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dirtbag
climber
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^^^That about sums it up.^^^
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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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Should I become a Republican now?
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Krease
Gym climber
the inferno
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I see those jackals slipped in an approval for drilling in ANWR. Scumbag republicans just scumming along. Nothing is sacred, right? Except of course for cheap oil and big profits. Those tenants are near and dear to the GOP's "heart".
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monolith
climber
state of being
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Individual mandate for Obamacare repealed. There was also an amendment to reimburse anyone who paid the penalty.
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Norton
climber
The Wastelands
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The passed House bill does not deal with the individual mandate at all
= who cares if a trillion dollars is added to the national debt anyway
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thebravecowboy
climber
The Good Places
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that whitehouse mailing list wasn't a total waste after all
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monolith
climber
state of being
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You are right Norton, but it is in the Senate bill and the house will have no problem, even delighted, amending to it during reconciliation.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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The economy is doing well...Low unemployment with strong corporate profits...The Republicans are selling this tax cut package as a means to simulate the economy which is a ploy to con the voters into helping out the 1%.. Remember 2007 when the Dems attempts at kick-starting the Bush recession ( a result of Bush's tax cut disaster ) were blocked because Republicans didn't want to increase the deficit...funny how the Republican narrative has flipped 180 degrees where deficit spending is suddenly good for stimulating the economy...Any of you simpleton Trump groupies paying attention...?
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Lennox
climber
in the land of the blind
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Russia, under Putin has become a neo-feudalistic state.
The US has a ways to go, but this tax bill and the gaslighting of the electorate by Trump and the Republicans, are speeding us down that road.
Many people in this country have been gaslighted into having a total distrust of the media. They have come to believe that everything is fake news, or at least everybody else’s news sources are fake, and would likely describe themselves as only having a healthy skepticism.
Skepticism has always been healthy. So realizing that the msm corporate overlords might cut stories they don’t like, doesn’t mean they just make sh;t up—many journalists have some integrity. Those that don’t can prey on the distrust of the msm to actually create fake news that they pass off as the reality that the msm won’t tell you.
Corporations, the wealthy, Republicans, Trump, Fox, Breitbart, Daily Caller, etc., are creating a pseudo-reality that is increasingly impervious to logic or reason. Otherwise, how could anyone who is not on that list continue to support Trump’s destruction of democratic norms and institutions, or this tax bill.
The bill is not a tax cut.
It is a bill that massively shifts the tax burden from the wealthy and the corporations onto the poor and middle-class.
Of course just making the corporations and the wealthy richer and more powerful isn’t enough. This bill is also designed to crush the middle class; they are not necessary in a neo-feudal society.
And what would a neo-feudal society be without dynasties? So of course we needed to eliminate the inheritance tax—and if you hear anyone that has less than $11,000,000 tucked away, trying to defend that one, then you can be absolutely certain that you’re dealing with someone who’s been huffing way too much of the right-wing gas.
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10b4me
Mountain climber
Retired
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where is the AARP with their rusty pitchforks?
AARP was opposed to the bill.
and they say third world countries are corrupt. pfft!
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Should I become a Republican now?
Do you make over $500,000?
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Kiss your SS good bye.
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10b4me
Mountain climber
Retired
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From what I've just learned...
SS is doing AOK and is set for some years to come...
Presently it DOES NOT appear to be threatened...
Locker, that's not what I've been reading.
drumpf, and the repugs want to go after entitlement programs.
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nah000
climber
now/here
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Q: US national policy issues looming after healthcare?
A: given the rethuglicans latest budget the only really federally relevant question worth asking is: how much money is it going to take to protect those with the reins of power, given the inevitable reckoning [read economic downturn and its reprecussions], that without course correction, will come in the near future?
it appears trump and co have considered this as the only three departments [of those listed on wikipedia] that had their budgets increased in the last budget were:
 defence +9%
homeland security +7%
veteran affairs +6%
on the other hand the biggest losers [again of those listed on wikipedia] were the departments of:
epa -31%
state -29% [including u.n., peacekeeping and climate change mitigation]
agriculture -21%
labour -21%
health and human services -18%
and if you think i'm being unnecessarily doom and gloom regarding an economic downturn, i'd ask you to take a look at history and what has happened basically every single time u.s. governance has doubled down on tax decreases for the rich at the same time that there is near record income inequality and they federally continue to rack up debt via large annual deficits due in large part to continued largesse especially in the department of defence...
the coles notes is that it's never been pretty for at least the plebs.
it's mind boggling that these ayn rand devotees can't get the cotton pickin' henry ford obvious truth through their mentally handicapped brains: if the common human doesn't have any cash, no one will be able to buy model t's and ultimately/inevitably no one will make money...
instead they have to relearn every so often what should have been learned once and for all at the time of the great depression: income inequality may be fine and necessary to a point... but there is always a point where it ends up fUcking e'erybody.
instead of looking to the hunger games, mad max and swift's a modest proposal for circumstantial assemblages to avoid... it appears they must be looking to them for inspiration.
unfortunately, there are a few too many actual and way too many wannabe rent seekers in the u.s. looking to charge tolls on things they only very partially created and who are therefore intent on greedily sucking the life blood out of all that has been worked for, over the last few hundred years.
oh well, every empire has to come to an end... and i guess if you're going to do it, might as well ride the bloated whale into the beach while led by an aptly spray tanned and coiffed orange shitgibbon who is so pathological if fox news told him the sun had risen in the west, he'd be furiously tweeting it from atop his gold leaf covered bidet while within his windowless water closet...
right now if i was a rich american i'd be investing in an offshore bunker [as many of them are] and if i was an american boomer [or older] i'd make sure my retirement plan was airtight and liquidish [as too many aren't]...
cause someday one of these up and coming generations is going to get wise and figure out the nuts and bolts of how so many of them ended up being locked into dead end student loans unable to buy a home and with only shIt careers in view... and they're going to collectively say to every single one of you/us over 35 or 40 or 45 or whatever age they pick:
fUck all y'all... hope you enjoy the seniors projects we're building for you on the, recently leased from russia, plains of siberia.
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Norton
climber
The Wastelands
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SOCIAL SECURITY IS IN GOOD SHAPE – AND DOES NOT DRIVE THE DEFICIT
Theda Skocpol, Harvard University, Benjamin Veghte, National Academy of Social Insurance
*Social Security is in Sound Fiscal Shape
Social Security can pay all scheduled benefits for the next 25 years – and more than three-quarters of promised benefits for the 50 years thereafter. Workers and employers cover the cost of Social Security by paying payroll taxes into the Social Security Trust Fund. These payroll taxes do not pass through the regular federal budget and, by law, cannot be spent on other programs. If the rest of government borrows from the Social Security Trust Fund, it has to pay the money back – just like it has to pay back holders of other U.S. Treasury bonds. President Roosevelt designed it this way to protect workers’ retirement savings from Washington’s annual budget battles – or in his words, so that “no damn politician can ever scrap my Social Security program.”
*Social Security Has Built a Nest Egg for Baby Boomers
Social Security’s actuaries plan its finances 75 years into the future. Each year they inform Congress about the long-term surplus or shortfall. Back in 1983, Congress addressed the long-term shortfall by slightly increasing payroll taxes and by gradually raising the retirement age to 67 by 2027. For nearly three decades, the baby boom generation has been paying much more into the program than was needed for current benefits. As a result, Social Security has stored up a whopping $2.6 trillion in worker savings to help pay for the baby boomers’ retirement in the coming years.
In sum, then: even though the share of elderly Americans will grow as boomers retire, the rising retirement age will soften the blow. Hence the cost of Social Security benefits will rise only modestly from 4.8% of Gross Domestic Product today to an estimated 6% in 2085. And boomers have saved up $2.6 trillion to help pay for it.
http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/brief/social-security-good-shape-–-and-does-not-drive-deficit
NOTE: The above calculations do NOT consider any "tweaks" to SS
such as simply raising the % workers and employers pay into the system
such as further "means testing", for example reducing the amount of SS benefits that people with large assets or other large incomes may way
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