US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3571

On March 31 2022 04:52 Godwrath wrote:

His point is that it's used as the perfect corruption mechanism, you can't remove it since it's morally bankrupt to do so. His main point is to hit the people who are exploiting that status to profit from it (which would be rich).

To be honest, I would be more interested to see how bloated it really is rather than take someone's word on it. How many veterans benefit from it. Also, I don't know how he is surprised at the budget increase with failed wars, it actually has logic that after unfruitful long wars, the veterans who might need that kind of help increase, not otherwise.

On March 31 2022 04:55 LegalLord wrote:

No reason you couldn't do both if you really wanted to. Though interestingly, you could gain a comparable monetary benefit from axing the VA as from a wealth tax, and you'd get the same brand of corporate resistance because the moneyed interests that benefit from the VA are rather overlapping.

Raise funds from the wealthy, spend them on something useful (e.g. "building back better" or socialized healthcare) rather than funneling that money into VA or putting it on the debt. We can get a lot of money to work with by taking it from the wealthy, but even if we did that we wouldn't have enough money so it has to come out of somewhere else too.

On March 31 2022 05:25 NewSunshine wrote:

Not really, I identified a shitty rationale as to why VA funding should be cut.

On March 31 2022 03:58 LegalLord wrote:

I mean, if it did go away with no replacement, would it really be that bad? Assume everything remained the same except soldiers were discharged with zero VA benefits. Let's look at the main things that would be impacted.

Employment: Better than average prospects because veterans would be mostly young men with technical backgrounds. Plus strong preference for any job in the civil service based on veteran status, so if nothing else you can get a stable job with a fat pension.

Housing: Veterans would have to take out a normal mortgage like the rest of us. At least they'd have the money they saved up from service, which would be a nice contribution towards a down payment.

Healthcare: Veterans would have to either have a job or pay for it like the rest of us. If they get sick with something really bad, they'd have to pay for it, but that's also the same problem everyone else faces.

Education: They'd have to pay for it like the rest of us if they didn't get it as part of their service. Probably going to be better off than average.

Disability due to WIA: This one really does kind of suck, but you could still get standard civilian disability. No special soldier's premium for disability in war though.

And that's if you did absolutely nothing but just cut the VA wholesale without any mitigating factors. Is that really so bad, when you free up $230B (and rapidly growing - was a fifth of that two decades ago) a year for more important priorities? Better than holding it hostage against M4A, which is about the equivalent of saying "we'll stop wasting money when we achieve world peace." You don't need to solve all of society's problems to cut out the most bloated part of the military budget. Yes, it "sounds bad" and yes, it'll be decried by those who receive rent (in the economic theory sense) from its existence, but the most feel-good sounding things often contain the biggest actual waste.

On March 31 2022 06:10 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:

This entire post shows just how much you know about the VA and veterans at large. I would appreciate you not speak so ignorantly of this topic when each point you've raised is so far off base and wrong.

On March 31 2022 03:58 LegalLord wrote:
[opposition to the program will] be decried by those who receive rent (in the economic theory sense) from its existence

On March 31 2022 06:26 LegalLord wrote:

I think this point is by far the most relevant here:



Given personal bias I certainly wouldn't expect anyone who actually received above-and-beyond benefit from the program to ever consider it to be a problem. In the same light, I would never under any circumstances expect the elderly to oppose Medicare-at-any-cost or for people in their late 50s/early 60s to support raising the retirement age under any circumstances. I nevertheless don't see it to, objectively, be a good use of our nation's money to maintain the VA program as it exists.

On March 31 2022 07:42 gobbledydook wrote:


This is not a very good argument unless you point out how he is wrong.

On March 31 2022 07:48 gobbledydook wrote:

I for example would like to understand why he is wrong.

The House-passed bill provides $268.59 billion for VA, including $155.44 billion in mandatory spending and $113.15 billion in discretionary spending. On August 4, 2021, the Senate Appropriations Committee reported its version of the MILCON-VA bill for FY2022 (S. 2604; S. Rept.Nov 12, 2021

President Biden is a capitalist and believes that anyone should be able to become a millionaire or a billionaire. He also believes that it is wrong for America to have a tax code that results in America’s wealthiest households paying a lower tax rate than working families. President Biden has long called for taxing capital gains as ordinary income and for eliminating the stepped-up basis loophole that enables the capital gains of the very wealthy to go untaxed forever. As part of his fiscal year 2023 budget, President Biden is calling on Congress to pass legislation requiring the wealthiest American households to pay a minimum of 20 percent on all of their income, including unrealized investment income that currently is untaxed.

President Biden’s Billionaire Minimum Income Tax will make America’s tax code fairer and reduce the deficit by about $360 billion in just the next decade. This will put the United States Government on firmer financial footing, building on the progress the Administration has made to reduce the deficit by over half by the end of this year compared to President Trump’s last year in office. Through the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax and other measures, the President’s budget will reduce the deficit by another $1 trillion over the decade.

The Billionaire Minimum Income Tax will require America’s wealthiest households to pay as they go, just like everyone else:
The Billionaire Minimum Income Tax will ensure that the very wealthiest Americans pay a tax rate of at least 20 percent on their full income, including unrealized appreciation. This minimum tax would make sure that the wealthiest Americans no longer pay a tax rate lower than teachers and firefighters.

The tax will apply only to the top one-one hundredth of one percent (0.01%) of American households (those worth over $100 million). Over half of the revenue will come from households worth more than $1 billion.

If a wealthy household is already paying 20 percent on their full income – standard taxable income plus unrealized income – they will pay no additional tax under this proposal. If tax-free unrealized income allows a wealthy household to pay less than 20 percent on their full income, they will owe a top-up payment to meet the 20 percent minimum. As a result, this new minimum tax will eliminate the ability for the unrealized income of ultra-high-net-worth households to go untaxed for decades or generations.

The proposal allows wealthy households to spread initial top-up payments on unrealized income over nine years, and then five years for top-up payments on new income going forward. Stretching payment over multiple years will smooth year-to-year variation in investment income, while still ensuring that the wealthiest end up paying a minimum tax rate of 20 percent. Illiquid taxpayers may opt to pay later with interest.

In effect, the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax payments are a prepayment of tax obligations these households will owe when they later realize their gains. This approach means that the very wealthiest Americans pay taxes as they go, just like everyone else, and eliminates the inefficient sheltering of income for decades or generations.

On March 31 2022 07:39 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:

It's not what the VA provides for veterans that's the problem. It's that you don't get to share in it that drives you up a fucking wall. You feel that if you have to pay for something, then everyone else should too. That's not how it works.
Being able to receive something and receiving something does not equate as you think it does. There are millions of veterans that can't get the loans, education, health benefits, jobs, etc. I don't mind if the VA is refitted to be more beneficial to veterans and if there is a prominent replacement in place, let's give that ago. To spew that ignorance just makes you seem all the more the heartless bastard that you're unintentionally being. Or maybe you really think anyone not YOU doesn't deserve anything else.
Anyway, I've said my piece.

E: It's always this discussion every time someone brings up taxing the wealthy. You look to every other area of American society for substitutes instead of going after the wealthy. You attempt to change the topic to "gut the VA" almost every time.

On March 31 2022 09:12 ChristianS wrote:

I don’t benefit from VA and I don’t think I know anybody who does, so I can dodge this particular ad hominem at least.

If we’re going to send recruiters into high schools and Twitch channels and wherever else 15-19 year olds are and try every trick we can think of to persuade them to come and kill for country, don’t you think the least we can do is pay for their physical therapy when they get a foot blown off? Seems fucked up to be all “what can you do for your country” treating it like some sacred form of patriotism on recruitment, and then pretend it was a purely amoral employment contract which has terminated with no remaining strings when it wrecks their lives.

But that’s the moral angle. You’re at least gesturing in the direction of a pragmatic argument - M4A, however desirable, is politically non-viable; you think cutting the VA is practical. Except your plan is essentially “hurt veterans to save a bit of cash,” which is about as bitter a pill as I can imagine politically. Why don’t you take the money from grandmas or chocolate chip cookies while you’re at it? What’s to stop your opponents from running 24/7 ads saying “LL hates veterans” and “LL thinks WIA should suffer more”?

Now that I think about it, this plan is an absolutely perfect Democrat plan: it sacrifices principle in the name of political expedience without being remotely politically expedient, plus it’s weirdly fiscally conservative in a way even conservatives don’t advocate for! It’s everything Democrats look for in a battle plan!