CNN’s John Harwood is rather squeeing over China Joe being able to get his COVID “stimulus” through Congress. It was so easy that Democrats had to pass it using reconciliation, because Joe couldn’t get any Republican votes, because House and Senate Democrats, along with Dementia Joe, didn’t bother trying to craft a bipartisan bill, didn’t attempt to gain consensus with Republicans, despite all Joe’s Unity talk. Should giant legislation like that be easy?
Biden made stimulus look easy. Selling tax hikes for infrastructure will be harder
President Joe Biden’s second big legislative push will be harder than his first for multiple reasons, most conspicuously this one: It will include tax increases.
To be sure, Biden seeks increases of the most popular kind. He intends to target corporations and rich people without, aides maintain, touching Americans earning under $400,000 a year.
But tax hikes that start out popular don’t often end up that way, as Republican strategists are eager to prove again once debate over Biden’s “Build Back Better” infrastructure plan begins in earnest.
“Nobody believes taxes are only going to be raised on the wealthy,” explained Glen Bolger, a leading Republican pollster. “The negative tends to outweigh the positive. If we do our job, it becomes the dominant thing.”
Build Back Better, which envisions roughly $3 trillion in new spending and hundreds of billions more in tax credits, shares some of those qualities. Its marquee feature — upgrading America’s stock of roads, bridges, airports, schools, broadband and energy infrastructure — enjoys broad support from voters, politicians in both parties, and business leaders.
Two points: Build Back Better is part of The Great Reset, which is no conspiracy theory. Think of when Obama, China Joe’s boss, was yammering about “fundamentally transforming America.” 2nd
You idiots fell for it https://t.co/vvjTyltXY2 pic.twitter.com/LNEeH9ld86
— The Dank Knight ???? (@capeandcowell) March 17, 2021
Yeah, the China Joe admin has already started to spin Joe’s $400k promise, saying that was for families. Single earners would be $200k. When does that change?
As Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell summarized it: “A so-called infrastructure proposal that may actually be a Trojan horse for massive tax hikes and other job-killing left-wing policies.” Similar attacks on “job-killing” tax hikes by Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama exacted a political toll even though economic events did not vindicate them.
The relentless march of income equality since has enhanced the appeal of Biden’s ideas, which include a higher corporate rate, a higher rate on personal income for top earners, and higher rates on capital gains and inherited assets. His call to reward “work, not wealth” reflects polls showing middle-class voters believe the rich and Big Business avoid taxation at their expense.
That belief undercut public support for former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which disproportionately benefitted high earners. But Americans’ widespread distrust of government creates treacherous cross-currents for Biden and his party just the same.
“They think once (lawmakers) start raising taxes, ‘I’m going to get stuck with the bill,'” said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. “Historically, they’ve just heard ‘tax increase.’ They don’t hear the qualifier: who’s paying it.”
That last line shows that the Elites think we’re stupid. Because those tax increases never stop at “the rich”. Raise them on corporations and they pass them along to everyone else. Raise them on individuals and they look to shelter their money rather than investing it. And we aren’t dumb enough to think that there won’t be all sorts of tax increases and games played, especially when we know the “infrastructure” bill will contain all sorts of hardcore leftist priorities that have little to nothing to do with infrastructure and will solicit almost no Republican input. You can bet people will be given almost no chance to read it before it is voted on.
Consider the fate of two ballot measures in last November’s elections. In Illinois, voters considered shifting from a flat tax to a progressive income levy that Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker said would only hit the top 3% of households; in California, they considered higher taxes on large commercial property owners to finance schools and local government.
Both are blue states Biden carried easily. In both, voters rejected the tax hikes.
Leftists say they want to raise taxes on “the rich”, but, when they actually have to vote, they vote against the measures because they know it would raise their own taxes. Nothing is more fair than a flat tax.
Biden’s plan attempts a logical connection between new spending and revenue to pay for it. Raising the corporate rate to 28% from 21% would finance physical infrastructure investments. Higher levies on wealthy individuals would finance “human capital” benefits including tuition-free community college and universal pre-kindergarten.
What does community college and pre-school have to do with infrastructure? Raise the corporate rate and they will shelter it, not spend it, have less hiring, fewer pay raises, etc and so on. In the real world, we understand this, unlike the people in Congress who mostly haven’t worked real jobs in decades and/or never actually ran a business in any fashion.
That’s why White House officials and congressional Democratic leaders alike expect negotiations with Republicans on a bipartisan compromise to fail. If that happens, Build Back Better would end up taking the same path as Covid relief: A single giant bill advanced under special budget rules that would require rock-solid Democratic unity but no Republican votes.
What you’ll hear, just like in the early Obama years, is that Joe and the Dems aren’t bothering to talk with Republicans because they know the GOP is against the bill, so, why bother? So, there will be no engagement from Joe. Not that Joe seems to really understand what’s going on. He just does what he’s told.
As long as he lies and tells the little people their taxes won’t be raised ,he will have no problem. He has already said he was taking away Trump’s tax cuts , to my thinking , that’s a tax raise for about 50% + of tax payers.
Joe, I have a better idea: Cut all entitlement programs by 50% and use that to build infrastructure.
Seriously, any infrastructure that the feds are responsible for should be a line item every year. This “emergency” garbage for what should be a normal maintenance item is pure used food.
Conservatives have always get a boner for gutting Social Security and Medicare, and always propose it when THEY don’t have to take responsibility. Perhaps a “courageous” GQPher running for president in 2024 will run on that platform item. Ron DeSantis? Rafi Cruz? Don Jr?
But you’re correct that we should be taking care of physical infrastructure regularly.
But we can’t have everything AND cut taxes on the wealthy.
Both Republicans and Democrats are fine with raising taxes on corporations, because they know that most of the public are too ignorant to understand that corporations pay no taxes; corporations simply collect taxes from their customers, and the public wonder why everything is so expensive.
The always uber-confident Mx Dana calls everyone except himself too ignorant to understand corporate taxation. In fact, even tax experts debate this. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, corporate taxes accrue up and down the economic ladder, with corporate shareholders losing bigly, corporate workers losing in terms of pay and benefits, and consumers losing. Although the bulk of this corporate expense is absorbed by 1%ers, the impact on lower income consumers is still significant.
But no way do corporations pass the bulk of the expense to consumers. The topic is important, but not simple.
Uh, …
https://tinyurl.com/sxkthfsk
Bwaha! Lolgfy
Jeff,
That has to rank as one of your more stupid comments. We know you are a Vice President of a listed corporation, you have dropped that multiple times, but do you understand when the accountants discuss the balance sheet? Apparently not. Taxes are passed on to the consumer except in situations were the government controls pricing, as with doctors and hospitals.
Question, do you breath through your eye lids, you are that dumb.
davis,
We can only hope you were a better health care worker than you are an economist.
We can only hope the families of your victims have forgiven you.
Much of what conservatives “know” is untrue.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/cartercoudriet/2020/04/08/the-richest-billionaire-in-every-us-state-2020/?sh=94f750e50f8b
Note how many are heirs, widows and money managers. A precious few are billionaires from original ideas, inventions or even hard work. Bezos had the idea to sell books over the internet. Menard started a hardware store. Goodknight developed SAS (with help from NIH and NCSU, public entities). If you’re the CEO of a company started by their grandfather, you didn’t build it yourself. Your 2nd husband bought the NBA Juggernauts, you didn’t. If you inherited 10% of Wal-Mart or Mars Candy, good for you – you’re a billionaire. Now, help pay for the roads.
They all deserve a tax cut, otherwise their heirs will have fewer billions to inherit.
“They all deserve a tax cut, otherwise their heirs will have fewer billions to inherit.”
Hey asshole. you do realize you’re arguing for higher inheritance tax not income tax? Income tax does NOT tax whatever Mars candy inherited. Maybe you don’t understand taxation. In fact even “the experts” will agree the two taxes are quite different.
I love when leftist idiots “re imagine” taxation. It always involves someone else paying more.
You make sense if you don’t think about it.
But let’s think about it a moment. IF the billionaires pay more taxes now, doesn’t it make sense that they’ll have fewer dollars to give their unworthy spawn?
Most tax recommendations I have would also increase my taxes. Can you say the same or do you think people in our brackets are already overtaxed?
2017: $1.9 TRILLION tax cut (did you benefit?)
2020: $4.5 TRILLION relief/stimulus spending (you admitted receiving $2 million, but whine it wasn’t enough!! – we received none)
2020 national debt: $28 TRILLION ($28,000,000,000,000) – This during the best US economy evuh!!
What ever happened to conservative fiscal responsibility?
Note that most blue states send more federal taxes than they receive and most red states take more than they send. And it’s OK that the producers help the consumers. At issue is that the cuts in progressive federal support to the states has caused an increase in regressive state and local taxes.
But perhaps VP Richard B. Cheney was right when he said, “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter”.
Vice President Dowd wrote:
Well, yes, it does: if you make them less wealthy, they will have less for their children to inherit.
But, of course, perhaps they might think of their “spawn” as less “unworthy” than you do. It’s basic human nature — something socialists simply don’t understand — that people love their children and want to do as much as they can for them.
The wealthy have been paying taxes all of their lives, trying to build something for their “spawn”. But, Mr Dowd, thinking that their “spawn” are “unworthy,” thinks that his determination of the worthiness of their spawn ought to somehow be controlling, wants to take away as much of the accrued wealth, wealth built upon efforts that were already taxed, so that the spawn get as little as possible.
We seem to have learned something else about the esteemed Mr Dowd; he has no “spawn” of his own. Those of us who have procreated understand these basic things. That Mr Dowd does not would seem a probable indicator that he has failed in his duty to procreate.
The increasingly distraught Mx Dana ignores that we raised our now adult children to be independent contributors to society. Curiously, all three (and spouses!) had jobs deemed pandemic essential, as were the jobs of my spouse and I. Lucky choices in careers, I guess.
That’s not to say we won’t pass our own accumulated wealth (since we live very simply for our income level – ya’ know, to reduce our carbon footprint) in the form of college tuition for grand- and great-children etc.
I would think we’d agree that Sam Walton’s spawn hardly earned their billions, that Paris Hilton hasn’t earned her $100s of millions… all we’re asking is that we return to a progressive system of taxation to take some of the burden off working class Americans.
Should we eliminate inheritance taxes? Adopt a flat tax system where everyone pays 23% of their income regardless of source, and independent of “deductions”? What is your ideal and fair system?
“His call to reward “work, not wealth†reflects polls showing middle-class voters believe the rich and Big Business avoid taxation at their expense.”
Many people are too stupid to know the difference between wealth and income. They end up believing the bullshit spewed by the class envy department of the crime syndicate known as the Democrat Party.
You will never change The Elwood’s blisteringly communist mind about taxes. He’s a one trick pony.
Taxes on income hurt all income earners. That means the guy running a business making $500k a year buy who someday will make perhaps 2 million. It means the doctor earning 3 million with his wife. It means the inventor who will “finally” cash in this year and pull down a cool 25 million for his efforts.
In an attempt to strike out in an envious rage against a few billionaires (and their spawn) who communists such as The Elwood hates almost (but not quite) as much as Christians The Elwood would take ever single aspiring millionaire and first world economy builder down. The Elwood is a jealous slob. Don’t be like The Elwood.
The Kye thinks communism is about collecting taxes. Was President Eisenhower a communist? President Truman? Kennedy?
“Taxes are what we pay for civilized society…” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1927
Proto-anarchists like the privileged, entitled The Kye would rely on warm-hearted American conservatives to fund American civilization.
The US governments (local, state, federal) spend over $9 TRILLION per year. From where should this money come? (We know, we know, the recently “outed” conservative movement will say to cut spending but they’re not serious). Maybe not give you $2 million in taxpayer money? Make rich men buy their health insurance on the commercial market?
Faux-conservatives (F-cons) prefer that the working class pay more of this burden and their “mythical” capitalist ubermensch be freed to create wealth and rule.
Faux-liberals would prefer that the working class pay more of the burden of rising gas prices to fight “global warmingâ€.
“Maybe not give you $2 million in taxpayer money? ”
Hey kuntface, do you know anything about business or finance? The 2 million is not taxpayers money, it’s TD banks money but guaranteed by the SBA. The taxpayer lent me exactly ZERO.. I also find it amusing you bitch and complain about me getting a loan yet all your crooked fascist friends and leaders steal taxpayers money by the palate and you never say a word. And that ain’t no loan.
You are so full of hate, venom and envy you can’t think straight you illiterate moron. Fascist/communists like The Elwood are a poison in our society and they really believe they can just keep spending money like crazy.
Meanwhile, rapper Lil Nas X unveiled a limited edition of “Satan shoes†that contain human blood and are limited to 666 pairs.
The “Old Town Road†singer is expected to release the pair of shoes on March 29 as a collaboration with Nike.
The satanic sneakers start at $1,018. Eternal damnation doesn’t come cheap, now that Nike has learned how to make a buck off it.
The timing of the shoe’s release coincides with the release of Nas’s latest video, “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),†which was released Thursday. The music video shows him dancing on a stripper pole on his way down to hell as well as giving Satan a lap dance, according to the New York Post.
On top of the worship of evil, we are treated to LGBT BS. The rapper says the song “will open doors for many other queer people to simply exist.†Cause nobody knew that even though we’re reminded daily.
The effect of moonbattery on what was once a thriving, healthy culture has been devastating. At this point, it may be irreversible. Thank your local demofascist. I thank The Elwood and fascist killers like him.
The Elwood’s child slaves:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5f83d1991e8c7cde0a905e9d4c598658dc06b69f07450c4227cdcb9384254bd4.jpg?w=600&h=498
Mx NasX appears to be trolling right-wingers. I’m sure he appreciates all the attention and sales.
I no longer listen to much country music, though. *I don’t like country music, but I don’t mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means ‘put down’.
People such as you have advocated foreign invasions, racism, state executions, oppression of LGBTQs, Muslims and immigrants, a racist, hateful, cruel and the most immoral president in American history, but a country rapper is just too much. The last president, a draft dodger, paid hush money to porn stars to keep them quiet about his extramarital affairs. He encouraged insurrection and tried to steal a presidential election. But a country rapper mocking your evangelical hatred of gays just goes too far!
We DO understand your abject fear of losing your white privilege and of always being comfortable in your bubble. Grow up.
So a forgivable loan backed by the SBA. Will the lender take the loss when the PPP loan is forgiven, LOL? Where does the SBA get their money??? And understand that if you used the monies fraudulently you could be in BIG trouble.
*H/T to Bob Newhart
Mr Dowd asked me, in a comment thread which ended:
Almost right: we should repeal the Sixteenth Amendment and tax everyone the same, the same dollar amount, as was the ideal in the original Constitution. Taxation should be by population, not by income.
Great idea. Easy enough to calculate how much we need and tax every person the same dollar amount.
To make the arithmetic easier, let’s divide $3,300,000,000,000 by 330,000,000 Americans. 3,300,000/330 = 10,000 per person. That’s a yuuuge tax cut for me!! Ayn Rand would conclude I should support that since it would save us BIG bucks. But I oppose that idea.
A young family of 4 would be on the hook for $40,000, while Warren Buffet would only owe $10,000.
Why not by state? Each state would have to pay 1/50th of what’s needed. California and Wyoming would pay the same amount… about $66 billion each. How fast would WY empty? LOL.
Good luck repealing the 16th. Maybe the next “trump” could do it by fiat.