The Absurdity Of The Tax Bill

[Elixir]

...insurance does not work unless people who don't collect benefits pay premiums into the common pool.

Neo-cons don't give a flying fuck about insurance working. The less it works, the greater its profits.
(Until they get sick.)

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Suppose you have to pay more but it takes you less time to figure that out?

It will come down to the amount of each of the deductions. Wouldn't it benefit the poor and lower middle class more who don't itemize?

If they don't have children.

People really fucked are grad students (stipends get taxed), the elderly (medical expense deductions), people who live in blue states (high property and local/state taxes).

Man, I remember all the bullshit from the right-wing about money getting taxed twice.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The passed Senate tax bill repealed the ACA individual mandate. The House will surely oblige. Good.

Because you want to return to the status quo ante, where premium inflation rose at a higher rate and millions fewer had any health care coverage? The individual mandate was necessary, because insurance does not work unless people who don't collect benefits pay premiums into the common pool. That's why the individual mandate existed--to induce young, healthy individuals to start paying into the fund as a means of insuring the health care of those who most needed it. That would be a terribly unfair burden on those with bodies that never aged or got sick, but most of us are mortal, unfortunately.

I don't care about your moral preening. It is tyrannical for the government to force individuals to purchase a private product just for living.

Odd, seeing almost all people required access to said private product services when said living began. Some people have stupid idea what they think tyranny is.

Are people just serfs to you, to be used by this or that bureaucrat to advance someone else's economic policy? If the government has this power, then the government should also force people to rent/buy a home so we can eliminate poverty; or force people to buy cable so all those cable channels no one watches don't go defunct.

LOOK OUT EVERYONE!!! IT'S A SLIPPERY SLOPE!!!

 

[Trausti]

I don't care about your moral preening. It is tyrannical for the government to force individuals to purchase a private product just for living.

Odd, seeing almost all people required access to said private product services when said living began. Some people have stupid idea what they think tyranny is.

Are people just serfs to you, to be used by this or that bureaucrat to advance someone else's economic policy? If the government has this power, then the government should also force people to rent/buy a home so we can eliminate poverty; or force people to buy cable so all those cable channels no one watches don't go defunct.

LOOK OUT EVERYONE!!! IT'S A SLIPPERY SLOPE!!!

Good grief. Once you set the precedent you're stuck with it. That's exactly why the repeal was in this tax bill. SCOTUS said it was a tax. So any further Congress can reference that decision to force some other do-gooder mandate by having the IRS enforce it. But authoritarians like you don't care about individual liberty.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Odd, seeing almost all people required access to said private product services when said living began. Some people have stupid idea what they think tyranny is.
LOOK OUT EVERYONE!!! IT'S A SLIPPERY SLOPE!!!

Good grief.

No kidding!

Once you set the precedent you're stuck with it.

OMG! The Government can now tax our income! It is only a matter of time before the government takes all of our income as taxes and we are living on the street!

That's exactly why the repeal was in this tax bill.

They are repealing it because they want the ACA to die.

SCOTUS said it was a tax.

*wink*

So any further Congress can reference that decision to force some other do-gooder mandate by having the IRS enforce it. But authoritarians like you don't care about individual liberty.

I know, all I care about is adherence to the state. God bless the King!

 

[Underseer]

The most vibrant and healthy economy is the economy where expendable wealth is spread into as many hands as possible.

A minority of millionaires and billionaires have nothing to do with a vibrant and healthy economy. They are in fact a hindrance to one.

What you are missing is that most of the wealth in question is in the form of the tools of production.

Spreading it out converts money from future development to current consumption. Today's standard of living rises, tomorrow's falls.

So if we make more people poor now, rich people will benefit in the future?

 

[Underseer]

With all these tax cuts, all kinds of good jobs are about to trickle down all over all of us! [/Conservolibertarian]

On a more serious note, this is just the usual wealth redistribution we always see from Republicans. The class warfare continues, and as usual, the wealthy elites are winning at the expense of everyone else, but if I complain about it, I am accused of being an elitist.

 

[jonatha]

People really fucked are grad students (stipends get taxed), the elderly (medical expense deductions), people who live in blue states (high property and local/state taxes).

I think the most likely outcome is that the House passes the Senate Bill as is. The Senate Bill does not have the "stipends get taxed" provision, although it does impose an excise tax on part of certain college endowments.

(Second most likely outcome is that they fail to pass anything.)

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

People really fucked are grad students (stipends get taxed), the elderly (medical expense deductions), people who live in blue states (high property and local/state taxes).

I think the most likely outcome is that the House passes the Senate Bill as is. The Senate Bill does not have the "stipends get taxed" provision, although it does impose an excise tax on part of certain college endowments.

(Second most likely outcome is that they fail to pass anything.)

That'd be the easiest way, but the House might not be able to pass the Senate bill as it includes one killer in it, the stabilization funding for the ACA. Granted, the tea party could possibly live with it knowing that people will lose insurance when the markets go bankrupt, but I've read there is an issue with that amendment among the baggers in the House.

 

[jonatha]

That'd be the easiest way, but the House might not be able to pass the Senate bill as it includes one killer in it, the stabilization funding for the ACA.

Do you have a section number? I scanned the bill the other day and the only ACA-related provision I saw was the elimination of the individual mandate. I thought the stabilization funding was Lamar Alexander's bill that Susan Collins thinks Mitch McConnell is going to let come up for a vote and even support.

Granted, it was the bill before they marked it up (in cursive, although they used pen instead of crayon). thomas.loc.gov still doesn't have the text of the bill as passed by the Senate...

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

That'd be the easiest way, but the House might not be able to pass the Senate bill as it includes one killer in it, the stabilization funding for the ACA.

Do you have a section number? I scanned the bill the other day and the only ACA-related provision I saw was the elimination of the individual mandate. I thought the stabilization funding was Lamar Alexander's bill that Susan Collins thinks Mitch McConnell is going to let come up for a vote and even support.

Wait... that wasn't an amendment to this bill?! How could Collins okay that, it has to pass the House too, and it won't!

 

[Tom Sawyer]

How could Collins okay that, it has to pass the House too!

No, it goes to a reconciliation committee now. I think they can pass something which may or may not be related to either of the bills and can add in or take out whatever they want.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

How could Collins okay that, it has to pass the House too!

No, it goes to a reconciliation committee now. I think they can pass something which may or may not be related to either of the bills and can add in or take out whatever they want.

I just read that the agreement was to put the other bill (Alexander-Cantwell) up for a vote separately. I can't see the House passing that.

 

[Elixir]

How could Collins okay that, it has to pass the House too!

No, it goes to a reconciliation committee now. I think they can pass something which may or may not be related to either of the bills and can add in or take out whatever they want.

Maybe they should just give Cheato a million trillion billion zillion dollars and let him distribute it among his friends and Republican donors as he sees fit.
Oh, wait... they just did that!

 

[bilby]

The passed Senate tax bill repealed the ACA individual mandate. The House will surely oblige. Good.

Because you want to return to the status quo ante, where premium inflation rose at a higher rate and millions fewer had any health care coverage? The individual mandate was necessary, because insurance does not work unless people who don't collect benefits pay premiums into the common pool. That's why the individual mandate existed--to induce young, healthy individuals to start paying into the fund as a means of insuring the health care of those who most needed it. That would be a terribly unfair burden on those with bodies that never aged or got sick, but most of us are mortal, unfortunately.

I don't care about your moral preening. It is tyrannical for the government to force individuals to purchase a private product just for living. Are people just serfs to you, to be used by this or that bureaucrat to advance someone else's economic policy? If the government has this power, then the government should also force people to rent/buy a home so we can eliminate poverty; or force people to buy cable so all those cable channels no one watches don't go defunct.

You are right, and I agree with you that your government needs to make the nationalization of hospitals and health care a top priority. Private companies have no business in a market where customer participation is involuntary; They should only be allowed to operate (in either sense of the word) in the provision of purely elective procedures, such as cosmetic surgery.

Unless and until patients are able to say "I can't afford a heart attack this week, so I will have it next week", or "Well, I am about to have a stroke, but not until I have had a chance to get at least three quotes from different ERs, and to choose between them based on both cost and quality", private provision of health care is fucking stupid.

“Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune, the cost of which should be shared by the community” - Aneurin Bevan

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What you are missing is that capital is just money. Money to buy capital machinery. Money to buy the tools of production. And that money is not a scarce resource. Money is created by people taking out debt either for consumption or investment and by the government spending more money into the economy than they take out by taxing.

And what you are missing is that at the level of society money has no value. Money represents value--the underlying goods and services. Changing the amount of money simply changes the ratio of money:goods (inflation).

What drives the economy is demand. Demand is generated by wages, money in the hands of consumers. If there is the demand for products, there will be capital for investment. There is no trade off between development and consumption. You have to have consumption to have development.

Demand without supply = inflation. The economy is harmed, not helped. You need a balance of capital & consumer spending--going off this balance point in either direction causes harm. (Exactly where that balance point is is an unknown. Note, however, that it is not static, increasing technology moves the point more towards the capital side.)

Putting more money into profits instead of wages reduces the amount of consumption and the amount of development.

You're still suffering from the error of thinking that such money is removed from the system. It is not.

I have often asked you how much in profits do we need to guarantee we keep the capitalist machinery running? I think that we don't need any more than twice the amount of business investment made in a year. Of course, this is what profits are suppose to fund, the amount of business investment that is made every year and the returns to capital, the historical amount that is returned to the shareholders, a more than reasonable return considering the prevailing interest rates.

You're assuming the only thing that is done with profit is business investment. Hint: Retirement accounts. Fundamentally, all the gain in retirement money (whether 401k, IRA or non-privileged investments) is from business profit.

I am somewhat surprised, you seem to be defending this tax cut bill. Tell me it isn't so. You seemed to understand the arguments above. This discussion always comes down to the same thing. Keynesians describe how the economy operates and suggest that we use that knowledge to improve the economy for the greatest number of people. Non-Keynesians tell us how they wished that the economy works and how to make the rich even richer.

I am not defending this abomination. That doesn't make your attacks on it valid, though.

The only part of it I agree with is cutting corporate taxes--but I think they should be cut to zero, replaced with equivalent revenue from the upper middle class and above. It's not that I think corporations should get a free ride, it's that I realize that the tax actually gets passed through to the consumer--and thus is regressive rather than progressive.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don't care about your moral preening. It is tyrannical for the government to force individuals to purchase a private product just for living. Are people just serfs to you, to be used by this or that bureaucrat to advance someone else's economic policy? If the government has this power, then the government should also force people to rent/buy a home so we can eliminate poverty; or force people to buy cable so all those cable channels no one watches don't go defunct.

I sure don't want them repealing the flip side of this--requiring ERs to deal with any emergency that comes through the door. Without that expect to see a lot of poor-looking unidentified people die. I also don't like the free rider problem you get from repealing the mandate. (Personally, I think the mandate should be a lot tougher--the "penalty" being placing you in the cheapest plan available, the cost shows up on your tax return.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The most vibrant and healthy economy is the economy where expendable wealth is spread into as many hands as possible.

A minority of millionaires and billionaires have nothing to do with a vibrant and healthy economy. They are in fact a hindrance to one.

What you are missing is that most of the wealth in question is in the form of the tools of production.

Spreading it out converts money from future development to current consumption. Today's standard of living rises, tomorrow's falls.

So if we make more people poor now, rich people will benefit in the future?

You have to strike a balance. Your side wants as much as possible directed to consumption--good now, bad in the future. In the long run the saver comes out ahead of the spender.

 

[Underseer]

The wealthy elites deserve a tax cut and you don't because you would just spend it on booze and movie tickets. You deserve to pay higher taxes because unlike the elites, you make bad decisions, such as your terrible decision to not be wealthy.

 

[laughing dog]

So if we make more people poor now, rich people will benefit in the future?

You have to strike a balance. Your side wants as much as possible directed to consumption--good now, bad in the future. In the long run the saver comes out ahead of the spender.

Your first sentence is correct. Your second sentence is a straw man that only reveals your bias. And the 3rd sentence ignores the basic reality that in the long run, both the saver and the spender are dead.