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Monthly Archives: November 2017

The “ME” adminstration


The current administration appears to be all about themselves. The cabinet has several members who can’t pass up a photo op that garners attention on them (and theirs). Considering our TIC there should be no surprise there. Mr. TOTUS uses tweets as attention getters while rolling back rules and regulations on importation of exotic protected species with no regard to the ultimate consequences. There is the push for so called “Tax Reform” which will be accomplished by making changes in the ACA which will ultimately affect the health care of millions yet with this knowledge the neer do wells are still trying to move forward while espousing how good it will be for us. All of this is geared toward next years elections and the unrealistic campaign promises made by them. The wake up call was sounded long ago and many of us missed it or ignored it, the awakening will be rude and possibly devastating. Since TOTUS was elected hate , racism and sexual assault have seemingly become OK. This development has been ignored by our legislators or perhaps their response will wait until after 2018 elections when it’s too late. Now we have the potential gutting of the ACA which with all of it’s faults is working, this action is just to push along a tax reform that will harm as many people as the loss of healthcare. All of these actions are laying the groundwork for 2018 election and maintaining the status quo which is not in favor of the often cited “American people”. How can these folks speak for us when they never ask us? Their information appears to come from select groups rather than a true representation of  the cited “American People”. If you truly believe that your elected official represents you then perhaps you haven’t paid attention to them which they don’t mind at all. As I have stated before “Hitler used the same tactic to convince Germans that Jews and non Aryan’s were the reasons Germany was in such poor shape and not the previous war. Telling the same lies over and over convinced many Germans he was right until the end when Germany was devastated by allied forces and  Hitler took the easy way out. While this administration may not be as radical, they are just as devious.

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What Does the Tax Bill Do for Low-Income Workers?


Steven Greenhouse
November 13, 2017

Imagine a low-wage worker, perhaps one who voted for Donald Trump
Basically, nothing. But will that be sufficient to peel away voters?
This worker is getting nothing from the huge Trump-GOP tax plan. This worker won’t benefit from phasing out the estate tax. Nor will this worker gain from eliminating the Alternate Minimum Tax or from reducing the business pass-through tax from 39.6 percent to 25 percent.  And because working class people can’t afford to invest in stocks or mutual funds, they won’t be among the lucky folks who receive bigger dividend checks after the corporate income tax is cut from 35 percent to 20 percent.
This worker toils hard day after day, juggling two kids and a job that pays just above the minimum wage. She was understandably thrilled to hear that Ivanka Trump was pushing to increase the child tax credit. It’s slated to go to $1,600 per family from the current maximum of $1,000. But this larger child tax credit won’t help her at all even as it is extended for the first time to families making $150,000 to $300,000 a year. The House GOP seems to have gone out of its way to make sure that people like her don’t benefit at all from this expanded credit—they’re refusing to make more than the current $1,000 maximum refundable.
Many people say this worker doesn’t deserve to be helped by the Trump-GOP tax plan because she doesn’t pay any federal income tax. But please don’t forget, despite their meager income, low-wage workers do pay several highly regressive taxes: the federal Social Security tax, the federal Medicare tax, as well as local sales taxes.
And many wealthier Americans mock this worker as a taker, as one of the 46 percent of Americans to be looked down upon. But she feels that she gives and gives and is not a taker, because day after day, she is a loyal worker, giving her all on the job, all for paltry pay. She would be happy to contribute more in taxes if only she were paid more.
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Twenty-five million households—around one fifth of all households in the United States—have annual income of less than $23,000.
This worker feels it’s not fair that so many Americans, especially richer Americans, will benefit from the huge tax cuts while so many low-wage workers will be left out in the cold—and receive nothing from this budget-busting cornucopia. She fears that because the tax cuts will add at least $1.5 trillion to the national debt, those cuts and the resulting higher deficits and debt will ultimately push Congress to chop Medicaid and other programs that help keep low-income Americans like her out of misery. Twenty-five million households—around one fifth of all households in the United States—have annual income of less than $23,000.
This worker feels that the architects of the tax plan are punishing her—punishing her for having poor parents and for having the misfortune of going to a low-performing, segregated schools in a high-poverty neighborhood. She feels she is also being punished for not being in the small minority of students from her high school class who went to college.
This worker was hoping that President Trump and Congress would follow in Ronald Reagan’s footsteps and increase funding for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). But no luck there. President Reagan had championed the EITC as a great program for hard-working, low-income Americans.
This worker wants to make America Great Again for people like her. She wishes that she could donate millions of dollars to political candidates, political action committees and dark money groups so that politicians would pay attention to workers like her—instead of to millionaire and billionaire donors who complain about corporate taxes, the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax.
This worker thinks America is Already Pretty Great for those wealthy donors, and she’s not sure why Congress is rushing to make American Even Greater for them. But then she remembers that the most important thing for many politicians is to keep their big donors happy.

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The Obamacare Mandates Misunderstood


Ethan Wolff-Mann
Writer
Yahoo Finance
November 15, 2017

There’s a reason Republicans in Congress want to pass tax cuts as fast as possible: The less time the rest of us have to examine the details, the better.

The rhetoric surrounding the GOP tax cut plans moving through the House and Senate touts the benefits for ordinary Americans. House Speaker Paul Ryan says a typical family with two kids will save nearly $1,200 per year under his plan. Senate Republicans promise “middle-class benefits all around” and say their plan will generate a $1,500 windfall for the typical family.

Here’s what they’re leaving out: Tax cuts for individuals would expire in a few years under the Senate plan, which means tax cuts today would end up being tax hikes tomorrow. Cuts in business taxes, however, would remain permanent. Republicans insist that cutting business taxes will itself help workers earn more, at some point in the future. But that’s based on old ideas that predate the digital, robot economy and most likely no longer apply.

Business tax cuts may not trickle down to individuals

As analysts run the numbers on the House and Senate plans, it’s becoming apparent that businesses will enjoy the lion’s share of the tax cuts, with individual taxpayers getting more of a token reduction in their tax bills. That’s not inherently bad. The business side of the U.S. tax code is the most broken, with a top rate of 35% that’s out of step with most other advanced economies, which have been lowering business taxes. The United States does, in fact, need a competitive business tax code, to reduce the incentive for U.S. firms to keep profits out of the country and relocate to other places.

If Republicans were being completely forthright, they’d acknowledge this. They’d admit there’s a large risk corporate tax cuts won’t trickle down to ordinary workers, as a roomful of CEOs seemed to indicate at a recent Wall Street Journal conference. They’d confirm analysis by groups such as the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget showing that between 65% and 80% of the net tax cut will accrue to businesses, with only a small portion applying to working- and middle-class taxpayers. They might even stick their neck out and point out that the federal tax burden on the typical family has declined slightly in recent years, suggesting there’s no urgent need to cut taxes for most individuals.

But that would require more political courage than anybody in Congress seems capable of mustering. So, what we’re getting instead is a cynical charade in which the talking points say one thing but the numbers say another.

The Senate plan, for instance, would cut taxes for most but not all individual taxpayers, but only until 2025. Then, all the tax cuts would expire. “This is an obvious ruse to hide very real costs and make more room for debt-financed cuts and giveaways,” Maya MacGuineas of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said in a statement. It’s also inherently bad policy. It would essentially guarantee a political showdown in 2025, as the deadline for expiration looms and many millions of Americans face a de facto tax increase. The thinking now is that politicians in the future will find a way to avert that tax hike, and extend the cuts. But creating this problem for future taxpayers and policymakers is utter cowardice and terrible planning.

What happens after tax cuts

We’ve been through this before. Tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 under President George W. Bush were also temporary, and due to expire at the end of 2012. That created the “fiscal cliff” drama that caused volatility in markets and led to a last-minute deal to extend most of those tax cuts, except for the wealthiest taxpayers. It sort of worked out, in the end. But we might not be so lucky next time. Federal debt as a percentage of GDP is only going up, and at some point, Congress will no longer be able to keep putting off the day of reckoning. Meanwhile, hardly any taxpayers are going to put money aside in anticipation of higher taxes in 2026, setting the stage for a national financial shock. In a word, this idea is just stupid. If tax cuts aren’t permanent, they shouldn’t be there.

Another wrinkle in the Senate plan would offset any tax savings for a certain group of taxpayers. The new provision to repeal the “Obamacare mandate,” which requires all Americans to have health insurance or obtain an exemption, would lead a few million generally healthy Americans to forego health insurance. So far, so good, as long as they don’t get sick or hurt. That measure would save the government about $30 billion per year, since it would pay less in subsidies to people who qualify for them but decide not to get insurance.

The problem is that older workers who don’t have an employer-provided plan and earn too much to qualify for Obamacare subsidies would get gut-smacked with premium hikes for coverage that is already exorbitant. Some customers in the so-called individual insurance market — typically those 50 and older — already pay $20,000 and up in annual premiums, not including out-of-pocket costs. With fewer healthy customers paying into the system, insurers will have no choice but to raise premiums for those who remain, and middle-income workers who get no help from subsidies will have to pay the full freight or go without.

A middle-class tax cut sure is complicated.

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Those Republican tax cuts will become tax hikes


Rick Newman 16 hours ago

GOP tax plan takes aim at Obamacare.
There’s a reason Republicans in Congress want to pass tax cuts as fast as possible: The less time the rest of us have to examine the details, the better.
The rhetoric surrounding the GOP tax cut plans moving through the House and Senate touts the benefits for ordinary Americans. House Speaker Paul Ryan says a typical family with two kids will save nearly $1,200 per year under his plan. Senate Republicans promise “middle-class benefits all around” and say their plan will generate a $1,500 windfall for the typical family.
Here’s what they’re leaving out: Tax cuts for individuals would expire in a few years under the Senate plan, which means tax cuts today would end up being tax hikes tomorrow. Cuts in business taxes, however, would remain permanent. Republicans insist that cutting business taxes will itself help workers earn more, at some point in the future. But that’s based on old ideas that predate the digital, robot economy and most likely no longer apply.
Business tax cuts may not trickle down to individuals
As analysts run the numbers on the House and Senate plans, it’s becoming apparent that businesses will enjoy the lion’s share of the tax cuts, with individual taxpayers getting more of a token reduction in their tax bills. That’s not inherently bad. The business side of the U.S. tax code is the most broken, with a top rate of 35% that’s out of step with most other advanced economies, which have been lowering business taxes. The United States does, in fact, need a competitive business tax code, to reduce the incentive for U.S. firms to keep profits out of the country and relocate to other places.
If Republicans were being completely forthright, they’d acknowledge this. They’d admit there’s a large risk corporate tax cuts won’t trickle down to ordinary workers, as a roomful of CEOs seemed to indicate at a recent Wall Street Journal conference. They’d confirm analysis by groups such as the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget showing that between 65% and 80% of the net tax cut will accrue to businesses, with only a small portion applying to working- and middle-class taxpayers. They might even stick their neck out and point out that the federal tax burden on the typical family has declined slightly in recent years, suggesting there’s no urgent need to cut taxes for most individuals.
But that would require more political courage than anybody in Congress seems capable of mustering. So, what we’re getting instead is a cynical charade in which the talking points say one thing but the numbers say another.
The Senate plan, for instance, would cut taxes for most but not all individual taxpayers, but only until 2025. Then, all the tax cuts would expire. “This is an obvious ruse to hide very real costs and make more room for debt-financed cuts and giveaways,” Maya MacGuineas of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said in a statement. It’s also inherently bad policy. It would essentially guarantee a political showdown in 2025, as the deadline for expiration looms and many millions of Americans face a de facto tax increase. The thinking now is that politicians in the future will find a way to avert that tax hike, and extend the cuts. But creating this problem for future taxpayers and policymakers is utter cowardice and terrible planning.
What happens after tax cuts
We’ve been through this before. Tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 under President George W. Bush were also temporary, and due to expire at the end of 2012. That created the “fiscal cliff” drama that caused volatility in markets and led to a last-minute deal to extend most of those tax cuts, except for the wealthiest taxpayers. It sort of worked out, in the end. But we might not be so lucky next time. Federal debt as a percentage of GDP is only going up, and at some point, Congress will no longer be able to keep putting off the day of reckoning. Meanwhile, hardly any taxpayers are going to put money aside in anticipation of higher taxes in 2026, setting the stage for a national financial shock. In a word, this idea is just stupid. If tax cuts aren’t permanent, they shouldn’t be there.
Another wrinkle in the Senate plan would offset any tax savings for a certain group of taxpayers. The new provision to repeal the “Obamacare mandate,” which requires all Americans to have health insurance or obtain an exemption, would lead a few million generally healthy Americans to forego health insurance. So far, so good, as long as they don’t get sick or hurt. That measure would save the government about $30 billion per year, since it would pay less in subsidies to people who qualify for them but decide not to get insurance.
The problem is that older workers who don’t have an employer-provided plan and earn too much to qualify for Obamacare subsidies would get gut-smacked with premium hikes for coverage that is already exorbitant. Some customers in the so-called individual insurance market — typically those 50 and older — already pay $20,000 and up in annual premiums, not including out-of-pocket costs. With fewer healthy customers paying into the system, insurers will have no choice but to raise premiums for those who remain, and middle-income workers who get no help from subsidies will have to pay the full freight or go without.
A middle-class tax cut sure is complicated.

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Long Read On Taxes


Michael1942’s Blog
“Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur” (“what is freely asserted is freely dismissed”)

 

The article below are copied from the Tax Policy Center. The entire document is extensive and I believe we should all read it as TOTUS probably does or did  not. I urge you to look this up for yourselves to get the full picture and compare what has been said about tax reform to what the actual tax system shows as far as spending and income. Remember Congress is responsible for any laws creating or changing tax laws. Looking at current proposed “tax reforms”, where is the truth?MA
What are the sources of revenue for the federal government?  TO add insult to injury TOTUS has been consistently trying to undo whatever former President Obama did no matter what the resulting actions may have on all of us. His recent Asian tour shows how other leaders see him. They received him with great pomp and celebrity but he won nothing in return. He will return home and bloviate about his trip and what he accomplished which is actually  zero. MA
Federal Budget
1/4>
Federal Budget and Economy
Q.What are the sources of revenue for the federal government?
A.Roughly 80 percent comes from the individual income tax and the payroll taxes that fund social insurance programs (figure 1). Another 9 percent comes from the corporate income tax, and the rest is from a mix of sources.
Total revenues
In fiscal year (FY) 2016[1] the federal government collected revenues of $3.3 trillion—about 17.8 percent of GDP. Over the past 50 years, federal revenue has averaged 17.4 percent of GDP, ranging from 20.0 percent (in 2000) to 14.6 percent (most recently in 2008 and 2009).
Individual Income Tax
The individual income tax has been the largest single source of federal revenue since 1950, amounting to 47.3 percent of the total and 8.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016. In recent years, individual income tax revenue has climbed as high as 9.9 percent of GDP (in 2000) at the peak of the 1990s economic boom and dropped as low as 6.1 percent (in 2010) following the 2007-2009 Great Recession.

 

Payroll Taxes
The payroll taxes on wages and earnings that fund Social Security and the hospital insurance portion of Medicare make up the largest portion of social insurance receipts. Other sources include payroll taxes for the railroad retirement system and the unemployment insurance program and federal workers’ pension contributions. All told, social insurance levies represented 34.1 percent of federal revenue in 2016.
The creation of the Medicare program in 1965, combined with periodic increases in Social Security payroll taxes, caused social insurance receipts to grow from 1.6 percent of GDP in 1950 to 6.2 percent in 2009. A temporary reduction in employees’ share of Social Security taxes—part of the stimulus program following the financial meltdown—reduced social insurance receipts to 5.3 percent of GDP in 2011 and 2012. They remained below 6.0 percent of GDP in 2013 and 2014.
Corporate Income Tax
The tax on corporate profits yielded 9.2 percent of government revenue in 2016, a revenue source that has been trending downward. Revenue from the tax has fallen from an average of 3.7 percent of GDP in the late 1960s to an average of just 1.5 percent of GDP over the past five years.
Federal Excise Taxes
Taxes on purchases of a mélange of goods and services, including gasoline, cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, and airline travel, generated 2.9 percent of federal revenue in 2016. But these taxes, too, are on the wane: excise tax revenues have fallen steadily from an average of 1.7 percent of GDP in the late 1960s to an average of 0.5 percent over 2012–16.
Other Revenues
The federal government also collects revenue from estate and gift taxes, customs duties, earnings from the Federal Reserve System, and various fees and charges. Total, these sources generated 6.5 percent of federal revenue in FY 2015. They have averaged between 0.6 and 1.1 percent of GDP since 1965. In recent years, the figure has been on the high end of that range because of unusually high profits of the Federal Reserve Board related to its efforts to stimulate the economy since 2008.
Changes over time
The individual income tax has provided nearly half of total federal revenue since 1950, while other revenue sources have waxed and waned. Excise taxes brought in 19.0 per-cent of total revenue in 1950, but only about 3.0 percent in recent years. The share of revenue coming from the corporate income tax dropped from about a third of the total in the early 1950s to just over a tenth in 2016. In contrast, payroll taxes provided a third of revenue in 2016, more than three times the share in the early 1950s.

[1] All years in entry are fiscal years.
Data Sources
Office of Management and Budget. Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2018, Historical Tables. Table 2.1. “Receipts by Source: 1934–2022” and Table 2.3. “Receipts by Source as Percentages of GDP: 1934–2022.”
Further Reading
Joint Committee on Taxation. 2014. Overview of the Federal Tax System as in Effect for 2014. JCX-25-14. Washington, DC: Joint Committee on Taxation.

How does the federal government spend its money?
Federal Budget
<2/4>
Federal Budget and Economy
Q. How does the federal government spend its money?
A. In fiscal year (FY) 2014, about 60 percent of federal spending paid for programs not subject to regular budget review, while just over a third covered discretionary programs for which Congress must regularly appropriate funds. Less than a tenth went for interest on government debt (figure 1).

Mandatory Spending
Mandatory spending covers outlays that are controlled by laws other than appropriations acts. Almost all such spending is for “entitlements,” for which expenditures depend on individual eligibility and participation; they are funded at whatever level is needed to cover the resulting costs. Mandatory spending has grown from about a quarter of the budget in 1962 to 60 percent in 2015 (figure 2). This is in large part because of

new entitlements, including Medicare and Medicaid (both of which started in 1965), the earned income tax credit (1975), and the child tax credit (1997). In addition, rapid growth of both the elderly and disabled populations has contributed to increased Social Security and Medicare spending.

Nearly 60 percent of mandatory spending in 2015 was for Social Security and other income support programs (figure 3). Most of the remainder paid for the two major government health programs, Medicare and Medicaid.

Discretionary Spending
Discretionary spending covers programs that require appropriations by Congress. Unlike mandatory spending, both the programs and the authorized levels of spending require regular renewal by Congress. The share of the budget going for discretionary spending has fallen from two-thirds in 1962 to about one-third now.
About half of FY 2015 discretionary spending went for defense, and most of the rest for domestic programs,

including agricultural subsidies, highway construction, and the federal courts (figure 4). Only 4 percent of discretionary spending funded international activities, such as foreign aid.

 

Debt Service
Interest on the national debt has fluctuated over the past half century along with the size of the debt and interest rates. It climbed from 6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1962 to more than 15 percent in the mid-1990s, fell to about 7 percent in the early 2000s, and has fallen even more recently, as interest rates have tumbled to historically low levels. While the national debt reached a peacetime high of 74 percent of GDP in 2014 and dipped just under that level in 2015, debt service accounted for just 6 percent of federal spending in 2015.
Data Sources
Congressional Budget Office. Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2016 to 2026, Historical Budget Data.
Office of Management and Budget. Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2017, Historical Tables. Table 7.1. “Federal Debt at the End of Year: 1940–2021”; Table 8.1. “Outlays by Budget Enforcement Act Category: 1962–2021”; Table 8.5. “Outlays for Mandatory and Related Programs: 1962–2021”; and Table 8.7. “Outlays for Discretionary Programs: 1962–2021.”
Federal Budget and Economy Federal spending

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Republicans’ Disdain for Trump’s Base Oozes Into Tax Plan


 

Manuel Madrid
November 9, 2017

Could the GOP tax plan erode Trump’s support among key parts of his base? Every tax plan has winners and losers, and the House Republican tax plan is no different. The wealthy continue to prosper and the middle class gets the scraps. Everyone else? “The losers are going to lose badly,” says the Center for American Progress’s tax expert Seth Hanlon.
But what happens if Trump’s strongest supporters are the losers losing badly? A Voter Study Group/Democracy Fund report published earlier this year identified five distinct groups of Trump voters. Trump and the GOP risk alienating two groups with their proposed tax plan, the “American Preservationists” and the “Free Marketeers,” who together make up 45 percent of the president’s base.
According to the study, the “American Preservationists” are mostly made up of white working-class Americans, Trump’s core constituency. This group is the poorest of his supporters: More than half of them earn less than $50,000 a year. Embracing a nativist and ethnocultural conception of American identity, they staunchly oppose all forms of immigration and helped carry Trump through the Republican primaries last year.
The second group is the “Free Marketeers.” These wealthy, college-educated voters went strongly for Mitt Romney in 2012. (The median income of a Trump supporter during the 2016 primaries was $72,000, according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver; one-quarter of Free Marketeers earn more than $100,000 a year.)
Although most American Preservationists won’t get much from the tax bill, the people who do get hit will get hit hard. The Republican plan eliminates medical expense deductions, which allow taxpayers to deduct medical costs that exceed more than 10 percent of their adjusted gross income. Only 6 percent of taxpayers use this deduction, but it is a vital one for seniors and people with chronic or disabling medical conditions: Almost one-fifth of American Preservationists reported being unable to work because a disability, and over half are older than 55. According to a Joint Committee on Taxation analysis, nearly half of all taxpayers who claim the deduction have incomes below $75,000. The AARP and the Paralyzed Veterans of America (which sent a contingent to march in the president’s inaugural parade) oppose the bill.

The GOP tax plan cuts the deduction used by millions of American homeowners to deduct interest on mortgages up to $1 million. Under the GOP proposal, homeowners would only be able to write off interest on the first $500,000 of a new mortgage. Republicans would also eliminate most of the state-and-local-tax deductions (SALT). Trump has said that it’s “unfair” that states like New Jersey and California are “being subsidized by states like Indiana and Iowa.”
The benefits of SALT, like the mortgage interest deduction, mainly accrue to higher-income Americans. Of the more than $550 billion in state and local taxes deducted by taxpayers in 2015, Americans with incomes over $100,000 claimed 75 percent of those deductions, according to the Government Finance Officers Association. Yet likely SALT losers include affluent Free Marketeers in red states like Utah, Wisconsin, and Georgia (where the deduction is popular), as well as people in high-tax blue states.
Trump championed health-care proposals that would have hurt his low-income supporters, yet his approval ratings remained stable among Republicans. Will the Republican tax plan finally erode Trump’s support among the white middle and working classes? Not quite yet, it seems. “It’s typically hard for people to determine how economic policies affect their personal self-interest,” says George Washington University political scientist John Sides. “People are more likely to decide on Trump’s tax plan based on whether they like Trump, not on whether they themselves will pay less.”
But the author of the Voter Study Group/Democracy Fund report believes that Free Marketeers may not be so forgiving. For them, “pocketbook voting matters quite a bit,” says Emily Ekins of the Cato Institute. “This is a group that wasn’t that excited about Trump to begin with. … It’s a tall order to say they would abandon the GOP because of any tax plan, but it’s possible that they might stay home during the midterms.”
According to an analysis released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, about 25 percent of Americans would face a higher tax burden in 2027 under the legislation than under current law. The Joint Committee on Taxation had similar findings in its preliminary report, concluding that nearly 20 percent of people would pay more in 2027.
A Politico/Morning Consult poll released Thursday showed positive but declining support. In particular, eliminating SALT along with other itemized deductions ranked among the least popular of the plan’s proposals. The Washington Post reports that Senate Republicans at least seem to be taking the poll numbers on the mortgage deduction seriously—the Senate bill would largely preserve that deduction, but they would still get rid of SALT.
Like the Bush tax cuts of 2003, trickle-down plans typically come giftwrapped in a promise that they’ll benefit all middle- and working-class Americans. But Republicans didn’t even bother to do that this time around. The GOP bill hurts the very groups that Speaker Ryan and his colleagues say they intend to help and reveals the true priorities of House Republicans—making sure the super-rich get richer and letting everybody else muddle through.
Tax Cuts for the rich. Deregulation for the powerful. Wage suppression for everyone else. These are the tenets of trickle-down economics, the conservatives’ age-old strategy for advantaging the interests of the rich and powerful over those of the middle class and poor. The articles in Trickle-Downers are devoted, first, to exposing and refuting these lies, but equally, to reminding Americans that these claims aren’t made because they are true. Rather, they are made because they are the most effective way elites have found to bully, confuse and intimidate middle- and working-class voters. Trickle-down claims are not real economics. They are negotiating strategies. Here at the Prospect, we hope to help you win that negotiation.

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James Comey tweets about ‘truth’ and ‘lies’ after Trump lashes out at him


“Another coffin Nail”.MA

Sonam Sheth

11/11/2017

President Donald Trump called former FBI director James Comey a “political hack,” a liar, and a “leaker” on Saturday morning.
Shortly after, Comey tweeted out two quotes about truth, lies, and justice.
Trump fired Comey in May, while Comey was spearheading the FBI’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to tilt the 2016 election in his favor.

Former FBI director James Comey tweeted out two quotes about truth and justice after President Donald Trump attacked him Saturday morning and again cast doubt on the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
Trump said he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin when he said he did not order Russia’s election meddling. Trump also lashed out at Comey, along with former CIA director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, calling them “political hacks.” All the men have consistently emphasized that Russia mounted an elaborate campaign to undermine the election and to propel Trump to victory.
“I mean, give me a break, they are political hacks,” Trump said of the three former intelligence officials. “So you look at it, I mean, you have Brennan, you have Clapper, and you have Comey. Comey is proven now to be a liar and he is proven now to be a leaker. So you look at that and you have President Putin very strongly, vehemently says he had nothing to do with them.”
Comey took to Twitter shortly after Trump’s remarks.
“‘If you want truth to go round the world you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go round the world, it will fly; it is light as a feather and a breath will carry it,'” Comey tweeted after the president criticized him, quoting an 1855 sermon from the Rev. Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

The tweet included a photo of the Great Falls of the Potomac, and Comey said in a follow-up tweet that he liked it because it reminded him of his favorite scripture verse, from Amos. “‘But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream,'” Comey quoted in his tweet.
Trump has  long  expressed doubt about the intelligence community’s findings on Russia’s election interference, particularly as it relates to the Kremlin’s effort to help his campaign and hurt that of his opponent and the former Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.
Though he praised Comey after he revealed eleven days before the election that the FBI was reopening its investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server, Trump later soured on the FBI director, particularly after he confirmed in March that the FBI was investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow in 2016.
Trump ultimately fired Comey in May. The White House initially said Comey was fired because of the way he handled the bureau’s investigation of Clinton’s emails, Trump later told NBC’s Lester Holt that “this Russia thing” had been a factor in his decision.
Trump also reportedly called Comey a “nut job” whose firing had taken “great pressure” off of him during an Oval Office meeting with two senior Russian officials that took place one day after Comey’s dismissal.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI director Robert Mueller as special counsel in charge of the bureau’s Russia investigation shortly after Trump fired Comey. As part of his investigation, Mueller is said to be building an obstruction-of-justice case against Trump relating to his decision to fire Comey.

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Stephen Curry opens up on protests, respecting veterans and Donald Trump


Samantha Pell
Ball Don’t Lie

Nov 11, 2017 4:18 PM

In an article for The Players’ Tribune, Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry opened up about various topics, including President Donald Trump, athlete protests and respecting veterans. (AP)
More
Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry’s plea on Veterans Day is simple: respect and celebrate our veterans.
In an article for The Players’ Tribune published on Saturday, Curry penned a heartfelt message not only calling for more support for veterans, but also addressing the perception of himself and other athletes who have engaged in peaceful protests being seen as “disrespecting the military, our flag and our country.”
He said he takes the accusations of disrespecting the military “very, very seriously.”
“One of the beliefs that I hold most dear is how proud I am to be an American — and how incredibly thankful I am for our troops,” Curry wrote. “I know how fortunate I am to live in this country, and to do what I do for a living, and to raise my daughters in peace and prosperity. But I also hear from plenty of people who don’t have it nearly as good as I do. Plenty of people who are genuinely struggling in this country. Especially our veterans.”
Curry went on to discuss the conversations he’s had with veterans, all of whom have said athletes’ recent protests aren’t disrespectful to them:

“And every single veteran I’ve spoken to, they’ve all said pretty much the exact same thing: That this conversation we’ve started to have in the world of sports … whether it’s been Colin kneeling, or entire NFL teams finding their own ways to show unity, or me saying that I didn’t want to go to the White House — it’s the opposite of disrespectful to them.”

“A lot of them have said, that even if they don’t totally agree with every position of every person, this is exactly the thing that they fought to preserve: the freedom of every American to express our struggles, our fears, our frustrations, and our dreams for a more equal society.”

Curry said he recently met a veteran named Michael who told him about his life and the recent struggles he is going through after serving in Afghanistan and transitioning back into society. He offered Curry advice on how he could help raise awareness for some of the issues the veterans just like him were going through, in addition to boiling it down to one thing:
“Michael told me that our veterans need real action,” Curry wrote. “They need real help with medical services, and access to jobs, and readjusting to society.”
Curry’s plea on Veteran’s Day concluded with this simple message:
“Let’s respect — let’s celebrate — our veterans, by having a conversation about the actual ways that we as civilians, as their fellow Americans they’ve fought to protect, can hold up our end of the bargain. Let’s talk about the broken VA medical system, and traumatic brain injuries, and PTSD. But let’s also talk about homelessness, and unemployment, and mental health, and, yes, racial inequality.”
Within The Players’ Tribune piece, Curry also addressed the tweet from President Donald Trump, officially rescinding his – and the Warriors – invitation to visit the White House.

“You probably don’t need me to tell you this, but, man, it was … surreal. It was the morning before our first day of practice, so I was getting in a good sleep. And when I woke up — I mean before I even saw the tweet, or knew what was going on — I had about 30 text messages, all at once. Just blowing up my phone. They were all these friends of mine, just, like, defending me, and telling me that I was right, and, you know, not to worry about it. But I had no idea what they were even talking about.”

Warriors coach Steve Kerr took to Twitter shortly after Curry’s article was published, tweeting, “Please read this. So proud to coach @StephenCurry30.”

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Tax Reform or Tax Cut???


Apparently the Dupublican congressional leaders  had an epiphany The two leaders (?) are both now recanting the hype over the tax issue. They now recognize that their plan will not help the middle class (revelation?). The tax issue has been examined by many and yet these neer do wells kept insisting that this was good for us. Again I refer to pre WWII Germany, the Hitler regime, lie, lie,lie until people believe the lies. We all feel that the Government no matter who is President keeps many things from us. Yet we still elect and re-elect the same folks over and over, “therein lies the rub”! We have ignored their machinations for so long that they feel untouchable and we allowed it. Now we have a megalomaniacal Titular head of Government who cannot string 2  intelligible (informed or uninformed) words together without a writer. We have heard about tax reforms and tax cuts from both houses and  TOTUS for the better part of a year, now we see that the so called reforms and cuts do not and will not benefit the very people who elected them to office. An election based on the so far unfulfilled promises to get us a better deal. It is now clear as glass that these promises are impractical and unobtainable without hurting the working class of America financially and by extension the economy. The wake up alarm has been sounded and the administration is still trying to silence it with even more lies and deceit. How long will we stand for it? Article below tells more

McConnell Joins Ryan in Walking Back False Promise on Tax Bill

Steven T. Dennis

11/10/2017

 

(Bloomberg) — The top Republicans in the House and Senate have now walked back false promises about their tax bills’ impact on the middle class.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged to The New York Times Friday he erred when he said in an MSNBC appearance last week that “nobody in the middle class is going to get a tax increase.”
Now the Kentucky Republican says every income group would see a tax cut — on average.
“You can’t guarantee that absolutely no one sees a tax increase,” he told the newspaper.
McConnell joins House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin in walking back their statements on taxes. Ryan had said in a radio interview Wednesday, “So actually, even though there’s a lot of false information out there, everybody gets a tax cut.”
That statement was false, as there are millions of people who would face higher tax bills from the loss of deductions like the one for state and local taxes, which is rolled back in the House bill and eliminated entirely in the Senate bill.
A day later, Ryan’s language changed.
“At every income level, there is a tax cut for the average family,” Ryan said in a statement Thursday, citing a study by the Joint Committee on Taxation.
AshLee Strong, a Ryan spokeswoman, told The Washington Post that he misspoke.
(Updates with quote from Donald Trump in ninth paragraph.)
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Kotuku’s in Singapore at jkoutsoukis2@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net, Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net.
©2017 Bloomberg L.P.

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For Consideration


With the current efforts to change the ACA and now the tax code, I have looked at some of the salaries and net worth of some of the people who are “conservative” (meaning they are pro tax reform). These Tax reforms will not benefit the now almost non existent “middle class”. It is odd to me that folks whose value or earnings will not be affected can advocate for reform that will ultimately impact the middle and lower class Americans. I have listed the net worth or salaries of some of the folks that most of us are familiar with :
1. Rush Limbaugh net worth 500 million
2. Sean Hannity        ” ” 80 million
3. Jesse Watters        ” ” 1 million  to name a few.

Now take the big push for  repeal and replace was designed to make money available for tax reform. Remember funding any national program has to have a source of funding so in order to not increase taxes, some programs have to be reduced or eliminated. As taxpayers and not in the 1% range of earnings these cuts, eliminations and reductions fall on us (middle to lower class as we are called). Since many members of Congress are in that 1% or approaching it, they will not be adversely affected. The medical benefits for legislators will not be affected by any change in the ACA but its repeal or  replace will benefit them in that they can show they have accomplished what they campaigned on. Please understand that this was always the plan, sacrifice (in essence) the healthcare of America for tax reform that will harm many more Americans and compounding the harm from lack of healthcare to millions. This may sound hard to believe but your elected representatives are not much more than Snollygosters.

(snollygoster[snol-ee-gos-ter]  noun, Slang. 1.a clever, unscrupulous person.)

If you take an exception to this post in any way at all, I challenge you to research this for yourself as I have done. There is no need to cite sources as they are readily available everywhere. If you consider yourself a Conservative, you are not alone we all are conservatives by definition no matter which political party you follow and following one or the other unflinchingly is the same as being brainwashed which is where they want you. Always remember Hitler was extremely successful to the tune of millions of live and billions in debt for the German people.

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