Former President Trump Thread

For those who haven't seen the headline yet:

Leaked Video Shows FCC Chair Ajit Pai Roasting Himself With 'Jokes' About Being a Verizon Shill
You can skip right to about 20:26 in the video for the relevant parts.
“In collusion—I mean, in conclusion, sorry, my bad—many people are still shell-shocked that I’m up here tonight,” he says. “They ask themselves, how on earth did this happen?”
Pai then rolls what he describes as a “leaked, 14-year-old video,” saying he can “no longer hide from the truth.”
The video is a skit which opens to 50 Cent’s “Go, Shorty, It’s Your Birthday” and takes place at “Verizon’s DC Office” in 2003, where Pai worked as an attorney before joining the FCC a few years later. A "random Verizon executive" [Kathy Grillo, Verizon senior vice president and deputy general counsel YES REALLY] tells him: “As you know, the FCC is captured by the industry, but we think it’s not captured enough, so we have a plan.”
“What plan?” Pai asks.
“We want to brainwash and groom a Verizon puppet to install as FCC chairman,” the executive says. “Think ‘Manchurian Candidate.’”
“That sounds awesome,” Pai responds.
The only thing that would top this would be Trump doing a SNL-ish skit about breaking into Time Magazine's HQ to replace the archives with pictures of his face, or something.

--Patrick
 
So...

The WH says Omarosa would be leaving her position in January to "pursue other opportunities." OTHER sources say Chief of Staff Kelly fired her on Tuesday and she had to be forcibly removed after she wouldn't take no for an answer.

I say... how the fuck did this idiot land a WH job in the first place?
 
In addition, state and local property taxes are no longer deductible. A provision allowing private schooling to be deducted was shown to be outside of parliamentary rules.

So to recap- public schooling funding, not deductible. Private schooling, that’s ok.
 
The fact that the tax cuts for the poor are set to expire, while the cuts for the rich aren't.
Are you being serious? Rarely does congress allow tax cuts expire. Every 5, 7, or 10 years congress faces a variety of sunsets, and they almost always extend them. I'm still benefiting from child credits that have sunsetted at least twice since they were implemented, IIRC, under Bush.

So people are complaining about tax cuts they are getting now, that might expire in 2025?

Come on. Even if they do sunset, that's still two presidential elections away, and 4 congressional elections away. If you don't like the sunset, start getting congresscritters that feel the same into position to be elected now.

Complaining about tax cuts because they sunset. Utterly ridiculous.

As far as the "rich don't sunset, poor do" this must be, I assume, referring to the fact that the corporate tax cuts don't sunset. The personal tax cuts - even for the rich - sunset just the same as the poor. The corporate tax cuts don't sunset, and this often benefits the rich more than the poor. I'm not going to argue that - it's a fiscal policy you disagree with regarding the primary mover of the economic engine. Corporate taxes impact GDP. Whether the effect is worth it, negative, or positive, depends on exactly what you're measuring and the time frame, but generally lower corporate taxes appears to correlate with higher GDP.

But if your tax cuts are bad for you, I suggest you donate them to your favorite charity. That way when 2025 rolls around you can stop donating and you'll be nearly right back to where you are. You can therefore completely ignore the tax cut if you find it offensive.[DOUBLEPOST=1513780206,1513780131][/DOUBLEPOST]
So to recap- public schooling funding, not deductible
I didn't realize some people had to pay for public schooling. That seems exceptional.
 
But if your tax cuts are bad for you, I suggest you donate them to your favorite charity.
As @Krisken pointed out, I won't even get a short term tax cut thanks to the deductions going away. Also, if I did I'd probably think about helping my brother who's taxable income quadrupled without him seeing an extra penny thanks to counting waived tuition as taxable income.[DOUBLEPOST=1513780961,1513780523][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, this isn't just me bitching about paying higher taxes. If this tax increase was to pay for better healthcare, or welfare, or infrastructure (not the fucking wall), id be happy to pay more. This increase won't hurt me. I'm fortunate enough to make more than enough money to life the lifestyle I want. I'm just disgusted that I'm being asked to pay more to cover a cash grab for the people who need it least.
 
So people are complaining about tax cuts they are getting now, that might expire in 2025.
No, they're (I hope) complaining about the blatant inequality.

For your reading pleasure:
Distributional Analysis of the Conference Agreement for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
We find the bill would reduce taxes on average for all income groups in both 2018 and 2025. In general, higher income households receive larger average tax cuts as a percentage of after-tax income, with the largest cuts as a share of income going to taxpayers in the 95th to 99th percentiles of the income distribution.
They also break it down by income bracket, and yes, their projections show that the richer you are, the more you will benefit, and the greater the benefit you will retain as time goes on (and that yes, for lowest income it actually becomes a penalty).
benefits.png



In other words, sunset provision or not, it is crafted such that its primary beneficiaries will NOT be the poor/middle class, nor obviously anyone who isn't in the top 5%. According to the Census, "being in the top 5%" means earning more than $215,000/yr, which narrows it down to just over three and a half million people (a group of people roughly equivalent to the population of Los Angeles, CA) that take home over 22% of all wealth generated in the US. That's over one dollar out of every 5, and almost one dollar out of every 4.

You know, I'd probably feel a lot happier about this if that graph were a lot flatter, y'know? Or better yet more progressive, which would give it a downward slope, since a 5.00% percent cut for a 20k income is equivalent to a 0.47% cut for someone earning 215k (i.e., $1000 means a whole lot more options for someone only earning 20k as opposed to the 215k person). All the graph above shows is that the people who drafted this have no real idea (or else don't care) about who really needs such a cut.

--Patrick
 
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