Americans Paid $90 Billion MORE In Taxes After Republican Tax Cut

[LV426]

Have you ever seen any major legislation pass Congress that did not include major changes? During the 2008 nomination debates Obama was against mandates for health insurance but accepted that plus many other changes in the law.

Medicare.

Medicaid.

Obama had to accept those changes because he had Conservatives to deal with in his own caucus. This gets back to what I said before about not voting for those people. So you have a real rhetorical dilemma you face in your argument here; you argue that these plans will "get changed" by corporatists in Congress, yet you vote for corporatists who do that.

So how are you not to blame? You say "oh this legislation will get changed because of corporate interests; so I'm going to support the corporate candidate who I am attacking for changing proposals and programs, which I predict". So really, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Maybe the way to get the change we want is to stop voting for the same people over and over. Or maybe, to get the change we want, we just stop accommodating people like you. I like that better. I like to make you feel like you're not the smartest, most important, most respectful person in the space. You have an entitlement where you think we must make you comfortable by accommodating your bad faith. I'm proposing something radical; we stop giving a shit what people like you think and concentrate instead on the 45% of people who didn't vote, but could for a program like M4A, student debt forgiveness, and a Green New Deal.

[LV426]

II did not make a bad faith prediction--polls show Sanders unlikely to win the nomination. I'm just being realistic. I'm sure the Republicans are making a campaign ad showing all the Democrats at the debates raising their hands saying they favored free healthcare for illegal aliens.

You did make a bad faith prediction, and you did it instead of debating the actual proposal. The reason you don't want to debate the actual proposal is because doing so will result in you agreeing with the proposal. And that would mean everything you said against the proposal was just a load of horseshit, and frankly, I don't believe you are adult enough to admit that.

And why shouldn't illegal immigrants get free healthcare? What makes them illegal is an arbitrary law that didn't exist when my ancestors came here. So you don't want them coming here, so you criminalize the means by which most of them do, and that makes it easy for you to justify treating them inhumanely.

And who gives a shit what Republicans say? They voted for and support Trump; they're written off. They're not the people we are counting on to vote for us, and they never were.

[LV426]

Sure they should. But it should be for making sure the contractor actually builds the structure for which you gave him a $1 million contract, it is completed, it includes all the required essentials, and is safe and inhabitable.

Explain to me where the contractor comes in with Medicare for All, cuz I don't see it and it isn't in any of the proposals from Sanders or Warren. In fact, both of them abolish private insurance, so...who would be the contractors in a single payer, government-run system?

And again, you speak in vague generalities and ambiguities. Nothing you say here is of any substance.

[LV426]

ewarding that officer for the number of contracts he issues without regard for performance is a poor way to run government and wastes all that government revenue you think is so important for them to have.

So explain to me where the contracts are being issued in a single payer system?

Explain to me where the contracts are being issued in a free public college proposal?

What are you talking about? The government runs M4A; the government runs public colleges. Who are the contractors? What are you fucking talking about, weirdo?

[LV426]

That is a good assumption if you don't know how things work. The school can release data it if has an "educational purpose."

Ah, so another vague, ambiguous goalpost you are shifting.

What "educational purpose" could come from you soliciting confidential information on your students other than unethically changing how you educate them because of your bias?

I'm not saying you were probably a shitty professor, but it sure seems like it.

If a student has never attended my class I might decide to drop them after a few weeks because I don't want to give that student and F at the end of the semester. So I call them to let them know in case they may be sick or have some special problem. They then beg me not to drop them because they will lose their Pell Grant.

OK, but you implied before that you could just dial up the student aid office and solicit this information. So your argument has shifted. Before, you said that you could find out the financial information on your students (which sounds made up, frankly), but now you're saying that they're volunteering that information to you. You see the difference?

Are you suggesting that is the only student?

What you were saying earlier was that you could find out any student's financial information. But what you're saying now is that "finding out" that information is actually people voluntarily giving you that info unsolicited. That's a huge difference and massive goalpost shift in your bad faith argument.

Soon, the school would not let me drop them because they wanted to make sure they got the state money and because "course completion" was a factor in school funding and an "F" was a completion of the class but a drop was not.

And this was a private school, wasn't it? I don't give a shit about private schools. Public schools are what we are talking about making free, and if you make public schools free, none of the students who go there need Pell Grants. In fact, we can eliminate the Pell Grant program entirely because, as you say, why subsidize private schools when we have a perfectly good public option?

Waste is waste and it is all bad.

"Waste" is subjective, and what you're doing is trying to establish your broad standard of "waste", very lazily, as the general standard. But it's not. There is no standard because it's subjective. You judge things as wasteful because you don't see the personal benefit, because you're a selfish, lazy asshole and a sociopath who only cares about himself, and who lacks basic human empathy. You're basically a monster.

[Flash]

You did make a bad faith prediction, and you did it instead of debating the actual proposal. The reason you don't want to debate the actual proposal is because doing so will result in you agreeing with the proposal. And that would mean everything you said against the proposal was just a load of horseshit, and frankly, I don't believe you are adult enough to admit that.

And why shouldn't illegal immigrants get free healthcare? What makes them illegal is an arbitrary law that didn't exist when my ancestors came here. So you don't want them coming here, so you criminalize the means by which most of them do, and that makes it easy for you to justify treating them inhumanely.

And who gives a shit what Republicans say? They voted for and support Trump; they're written off. They're not the people we are counting on to vote for us, and they never were.

All these programs would cost too much money when we have a $22 trillion debt. And, it is very hypocritical to want to supply all these free benefits when you want a small percentage of the population to pay for them. It is the perfect example of those who quote the problems with democracy---we can vote ourselves benefits without paying for them. It increases the size of government taking up a much large share of the GDP.

I never justified in treating illegals humanely--another Straw Man you have created. It is not the taxpayer's responsibility to give illegals or legal immigrants free healthcare. Another expensive benefit you want others to pay for.

The immigration laws are no more arbitrary than any other laws. When your ancestors came here we didn't have Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, WIC, or EITC, either. Would you also get rid of those along with immigration laws?

My point about the Republican ad is that it might be influential as an issue in determining who wins the election.

[LV426]

Buying a car does not have to be a major cause a debt.

I never said it was. What I said was the major cause of debt were three things: health care, education, credit cards.

Single payer takes care of health care debt.
Free public colleges and debt forgiveness takes care of student debt.
Higher wages takes care of credit card debt.

You oppose at least two of those.

If a person has more disposable income he might choose to use that additional income to buy a car. So, in his case, the additional debt is not a bad thing but the cost of having a new car. If he has student loan, medical, or credit card debt let's hope he will use that additional income to pay on those debts.

Hope? Could? Might?

These are goalposts you're setting in order to move later on.

The person doesn't have more disposable income because they have to put more income towards education and health care because you cut funding for those because ARGLE BARGLE SPENDING BADDDD.

So just like what happened in Kansas with the State Board of Regents, we are seeing a consistent pattern emerge; taxes get cut, which results in deficits, which result in spending cuts, which result in more borrowing. So people don't get to keep more of what they earn, because they have to shell out more out of their own pockets on services the state can provide at a cheaper cost, funded by taxes instead of premiums, copays, deductibles, drug costs, coinsurance, dental, vision, hospital stays, ambulance rides, etc.

The Kaiser Family Foundation says that the average a worker spends in premiums for their employer-provided care is about $5,000/year PLUS an additional $1,500 a year for deductibles. So all in, the average worker pays $6,500 a year for their health care.

Sanders' M4A proposal swaps all that OOPE for a flat payroll tax of about 6%. The highest I've heard that tax go is 8%. So let's do some math. You like math, right?

The average worker spends $6,500/year for health care through their employer
The average salary for US workers is $47,060 a year.
Bernie's M4A tax is 6%...but let's go up to 10% because that will be easier for you to follow.
So if we had M4A, the average worker would pay $4,706 a year for health care vs. the $6,500 a year they pay right now.

So, is $4,706 > or < $6,500 in Flashtardia?



So how are you not the obstacle to society achieving less debt?

[LV426]

We were talking about government waste and you wanted examples.

We were talking about M4A and free public colleges...two things you have yet to even debate besides ducking out of a debate about them by preemptively killing them by saying they'll be changed.

Maybe they won't be changed. Medicare wasn't.

[LV426]

The point is that consumer spending and disposable income have been increasing

BECAUSE OF DEBT.

That's what I've been saying this whole time, moron.

The reason the spending continued to increase was because of debt.

so your claim that people don't have more money to spend is a lie. Spending it on student loan debt is a good way to pay for the debt a person chose to incur.

It's not a lie, Flash, you just confirmed for me that the spending isn't being done with money...it's being done with credit. Credit is what accounts for the continued consumer spending you're trying to attribute to a nominal increase in after-tax income. But you are either deliberately ignoring, or are just plain ignorant of everything I've been saying this thread. That tax cuts result in more debt, not people keeping more of what they earned.

If people could keep more of what they earned then quite literally the personal savings rate would be increasing, not decreasing.

So this is the conversation:

Me: Tax cuts result in more debt.

You: Impossible! Look at consumer spending continuing to grow. Consumers can't spend without money.

Me: Ummm...they're spending because of credit. And what is credit, but debt.

Consumers are going into debt in order to spend in the economy because they have to shell out more of their income on non-consumer goods like health care and education.

For some stupid reason, your brain won't process that complex thought.

[Flash]

Ah, so another vague, ambiguous goalpost you are shifting.

What "educational purpose" could come from you soliciting confidential information on your students other than unethically changing how you educate them because of your bias?

Another straw man you have invented. How do you change how you educate a student? Total BS. If a student never attends class and only enrolled to get their grant money while another one is in the hospital, you drop one and make accommodations for the other.

OK, but you implied before that you could just dial up the student aid office and solicit this information.

Still true

What you were saying earlier was that you could find out any student's financial information. But what you're saying now is that "finding out" that information is actually people voluntarily giving you that info unsolicited. That's a huge difference and massive goalpost shift in your bad faith argument.

Both true. Life is not always either/or.

And this was a private school, wasn't it?

State college.

"Waste" is subjective, and what you're doing is trying to establish your broad standard of "waste", very lazily, as the general standard. But it's not. There is no standard because it's subjective. You judge things as wasteful because you don't see the personal benefit, because you're a selfish, lazy asshole and a sociopath who only cares about himself, and who lacks basic human empathy. You're basically a monster.

Yes, of course it is subjective. That is what makes political differences.

If a taxpayer prefers to cut government spending rather than pay for a study about the benefit of cats listening to classical money that is their free democratic choice.

You spent several posts trying to justify that government supported study (that would primarily benefit the wealthy pet industry) like if you could justify it the people would be willing to pay for it.

Politics is subjective. Some, like LV426, want more government spending, a bigger government, free healthcare, free college, forgiving student debts, and probably increases in many other government programs. And, they want the wealthy to pay for it all with very high taxes.

Most of the public does not support all those things. That is their subjective choice--there is no scientific proof to which is best.

[LV426]

I never implied anything close to that. You make simplistic assumptions that do not reflect anything I said. I said getting more clientele increases their budget. Expanding their programs is good for the agency, but not necessarily for the taxpayer. It depends on whether an expanded program produces necessary benefits desired by the taxpayers. Using an increased budget to enlarge your office and buy new furniture because it is desirable to the occupant is not beneficial to the taxpayer.

So at what point should office furniture be replaced, or facilities should be upgraded? Never?

[LV426]

I said getting more clientele increases their budget.

What clientele? What are you talking about? Apply this to M4A.

[LV426]

All these programs would cost too much money when we have a $22 trillion debt.

But those programs are funded by taxes and are paid for.

So again you won't debate the proposal. Instead, you're searching for any way you can to avoid doing that because of your ego.

And, it is very hypocritical to want to supply all these free benefits when you want a small percentage of the population to pay for them.

Again with the bad faith! M4A is funded by payroll taxes. Free public colleges and forgiving student loan debt is funded by a $0.02 wealth tax and a repeal of the Russia Tax Cut you support. The benefits are free at the point of service when it comes to health care and you know that. SO why do you keep saying they're "free"? Simple; you act in bad faith because you don't know any other way to act.

It is the perfect example of those who quote the problems with democracy---we can vote ourselves benefits without paying for them. It increases the size of government taking up a much large share of the GDP.

Again, this is a subjective judgment you are making from a place of inherent bias. You keep doing that; you keep trying to establish your subjective judgment and lazy reasoning as some kind of established standard, but it's not. It never has been. It never will be. And yes, we can vote to raise taxes on the rich to pay for things. Why is that so controversial to you? You're not rich and you never will be. So since it doesn't affect you, why are you opposed to it?

I never justified in treating illegals humanely--another Straw Man you have created. It is not the taxpayer's responsibility to give illegals or legal immigrants free healthcare. Another expensive benefit you want others to pay for.

Health care is a right, and everyone is entitled to it. Regardless of their citizenship. You can't mandate that doctors have to treat every sick person who shows up to the ER but then say no one is entitled to that care for free. I mean you can, you'd just be a horrible monster for saying that, proving yours isn't a voice or a vote anyone should fucking care about.

The immigration laws are no more arbitrary than any other laws.

Sure they are. Why criminalize crossing the Southern border, but not criminalize arriving by boat at Ellis Island? What is the benefit to criminalizing the means by which most of these immigrants come here? Simple; to make it easier to treat them inhumanely if you can brand them as criminals for breaking a law you set up for the sole purpose of delegitimizing their immigration.

Surely you can't be that naive.

When your ancestors came here we didn't have Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, WIC, or EITC, either. Would you also get rid of those along with immigration laws?

Why would we need to?

My point about the Republican ad is that it might be influential as an issue in determining who wins the election.

Anyone who seriously considers Republican talking points isn't a vote we are trying to reach, so no one on this side gives a shit what Republicans say because all Republicans are liars who have backed Trump. So anything they say is immediately dismissed.

You're not going to increase enthusiasm with bad faith moderation.

[LV426]

Another straw man you have invented. How do you change how you educate a student?

You do exactly what you do on these boards; exercise sophistry and ignore what they say because of the inherent bias you have.

You're so unethical.

[Flash]

You do exactly what you do on these boards; exercise sophistry and ignore what they say because of the inherent bias you have.

You're so unethical.

A bias against excessive partisanship and government waste has no influence on how a person teaches students unless he brings his politics into class.

A good teacher does not know whose paper he is grading and the Scantron machine never knows.