Joe Biden 2021

[Foosters 17730]

1 minute ago, DonkeyCigars said:

I feel like this isn’t fair. You are being paid to defend, potentially with your life, the country and civilians (I guess this is debatable but generally true to most folks way of thinking); on the other hand, you are getting paid just for being a human being citizen (not necessarily bad; I think all people should be paid).

What is it with people and not making apples to apples analogies, to prove a point?

I'm all for means-testing the military career.

You were in the shit? Pension for you.

You played pilot at Ramstein for a few years? Hit the bricks pal.

 

[elfenix 34171]

"my money" as if we're still trading around little pieces of metal.  the government doesn't have your money, the government doesn't have anyone's money, and hasn't since nixon closed the gold window at the latest.

[StassneyHorn 6538]

13 minutes ago, DonkeyCigars said:

I feel like this isn’t fair. You are being paid to defend, potentially with your life, the country and civilians (I guess this is debatable but generally true to most folks way of thinking); on the other hand, you are getting paid just for being a human being citizen (not necessarily bad; I think all people should be paid).

What is it with people and not making apples to apples analogies, to prove a point?

10% of the military ever sees combat. Of that 10% most are Army and Marines. I wont feel sorry for that way of thinking.  Firefighters are the same now, less than 10% of their job is actual fires, even less is offensive tactics. They’re Paramedics with a better union. Pyrohorn might hate that comparison but it’s definitely that way in Austin. Euro has a long history of complaining about government spending, but letting us know his career was staked out in the AF is funny.

Edited February 5, 2021 by StassneyHorn

[StassneyHorn 6538]

And now I hate the flag, am a communist, and spit on vets 

[elfenix 34171]

8 hours ago, bad_teammate said:

Romney's is better than Biden's for sure.

lol it's absolutely hilarious that Mitt Romney is like the policy god of america

speaking of means testing (note, the chart starts at 200B so the bar heights exaggerate the difference):

 

make everyone do more paperwork and create an enforcement bureaucracy and some measure of shaming just to avoid the scandal of elon getting benefits for A-12, rather than giving elon the benefits and taxing him more

[cactusflinthead 27594]

Four years of raging chaos makes this seem idyllic.

Good ole boring normalcy.

 

[DonkeyCigars 144]

30 minutes ago, StassneyHorn said:

And now I hate the flag, am a communist, and spit on vets 

No I don’t think that, but I do think a cultural devaluation of firemen, army soldier, Air Force intelligence woman, or any profession (especially one of public utility or service or good) really, is a slippery slope and not a wise thing to means test. I mean; that’s how we got to the point in society teachers (e.g. they only work 6 months a year and are off tanning on the beach all summer!) make as much as a $15/hour McDonalds worker. You can find any angle to highlight positives and begrudge a job by ignoring other aspects, on the micro and macro level.

Ultimately the incremental cost of including those who “don’t deserve or need it” is not worth the combination of administrative expense, headache and processes versus just giving everyone.
 

I mean in theory it’s just an extra 1% of the population, right?

The only real reason I can think of to means test is a resentment or similar emotion of folks who don’t want to see Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos get an extra $4k check which they won’t notice like I don’t notice 3 more pennies on a paycheck, which seems the opposite but same vein point of view as “welfare queen” resentment posted above.

Edited February 5, 2021 by DonkeyCigars

[StassneyHorn 6538]

I made no argument about how we should means test workers. I was pointing out EuroHorn’s and a good bit of Republican’s ethos on government spending. Then I went on a separate rant about first responders getting blank checks and circle jerks.

[Born to Run 6567]

Is there any concrete reason you say it's good for everyone to get the same benefits? Or is it just something you feel should be fair?

Jeff Besos pays taxes

[UpperWestside 6136]

2 hours ago, cactusflinthead said:

Four years of raging chaos makes this seem idyllic.

Good ole boring normalcy.

 

More normalcy please!

[Born to Run 6567]

I'm all for means-testing the military career.
You were in the shit? Pension for you.
You played pilot at Ramstein for a few years? Hit the bricks pal.
 

Lol at this govt system parsing out who gets what. Both parties - spend moar; support the troops. Forever

[Foosters 17730]

9 minutes ago, Born to Run said:

3 hours ago, Foosters said:

I'm all for means-testing the military career.
You were in the shit? Pension for you.
You played pilot at Ramstein for a few years? Hit the bricks pal.
 

Lol at this govt system parsing out who gets what. Both parties - spend moar; support the troops. Forever

It was a joke. I'm not seriously suggesting we means test the military

[Bruh Man 3160]

19 hours ago, Js1 said:

I wonder if Biden and Senate Dems will go for Romney's new proposal -

Permanently provides families $4200/year for children under 6 and $3000/year for children 6-17 in direct cash payments by zeroing out TANFF and CDCC.  Phases out at $200k for single parents and $400k for households. 

This + using Romneycare as the model for Obamacare would somehow end up with Mitt Romney having the most impact on modern American social policy. 

 

19 hours ago, bad_teammate said:

Romney's is better than Biden's for sure.

lol it's absolutely hilarious that Mitt Romney is like the policy god of america

Well, I wouldn’t give Mitt too much credit. He vetoed "Romneycare" and it was passed by a Democratic supermajority and then implemented by Deval Patrick. Romney is always good to say he supports some progressive sounding shit until it's actually a possibility. He'll put forward something like this and then propose something like cutting SNAP benefits.

[BradInATX 9208]

Demanding free money?  I have no problem getting more of my money back.  You being a meathead would say things that you have no idea what you’re talking about. You need to lay off the roids.  Hopefully the offspring that your wife is about to squeeze out of her frothy cunt doesn’t end up like a moron like you.  A 40 something data analyst.  Lol. 

I can loan you some cash if you're that hard up that $1400 bucks is really important to you. I'm a charitable guy. Shoot me a PM.

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

1 hour ago, Bruh Man said:

 

Well, I wouldn’t give Mitt too much credit. He vetoed "Romneycare" and it was passed by a Democratic supermajority and then implemented by Deval Patrick. Romney is always good to say he supports some progressive sounding shit until it's actually a possibility. He'll put forward something like this and then propose something like cutting SNAP benefits.

Hey hey now. See heah. I get you a 16 SEER system and I'll throw in the ozone purifier and install labor at no cost......just sign right heah...what that's you say? Sound a little too good to be true? No, no, not at all; why with the rebates and energy savings it'll only come out to $75,000. Just a small markup, you know....

That's a little what it sounds like to me. I'm skeptical that way, though.

[DonkeyCigars 144]

I’m not going to sit here and let the savior of Bain & Co be spoken to and besmirched by a bunch yous peoples.

[DonkeyCigars 144]

26 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

I can loan you some cash if you're that hard up that $1400 bucks is really important to you. I'm a charitable guy. Shoot me a PM.

Some shots fired on these exchanges is all I know.

[bad_teammate 13132]

32 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

I can loan you some cash if you're that hard up that $1400 bucks is really important to you. I'm a charitable guy. Shoot me a PM.

get a room you two

[Js1 85104]

 

[Ghost of LL 15483]

1 hour ago, Js1 said:

 

There were actually some good amendments that were adopted overnight.

Regardless--I wonder if January 6 didn't bring in a new era of Democratic politics.  No more "we're going to play by the rules and hope to get some credit from Independents."  Now they're saying "we're going to ram shit through Congress, and the people are going to like the results."

Because nobody gives a fuck about process.  Nobody is going to vote against a Democrat because s/he voted to go through reconciliation.  People are going to vote against Democrats if this shit doesn't work and people don't get back to work.

[Js1 85104]

4 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

There were actually some good amendments that were adopted overnight.

Regardless--I wonder if January 6 didn't bring in a new era of Democratic politics.  No more "we're going to play by the rules and hope to get some credit from Independents."  Now they're saying "we're going to ram shit through Congress, and the people are going to like the results."

Because nobody gives a fuck about process.  Nobody is going to vote against a Democrat because s/he voted to go through reconciliation.  People are going to vote against Democrats if this shit doesn't work and people don't get back to work.

Yes, it was very:

We won.  We are crafting the bill and vast majorities of Americans approve of what we want in it.  Either vote for it, or don't.  But we have the votes with or without you. 

[Biff Tannen 45492]

1 hour ago, Js1 said:

 

Why next month?  Why not tomorrow?

[Bruh Man 3160]

4 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Why next month?  Why not tomorrow?

That's the issue with using reconciliation, it's an arduous process which takes weeks. But you need only 50 votes

If they had 60, it would have been done last week.
 

[Js1 85104]

Just now, Bruh Man said:

That's the issue with using reconciliation, it's an arduous process which takes weeks. But you need only 50 votes

If they had 60, it would have been done last week.
 

Plus with only 50 Senate Dems and a slim House majority, there will be some wrangling on Senators like Manchin and Sinema and House members like Jared Golden to ensure they're happy with it before you can count on their votes. 

[Biff Tannen 45492]

1 minute ago, Bruh Man said:

That's the issue with using reconciliation, it's an arduous process which takes weeks. But you need only 50 votes

If they had 60, it would have been done last week.
 

So it passed the Senate and is now sent to the House right?  Dems control the House.  Get that shit done.  Clearly there's something I'm not aware of.

[Ghost of LL 15483]

3 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

So it passed the Senate and is now sent to the House right?  Dems control the House.  Get that shit done.  Clearly there's something I'm not aware of.

They actually have to write the bill to send over to the House.  There were a bunch of amendments adopted last night, and they have to be put together into a single bill that can be voted on by the House.

[Js1 85104]

1 minute ago, Biff Tannen said:

So it passed the Senate and is now sent to the House right?  Dems control the House.  Get that shit done.  Clearly there's something I'm not aware of.

Nothing substantial passed.  They passed the resolution to do the reconciliation.  Now the House has to - but the House doesn't have a vote-a-rama deal, they'll likely pass the resolution today.  THEN they can actually start crafting what is in the $1.9T bill. 

All those amendments last night? Nonbinding grandstanding bullshit - the GOP just wanted Democrats on the record for things they think people will care about. 

The 2 chambers still have to pass identical versions of the bill - which means conference committees to hammer out differences.  Plus a lot of things will have to go through a Parliamentarian ruling on the Byrd Rule. 

• The first Bush Tax Cuts took a month to be signed into law using this process
• The second Bush Tax Cuts took 3 months to be signed into law using this process
• The ACA took 6 months to be signed into law using this process
• The Trump Tax Cuts took over a month to be signed into law using this process

[Biff Tannen 45492]

5 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Nothing substantial passed.  They passed the resolution to do the reconciliation.  Now the House has to - but the House doesn't have a vote-a-rama deal, they'll likely pass the resolution today.  THEN they can actually start crafting what is in the $1.9T bill. 

All those amendments last night? Nonbinding grandstanding bullshit - the GOP just wanted Democrats on the record for things they think people will care about. 

The 2 chambers still have to pass identical versions of the bill - which means conference committees to hammer out differences.  Plus a lot of things will have to go through a Parliamentarian ruling on the Byrd Rule. 

• The first Bush Tax Cuts took a month to be signed into law using this process
• The second Bush Tax Cuts took 3 months to be signed into law using this process
• The ACA took 6 months to be signed into law using this process
• The Trump Tax Cuts took over a month to be signed into law using this process

Gotcha.  I thought the actual bill was passed last night.  

[Js1 85104]

7 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Gotcha.  I thought the actual bill was passed last night.  

It's a quirky process.  By triggering the desire to use reconciliation, it starts a required debate and amendment vote-a-rama before you even vote to proceed with the reconciliation process

Obviously no surprise not a single Republican voted for reconciliation, because they don't want to be shut out of the process.  They brought that upon themselves with their completely unserious COVID relief proposal.  Sure, some proposals might end up in the final bill, like Romney's child poverty plan.  Other, like minimum wage, may be a separate bill. 

They can still vote for the final package if they so desire.  But we don't need them. 

The single biggest advantage we have on our side? Joe Biden.  Unlike Trump, he isn't going to cede negotiations to Congress and whine about it on Twitter.  In the end, it's Joe Biden's $1.9T plan and he's going to shepherd it through Congress. 

Joe and Kamala met with House leaders and Chairs this morning about the bill and he is addressing it shortly.  He met with the Senate side on Wednesday. 

Edited February 5, 2021 by Js1

[Js1 85104]

This doesn't sound like a guy who is going to lower the income threshold for money and lower the checks

 

 

 

[Js1 85104]

 

[SubliminalHorn 6674]

1 hour ago, Js1 said:

 

The single biggest advantage we have on our side? Joe Biden.  Unlike Trump, he isn't going to cede negotiations to Congress and whine about it on Twitter.  In the end, it's Joe Biden's $1.9T plan and he's going to shepherd it through Congress. 

Joe and Kamala met with House leaders and Chairs this morning about the bill and he is addressing it shortly.  He met with the Senate side on Wednesday. 

I think history will look back on Joe realizing he was exactly what was needed after the catastrophe of 2017-2021. Shit needs to get done NOW and Joe knows how to do it. 

[Bama Chick 28596]

[washparkhorn 9935]

Good news for Democrats - Larry Summers has rendered himself irrelevant as a Biden economic advisor.  Bravo - about time.

The kind of debt hysteria that helped sink the Obama stimulus—and the Democrats’ control of Congress—has largely been kept at bay for the first weeks of Biden’s term. Republicans have attempted to do their usual song-and-dance routine about the deficit, but Democrats haven’t been playing along. But with one op-ed in The Washington Post, Summers was able to revive one of the most tired bits in American politics. Biden was now being squeezed on spending by Republicans and Democrats.

Pity Larry Summers—debt scolding just doesn’t work the way it used to.

Quote

 

The Biden administration greeted the suggestion that his op-ed was being distributed like samizdat with an eye-roll. The Politico report has been followed by a series of officials dunking on the Summers column. First, they told The Washington Post’s Jeff Stein that the op-ed was not a thing and that Summers was not “influencing internal thinking.” Economic adviser Jared Bernstein then told the press that Summers was simply wrong. “This is risk management,” he said. “This is balancing risks, and in our view the risks of doing too little are greater than the risk of doing too much.” Nancy Pelosi, exiting a meeting with reporters, rolled her eyes, saying, “We did not talk about Larry Summers.” Biden himself came out to say that he was still backing $1,400 checks and that he viewed anything less as a broken promise.

Far from showing his continued influence over economic policymaking, Summers managed to show the opposite. This may have been, as Robert Kuttner suggests, an attempt at payback. Summers was quietly dumped from Biden’s team over the summer, and his efforts to regain the influential positions he held in the two previous Democratic administrations have been rebuffed. Ever self-important and petulant, Summers tried to roll Biden by stalling the $1.9 trillion plan’s momentum. All he ended up doing, instead, was demonstrating that he might finally be becoming irrelevant.

 

https://newrepublic.com/article/161269/larry-summers-finally-belatedly-irrelevant

 

[jimmyjazz 45554]

It's no surprise that the 'pubs are suddenly concerned with the deficit after kowtowing for 3+ years in the face of Trump's non-pandemic debt explosion.  I mean, we all predicted it.  Still, it has to be something like that first major health crisis of old age:  "Fuck, I knew I'd PROBABLY get cancer or have a heart attack or something like that, but really?  I have colon cancer?"

[Neonmoon 38127]

He ain’t wrong

 

[Biff Tannen 45492]

6 hours ago, Js1 said:

 

[NWBuck 8547]

8 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

He ain’t wrong

How about he shouldn't receive intel briefings until he demonstrates having intelligence.

I mean, it's not like he was even reading them when he was in office.

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19093]

Hey baby - need a dependent?
 

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19093]

Good policy is good policy.
He still put a dog in a kennel on the roof of his car so he can eat a dick for eternity, though.

I don’t like it as he takes away SALT deductions to pay for it. Also, as someone who will not have kids, this is taking money from me to pay for other people’s life choices.

I don’t want children in poverty, but there needs to be a real conversation about responsibility, further, if you do something like 4200 per child, that shit needs to have a cost of living adjustment, and you -ay for it by reforming the estate tax and through a wealth tax (over 10M in net assets).

I also think you have to cap the number of kids in a family. Up to 3-4 kids. If you are going more kids, then it starts getting phased out.

[washparkhorn 9935]

33 minutes ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

I don’t like it as he takes away SALT deductions to pay for it. Also, as someone who will not have kids, this is taking money from me to pay for other people’s life choices.

Taxation moderates inflation. It's a drain of excess dollars responsible for demand-pull inflation. We have very little demand-pull inflation, indicating taxation equilibrium as a possible cause of stability. (cost-push inflation occurs after demand-pull inflation, so it is irrelevant to present economic conditions).

Paygo is not necessary at this time. Stability makes the data cleaner. 

 

 

 

Edited February 6, 2021 by washparkhorn

[washparkhorn 9935]

And when it comes to mis-shapen Brit faces that worked out well:

Keira > Benjamin

[BradInATX 9208]

I don’t like it as he takes away SALT deductions to pay for it. Also, as someone who will not have kids, this is taking money from me to pay for other people’s life choices.

I don’t want children in poverty, but there needs to be a real conversation about responsibility, further, if you do something like 4200 per child, that shit needs to have a cost of living adjustment, and you -ay for it by reforming the estate tax and through a wealth tax (over 10M in net assets).

I also think you have to cap the number of kids in a family. Up to 3-4 kids. If you are going more kids, then it starts getting phased out.

Username checks out

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

2 hours ago, washparkhorn said:

And when it comes to mis-shapen Brit faces that worked out well:

Keira > Benjamin

Totally off topic but important question--what's the name of the actor on the far left with THE gaze? He looks familiar.

[Bama Chick 28596]

Allen Leech!

He played Tom Branson, the chauffeur and then estate manager and Lady Sybil’s husband on “Downton Abbey”.

I LOVED me some Branson!

[Bama Chick 28596]

Wait - you said “far left”.

Do you mean Benedict Cumberbatch?????






Please tell me you’ve watched the amazing and brilliant “Sherlock”!

[DonkeyCigars 144]

14 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

I’m fine with the $1400 spin; but no platform for means testing, only pavement.

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

35 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

Wait - you said “far left”.

Do you mean Benedict Cumberbatch?????






Please tell me you’ve watched the amazing and brilliant “Sherlock”!

No I haven't, but I will now. Yowza.

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

Add--it's not that the Allen Leech fellow isn't attractive, but the other man caught my eye first and I couldn't place who he was. Thanks for the tip on the show!

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

1 hour ago, DonkeyCigars said:

I’m fine with the $1400 spin; but no platform for means testing, only pavement.

You should save some time and just put "no means testing" in your signature.