US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3116

On March 10 2021 12:53 Husyelt wrote:

Yeah that's pretty much it. As an aside. I do think there are some echoes of racism in the US, especially within some systematic institutions. But the megaphone and spotlight attached to it currently outweighs the actual substance there. Now that being said, if the world in 50 years looks better because of fast support of BLM warts and all, I will concede the tool did well.

I personally just get turned off by the righteousness involved in any social issue. I left a very religious background and am even now finding righteousness seeping into places like fucking NPR. Just last week on The Take Away, there was a guest on claiming obesity has no relation to covid deaths, and thinking so, is just so fat phobic. The NPR host accepted this as if this was completely understood and they related it to be homophobic. And the manner of discussion was that of listening to christian family radio segments.

On March 10 2021 14:24 Jockmcplop wrote:

Here in the UK football (soccer) players currently take a knee before every match in accordance with BLM. The TV companies have a black lives matter logo displayed as they do so, even Sky (owned by Murdoch). Meanwhile racism continues to thrive in the game and the governing bodies' response to it is absolutely pathetic.
BLM has become something empty and meaningless in exactly this way. It didn't start out that way, for sure, but now it is an easy target for virtue signalling companies looking to make a bit of money from social movements, so it is diluted beyond the point where it even can mean anything any more in my country.
When the slogan/symbol stops being a driver for change, it becomes a replacement for change.

Simply in terms of whose taxes are cut, the bill is in stark contrast to the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. In 2021, low- and moderate-income households (those making $91,000 or less) would receive nearly 70 percent of the tax benefits from the Senate measure. Among families with children, those low- and middle-income households would get nearly three-quarters of the benefit. By contrast, nearly half of the TCJA’s 2018 tax cuts went to households in the top 5 percent of the income distribution (who made about $308,000 that year).

Twice the TCJA’s average tax cut

TPC modeled the major individual income tax provisions including the economic impact payments (EIPs, aka stimulus payments) of up to $1,400 per person as well as expansions of the Child Tax Credit (CTC), the earned income tax credit (EITC), and the child and dependent care tax credit (CDCTC). In this analysis, TPC did not model corporate tax changes, relatively modest tax subsidies for health insurance coverage for laid-off workers, paid sick and family leave, or an expanded Premium Tax Credit for health insurance purchased on the individual exchanges. TPC also did not model the income tax exemption for some unemployment benefits received in 2020.

The Senate’s average tax cut in 2021 is nearly double the average $1,600 tax reduction for 2018 from the TCJA, according to TPC. The gap between the Senate bill and the average individual income tax cuts only of the TCJA is even bigger—about $1,800.

One key difference between the two measures is that the individual income tax cuts of the TCJA were scheduled to run for eight years—through 2025. By contrast, the tax cuts in the ARP either are one-time, such as the new round of economic impact payments, or scheduled to expire at the end of this year. The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the Senate bill would cut taxes by about $467 billion in 2021, and about $590 billion over the 10-year budget window.

The distributional difference

By far the single biggest tax cut in the Senate bill is the next installment of the direct EIPs. They cut household taxes by an average of about $2,300, representing more than two-thirds of the overall tax cut. While the expansions of the refundable tax credits such as the CTC, EITC, and CDCTC all are temporary, Democrats have made little secret of wanting to make them permanent.

The other major difference with the TCJA, which was passed by the Republican Congress and with the support of then-President Trump, is the distribution of the tax cuts. The ARP, passed only with Democratic votes, distributes more than two-thirds of the tax cuts to low- and middle-income households while they received only about 17 percent of the TCJA’s tax benefits.

Under the TCJA, the average first-year tax cut for a low-income household (making $25,000 or less) was $60, or 0.4 percent of their after-tax income. The average tax cut for the highest-income 0.1 percent of households (making $3.4 million or more) was $193,000, or 2.7 percent of after-tax income.

$7,700 for low-income families with children

By contrast, in the Senate bill a household making $25,000 or less would receive an average tax cut of $2,800 this year, boosting their after-tax income by 20 percent. But average taxes would not change at all for a household making $3.5 million. A low-income household with children would get an average tax cut of nearly $7,700, raising their after-tax income by more than 35 percent.

The difference for middle-income households also is striking. The TCJA cut their 2018 taxes by an average of about $930, or 1.6 percent of their after-tax income. The Senate version of the ARP would cut their taxes this year by an average of $3,350 or 5.5 percent of their after-tax income.

As they say, elections have consequences. And few bills show that contrast as much as the Republican’s TCJA and the Democrats’ ARP.

On March 10 2021 22:28 Doublemint wrote:
yeah the awareness angle is definitely underrated. and as much of a pain in the ass it is to look in the mirror instead of deflecting and projecting blame, it's absolutely necessary. going by the pushback BLM got it is also a decent indicator of its success.

to something different which - at least tangetially - is related to the race issue:

the WaPo broke down the covid relief bill here.

and it cannot be stretched enough of how much of a change it is in policy determining who gets a slice of the cake. they compared it to the 1.5 trillion dollar tax cuts of the previous administration + Show Spoiler +

On March 11 2021 00:57 KwarK wrote:
Patching the hole in a sinking boat is better than pumping out water, especially if water is pouring in more quickly than the pumps can remove it, but if all we can do right now is pump then a bigger pump is a win.

On March 11 2021 01:04 GreenHorizons wrote:


At some point people will do the math and figure out that with either pump we're still all going to drown (including the poor people at the bottom of the boat drowning already) long before we reach the shore. That makes neither pump a win in my book.

On March 11 2021 01:04 GreenHorizons wrote:


At some point people will do the math and figure out that with either pump we're still all going to drown (including the poor people at the bottom of the boat drowning already) long before we reach the shore. That makes neither pump a win in my book.

On March 11 2021 01:14 farvacola wrote:

Reducing suffering, even in the face of systemic, cataclysmic failure, is not an empty venture.

On March 11 2021 01:09 mierin wrote:


The problem is, making a pump 1% more efficient in your scenario causes people to make themselves feel like they're morally superior. Virtue signaling in a nutshell. I guess I could wear 1% of a mask going places and still be "going in the right direction".

On March 11 2021 01:38 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
What "viable plan" is being supplanted? Was there something released?

On March 11 2021 01:55 farvacola wrote:

"Intentionally supplanted" is where there's a world of disagreement, there's plenty of room to believe that these measures are not placeholders for what would otherwise be monumental changes to how our government and society work.

On March 11 2021 02:10 GreenHorizons wrote:


Depends on who we're talking about and what level of consciousness we attribute to the maliciousness of capitalism. I don't think your typical Democrat voter is intentionally supplanting the political will to avert impending doom, I think politicians and their corporate donors are so addicted to wealth and power that they intentionally supplant that will with gratification by placebo and ostensibly palliative 'care'. They have such influence/control and supplant that will to such a degree that we (according to the best science available) are ensuring global catastrophic ecological collapse (along with setting up the conditions for a civil war and attempted violent economic redistribution).

EDIT: Part of what influences my perspective is that ~60 years ago Black people took to the streets for economic justice that reduced the racial wealth gap. 60 years and a whole lotta placebo/palliative (and assassinations of people like Fred Hampton) bullshit later, not only does the gap remain, it's likely worse. That sucks for me, but not nearly as much as it will for kids today if I spend 60 years accepting (let alone celebrating) the same placebo/palliative bs on climate (and the racial wealth gap for that matter).