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United States44440 Posts
On March 16 2017 00:14 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2017 00:06 KwarK wrote:On March 15 2017 23:47 Plansix wrote:
“It makes me smart” would not have been enough in the 80s and 90s. Not paying taxes when the average voter was would have been election losing. It shows how much times have changed and how voters view taxes. People being okay with the underfunding of the IRS is amazing to me. If you give the IRS a dollar they go out and find forty dollars in tax fraud to give back to you. You can then give them those forty dollars and they'll come back with sixteen hundred more for you. Rinse and repeat. Deliberately underfunding the IRS and handicapping their ability to collect taxes shifts the burden from people who commit tax fraud onto people who don't, a group including the vast majority of working Americans. If you don't like taxes, but you pay your taxes anyway, then it's important that you fund the IRS as much as possible because the less they're funded, the more taxes become a burden exclusively borne by the honest. The more you fund the IRS, the less the honest man pays in taxes. Maybe some people take comfort in the knowledge that even though they have to pay taxes there is someone else out there beating the system. I don't know. But it's dumb as fuck. People still buy into the argument “your tax dollars are better used being to fuel the economy and growth.” Because tax dollars enter a secret shadow economy that doesn’t exist and doesn’t employ Americans. My brother tried to feed me a version of that line just last month. We have an entire political party that makes its case on badly explaining how the government functions.
But underfunding the IRS as a way to pay less in taxes only works if you're already actively engaged in tax fraud and want to get away with it. If you're not planning to commit tax fraud then all you're doing is helping shift the tax burden from those who do onto yourself. Funding the IRS = lowering your taxes.
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On March 16 2017 00:21 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2017 00:14 Plansix wrote:On March 16 2017 00:06 KwarK wrote:On March 15 2017 23:47 Plansix wrote:
“It makes me smart” would not have been enough in the 80s and 90s. Not paying taxes when the average voter was would have been election losing. It shows how much times have changed and how voters view taxes. People being okay with the underfunding of the IRS is amazing to me. If you give the IRS a dollar they go out and find forty dollars in tax fraud to give back to you. You can then give them those forty dollars and they'll come back with sixteen hundred more for you. Rinse and repeat. Deliberately underfunding the IRS and handicapping their ability to collect taxes shifts the burden from people who commit tax fraud onto people who don't, a group including the vast majority of working Americans. If you don't like taxes, but you pay your taxes anyway, then it's important that you fund the IRS as much as possible because the less they're funded, the more taxes become a burden exclusively borne by the honest. The more you fund the IRS, the less the honest man pays in taxes. Maybe some people take comfort in the knowledge that even though they have to pay taxes there is someone else out there beating the system. I don't know. But it's dumb as fuck. People still buy into the argument “your tax dollars are better used being to fuel the economy and growth.” Because tax dollars enter a secret shadow economy that doesn’t exist and doesn’t employ Americans. My brother tried to feed me a version of that line just last month. We have an entire political party that makes its case on badly explaining how the government functions. But underfunding the IRS as a way to pay less in taxes only works if you're already actively engaged in tax fraud and want to get away with it. If you're not planning to commit tax fraud then all you're doing is helping shift the tax burden from those who do onto yourself. Funding the IRS = lowering your taxes.
Kwark, you are preaching to the guy who blew up at his brother for not employing basic critical thinking skills. That was not a winning move. I don’t believe this shit. But in the US we have been championing avoiding taxes for decades and are are deeply stupid about how goverment works.
But you make good point that the Democrats and everyone to believes in civics in general should be making that argument. That companies and billionaires avoiding taxes increase the everyone’s burden. “Paying their fair share” isn’t selling. "Sticking working class people with the bill" is a better argument.
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So when we take it figuratively, what happens?
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Paranoid delusions or something of the like I'd think.
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On March 16 2017 01:03 JinDesu wrote:
So when we take it figuratively, what happens?
You don't take them figuratively, you take them alternatively.
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The part I love most is that there is no way out. They can’t just admit that Trump had no idea and simply tweeted about what he read that morning. But they can’t produce anything because nothing exists. And Trump won’t go in front of the press until this dies down(which won’t happen).
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He could wait a year for his next press conference and the first question would probably still be "where is the wiretapping proof?" How embarrassing.
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On March 16 2017 01:03 JinDesu wrote:
So when we take it figuratively, what happens?
You get to invent an interpretation of Trump that is amenable to you. It's the Peter Thiel Principle.
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On March 16 2017 01:25 On_Slaught wrote:
He could wait a year for his next press conference and the first question would probably still be "where is the wiretapping proof?" How embarrassing.
Some reporters spend years trying to get one person to answer a specific question. This isn't going to be any different.
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friendly reminder that there was over two years between the Watergate break-in (June 1972) and the release of the "smoking gun" tape that sunk Nixon (August 1974)
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From the outside the US looks so partisan.... Trump could be convicted of raping a baby and be fine.
I doubt it was like this during Nixon
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On March 16 2017 02:06 Velr wrote:
From the outside the US looks so partisan.... Trump could be convicted of raping a baby and be fine.
I doubt it was like this during Nixon
It was 100% like this, only worse. People talk about a divided country now a days, but we have nothing on the 60s and 70s. Violence was higher, we were in a long term conflict that employed the draft. Protests and and full blown riots(real riots, not CNN 20 people destroying one car riots) were just part of the year's news. After it all was all said and done, about 40% of the country still wanted Nixon in office.
The big difference between then and now is Congress and the how much back bone it has.
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On March 16 2017 02:13 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2017 02:06 Velr wrote:
From the outside the US looks so partisan.... Trump could be convicted of raping a baby and be fine.
I doubt it was like this during Nixon It was 100% like this, only worse. People talk about a divided country now a days, but we have nothing on the 60s and 70s. Violence was higher, we were in a long term conflict that employed the draft. Protests and and full blown riots(real riots, not CNN 20 people destroying one car riots) were just part of the year's news. After it all was all said and done, about 40% of the country still wanted Nixon in office. The big difference between then and now is Congress and the how much back bone it has.
Dude, the national guard shot at college students back then. Can you imagine if that shit happened today?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
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On March 16 2017 02:24 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2017 02:13 Plansix wrote:On March 16 2017 02:06 Velr wrote:
From the outside the US looks so partisan.... Trump could be convicted of raping a baby and be fine.
I doubt it was like this during Nixon It was 100% like this, only worse. People talk about a divided country now a days, but we have nothing on the 60s and 70s. Violence was higher, we were in a long term conflict that employed the draft. Protests and and full blown riots(real riots, not CNN 20 people destroying one car riots) were just part of the year's news. After it all was all said and done, about 40% of the country still wanted Nixon in office. The big difference between then and now is Congress and the how much back bone it has. Dude, the national guard shot at college students back then. Can you imagine if that shit happened today? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
The amusing part about this comment is that I can’t tell if its sarcasm or not. And back then there were a bunch of people that felt the service member who shot the student was justified and blamed the protesters.
None of this shit is new. We just lack the context to appreciate how unoriginal we are.
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I think it looks like that beacuse there are just two parties and the vitriol just goes two ways and thus gets concentrated.
Reagen has had a lot of influence on politics in america and I think it's just now ending. Sanders should have become president but I can understand dems wanting what they think was a sure win.
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On March 16 2017 02:39 Sermokala wrote:
I think it looks like that beacuse there are just two parties and the vitriol just goes two ways and thus gets concentrated.
Reagen has had a lot of influence on politics in america and I think it's just now ending. Sanders should have become president but I can understand dems wanting what they think was a sure win.
You think the Reaganist influence is now ending? I don't know about that. Just about every Republican in Congress right now is a hardcore Reaganist.
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EPT
