not a factor.

 

But part of the problem is that his secretary's tax bill also went up since a partial payroll tax holiday ended, raising what she pays for social security by 2 percentage points.

 

"I'll be a fair amount higher, 8 or 9 points higher," Buffett said of his own tax rate in an appearance on CNBC Monday. "But the differential between me and the rest of the office, not just my secretary but the rest of the office, was greater than that. It'll be closer, but I'll probably be the lowest paying taxpayer in the office."

 

http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/04/news/econo...axes/index.html

[caulfield12]

It's messed up that you would use some story about Buffet with no context whatsoever, and seemingly, no understanding of investing, to push your socialist agenda

 

It's even more messed up that your defense of capitalism comes at the expense of all the people who actually voted for Trump in OH, WI, MI and WI in the first place.

 

Most of those people can't even afford to invest in the stock market, they have enough trouble just making ends meet.

 

That their taxable rates on income (the whole point of the Buffett story, which still holds true today) are less than the 2nd richest person in the world is ludicrous. Warren Buffett doesn't even take a salary as chairman of BRK, all of his profits come from capital gains due to distributions from within the Berkshire-Hathaway umbrella of companies.

 

Whatever tax deductions he got for donating a large junk of money that will eventually be paired with the Gates Foundation is not the reason why his nominal rate is so low. It's the fact that all of his earnings come from capital gains, which were taxed much more fairly at the time of the Clinton administration in the 90's (not surprisingly, these were the last 3 years Federal budgets were actually not bleeding red ink) and have finally started to come back up a little bit under Obama but are still nearer the historical lows than the historical highs on such gains.

 

You can write about baseball well enough, but your understanding of politics needs to catch up, because (right now) you lack the objectivity to see these issues from both sides without coming across as being completely dismissive.

 

 

SIDE NOTE: One of the reasons I am a White Sox fan is their long-standing association with "blue collar" fans who actually follow the game. Miller was their beer for a long time, a strong union beer. The Cubs represented the opposite, venture capitalists and hedge fund yuppies who just wanted to be seen on camera at Wrigley while they were texting on their cell phones or looking at stock quotes on their PDA's. It's a sad time when people are defending the raping of America (Trump's words about China), not by foreign countries, but our own political leaders and their lobbyists.

 

If you read any interviews in the last decade with the likes of Buffet or Ted Turner, you'll see that not even they feel these rates should be so low...that the rich should either be paying a higher share or donating most of their money to charity, or both.

Edited April 28, 2017 by caulfield12