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The Trump Presidency 13: The (James) Baker's Dozen

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TofuFighter said:
tl;dr
- guy at his club won the championship
- Trump says 'you only won because i didn't play', challenges the guy.
- they play 9 holes, 'self-policed'
- Trump wins, declares them co-champions' proceeds to erect plaque.
- club employees not allowed to discuss it. original champion will not comment.
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Maybe the guy who punched Houdini to death thought he was a great escape artist, too.
 
Joe Random said:
Odd datapoint here : in 2018 I made roughly the same as in 2017, and had the same withholdings. My total tax owed went down by about 15% from 2017 to 2018.
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It doesn’t seem odd to me.

Tax rates went down across the board and the standard deduction went up. Most average folks should have a slightly lower tax bill in 2018.

That does not mean the tax savings were not weighted towards higher income folks. It also does not mean that there are not some middle or upper-middle class people paying more. This would be due to the elimination or restriction of deductions on local taxes and/or state or city income taxes and/or home interest.

It also does not mean I approve of, or am defending the tax cuts. Just that we look at the results with an unjaundiced eye.
 
Cavemonster said:
This had been discussed elsewhere in this forum...

Not sure if this applies to you, but many people who have seen their tax refunds reduced are still paying less tax; its just that the amount of tax deducted from each paycheck wasn't adjusted properly.
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Do you have a source on that?
I feel like most people use a fairly standard formula for withholding and the only reason I can imagine changing that formula for this year would be if they expected to owe more than last year.
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From: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/6/18214039/irs-tax-refund-withholding-trump
the big story here is that as a result of the new tax law, the Treasury Department tweaked things so that on average taxpayers’ withholdings fell by more than their actual taxes owed.

Not that I necessarily agree with the Republican tax cuts. I think they are foolish, they are causing a huge increase in the deficit, and in a few years the cuts that affect the lower and middle class the most are set to expire (while the ones benefiting the wealthy will remain), so overall many/most people will end up paying more in taxes.

My comments deal only with this year's taxes.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
It doesn’t seem odd to me.

Tax rates went down across the board and the standard deduction went up. Most average folks should have a slightly lower tax bill in 2018.

That does not mean the tax savings were not weighted towards higher income folks. It also does not mean that there are not some middle or upper-middle class people paying more. This would be due to the elimination or restriction of deductions on local taxes and/or state or city income taxes and/or home interest.

It also does not mean I approve of, or am defending the tax cuts. Just that we look at the results with an unjaundiced eye.
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I guess I'd just been primed by all the horror stories making it to the news the past couple of months. 'My refund went down/I actually owe <bignum> this year!' was all over my news feeds for a while earlier in the year. So when I sat down and did my 2018 return I was shocked to see how the numbers actually fell out for me. With what had been in the news I thought it was maybe just me and CitiBank doing well tax wise somehow.

If my situation is more wide spread and common then I'm more worried than before. Sure, I wound up with more money this year, but what aren't we paying for at the Federal level now to allow that? (rhetorical question)
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Trump Tweets

Jewish people are leaving the Democratic Party. We saw a lot of anti Israel policies start under the Obama Administration, and it got worsts & worse. There is anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party. They don’t care about Israel or the Jewish people.” Elizabeth Pipko, Jexodus.
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So Jews will replace Trumpians after all?
 
With accusations of antisemitism against the left wing parties of both the UK and now the US. I'm wondering which of the following is true:

  • There really is an antisemitism problem on the left.
  • The US saw how well such accusations were working as a tactic in the UK and decided to copy.
  • Some external body is advising the right wing of both the US and the UK, or otherwise bringing their influence to bear in both cases.
  • Coincidence.
 
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Just in case you really needed to know, Trump has given his opinion on aircraft design...

From: https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-boeing-737-max-airplanes-too-complex-2019-3
"Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly," the president said on Twitter on Tuesday morning...."All of this for great cost yet very little gain. I don't know about you, but I don't want Albert Einstein to be my pilot. I want great flying professionals that are allowed to easily and quickly take control of a plane!"

Never mind the fact that pilot error is probably the most common cause of plane crashes:

http://theconversation.com/the-five-most-common-reasons-for-airliner-disasters-50100

Edit: Ninjad by SuperMeerkat
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
With accusations of antisemitism against the left wing parties of both the UK and now the US. I'm wondering which of the following is true:

  • There really is an antisemitism problem on the left.
  • The US saw how well such accusations were working as a tactic in the UK and decided to copy.
  • Some external body is advising the right wing of both the US and the UK, or otherwise bringing their influence to bear in both cases.
  • Coincidence.
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It's using the left's identity politics against us. We're doing a good job of falling all over ourselves to oblige.

What's really confusing is it's moderate and establishment Dems attacking young new "radicals" over this.

ETA: Fox is running with Pelosi/Hoyer vs. AOC/Omar/Tlaib as a packaged narrative after the former seem to have engaged in a favorite Democratic leadership activity: "hippy punching."
 
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Squeegee Beckenheim said:
With accusations of antisemitism against the left wing parties of both the UK and now the US. I'm wondering which of the following is true:

  • There really is an antisemitism problem on the left.
  • The US saw how well such accusations were working as a tactic in the UK and decided to copy.
  • Some external body is advising the right wing of both the US and the UK, or otherwise bringing their influence to bear in both cases.
  • Coincidence.
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Regarding the highlighted - https://www.theguardian.com/politic...e-millions-to-support-rightwing-uk-thinktanks
 
TheSupermeerkat said:
The universal genius declares:

"Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly, Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT. I see it all the time in many products. Always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when often old and simpler is far better."


https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/433645-trump-airplanes-are-becoming-far-too-complex-to-fly

Arguments with aviation industry incoming...
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Deja vu. It's the same thing he said about the electromagnetic catapults on new aircraft carriers, and the carriers in general. Why do I get the feeling he was never able to figure out how to program a VCR either?
 
Segnosaur said:
... and in a few years the cuts that affect the lower and middle class the most are set to expire (while the ones benefiting the wealthy will remain), so overall many/most people will end up paying more in taxes.
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This is the part that boggles my mind the most. It wasn't just enough for the GOP to plan to eliminate the cuts that affect the lower and middle class after a few years, while keeping the upper class cut, they actually wrote that part into the law - and people fell for it. They explicitly told people that they were going to screw over the lower classes, and the lower class people love it.

I suppose in a world where people fall for car loans with "no payments for 6/9/12/18 months!", I shouldn't be surprised by this, but there it is.
 
Horatius said:
This is the part that boggles my mind the most. It wasn't just enough for the GOP to plan to eliminate the cuts that affect the lower and middle class after a few years, while keeping the upper class cut, they actually wrote that part into the law - and people fell for it. They explicitly told people that they were going to screw over the lower classes, and the lower class people love it.
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I have no doubt that Trump supporters from the lower classes believe that the miraculous Trump economy will result in them no longer being in the lower classes when it hits the fan, or it will somehow only affect people other than them.

Remember the Steinbeck quote, "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."

Trickle-down is going to make them rich any day now ... any day now ... yep, any day now.
 
Armitage72 said:
I have no doubt that Trump supporters from the lower classes believe that the miraculous Trump economy will result in them no longer being in the lower classes when it hits the fan, or it will somehow only affect people other than them.
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Or, they recognize that while things may suck for them and become worse over time, seeing other people suffer makes up for it.

Liibrul tears... a cure for all that ails you.
 
Segnosaur said:
Or, they recognize that while things may suck for them and become worse over time, seeing other people suffer makes up for it.

Liibrul tears... a cure for all that ails you.
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Another quote I've seen online:
“The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of whom will volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn’t even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it.”
 
TheSupermeerkat said:
The universal genius declares:

"Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly, Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT. I see it all the time in many products. Always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when often old and simpler is far better."


https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/433645-trump-airplanes-are-becoming-far-too-complex-to-fly

Arguments with aviation industry incoming...
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He didn’t need to interfere. The plane is a fixed up old plane, 737. It tebds to stall, so a nosedive program was put in. Fixing a fix. Next time Boeing, start a plane from scratch.
 
Tero said:
He didn’t need to interfere. The plane is a fixed up old plane, 737. It tebds to stall, so a nosedive program was put in. Fixing a fix. Next time Boeing, start a plane from scratch.
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That's why the first plane crashed. We don't know if the second plane crashed for the same reason. But the idea that the 737 platform is the reason doesn't make much sense to me given that the 737 is the most popular commercial airplane model in the world today.
 
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