That is a philosophical difference that many tend to have. Allowing people to keep more of their own money is a gift, a theft, a subsidy from the government. Raising taxes is unacceptable, unless it’s on other people, particularly those who make more, then it’s making people pay their “fair share”.
I dislike the rhetoric that assumes the government owns it all, and I hate class warfare.
This tax bill is very much class warfare in increasing the advantage of capital (mainly owned by the top of the upper class) over labor (how almost everyone else earns his/her money).
Reminder that the ACA was written over a year and had 100 Republican amendments.
They’re not comparable.
I think the equivalence is that the democrat-controlled House and Senate rammed through the ACA while the Senate still had a 60-vote super majority and was veto-proof, before Scott Brown (R-MA, as shocking as that was) could be inducted as Senator, which gave the Rs 41 votes.
The Ds assumed the special election would be a slam-dunk for Martha Coakley, who assumed the election was more of a coronation than an election, and ran a terrible campaign.
And while the Senate vote was strictly partisan, in the House more than 30 Ds voted against the ACA (most likely for political reasons).
I agree. I don’t like much of this bill, though I am attempting to look at it honestly, without an overly biased eye.
One of the things I dislike the most about it is the class warfare it has and will generate. I think the next several elections will completely change the makeup of Congress. And we will go back to the “pay their fair share”, the evil and selfish 1%, all that kind of rhetoric again.
I normally stay out of these type of post but I do find it interesting the business response so far today. AT&T announced 1k bonus to 200k employees and 1 billion of capital investments, Boeing announcing a $300 million investment in employees and now Fifth Third Bank just announced they are increasing minimum hourly wage to $15 an hour and a $1k bonus to 13,500 employees. All stating in response to the corporate tax cut from the newly passed bill. It will be interesting to see how other industries and companies respond over the coming days and weeks.
Initial reaction from both sides of the argument are interesting to me but like most things, time will tell if this passage will be good or bad. From the initial information I’ve seen at least for me and my family this will be favorable based on some of the calculators I played around with this morning.
Funny that it’s never called “class warfare” when the super-wealthy are winning, as they certainly did with this bill.
ATT is trying to curry favor with the administration so the Justice Department will stop blocking the ATT- Time Warner merger. Nothing could be more transparent.
Interesting about the AT&T announcement.
Someone please remind me how that Carrier thing turned out.
A one-time bonus makes a good PR but does not commit the employer to paying higher salary going forward.
It gets even better. (Bolding is mine)
I’d be more cynical if I wasn’t so jaded.
No surprises here, except perhaps that the media is doing a pretty good job of holding people accountable.
Remember, the ink isn’t dry on the bill yet.
Increase in class warfare is probably inevitable, unless something else like race/ethnicity warfare crowds it out. Consider the following trends:
You might associate the “pay your fair share” and “99% versus 1%” stuff with the Dems, but they have not really been effective at stopping these trends. However, the GOP appears to want to accelerate them. These trends tend to lead to the direction of a “Latin American country stereotype” economy, often with resulting political instability, including support for far-left politics (far more left wing than even the Bernie Sanders fans among the Dems) that tend to lead to poor outcomes if they win (see Venezuela).
The upper middle class that appears to be well represented on these forums may be seen as the most conveniently taxable people by both the plutocrat class and the lower to middle classes.
I don’t think anyone except the die hard 30ish% who have blinders on are fooled by this bill.
“Opposition to the bill has grown 10 points since early November, and 55% now oppose it. Just 33% say they favor the GOP’s proposals to reform the nation’s tax code.”
http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/19/politics/cnn-poll-tax-bill-opposition-grows/index.html
If you live in Washington, DC and own your home:
ATT claims they are giving out an additional bonus because of the tax bill, along with the one mandated by the contract:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/20/tax-reform-reaction-att-is-giving-bonuses-to-200000-employees.html
So members of Congress and the executive branch who happen to own a home or condo in DC will get a benefit the rest of us in the country won’t. Call me shocked.
Actually, many people around the country will be able to do the exact same thing. It depends on what the rules are where you live. Some places allow it, some can’t handle it.
Contact whoever you pay your property taxes to, and ask what you can do. Maybe you will be surprised.
"Everyone? You’re forgetting a lot of people who are paying less and getting more. Millions of people get premium subsidies. Millions of people benefit from the Medicaid expansion. Some people above the subsidy level are paying less and getting more because they are now able to buy insurance at all, whereas before they had to fund their expensive health care out of pocket.
If you add up the number of people eligible for Medicaid expansion, plus the number of people who are subsidized, plus the number of people who are above subsidy level but who would have been denied insurance, that’s bigger than the number of people above subsidy level who would otherwise have been able to purchase cheaper insurance.
I urge you to be more accurate in future statements, @yourmomma. (But thank you for paying our tax increase next year.)"
Have you seen the deductibles. They are ridiculous. It was a bait and switch. Here’s your “low” subsidized premium. But good luck meeting your deductible. Makes you feel warm and fuzzy until your savings are snatched away at the first illness. But I’m glad you like it. For the rest of us, it sucks.
" In any case, the individual mandate came to be seen more as an anti-American loss of freedom and even the Heritage Foundation, which was trying to protect health insurance companies, turned against it. After several years of the ACA, I wonder how this will play out. It was killed in the tax bill in order to save money for the feds so they could give a bigger tax break to corporations. But if people continue to buy health insurance and use federal subsidies to do so, it won’t save the feds money. "
Yep a classic gimmick to make the “numbers work.” Doesn’t mean a darn thing in real life as people will buy what they buy.