US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7202
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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please. In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. | ||
{CC}StealthBlue
United States41088 Posts
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m4ini
4215 Posts
On March 26 2017 12:32 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/845837715472072704 It's funnier if you take into consideration that trump plugged the show on his twitter hours before it aired. #fakenews This bit here is even better. During her rant, Pirro insisted that she “certainly” hadn’t spoken to the president “about any of this,” despite Trump’s earlier tweet. No, he clearly promoted a random show just for shits and giggles, as he usually does. Wait, he doesn't. Coincidence then. "No one expected a businessman to completely understand the nuances, the complicated ins and outs of Washington and its legislative process. How would he know on what individuals he could rely?" That's supposed to "excuse" Trump. What i personally read is that she's admitting that Trump is not fit for office. Maybe, just maybe, next time vote for someone who does understand how politics work, rather than the "deal maker" who's unwilling and more importantly unable to do a deal and most likely actually doesn't grasp why it was DoA. Hell, people immediately called it DoA, even here. Even conservatives/reps here. There's no "complicated ins and outs" or "nuances". If Hans from a random forum can call bullshit on something, the president should be able to see that too. He wasn't able to. Makes me wonder what's in store for the next fun part, tax reform, which is considerably more complicated. | ||
Acrofales
Spain17186 Posts
On March 26 2017 12:03 KwarK wrote: So payroll deductions are 6.2% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare for the employee. However the employer also has to pay 6.2% for Social Security on behalf of the employee. If you're self employed then you end up paying all three, 15.3/106.2. However if you're not self employed you still have them come out of your total compensation, the second 6.2% is just a stealth tax. It is still money being earned by you for the value you provided to the employer being taken by the government either way. The only difference is if they leave you a receipt on your pay stub saying that they took it. If you're employed then you get a receipt for 9.1%, even though they took 15. You clearly know more about this than I do, but isn't it so that the employer tax should be completely transparent to employees? It doesn't get mentioned on your pay stub, because it doesn't come out of your bruto salary. Rather, the employer has to pay that in addition to your bruto salary. In other words, if you negotiate a bruto salary of $1000, and SS is the only tax you pay, you end up receiving $938. However your employer actually pays $1062. You just never know about that other tax the government charges. In general, employees are far more expensive for companies than the employees know. If you're self-employed you suddenly have to pay all those "hidden" taxes (which are only hidden to employees, not employers), because you are now an employer (of yourself). Why was it set up like this? I have no idea, but it is the case on most countries (all that I have a very worked in). | ||
Atreides
United States2393 Posts
On March 26 2017 14:57 Acrofales wrote: You clearly know more about this than I do, but isn't it so that the employer tax should be completely transparent to employees? It doesn't get mentioned on your pay stub, because it doesn't come out of your bruto salary. Rather, the employer has to pay that in addition to your bruto salary. In other words, if you negotiate a bruto salary of $1000, and SS is the only tax you pay, you end up receiving $938. However your employer actually pays $1062. You just never know about that other tax the government charges. In general, employees are far more expensive for companies than the employees know. If you're self-employed you suddenly have to pay all those "hidden" taxes (which are only hidden to employees, not employers), because you are now an employer (of yourself). Why was it set up like this? I have no idea, but it is the case on most countries (all that I have a very worked in). Right I get all that it's fairly straightforward but the numbers don't seem to match up exactly. The other thing sort of confusing to me is something KwarK adressed very briefly in his long explanation as to the component of social security payout that IS based on your contribution. The simple explanation KwarK gives makes since in the situation where the social security payout was the same for everybody but it's not. My only real interest with this is discussions with my Dad where I feel he clearly does not understand how it actually works but obviously it's a big deal to him. It's not clear to me that the component of payout based on what you pay in is actually as insignificant as KwarK makes it sound. I mean if the amount you pay in IS a significant factor it gives some credence to the attitude that it's "your" money they are saving for you. I might do a bit of research on this my self I guess if I really cared. Regardless it's not entirely unreasonable for people just starting to pay taxes really to be concerned about their own retirement future. System does seem to have its issues in any case. The stuff about the government "stealing from social security" is pretty much rank stupidity though. | ||
Simberto
Germany11032 Posts
On March 26 2017 14:57 Acrofales wrote: You clearly know more about this than I do, but isn't it so that the employer tax should be completely transparent to employees? It doesn't get mentioned on your pay stub, because it doesn't come out of your bruto salary. Rather, the employer has to pay that in addition to your bruto salary. In other words, if you negotiate a bruto salary of $1000, and SS is the only tax you pay, you end up receiving $938. However your employer actually pays $1062. You just never know about that other tax the government charges. In general, employees are far more expensive for companies than the employees know. If you're self-employed you suddenly have to pay all those "hidden" taxes (which are only hidden to employees, not employers), because you are now an employer (of yourself). Why was it set up like this? I have no idea, but it is the case on most countries (all that I have a very worked in). My guess is that "You pay half, your employer pays half" sounds like a very good deal to people who don't think too hard. | ||
FueledUpAndReadyToGo
Netherlands30538 Posts
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LegalLord
United Kingdom13774 Posts
On March 26 2017 16:39 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote: Not sure how legit this account is but a paints a gloomy picture https://twitter.com/RoguePOTUSStaff/status/845756476274683904 https://twitter.com/RoguePOTUSStaff/status/845757659819249664 It's not got that much credibility at this point. Trump clearly is flailing around stupidly rather than consolidating power in any meaningful way. | ||
ShoCkeyy
7815 Posts
On March 26 2017 17:25 LegalLord wrote: It's not got that much credibility at this point. Trump clearly is flailing around stupidly rather than consolidating power in any meaningful way. Idk, then how does Ivanka get her own office in WH without being appointed? | ||
Gorsameth
Netherlands20757 Posts
On March 27 2017 00:25 ShoCkeyy wrote: Idk, then how does Ivanka get her own office in WH without being appointed? Consolidation of power. Trump letting his daughter live in 'his' house. Seriously? That is your example? | ||
LightSpectra
United States1128 Posts
Although I think you're being a bit harsh on the Democrats. I don't think their platform betrays an ignorance of how the system works. It's politicking. Telling people "we want to make adjustments more favorable to you" is harder to sell than "Republicans want to rob you of the money you put into the system, demand no cuts." | ||
zlefin
United States7689 Posts
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Trainrunnef
United States599 Posts
On March 27 2017 00:28 Gorsameth wrote: Consolidation of power. Trump letting his daughter live in 'his' house. Seriously? That is your example? You do realize that she's not just living there right? She is going for security clearance and islikely going to serve as some sort of adviser. Not to mention the fact that he is lining up his ducks in the house. Just see the chairman Nunez actions last week with the Russian investigation and the reported wiretapping. Publicly calling out dissenters during his speech for ahca. Discrediting news (which is the only public tool against him ). All these things are subtle and individually not enough to raise alarms, but look at the whole picture and it's not so much of a leap of faith to make that assertion. | ||
KwarK
United States40776 Posts
On March 26 2017 14:57 Acrofales wrote: You clearly know more about this than I do, but isn't it so that the employer tax should be completely transparent to employees? It doesn't get mentioned on your pay stub, because it doesn't come out of your bruto salary. Rather, the employer has to pay that in addition to your bruto salary. In other words, if you negotiate a bruto salary of $1000, and SS is the only tax you pay, you end up receiving $938. However your employer actually pays $1062. You just never know about that other tax the government charges. In general, employees are far more expensive for companies than the employees know. If you're self-employed you suddenly have to pay all those "hidden" taxes (which are only hidden to employees, not employers), because you are now an employer (of yourself). Why was it set up like this? I have no idea, but it is the case on most countries (all that I have a very worked in). Imagine if there was a 50% flat tax that everyone paid. If you provided $40,000 of value to your employer and they paid you $40,000 then you'd get a pay stub showing $40,000 of income and $20,000 paid in taxes leaving you a post tax income of $20,000. Someone runs for election on the policy of ending the tax completely while still keeping government spending. They get elected and they end all employee paid taxes and just have a 100% employer paid tax so for every dollar the employer pays you they have to pay a dollar in taxes. You still generate $40,000 of value to the employer but obviously if they were to pay you $40,000 then their cost would now be $80,000. So they offer you $20,000 for doing the job. You don't know what you're objectively worth in a free market and can only establish value relative to others in similar positions so if they're all getting $20,000 then you think $20,000 is pretty good. So you get your $20,000 pay stub and it shows absolutely no tax deductions. You're very happy about this. Because humans are dumb and dislike taxes but like having things hidden taxes have become quite popular in the United States. They want taxes to be paid but they don't want to pay them so the compromise is to take them secretly and lie to the taxpayer's faces about where the money came from. Health insurance is a great example of this incidentally. The US has a pretty substantial healthcare tax in place in the form of jobs with benefits but the amount the employer pays on your behalf isn't always obvious. Same with 401k matches and so forth. Ultimately the point is that self employed individuals have to pay the exact same taxes than non self employed people do, they simply get told about them. The amount the government takes out of the total value you generated is the same. However people who work for a company are told that they'll be getting paid an amount substantially lower than the total value they generated to adjust for the hidden taxes. The self employed individual is the guy making $40,000 of value and paying a 50% flat tax. The company employed individual is the guy making $40,000 of value, getting paid $20,000 for it and not having any taxes on that $20,000 at all. | ||
Gorsameth
Netherlands20757 Posts
On March 27 2017 01:51 Trainrunnef wrote: You do realize that she's not just living there right? She is going for security clearance and islikely going to serve as some sort of adviser. Not to mention the fact that he is lining up his ducks in the house. Just see the chairman Nunez actions last week with the Russian investigation and the reported wiretapping. Publicly calling out dissenters during his speech for ahca. Discrediting news (which is the only public tool against him ). All these things are subtle and individually not enough to raise alarms, but look at the whole picture and it's not so much of a leap of faith to make that assertion. See, those are actually examples. try leading with those next time. A President filling positions with his own people is hardly extraordinary, and Nunez is just a dumb politician. Yes Trump is worse then previous Presidents but that's why a modern Democracy has separation of power. The damage he can do is limited and there is little that can be done to stop him anyway. | ||
KwarK
United States40776 Posts
On March 27 2017 00:28 LightSpectra wrote: Just wanted to say 'bravo' for his summary of how Social Security works. Although I think you're being a bit harsh on the Democrats. I don't think their platform betrays an ignorance of how the system works. It's politicking. Telling people "we want to make adjustments more favorable to you" is harder to sell than "Republicans want to rob you of the money you put into the system, demand no cuts." There is a popular misconception in how it works and the Democrat position makes no effort to correct it and just reinforces it to accuse the other side of being the bad guys. Maybe I'm overrating the ability of the public to understand the issue, after all this all started with a politically active individual spouting the importance of the Democratic platform as a justification for why he was campaigning for the Republicans, but to me it sounds a lot like the Social Security equivalent of "death panels". Just because you can sell an idea doesn't mean you should sell it. As stated previously, I actually really like the Republican idea of scrapping Social Security entirely and replacing it with individually managed tax advantaged retirement funds which were funded by the payroll deductions. That'd be awesome for me. Like a super IRA. I like it for the same reason I actually also like their healthcare idea of super HSAs. The only problem with any of it is that it'd completely fail to help the vast majority of society and I struggle to forget that fact long enough to support the policy. | ||
{CC}StealthBlue
United States41088 Posts
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee investigating alleged ties between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia has reportedly exhibited odd behaviour, participating in a “peculiar midnight run” to see secret documents and not being transparent with his colleagues. His committee’s investigation has since stalled following a series of unusual events. This comes shortly after a hearing where FBI director James Comey confirmed he was investigating possible collusion between Russian operatives and Trump aides, and the Committee’s senior Democrat Adam Schiff said he and Mr Nunes subsequently had a classified briefing which gave him “more than circumstantial” evidence of such collusion. Mr Nunes has not shared the documents he obtained during his “peculiar midnight run” this week with his Democratic colleagues in the committee, said Mr Schiff. He instead called an impromptu press conference to announce that he had seen dozens of intelligence reports which showed that Mr Trump’s aides were subject to “incidental data collection”, that is caught in a foreign surveillance net cast by US spy agencies. California Democrat Schiff and Mr Nunes put in a joint request to Mr Comey to share with their committee the information given to them in the classified briefing. But before an answer could be given, Mr Nunes cancelled a second scheduled hearing for 28 March, where intelligence chiefs were expected to speak. Mr Nunes said he called off the meeting to have more time to confer with Mr Comey and the National Security Agency director Michael Rogers. He did not say what exactly what was in the documents or who had shown them to him. Instead, he briefed the President, who recently claimed he had been illegally wiretapped by his predecessor in collusion with the UK. “I had a duty and obligation to tell him because, as you know, he’s taking a lot of heat in the news media,” said Mr Nunes, who served on the Trump transition team. Mr Nunes’ behaviour and the cancelling of the hearing have raised questions over the credibility of the committee’s investigation. “The chairman has to make a decision over whether he is a surrogate for the President, as he was during the campaign and transition, or whether he’s leading a bipartisan investigation, because he can’t do both,” Mr Schiff told the San Francisco Chronicle. “This week, unfortunately, he behaved like a surrogate and that is a real problem.” Mr Schiff said he was determined to “soldier on” with the committee, however, otherwise the investigation could completely collapse. Mr Schiff and Mr Nunes are not presiding over the only investigation of Mr Trump’s ties to Russia. A separate Senate hearing on the alleged links will take place on Thursday. Source | ||
ZerOCoolSC2
8704 Posts
Think he's scared and trying to delay as long as possible so that it collapses? | ||
Gahlo
United States34966 Posts
On March 27 2017 01:51 Trainrunnef wrote: You do realize that she's not just living there right? She is going for security clearance and islikely going to serve as some sort of adviser. Not to mention the fact that he is lining up his ducks in the house. Just see the chairman Nunez actions last week with the Russian investigation and the reported wiretapping. Publicly calling out dissenters during his speech for ahca. Discrediting news (which is the only public tool against him ). All these things are subtle and individually not enough to raise alarms, but look at the whole picture and it's not so much of a leap of faith to make that assertion. Didn't he also fire all the attorneys that were around before him also? Or something like that? I don't know what the precedent is for that, but it looks fishy. | ||
zlefin
United States7689 Posts
On March 27 2017 03:42 Gahlo wrote: Didn't he also fire all the attorneys that were around before him also? Or something like that? I don't know what the precedent is for that, but it looks fishy. the attorney rotation is normal and routine; he just did it in a rather sloppy fashion (insufficient notice and stuff, doing it all at once rather than a rolling way so there's more people around to work) | ||
biology]major
United States2253 Posts
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