Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Sociotard]

Some House Democrats introduce a plan to address Affordable Care Act's flaws.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/12/15955982/democrats-fix-obamacare

[Hugh Neilson]

When they said, "Make America Grate Again"

 

Fixed that for you

[Joe Walsh]

Some House Democrats introduce a plan to address Affordable Care Act's flaws.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/12/15955982/democrats-fix-obamacare

 

If it had only been implemented fully everywhere, there would be far less problems. But the act does have flaws, and those need to be addressed. Unfortunately this reasonable proposal has no chance in the hard-right House.

[Lucius]

Fixed that for you

Shouldn't that be "Make America Grate Against"?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Appearing in this thread against the palindromedary's advice

[Iuz the Evil]

Kind of looks like the Senate Healthcare Bill isn't going to pass.

 

Good.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/18/politics/health-care-state-of-play/index.html

[Joe Walsh]

Plan C (or is it D?) is to repeal Obamacare and then replace it with...something...someday.

[BoloOfEarth]

The GOP will now put forth their Care Reconciliation Action Plan, followed by Strong Health Improvement Tactics.

 

If those don't fly, they'll try Family Universal Care for Kids, Youths, and Oldsters United.

[Old Man]

Plan C (or is it D?) is to repeal Obamacare and then replace it with...something...someday.

Actually plan C is for Trump to stop funding for Obamacare and let it crash, then replace it with...something...someday...maybe.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Actually plan C is for Trump to stop funding for Obamacare and let it crash, then replace it with...something...someday...maybe.

 

 

Plan C (or is it D?) is to repeal Obamacare and then replace it with...something...someday.

The President said he was elected to serve the American people. Now he is, in fact, serving the American people -- with fries and a Coke.

[Nolgroth]

He could simply"suggest" to the IRS not to enforce the individual mandate penalty. An experienced statesman wanting to eliminate Obamacare would have started with that. Trump is just a rank amateur though.

[Joe Walsh]

Actually plan C is for Trump to stop funding for Obamacare and let it crash, then replace it with...something...someday...maybe.

 

Yeah, the repeal plan fell apart pretty quickly. Now they're on to, "Our plan is to do nothing."

 

Really, after all these years, that's the best you can do? What a bunch of losers.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Nobody seems to have done very much real governing this year. They are too busy posturing, tweeting (Twitter has so much to answer for that it defies description), and listening to themselves talk to even realize they have a federal government to run.

[Lord Liaden]

The new supreme court justice is the only significant initiative I can think of that actually moved forward so far this year. Well, pulling out of the Paris climate accord, but that was sort of a move backward.

 

What other things am I overlooking?

[Joe Walsh]

As far as I can recall, it's been mostly about packing the courts with as many conservative judges as possible, as quickly as possible.

 

In regards to Obamacare, it's so disingenuous to say they're going to "let it fail." Sure, after fighting it every step of the way, getting as much tossed out by the courts as possible, and doing everything in their power at every turn to signal that its days are numbered, they're going to "let it fail."  Kind of like taking a big dump in the community pool every day for 7 years, getting the courts to disallow the use of chlorine, and then saying you're going to "let it fail."

[Sociotard]

I am very confident they will pass some manner of tax cut. If it isn't part of the Obamacare repeal, it'll be somewhere, but they will get it done.

 

When Republicans control both the Presidency and Congress, they cut spending and taxes, but they don't cut the spending fast enough and the deficit grows. (Democrats raise the deficit when they're in control too, but that's because they don't raise taxes as fast as they increase spending.  You want to cut the deficit, you get a divided government)

[Old Man]

(Democrats raise the deficit when they're in control too, but that's because they don't raise taxes as fast as they increase spending.)

 

I wonder if there is any evidence to support this assertion.

[DShomshak]

The new supreme court justice is the only significant initiative I can think of that actually moved forward so far this year. Well, pulling out of the Paris climate accord, but that was sort of a move backward.

 

What other things am I overlooking?

Senator McConnel bragged about having repealed a bunch of regulations. I don't know the details, though; whatever's been done here has been drowned out (at least in my local paper, All Things Considered and BBC World Service) by the drama from Trump and Repeal and Replace.

 

Oh. Just heard on ATC today there was an 8th person in Don Jr's meeting: a Georgian-American real estate mogul, investigated for money laundering for Russian organized crime, who works for the Putin-connected Russian billionaire and Trump best bud who set the wheels in motion.

 

Jeez, how many more people will turn out to have been there?

 

Dean Shomshak

[Sociotard]

I wonder if there is any evidence to support this assertion.

Yes. I've posted it here before. I didn't want to repost and be "that guy that won't keep trotting out his pet theory".  But since you asked . . . 

 

Don't look directly at the Deficit.  The US Budget is a large unwieldy thing that does not lend itself to sharp changes. (it takes time to put a new tax in place or drop an old one, or to start spending on a new program or eliminate spending on an old one). No, we look at the first derivative of the deficit with respect to time. I use the budget numbers from Whitehouse.gov and both the Constant 2009 dollars and % GDP numbers.

 

(I've really gotta translate this into graphs. indulge me)

 

All numbers are the median change in the noted value, in billions of 2009 or percent of gdp, in one year.

 

All, Deficit Constant 2.45

United, Deficit Constant -23.8

Opposed, Deficit Constant -0.6

D Only Deficit Constant -18.25

R Only Deficit Constant -36.9

 

All, Deficit GDP 0.15

United, Deficit GDP -0.2

Opposed, Deficit GDP 0.1

D Only Deficit GDP -0.2

R Only Deficit GDP -0.6

 

All Outlays Constant 33.45

United Outlays Constant 77.1

Opposed Outlays Constant 20.2

D Only Outlays Constant 62

R Only Outlays Constant 103.9

 

All Outlays GDP -0.1

United Outlays GDP 0.2

Opposed Outlays GDP -0.25

D Only Outlays GDP 0.25

R Only Outlays GDP 0.2

 

All Receipts Constant 44.2

United Receipts Constant 26.4

Opposed Receipts Constant 55.05

D Only Receipts Constant 32.1

R Only Receipts Constant -15.45

 

All Receipts GDP 0

United Receipts GDP -0.05

Opposed Receipts GDP 0.2

D Only Receipts GDP 0

R Only Receipts GDP -0.25

 

Again, I should really make some nice graphs.  Anyway, lets look at the median numbers. Republican controlled governments raise outlays at 103.9 billion dollars per year and lower receipts (read: taxes) at 15.5 billion per year. Democratic controlled governments raise outlays at 62 billion a year and raise receipts at 30 billion.

 

(okay, so I was wrong that Republicans cut budgets more than Democrats. I misremembered)

 

But look at the Divided governments! A median divided government only increases deficits by 0.6 billion per year. That blows away both the Dems at  18.3 and Repubs at 36.9.  A divided government has a much better chance of actually shrinking the deficit. As a percentage of GDP, Divided governments actually DO shrink deficits.

[Old Man]

Well done!  Can you link to the data on whitehouse.gov for me?

[Pattern Ghost]

Trump administration probably took it down b/c it's false news.

[Sociotard]

https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals

I used table 1.3. the only tricky bit was deciding what to do with that special quarter in the 70s. (They changed the fiscal year)

[Joe Walsh]

About that tax reform...

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-07-19/americans-aren-t-so-excited-about-tax-reform

 

President Donald Trump says it will "be easy" to reform the tax system, at least by comparison to replacing Obamacare. The White House told Axios, the political-news website, that it's well prepared to roll out a big tax-reform launch in late summer that's already gaining support from corporate executives and conservatives.

 

They should take a look at the latest Bloomberg poll. It suggests that a tax law is likely to be as tough to pass as the health-care bill that disintegrated this week in the Senate, and which Trump was calling a piece of cake just five months ago. The poll and other reporting indicates that taxes are no longer a galvanizing political issue, even for Republican voters.

 

The survey, conducted July 8-12, shows that only 4 percent of Americans see taxes as the most important issue facing the country. By contrast, 35 percent said they considered health care to be the No. 1 issue. Concerns about jobs, terrorism and climate change also ranked far ahead of taxes. A slight majority predicted that Trump would fail to achieve his promise to reform the tax code.

 

And, the money quote:

Trump operatives told Axios that the president will barnstorm the country to pitch his tax proposal. Given his extraordinary negatives among voters, it's not clear if this is a threat or a promise.

 

Sad.

[Michael Hopcroft]

The unanswered question is how much deficits really matter in terms of their impact on the economy. Obviously there are times when you have to run a deficit (such as wartime; the federal government took on a massive debt burden during World War II which required Eisenhower to collect a lot of taxes to even being to pay off). And you can't possibly collect enough taxes to pay for everything the federal government does, so you need to borrow to make up the difference. Thus the government has the equivalent of a rotating credit card, always taking on new debt while paying off old. I remember the Savings Bonds that almost everyone bought when I was growing up -- everyone took on a little bit of government debt knowing they could collect it back when the bonds matured ten to twenty years later.

 

This is why government debt is considered a safe investment in spite of deficit spending. And why the massive figure of the National Debt (almost twenty trillion dollars) is somewhat misleading. Everyone talks about the need to "pay off the national debt", as though the entire amount is going to need to be covered right away like an individual's or business's when trouble lurks. Nobody is going to "call in" the national debt!

 

And don't get me started on the calls we hear every so often to renounce the debt. That would be like dropping a thermonuclear device on the global economy.

[Joe Walsh]

Debt to GDP ratio is important, having debt denominated in a currency you control is important...but, ultimately, yeah, having zero national debt isn't really an important goal.

 

The existence of the large national debt is most useful politically as a way for each party to beat up the other over tax and spending policies.

[Joe Walsh]

Remember all that stuff about Republicans wanting small government? Yeah, it's a bunch of guff. They want a big government, they just disagree with Democrats about what shape it should be. Case in point, Jeff Sessions plans to make it even easier for government to permanently seize your assets if the government decides you're "suspected" of a crime. No conviction necessary.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/17/jeff-sessions-wants-police-to-take-more-cash-from-american-citizens/?utm_term=.c3476e5fd73e