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GOP rising star Dan Crenshaw (R, TX) criticized the proposed 70% income tax rate by Dem rising star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D, NY) was rebuffed by her and a swarm of her defenders.
Dem RS: 1, GOP RS: 0.
If Republicans can’t win on the tax issue, they are in trouble. They messed up on another pocketbook issue, healthcare.
Even when handed a gift in the form of a shortfall of income tax receipts in NY.
There she goes again. The new Lizzie Borden, also from Massachusetts.
This should be good. I’d love to hear the response from Sen. Warren’s and other Democratic constituencies. This will hit directly the most Democratic districts and states: California, Massachusetts, and New York. CA has Hollywood and Silicon Valley; MA has financial firms in Boston, as well as and IT and Biotech firms in the state; NY has financial firms and real estate firms in Manhattan. As well, Palm Beach County, FL is another Democratic stronghold — except for one Republican out of four who represent the county in the federal government.
Can you imagine the lobbying that would occur if this is seriously debated? The legislation would contain loopholes made specifically by Democrats to exclude their constituents, or at least minimize the taxation.
She is like a neglected child screaming for attention.
Intro:
A recent study finds that the most extreme opponents of GMO food have the lowest levels of relevant scientific knowledge, but also tend to believe they know much more than they actually do.
The reality of GMO foods:
The study itself is available here. As the authors point out, scientists overwhelmingly conclude that GMO foods are no more risky than “natural” ones, yet many in the general public continue to believe they should be severely restricted or even banned.
The setup:
“Sirius XM radio host and Fox News Contributor David Webb brought Martin onto his radio show to discuss diversity in media, and he noted that he has always considered his accomplishments to be more important than his skin color when applying to jobs […] “I’ve chosen to cross different parts of the media world, done the work so that I’m qualified to be in each one. I never considered my color to be the issue — I considered my qualifications to be the issue,” Webb explained.”
CNN’s Areva Martin replies:
After Webb said that expertise and experience are what matter, Martin interjected: “That’s a whole ‘nother long conversation about white privilege, the things that you have the privilege of doing, that people of color don’t have the privilege of.”
But guess what? He’s on the side of those being exploited and is defending them.
“But the New Class isn’t limited to communist countries, really. Around the world in the postwar era, power was taken up by unelected professional and managerial elites. To understand what’s going on with President Donald Trump and his opposition, and in other countries as diverse as France, Hungary, Italy and Brazil, it’s important to realize that the post-World War II institutional arrangements of the Western democracies are being renegotiated, and that those democracies’ professional and managerial elites don’t like that very much, because they have done very well under those arrangements. And, like all elites who are doing very well, they don’t want that to change.”
Far from not impacting our lives, the federal government shutdown illustrates how much it has invaded our day-to-day lives. Airport delays, delayed Initial Public Offerings of stock of new firms, craft beer makers, and small businesses are just some of the examples.
Another group of people who are adversely impacted are American Indians.
“The shutdown has hit Native American tribes especially hard because so many of their basic services depend on federal funding,” notes the Washington Post. Education, health care, road maintenance, and other services on reservations are often run by the federal government or run by tribal employees paid by the federal government.
That dependency has long resulted in mismanaged and low-quality services for the million people who live on reservations. In the New York Times, one tribal leader spoke of federal support, “The federal government owes us this: We prepaid with millions of acres of land,” while another said the shutdown “adversely affects a population that is already adversely affected by the United States government.”
If I didn’t know better, I’d think the people who are downplaying the shutdown’s impact on our lives are defending the growth of government.
The Democrats are the Party of the Rich. They were swept into the House majority by a revolt of the elites. This party of Orange County, Westchester County, and Chicago’s North Shore is playing the part, wasting no time pushing policies to hand special tax breaks to their upper-middle-class constituents.
Consider Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y. As the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, former chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and in the top 10 in seniority among Democrats, Lowey is among the most powerful members of Congress.
She has introduced two bills so far. One is the appropriations measure to reopen the government. The other is a major tax cut for the rich.
Lowey’s bill would undo exactly one part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act: the limit on deductibility of state and local taxes, including property taxes. The law capped the state and local tax deduction, or SALT deduction, at $10,000.
That cap doesn’t affect most tax filers. If you claim the standard deduction, as most taxpayers do, you don’t benefit from the SALT deduction. Since tax reform nearly doubled the standard deduction, about 88 percent of all taxpayers will not itemize. If your state and local taxes are at or below $10,000 per year, you also aren’t affected by the cap.
The cap on the SALT deduction mostly cut into the tax breaks of high earners in high-tax places.
In the U.S., the Democratic party is the party of government and fully embracing of progressivism. The Republican party’s message is muddled. They say they are for smaller government, more freedom, and constitutionally limited government, but they too crave control.
Politicians, government employees, political insiders crave control, certainty, and stability. You hear them talk about stability of financial markets, of job markets, of domestic social and global situations. When they complain about “market fundamentalism”, the break-up of the family, wealth disparities, etc. they are making a play for control over the lives of the citizenry.
With that in mind, view any issue from the perspective of politicians. Growing a government bureaucracy is one way of maintaining control. The people employed in government agencies hold jobs in the bureaucracy. They are voters as well, but they are just as self-interested in their job security, money, respect, social acceptance, celebrity, and public adoration as anyone else. You see, money is not the only form of recognition. So when anyone cites something other than money when they are recognized for some achievement, they are seeking recognition by other means — as I listed above. They may feel good about themselves for avoiding recognition via cash payment, but they, nonetheless, are still seeking something. They are not selfless.
Mr. Grant:
You ask how I “dare infer” that my “self-centered desire” to trade with foreigners as I choose should “outweigh the American people’s verdict to have our President conduct our trade in ways which he concludes advances our national interest.”
I ask how you dare infer that Donald Trump’s – or Chuck Schumer’s, or Lindsey Graham’s, or Bernie Sanders’s, or Peter Navarro’s, or Sherrod Brown’s, or Steve Bannon’s, or you-name-the-arrogant-brute’s – self-interested desire to prevent me from trading with foreigners should outweigh my own verdict, when spending my own money, to conduct my trade in ways that I conclude will advance my own interest.
How I spend my money is none of Trump’s – or American voters’ – business. Nor is it any of your business. Also none of Trump’s or American-voters’ business is how you spend your money. Nor is it any of mine.
To the extent that we embrace your and Trump’s belief that government officials have a right to superintend how each individual spends his or her own money, we treat our rights as garbage and become hapless beasts of burden for those whom we gullibly permit to shove their bridles into our mouths. I’ll have none of it.
My sentiments exactly.
While President Trump stays in Washington, D.C. during the government shutdown, Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi and another California Congresswoman Maxine Waters vacation in Hawaii and the Bahamas, respectively.
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