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Biggest Reform EVER passed thread

That's a huge savings compared to how much we spend now on health care. $3.2T in 2015.
 
PhDeac said:
That's a huge savings compared to how much we spend now on health care. $3.2T in 2015.
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I see a compromise bill coming the Republicans will propose universal healthcare to pay for their tax cut.
 
I'd love to see a non-partisan group come up with such a plan and watch heads explode.
 
The Mangler said:
I would expect the Dems to take that deal no questions asks and the Pubs to balk.
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Oh definitely. Here's a little secret about Dems. Dems don't like to raise taxes. They just know that's how government actually pays for things citizens need. Such a deal would be a win-win.
 
PhDeac said:
Oh definitely. Here's a little secret about Dems. Dems don't like to raise taxes. They just know that's how government actually pays for things citizens need. Such a deal would be a win-win.
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I disagree there, I think there are plenty of Democrats who would love to redistribute a good deal of wealth by raising taxes.
 
But it's OK to "redistribute wealth" by giving the rich huge benefits that are exclusively available to only the rich. Got it.
 
RJKarl said:
But it's OK to "redistribute wealth" by giving the rich huge benefits that are exclusively available to only the rich. Got it.
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Did I say that? No, all I said was that there are plenty of Democrats that would love to raise taxes to redistribute wealth in response to PH's claim that Democrats don't like raising taxes.
 
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WakeForestRanger said:
Concentrating huge sums of wealth in a very few hands is a threat to the republic.
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The worst things for the rich in any market driven economy and to shrink or eliminate the middle class and to dissolve upward mobility of the lower and lower-middle class. You enrich the rich the most by expanding market demand.

The rich own the methods of distribution and shares in many other companies. By creating new customers, they get richer.

The GOP's inane trickle down concept shows a total lack of understanding of our economy.
 
The Mangler said:
Did I say that? No, all I said was that there are plenty of Democrats that would love to raise taxes to redistribute wealth in response to PH's claim that Democrats don't like raising taxes.
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I look at it as undoing the wealth redistribution begun by Reagan.
 
Mangler, you're saying the same thing I am. You're just demonizing effective government by calling it "wealth redistribution."
 
RJKarl said:
But it's OK to "redistribute wealth" by giving the rich huge benefits that are exclusively available to only the rich. Got it.
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So lets go through this math exercise.

Married couple, 2 kids $60,000 a year. New standard deduction makes their taxable income $36,000. Taxed at roughly 11% (new tax brackets) that's $4,000 in federal income taxes, of which they pay nothing because they have a $4,000 child tax credit. ($2,000 per child).

So a standard family of 4 making $60,000, which is the median household income in the united states coincidentally enough, pays $-0- federal income taxes.

How much more generous of a tax structure do you recommend we have? There's a reason all the tax reform "analysis" fail to show a big savings for the poor, because you're almost always dividing by zero.
 
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WakeForestRanger said:
Concentrating huge sums of wealth in a very few hands is a threat to the republic.
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Here's a pretty good timely article I came across today which paints a different cause to the income inequality/wealth distribution, and opens the possibility of a different solution.

http://review.chicagobooth.edu/econ...er-mind-1-percent-lets-talk-about-001-percent

Basically it argues that

1) Most of the uber-wealthy are self-made, and not inherited wealth
2) There isn't a significant rise in income share by most of the top 1% ( or say People who make $300-$1MM/yr), but rather the growth is all coming from the top .01%.
3) Its all technology driven, and perhaps impossible or foolish to try to reverse. The example being Babe Ruth's Salary today would be $1.1MM, which is the minimum salary of any baseball player now. Athletes that make it aren't making it by holding down the amateur athletes, Its that technology allows the super powerful to scale and generate more profits. Now they're watched by 50 million people rather than 50 thousand.

So when 100 years ago there were 10,000 rich storefront owners, now there's 1 super rich Jeff Bezos that's skills are worth more than the storefront owners of yesteryear, so simple supply and demand warrants that the Jeff Bezos's of the world will earn more share of the income. Same with the best coders, or best of anything in their field. Technology and Scale means those people can earn infinite more profits, and therefore someone, whether its stockholders or their bosses will pay them infinitely more to earn those profits.

Lastly, taxing or re-distributing Jeff Bezos's income to others in the world isn't the best solution as then he'd just go innovate in China. Inequality isn't necessarily getting worse, 30 years ago, the world bank estimated 35% of the world lives in extreme poverty, versus 11% today. Presumaby technology is what makes everyone have running water and power and reduced the extreme poverty, and its inevitiable it will create some income inequality. The solution isn't raising Tesla's corporate tax rate.

It suggests you don't need to take money from the rich to give to the poor, but you do need to train the poor to do something useful. I.E., no more Tribble kids.
 
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PhDeac said:
No. That assumes rubes will care. They'll blame the deficit on Democrats, especially if they win in 2018 and 2020 and start scaling back this bill. "See Democrats raised your taxes and increased the deficit!!!!!"

Just heard Grassley on NPR saying that we need the bill in order to address the deficit. We have to get back to 3% economic growth so we can begin pay back the debt like we did in 1997-2000. Yes, he mentioned those years. He didn't mention that we stopped because Republicans took over and decided to give out tax cuts.
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That interview made my brain hurt. Especially the part where he said we have to eliminate the estate tax to reward people who make $100,000 a year and are good savers and punish people who make $100,000 a year and "live high on the hog".
 
Deacon923 said:
That interview made my brain hurt. Especially the part where he said we have to eliminate the estate tax to reward people who make $100,000 a year and are good savers and punish people who make $100,000 a year and "live high on the hog".
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Disgusting. Who is making $100k and has $11 million in an estate?
 
WFFaithful said:
Disgusting. Who is making $100k and has $11 million in an estate?
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BKF is probably close. $100K and never having to pay a dime for housing expenses (plus whatever his wife inherited after her father's "curious" passing) could get there in time.
 
What is the projected deficit after Trump gets his infrastructure bill through?
 
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