AOC and Performative Socialism...do as I as say not as I do...Hypocrisy on parade!!

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by Tiny

I agree with some of Romney's points and disagree with others.

I think Romney made some very popular points, especially regarding the rule on step-up basis upon death. That allows some very wealthy individuals to hand huge untaxed fortunes to heirs, creating far too many Paris Hiltons.

However, the total tax revenue likely resulting from Romney's suggestions would still land well short of covering even a nickel of every deficit dollar. Relative to the size of the deficit, these proposals are little more than nibbling around the edges.

Then Romney really goes off the rails when he references "The Willie Sutton rule: Go where the money is."

And he follows up by completely ignoring where the money is! (The middle class.) That's right; it's impossible to make much headway on the deficit without taxing the stuffing out of the middle class, such as by implementing a European-style VAT. No politician is going to touch the hot potato known as entitlements.

Originally Posted by Tiny

If AOC wants her Green New Deal, she's going to have to raise taxes on everyone, because the rich don't have enough money to pay for it all.

True that! How can anyone support a "green new deal" when we can't even come within $2 trillion per year of paying for what our intrepid leaders have already signed up for?

[Ripmany]

There need to eat too

[txdot-guy]

Originally Posted by Texas Contrarian

True that! How can anyone support a "green new deal" when we can't even come within $2 trillion per year of paying for what our intrepid leaders have already signed up for?

Many people are not convinced that the “Green New Deal” is important enough to spend the money on but regardless of that I do believe that AOC and her advisors would be a better choice than what we have now.

Mitt Romney is correct when he says that we can’t grow our economy enough to deal with our own spending without raising our taxes. And that tax increase will have to be spread over the entirety of the population to be effective.

To get out of the mess we’re in now we’ll have to increase revenues enough to cover not just our current entitlements but also our interest payments.

Some of this will need to come from estate taxes as our aging population passes but the rest will need to come from everyone else.

Combine this with some rational thinking about military spending and entitlement reform and maybe we can start digging ourselves out of the debt hole that decades of political stagnation and corruption have created.

What I do know is that the Big Beautiful Bill, The extension of Trump’s tax cuts and tax loopholes, the massive increase in military and immigration enforcement, will do nothing to help our economy or national security.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by Texas Contrarian

I think Romney made some very popular points, especially regarding the rule on step-up basis upon death. That allows some very wealthy individuals to hand huge untaxed fortunes to heirs, creating far too many Paris Hiltons.

However, the total tax revenue likely resulting from Romney's suggestions would still land well short of covering even a nickel of every deficit dollar. Relative to the size of the deficit, these proposals are little more than nibbling around the edges.

Then Romney really goes off the rails when he references "The Willie Sutton rule: Go where the money is."

And he follows up by completely ignoring where the money is! (The middle class.) That's right; it's impossible to make much headway on the deficit without taxing the stuffing out of the middle class, such as by implementing a European-style VAT. No politician is going to touch the hot potato known as entitlements.



True that! How can anyone support a "green new deal" when we can't even come within $2 trillion per year of paying for what our intrepid leaders have already signed up for?

Originally Posted by txdot-guy

Mitt Romney is correct when he says that we can’t grow our economy enough to deal with our own spending without raising our taxes. And that tax increase will have to be spread over the entirety of the population to be effective.

To get out of the mess we’re in now we’ll have to increase revenues enough to cover not just our current entitlements but also our interest payments.

Some of this will need to come from estate taxes as our aging population passes but the rest will need to come from everyone else.

Combine this with some rational thinking about military spending and entitlement reform and maybe we can start digging ourselves out of the debt hole that decades of political stagnation and corruption have created.

What I do know is that the Big Beautiful Bill, The extension of Trump’s tax cuts and tax loopholes, the massive increase in military and immigration enforcement, will do nothing to help our economy or national security.

The estate tax raised $18.4 billion in 2021, which is the most recent year the IRS provides complete data for. It was projected to raise $32 billion in 2024. That's about 0.45% of $7 trillion in federal spending. I'm not necessarily opposed to carrying over cost basis when a person dies, although it would make it difficult for heirs who will have no idea how much Aunt Betty or Uncle Joe paid for that Mobil Oil stock sixty years ago. The current death tax on the other hand, 40% of everything a person owns when he passes away, is akin to theft.

Unfortunately, when the Democratic Party introduced Social Security and Medicare, it fucked up. Government sponsored retirement and healthcare should be self funding, and efficient. If we had something like Australia's superannuation scheme people would actually receive a return on their retirement contributions. Instead they participate in Social Security, a Ponzi scheme. As to healthcare in general, including Medicare, almost anything would work better than what we've got now. We should transition to rational retirement and healthcare systems. As you say TC, unfortunately the bastards in Washington won't allow it. Practically, the best way to deal with it IMO is increase the percentages employers and employees contribute to payroll deductions.

If Romney's planning on putting an 15.3% additional tax on capital gains and dividends though, then he will prove TxDot wrong. The government will receive less revenues through the taxes because people will realize fewer capital gains and companies will cut dividend payouts. I do agree with him about ending certain loopholes like 1031 tax free exchanges. I don't think he even brought up another egregious loophole, carried interest. I wonder why?

If I were dictator, I'd cut spending, moving some of it to the states. And reform entitlements so we have a hybrid of the Singapore and Australian systems, which we've discussed in other threads. So we wouldn't have to increase tax rates to stay solvent.

TxDot, I agree with you about military spending. Also I may agree with you about immigration, I'm not sure exactly what your thoughts are on that.

TC, you're questioning how AOC et al could possibly support the Green New Deal when we have a $2 trillion deficit. Well that's easy if you believe in Modern Monetary Theory, like AOC. She believes deficits don't matter

[txdot-guy]

Originally Posted by Tiny

The estate tax raised $18.4 billion in 2021, which is the most recent year the IRS provides complete data for. It was projected to raise $32 billion in 2024. That's about 0.45% of $7 trillion in federal spending. I'm not necessarily opposed to carrying over cost basis when a person dies, although it would make it difficult for heirs who will have no idea how much Aunt Betty or Uncle Joe paid for that Mobil Oil stock sixty years ago. The current death tax on the other hand, 40% of everything a person owns when he passes away, is akin to theft.

I wouldn’t call it theft, I’d call it Karma with a capital K.

First of all that 40% is only applicable on amounts over 15 million. The first 14 million is tax free and the amount over that but below the 15 million is a graduated amount. 15 million + 60% of every thing over that number seems to be a fair amount for an inheritance. I don’t see a problem with a person paying to keep the government funded under which they got rich in the first place.

Originally Posted by Tiny

Unfortunately, when the Democratic Party introduced Social Security and Medicare, it fucked up. Government sponsored retirement and healthcare should be self funding, and efficient. If we had something like Australia's superannuation scheme people would actually receive a return on their retirement contributions. Instead they participate in Social Security, a Ponzi scheme. As to healthcare in general, including Medicare, almost anything would work better than what we've got now. We should transition to rational retirement and healthcare systems. As you say TC, unfortunately the bastards in Washington won't allow it. Practically, the best way to deal with it IMO is increase the percentages employers and employees contribute to payroll deductions.

Our Social Security scheme would be well funded if the politicians had just taken the experts advice back in the 90’s and made the taxable cap adjusted by inflation and raised or lowered the taxable rate by expected age growth.

Medicare and Medicaid on the other hand have never been viable as I understand it.

Originally Posted by Tiny

TxDot, I agree with you about military spending. Also I may agree with you about immigration, I'm not sure exactly what your thoughts are on that.

Immigration under Biden was a shitshow. I have no problem with sealing the border while we deal with the immigrants who were already here and those who came over under Biden’s term. But this xenophobic white nationalist movement to purge the country of brown, black, and yellow people is just unhinged. Rather than spending billions on deporting willing and enthusiastic workers let us spend our efforts on integrating these people into our society while training and utilizing the talents, skills and sheer drive of these individuals to our benefit.

Immigrants want safety and opportunity. They want to work and usually will work hard to achieve success for their families, children and communities.

As far as reforming military spending goes I’ll willingly admit that the topic is far above my pay grade. I think that a good start is to remove political considerations from procurement and policy if at all possible. And before the pentagon gets another cent they need to be able to account for what they already have and every dollar should be accounted for. I am sure there are plenty of savings that could be made if the military was pressed to do so.

Originally Posted by Tiny

TC, you're questioning how AOC et al could possibly support the Green New Deal when we have a $2 trillion deficit. Well that's easy if you believe in Modern Monetary Theory, like AOC. She believes deficits don't matter

AOC may believe in MMT I don’t believe that Congress would be able to pass legislation that would make it a reality. Especially with Mamdani in NYC implementing a democratic socialist agenda. We’ll soon see how that effort goes and hopefully learn from the successes and mistakes that result.

[pxmcc]

^^AOC may believe in MMT in theory; we don't know how she would govern. we do know that Trump spouts off about the deficit and debt-wasn't that the whole point of DOGE-but believes in MMT in practice..

he's run massive deficits from day 1 in his first term, and continues to do so. he gives exactly zero fucks about the fate of future generations of Americans, which explains why he gives zero fucks about man-made climate change. at least AOC cares and has empathy. my bet is she'd be an Obama Democrat, but we simply don't know.

caring about fellow Americans and future Americans is a good start though for formulating good economic policy. a person who cares, among other things, pays their bills instead of dumping them on someone else. Trump is notorious for skipping out when it's time to pay the bill.

[The_Waco_Kid]

Originally Posted by txdot-guy

AOC may believe in MMT I don’t believe that Congress would be able to pass legislation that would make it a reality. Especially with Mamdani in NYC implementing a democratic socialist agenda. We’ll soon see how that effort goes and hopefully learn from the successes and mistakes that result.

we'll see Communism fail yet again as it always has and always will. this idiot Mamdani has already admitted he has zero authority to make all this communist crap he advocates for. AOC is an idiot who doesn't even understand the commie bullshit Bernie and the Demonrat socialists whisper in her dumb ear.



AOC is not the solution to anything unless you want to make America like Cuba


bahahahahahahaaaaa

Originally Posted by pxmcc

^^AOC may believe in MMT in theory; we don't know how she would govern. we do know that Trump spouts off about the deficit and debt-wasn't that the whole point of DOGE-but believes in MMT in practice..

he's run massive deficits from day 1 in his first term, and continues to do so. he gives exactly zero fucks about the fate of future generations of Americans, which explains why he gives zero fucks about man-made climate change. at least AOC cares and has empathy. my bet is she'd be an Obama Democrat, but we simply don't know.

caring about fellow Americans and future Americans is a good start though for formulating good economic policy. a person who cares, among other things, pays their bills instead of dumping them on someone else. Trump is notorious for skipping out on the check.

this ain't about Trump it's about AOC and the ignert socialist cunt she is



bahahahahaaaa

[Precious_b]

Originally Posted by The_Waco_Kid

...
AOC is not the solution to anything unless you want to make America like Cuba

...

If that means big booty Cubanas to fuck: BRING IT ON!