US Politics Mega-thread - Page 9603

On December 27 2017 06:18 Velr wrote:
You must have missed several wars the US started since WW2...

On December 27 2017 05:06 Danglars wrote:

90-0 vote in the Senate. President Trump did it. Really, a bipartisan consensus supported the action Trump put into effect. Say what you want about duplicitous Senators voting without seriously expecting to be held accountable, but this was America. Not wild politicians.

Similar view if the UN thinks the establishment of an embassy can be declared null and void and rescinded by vote of the UN. UN Representatives declare they’re a joke institution that wants crazier leadership (rejects current leadership). Find your own way, it’s obvious these pathetic “recover what little credibility it holds” are basically offering zilch in exchange for undermining of national sovereignty and bullying.

On December 27 2017 01:03 Biff The Understudy wrote:

What do you mean by culture war? From what i read, it’s the gop that laments all the time about losing it.

I understand it as social issues and cultural shift and progress (that the republicans will always lose): the world is becoming more diverse, more tolerant and more open. The right was already “losing the culture war” when interacial marriages became accepted, when we stopped putting gay people in jail, when divorce was legalized, and when women got the right to vote. Now it’s about abortion, the acceptability of racism, lgbt people equality and so on (basically the so called “family values” and racial issues and all their avatars, from discriminating laws to political correctness issues). And they are gonna keep losing because you can’t stop social progress just like that. Young generations are infintly less biggoted and more tolerant than their elder, and that’s gonna keep getting better.

In the UK the main difference is that the right is not fighting those battles, because they simply and rightfully don’t care. The tories don’t mind gay marriage, support sex ed and are basically a feminist minded party, like the democrats. Except for some particularly narrow and backward minded ultra conservative people, the whole uk would be firmly on the left of the so called american “culture war”.

So again, it’s not that the left is more humble in the UK, it’s that everybody basically agrees more or less on stuff that are hugely conflictual in the US. You simply can’t imagine the tories bullying women who want to abort, fighting against sex ed altogether, defend a symbol like the confederate flag, demanding that creationism is taught in schools and so on and so forth. They align with the democrats on all those things. There is no comparable culture war in the UK, because there is no bat shit crazy people thinking the world is 6000 years old and supporting gay conversion therapy in the parliament.

On December 27 2017 08:44 iamthedave wrote:


This, basically. The culture war is the process of cultural change, and the forces either propelling or resisting it. Or you might say, propelling it in opposite directions. I'd argue that the right wasn't losing the culture war when those things happened; that implies there were no underlying philosophies at play. Right wing politics might have changed but it certainly wasn't losing because those things changed. Fiscal conservatives are never going away and may have a point? Not an economist, don't pretend to be. Certainly there's a prevailing idea that right wing governments are better with money than left wing ones. Though why that works in reverse with the US I don't understand, beyond 'give all the money to the rich people' being a regular strategy for the GOP.



Not quite true. David Cameron faced a massive back bench revolt against him when he legalised gay marriage. Our Conservative party still consists of largely landed old nobility and the like, who quite literally look back to the Empire as our glory days. It's more that the Conservative party cares, but they are more responsive to the will of the people. I emphasise 'MORE', as they're pretty stubborn as well. But they're not fingers-in-ears lalalalalawe'renotlistening like the GOP are on some issues.



It's not a question of humility, but the job they're doing. The GOP and Democrats seem to think they're fighting a culture war, representing titanic opposing ideologies in a mythic duel to the death, in the form of a presidential election. And then afterwards one side runs this country thing that people talk about now and again, in order to show how great they are. And then they do it again.

Our politicians consider their job to be running the country, and that's that. They're not there to put a stop to culture or to direct it on a certain path. When it became obvious gay marriage had to be legalised, the Conservatives bit the bullet and legalised it, because they were in charge at the time and it was obvious it had to be done. That was their job, and they did it.

I think Brexit kind of shows how bad our government actually is at culture warring. They're really trying to run the country, but they're up against a cultural shift they can't influence and don't know how to get in front of. It's like watching rats drowning.

Basically, if the GOP and Democrats viewed the loss of a Presidential election less like an epoch-defining, world breaking moment of horror and more as the will of the people leaning one side or another, and just worked together to actually run the country instead of fighting over it like children with a toy they don't want to share, US politics wouldn't be such a toxic sludge heap.

On December 27 2017 07:09 Dan HH wrote:

Nothing more American than senators going 90-0 on an issue where public opinion was 31-63.

On December 27 2017 06:11 Yurie wrote:


Isn't one of the most important cornerstones of the new world order after WW2 that we no longer do wars? Thus putting an embassy in a place conquered in a war legitimises that war and its results. Going directly against what the UN stands for. It doesn't matter if a person like Trump or Franklin D. Roosevelt does it, it should still be censured by the UN since it goes against its basic principles.

On December 27 2017 06:24 Jockmcplop wrote:


Bullying?
You're really calling it bullying.

The US just made a unilateral decision that will seriously effect world geopolitics and when the world said they didn't like it started threatening people and withholding money, and you want to talk about how your country is being bullied.

The UN has the right to make symbolic votes such as this. The vote isn't in any way binding and doesn't carry specific legal ramifications AFAIK so your claims of bullying and rescinding the US's sovereign rights are just false and hypocritical.

On December 27 2017 07:09 Dan HH wrote:

Nothing more American than senators going 90-0 on an issue where public opinion was 31-63.

On December 27 2017 11:08 zlefin wrote:

but what did those senators ACTUALLY vote for?
given the state of public and diplomatic opinion on the matter, it's always seemed a bit odd to me for the vote ot be 90-0. a bunch of those senators would be on the foreign affairs committees for awhile, and fully aware of the issues.


thus I checked the underlying bill:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-resolution/176?q={"search":["senate resolution jerusalem 50"]}&r=2

looking at the text of the underlying bill, it's much more mild of an affirmation; and looks more like bland pablum of the kind that's generally not opposed.
it supports the jerusalem embassy act, amongst several other more notable provisions; but that act of course also includes the presidential waiver which had long been used to delay it happening.
so while it supports the move, it's not like it's a direct vote on the move and nothing else. I wonder how they'd vote if it were directly on point.
this reminds me sadly of the seemingly ever more common practice these days of Congress complaining about foreign policy decisions while refusing to actually engage in them themselves.

On December 27 2017 12:47 Danglars wrote:

The world thinks it has a say in where the US puts its embassy. This is in a city that currently houses their legislature, prime minister's residence, and all kinds of important government building. I'd say the same if it took similar action to declare London no longer the capital of the UK. The threat is international censure and the credibility/US-as-world-leader if the US does do what its elected government chooses to do, which is naturally bullying (in addition to the rhetoric from other nations I should add).

If language didn't matter, why even include the null and void and rescind part? Credibility goes both ways, and the UN suspended the (little it had left haha) credibility of the institution with the crafting. A dumb "we protest this action because we think it hurts the peace process" is much better than doubling down on stupid and implying that it falls under UN jurisdiction. Google the resolution if you need more.

On December 27 2017 05:58 Sermokala wrote:

I forget how conservative Social security and the new deal was sometimes.

On December 27 2017 08:44 iamthedave wrote:


This, basically. The culture war is the process of cultural change, and the forces either propelling or resisting it. Or you might say, propelling it in opposite directions. I'd argue that the right wasn't losing the culture war when those things happened; that implies there were no underlying philosophies at play. Right wing politics might have changed but it certainly wasn't losing because those things changed. Fiscal conservatives are never going away and may have a point? Not an economist, don't pretend to be. Certainly there's a prevailing idea that right wing governments are better with money than left wing ones. Though why that works in reverse with the US I don't understand, beyond 'give all the money to the rich people' being a regular strategy for the GOP.

Among the big changes contained in the tax overhaul signed by President Trump last week is a little-remarked-upon provision changing the way inflation is calculated.

The new method, using the so-called "chained" consumer price index to determine when to adjust tax brackets and eligibility for deductions, is expected to push more Americans into higher tax brackets more quickly. In the past, the tax code used the traditional CPI measure issued by the Labor Department each month.

By switching to this new method, the government will bring an additional $134 billion into federal coffers over the next decade, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

How will that happen?

It comes down to this: The chained CPI makes inflation appear lower, and that means tax brackets will be adjusted upward more slowly — but lots of workers will continue to get raises based upon the faster-rising traditional CPI. In other words, your income may rise faster than the inflation adjustments, forcing you to pay taxes at a higher rate — even though you may not feel any richer.

"Compared to where taxpayers would be under present law, by 2027 most individuals will actually pay more taxes," said Steve Rosenthal, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

The difference will be slight, perhaps just a few tenths of a percentage points a year, he says — "but over time, these fractions of a percentage point add up and can amount to a fair amount of money."

Since 2000, the traditional CPI has increased by 45.7 percent, while the chained CPI has risen only 39.7 percent, a difference of 6 percentage points, according to the Tax Policy Center.

And unlike other parts of the bill that expire over time, such as the tax cuts for individuals, this new inflation measure will last indefinitely.

Since the 1980s, the government has been indexing tax rates to inflation, to prevent "bracket creep" — the steady movement of more and more taxpayers into higher tax brackets. For example, the income threshold for the top marginal tax rate of 39.6 percent rose from $415,050 in 2016 to $418,400 in 2017.

"These adjustments prevent taxpayers from being pushed into higher tax brackets when their incomes rise just enough to keep up with inflation," according to a report from the Brookings Institution.

To calculate inflation, government officials use the Labor Department's long-running CPI rate, which measures fluctuations of prices of specific products over time.

"The usual way to do an index for inflation is to look at a basket of goods, see how much it costs you in, say, 2016, go back, get the next basket of goods and see what it costs you in 2017, and compare the same basket over two years," says Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office. "Unfortunately, when prices for goods go up, people tend to purchase less of them."

Translation: When beef gets expensive, shoppers buy fewer steaks and more chicken breasts.

Chained CPI is calculated by the Labor Department to account for these real-world purchasing decisions, by factoring in the kinds of product substitutions consumers make in the real world.

This alternative inflation measure is seen by many economists as more accurate. The administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama proposed switching to chained CPI as part of a broader tax reform.

"What the tax-reform bill does is actually just substitute what everyone agrees is a more accurate measure of inflation for the old measure," says Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum.

David Kamin, former special economic adviser to Obama, says the use of chained CPI may make some economic sense but needs to be put in context.

"It's one thing to put in chained CPI if you think that it's going to go toward actually helping working families in the long run," says Kamin. "It's another thing if you're doing chained CPI in order to pay for a permanent corporate tax reduction."

On December 27 2017 20:06 warding wrote:

To comment on this last bit, I don't think there's a direct link between conservatism and 'better management of the economy'. What you did/do have in some countries is Marxist thought contaminating leftism/progressivism (Marxism being the motherlode of bad economics ideas), while also the Left adopting corporatist special interests - trade unions - as their main political base, with those influencing policy-making in ways that are detrimental to the general economy. Meanwhile the right in the US and Europe advocated fiscal responsibility, free trade and pro-business policy, all of which are generally good for the economy.

As for today, and Corbyn aside, in the US and Europe the left does seem to take contemporary economics seriously and tend to generally surround governments with competent economists. That's in contrast with Trumps administration, who's list of economists advising him starts and stops at the obscure Peter Navarro, presumably the only anti-trade economist Trump could find, an and filled economic advisor positions (and sec. of treasury) with investment bankers and CEOs.

On December 27 2017 12:52 Danglars wrote:

Nonsense, public opinion showed no such disfavoring on that passage. You must be thinking more recent public opinion polls. Nothing more European that telling America what it thinks