I feel like at times it just galvanizes assholes to actually be assholes. It’s like the group of guys pissed off it’s not acceptable to call gay people fags or say the n word as a white person. Then they can say “yeah he isn’t giving into this pc shit!” He can make fun of someone’s handicap, call people names, shit on dead people he says what he feels! So now I don’t have to feel like people are judging me for saying towel head or something!
It’s like inspiring people who miss the good old days when no one frowned as you shouted racial slurs because “that’s just what we called them.”
I’m just not sure what we’re supposed to admire about a leader of our country who doesn’t consider the effects of his words. This is really why some people get a hard on over him? Because he doesn’t ever think before he speaks? Because he’ll call places shithole countries? Degrade other people?
The attempted rationalizations of what most everyone realizes is gigantic dickhead behavior amazes me.
Middle class earners certainly saw some reduction (generally), and that’s fine at the individual level - but it didn’t produce a big enough hit to have a macro impact (like stimulating slumping consumer demand - consumer demand was doing well prior to the tax cut). So what was the point? What is the benefit provided compared to the massive cost of an unpaid for tax cut?
On the corporate side, making rates more internationally competitive made sense. But the overall tax cut bonanza was nothing more than a reward to the donor class who, if they couldn’t get a tax cut from the GOP when it controlled Congress and the WH, would stop supporting the GOP. And it was sold on the usual supply-side fib because there’s no sale to be honest and say “this part of our base wants and expects a tax cut for their own selfish reasons and we have to pay them off for their support”.
I think that’s good - count me in that the middle class needs relief. But I think tax cuts are missing the point when you have other pocketbook problems like inflation in important areas like housing, health care, education, etc. What good is it to a middle class wage earner to get an extra $2k because of a tax cut only to have it wiped out because health care premiums are going up on his plan next year?
The Democrats have an opening here, if they’ll stop navel-gazing about intersectionality for a minute to realize it.
I’m not arguing the capex effect, and I don’t disagree that it didn’t have a macro effect in terms of acceleration of demand or other factors.
In my mind, keeping more of my money is always a good thing, and I read your original post as saying that the tax cut didn’t have any effect on middle class workers (only wealthy and shareholders).
I think tax cuts should be paid for by and large, with rare exceptions. But also consider this: only something like 2% of businesses have more than 15 employees. The vast majority of small businesses are in the 1-5 employee range. Capex in the original sense you used it in is something most 1-5 employee businesses just don’t do at scale… because they have no scale really. But that’s not to say the cut won’t have an effect on these small businesses.
I agree, and I’m in the camp that the federal government spends too much (and as a corollary, tries to do too much). But the fiscally conservative (and fiscally sane) approach is to pay for a tax cut, especially if it is a massive one that forfeits a ton of revenue.
Not suggesting you disagree with that, but just saying that I think the public cost/benefit is not automatically trumped by the individual private benefit. I think too many people (not you) think “hey, I’m personally getting a benefit, who cares what the broader impact is?” on tax stuff, and that is why we don’t have broad public support for the same kind basic fiscal sanity you’d find in business or household economics in government.
Most of that time has been spent explaining past behaviors…and that’s been mostly on “liberal” media. My feeling is that IF Biden is the eventual nominee; he will go into the 2020 election pretty beat up, with Trump no worse off for the wear…(all Trump has to do is 1) continue his usual schtick and 2) not kill a bunch of puppies on the White House Lawn).
I had to laugh when someone said Biden had a “tough week”.
He thinks THIS is tough? Wait until Conservatives and Trump release The Kracken…
I am guessing that you both would probably agree that tax cuts are more of a political move than an economic one. We may wrap it up in a lot of “stimulating the economy” bullshit…but ultimately it’s meant to garner political favor…and in Trump’s case to garner a “win”…
I was looking at a graph showing federal income tax receipts relatively static from 2014 thru 2018. Maybe 100 BB increase. 2018 likely still being tabulated.
It does not play into this thread’s narrative against Trump, as he wasn’t even a candidate.
It could be argued GOP or UniParty or whatever, l guess. But before going down that path, let’s remember 1/2 of the ultra and getting richer daily are extreme liberals - google, amazon, facebook, etc
Luckily Trump thought of the ultra rich regardless of party to target the bulk of the tax cuts too. I’m hoping for bigger tax receipts because Republicans certainly seem to think if the economy is doing good it’s the time to continue to spend more. They can worry about the debt once they are out of office again.
Just like health care we still got time. Trump said he could eliminate the debt fairly quickly.
I wonder of they treat tax receipts like baseline budgeting. Where they have the increases built in. Tax receipts increase the year after a tax cut, but they get to say "yeah but we would have received ‘X’. So the cut “cost” ‘Y’.
Saying tax cuts cost the federal government always made me laugh anyway. Like that money always belonged to the Feds even before the serfs earn it and remit it. Letting you keep more of it is a “cost” to them.
100%. Ask yourself this: what problem did the tax cuts fix?
Making the corporate rate more competitive is one problem it addressed, fair enough. But all the rest of the bill?
There was no serious economic or public policy argument for it. And the vast majority of the money went to shareholders of big companies - which did not (and no one expected it to) produce any macroeconomic benefit.
It was 100% politics - big donors to the GOP expected a return on their investment. They got it. Special interest politics at its finest. The bill was not a function of a populist movement, not Heartland peoples demanding tax reform as an anti-elitist measure - nope, none of that. It was a payoff to the wealthy, well-connected elite that bankrolls the GOP.
If you have a populist streak in you and you bought a ticket to the Trump train, you were played for a fool.
So you just ignore my post showing flat receipts since 2014, to post your 5000th rant against populists, conservatives, GOP, Trump, middle America to whom any relief in taxation is welcomed?
Can’t figure your angle, friend.
You love Conservatism as long as it’s liberal and conservatives as long as they vote Democrat.