Yes, being visibly a minority always makes the majority’s rules acceptable.
Imo, Trump was such a piece of shit, ultimately, simply because he didn’t have to please most people.
This follows for the R senate and house. And more broadly stokes the deep resentment for both teams.
The less a leader needs people, the more a leader will shit on people.
Of course there’s other issues with America- the fact that we have two parties that are both controlled by their base, but I think this makes it a little worse.
Waiting times have got a lot poorer since the tories got in in 2010 but they did used to be a lot better.
Hate to the bearer of bad news: the money was created when the loan was made. That horse has left the barn.
Yeah but there they all work for the government like our teachers do here. Here it’s just a program set up to pay for the services through administrative companies. There is a lot of rentseeking around the money. Like an unbelievable amount. On one hand a ton of people make really good livings working for all the companies surrounding this pipeline of government funding. On the other hand it keeps getting huger and huger and taking more and more resources to sustain. Can’t complain as I am living a very good life on my very small portion of that pie.
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Thanks for explaining. I’ve learnt a lot on how the US works through these threads.
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I agree that many of these loopholes need to be closed.
However, even with that closure, the rich are generally in a position to adjust their plans such that the total tax, in dollars, they pay isn’t greater than what they’re currently paying.
Bottom line: “increasing the tax on the rich” is a meaningless statement for justifying how a program/initiative could be paid for.
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There are ton of people that make really good livings working for all the companies surrounding the pipeline of private funding.
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I’m very confident that a congress that really wanted to raise taxes on wealthy people could change both law and enforcement and get more revenue.
I agree that we couldn’t fund big new programs solely on the likely additional revenue. We also can’t fund any existing big program solely on the taxes paid by actuaries. But, that doesn’t justify eliminating taxes on actuaries.
You posted this right below a post of mine, so I’m thinking it must have been a reply.
Unfortunately, I think you are trying to say something indirectly (maybe sarcastically?) that I’m not getting.
I’m not sure where you’re getting the idea that I implied eliminating taxes on the rich. My comment is directed at the talking points that many Dem’s throw out about how to pay for their pet programs.
I do agree with your statement that Congress could change things so that the rich “pay more”. The problem is that many Congress-critters–from both sides of the aisle–have their hands (if not their arms) in those loopholes and don’t want to lose their cash cattle.
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Them and all their donors.
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The comment on actuaries was “The tax money we get from actuaries is a small amount of money by federal gov’t standards. But, it’s still worth getting.”
I agree with your skepticism of “we’ll pay for this by raising taxes on the rich”. The question is, “How big is ‘this’ ?”. If “this” is small enough, we could.
We should raise taxes on billionaires (and even certain millionaires) even if those taxes aren’t going to fully fund some big new programs.
I’m thinking we agree here, it’s just that the most recent talking points we heard happen to be different, so we’re pushing back in different places.
I agree with “many … from both sides”, but I would add “more from one side”.
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More identifying R’s than D’s now nationwide. I feel like the vaccine mandate was probably the most politically costly move any President has made in a long time.
Possibly this. Also a lot of parents upset about school closures, mandates, & needless restrictions on kids. Don’t underestimate the suburban soccer mom vote.
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Yep. D’s are seen as the party of restrictions. Many people don’t really care about politics until it impacts them personally. Restrictions impact them personally, and they are going to vote for the politicians that let them live life again.
Our school board had been the teacher’s union endorsed candidates for at least 10 years. Won handily. All got swept out in favor of people saying no mask mandates no school closures - by huge margins. I expect that to carry over to national voting.
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Inflation is all going to be pegged on the party in charge as well, so another knock against Ds.
The all important “am I better off financially than a few years ago?” is a strong “no” for the majority of the country.
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It’s going to be especially bad as the child tax credit payments end and every parent realizes they were prepaid a large portion of their tax refund they were expecting in March or April.
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Is it? All that stimulus surely helped, no? I would’ve thought it would be “yes”.
But the CTC increased from $2K to either $3K or $3,600. And then half was prepaid. (Which was unbelievably dumb… they should have prepaid the additional, not half.)
So for kids under 6, their CTC on their return goes from $2,000 to $1,800… not too different. For the kids 6-17 it went from $2,000 to $1,500. A bigger difference.
But also, those $1,800 and $1,500 are fully refundable now, whereas only $1,400 was refundable in the past. So for a lot of folks their CTC on their tax return actually went UP by $100 - $400, not down.
And the Dependent Care Credit is refundable this year too, which will affect/help a lot of folks.