US Politics Mega-thread - Page 9163

On November 06 2017 23:20 mortyFromRickAndMort wrote:
Do you think Trump might actually be retarded / senile?

He tweets about how Bowe Bergdahl should get the death penalty, thereby making sure that Bergdahl gets a sentence as lenient as possible. I'm assuming Trump's legal people explain this to him. Then he goes off on a rant about the Muslim terrorist in NY should get the death penalty as well, again making sure that he gets as lenient a sentence as possible. Just a week later.

How is someone who spent 70 years living in the US that oblivious of that dynamic, unless they are retarded?

On November 06 2017 22:06 xDaunt wrote:

I don't think that you're wrong here. In fact, I would broaden the link the from "economic freedom" to "individual freedom." And more to the point, I think that this emphasis upon individual freedom (nice job distilling its philosophical etiology, btw) is the root of the American Right's struggle to effectively respond coherently to the culture wars of the past few generations. Traditional American conservatism lacks the framework and vocabulary to deal with such issues.

On November 06 2017 22:54 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I see people make fun of his pants and I have no idea why. Agreed that this is ridiculous.

On November 07 2017 00:31 Mohdoo wrote:
It is weird reading about the misinformation regarding this koi pond. It doesn't make sense to me. I would think that at a time where skepticism of major media outlets is at an all time high, pushing stuff that is presented in an extremely misleading way should be considered self-damaging. And what an awful time to play such a risky card. It's not like this koi story hurt Trump even slightly. All they did was take a giant dump on their own credibility.

On November 06 2017 22:58 mortyFromRickAndMort wrote:
Yeah, making fun of his kids, his wife, his lips that look like a puckered asshole or the orange weave etc. just feel desperate. There's so much you could make fun of, and you choose his physique?

On November 07 2017 00:35 IyMoon wrote:


I don't think anyone really is going to be swayed by this. People who don't like trump took a shot over something dumb, just like people who didn't like obama took a shot over him wearing a tan suit. Nobody will change their mind about anything over this

On November 07 2017 00:40 Mohdoo wrote:


Which makes it even worse, right? All this does is empower arguments that everything has a bias and that objective fact isn't real. It lets people dismiss actual issues by pointing to this and saying "see? we can't trust the media".

Donald Trump: “We’ve got to get rid of the $19 trillion in debt.”

Bob Woodward: “How long would that take?”

Trump: “I think I could do it fairly quickly, because of the fact the numbers…”

Woodward: “What’s fairly quickly?”

Trump: “Well, I would say over a period of eight years. And I’ll tell you why.”

Woodward: “Would you ever be open to tax increases as part of that, to solve the problem?”

Trump: “I don’t think I’ll need to. The power is trade. Our deals are so bad.”

Woodward: “That would be $2 trillion a year.”

Trump: “No, but I’m renegotiating all of our deals, Bob. The big trade deals that we’re doing so badly on. With China, $505 billion this year in trade. We’re losing with everybody.”

On November 06 2017 23:20 mortyFromRickAndMort wrote:
Do you think Trump might actually be retarded / senile?

He tweets about how Bowe Bergdahl should get the death penalty, thereby making sure that Bergdahl gets a sentence as lenient as possible. I'm assuming Trump's legal people explain this to him. Then he goes off on a rant about the Muslim terrorist in NY should get the death penalty as well, again making sure that he gets as lenient a sentence as possible. Just a week later.

How is someone who spent 70 years living in the US that oblivious of that dynamic, unless they are retarded?

On November 07 2017 00:50 KwarK wrote:
Joint Committee on Taxation says the Trump tax plan will produce a revenue shortfall of $1,470,000,000,000 over 10 years. Normally that would kill it in the Senate. However by passing a budget that included a $1,500,000,000,000 shortfall they have grandfathered this increase in the deficit in.

Some reading on budget reconciliation
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/15/how-budget-reconciliation-broke-congress-215706
and the Trump tax plan
https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/news/2017/nov/tax-reform-legislation-details-201717798.html

Incidentally does anyone remember Trump saying he would pay off the deficit within 8 years? I do.

On November 07 2017 01:25 Mercy13 wrote:


Isn't it dead in the Senate anyway, because it increases the deficit after the 10 year window?

On November 07 2017 01:31 Gorsameth wrote:

Have enough senators come out saying they will oppose it? Or are we assuming they will.
Its not impossible to think that they will pass a bad bill just to get something though after the repeated failures with Healthcare.
And taxes are a lot easier to lie about to your constitutions then explaining why their premiums tripled overnight.

On November 07 2017 01:25 Mercy13 wrote:


Isn't it dead in the Senate anyway, because it increases the deficit after the 10 year window?

On November 07 2017 01:42 Nevuk wrote:

I believe they got around this by making the tax cuts for the lower and middle classes temporary

Per Senate rules, no provision of a bill passed under reconciliation can add to the deficit outside of the budget's 10-year window. The TCJA's deficit additions would accelerate in later years, with around $166.8 billion projected to be added in the 10th year.

Since the major tax cuts in the bill are proposed to be permanent, the provisions would likely continue to add to the deficit outside of the 10-year window. If that were the case, the bill would need to be rewritten to pass the Senate.