Now that the tax looting bill passed last night, let’s think about the ads that can be run:
Senator X just voted to increase your taxes on your home while allowing rich assholes to write off their private jets that bring them to the Caribbean ….
Senator X just voted to make it harder for your kids to finish their education but the rich assholes who go to Shadyside Academy get cheaper tuition… is that fair?
My first thought this morning is a simple one. How difficult is it to write an enforceable tax on net personal assets over a fairly large threshold ($100 million was my first spitball figure)? I would split this into two elements. The first would be confiscatory inheritance taxes over that threshold and the second would be a tax roughly equal to the rate of the 30 year Treasury. Concentrated wealth is killing the US democratic experiment.
Mary G
I agree.
Baud
I don’t understand the second tax.
debbie
Also, Senator X has never given a shit about the deficit and this vote proves that.
David Anderson
@Baud: If someone has several hundred million dollars in assets, they pay 3% or 4% of the asset value every year over and above income taxes,
David Anderson
@debbie: No one gives a shit about the deficit. It is a scary sounding word that is used to label “The economy feels shitty”
Fuck the deficit until interest rates means we have to give a shit about it.
Ken
“Senator X just voted to increase your share of the national debt by $4500.”
“These are the Joneses, a young couple trying to make ends meet. Bill, Mary, and little Jake and Amy. Senator X just voted to increase their family’s share of the national debt by eighteen thousand dollars.”
Victor Matheson
Inheritance is easy. Make all inheritance taxable as regular income. Don’t tax inheritances. Tax those who inherit. Give everyone, say, $1,000,000 in free inheritance from each death. Or just keep the current inheritance system. Either way, this stuff only takes a shred of moral courage to do.
Wealth taxes are harder. Some assets for the are hard to value, especially for very large estates. Think about privately held firms, art collections, intellectual property, etc. also, many assets are pretty illiquid. That being said, wealth taxes are a feature of other countries including France (at least historically).
PeakVT
IANAL but I don’t see how a wealth tax works with the 5th Amendment.
Besides, if the votes exist for a wealth tax then the votes exist to craft something with the same effect within the bounds of the (increasingly dated) Constitution.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: OT: Per our discussion on compass apps the other night, have you tried the compass app on the edge panel? Also try sidesynch, you can put your phone in a window on your pc. Very slick.
Ken
@David Anderson: (1) Too easy to game with corporate structures. (2) Someone will notice the resemblance to the zakat and start shrieking about Sharia.
JMG
Increased capital gains, dividend and interest income taxes would do the trick almost as well as part two.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Jesus don’t let the heirs keep $100 million. I say one residence (you can keep the place in the Hamptons, or the ski chalet, or the co-op in NYC, but you got to pick one) plus each direct heir gets $1 million. That’s a pretty good start in life. The rest gets liquidated and taxed away and goes to uncle Sam.
OzarkHillbilly
Where does the death penalty fit in?
cosima
I saw a comment elsewhere about language included in this that expands the federal judiciary. Does anyone have specifics on that? Perhaps one of the larger newspapers behind a paywall?
mai naem mobile
A transaction tax on real estate and Wall Street products. No exceptions.
Emma
(Billionaire) gave (senator) (amount) over the last (years). Now Senator ( ) has voted to give (billionaire) millions of dollars in tacx breaks while taking your parents medicare and your children’s education away. We should let (billionaire) and (senator) know how we feel about it. Vote democratic!
OzarkHillbilly
Don’t forget reining in corporations.
Scott S.
The ads should be easy, but by the next election, ISPs will be blocking any content critical of Trump or Republicans, and most newspapers and TV stations will be owned by right-wing billionaires.
Emma
Writing on a kindle is harder than I thought.
SFAW
@Emma:
I don’t know if there’s anyone at the DNC in charge of “media strategy” (or however it should be classified), but you should consider sending this (and the other versions/variations you’ve posted) to their attention. Don’t know if they have plans to slam the Rethugs every day, but if they do, they’d probably use something like this.
Barb 2
Marching onward to eliminate the Middle Class. Making it harder for students to go to college. Rich WHITE kids only. Death certificates of the future — the cause of death — GOP.
A whole lot of people have the stupids — mostly they don’t care. Traitors — everyone who voted for Trump and the rest of the GOP. We are at war — but this is just one battle. The GOP voted this way on the day that Flynn via the FBI let it be known that he was going to turn on Trump — that is the big fish upstairs — Right? Trump — the Orange Monster.
Trying not to be ill — I can’t stand to look at a Trump photo or hear him talk. He makes me physically ill. Anyone else having this sort of reaction?
Remember gang –this was a battle, the war with Putin will continue. Putin’s puppets are dancing tonight/today — our day will come,
Thanks, all of you Ballon Juicers. Together we will win the war.
Trump, sex pervert, is not my President.
I am seeing more bumper stickers which read — Don’t blame me — I didn’t vote for him.
How long before we see a worldwide depression? Look at Kansas. This tax cut for the Rich really went well in Kansas. As Kansas goes — so goes the USA.
Princess
Yes. We need some kind of a wealth tax. Anyone who claims to be a progressive who does not propose a wealth tax,
is not a progressive.
beth
The problem is that the cuts that will really hurt people won’t happen for a while. I’ve already talked to one neighbor who’s delighted about getting back a measly $1000 extra next year and thinks it shows how great Trump is. As for rich people well “they pay more in taxes, it’s only fair they should get a higher tax cut”. This is what we’re up against. Until the economy collapses again and people start really hurting, it just won’t sink in how hard they got screwed last night.
HinTN
We have been here before. We came out better and stronger as a country and a people.
Viva BrisVegas
Nobody seems to want to say it, but Warren Buffet was right.
Even from where I am the response to the Tax Scam Bill is obvious, win the state houses in 2018 or go home and hope the 0.1% feel generous.
Hildebrand
This is what I have never understood about the very rich – just how much damn money do you really need? The unmitigated greed is incomprehensible to me. They literally have everything they could possible need or want, and yet it isn’t enough? Good god, how empty is your soul that you have to keep shoveling money into it to feel something.
Wilson Heath
First 100+ years of federal tax had not just tariffs and liquor excise, but also excise on high falooting goods. These days that could translate to a lot of the trappings of excess wealth, like planes, yachts, high-end real estate, luxury and exotic cars–all of those should be easy enough to track, you would think.
Baud
@David Anderson: Thanks. That’s unconstitutional at the federal level unfortunately.
LurkerNoLonger
Keep it simple: Representitve or Senator (pasty white guy) gave billionaires a tax break paid for by raising your taxes and cutting your grandma’s Medicare.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I just discovered that. It doesn’t have an altimeter, but otherwise it’ll work for my needs.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Well I am sure the bill will morph in reconciliation what ever else happens next.
I am still amazed it took them a 11 months and a midnight vote just do a tax for their own donors.
The add should be “Senator X (r) sole legislative accomplishment was a tax cut for his donors. Perhaps it’s time for someone willing to do the job?”
Brachiator
Easy to write. Tough to get passed given the current political environment.
However, a tax on assets is unfair and confiscatory. You would force people to potentially have to sell assets in order to pay their taxes?
TS
@Hildebrand:
More than the others have got & then multiply by a million. It’s revolting, unending greed highlighted by golden loos. And when you’ve got all that money you decorate the White house to look like the ghost train after everyone’s gone home.
I am thankful to have a home and to meet the bills each month with a little left over to help the kiddo. I cannot imagine why these morons think they need more – but every GOP member of congress will benefit financially from this bill – as will many of the democrats and they all voted NO.
HAL
I’m convinced McCain’s vote was all about his kids getting their inheritance without that pesky estate tax. This is a gift to his children when their parents have passed on and they get to roll around in hundreds of millions of dollars. Trump’s kids must be ecstatic, though I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump isn’t worth anywhere near what he says he’s worth.
The Simp in the Suit
@Hildebrand: Very, very few people don’t want “more.”
Very, very few people can define “more.”
They just know they want it.
SFAW
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Change “his donors” to “millionaires and billionaires” or “the ultra-rich who bought his/her vote”; most people have no idea who the “donors” are.
Thoroughly Pizzled
Considering that this has all proceeded as a grotesque parody of the ACA battle, we’re at the point in the timeline where McCain croaks and Speaker Ryan must convince his caucus to vote for the Senate bill without alteration.
Chyron HR
@Brachiator:
No, I would have them ground up into hamburger helper for people at homeless shelters, but that’s probably politically untenable.
Starfish
Increase the capital gains tax. Tax all the hedge fund managers appropriately.
bemused
@Hildebrand:
I’ve smh about this for decades. Part of it could be their competitive need to do more than keep up with the Jones in their peer richey rich groups. They have to buy more and larger tricked out mcmansions, bigger yachts, etc. I also think they are hoarders with similar compulsions as hoarders who fill their homes with cats or every bit of trash they can’t bear to part with.
Jeffro
You could highlight (in tv ads, speeches, social media, etc) one aspect per week of this ridiculous bill and really do some damage, even in reddish districts. Any Dem who doesn’t is wasting our time.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Barb 2:
Right there with you, only I got there during the campaign, long before I knew we were going to get stuck with him.
Brachiator
Another poster here noted that the GOP engineered a huge tax cut in 1926, which may have contributed to the Great Depression. And a recent WaPo article opened with this:
An early reference to trickle down. The GOP keeps trying the same bad ideas, and ruining the country as a result.
We’ve got to vote these bums out of office.
schrodingers_cat
Remember folks that this R^2 coup could not have happened without media’s assistance ( I am looking at you Atlantic, NYT, PBS and NPR along with the R wing outlets)
The latter keep the frightened and the crazy in a constant state of froth and the former spread apathy with their both-sides-do-it shit and pretending that R ideas are conventional wisdom.
*R==Russian
*R==Republican
Cheryl Rofer
@HinTN: This
We can do it. Si, se puede.
d58826
Sorry but if anyone thinks that this will be reversed in any meaningful way by a D controlled government, well there must be a bridge somewhere that hasn’t already given it’s all for this bill. We are still living with the toxic legacy of the ‘real’ and imagined miracle of the Reagan tax cuts.
Hildebrand
@The Simp in the Suit: I get the impulse, I guess. I just have never been able to fathom the need for the ultra rich to be even richer. When my wife and fantasize about winning the lottery, we think about how nice it would be to fix up the house, own a car that you don’t have to hope lasts another year, and maybe even have enough to get back to traveling. I guess I will just never understand the insatiable desire for more, especially if that ‘more’ meant that I was screwing everyone else.
mad citizen
A couple weeks ago Neil Young’s “Alabama” was in my head (his online archives just opened, by the way–free). Lately it’s been this one–if the DK’s would allow it used in the political ads, that would be the way, especially the chorus:
“Kill the Poor” by the Dead Kennedys
Efficiency and progress is ours once more
Now that we have the Neutron bomb
It’s nice and quick and clean and gets things done
Away with excess enemy
But no less value to property
No sense in war but perfect sense at home
The sun beams down on a brand new day
No more welfare tax to pay
Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light
Jobless millions whisked away
At last we have more room to play
All systems go to kill the poor tonight
Gonna kill kill kill kill kill the poor
Kill kill kill kill kill the poor
Kill kill kill kill kill the poor tonight
Behold the sparkle of champagne
The crime rate’s gone, feel free again
Oh, life’s a breeze with you, Miss Lily White
Jane Fonda on the screen today
Convinced the liberals it’s okay
So let’s…
scottinnj
Keep it simple:
1) Raise Social Security benefits by (say) 25% across the board
2) Eliminate the income cap on FICA. Apply FICA to interest/dividend//capital gains (above perhaps some threshold like $2500 per annum)
3) Most families less than $75k in income pay more in social security tax than income tax. (2) would raise a meaningful amount of money, so take that income, and waive FICA withholding on the first $ of wage income up to some level. IF, say, the first 15000 of wage income was exempt from social security thats about $900 per annum.
Emma
I am so tired of posters that just show up to tell us how terrible things are, how much more terrible they will get, and how we will never, ever, ever going to fix it. Do they pay you a bounty per suicide or nervous breakdown?
None of us here are naive. Some of us have been in this planet for over six decades. Yes, dammit, we know exactly how bad it is. We know that this will be a long, bloody battle. But what is the alternative?
Don’t take the air out of the room.
vtr
Charles Koch is 82 years old. He has right now $48.3 billion. I go for walks sometimes asking myself, “What in god’s name is wrong with that guy? At his age what does he get out of destroying things?” I remember the scene in “Chinatown” when Jake is talking with the John Houston character, asking why he’s running water supply scam. Houston, an old man, replies “The future, Jake, the future.”
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Barb 2: I turn off the TV or radio when Trump appears or talks. I especially can’t stand his lying, breathy voice.
d58826
@Cheryl Rofer: If you are talking about the progress from the Gilded Age, then your correct. But it took over 100 years, two world wars and one great depression to get to that more perfect union of the Obama years. We all thought that those gains were secure and look how quickly they can be undone. Depending on all of the damage It could take another 100+ years to recover. Of course flipping the House could go a long way to stopping the bleeding but I think flipping the Senate is more important. It is only in a D controlled Senate that Trump’s fascist judicial picks can be stopped. What ever legislative victories that a D Congress/Potus can achieve or whatever victories at the state level can and will be reversed by a reactionary SCOTUS. The obstructionist court of the early 20th century was only stopped by FDR’s court packing threat and the famous ‘switch in time that saved nine’ in 1937. Prior to that much of FDR’s New Deal was stopped dead in it’s tracks by SCOTUS
Yarrow
The Senate is worth focusing on but every member of the House is up for re-election in 2018. Let’s focus on them too. The House members voted for this crappy bill, or a version of it, and they’re not getting beaten up enough about it.
I think the short and sweet phrase that sums it up best is: “Representative X just voted himself a tax cut and made you pay for it.”
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
An ad with almost those exact words against Rod Blum (R) is running in Iowa right now.
Immanentize
I always like to quote Andrew Carnegie ofn the topic of a 100% estate tax:
Many of these actual-Gilded-Age plutocrats understood the effect of huge transfers of generational wealth was bad for character and country. I agree.
Yarrow
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): Excellent news! I hope those ads run everywhere. It can be a Democrat catchphrase. The Republicans are good at short and sweet words and phrases that make bad things sound good and good things sound bad. Democrats need some better marketing help.
Baud
@Emma:
At this point I just assume they are people who lack faith in the ability of a future browner America to accomplish anything useful.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@SFAW: “Donner” has a negative connotation in many people’s mind. As other’s say, short to the point and I am saying we should use the Right’s own trigger words in it too.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: This tax bill can be christened the Donner Party Act.
O. Felix Culpa
@d58826: We are not entitled to an easy life. I don’t like things the way they are in the U.S. right now, but I have it thousandfold better than most people throughout the world today and throughout history. I have relatives who lived through the horrors of war, forced conscription, aerial bombing, and starvation. They didn’t choose that either, but they struggled to keep going nonetheless.
I know it feels rotten and it’s ok to feel down at times. But we’re still here, we support each other, and we fight.
We’re not dead yet.
Yarrow
@(((CassandraLeo))): OMG, that is brilliant. Let’s make it trend!
Villago Delenda Est
As foretold by well known Communist Thomas Jefferson.
sixthdoctor
Honestly, my ad as written is more of a bitchy told-ya-so than an effective ad designed to change minds, but maybe it can be shaped to speak to betrayed Trump voters:
[ominous music]
VO: Donald Trump has lied to you.
DT: “This tax bill is bad for me, believe me…”
[statement or expert about how bill gives DT huge break]
VO: Donald Trump thinks you’re a sucker.
DT: “We’re going to bring those jobs back!”
[graph or expert showing increased outsourcing]
VO: Donald Trump is laughing at you.
[Video of Trump with Mnunchin with split screen of dollar bill pic]
VO: It’s time to fight back.
[Insert ticket here 2018 or 2020]
I vacillate a lot between “we have to help these people” and Captain Kirk’s “Let them die” so this script reflects it…
Zach
Estimate exactly how much everyone running for reelection (+ their families) will personally benefit from the tax bill. Pair that with estimates of how much Trump and his cabinet members’ families will benefit (many billions). Estimate how many people will have a tax increase (in 2027 or whenever that number is the maximum). Estimate how many people will lose health insurance.
Put those four numbers together into a compelling ad personalized for every district/state in the country. End with a URL where people can compare how much $ they get to how much their GOP representatives and Trump will get.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@d58826: Oh cut the doomsaying out and take a step back for Christ’s sake. If the conservatives had their shit together it wouldn’t have taken them 11 months, and a midnight vote to give their own donors a damn tax cut when they have sole control over the government. The basic idea “pay off my big spenders” in that bill isn’t exactly pushing the envelope of our political system what’s amazing is how difficult it was for them to do it. Not to mention the Republicans have another can to act like pigs at the troth before the nation and possibly even fail with reconciliation.
d58826
@O. Felix Culpa: I know we are not guaranteed an easy life but we don’t have to go out of our way to remove the tools that sand off the rough edges from many people just to give more to the few that have more than enough sandpaper to take care of those rough edges.
SFAW
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
“Donner” does, as (((Cassandra Leo))) pointed out; “donor” does not, except among the inside-baseball crowd, because “donors” are seen by a lot of society (as opposed to “high society” of course) as giving money for causes that are often good. Or did the term “donation” change, so that it now has a negative connotation, and I missed that?
O. Felix Culpa
@d58826: I don’t recall saying that we should make life harder for people. I agree that the GOP actions are wrong and I have been fighting them nonstop before the election and since. I understand feeling angry and depressed and feel that way plenty of times myself. And then I get up and fight some more. I’m not willing to surrender to those bastards. They don’t deserve to win and they can’t take my spirit from me.
SFAW
@Yarrow:
Lather, rinse, repeat.
SFAW
@O. Felix Culpa:
Thank you, both for saying that, and doing what you said. Should be a banner on our walls, tubes, etc.
ETA: And I just printed it out, in 24-point, so that I keep getting reminded.. Thanks again.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@SFAW:
I take it you haven’t read Bill Bennett’s writing (for lack of a better word) literally praising the Donner Party’s cannibalism, then. I won’t link it, because it is nauseating.
@Yarrow: Thanks
d58826
@O. Felix Culpa: sorry misunderstood your comment.
My problem is I have been a pessimist all of my life but still keep putting one foot in front of the other. Kinda hard to change now but am always pleased when things turn out for the better
O. Felix Culpa
@d58826: I get it. Life provides cause for pessimism…and optimism too. We’re here for each other. Hang in there. {{{hugs}}}
ETA: And now I have to head out to our excellent Dem rep’s reelection campaign kickoff, followed by a strategy meeting to elect a Dem mayor. Cheerio!
Tokyokie
@Barb 2: I can’t stand to listen, or even see him, either. He’s the pinnacle of achievement that this class of eugenics-believing fascist assholes could produce despite the lack of a single redeeming human virtue? My cats regularly hark up hairballs more worthy of respect than der Trumpenführer. He’s pure evil, and the religious phonies who form the GOP’s base haven’t merely embraced evil, they haven’t merely let evil shove its tongue down their throats, they’ve dropped their trousers and offered up their assholes for evil’s pleasure, and they do so every day because, in their defiant ignorance, they believe that it brings them closer to God.
Anyway, my ad goes something like this: “Alice Walton inherited billions of dollars from her Walmart-founding father. Without having to do a single day’s work her entire life, her fortune has swelled to an estimated $45 billion. And [generic GOP candidate] voted to destroy your parents’ healthcare and your children’s higher education, because he thought Alice Walton needed more money.”
SFAW
@(((CassandraLeo))):
Fortunately, you are correct. Although I find Bennett nauseating to begin with, that hypocritical, evil fuck, so I don’t need additional confirmation.
SFAW
@d58826:
I’ve been a pessimist far too often in my life.
Try substituting righteous anger for pessimism, then leverage that. Not a panacea, but it’s a start.
NJDave
@Starfish: IMHO, eliminate the special treatment for capital gains and dividends. Tax capital gains and dividends as ordinary income. And, I think it goes without saying, increase the progressively of the tax code by adding more brackets at higher incomes.
B.B.A.
Some suggestions for replacement taxes from an always reliable source.
Another Scott
Morning everyone.
There are a lot of things broken about the way we fund our local, state, and national governments. And the way money moves and hides around the world. Fixing it will require lots of changes with sustained efforts. That means finding ways to do it so that we can win election cycle after election cycle. That means doing it in a way that the vast majority of voters see the impact of the changes every year.
The way I think about these things is framed by a few bottom-line opinions I have:
1) There is too much savings in the USA (and around the world) held by too many well-off people who won’t spend it. That’s why interest rates have been so low for so long. There’s a mountain of things that people need and pent-up demand, but the money to do it is locked-up and held by people who aren’t spending it.
2) Too many normal people don’t have enough money to pay their expenses, have a cushion for unexpected bills, and save for retirement (or help send their kids and relations to school, or take the risk to start a business, or be able to get out of a painful or dangerous job, or …).
3) Too many localities are unable to improve their local circumstances as a result of regional or state laws against new or increased taxes. Similarly with transportation authorities.
4) The impact of changes in one area of the tax structure on the whole tax structure have to be examined.
5) It’s clear that too many people have gamed the system over the last 50 years. The distinction between earned and unearned income needs to go. The rules about what companies and trusts and the various types of corporations can do to claim nonsensical expenses and losses and exclusions and credits and all the rest needs to be overhauled.
With all that said, I think a strong case can be made for the following (of course the devil’s in the details):
a) No individual making the USA median income of the previous year should have to pay federal income tax this year. Similarly with joint filers. IOW, make the personal exemption much higher. This addresses #2 above and would have a clear and immediate impact on normal people. Scale the exemption to make it partially refundable too, for those at the bottom of the income ladder. Have several progressive tax brackets above there, with surcharges for very high incomes (say over $5M) at least until things are better balanced.
b) Tax accumulated wealth at a higher rate, above some sensible level. Get the excess savings and accumulated wealth out of the vaults and circulating in the economy. Treat earned and unearned income at least equivalently, maybe tax unearned income higher (actual work should be rewarded, not being in a position to game a system to direct unearned rewards your way). Impose a sensible financial transaction tax. Impose a sensible services tax. Impose a sensible tax on the ownership and sale of luxury goods like art, yachts, private and corporate aircraft, and all the rest. If that also means paying your gardener and cleaning staff and financial adviser more, then do it. That addresses #1.
c) Reform laws about local, regional, and state taxing authorities. And/or dramatically increase “revenue sharing” from the federal government. #3.
d) If we can use laws about access to the US banking system to go after rogue nuclear states and drug traffickers and money launderers, we can use it to go after tax evaders. #4.
e) Our economy isn’t more efficient in having multiple layers of leasing and ownership and so forth of America’s plant and equipment. It’s (mainly) only done to game the tax system. Companies buying each other out and merging and breaking up again every 10 years or so is too often done to enrich management and the banksters while destroying long-term value, communities, and the lives of thousands. Forbid the use of buyouts financed by debt dumped on the bought entity. Forbid the deduction of abusive “expenses” for such buyouts. Etc. Tilt the M&A activity back to what makes sense in terms of fundamentals rather than skeevy tax machinations. And tilt the balance away from “bigness” and monopoly/monopsony in the economy.
I’d start with a-c very early on while working on the details of d-e.
My $0.02.
Have a good weekend, everyone. Back to the barricades on Monday!
Cheers,
Scott.
d58826
@O. Felix Culpa: BJ is a suportive place to vent
Villago Delenda Est
@(((CassandraLeo))): Which is one of many reasons why Bill Bennett deserves to die a slow, agonizing death.
tony in san diego
@David Anderson: If someone has several billion in assets, I don’t know why they are bitching about taxes. So now they can only buy the 250 foot yacht instead of the 275 foot yacht.
Baud
And I see that Atrios has greeted the day by attacking Democrats.
Maybe the rich really do deserve their wealth.
Cheryl Rofer
@d58826: You’re not wrong about the history, although I’d argue in a few places – the world wars were about European dysfunction, not America’s golden age. But we know more now about how to fix things, even if we have 27% + who want to deny that. So yes, let’s flip the House and Senate and put things back the way they should be!
Si se puede
Emma
@Baud: His was one of the blogs I read first. Lasted about two months. Never went back.
O. Felix Culpa
@SFAW: Blushes. Thank you. This is a good community. The jackals have been a lifeline for me.
schrodingers_cat
@O. Felix Culpa: @Baud: Yes to what both of you say. Who is Atrios and why do you read him. Acolyte of the Vt senator?
Emma
Can I point out something? The problem is not that people make billions. I’d like to! The problem is that our economic system allows companies (1) to grow like fungus and (2) to saddle the tax payers with their loses. REGULATION is what is needed. Ways to keep Joe Kochsuker from buying up the universe and saddling us with his bankruptcy.
Cheryl Rofer
And I will note that for the grandchild of German immigrants who were attacked for being German, Trader Joe’s lebkuchen are marvelous comfort food.
AnotherBruce
“Warren Buffet was right”
Hey Warren, you’re a billionaire, right? If you care that much, how about putting your money where your mouth is, and buy some media, maybe start a “compassionate billionaires club”. To be sure, it would be a small club. But every little bit helps.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: He’s pre-Wilmer. I added him to my feed a while ago, and have just been too lazy to remove him.
d58826
BUT on the bright side the IGGLES are 9-1
schrodingers_cat
@Cheryl Rofer: Aldi’s too has some great German cookies. I got their almond cookies and ginger bread covered with milk chocolate. Dead from the delicious. And I am not really a big cookie person.
O. Felix Culpa
@Cheryl Rofer: Co-signed! I go for the dark chocolate coating.
d58826
@Cheryl Rofer:
True but I was thinking more along the lines that the wars caused social changes in the US, such as the GI bill after WWII.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I used to read him, don’t anymore. Here’s a 360 degree pic from Mt. Pinos to brighten your day.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Very nice. I’m pretty happy with my S8 but part of me wishes I went with the Essential phone deal because a 360 camera was included. Realistically, I probably wouldn’t use it that often however.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I love the slogan of Amir Khan’s talk show, Satyameva Jayate.
मुमकिन है (Its (change) possible)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: You would probably do better with just a separate 360 camera.
efgoldman
Kiddos, kiddos, kiddos…
I go have a near death experience for a couple of days (no details – too complicated) and you guys go all gefrepnel and go rending of garments and eating of ashes, or something.
Ads have to be simple and aimed directly at the voters’ gut
Since the election, my sample ad has been:
“Ask [RWNJ cingresscritter] why s/he voted to take away your health insurance/grammy’s social security/medicare, and when you vote, remember your answer….
efgoldman
@efgoldman: Oh, I forgot…
Fuckem
Another Scott
@efgoldman: Cosign.
Glad you’re still with us! We need all the help we can get. Keep fighting.
Hang in there, EFG.
Cheers,
Scott.
Spanky
@efgoldman: Jeezus! But welcome back!
And fuckem.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
WTF? Will you stop scaring us like that? (Yeah, I know, it’s not as if it’s something you do on purpose)
Glad you’re back! Please be well.
efgoldman
@Another Scott:
FWIW my whole state’s delegation is blue as can be, and doesn’t need persuading. I’ve felt like a sideline observer since the election.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
I called Susan Collins’s office to ask her to vote No. I don’t live in Maine, but Mrs. SFAW and I have been looking at property up there, so I didn’t feel too guilty about calling. I said something on the order of “I’m in the process of becoming a constituent” (since the guy on the other end asked where I was calling from), which is a not-untrue statement. Maybe you and Mrs. EFG are thinking of a vacation home in Maine? Or similar not-completely-Blue state? (Not that you would ever have any reason to travel outside the Paradise also known as Vo Dilun, of course.) Just a thought.
Victor Matheson
@Wilson Heath: A luxury tax was tried under Bush sr, and it was a disaster. Raised almost nothing and killed a bunch of working class in the jewelry making and ship building business. Super easy to simply buy other luxury goods. Tax yatchs and you spend on mansions. Raise mansion taxes and spend on high end vacations, etc.
I am sympathize to the idea but the scientific theory and data suggests this is a bad idea.
Brachiator
@Emma:
I don’t think I have ever read a post like that from someone who was being serious. Or maybe posts saying that things had to become so bad that revolution had to be the next step.
But Trump and his crew do promise terrible things. They are not simply this year’s model of Republicans.
You have to know what you are fighting in order to defeat it.
J R in WV
@Emma:
You can get a bluetooth keyboard for your tablet if it’s the only tool you have for use on the web. They can be had for a 2-digit amount from Staples, Best Buy, even Amazon on the contribute link on the Balloon Juice front page. Which I have started to use to help support Cole’s work and our place to blog.
Kathleen
@Emma: I hung in there longer than that but bailed many years ago. Entitled smug white guy says what? Oh, let me hang on every word.//
Kathleen
@schrodingers_cat: Aldi’s used to carry bags of chocolate covered wafer cookies which were really crack in disguise. They no longer carry them because I think the company has gone out of business or discontinued the line. Believe me, I’ve googled because I was willing to pay to have them shipped!
Kathleen
@efgoldman: So glad you’re here! All I want for the holidays is an EFGoldman “Fuck ’em”!
Kathleen
@Brachiator:
Exactly. That’s why I maintain we have to realize we’re dealing with a coup. Does NOT mean WASF or have no agency (though today I feel pretty “WASF” myself). We just have to comprehend the magnitude of the forces arrayed against us.
J R in WV
@J R in WV:
Clicking on John’s Amazon link, searching for bluetooth keyboards, results include several Logitech devices from $20-30 … and I have always had great luck with Logitech equipment,
Ol'Froth
Hey! I graduated from Shady Side Academy, and I’m not a rich asshole!
Villago Delenda Est
@Victor Matheson: Only if you don’t apply it correctly. By taxing the fuck out of investment and capital gains income in excess of say $100k.
SFAW
@Kathleen:
There’s nothing wrong with saying “WASF,” as long as it doesn’t become an excuse to do nothing. Plenty of people use it to motivate themselves, or generate/amp up their anger.
Just because some here confuse “WASF” with “Fuck it – I quit!” doesn’t mean they’re right.
J R in WV
@Another Scott:
A great and thoughtful comment on taxes – something I agree with totally but could never have written myself.
One additional thought, though. Pensions. The bandits in the corner offices have been stealing pension funds via bankruptcy and I have no doubt many other financial tricks. That needs to stop, and people whi have benefited need to have that money raked back to the rightful owners.
Corporate executive all have golden parachutes and pensions, often including the use of a private jet, country club memberships, etc. This banditry needs reformed as badly as the tax “avoidance” situation – the corporate management pensions need to be scaled from the lowest pensions being paid to the lowest scale workers.
If there are no defined benefit pensions for the workers, then the managers don’t get a pension either. The stock options management is getting need to be available to all workers, and contractors need to be eliminated. Perma-contractors are a trick to avoid responsibility for the work force and ought to be illegal.
These men are brought in to take exposure to lethal poisons, and can be discarded as they don’t work for the owners of the facilities being worked on. Should be illegal.
Elie
@Emma:
I have wondered why they do it as well! They end up targeting the people who want and are trying to activate a response to this – Not the enemy. Indeed the pessimists give all our and their power to the very thing they say they oppose and its extremely destructive. If all you sad asses want to roll in shit, please keep your depression to yourself. You act like losers and that is not what we need to change this.
Honus
@Hildebrand: john Huston explained it in Chinatown “it’s the future Jake”
schrodingers_cat
@Elie: Prepare to be labeled as an asshole for saying this out loud. Cynicism is hip.
Yutsano
@J R in WV: It’s also time to fight for making unemployment non-taxable again. That was one of the worst tax changes Saint Ronnie approved of. Assuming it will still exists if this bill passes.
@schrodingers_cat: Generational fights are easy. That’s why they’ve been around forever. It’s a fruitless endeavour. The enemy is not the olds. It’s those who let their lives be governed by fear and greed.
Side note:I can’t spell this morning.
schrodingers_cat
@SFAW: Is bathing in negativity, productive? To me it is similar to the logic, tax cuts leads to surpluses.
schrodingers_cat
@Yutsano: I never said it was. I detest Amy Walters and Tamara Keith who are closer in age to me than Shields. Both sidery journalism is not an age thing its pervasive.
Bill Arnold
EATTAX THE RICH(Thinking about this as a bumper sticker)
GUILLOTINETAX THE RICHwould work but would reduce font size.
Calouste
@Kathleen: Amazon has them, at least if you mean Loacker Quadratini, which are complete crack.
DHD
Wealth tax used to exist in France, but, oddly enough, one of the first things the new hopey-changey guy in power there did was to abolish it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_tax_on_wealth
It’s probably not too effective since all the wealth will just end up in the Cayman Islands (though that happens already).
Van Buren
@Scott S.: Now I’m gonna hafta start drinking heavily.
Albatrossity
Yes, the Dems can write and deploy useful ads that tell the truth about this bill.
And the GOP will, as usual, write and deploy lies.
Who wins?