DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus The myth of Trickle Down Economics ....

he was just tripping that day, Eve.

you know i've said some jacked up stuff too, sometimes people just say things out of pure emotion.

No. Not even. Aside from wishing people on here would die.... He said some effed up ish to me also. How he wished Darwin would have killed me off because of my health issues. and such. He was a bad seed.

I get the whole "heat of debate" thing. But neither of these situations were that. Just him being a nasty person. I'm glad he is gone.

oh damn. i didn't know that.

Trump just told the truth. He may wish he hadn’t.

By Dana Milbank

On Wednesday, the 335th day of his presidency, Donald J. Trump did something most extraordinary and uncharacteristic. He told the truth.

The president, celebrating his $1.5 trillion tax cut with fellow Republicans at the South Portico of the White House, was midway through his remarks when he veered sharply off message.

“I shouldn’t say this,” Trump said, “but we essentially repealed Obamacare.”

No, he probably shouldn’t have said it. But it’s true. Republicans, in rushing the tax bill to passage, kept fairly quiet about the fact that they were killing the “individual mandate” and thereby removing the engine that made the Affordable Care Act work. In doing so, they threw the health-care system into chaos without offering any remedy. And Trump just claimed paternity of the destruction.

Trump, in a Cabinet meeting earlier Wednesday, let his fleeting encounter with honesty get the better of him when he read aloud the stage directions that called for Republicans not to advertise that they were killing Obamacare. “Obamacare has been repealed in this bill. We didn’t want to bring it up,” he said. “I told people specifically, ‘Be quiet with the fake-news media because I don’t want them talking too much about it.’ Because I didn’t know how people would —.” Trump didn’t finish that thought, but he said he could admit what had been done “now that it’s approved.”

With those admissions now on tape, Trump has officially claimed full ownership of the health-care system for himself and fellow Republicans. Whatever it is now — or isn’t — is Trumpcare. Here are some of its features:

- Premiums for the most popular health insurance on the individual market exchanges are estimated to rise 34 percent on average next year, according to the consulting firm Avalere Health, because of previous sabotage done by the Trump administration. Premiums in Iowa would be up 69 percent, Wyoming 65 percent and Utah 64 percent.

- Employer-based health insurance costs are forecast to rise in 2018 by the most since 2011, at 4.3 percent, according to the human resources consulting firm Mercer, and overall medical costs will be up 6.5 percent, the first increase in the rate in three years, according to the consulting firm PwC. Assuming those increases are passed along to workers, they would eat up half of the $910 tax cut received next year by households with income between $55,000 and $93,000 and all of the tax cut received by households earning $27,000 to $54,000.

The more Trump claims to have done away with Obamacare, “the more he owns problems in the health system of his making or not,” says Drew Altman, head of the Kaiser Family Foundation and an authority on health care and public opinion. Altman tells me Trump will “certainly own” responsibility for premium increases on the former Obamacare exchanges and for the up to 13 million who will no longer have coverage under the new tax plan.

The new system also belongs to Republicans such as Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who, in exchange for her vote for the tax bill, was hornswoggled into believing Congress will take action before year end on subsidies to stabilize the former Obamacare exchanges. That has now been put off until next year, and it will meet stiff resistance from Collins’s fellow Republicans.

This will be but one source of division among Republicans now that they have secured the tax cut, which was a rare source of unity within the party — and the main reason many GOP lawmakers who find Trump distasteful have stuck with him until now.

Trump and congressional leaders, walking along the White House driveway Wednesday afternoon to “Hail to the Chief,” applauded GOP lawmakers around the South Portico, and the lawmakers applauded back. But soon they will be fighting about immigration, funding the government, cutting Medicare and attacking special counsel Robert Mueller. The divisions will only worsen if Trump continues to have bouts of unaccustomed honesty, as he did Wednesday.

In addition to his confession about Obamacare, he also acknowledged that “the tax cuts supersede” reform in the tax bill and that “the biggest factor in this plan” is the cut in the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. Republican lawmakers had taken pains to describe their work as tax “reform” and asserted that it was primarily for the middle class, but Trump was correct: The legislation does little to simplify the tax code, and it is primarily a windfall for corporations.

Trump did not trespass long in the land of truth. He also renewed his claim that the tax bill is “the largest tax cut in the history of our country.” It isn’t that, by a long shot. But it is many other things, including a huge shock to the health-care system, with no remedy in sight.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/...m=.07f354050d41

The stench of Trump’s self-dealing

By Joe Scarborough December 21 at 7:20 PM

The political system is rigged for the richest insiders in America.

When we talk about the insider, who are we talking about? It’s the comfortable politician only looking out for his own interest. It is the lobbyist who knows how to put that perfect loophole in every single bill to get richer and richer and richer at your expense.

The richest Americans are paying nothing, and it is ridiculous. These guys shift paper around, and they get lucky. These hedge-fund guys are getting away with murder, when you have one who is making $200 million a year and paying very low taxes. It’s not fair. And it tells people a lot. The middle class is getting absolutely destroyed. This country won’t have a middle class soon. It’s got to end.

Those jumbled words came from the campaign speeches and interviews of Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign. The excoriations of hedge-fund managers rolled off his tongue, and the promises to force billionaires to pay their fair share of taxes were an integral part of his populist platform. After all, Hillary Clinton was too close to Wall Street.

What fools Trump made of those Midwestern voters who wanted the reality star to go after Washington and New York elites. As “Too Big to Fail” author Andrew Ross Sorkin reported this week, “If you’re a billionaire with your own company and are happy to use your private jet so you can ‘commute’ from a low-tax state, the plan is a godsend. . . . Private equity and real estate executives, as has been well documented, will make out like bandits.”

Those rich insiders whom Trump walloped on his way to the White House will get more than 80 percent of this tax plan’s benefits at the end of a decade. Over that same period, most Americans will see their tax rates go up. Middle-class voters and small-business owners already burdened by prohibitive medical bills, crushing student debt or high state and local taxes will face the greatest burden, while President Trump and his family will waltz away with a windfall that could reach hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Trump clan will rake in this fortune from “pass-through” deductions, estate tax giveaways and top-rate tax reductions all because of this Republican tax cut. For a president already dogged with accusations that he is personally profiting off the presidency, such a massive giveaway to the very hedge-fund managers and real estate executives he promised as a candidate to confront only adds to the stench of self-dealing that engulfs all things Trump. Like autocrats across the world, the 45th American president has perfected the art of the self-deal.

Trump’s Republican Party looks no better, nor will it when an economic reckoning finally comes to pass in a bankrupt America. There will be no justification for having thrown on an additional $1.5 trillion to our existing $20 trillion debt — at a time when unemployment was low, consumer confidence was high and Wall Street was setting records by the day.

It should be painfully obvious to a first-year economics student that there is no rational reason to pass massive tax breaks for billionaires when the economy is humming along. The only justification can be political. Republican lawmakers have been desperate for some time to reward the same wealthy political donors whom candidate Trump bashed during the 2016 primary process.

Trump was right to say then that the political system is rigged for the richest of Americans. Unfortunately, it is now Trump’s working-class supporters who will pay the highest price for believing any promise that tumbled out of the mouth of the phony plutocratic populist.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/...m=.b258b0563155

Will the populist scam bother Trump’s voters?

By Jennifer Rubin December 21 at 3:30 PM

There were two, not necessarily mutually exclusive, explanations for President Trump’s appeal to white working-class male voters in the heartland. The first, which we favored and had some significant data for, was that Trump tapped into the white grievance ideology promoted by right-wing media that sought to cast blame for financial insecurity on immigrants, NAFTA, trade with China, greedy allies and corrupt insiders. It was more about race than conservative pundits were willing to admit. The second explanation, somewhat at odds with the average income of Trump voters (higher than that of Hillary Clinton’s supporters), was that economic inequality and wage stagnation deeply injured these workers, who responded by backing someone who promised to fight for them, in the economic populist tradition of Huey Long and other demagogues.

Next year, we will find out what happens when Trump widens the income inequality gap and makes health-care insurance (via repeal of the individual mandate) more expensive. As Derek Thompson points out:

The richest 1 percent now own 40 percent of the country’s wealth—their highest share in more than 60 years. Perhaps 40 percent seems like enough? Well, the GOP disagrees. In 2018, the 670,000 households earning more than $1 million a year will collectively benefit more from this bill than the 113 million families earning less than $75,000 (many of whom are, to be fair, pensioners who are earning little to no income).

Republicans in the past would decry such analysis as “class warfare,” but hey, we weren’t the ones who built a presidential campaign on economic populism, hatred of the elites and the “forgotten man and woman.” It’s Trump who played the class warfare card, and it’s his bill that sides with the rich over his base.

David Leonhardt of the New York Times illustrates just how much the bill aggravates income inequality with a chart that looks suspiciously like the open jaws of a crocodile (like this: <) to show the widening gap between rich and poor. He explains:

The great tax-cutting revolution of the last half-century hasn’t actually been a tax-cutting revolution for most Americans.

True, they have benefited from a series of cuts in income-tax rates, signed by Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. At the same time, though, another tax has been rising. It is the quiet giant of federal tax policy: the payroll tax. . . . The increases in the payroll tax have more than offset the declines in the income tax for most middle-class and poor families. They now face higher total tax rates than a half-century ago.

Not only did the Republicans choose not to touch the payroll tax but continue with income-tax cutting (that inherently favors the rich), but they also gummed it up with all sorts of new giveaways for the rich (e.g., a larger estate tax exemption, a 20 percent deduction for pass-through companies). It’s hard to quibble with Leonhardt’s conclusion: “Now President Trump, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are trying to widen inequality even further. Their tax bill doesn’t touch the payroll-tax rate — again, the single biggest tax that most households pay. The bill does cut income taxes for the middle class, but only modestly and only temporarily. The tax cuts benefiting the wealthy, including cuts to the inheritance tax and the corporate tax, are much larger and permanent.”

So far, Trump’s base is sticking with him. If it abandons him upon finding out that the tax bill is the most anti-populist scheme imaginable, that would support the notion that the 2016 election was about economic populism. But if Trump voters in the heartland stick with him, one must conclude that they are dim (i.e. can’t tell that income inequality has expanded further) or were never really excited by economic populism (i.e. the election was about white grievance). In 2018, we’ll get to see which theory holds up.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/rig...m=.8c80aa5bc8b6

You own this tax bill, Republicans. Good luck.

By Catherine Rampell

If a tax falls in a forest and no one notices, does it make a sound?

That’s no idle existential musing. The answer may determine whether President Trump’s tax plan ever becomes non-toxic to the Republican Party.

Right now the public hates, hates, hates the tax bill. It’s less popular than any major piece of legislation of the past several decades, less popular even than tax hikes passed under Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. Only about a third of Americans view it favorably, based on an average of nine polls this month.

Republicans are hoping that once the public sees their plan in action, though, everyone will be pleasantly surprised.

After all, most Americans don’t believe they personally will benefit from the law. A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that only 17 percent expect their taxes to go down.

And while it’s true that by 2027, a majority of households will see their tax liabilities increase relative to current law, most people’s taxes will indeed fall in the near term. About 80 percent of households will get a tax cut in 2018, according to estimates from the Tax Policy Center.

Many will start receiving those tax cuts as early as February, when lower paycheck withholding kicks in. Just in time for the 2018 midterms!

“Whatever the polling data is that’s out there today doesn’t recognize just how powerful this bill is going to be to put more money in the pockets of hard-working families,” House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said.

There are good reasons to be skeptical of this narrative.

The first is that the tax cuts may be too modest and doled out too incrementally for most Americans to notice their existence.

Consider previous tax reductions.

The 2009 Recovery Act — the economic stimulus passed under President Barack Obama, in response to the Great Recession — cut taxes for 96 percent of households, according the Tax Policy Center. Incidentally, it also gave bigger benefits to families in the middle (and also bottom) of the income distribution than the Trump tax law will next year.

And yet, despite the magnitude and near-universality of those Recovery Act tax cuts, virtually no one noticed them.

A year later, just 12 percent of Americans knew that Obama had cut taxes for most people.

The 2001 and 2003 George W. Bush tax cuts tell a similar story. These cuts benefited about three-quarters of households, and also gave a bigger bump in after-tax income to those in the middle quintile than the Trump tax plan will next year.

And yet in 2004, just 19 percent said that Bush had reduced their taxes.

Why is it so hard to recognize a tax cut when you, and almost everyone else, have gotten one?

When it primarily appears in dribs and drabs over the course of the year through paycheck withholding, it’s just not that salient. Especially given all the other variables that can cause one’s take-home pay to fluctuate from year to year or week to week, such as changes in wages, hours and benefits.

Let’s say, though, that Republicans are right, and people do notice their taxes falling in 2018. Even then it’s not clear they’ll sweeten on the Trump plan.

In fact, they may sour on it further.

Despite what Republican legislative priorities suggest, most Americans .&#8201;.&#8201;. don’t care all that much if their taxes go down. As Brookings Institution scholar Vanessa Williamson has shown, Americans don’t exactly love paying taxes, but they regard doing so as their civic duty. To the extent they care about the system, they’re primarily mad that others are shirking this duty.

The thing that bothers Americans most about the tax system is “the feeling that some corporations don’t pay their fair share,” according to a recent Pew Research Center poll. This was followed by the feeling that “some wealthy people are not paying their fair share.” Next, tax-code complexity.

Then, in fourth place, was the amount they personally pay in taxes.

Americans know the Trump tax bill gives the biggest windfall to the rich and corporations. That’s probably why they hate it so much. This hatred will likely grow as clever accountants devise new ways to make the windfall even bigger, thanks to as-yet-undiscovered glitches and drafting errors throughout this hastily written bill.

“Newspapers are going to be full of stories about people creatively minimizing their taxes,” says tax historian Joseph Thorndike.

A fall in other people’s taxes, he says, is what Americans care about — and what, over the coming months, they’ll be looking for.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/...m=.173d9dfedc05

HAHAHAHAAH this just hours after in another thread you stated I had said something and then refused to link it.......hypocrisy at its finest.

we were in a deficit when he spent it, and are in a worse deficit after he spent it. Maybe you meant recession??? But he didn't spend money to get us out of a deficit.

Ha, I get the sense you're "trying to win," but let's talk. I like to have discussions because I like to assert points and I like to learn.

As far as Reagan goes, I think it can be likened to the overall effect that Clinton had on the economy. Looks good now, but damage later. When you extrapolate further, you see negative growth as more tax cuts were implemented.

We completely flip-flopped on our creditor-debtor stance in under 8 years. The dude spent A TON of money. Also, the percentage income growth among classes as a result of the policies was quite different, IIRC.

One other thing, too, that might have contributed to early successes that Reagan had is the fact that the highest tax rates were insanely high, weren't they? Like 70% in one bracket and somewhere in the mid-forties for corporations? I'd have to check, but I don't remember Reagan's policies eliminating corporate taxes into the 20's.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with cutting taxes when it makes sense, but, I think this tax code will exacerbate wealth gap issues and certainly deficit issues.

Well actually that is somewhat not true.

According to BLS, in January 1982, the first year the tax cuts were in effect, there were roughly 90.5 million jobs, and by the same time five years later in 1987, that number had grown to 101 million. The gain in jobs is roughly 10.5 million

He also had an average of GDP of 3.6% his entire time in office.

You are talking about the Clinton effect, but how long can you say good is good because of his policies and bad was bad because of another?

I keep hearing this form the left, yet when RR was president the economy soared. So they want to blame RR for the bad economy, but not for when it was good. Yet on the flipside, they wanted to blame bush for the bad economy, even tho it was bad under Obama, and now they want to credit Obama for the good economy after he left. lol.

My point is we can argue back and forth for days on this. But I am pointing out, there is never a consensus on these things, and its all skewed. Economist say he ruined the country (RR) others say he made the most preoperative its ever been.

Heres a little secret, the economy is gonna go up, the economy is gonna go down. But under RR the economy went up like we haven't seen. FACT.

corporations who paid jack crap in taxes might get a tax refund.

we just rewarded companies like GE and Ford for screwing americans over.

I wonder how well we would be off if they didn't have business here or sold goods? how much tax revenue does the US make on their cars when purchased? or appliances etc? or the amount of revenue we make on the 300K GE employees or the ford employees?

so if GE as you put it has been "screwing americans" why didn't Obama do anything about it? Ohhh that's right, he appointed GE to his economic board as well as giving them a 139 billion dollar guaranteed loan?

So essentially, you have just admitted that Barack screwed the American people over for 8 years, nice of you to come around finally!

Barrack, GE, and NBC

GE has been moving their plants to mexico for a while.

they also paid zero in taxes, and have averaged a whopping 2.3% tax rate the last 10 years.

we just rewarded them screwing over americans by lowering a tax rate they never came close to paying.

so are they paying 0 or are they paying 2.3?

If they are not paying the HIGHER rate now, what good does the HIGHER rate matter? Honest question, not even being smart or rebutting you

My point is (for math sake) if you supposed to pay 10%, and you only pay 2% because of the loopholes, does lowering the rate to 5% really matter if you still going to only pay 2%? see what I am getting at?

none of the corporate loopholes that matter were closed.

they averaged a 2.3% tax rate over the course of 10 years. one year they paid ZERO in taxes.

i've stated this multiple times on the board.

and yes it absolutely matters. a multi BILLION dollar corporation paying jack crap in taxes isn't a problem to you?

you understand that illegal immigrants paid a higher rate than GE. that's beyond pathetic.

It ain’t as if GE all of a sudden quit paying taxes. This was going on all through Barry’s term as well and he just sat by and let it happen.

And as far as going south to Mexico......thank the Clinton’s.

Edit....shoukd have read the past posts....this was already pointed out.

j/c

It's funny. Those who hated the increased deficit under Obama, those who "claimed to be fiscal conservatives", are now applauding it when it's the GOP doing it.

Their excuse for the flip flop? "Well you didn't seem to mind it when Obama did it".

The very people and president they railed against on a daily basis is the excuse for why they are approving of the exact same they swore they detested a short time ago.

Amazing.....

I'm having trouble seeing what part isn't true. Also, I'm not sure if you're associating me with one, but I'm not on the "left."

As far as the Clinton effect, I'm saying what he did was bad. Policies he directed put things in place like the housing bubble. It looked great when he was president, but was ultimately a house of cards. Same with Reagan. Big tax cuts up front. Everything looked good, but as I cited earlier, the perpetuation of those same policies immediately after his administration caused a slowdown.

It is a fact that the economic growth DURING the Reagan administration went up at an unprecedented level. Nobody is debating that. It is also a FACT that, during his time, we went from the largest creditor to the largest debtor and begun quite an insane trend of deficit spending and we haven't realized the full negative impact of that yet. Sure everyone has followed that trend, especially Obama, but it began during his time.

Reagan's boom would make a lot of sense though on the deficit theory. I mean, if I went into hock all of a sudden, I'd have a lot of disposable income. Just like taking out student loans.

And so did the national debt and the social security fund. Now I gotta pay SS, something I'll never get, just so 50 year olds who got robbed blind in the 80's can retire in 20 years.

it's hilarious how those who cried not a tear as Obama wasted 10 Trillion dollars now cry Crocodile Tears over the GOP's borrowing to invest in growing America.

Their excuse for the Flip Flop? They hate Trump.

And the GOP who cried daily over Obama spending like a drunken sailor are now applauding their own drunken sailor.

The GOP cried daily and rightfully so as your guy borrowed 10 trillion for a new stereo system.

Now they borrow to invest in the growth of our economy and like an irresponsible teenager, you cry about wise investment.

Funny actually.

They give you pennies while they line the pocket of billionaires and it makes you happy. There's one born every minute and you're yet another victim in the line of P.T. Barnums.

Silly, you got to get this through your head...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhWv5zpdsoo

He didn’t actually say that, looked him up because I went to see that movie about him with my wife and daughter today.

Not a bad show for $5.00.

You mean when we were told, "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan", or the just slightly more funny, "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor."

This way to the Great Egress, people.

I just want to get this straight...it’s okay to run up the national debt as long as it’s the guy who’s from your favorite political party, but just not the other guy? That’s pretty much what I’m seeing...

Diam, this was a quick reply just FYI.

He needs a heavy dose of Quaaludes and a bottle of wine.

Where did I say it was OK?

More trickling ....

https://www.axios.com/bank-of-america-ci...2519378563.html

Bank of America cites tax cuts while giving $1,000 bonuses

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said in an internal memo obtained by CNBC that around 145,000 employees will receive a $1,000 bonus, citing the newly signed tax reform, CNBC reports.

Moynahan writes:"Beginning in 2018, we will see benefits from the tax reform, too, in the form of lower corporate tax rates. In the spirit of shared success, we intend to pass some of those benefits along immediately. U.S. employees making up to $150,000 per year in total compensation - about 145,000 teammates - will receive a one-time bonus of $1,000 by year-end."

Why it matters: Other companies announced employee raises earlier this week after the tax plan passed through Congress, although the White House said it was not coordinated with the President Trump's economics team. Trump tweeted on Friday that the announced bonuses are "a phenomenon that nobody even thought of, and now it is the rage."

A bonus is almost always a good thing, but I wonder why it's a one time thing if it's because of the tax reduction. I haven't read anywhere that said the tax reduction for corporations is just for a year. Bonuses for revenue I get being around in some years and not others, but the Corp tax rate is more static.

Workers bear the brunt of corporate taxes, even more than shareholders. I am just wary of these moves being done for the sake of optics.

Exactly. They're all lying scum. I find it hilarious how people think their lying scum is better than the other sides lying scum.

The 2016 election had two candidates that weren't worthy of being president. People who pretend there was are only fooling themselves.

That seems to be exactly what people are saying.

AT&T Announces Thousands of Layoffs, Firings Just in Time for Christmas

https://www.yahoo.com/news/t-announces-thousands-layoffs-firings-205347737.html

i thought tax cuts were gonna create jobs?

What about the jobs they have in sectors that are in dying technologies? Are they supposed to keep all their satellite dish installers as more people everyday are streaming? Are they supposed to keep all their analog phone employees as cell and VOIP are taking over? These kinds of changes have to be expected as the tech changes.

i agree with that, as certain sectors in industries rise and fall all the time.

but this idea that tax cuts help multi-billion dollar corporations create jobs is a myth that has been debunked over and over again.

and while i agree with what you're saying, i wish your fellow conservatives would get that when they try in vain to save the coal industry.

people want the market to decide everything....right up until the market decides that THEIR sector needs to die off, then all of a sudden, the same people want the government to save them from the market they preach about so often.

Part of the market equation is the responsibility of the employee. If you’re in a dying sector of the market it’s time to diversify your abilities to remain employable.

As soon as people realize that these $1000 bonuses are just the elite passing out pennies to the pions for making them richer maybe they'll wake up. Trump's Tax Plan caused several companies to make moves like handing out bonuses, partly for the PR and partly to brown nose the administration.

At ATT it seems like it's business as usual, but the timing is just about heartless bro.

What did they do to ‘save’ coal other than remove the industry killing regulations imposed by the previous administration?

If the market decides that coal dies (it never will, coal also makes steel) that’s one thing.

For the government to put a boot on its neck to try to hasten it is another.