US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8547

August was supposed to be the month that President Donald Trump sold tax reform.

White House officials, including then-press secretary Sean Spicer, said in July that Trump would be hitting the road to lay the groundwork for tax reform before administration and congressional negotiators wrapped up their high-level work in September.

But with less than two weeks to go before Congress returns, and Republican leaders hoping to launch a major push to get tax legislation to the president’s desk by the end of the year, Trump has barely mentioned the subject.

Part of the month went to important foreign policy issues, like Trump’s war of words with North Korea and announcing an increased troop presence in Afghanistan.

But domestically he’s picked fights with the top Republican in the Senate, stewed over how his response to racially tinged violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, was received, and mused about shutting down the government over funding for a border wall.

“It’s utterly inexplicable,” said Michael Steel, a Republican communications veteran of the House Ways and Means Committee and former Speaker John Boehner’s office.

Steel, now a managing director at Hamilton Place Strategies, a public affairs firm doing work in support of tax reform, singled out Trump’s antagonistic tweets toward Republican senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, as especially counterproductive.

A House GOP aide put it more bluntly.

“Doing anything other than the f---ing Charlottesville equivocating would be lovely,” the aide grumbled.

The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at a press briefing Thursday that tax reform could be a public focus for the White House as soon as next week.

“Tax relief and the focus on tax relief for middle-class Americans is a huge priority for this administration, and certainly going to be a big focus in the fall,” Sanders said. “And we're going to look at a lot of different ways in which to talk about that and present that to the American people, working with Congress to make sure that that happens."

She added: "I think that you can expect some of that to take place in the very short order, probably next week and following through to the fall.”

Trump’s lack of focus so far also seems to be undercutting the concerted efforts of congressional Republican leaders, business executives and conservative activists to build public support for tax reform before Congress reconvenes.

At a tax reform event Wednesday in Oregon hosted by Intel, House Speaker Paul Ryan took more questions from reporters and workers about Trump’s remarks on border security and immigration than on the topic du jour. The event came the day after Trump held a raucous political rally in Phoenix, where he talked about a border wall and hinted at a pardon for former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, recently convicted of criminal contempt for ignoring a court order to stop detaining people he suspected of being undocumented immigrants.

The most pointed comment Trump made at the rally about tax reform was a jab at Democrats. “I hope some of the Democrats that are going to lose their election will come over and give everybody a big beautiful tax cut, which is going to be great for the economy,” he said.

House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady and many other Republicans have stressed that it will take presidential leadership to get tax reform over the goal line. At an event in Texas last week, Brady called tax reform "the signature issue" of Trump's presidency and said Trump "will be incredibly crucial to the success of this."

But some longtime tax activists question whether Trump’s leadership on the issue is that important.

“He’s not Mr. Communicator,” said Grover Norquist, president of the conservative group Americans for Tax Reform and the country’s most well-known anti-tax advocate.

“It is not necessary for him to sell this, it is necessary for him to agree with the House and Senate,” Norquist said.

White House aides have said that, as a businessman, Trump is naturally more interested in — and more knowledgeable about — taxes than other issues. That line emerged more strongly after the Republicans’ Obamacare debacle, and it may still prove to be true and a boost to tax reform.

The House GOP aide said Trump’s lack of engagement recently isn’t fatal to the tax reform effort. But Republicans will need cover when special interests bear down to protect their deductions and carveouts in the tax code.

“When we need you to be on message, can you be on message please?” the aide said, adding that he wished Trump were more focused like Ryan.

Steel said Trump “absolutely still has the ability to make the case on tax reform to his dedicated base of voters. And I hope he starts to do so vigorously.”

On August 25 2017 10:48 LuckyFool wrote:


I find it funny how average liberals have been pulled so far left in the past 8-10 years that classical liberals are now considered conservative/libertarian. I don't disagree with you here though but it's been interesting to observe.

On August 25 2017 08:46 Introvert wrote:


I had to step out for a while and I know we've moved on, but I was curious how you thought Ocare was a counter-argument. repeal failed because Senators who supposedly favored repeal and/or replace are weasels. I'm not placing that on the Democrats. They have to ride out the ACA trainwreck in their own way.

+ Show Spoiler +

On August 25 2017 11:42 Plansix wrote:
I oppose this dog violence. All dogs are good dogs.

On August 25 2017 11:44 m4ini wrote:


It's an imaginary one.

+ Show Spoiler +

Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated, oil refineries are expected to shut down and 700 members of the National Guard are being called up as Hurricane Harvey, the most powerful weather system to hit the US in almost 12 years, barrels towards Texas.

Several counties along the Gulf coast, including Nueces County, Calhoun county and Brazoria county, have ordered mandatory evacuations in low-lying areas.

The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has activated about 700 members of the state National Guard and put military helicopters on standby in Austin and San Antonio in preparation for search and rescues and emergency evacuations.

Harvey, which is due to make landfall late on Friday, is set to become the first hurricane to hit the Texas coast since Hurricane Ike in 2008.

The head of the National Weather Service said the storm posed “a grave risk to the folks in Texas”.

Louis Uccellini, NWS director, said Harvey would bring extremely heavy rainfall that causes inland flooding lasting through the middle of next week, a large storm surge and high winds.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials were moving detained immigrants housed in the projected path of the hurricane. In the Gulf of Mexico, oil and natural gas operators had begun evacuating workers from offshore platforms.

Harvey intensified into a hurricane on Thursday and was heading for the Texas coast with the potential for up to 3ft of rain, 125mph winds and 12-ft storm surges in what could be the fiercest hurricane to hit the United States in almost a dozen years.

Forecasters labeled Harvey a “life-threatening storm” that posed a “grave risk.” Millions of people braced for a prolonged battering that could swamp dozens of counties more than 100 miles inland.

Landfall was predicted for late Friday or early Saturday between Port O’Connor and Matagorda Bay, a 30-mile (48km) stretch of coastline about 70 miles northeast of Corpus Christi. The region is mostly farm or ranchland dotted with waterfront holiday homes and has absorbed numerous Gulf of Mexico storms for generations.

Harvey grew unexpectedly quickly from a tropical depression into a Category 1 hurricane. Fuelled by warm Gulf waters, it was projected to become a major Category 3 hurricane. The last storm of that category to hit the US was Hurricane Wilma in October 2005 in Florida.

Superstorm Sandy, which pummelled New York and New Jersey in 2012, never had the high winds and had lost tropical status by the time it struck. But it was devastating without formally being called a major hurricane.

“We’re forecasting continuing intensification right up until landfall,” National Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said.

Typical Category 3 storms damage small homes, topple large trees and destroy mobile homes. As in all hurricanes, the wall of water called a storm surge poses the greatest risk.

Once it comes ashore, Harvey is expected to stall, dumping copious amounts of rain for days in areas like flood-prone Houston, the nation’s fourth most-populous city, and San Antonio.
National Weather Service Director Louis Uccellini said scientists were “looking at a potentially impactful storm over a two, three, four-day period”.

President Donald Trump on Twitter asked people to get ready for the hurricane and posted links to websites for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Hurricane Center and a Homeland Security site with tips for emergency preparedness.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump was “briefed and will continue to be updated as the storm progresses”.

In Houston, one of the nation’s most flood-prone cities, Bill Pennington was philosophical as he prepared his one-story home for what he expected would be its third invasion of floodwaters in as many years and the fifth since 1983.

“We know how to handle it. We’ll handle it again,” Pennington said he told his nervous nine-year-old son.

Alex Garcia bought bottled water, bread and other basics in the Houston suburb of Sugar Land after dropping his daughter off at college. He said grocery items were likely more available in Houston than back home in Corpus Christi, where Garcia, a beer distributor salesman, said stores were “crazy”.

“We’ll be selling lots of beer,” he laughed.

Kim Fraleigh, of Sugar Land, stocked up with five cases of water, three bags of ice and other supplies at a supermarket.

“We’ve got chips, tuna, dry salami, anything that does not require refrigeration,” she said.

On August 25 2017 10:16 OuchyDathurts wrote:


It's basically just an alias for Libertarian.

If you want to pretend your a liberal while being a conservative that's the code word you use. If you say you're a libertarian people will assume you live in a fantasy world, if you say you're conservative people will assume you're a 70 year old man. But if you go with "Classical Liberal" you get to try and pretend to be a "liberal" without being one at all. It's the Steve Buscemi "Hello my fellow kids" meme of being "liberal".

On August 25 2017 12:13 Wegandi wrote:


Clearly you know nothing. Liberal is still correctly used in Europe. It was originally our word. You know...people like JS Mill, FA Hayek, Frederic Bastiat, John Locke, T. Paine, Benjamin Constant, etc. Some people still prefer the term even if it's been twisted to no longer mean the thing it meant for hundreds of years here in America. It's not the stupid shit you posted.

On August 25 2017 12:20 OuchyDathurts wrote:


The case in point has arrived. Classical Liberal is one in the same as a Libertarian. Old dead people with crackpot ideas that have no basis on this planet populated by this species. Which is why we've moved on to bigger and better ideas as we understand the world and the nature of man and society more and more. Nothing Kwark said contradicts anything I said.

On August 25 2017 12:13 Wegandi wrote:


Clearly you know nothing. Liberal is still correctly used in Europe. It was originally our word. You know...people like JS Mill, FA Hayek, Frederic Bastiat, John Locke, T. Paine, Benjamin Constant, etc. Some people still prefer the term even if it's been twisted to no longer mean the thing it meant for hundreds of years here in America. It's not the stupid shit you posted.

Edit: Kwark knows what he's talking about - except it goes back far longer than 100 years. Back to the 1600s and the English Levellers (Overton, et. al.) & the School of Salamanca. I do wonder if they teach any of that history in England.

On August 25 2017 12:25 KwarK wrote:

Not in history or civics. But in what you would understand as AP Politics we had to learn the basic different ideologies that made up modern political thought. Wasn't a course available to very many people.

On August 25 2017 11:12 Nevuk wrote:
It is true that like 14-15 years ago (pre Ron Paul 08) it wasn't nearly so clear which party a libertarian would align with, whereas now they're treated as part of the GOP base. The social things they care about are less points of contention in society anyways now, aside from legalizing weed, maybe.

On August 25 2017 12:54 Plansix wrote:

They are for equal rights for everyone, but only after taxe cuts and cutting regulations. Then equal rights, maybe.

On August 25 2017 13:08 Plansix wrote:
Meanwhile on twitter:

https://twitter.com/ProPublica/status/900887458400829440

Every day I am more convinced that none of these social media companies have any understanding how their platform is being used. And I don't mean that so say that it is having an impact one way or the other. I just think they have no idea how their services are being used by state actors and other groups to manipulate people.