Picaro
Picaro's JournalWe want this to be true
I think he’s getting the results he (or Putin) wants.
Yes, he knows nothing about policy but he knows that putting people hostile to the missions of the Department in charge of that department will effectively neuter that organization. He knows that by putting blatantly political hacks into key judgeships that he can demand and get the rulings he wants (we just saw that with the ruling allowing Mulvaney to take over the CFPB).
He has effectively shattered our key alliances and made overtures to strongmen (Putin the most notable). He has the Justice Department entertaining the idea of launching witch hunts against his political opponents. He has Mitch McConnell so cowed that he is pushing through a politically suicidal tax bill that just happens to have everything in it that will directly benefit him and his heirs.
Trump may be correct when he says that he has accomplished more than any other President in the same span of time. His accomplishments just haven’t been legislative to date.
Crazy? Doesn’t really look like it from here.
I’ve got a really bad feeling about this and I think you do too. While we’re waiting for Mueller to ride up over the horizon to save the day the war may have already been lost.
Stop calling it tax reform
Everyone needs to stop using the term “reform”.
There is no reform in this. It is a straight up transfer of wealth from the poorest to the wealthiest individuals and corporations.
There are no loopholes closed rather new ones are created.
Never lose sight of the basic game being played here.
Pass a bill that will please the donor class and cause a deficit crisis. Since the defense budget is untouchable the deficit crisis that this tax give away creates will allow them to go after Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
This is not reform in any sense of the word.
My sympathies
Hard to deal with things in your life like this.
Losing a parent is tough.
Be thankful that she apparently didn’t suffer and wasn’t scared and alone. She just drifted away.
Peace to you.
The goal is to create a funding crisis
There’s even more at work here.
The reason for the psychotic intensity is that the ideologues know this is the Tax Plan Two Step.
First, you drop the rates sharply on the corporations (corporations are people too...) and the extraordinarily wealthy.
Then that creates a funding crisis. Since the defense budget is a sacred cow that leaves “entitlements”: Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.
This is the Holy Grail of libertarian/objectivism/Bicherism. They can see the promised land from here.
That is the goal—to turn the clock back to before the New Deal. That’s why they’re exploding at the slightest push back.
Fighting an enemy free of shame
We live in perilous times. Trump is in the White House and the Republicans are slavering to finally virtually destroy the Federal government. Yes, they failed at repealing Obamacare, but now they are working on a massive tax reduction bill that will screw the little people and make the rich even richer. Oh, and the corporations will see the top marginal rate (which none of them pay) drop from 35% to 20% with no loopholes closed.
They can smell success.
Standing in their way is not so much the Democrats but themselves. Trump, Roy Moore, McConnell, Ryan, the election debacle in Virginia, Charlottesville, the Russia thing...
None of it looks good. Poll numbers for Trump suck and the numbers for the Republican House/Senate are even worse.
But, and this is a big “but”, the Republicans have their hands firmly on the levers of power.
The Nation’s only defense is a united front and unity with the people. The Republicans have to fear the results of their votes on this tax bill or it will pass and Trump will sign it. The Republicans have no sense of shame.
So, it really pissed me off when word of Al Franken’s indiscretions came out and I watched the Democratic unity rupture and the circular firing squad form up.
All of a sudden it was women against men. I got into a fight with my wife about this not because I thought what Senator Franken did 10 years ago was excusable or trivial, but because I don’t see a unified approach to capping this off and getting all eyes back on the tax bill.
That is all that really matters right now.
I’m confident that Al Franken can weather this storm (which may or may not have been engineered by Roger Stone the famed Republican dirty trickster).
But, as a nation, we cannot afford this tax give away.
It is dispiriting to see us get played like this and respond with the same self defeating acrimony and disunity that has led us to our current position as the party out of power.
Kirsten Gillibrand’s self serving speechifying gives the opposition exactly what they want—the nation’s eyes on anything other than this monumental fraud of a tax bill.
Expenses VS Sales
Not only did he puff up his revenues, but when expenses are deducted my operating theory is that he’s broke.
I believe that one of his primary motivations in running for President is that the whole edifice was about to crash to the ground ala Enron/Worldcom and this was a way to incent the Russians (and others) to keep the money flowing.
This means that he has every incentive to start a war so that the truth won’t come out. He isn’t just running ahead of the Russia collusion investigation but ahead of financial collapse.
This may end up being the biggest con of all time.
Cohn is an idiot and thinks we're all idiots too
Cohn is the best they got to sell this sack of garbage and he's just spouting gibberish.
There are times to to cut taxes, but this is not one of them.
Our economy is almost at full employment. Yet pay is not going up for the rank and file.
Companies are simply awash in capital and if they wanted to use some of those trillions they're holding overseas (wink wink...nudge nudge) to invest they could do so. Money used to invest can be written off as investment and isn't taxed.
Profits are at record highs and most large corporations have been buying their own stock back at a furious rate to bump up their stock prices so that the executives (whose compensation is heavily weighted toward stock grants, option awards etc) hit the bonus goals in their pay plans. Or they are investing heavily in robotics, AI, and continue to offshore operations wherever possible to take advantage of vastly lower pay structures in countries like Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, Macedonia, Poland, India, China, Vietnam etc.
A tax cut without corresponding tax penalties for failing to expand operations, and/or raise rank and file, pay etc. is just a gift. But if you build in penalties the tax code will just accelerate the race to the bottom with companies seeking cheaper and cheaper payrolls and it will also accelerate the drive to automate.
This tax cut plan was supposed to be "reform", but like the ACA Repeal and Replace where "replace" was quickly jettisoned "reform" was quietly dropped and only the "cut" remains.
This plan is an outright gift to the highest marginal tax brackets (and there are members of the punditocracy that are whining because the top marginal bracket has not been eliminated) and to the largest corporations. This blatant giveaway is funded by raising the taxes of the lower, middle, and upper middle classes by eliminating or restricting the few tax deductions that still remain for the W2 and 1099 wage slaves.
That Cohn was stupid enough to get a lot of these CEOs in a room and poll them on their plans if this gift passes with journalists in the room is stunning. What an idiot!
Strongly disagree
Moore won’t bow out. He knows he can still win. As long as he knows he can win he’ll stay in.
Oh for fuck's sake
He is old. Hell, I'm 9 years younger than he and I'm fucking old.
What a douche nozzle he is. What a snowflake.
He is old and addled and a dotard. And he's fat and in crappy shape. His wife obviously hates him and I doubt his children would stand by him if not for his money which given the amount of leverage I see is probably temporary.
Barring Nixon has a President ever been more hated by more people?
Trump NEVER accepts or admits fault...
I hope they keep the rationalizations going. They will be less prepared then.
Profile Information
Name: Ernie FergusonGender: Do not display
Hometown: Plano, TX
Home country: USA
Current location: Plano, TX
Member since: Thu Apr 30, 2009, 11:22 AM
Number of posts: 1,520
