A “PLEASE READ” email sent to White House/executive branch aides this morning, prepping them for looming shutdown: “As many of you are aware, annual funding for much of the Government expires on Saturday, September 30. There is still time for Congress to complete appropriations.”
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) September 28, 2023
McCarthy says vote on House version of stop-gap spending bill to prevent shutdown — with border measures — will occur "probably" on Friday. The Senate and House versions would then go to conference, he says.
— Billy House (@HouseInSession) September 27, 2023
Mitch McConnell has spent a decade telling House Republicans to not shut down the government. They won't listen.@pkcapitol on the expected third ‘kick of the mule’:https://t.co/0eNWHwVlnp
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) September 28, 2023
When #MoscowMitch is the closest to a statesman the GOP Death Cult can muster…
In October 2013, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) grew so tired of House Republican bids to shut down the federal government that he used a Kentucky colloquialism to issue a warning.
“There’s no education in the second kick of the mule,” McConnell said, in one of several interviews that week invoking the phrase. He had just negotiated a political surrender after a 16-day federal shutdown left Republicans battered…
Flash forward a decade later, and House Republicans are driving the GOP toward its “third kick of the mule” in 10 years — set to force another shutdown, starting Sunday, in which their Senate counterparts are pleading with them to abort the obviously bad mission….
“When we shut down in 2013? Yeah, that was a lot of fun,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), who was a first-year member in the House at the time. He shook his head angrily. “Not at all, that was horrible. I think all of us that remember that, remembers that was not a good place to be.”
That view is held almost universally across the Senate Republican Conference, with no public allies to the far-right faction that is pushing the shutdown strategy in the House.
“I’m a business guy, do we shut down my businesses? No, I mean that’s what crazy about this, you should never shut down the government,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), normally an antagonist of McConnell’s, told reporters Wednesday. “What we should do is, we should make it better all the time.”…
It’s reminiscent, in some ways, of the 2013 position that then-GOP leaders faced, back when McCarthy was majority whip and John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Eric I. Cantor (R-Va.) served as speaker and majority leader, respectively.
They cooked up several different plans to try to send legislation to the Senate that would keep the government open, but also at least symbolically block the ACA. Dozens of Republicans revolted against the House GOP leaders and the government shut down Oct. 1.
For days, House Republicans sent narrow bills to the Senate that would have opened small slivers of the government, only to eventually realize the party was suffering. McConnell went to Democrats and admitted he expected nothing much in return because the House couldn’t pass anything legitimate…
Excepted include all commissioned officers (assistant to the president, deputy assistant, etc). The email also stresses that furlough and excepted employees will get retroactive pay once the shutdown ends.
— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) September 28, 2023
The far right has been feuding with McCarthy for weeks. Here's how it's spiraling into a shutdown. https://t.co/MclYoJAFQI
— Independent US (@IndyUSA) September 29, 2023
This is well worth reading in full. Per the Associated Press:
With little time left to prevent a government shutdown, the House is in a familiar position: effectively paralyzed as conservatives feud with Speaker Kevin McCarthy over matters large and small.
McCarthy has pushed the Republican conference to embrace a short-term funding plan that would also include a sweeping Republican proposal for the southern border. But a small group of hardline conservatives has defied the speaker in a quest to get rid of stopgap funding plans, known as continuing resolutions, even if opposing them means forcing a government shutdown.
It’s left McCarthy at an impasse. He will likely be left with the political damage of a shutdown unless he turns to Democrats for help in passing a bipartisan bill. But working with Democrats would give hard-right Republicans reason to remove him as speaker….
McCarthy had to win support from almost every House Republican in his grueling bid to become speaker in January. To do so, he made a range of concessions, including an agreement to cut government spending to certain levels and pass each of the 12 annual appropriations bills individually.
Then in June, as he negotiated with President Joe Biden to suspend the nation’s debt limit, McCarthy agreed to hold the government’s annual discretionary funding to $1.59 trillion. That deal passed the House, in part due to support from Democrats.
“He’s made promises to part of the conference with the deal that he cut with President Biden on certain numbers,” said Republican Rep. Ken Buck, who is part of the House Freedom Caucus. “Then he’s made promises to get elected speaker to a different part of the conference. And those two numbers are pretty far apart.”…
For now, McCarthy is still searching for support from his own party, hoping he can leverage his thin majority to force negotiations with Democrats. But the Senate is working on a temporary, bipartisan funding plan that is likely to pass in the coming days, adding more pressure on McCarthy to work with Democrats to avert a shutdown.
If McCarthy works with Democrats, Gaetz has promised he’ll try to oust McCarthy by filing a so-called “motion to vacate the chair.” Procedural votes could be offered to halt the motion, or it could trigger a House floor vote on whether McCarthy should remain speaker.
Some House Democrats have signaled a willingness to help McCarthy remain speaker if conservatives try to oust him, though they’ll likely want something in return.
If McCarthy refuses to support a bipartisan plan, some moderate House Republicans are considering joining with Democrats to force a vote on such a bill.
Either development would be extraordinary in modern politics and could send the House into even more turmoil.
During a shutdown, many agencies such as the National Park Service are also not permitted to update websites and social media pages.
That means the viral park service social media promotions of Fat Bear Week would halt. https://t.co/beuxDluZpP pic.twitter.com/h5x4puMbky
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 28, 2023
Speaking of fat… beasts:
Not independently wealthy: “Williams filed a financial disclosure… listing a net worth of at least $3.1 million… Williams is the son of J. McDonald ‘Don’ Williams, the retired CEO and chairman of Trammel Crow Company in Dallas”https://t.co/3z0n80RQ9I https://t.co/rMhYMLAyum
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) September 28, 2023
The NYTimes goes for the picturesque, of course:
Small businesses that serve federal employees in Washington, Maryland and Virginia are bracing for the economic blow of a government shutdown. "There's not a lot you can do if people are not in the city," one business owner said. https://t.co/lTc4QxW37l
— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 28, 2023
War for Ukraine Day 582: NATO Leadership Visits Kyiv![On The Road - way2blue - Valparaiso, Chile [2 of 2]](https://balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/24-March-23-9-80x80.jpg)
Alison Rose
I can’t put into words how much I hate these sacks of shit for causing difficulty and harm to millions because they’re a bunch of moronic overgrown children who have zero understanding of or respect for their jobs.
piratedan
wonder if Brandon Williams is connected to Senor Crow, the apparent “best friend” of SCOTUS Clarence Thomas, through his dad’s bidness…….
mrmoshpotato
If this happens, please don’t rightfully blame the GOP for causing it. It gives them a big sad!
AlaskaReader
There is not one member of the Republican Party who has any redeeming value.
None.
Ruckus
@Alison Rose:
A picture of all the members of the sack of shit club all sucking their thumbs in unison would settle the federal budget, what with all that energy of everyone else hoping they choke on their thumbs.
Ruckus
@AlaskaReader:
If they had any redeeming value whatsoever they wouldn’t be rethuglicans.
DebG
Don’t shut down Fat Bear Week!!!!11!!
Seriously, these morans in the Freedom Caucus–including my congresscritter Ken Buck–deserve everything they get. And I hope they get it in spades.
AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team
@Alison Rose: for someone without words I appreciate how you put that :)
AL ty for this post, feels good having something for the BJ insomniacs caucus to nom on.
anitamargarita
trivial maybe, but I will be so sad if Fat Bear Week is scratched. The most wonderful time f the year (sorry Xmas, it’s true)
mrmoshpotato
@DebG:
I know how the bears could get fatter…
TriassicSands
Well, if a Republican had a sixteen ounce soda bottle in his or her hand, both s/he and the bottle could be redeemed in CA for 5 cents. Then, they would throw away the representative and recycle the bottle.
AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team
@mrmoshpotato: never waste a crisis? 😃😎
mrmoshpotato
@AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team: The caloric value of Matt Gaetz head alone…
AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team
@mrmoshpotato: 🤢
AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team
Crazy idea perhaps inspired by insomnia… BJ Discord. Moderated to prevent trolling obvs, I would volunteer to help with that.
Obvs not for everyone, but maybe fun for some of us…
bjacques
@mrmoshpotato: I suspect the one in the picture is a ringer. Looks more like Cocaine Bear.
JoyceH
Has anyone taken a flight during the previous shutdowns? Normally I can just hunker down and wait out a shutdown, but I’m flying to England next week and wondering how nightmarish it’s going to be.
JaySinWA
So Rand Paul is throwing up procedural blocks to try and remove Ukraine funding from a Senate attempt to do a CR. McConnell vows to get it done with the UKR funding by Sunday.
Meanwhile the House narrowly passed a defense spending bill on party lines (218-210) by stripping the Ukraine funding out of it but keeping its culture war nonsense. Then it passed a separate Ukraine funding bill (311-117)
ETA it’s going to be a long weekend with a lot of pointless brinkmanship.
AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team
@JoyceH: I stayed off planes March 2020 to March 2023. These days I use a Flo mask and CO2 monitor just to have a sense of risk level if I want to eat or drink in flight, but your flight will be longer than my domestic trips.
I also use the Israeli anti viral nasal spray after landing, although for a flight that long I might slip into the bathroom and use it in flight.
Safe travels 🙏🏻
Brachiator
I helped a few people finish and e-file their tax returns. Some IRS functions may be affected if there is a shutdown. A Forbes story notes the following.
There is a backlog of about 2.6 million paper tax returns awaiting processing, per some recent reports.
Shalimar
You have to give Rep. Brandon Williams a little credit for nailing it. It is true that he is not independently wealthy. He’s wealthy because daddy gave him money.
Villago Delenda Est
Brandon Williams needs (redacted redacted redacted redacted). You know, like the damn Village.
Villago Delenda Est
@mrmoshpotato: There’s a Far Side panel in this, I’m sure.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Just wanted to drop in and say:
Fuck Republicans and fuck the bloated orange turd that they think god chose to lead them.
I hope 2024 delivers the Hell they deserve.
Maxim
@AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team:
What is that?
AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team
@Brachiator: do you do that professionally or just to help people out?
I found a great local preparer to help me get past due years filed, he was so kind and it’s great to finally be up to date.
Brachiator
@AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team:
I’m a semi-retired tax and accounting guy. I was helping out a couple of former clients who had some last minute problems.
Oh yeah , it can be a great relief to get this resolved. I’m glad you found a good person to help you with this.
wjca
As I noted on an earlier (probably dead) thread, this is how natural selection works. Whether it’s genetic or political. When you reward stupidity, you bet better and better at stupid. Manifestly, it has worked.
AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team
@Maxim: it’s called Enovid. I did some brief research but it was enough to make me think it’s worth it and that the place in Israel I ordered from was legit.
AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team
@Brachiator: Have you ever done OIC’s by chance?
NotMax
@AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team
Cannot speak to efficacy or lack thereof but note it’s available on Amazon, although at an outrageous price.
Brachiator
@AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team:
When I was working full time, yeah, I would offer help and advice with this. But fortunately, not many. It gets tedious, depending on the circumstances.
Chris T.
@Brachiator: We (spousal unit and I) had to send in a paper copy of a fix for 2020 taxes. Normally I have a CPA do them but the one I had been using had retired (plus we’d moved) and since that year’s taxes were going to be so simple I figured H&RBlock couldn’t screw them up.
They did.
Having been re-done by the (local) CPA I found since then, I have mailed them off—a 1040X can’t be e-filed, apparently, and the fax system was always busy—and should be getting my receipt returned before the shutdown happens. Luckily while H&RB screwed up the forms, they got the amount right, so all I need is the right paperwork.
(Among other things, they left out a form that, because they left it out, means that the IRS would demand something like a quarter million dollars from us. No, we didn’t get the previous house for free! We moved, yes, and we sold a house—in the SFBayArea yet—but we didn’t have a zero cost basis. They also screwed up dividend reporting somehow, but in a way that the CPA found didn’t change taxes-owed for that year.)
AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team
@NotMax: Yeah it was not cheap via Israel but I felt more confident of not getting a fake product.
Betty Cracker
I’ve heard rumors that Matt Gaetz intends to run for governor once squinty turd Ron DeSantis finishes feeding the state into the wood chipper. DeSantis is such a prick that pretty much no one but his terrible wife speaks to him, so he has no obvious political successor.
Gaetz would probably have a good chance of winning the GOP primary because the FL GOP base is feral as fuck. And if he did, you’d have to rate his chance of becoming governor excellent since Florida has not elected a Democratic governor in the present century.
On the other hand, Gaetz is a smirking, arrogant, corrupt, unlikeable shit-stain — maybe his candidacy would be a bridge too far? Maybe a Democrat could win?
It’s true that DeSantis has the warmth and appeal of a splintered plywood Siberian outhouse, but he was an unknown quantity to most voters in 2018 when he ran against a weak opponent. People already know Gaetz is a grabby, showboaty pig.
Jim Appleton
@Betty Cracker: one dollar on the guy who runs Manatee Outboard Motor.
Betty Cracker
@Jim Appleton: I don’t know who that is, but anyone not on death row is better than Gaetz.
gene108
It’s a pity Republicans have largely maintained control of the House, since the 1994 election.
I think Democrats regaining control in two four year spurts, over the intervening years, hasn’t been long enough to drive home how much more competent Democrats are at governing to voters who might consider voting Republican.
I don’t know how much this current cluster fuck gets the blame where it belongs.
Brachiator
@Chris T.:
Wow. What a mess. I’m glad that things got straightened out.
I’ve known people who have worked for Block. They are usually pretty good. But apparently not in your case.
Did they omit or screw up Form 8949, showing the sale of your home?
Anyway, I hope you got everything worked out.
gene108
@Betty Cracker:
Given Trump’s continued popularity, I’m not sure that’s a problem.
Baud
@gene108:
This last period of Dem control was recognized more than I’ve seen in the past. Hopefully, people are starting to notice. It helps that we’re doing a better job of selling ourselves from top to bottom.
p.a.
It’s bad for progressives’ psyche and overall universal mojo (not to mention actual human beings) but hoping for natural disasters to hit red-represented areas is a natural reaction to “concentrate these shitheads minds” about the value of the national government.
Baud
@p.a.:
I think we should stop waiting for a seminal event that will fundamentally change minds. We’re going to have to do this the hard way, one step at a time.
AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team
@p.a.: my sense at this point is that the minds that could be changed, have been.
I think it’s about turnout for us now, esp youth vote.
satby
@Baud: this.
Magical thinking is what gets Republicans votes.Their voters hear what they say, like “end Social Security”, but think they don’t really mean it and vote for them anyway.
The Dobbs decision was very illuminating for women magical thinkers on that side.
sab
@Brachiator: Yutsano thinks normal people can do their own taxes. He is tax wise a sweet summer child.
I have spent 35 years helping normal people do their taxes. These normal people have other concerns and know absolutely nothing about American tax law. They innocently phuck up everything.
And Republican governments set them up to fail. Abolish taxes and replace the lost revenue with penalties for crossing government lines.
Baud
@satby:
Dobbs probably helps more with the mushy middle, who like to free ride on the protections provided by Democrats and hate commiting to a side.
They’re learning that Dems can’t keep it up without public support.
gene108
I was playing the clips from a few threads down on the impeachment hearing. Rep. Summer Lee mentioned people on Medicare and Social Security won’t have people to assist them with their issues.
It hit me that October is the start of Medicare’s open enrollment period, where people can switch the Medicare parts they are enrolled in, and there are a lot of parts and options and quite a few people need help.
I wonder how much senior’s will notice the lack of service?
artem1s
Excuse me? has he not met the GOP, party of drowning the government in a bathtub?
Betty Cracker
I am off on a bird spotting expedition later today — a quest to see (from a respectful distance!) some of the flamingos that are now distributed around the state. So excited!
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
🦩👍
Anyway
@Betty Cracker:
What fun! Looking forward to your pictures.
satby
@Baud: maybe, but a lot of regular Republican women voters have realized that low taxes are cold comfort when you or your daughter is slowly going septic from a retained miscarriage or told to carry a non-viable pregnancy to term. And I know pro-choice advocates hate the emphasis on those kinds of horrible exceptions, but as an adult when Roe passed, it was hammering on how the draconian laws caused needless death from those exceptions that turned public opinion away from anti-choice laws.
sab
OT My Black granddaughter is planning to move to VA with her white boyfriend. She is 24 and they have been a couple for ten years. He got a good job offer and wants her along.
She has been good at caring. The youngest is now a well adjusted in elementary school. Loves her but doesnt need her.
ETA My husband loves this girl. We all love her. She is moving away as normal young people do.
I am happy. She has a good guy and good prospects. My husband is upset. Too bad. Her autistic sister will be upset. That is a serious issue. Family should try to cover. Not sister’s problem. She has been here ten years with other relatives slacking off.
Anyway
Oh no my wise comment disappeared…
Baud
@satby:
Well, I certainly welcome Republican women waking up too.
Betty Cracker
@satby: It makes me sad that traumatized women feel an obligation to share their deeply personal stories to highlight the consequences of draconian Repub laws. But I believe the stories are persuasive.
Brachiator
@sab:
I know what you mean. I know a lot of people who do their own taxes, and they are happy with the results. But I also remember when a state changed rules in the middle of the tax season, or another situation where the software company got some calculations wrong. Professional tax preparers got advance notice of problems, but regular people just filed bad returns.
And this is on top of complex and confusing forms and tax laws.
But I think that the IRS could do most people’s tax returns. Not too sure about states.
lowtechcyclist
A guy on tiktok visits the Trump ‘autoworker’ event. He asks a lot of people there if they’ve seen any auto workers, or know where they are. Nobody seems to know.
https://www.tiktok.com/@moreperfectunion/video/7284002487604890922?_r=1&_t=8g5FIMn4cl4
ETA: It’s possible that someone put this in comments in the thread on this subject. Yesterday was a busy evening, haven’t had time to read through the comments.
Princess
@satby: I’ll believe that when I see it. The vast majority of Republican women will continue to vote GOP and will figure the worst consequences won’t happen to them — and in most cases, they won’t. At most we’ll shave off a percent or so and I hope that will be enough.
Anyway
My fear about the election is that something happens in Spring 2024 to sideline the Mango Mussolini and there’s a neat switcheroo to Youngkin and his vest – he becomes the Rthug candidate without going thro the primary. I ama very hopeful about Biden v Dumpf not so sanguine against other Rs.
Matt McIrvin
@gene108: When Democrats do control the House, they can’t pass much legislation because of Senate obstructionism, and Mitch McConnell is the architect of most of that. And then the Democrats get booted out again for not accomplishing enough.
Betty Cracker
@Anyway: Same. But I try not to worry about it too much.
satby
@Princess: We’ve already seen it in elections where the Democrats have outperformed expectations.
@Betty Cracker: I agree, but the stories are persuasive primarily because they’re often shared by women who wanted those pregnancies and then were hit with horrible medical problems. That could and does happen to anyone; unfortunately a lot of women who can’t imagine wanting an abortion can at least imagine that a miscarriage could happen to them. And that if it did, they would want medical treatment before it endangered their life.
Princess
@satby: there’s little evidence that’s because women who usually vote Republican are shifting their votes, rather than occasional or non-voters who lean Dem or Indy turning out. In a specific referendum, yes. In Kansas you had Trump voting women voting for reproductive rights. But yeah, I’m skeptical they’ll vote for Dem candidates. They still identify so much more with their husbands than with other women.
trnc
…
When McCarthy made his deal with the nutjobs to become speaker, the rules were changed to allow a single member to make a motion to vacate and trigger a vote on removing the speaker. Perhaps Mullin or one of the other House repubs currently passing for almost sane could make that motion. After all, he’s worthless to them if he’s always controlled by the nutjobs, and this would take away the nutjob power.
Chris T.
@Brachiator:
Oops, I mentioned the wrong year originally – it’s the 2021 taxes that were messed-up.
I don’t know form numbers at this point, having had someone else do all the work ever since I got ensnared in Alternative Minimum Tax (now worked away after many years but it greatly increased the paperwork, and then there were moves from one state to another, and a trust that my dad set up for his final years, etc). All I know is that I got a letter from them saying that their dividend records didn’t match the ones H&RB submitted, and that they were going to assume $0 as the cost basis for the Bay Area house. Ouch.
Last year’s (2022’s) taxes were pretty simple too, but this year’s will be messier and I needed to pay estimated taxes and such so I found a competent CPA up here in Bellingham. I think things are fine now, it’s just that one year that had issues. The CPA did the one for 2022, and has looked at the properly done one for 2020 (from the CPA I used to use) and the messed-up one from 2021 (H&R-Block).
We put the Bay Area house up for sale in October of 2020, but the sale didn’t close until Jan 2021, which is perhaps what confused the HRB person. Why she couldn’t handle the dividend forms from Vanguard, I don’t know.
Chris T.
@sab:
Accounting terms can be quite confusing, and the instructions often get really weird and random-looking: “Subtract this amount. Now add it back. Now multiply by 0.8, and subtract that from another random-looking number. Now add it back again. Now subtract something else, and divide by six unless it’s Thursday…”
If you follow the instructions exactly, they work. But it’s not clear which forms you need in many cases. Say you got some letter from some 401(k) or SEP-IRA or whatever and you’re currently 40 and still working. What are you supposed to do with the number reported here? Why did you get this letter?
As soon as you get used to one scheme, things change. Wait, what’s a “qualified” dividend? I have a mutual fund, not individual stocks, did the fund hold the stocks for five years? Do I need to care? They reported two or three or five numbers, like “percentage of New Jersey bonds”, does that even matter? What the f— do I do with all this?
It’s really easy to make mistakes, and by the time you get the IRS letter saying you mis-reported something, it’s a year, or two or three years, later and you have no idea what they’re talking about….
Geminid
The lead story in today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch:
The headline stretched across the top of the front page.
Chris T.
@Brachiator:
They (IRS) could; states perhaps could, though for several years California was pretty bad as their state laws were out of sync (this was during the years when the Rs held the state and refused to get anything done budget-wise).
Elizabeth Warren’s plan to have the IRS send you “we think you owe / are-owed this much, if you agree, fine, if not, file some paperwork” is clearly the way to go. A friend who worked in Germany for a while tells me that that’s how the German system worked at the time, and it was pretty convenient.
Baud
Balloon Juice. Come for the politics, stay for the tax advice.
Geminid
@Anyway: One factor here is the filing deadlines in various states. Youngkin or another “White Knight” candidate cannot wait until spring to enter the race and be on many ballots. They have to make their moves earlier than that.
A premature Trump demise could raise an interesting scenario. Depending how late in the primaries this sad event occurred, Trump delegates might still be a majority or large plurality of delegates at the Milwaukee convention. That could lead to a Youngkin type winning the nomination, but this is less likely if he or other prospects campaigned against Trump.
Even if they haven’t, those Trump delegates will be hard to wrangle. A lot of them despise the Republican establishment.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
But DeathSantis isn’t?
SFAW
@trnc:
I think Mullin’s a Senator, not a Rep.
Another Scott
Something something it is my nature. Qevin has been here before with the GQP crazies.
NPR.org (from October 2015):
He didn’t stand up to the bomb throwers back then, he didn’t stand up to them in the 15 votes earlier this year. He won’t stand up to them now.
There is no One Weird Trick.
I don’t see a path forward. Maybe the bomb throwers will call a vote to vacate the chair and they’ll lose. Maybe Qevin will quit (again). But it’s hard to see anything changing as long as the GQP has a tiny majority.
Fingers crossed for a reasonably quick CR – that may be all we can get before January 2025.
J and I got our Virginia absentee ballots yesterday!
Forward!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@gene108: The Ds sure looked more competent in the impeachment inquiry yesterday. The contrast was stark.
Geminid
@SFAW: Yes, Mullin won Senator Inhofe’s seat last fall.
Fun Markwayne Mullin Fact: the Senator is a member of the Cherokee Nation. Native heritage is not so unusual for an Oklahoma politician. Rep. Tom Cole is a Chickasaw.
Brachiator
@Chris T.:
Again, I am glad that everything got worked out. I can imagine the anxiety.
RE: But I think that the IRS could do most people’s tax returns. Not too sure about states.
California tries to conform to federal law. But after a while, the lawmakers, now mainly Democrats, just said “Screw it, we don’t care about strict conformity anymore. We have our own state budget to worry about.”
ETA. Just for the record, in case anyone else might have a similar situation, typically the proceeds from the sale of a home (personal residence), might be shown on Form 1099-S, or the closing statement, and reported to the IRS. But these documents would not show the cost or basis of the home. This information would be provided by the taxpayer. And even if the gain from the sale can be excluded, if reported on Form 1099-S, it has to be accounted for on the tax return. Ain’t income taxes fun?
MomSense
I only saw clips of that impeachment hearing but what a shitshow.
The Republicans are absolutely following the Benghazi playbook to smear Joe Biden and our pathetic media refuse to call them out, save for a few.
gene108
@Brachiator:
As someone who works in corporate accounting and found taxation my least favorite subject, I sometimes overestimate how much people know about basic accounting topics like cost basis or the difference between cash and accrual.
Gets more complicated trying to explain what costs and improvements can be added to the initial purchase price to increase the cost basis to reduce the gain on sale.
A lot of people are afraid of running afoul of the IRS, which just increases the the natural anxiety that comes with filling out forms.
JML
@Betty Cracker: I can’t decide which I enjoyed more: your description of DeSantis or Gaetz. Both wonderfully descriptive, hilarious, and accurate.
Another Scott
@Chris T.: Hey! I’ve been (partially there), too! What fun!!1 The qualified/non-qualified dividends stuff is maddening. Until you figure out how exactly the calculations are done, it looks like you’re getting taxed at the normal rate for qualified dividends.
I do our taxes and usually they’re pretty easy. I have a spreadsheet that I use to do the figuring. For years it worked fine, then suddenly there always seemed to be some error that the IRS would flag and indicate that I overpaid.
I eventually found that I made a mistake in one of the spreadsheet cells that gets carried through to the end. Fixed that, finally, and it’s all been good ever since.
Don’t get me started on the horrorshow of Virginia’s $259 credit for working spouses. Basically you have to do your calculations for yourselves as a couple, then do the taxes again individually if you’re both working and both earn more than about $15k a year (I forget the real number), just to be able to claim a $259 credit. I want those hours back. :-/
Grrr…,
Scott.
sab
@sab: I am not recommending abolish taxes and set up penalties instead. Just noting that that is just what Republican governments do.
Miss Bianca
@DebG: You live in Buck’s district? My sympathies.
frosty
@sab: Interesting. I’ve always done my own taxes; with TurboTax ever since it came out. Had a pro do them for two years when we bought and sold houses. I don’t feel like I’ve missed anything, but maybe I have.
Well, there was that one year when I found out that private education for dyslexia was a medical deduction. I had to file two years of amendments after that. So maybe you’re right.
frosty
@Betty Cracker: I missed the flamingo that was hanging around in a pond near Chambersburg PA the last few weeks. I hope you have better luck!
Villago Delenda Est
@MomSense: My nym. To include the owners of the media. The operatives are all infected with the journalism destroying disease that is Broderism, and the owners are happy with that.
Ksmiami
@Villago Delenda Est: I come to bury Zaslav, not to praise him…