EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 7200
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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please. In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. | ||
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Slaughter
United States20255 Posts
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mahrgell
Germany3943 Posts
On March 26 2017 03:56 Slaughter wrote: Tax reform should be easier since Trump + Congressional GOP's ideas are more in line with each other yes? depends what the goal the is. If you want to blow up the deficit... then this will be easy, yes. Health care also got stabbed to death the moment the the non partisan committee published it's number. Do that again on the tax reform, when they will tell you how many trillions of debt this will create... and you get the same result yet again. And the freedom caucus will bitch anyway, because nothing goes far enough for them. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States24143 Posts
On March 26 2017 04:06 mahrgell wrote: depends what the goal the is. If you want to blow up the deficit... then this will be easy, yes. Health care also got stabbed to death the moment the the non partisan committee published it's number. Do that again on the tax reform, when they will tell you how many trillions of debt this will create... and you get the same result yet again. And the freedom caucus will bitch anyway, because nothing goes far enough for them. Except as long as they aren't complete and total morons, they can put in some candy for Democrats and tie it to the repatriation and it's a done deal. Though clearing the "total moron" bar might actually be expecting too much at this point. This healthcare debacle was pretty universally seen as epic level stupidity, so if that's what we're to expect they really could botch it all up and if they can't get that we're looking at 2 years of nothing getting passed, maybe 4. | ||
KwarK
United States44195 Posts
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States24143 Posts
On March 26 2017 04:35 KwarK wrote: The original Trump tax plan is a non starter for Dems. There's no fixing it. I don't think anything Trumps said before is obligated to apply to whatever they come up with now. There's also a much larger cadre of folks standing to benefit than from the healthcare bit. Also more competent folks influencing the policy. It should go better (for them) than healthcare, but I admit they could screw the pooch yet again. | ||
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Saryph
United States1955 Posts
On March 26 2017 03:20 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Hard at work on tax reform... Yep, hard at work... I read we're 9 weeks into the Trump presidency, but he has already made 12 trips to the golf course. | ||
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
Needs to find a new hobby that isn't golf, eh? | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22476 Posts
On March 26 2017 05:22 LegalLord wrote: In which Trump may start to regret how big of a deal he made out of Obama's golf hobby. Needs to find a new hobby that isn't golf, eh? Do you seriously think the Republicans are going to make a serious issue out of the cost of Trumps trips? hmm, I wonder now, can future administrations go after Trump to recoup costs? | ||
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Gahlo
United States35173 Posts
On March 26 2017 05:27 Gorsameth wrote: Do you seriously think the Republicans are going to make a serious issue out of the cost of Trumps trips? hmm, I wonder now, can future administrations go after Trump to recoup costs? I wouldn't be surprised if some of them do. The amount of money he's spending on his weekend trips is ridiculous. | ||
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Aesthetician
20 Posts
Most everyone had something to say about the healthcare bill. I agreed with what 90% of the people said, that it was a good thing it was getting tabled and that instead of being in a rush to pass any bill at all, they should do it right and come back with something that's a bit more palatable. Personally i wish they would scrap the medicaid extensions (as it seems to be one of the only ways to prevent social security insolvancy) but i'm not a professional statistician and I don't really know what it's gonna take. All i know is my dad is on social security and i would hate to see him lose his benefits because we're giving medicaid to people under 30. Sorry, but he paid into that fund for his whole life, and raiding it to pay for people who didn't is not the way to go about it. I think the better alternative is a new source of revenue. Where to create that revenue? That's up for debate. I would argue that if we legalized marijuana in all 50 states and taxed it, we could pay for universal healthcare in a matter of years. Another thing that i loved to hear is the number of life long democrats who had jumped ship to support Trump. I agree with them that they're happy he's doing what he said he would, it's refreshing to me to see a politician actually following through on his campaign promises. I did have some haters as well, one woman came up and told me that she wanted to shoot all the Republicans in the head. I thanked her for her input and told her good luck, we're much more well armed than most liberals. All in all, I think what i've gauged from my local political functions is that the people who voted for Trump are happy with the job he's doing. The people that didn't vote for him obviously are not. Personally I find his policies to be a mixed bag, but he's our president and also the leader of my party and I support him. He has a hard job and i think that the obstructionists are some of the most useless people in the country. When Obama was president, while i may have disagreed with some of his policies, I was generally happy with what he was doing. I never rioted or called all of his supporters racist. I was pissed at the republicans in congress at the time who wanted to do nothing but stand in his way. Now i think that the democrats should focus on looking inward and reforming their platform. The mild platitudes that Tom Perez seems to spew whenever somebody asks him what the democrats stand for make it clear to me just how little of a solid platform they actually have. Looking forward to the next 7 years, it's going to be an interesting ride. | ||
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farvacola
United States18866 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22476 Posts
On March 26 2017 05:46 Aesthetician wrote: I spent some good time down at the local county fair yesterday. I was running the booth for my local Republican party, registering people to vote. I'm a local Republican political committeeman, (or PC for short) and talked to a lot of interesting people and got some good perspectives. Most everyone had something to say about the healthcare bill. I agreed with what 90% of the people said, that it was a good thing it was getting tabled and that instead of being in a rush to pass any bill at all, they should do it right and come back with something that's a bit more palatable. Personally i wish they would scrap the medicaid extensions (as it seems to be one of the only ways to prevent social security insolvancy) but i'm not a professional statistician and I don't really know what it's gonna take. All i know is my dad is on social security and i would hate to see him lose his benefits because we're giving medicaid to people under 30. Sorry, but he paid into that fund for his whole life, and raiding it to pay for people who didn't is not the way to go about it. I think the better alternative is a new source of revenue. Where to create that revenue? That's up for debate. I would argue that if we legalized marijuana in all 50 states and taxed it, we could pay for universal healthcare in a matter of years. Another thing that i loved to hear is the number of life long democrats who had jumped ship to support Trump. I agree with them that they're happy he's doing what he said he would, it's refreshing to me to see a politician actually following through on his campaign promises. I did have some haters as well, one woman came up and told me that she wanted to shoot all the Republicans in the head. I thanked her for her input and told her good luck, we're much more well armed than most liberals. All in all, I think what i've gauged from my local political functions is that the people who voted for Trump are happy with the job he's doing. The people that didn't vote for him obviously are not. Personally I find his policies to be a mixed bag, but he's our president and also the leader of my party and I support him. He has a hard job and i think that the obstructionists are some of the most useless people in the country. When Obama was president, while i may have disagreed with some of his policies, I was generally happy with what he was doing. I never rioted or called all of his supporters racist. I was pissed at the republicans in congress at the time who wanted to do nothing but stand in his way. Now i think that the democrats should focus on looking inward and reforming their platform. The mild platitudes that Tom Perez seems to spew whenever somebody asks him what the democrats stand for make it clear to me just how little of a solid platform they actually have. Looking forward to the next 7 years, it's going to be an interesting ride. I would love to hear what Trump promises would make a life long democrat vote for him. | ||
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Aesthetician
20 Posts
On March 26 2017 05:52 Gorsameth wrote: I would love to hear what Trump promises would make a life long democrat vote for him. A good number of Hispanics who were lifelong Democrats voted for Trump because of his stand on illegal immigration. They see illegal immigrants as a factor in the depression of wages, which has been pretty bad around here. With the new minimum wage law we recently passed it's made it quite hard for low skill workers to find a job, as uneccessary positions are being automated out of the labor force as quickly as possible. Of course, that was always going to happen considering how overpopulated we are as a species and the inevitable progress of automated technology, but it's increased the rate at which it's happening. Personally I have no problem with raising the minimum wage but it leaves a lot of uneducated/low skill people out of the job pool. Anecdotally, i met a guy who had recently moved here from San Diego and was re-registering as a Republican after being a Democrat his entire life because he was sick of identity politics. In his words, he was silenced at a local party meeting because he was a white male. Pretty bizarre to think that that Tumblr bullshit actually makes it in to real life, but I can believe it coming from a place like California. | ||
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TheTenthDoc
United States9561 Posts
We need more of dem foreign workers who will never draw benefits really (though that wouldn't be enough either) | ||
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Aesthetician
20 Posts
On March 26 2017 05:56 TheTenthDoc wrote: I don't think Medicaid is a plausible reason for Social Security/Medicare insolvency. I'm pretty sure you could eliminate the federal costs of Medicaid entirely, even for pregnant women/children, and it would barely make a dent in the problem of old people costing a ton to keep alive and making up a bigger share of the population, which is why Medicare and Social Security will need to be revamped. I agree with you there, but they were looking to eliminate something like $800 billion out of the medicaid payments, which is quite a large chunk of change regardless of how you look at it. I think the overall decrease in spending over 5 years was supposed to be something like ~$710 billion in total, going by the numbers we got from the CBO report. | ||
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TheTenthDoc
United States9561 Posts
I was understating the overall Medicaid cost share, though, it's higher than I expected. Trauma and disability are way more expensive than I thought. | ||
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Karis Vas Ryaar
United States4396 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22476 Posts
On March 26 2017 05:54 Aesthetician wrote: I'd prefer not to give away my exact location, considering how people are on the internet nowadays with cyberstalking people over their political affiliations. But I live in Arizona. A good number of Hispanics who were lifelong Democrats voted for Trump because of his stand on illegal immigration. They see illegal immigrants as a factor in the depression of wages, which has been pretty bad around here. With the new minimum wage law we recently passed it's made it quite hard for low skill workers to find a job, as uneccessary positions are being automated out of the labor force as quickly as possible. Of course, that was always going to happen considering how overpopulated we are as a species and the inevitable progress of automated technology, but it's increased the rate at which it's happening. Personally I have no problem with raising the minimum wage but it leaves a lot of uneducated/low skill people out of the job pool. Anecdotally, i met a guy who had recently moved here from San Diego and was re-registering as a Republican after being a Democrat his entire life because he was sick of identity politics. In his words, he was silenced at a local party meeting because he was a white male. Pretty bizarre to think that that Tumblr bullshit actually makes it in to real life, but I can believe it coming from a place like California. Yeah those problems exist but... god... Trump is not going to do anything about it. And meanwhile he is just going to fuck over the poor people who vote for him a lot more then the Democrats would have. At lower minimum wage those people would have (maybe) had a job but they would still be on government support because now the wage is so low they can't live off a single full time low education job. Meanwhile automation would have kept picking away at the available jobs (tho as you said at a lower pace). Its a global problem that no one has found a solution for yet. But whatever the answer may be. It sure isn't going to come from Trump. | ||
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KwarK
United States44195 Posts
On March 26 2017 05:46 Aesthetician wrote: I spent some good time down at the local county fair yesterday. I was running the booth for my local Republican party, registering people to vote. I'm a local Republican political committeeman, (or PC for short) and talked to a lot of interesting people and got some good perspectives. Most everyone had something to say about the healthcare bill. I agreed with what 90% of the people said, that it was a good thing it was getting tabled and that instead of being in a rush to pass any bill at all, they should do it right and come back with something that's a bit more palatable. Personally i wish they would scrap the medicaid extensions (as it seems to be one of the only ways to prevent social security insolvancy) but i'm not a professional statistician and I don't really know what it's gonna take. All i know is my dad is on social security and i would hate to see him lose his benefits because we're giving medicaid to people under 30. Sorry, but he paid into that fund for his whole life, and raiding it to pay for people who didn't is not the way to go about it. I think the better alternative is a new source of revenue. Where to create that revenue? That's up for debate. I would argue that if we legalized marijuana in all 50 states and taxed it, we could pay for universal healthcare in a matter of years. Another thing that i loved to hear is the number of life long democrats who had jumped ship to support Trump. I agree with them that they're happy he's doing what he said he would, it's refreshing to me to see a politician actually following through on his campaign promises. I did have some haters as well, one woman came up and told me that she wanted to shoot all the Republicans in the head. I thanked her for her input and told her good luck, we're much more well armed than most liberals. All in all, I think what i've gauged from my local political functions is that the people who voted for Trump are happy with the job he's doing. The people that didn't vote for him obviously are not. Personally I find his policies to be a mixed bag, but he's our president and also the leader of my party and I support him. He has a hard job and i think that the obstructionists are some of the most useless people in the country. When Obama was president, while i may have disagreed with some of his policies, I was generally happy with what he was doing. I never rioted or called all of his supporters racist. I was pissed at the republicans in congress at the time who wanted to do nothing but stand in his way. Now i think that the democrats should focus on looking inward and reforming their platform. The mild platitudes that Tom Perez seems to spew whenever somebody asks him what the democrats stand for make it clear to me just how little of a solid platform they actually have. Looking forward to the next 7 years, it's going to be an interesting ride. No offence bro but you don't really understand any part of how social security works. But I'll try to explain it for you. You don't pay for yourself with social security, you pay for the generations that came before you. So when they introduced it they said "okay, how much would each person currently working have to pay for the people currently retired?" and then they worked that out and they simply took the money from the workers and gave it to the retirees. The workers weren't building up a pile of money awaiting them in retirement, they were simply giving it as a gift to those that came before them and hoping that those that followed would make an equivalent gift. Now the problem with this is that people don't understand that and they go "well I paid in all my life so I want to get my payout" and demand that the following generation pick up the tab. If each generation were the same size it'd work out pretty fairly. If you imagine 5 generations of 100 people you'd have 4 of them working and 1 retired so there would be 400 workers and 100 retirees and by the time that the oldest of the working generation wanted to retiree the existing retirees would die off and a new generation of 100 would join the workforce. So it'd just constantly pay it forwards, kind of like a conveyor belt. But generations aren't the same size, what happened was there was a giant generation called the baby boomers paying for a smaller retired generation. So they each pay their fair share of the cost of the generation that came before them but it doesn't work out to much because there are an awful lot of workers and not many retirees. But then when it's their time to retire then they say "I paid in, I want my payout", even though they never actually paid in that much each and the only reason that it ever worked out was because there was a lot of them and not that many retirees at the time. If it did actually work with you only getting out what you paid in the baby boomers would be fucked because they didn't pay in very much. But it doesn't, it's a pay it forwards scheme and they got super lucky that they didn't really have to pay much when it was their turn and now they get to pass their bill to us. Fortunately we have statisticians and actuary tables so people saw this coming. So what they did was to increase the amount of money they took for social security above the amount being spent on current retirees to build up a surplus which could be offset against future costs. In doing so they included a tiny element of paying for yourself but it's still basically a pay it forwards scheme, just with adjustments. That became the social security trust fund. It's not a giant pile of all the money anyone working has ever paid in, that money has already been paid out to current recipients of social security (when it's your turn to draw social security it'll be your kids whose money you'll be taking). It's just the accumulated surplus that was taxed in to offset the problems from different generation sizes. So, what happens with all that surplus while we wait for people to retire. Well, rather than bury it and let inflation destroy it it was loaned to the Federal government for interest. It wasn't raided, the money wasn't doing anything and the Federal government is good for it. It makes far more sense to have it generating interest than doing nothing. It wasn't stolen for Medicaid or anything like that. The money still exists, it was just borrowed from the social security trust fund rather than from China. Now, this idea that social security is going bankrupt is based on the original problem that people pay it forwards but then demand that what they're paid out is more than they ever had to pay in. The basic idea is that if we only take as much money as we used to take when we had a different ratio of workers to retirees then there won't be as much money for payouts. Which is super fucking obvious to everyone and really isn't a big deal. So, there are two ways to fix this. They can either make the payouts less generous or take more money in from each worker. The first idea is unpopular, even though it totally makes sense because it'd actually link what you pay in and what you pay out. If there are 10 workers per retiree and they each paid in $50/week so retirees got $500/week to live on then it'd be completely fair to say "okay, when you're retired we'll each pay in $50/week, that's fair, right?", even if by then the ratio is 5 workers per retiree so the retirees would only get $250/week. But people don't like that, they much prefer "when I was a boy we all pitched in and paid so the retirees had $500/week so you need to do the same when I'm retired", even if that means the workers all need to pay $100/week, rather than the $50/week when the ratio was completely different. Right now we're still taking in $50/week from each worker and still paying out $500/week for each retiree (numbers arbitrary as an example) but we have like 8 workers per retiree. And that's why people say that it's going bankrupt. The money built up in the surplus years can cover the difference for now but eventually an adjustment will need to be made. But social security has always been "going bankrupt" because it was always based on imperfect guesses and statistical models about how many workers would be making how much and how many retirees would live how long. Saying that social security will go bankrupt unless we make adjustments doesn't make sense because it was always assumed that we would be making adjustments over time to keep it working. It's like saying that a car driving down the freeway at 70mph is definitely going to crash due to a bend in the road a few miles away. It's only true if you assume that at no point will the driver make any adjustments. But he's the driver, of course he will. So, basically there is no overlap between social security benefits and medicaid. None. Social security is paid for by payroll deductions on a pay it forwards basis. As long as you're paying into social security by working then people who are on social security can get payouts. There is currently a difference between the amount of money going in and the amount of money coming out and it's expected to get worse. That's okay. There is already a pile of money that was created to deal with exactly that difference while we work out how to modify payouts and taxes to fix it. Congress has been shit about that so far on both sides because the baby boomers are a huge voting block and on the one hand the Dems insist that they don't understand how social security works and go "we paid in, where's our money", not understanding that the money they paid in was never for them, it was paid forwards, while on the other hand the Republicans go "no tax hikes under any circumstances, we got super lucky that 30 years ago demographics meant social security taxes could be artificially low, we refuse to put them back where they should have been now the demographics have changed". Medicaid is paid for by general taxation. No overlap with social security at all. Completely separate, whatever you do with one has no impact on the other. Hopefully you now understand how it all works. Also, and I'm sorry to say this, if you didn't understand any of this you probably should have made the effort to learn about it before you started trying to take away people's medicaid to preserve your father's social security. People need that. It's clear you're trying to be politically involved but the first part of that really has to be actually learning about the issues. It's irresponsible to be out there voting and campaigning based upon a completely ignorant set of ideas. Social security will always exist as long as people are working. Money is going in, as long as it keeps going in it'll keep getting paid out. How much is paid out may have to change if the money goes in isn't enough. But it'll get fixed at some point. It's designed to get fixed, it's been fixed before, it'll be fixed again. TLDR: Medicaid and Social Security, completely different things. Boomers say "when I was a kid we said we'd give the retirees $500/week and we all chipped in and you should do the same" Non boomers say "you all chipped in $50/week and divided it up between the retirees, we'll do the same" Current situation has the $500/week payouts and the $50/week payins but there aren't 10 workers per retiree anymore. That's the Social Security problem in a nutshell. | ||
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