Donald Trump Presidency discussion thread II

jobbridge4life wrote: »

Ratings and money.

Aren't they losing sponsors?

disclaimer - i hate trump and consider myself liberal left.

so i finally read up on the main points of the tax bill and to be honest, it doesn't seem have as bad as people make out and i'm surprised by how wrong the media seem to be framing it. correct me if i'm wrong here;

big corporate tax cut - this is badly needed in fairness. i mean does anyone dispute US companies do everything to move profits out of the US? this new rate brings the US in line with canada for example and many other countries. i don't really agree with it being framed as "robbing the poor to give to the rich", that's totally missing the point. not to mention ireland's standard response to other european countries giving out about ours is always "you are free to lower your own taxes to compete".

smaller tax cuts for all income brackets - all brackets get a cut. and yes these run out in 2025, but this was mandatory under budget rules. you may take the republicans "we'll make them permanent when the time comes" with a huge pinch of salt, but again, you can't dispute the underlying reason for the forced expiration.

removing various "nice to have" tax breaks on things like bicycles, costs of hiring an accountant to do your taxes, etc. i don't think these have a massive impact on the budget overall, but seems no worse than what most governments do in a budget.

removing tax penalty to medically uninsured - this one i totally disagree with. it was done purely on partisan grounds due to the obsession with obamacare. this could come back to bite them very hard in time.

deficit increase - i mean does anyone really care anymore? after a bit of hardball every year you eventually increase the ceiling. a country like the US doesn't ever have to worry about being in debt. anyway, this was always a fiscal conservative issue, funny how it's suddenly an issue now for the democrats.

I'm going to get sick...:(:o Trump and all the Reps are at the white house cheering the tax bill. But in fact all they are just saying how fantastic Trump is. I think his ego is going to explode out of his head. Really really shameless stuff

Is this graph based off what would happen under this bill? One would assume that this giveaway tax bill will see that deficit to GDP increase substantially. With my accountant hat on I really don't see what the benefit of this bill is, it's just giving away money to Corporations and the wealthy with some minor less than inflation % increases for the middle to low income. It's just a really strange bill to be honest, we know trickle down doesn't happen so giving more money to organizations won't lead to increased jobs, in fact most companies will just increased the budget for research/developing process automation which will lead to further jobs cuts (based on the additional funds from this new bill) Honestly It's just a really strange tax bill.

edit: that graph is from August 2013, it's not relevant at all to be honest, especially considering this bill.

Phonehead wrote: »

Is this graph based off what would happen under this bill? One would assume that this giveaway tax bill will see that deficit to GDP increase substantially. With my accountant hat on I really don't see what the benefit of this bill is, it's just giving away money to Corporations and the wealthy with some minor less than inflation % increases for the middle to low income. It's just a really strange bill to be honest, we know trickle down doesn't happen so giving more money to organizations won't lead to increased jobs, in fact most companies will just increased the budget for research/developing process automation which will lead to further jobs cuts (based on the additional funds from this new bill) Honestly It's just a really strange tax bill.

edit: that graph is from August 2013, it's not relevant at all to be honest, especially considering this bill.

my point was total debt is not a good indicator in isolation. it must be considered in context with GDP.

froog wrote: »

disclaimer - i hate trump and consider myself liberal left.

so i finally read up on the main points of the tax bill and to be honest, it doesn't seem have as bad as people make out and i'm surprised by how wrong the media seem to be framing it. correct me if i'm wrong here;

big corporate tax cut - this is badly needed in fairness. i mean does anyone dispute US companies do everything to move profits out of the US? this new rate brings the US in line with canada for example and many other countries. i don't really agree with it being framed as "robbing the poor to give to the rich", that's totally missing the point. not to mention ireland's standard response to other european countries giving out about ours is always "you are free to lower your own taxes to compete".

smaller tax cuts for all income brackets - all brackets get a cut. and yes these run out in 2025, but this was mandatory under budget rules. you may take the republicans "we'll make them permanent when the time comes" with a huge pinch of salt, but again, you can't dispute the underlying reason for the forced expiration.

removing various "nice to have" tax breaks on things like bicycles, costs of hiring an accountant to do your taxes, etc. i don't think these have a massive impact on the budget overall, but seems no worse than what most governments do in a budget.

removing tax penalty to medically uninsured - this one i totally disagree with. it was done purely on partisan grounds due to the obsession with obamacare. this could come back to bite them very hard in time.

deficit increase - i mean does anyone really care anymore? after a bit of hardball every year you eventually increase the ceiling. a country like the US doesn't ever have to worry about being in debt. anyway, this was always a fiscal conservative issue, funny how it's suddenly an issue now for the democrats.

Honestly, some of the things do make some sense to me at least, as a non-economist who likes to listen to things economists say. In general, it seems that economists are not big fans of corporate taxes, so I understand cutting that (although it's also highly disingenuous how Trump keeps saying they're the most taxed nation in this because the US does have a huge amount of deductions that lower the effective rate substantially). At the same time, economists from both sides broadly do not seem that happy with this bill, so I feel like there's more at play than a simplistic "cut corporation tax = good". I also don't really buy that companies will suddenly start bringing all their money back to America from their offshore tax havens. If the rate isn't matching the nonexistent tax rate in the Caymans or wherever, it would still be substantially more expensive to bring it home.

In addition, the mortgage interest deduction seems to have been the bane of economists for years and even though it's popular, on balance people would probably be better off without it.

However, in practice I do still think there are a lot of things that are problems with it, namely it's huge tax cuts for the wealthy who have already seen a disproportionate share of the US's growth in recent years while middle class wealth has stagnated. When you have something like this, I think philosophically it is fair to try and tip the balance back by taxing the wealthiest individuals and using that money to provide good services (like education and healthcare) to the less fortunate. I can't see how this bill will not just end up increasing inequality even further. It's giving a steak dinner to the top 1% and a few breadcrumbs to the rest of America.

I also strongly disagree with the decision to cut the estate tax. I personally think that in an ideal world, estate tax would be 100%, at least beyond a certain threshold. The existing estate tax only targeted the extremely wealthy (I believe it was only assets beyond $10m for a married couple) and I see no reason that should be repealed as the Republican plan did (I know it was repealed in an earlier version, I assume that repeal wasn't removed in these updated versions). It's kind of morally reprehensible that this would be a priority, and reveals that their interests are with the elite, because something like this is done completely to help Donald Trump's kids.

Also, while the debt typically is over-hyped as a problem, it's over-hyped by the very Republicans who are now ballooning it. This will inevitably mean that when the deficit blows up, there will be many calls from that side to be "fiscally responsible" and start cutting public services like social security and healthcare (not the military though, never the military) to get it "under control".

Based on my very elementary understanding of economics, I would also not be surprised if this accelerates a recession and exacerbates it's impact. One of the things I learned in the one economics class I took in college is that periods of growth inevitably end, and it is wiser to be cautious while you are seeing growth rather than to keep betting on the "we're on a role" mentality. You ensure stability by pulling the reins back when things are growing too fast and by stimulating the economy when they're going too slow. The US has seen healthy growth for several years now, which would instinctively make me inclined to think a more cautious approach would be smarter than throwing away an enormous source of income.

Beasty wrote: »

The effective rate including State taxes is still quite a bit more than twice the Irish rate. Ultimately most US multinationals need a European HQ, and the Irish tax system remains a big incentive, as is membership of the EU. Jobs will continue to move away from London and Dublin is well placed to pick some of them up. Having English as the main language also helps.

The other thing though is that personal tax rates in Ireland remain high, and in many cases the payroll taxes these companies generate in Ireland can be a significant benefit to the country (and in some cases can exceed any corporate tax paid)

How do payroll taxes work? I know they're paid by employers (or at the very least, they've never shown up on any payslips I've gotten) but is it correlated to the salary of the employee? If so, does this mean payroll taxes would have the effect of disincentivising wage increases for employees?

I don't have an issue with infastructure/space travel expenditure. To begin with infastructure is important if done correctly (which admittedly I have my doubts about) and space travel will still be a tiny amount overall while advancing scientific knowledge.

As stated above the corporate tax rate is likely to do little. They are competing with what Canada and Mexico? Ireland is competing with the rest of Europe and even then it was at a time when we had little in the way of multi nationals. I would be ok with it being raised in the future once they are more settled with infastructure/ employees.

Did the provision to destroy Grad students from a great height make it into the final version. If not I am surprised it is not mentioned. That will hurt the investment from big companies more. Plenty love PhDs working from them. Admittedly there are loop holes but given the best case scenario for the provision is for it to do nothing you know there is a problem.

Who even thought that going after lowly paid Grad students was a good idea? I mean seriously, it would be like a top end burglar going after homeless people. This is not a great audience to target to get money.

Christy42 wrote: »

Who even thought that going after lowly paid Grad students was a good idea? I mean seriously, it would be like a top end burglar going after homeless people. This is not a great audience to target to get money.

When I heard of the GOP targeting grads, I couldn't help but think of Rick Santorum whinging about Obama's "snobbishness" just because he said he wanted all kids to go through college.

Calina wrote: »

Payroll taxes are taxes on salaries. They are paid by employees but deducted at source by employers. Net result is that for people whose income is broadly salary/wage based tgere is no need to do a tax return the way most people in the US do.

No, they are levied on and paid by employers. A $1 rise in payroll tax, for instance, does not result in a $1 drop in pay received by employees; it results in a $1 rise in in the employer's total remuneration costs.

Indirectly, of course, it does come back to employees. A $1 rise in the employers remuneration costs makes it that bit more difficult for employees to bargain for a $1 payrise, so may result in slower pay increases than would otherwise have happened.

I seem to recall a study which found that, by and large, about 50% of the cost of payroll tax increases was eventually passed back to employees in this way.

But it works both ways. If I increase income tax, so that take-home pay goes down, this increases the demand for pay increases, so some of the extra income tax burden is passed on to employers who have to grant higher pay increases in order to retain and incentivise staff than would otherwise have been the case.

Samaris wrote: »

@Christy They had to drop the grad student provision and one other particularly unpopular provision after a couple of days arguing about it.


Also, he's now raving over the UN and taking as a personal insult that the rest of the world won't fall into line in blowing up the Middle East (Jerusalem). Apparently names are to be taken by Nicky Haley for later seethings and cutting of foreign aid. Giant toddler.

A not insignificant factor in how Trump is bullying and insulting other nations is that people in these nations will have much less favourable attitudes to American products and tourists.

Billy86 wrote: »

This has since been overturned, as after the Republicans who control Virginia's congress noticed they had lost the vote, they decided to count a spoiled vote as a Republican one. Needless to say, had they lost by two votes they would be counting two spoiled votes as Republican, or three, or four, and so on.

This is one of the more startling developments in these state elections to be honest.

https://twitter.com/JWPascale/status/943559301737713665

I take it they are public-office elected Alabama Judges, not the federal type?

Samaris wrote: »

@Christy They had to drop the grad student provision and one other particularly unpopular provision after a couple of days arguing about it.


Also, he's now raving over the UN and taking as a personal insult that the rest of the world won't fall into line in blowing up the Middle East (Jerusalem). Apparently names are to be taken by Nicky Haley for later seethings and cutting of foreign aid. Giant toddler.

Somebody give him back his crayons.

The AMerican ambassador to the UN being as diplomatic as trump is.


https://twitter.com/nikkihaley/status/943596585270824960



https://twitter.com/nikkihaley/status/943241599953309696