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United States42651 Posts
On September 16 2016 01:36 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2016 01:33 KwarK wrote:On September 16 2016 01:22 xDaunt wrote:
Regardless of the merits of the policy, we to have keep in mind how it's going to be viewed by a majority of Americans: a potentially massive subsidy for the lower and middle classes. That's going to score Trump some huge points and further cement and expand his standing among his core constituencies. Only if we believe in the magic of bad bookkeeping. Trump has promised sweeping tax cuts, including a new 0% rate for the poorest 25% or so of American families and dramatic tax cuts for the rich. He's also promised to completely pay off the deficit and increase spending on the military, security, immigration enforcement and a dozen other things. Now he's going to give large tax benefits to the lower and middle classes? I have to ask, with what money? Because at present the lower and middle classes get more back in government provided societal benefits (through direct transfers, programs like Medicare and food stamps, subsidized services (bus routes etc), public services like policing) than they pay in with taxes. Sweeping tax cuts wipe away the foundation for all of that. If you reduce a poor guy's taxes by $2k and a richer guys by $8k by cancelling a public program that gave the poor guy a net benefit of $10k, you're not helping the poor guy. There is no reading of Trump's tax policy, which is incidentally one of the few areas where numbers have been provided in a non clearly-made-up-that-second way, that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that the post-tax financial position of the lower and middle classes is going to improve. The maths simply isn't there. Let's just presume that you're correct about all of the above. What will Joe voter hear? What you just said, or that Trump is going to pay for his kids' daycare?
So what's the game plan here if he wins? Does he increase the deficit or does he not deliver on the benefits? I know for me the game plan would be to take all the tax deferred money I have and convert it to post tax at the temporarily discounted rates, counting on immunity from double taxation to protect me when tax policy is returned to saner hands in four years. Unless Trump is planning to do the same I'm just not understanding where he goes from here.
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On September 16 2016 01:38 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2016 01:29 Plansix wrote:On September 16 2016 01:22 xDaunt wrote:
Regardless of the merits of the policy, we to have keep in mind how it's going to be viewed by a majority of Americans: a potentially massive subsidy for the lower and middle classes. That's going to score Trump some huge points and further cement and expand his standing among his core constituencies. That he has no viable plan to fund. Even the proposed loopholes he claimed would close do not come close to the cost of the program. http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2016/09/trumps-dodge-on-childcare-000202Its another Trump policy, promising something he likely has no power to deliver and likely won’t be that effective or help the people who need help. I don't think XDaunt's point is that it's a sound policy, but that it's a policy that random voter X will hear and like to hear because it's good for them. I'm skeptical of how much it'll actually help him, but the optics are definitely a boon for him.
I am also skeptical long term. I think Trump's plans are good optics if taken one at a time. I think the entire thing falls apart if you list them all next to each other. Because it basically amounts to providing a ton of services, tax cuts and spending while having no way to pay for it.
This assumes Clinton's camp can get their head out of their ass long enough to make that argument.
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On September 16 2016 01:44 xDaunt wrote:
Actually, I'm trying to figure out exactly how much Trump is going to pay for. It's a little ambiguous from the policy, but it's not going to be full amount of the child care expenses.
Its the classic GOP voodoo: Close loopholes and cut wasteful spending of unknown amounts to pay for it.
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On September 16 2016 01:47 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2016 01:44 xDaunt wrote:
Actually, I'm trying to figure out exactly how much Trump is going to pay for. It's a little ambiguous from the policy, but it's not going to be full amount of the child care expenses. Its the classic GOP voodoo: Close loopholes and cut wasteful spending of unknown amounts to pay for it.
Well, I will say this. I received a tax credit equal to less than 1% of what I paid in child care expenses in 2015. Trump's plan clearly is going to pay me more.
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On September 16 2016 01:47 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2016 01:44 xDaunt wrote:
Actually, I'm trying to figure out exactly how much Trump is going to pay for. It's a little ambiguous from the policy, but it's not going to be full amount of the child care expenses. Its the classic GOP voodoo: Close loopholes and cut wasteful spending of unknown amounts to pay for it and additional revenue from economic growth will do the rest.
ftfy
it would seem that the new GOP tactic is to promise the moon but omit how they're going to pay for it. the difference here b/w them and the dems (or rather their caricature of the dems) is that the GOP has no intention of following through so they don't actually need the plan to pay.
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On September 16 2016 01:48 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2016 01:47 Plansix wrote:On September 16 2016 01:44 xDaunt wrote:
Actually, I'm trying to figure out exactly how much Trump is going to pay for. It's a little ambiguous from the policy, but it's not going to be full amount of the child care expenses. Its the classic GOP voodoo: Close loopholes and cut wasteful spending of unknown amounts to pay for it. Well, I will say this. I received a tax credit equal to less than 1% of what I paid in child care expenses in 2015. Trump's plan clearly is going to pay me more.
can you truly say trump's plan will pay you more if the plan itself is not viable?
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On September 16 2016 01:41 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2016 01:38 Acrofales wrote:On September 16 2016 01:36 xDaunt wrote:On September 16 2016 01:33 KwarK wrote:On September 16 2016 01:22 xDaunt wrote:
Regardless of the merits of the policy, we to have keep in mind how it's going to be viewed by a majority of Americans: a potentially massive subsidy for the lower and middle classes. That's going to score Trump some huge points and further cement and expand his standing among his core constituencies. Only if we believe in the magic of bad bookkeeping. Trump has promised sweeping tax cuts, including a new 0% rate for the poorest 25% or so of American families and dramatic tax cuts for the rich. He's also promised to completely pay off the deficit and increase spending on the military, security, immigration enforcement and a dozen other things. Now he's going to give large tax benefits to the lower and middle classes? I have to ask, with what money? Because at present the lower and middle classes get more back in government provided societal benefits (through direct transfers, programs like Medicare and food stamps, subsidized services (bus routes etc), public services like policing) than they pay in with taxes. Sweeping tax cuts wipe away the foundation for all of that. If you reduce a poor guy's taxes by $2k and a richer guys by $8k by cancelling a public program that gave the poor guy a net benefit of $10k, you're not helping the poor guy. There is no reading of Trump's tax policy, which is incidentally one of the few areas where numbers have been provided in a non clearly-made-up-that-second way, that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that the post-tax financial position of the lower and middle classes is going to improve. The maths simply isn't there. Let's just presume that you're correct about all of the above. What will Joe voter hear? What you just said, or that Trump is going to pay for his kids' daycare? Yup. Trump should promise Joe Voter the moon on a stick, because it really doesn't matter that it is completely 100% impossible. PS: whence the disdain for Joe Voter? My wife and I are paying in the neighborhood of $3,000-3,500 per month for childcare (2 kids in daycare, 1 in kindergarten + after-school care). Trump just told me that he's going to cover it. What could Hillary possibly offer me that trumps what Trump just put on the table?
The same thing but to feasibly pay for it?
Of course the opposite is also true, that you can always find a way to never blame anyone for anything and just pretend that they are always the unfortunate product of a society that failed them.
Of course you could, but are you arguing that this is the case in this particular instance?
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On September 16 2016 01:48 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2016 01:47 Plansix wrote:On September 16 2016 01:44 xDaunt wrote:
Actually, I'm trying to figure out exactly how much Trump is going to pay for. It's a little ambiguous from the policy, but it's not going to be full amount of the child care expenses. Its the classic GOP voodoo: Close loopholes and cut wasteful spending of unknown amounts to pay for it. Well, I will say this. I received a tax credit equal to less than 1% of what I paid in child care expenses in 2015. Trump's plan clearly is going to pay me more.
Yes. You know what Trump's plans are also going to do?
1. Increase military might (costs billions)
2. Tax cuts for everybody (loses billions of revenue)
3. Build a wall (free. Mexico will pay for it)
4. Fix the VA (costs billions)
5. Pay back deficit in full (will cut Department of Education, Environmental Protection and "many many other things" to pay for this one)
I'm sure there's more where those came from, but insofar as my math works out, he might as well be offering to hand you the moon on a stick.
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On September 16 2016 01:48 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2016 01:47 Plansix wrote:On September 16 2016 01:44 xDaunt wrote:
Actually, I'm trying to figure out exactly how much Trump is going to pay for. It's a little ambiguous from the policy, but it's not going to be full amount of the child care expenses. Its the classic GOP voodoo: Close loopholes and cut wasteful spending of unknown amounts to pay for it. Well, I will say this. I received a tax credit equal to less than 1% of what I paid in child care expenses in 2015. Trump's plan clearly is going to pay me more.
You assume it is going to be implemented or is possible. He is currently going to pay for it with nothing. While Clinton wants to cap childcare costs at 10% of someones income and have the goverment cover the rest of the costs. And she plans to raise taxes on the wealth to do it, which is an real means of paying for it.
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United States42651 Posts
On September 16 2016 01:48 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2016 01:47 Plansix wrote:On September 16 2016 01:44 xDaunt wrote:
Actually, I'm trying to figure out exactly how much Trump is going to pay for. It's a little ambiguous from the policy, but it's not going to be full amount of the child care expenses. Its the classic GOP voodoo: Close loopholes and cut wasteful spending of unknown amounts to pay for it. Well, I will say this. I received a tax credit equal to less than 1% of what I paid in child care expenses in 2015. Trump's plan clearly is going to pay me more.
It's your kid that'll have to pay off the debt I guess so what goes around comes around.
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On September 16 2016 01:37 Introvert wrote:
By the way, a good theory I've heard about Trump's black outreach is it's more about convincing those suburban white moms that he needs to win that he's not a racist. It's not really about the black vote, since he won't ever get enough of those to win.
Makes sense to me.
I would hope that is his plan. Because if he truly is trying to win the black vote he is more deluded then even I thought.
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On September 16 2016 01:33 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2016 01:22 Mohdoo wrote:On September 16 2016 01:16 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 16 2016 01:06 xDaunt wrote:On September 16 2016 00:57 Slaughter wrote:On September 16 2016 00:37 xDaunt wrote:On September 16 2016 00:29 ticklishmusic wrote:
there are already a lot of incentives for staying married, there's no need to tilt the scales even more Given current divorce rates, there clearly aren't enough. You don't tackle something like divorce rates with financial incentives in a contract that is most often emotionally driven by fondness/love. All that could possibly do is give a boost to the raw numbers but it just keeps shit marriages together longer. Divorce rates are a culture "problem". Which is why a lot of conservative christians have been banging on about marriage because they see the break down of man/wife + kids family as one of the core problems that leads to a good chunk of the larger ones. Yes, I agree that divorce rates are largely a "culture problem." And I also agree that, while financial subsidies do incentivize marriages, there will be a percentage of the marriages so incentivized at the margin that will be of the "lesser quality" variety. What's less clear is whether the overall social effect of the subsidy is good, bad, and/or worth the cost of the subsidy. I don't think divorce rates are just a cultural problem (although clearly they are to an extent), but an economic problem as well. http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/marriage-and-divorce-patterns-by-gender-race-and-educational-attainment.htmDivorce rate is inversely related with both education level and age. Age of marriage tends to also be inversely correlated with education level. People who are willing to plan their lives effectively and make concessions when necessary for the greater good and future success, tend to have better marriages? Of course. People's ability to just have a functional relationship is clearly the biggest issue. Most people are very, very selfish and very stubborn/insecure. Giving people a couple thousand bucks isn't going to fix the fact that most people are shitty, do a bad job at planning their lives, and generally don't have what it takes to have a successful marriage. You can use this same logic to blame people for anything. 14 year old girls getting pregnant? Never mind that they never got the education to understand sex and pregnancy, they should've planned better. Poor inner city kids stuck in a perpetual cycle of violence where they can't get a job or education and can't have a better quality of life than their parents? Never mind that they had zero opportunities and the system worked against them at every turn, they should've planned better! Obviously any one individual makes mistakes that lead to consequences, but when it's a cultural trend, you can't just say, "Well everyone is just being stupid/lazy." At some point, it becomes an issue of how we raise and educate people to think about things.
My point is kind of your point as well. Throwing money at the situation isn't fixing the mechanism. It's a shitty attempt to treat a symptom. When people get proper sex education, they stop getting knocked up in high school. Similarly, I imagine there is a lot of *actual* social/cultural outreach that could happen to help encourage family cohesion. Giving shitty couples a carrot to chase won't change all the things wrong with their relationships. They will still ultimately implode for a variety of pre-existing reasons.
We have volumes of sociological/psychological research to show a cohesive, friendly 2 parent family (1 person is downright insufficient. No fault of the single parent, but they are simply outgunned.) is far and away ideal. So we should of course pursue that. If you offered high school kids the ability to cash out a clean $500 for not having a kid in high school, I bet it would help in some cases, but many people would still accidentally get pregnant. Even when intending to collect the $500, many kids will just get pregnant anyway. But when kids are educated, that shit stops real quick.
TLDR: Education will fix the problem and this money is a total waste that doesn't fix the mechanism of shitty relationships.
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On September 16 2016 01:52 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2016 01:41 xDaunt wrote:On September 16 2016 01:38 Acrofales wrote:On September 16 2016 01:36 xDaunt wrote:On September 16 2016 01:33 KwarK wrote:On September 16 2016 01:22 xDaunt wrote:
Regardless of the merits of the policy, we to have keep in mind how it's going to be viewed by a majority of Americans: a potentially massive subsidy for the lower and middle classes. That's going to score Trump some huge points and further cement and expand his standing among his core constituencies. Only if we believe in the magic of bad bookkeeping. Trump has promised sweeping tax cuts, including a new 0% rate for the poorest 25% or so of American families and dramatic tax cuts for the rich. He's also promised to completely pay off the deficit and increase spending on the military, security, immigration enforcement and a dozen other things. Now he's going to give large tax benefits to the lower and middle classes? I have to ask, with what money? Because at present the lower and middle classes get more back in government provided societal benefits (through direct transfers, programs like Medicare and food stamps, subsidized services (bus routes etc), public services like policing) than they pay in with taxes. Sweeping tax cuts wipe away the foundation for all of that. If you reduce a poor guy's taxes by $2k and a richer guys by $8k by cancelling a public program that gave the poor guy a net benefit of $10k, you're not helping the poor guy. There is no reading of Trump's tax policy, which is incidentally one of the few areas where numbers have been provided in a non clearly-made-up-that-second way, that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that the post-tax financial position of the lower and middle classes is going to improve. The maths simply isn't there. Let's just presume that you're correct about all of the above. What will Joe voter hear? What you just said, or that Trump is going to pay for his kids' daycare? Yup. Trump should promise Joe Voter the moon on a stick, because it really doesn't matter that it is completely 100% impossible. PS: whence the disdain for Joe Voter? My wife and I are paying in the neighborhood of $3,000-3,500 per month for childcare (2 kids in daycare, 1 in kindergarten + after-school care). Trump just told me that he's going to cover it. What could Hillary possibly offer me that trumps what Trump just put on the table? The same thing but to feasibly pay for it?
Has she made the offer? And is the offer as good as Trump's from my economic perspective?
What Trump is doing is pure conservative heresy (hence Danglar's protests), but Trump's naked pandering to the middle class clearly is going to work.
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On September 15 2016 22:34 Rebs wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2016 14:28 RvB wrote:On September 15 2016 12:45 Rebs wrote:On September 15 2016 12:30 Plansix wrote:On September 15 2016 12:10 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
So when this becomes a national story NAFTA will back in the spotlight...
We should tax them, so then their cars cost more than foreign cars. Then we can tax the foreign cars. Then every other country in the world taxes US cars. Then we can't see cars abroad. Everyone loses. In fairness with regards to the auto industry, there is a legitimate case for some protectionisim. News flash no one buys American cars outside NA. This 'legitimate case' has existed for decades. There has already been protectionism for the big car makers and it didn't work back then why would it now? News flash if nobody buys your products it means you have a shitty product. uhh Japan ? Pretty good model for why protectionism works. Not sure what you mean by it didnt work back then. As we can see now, it worked brilliantly. But its not the sole reason and never should be ofcourse since there is a high risk the protected industry gets sloppy. Japanese industries dont do that because as much as people like to bitch about the lack of creativity in Kaizen, its disciplined and efficient. Americans cant handle that shit. And its not like it was a race to the bottom in terms of cost cutting via shafting wages which is what China does. News flash, American cars arent really that bad. Its just that they cant compete financially with markets abroad. And they wont for a long time. But they could do quite decently at home provided some actual will involving some improvements in manufacturing and will. But they dont want to do that because they want to make cars that let you let your hair down. Thats their problem.
Japan isn't a model that protectionism works but that's besides the point. Protectionism in the US car industry against the Japanese has already been tried in the 80s so they could catch up to them. Guess what it didn't work.
According to one study, lifting the VER would have produced a gain of $9.8 billion for the United States.12 Another estimated that the VER reduction in 1992 saved 1,234 jobs in the United States, but also imposed a $1.7 billion cost on consumers and a quota rent loss of $1.2 billion.13 Yet another study stressed that the biggest losers were US consumers who had to pay an average of about $1,200 more (in 1983 dollars) per Japanese car, and suffered a combined loss of some $13 billion; the US economy as a whole suffered welfare losses totalling some $3 billion.
In the long term, as illustrated by the data in Figure 3, the VERs paused but did not halt or reverse the relative decline of the Big Three. Those firms’ combined share of the US market, as well as the share of the Japanese producers, fluctuated very little during the 1981–95 period. While the US producers did improve quality during that time, they continued to lose ground to Japanese and other foreign firms in the first decade of the 21st century.
http://www.globaltradealert.org/sites/default/files/GTA-AP1 Vangrasstek_0.pdf
It was the sustained competition from efficient, export-oriented Japanese firms that produced the changes in the U.S. auto producers that are being celebrated in the specialist auto media and the popular press today. There is not a shred of evidence that the innovations in organization, product, and process that define the new auto industry would have occurred without that competition. Second, trade policy was not essential to improved performance. The primary effect of trade activism, during the brief period in the mid-1980s when it was binding, was to transfer rents from consumers to foreign and domestic firms.
www.nber.org
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On September 16 2016 01:57 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2016 01:33 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 16 2016 01:22 Mohdoo wrote:On September 16 2016 01:16 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 16 2016 01:06 xDaunt wrote:On September 16 2016 00:57 Slaughter wrote:On September 16 2016 00:37 xDaunt wrote:On September 16 2016 00:29 ticklishmusic wrote:
there are already a lot of incentives for staying married, there's no need to tilt the scales even more Given current divorce rates, there clearly aren't enough. You don't tackle something like divorce rates with financial incentives in a contract that is most often emotionally driven by fondness/love. All that could possibly do is give a boost to the raw numbers but it just keeps shit marriages together longer. Divorce rates are a culture "problem". Which is why a lot of conservative christians have been banging on about marriage because they see the break down of man/wife + kids family as one of the core problems that leads to a good chunk of the larger ones. Yes, I agree that divorce rates are largely a "culture problem." And I also agree that, while financial subsidies do incentivize marriages, there will be a percentage of the marriages so incentivized at the margin that will be of the "lesser quality" variety. What's less clear is whether the overall social effect of the subsidy is good, bad, and/or worth the cost of the subsidy. I don't think divorce rates are just a cultural problem (although clearly they are to an extent), but an economic problem as well. http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/marriage-and-divorce-patterns-by-gender-race-and-educational-attainment.htmDivorce rate is inversely related with both education level and age. Age of marriage tends to also be inversely correlated with education level. People who are willing to plan their lives effectively and make concessions when necessary for the greater good and future success, tend to have better marriages? Of course. People's ability to just have a functional relationship is clearly the biggest issue. Most people are very, very selfish and very stubborn/insecure. Giving people a couple thousand bucks isn't going to fix the fact that most people are shitty, do a bad job at planning their lives, and generally don't have what it takes to have a successful marriage. You can use this same logic to blame people for anything. 14 year old girls getting pregnant? Never mind that they never got the education to understand sex and pregnancy, they should've planned better. Poor inner city kids stuck in a perpetual cycle of violence where they can't get a job or education and can't have a better quality of life than their parents? Never mind that they had zero opportunities and the system worked against them at every turn, they should've planned better! Obviously any one individual makes mistakes that lead to consequences, but when it's a cultural trend, you can't just say, "Well everyone is just being stupid/lazy." At some point, it becomes an issue of how we raise and educate people to think about things. My point is kind of your point as well. Throwing money at the situation isn't fixing the mechanism. It's a shitty attempt to treat a symptom. When people get proper sex education, they stop getting knocked up in high school. Similarly, I imagine there is a lot of *actual* social/cultural outreach that could happen to help encourage family cohesion. Giving shitty couples a carrot to chase won't change all the things wrong with their relationships. They will still ultimately implode for a variety of pre-existing reasons. We have volumes of sociological/psychological research to show a cohesive, friendly 2 parent family (1 person is downright insufficient. No fault of the single parent, but they are simply outgunned.) is far and away ideal. So we should of course pursue that. If you offered high school kids the ability to cash out a clean $500 for not having a kid in high school, I bet it would help in some cases, but many people would still accidentally get pregnant. Even when intending to collect the $500, many kids will just get pregnant anyway. But when kids are educated, that shit stops real quick. TLDR: Education will fix the problem and this money is a total waste that doesn't fix the mechanism of shitty relationships.
More likely kids will *cheat* the system with abortions and plan B.
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On September 16 2016 01:57 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2016 01:52 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 16 2016 01:41 xDaunt wrote:On September 16 2016 01:38 Acrofales wrote:On September 16 2016 01:36 xDaunt wrote:On September 16 2016 01:33 KwarK wrote:On September 16 2016 01:22 xDaunt wrote:
Regardless of the merits of the policy, we to have keep in mind how it's going to be viewed by a majority of Americans: a potentially massive subsidy for the lower and middle classes. That's going to score Trump some huge points and further cement and expand his standing among his core constituencies. Only if we believe in the magic of bad bookkeeping. Trump has promised sweeping tax cuts, including a new 0% rate for the poorest 25% or so of American families and dramatic tax cuts for the rich. He's also promised to completely pay off the deficit and increase spending on the military, security, immigration enforcement and a dozen other things. Now he's going to give large tax benefits to the lower and middle classes? I have to ask, with what money? Because at present the lower and middle classes get more back in government provided societal benefits (through direct transfers, programs like Medicare and food stamps, subsidized services (bus routes etc), public services like policing) than they pay in with taxes. Sweeping tax cuts wipe away the foundation for all of that. If you reduce a poor guy's taxes by $2k and a richer guys by $8k by cancelling a public program that gave the poor guy a net benefit of $10k, you're not helping the poor guy. There is no reading of Trump's tax policy, which is incidentally one of the few areas where numbers have been provided in a non clearly-made-up-that-second way, that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that the post-tax financial position of the lower and middle classes is going to improve. The maths simply isn't there. Let's just presume that you're correct about all of the above. What will Joe voter hear? What you just said, or that Trump is going to pay for his kids' daycare? Yup. Trump should promise Joe Voter the moon on a stick, because it really doesn't matter that it is completely 100% impossible. PS: whence the disdain for Joe Voter? My wife and I are paying in the neighborhood of $3,000-3,500 per month for childcare (2 kids in daycare, 1 in kindergarten + after-school care). Trump just told me that he's going to cover it. What could Hillary possibly offer me that trumps what Trump just put on the table? The same thing but to feasibly pay for it? Has she made the offer? And is the offer as good as Trump's from my economic perspective? What Trump is doing is pure conservative heresy (hence Danglar's protests), but Trump's naked pandering to the middle class clearly is going to work.
I don't know about that. Doesn't seem like he has a lot of trust with people who aren't already in his camp. Most people will just see it as the naked and open pandering that it is and doubt he would even try to do it (let alone accomplish it).
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On September 16 2016 01:57 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2016 01:52 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 16 2016 01:41 xDaunt wrote:On September 16 2016 01:38 Acrofales wrote:On September 16 2016 01:36 xDaunt wrote:On September 16 2016 01:33 KwarK wrote:On September 16 2016 01:22 xDaunt wrote:
Regardless of the merits of the policy, we to have keep in mind how it's going to be viewed by a majority of Americans: a potentially massive subsidy for the lower and middle classes. That's going to score Trump some huge points and further cement and expand his standing among his core constituencies. Only if we believe in the magic of bad bookkeeping. Trump has promised sweeping tax cuts, including a new 0% rate for the poorest 25% or so of American families and dramatic tax cuts for the rich. He's also promised to completely pay off the deficit and increase spending on the military, security, immigration enforcement and a dozen other things. Now he's going to give large tax benefits to the lower and middle classes? I have to ask, with what money? Because at present the lower and middle classes get more back in government provided societal benefits (through direct transfers, programs like Medicare and food stamps, subsidized services (bus routes etc), public services like policing) than they pay in with taxes. Sweeping tax cuts wipe away the foundation for all of that. If you reduce a poor guy's taxes by $2k and a richer guys by $8k by cancelling a public program that gave the poor guy a net benefit of $10k, you're not helping the poor guy. There is no reading of Trump's tax policy, which is incidentally one of the few areas where numbers have been provided in a non clearly-made-up-that-second way, that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that the post-tax financial position of the lower and middle classes is going to improve. The maths simply isn't there. Let's just presume that you're correct about all of the above. What will Joe voter hear? What you just said, or that Trump is going to pay for his kids' daycare? Yup. Trump should promise Joe Voter the moon on a stick, because it really doesn't matter that it is completely 100% impossible. PS: whence the disdain for Joe Voter? My wife and I are paying in the neighborhood of $3,000-3,500 per month for childcare (2 kids in daycare, 1 in kindergarten + after-school care). Trump just told me that he's going to cover it. What could Hillary possibly offer me that trumps what Trump just put on the table? The same thing but to feasibly pay for it? Has she made the offer? And is the offer as good as Trump's from my economic perspective? What Trump is doing is pure conservative heresy (hence Danglar's protests), but Trump's naked pandering to the middle class clearly is going to work.
Of course she has made the offer. It has been plastered up on her website for weeks. Here: https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/early-childhood-education/
It probably doesn't sound as good, because she's not in the business of lying about what the government can afford.
And one of a couple of articles comparing Trump and Hillary's plans:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2016/09/politics-child-care
And as a bonus, while I was there (on the Economist's website), I stumbled upon this interesting blog about "post-truth politics": http://www.economist.com/node/21706525
It basically states that Trump can lie, because it really doesn't matter anymore in modern politics: the campaign is not about facts, or policy. It's about creating an us vs. them, and as long as something sounds plausible, it can be completely false, but will have the same reinforcing feeling. Especially if "they" try to debunk it by showing how it is false.
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On September 16 2016 01:57 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2016 01:52 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 16 2016 01:41 xDaunt wrote:On September 16 2016 01:38 Acrofales wrote:On September 16 2016 01:36 xDaunt wrote:On September 16 2016 01:33 KwarK wrote:On September 16 2016 01:22 xDaunt wrote:
Regardless of the merits of the policy, we to have keep in mind how it's going to be viewed by a majority of Americans: a potentially massive subsidy for the lower and middle classes. That's going to score Trump some huge points and further cement and expand his standing among his core constituencies. Only if we believe in the magic of bad bookkeeping. Trump has promised sweeping tax cuts, including a new 0% rate for the poorest 25% or so of American families and dramatic tax cuts for the rich. He's also promised to completely pay off the deficit and increase spending on the military, security, immigration enforcement and a dozen other things. Now he's going to give large tax benefits to the lower and middle classes? I have to ask, with what money? Because at present the lower and middle classes get more back in government provided societal benefits (through direct transfers, programs like Medicare and food stamps, subsidized services (bus routes etc), public services like policing) than they pay in with taxes. Sweeping tax cuts wipe away the foundation for all of that. If you reduce a poor guy's taxes by $2k and a richer guys by $8k by cancelling a public program that gave the poor guy a net benefit of $10k, you're not helping the poor guy. There is no reading of Trump's tax policy, which is incidentally one of the few areas where numbers have been provided in a non clearly-made-up-that-second way, that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that the post-tax financial position of the lower and middle classes is going to improve. The maths simply isn't there. Let's just presume that you're correct about all of the above. What will Joe voter hear? What you just said, or that Trump is going to pay for his kids' daycare? Yup. Trump should promise Joe Voter the moon on a stick, because it really doesn't matter that it is completely 100% impossible. PS: whence the disdain for Joe Voter? My wife and I are paying in the neighborhood of $3,000-3,500 per month for childcare (2 kids in daycare, 1 in kindergarten + after-school care). Trump just told me that he's going to cover it. What could Hillary possibly offer me that trumps what Trump just put on the table? The same thing but to feasibly pay for it? Has she made the offer? And is the offer as good as Trump's from my economic perspective? What Trump is doing is pure conservative heresy (hence Danglar's protests), but Trump's naked pandering to the middle class clearly is going to work.
"Might work", not "going to work".
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On September 16 2016 01:22 xDaunt wrote:
Regardless of the merits of the policy, we to have keep in mind how it's going to be viewed by a majority of Americans: a potentially massive subsidy for the lower and middle classes. That's going to score Trump some huge points and further cement and expand his standing among his core constituencies.
I don't think you know the majority of Americans very well then. I would imagine the majority would view it as giving a benefit only to people who aren't gay and haven't had any relationship problems, which for the most part would be middle and upper class people, and as such this would be looked down on by basically everyone that isn't sheltered from reality republican.
My wife and I are paying in the neighborhood of $3,000-3,500 per month for childcare (2 kids in daycare, 1 in kindergarten + after-school care). Trump just told me that he's going to cover it. What could Hillary possibly offer me that trumps what Trump just put on the table?
Howabout still having a country in 4 years? You always flaunt that you're a lawyer, surely lawyers aren't so poor that you can't afford that cost, or can't have your wife just stay home and take care of the kids? Besides, if it's anything like every other government benefit program, you wouldn't qualify anything due to income cap and such. Unless lawyers are a lot more poor than I thought.
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I don't know how Trump can defend his means of funding a program this expensive (incl EITC) just from combatting fraud waste and abuse. It's deficit spending pure and simple and it's wide open on debates.
Not that he was ever going to fix the debt problem with his promises to keep current entitlement programs as is.
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EPT
