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Impressed by Trump administration

  • gut
    ppaw1999;1874611 wrote: I don't think the left has an monopoly on kooks.:rolleyes:
    No one has suggested they do. It's just that, aside from Ted Cruz (well, and Trump who isn't really a Repub), the kooks are not leading the party.
  • ppaw1999
    gut;1874615 wrote:No one has suggested they do. It's just that, aside from Ted Cruz (well, and Trump who isn't really a Repub), the kooks are not leading the party.
    O.K. I can buy that. The problem is what is the party? The Right is split with the tea party or whatever they are calling themselves this week. The left is being taken over by the socialist and the pc patrol. I don't think moderate leadership makes any difference in either party.
  • BoatShoes
    Speaking of kooks.

    Could the GOP be embracing Keynesianism again in the age of Trump or was all the hyperventilating about the deficit for the last decade insincere?

    How bout these remarks from Trump's budget director Mick Mulvaney - who was one of the hardest of the hardcore deficit hawks:

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-03/white-house-accused-of-softness-as-tax-plan-hits-early-bumps



    The GOP Tax Plan Is Already Hitting Speed Bumps

    By Sahil Kapur
    October 3, 2017, 4:00 AM EDT
    October 3, 2017, 3:21 PM EDT
    Corker questions whether GOP has fortitude for tax overhaul
    Republicans split on whether tax plan can add to the deficit


    0:00


    Tax Plan Is Not a Slam Dunk, Says Credit Suisse's Gage
    Tax Plan Is Not a Slam Dunk, Says Credit Suisse's Gage
    The White House is showing "softness" on ending a $1.3 trillion federal tax deduction filers get for their state and local taxes, Senator Bob Corker said Monday, warning that it raises questions about the GOP’s "intestinal fortitude" and could imperil a tax overhaul.

    The framework that President Donald Trump and Republican leaders released Wednesday calls for deep rate cuts and would abolish existing tax breaks to help pay for them. Without such “pay-fors,” Congress might have to settle for only temporary tax cuts.


    Bob CorkerPhotographer: Zach Gibson/Bloomberg
    Corker, who insists he won’t vote for a tax bill that adds a penny to the deficit, said in an interview that he’s concerned about the early signals from the White House. On Friday -- two days after the tax framework was rolled out -- National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn said that ending the state and local tax break was negotiable.


    “That’s the easiest one,” said Corker, a Tennessee Republican. “Some of the others are actually more offensive and produce lesser amounts of money.”

    The budget rules that Senate leaders plan to use to pass the legislation require that any changes that boost the federal deficit would have to expire in time. But the nine-page framework released Wednesday provided few details on revenue raisers. It calls for eliminating deductions, but doesn’t specify them. By showing its willingness to negotiate on one such deduction, the White House appears to be charting a rocky path.

    “As a general matter in tax reform you have to acknowledge that you cannot negotiate with everybody’s single pay-for,” said Doug Holtz-Eakin, who runs the American Action Forum, a conservative group that’s working with GOP leaders on taxes. “If you do that for everything, you don’t get tax reform.”

    ‘New Deficits’

    Ending the state and local deduction, which Trump’s aides proposed in April, faces resistance from Republican lawmakers in high-tax states like New York and New Jersey.

    The same day Cohn commented on the state tax break, tax-writing chiefs Senator Orrin Hatch and Representative Kevin Brady dismissed a study that found ending personal exemptions, another one of the few offsets set forth, could raise taxes for some middle-class families. Their response: The committees haven’t made decisions about which tax breaks to end.


    Asked if the state tax break and personal exemptions were negotiable, Brady reiterated Monday the bill is a work-in-progress. "We’re continuing to work on the final design of the tax reform plan that we’ll have ready after the budget is completed,” he said.

    White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney is signaling similar flexibility, saying on CNN Sunday that decisions about deductions remain up in the air as “the bill is not finished yet.” He took it a step further on Fox News Sunday, by adding that a tax plan that doesn’t add to the deficit won’t spur growth.

    “I’ve been very candid about this. We need to have new deficits because of that. We need to have the growth,” Mulvaney said. “If we simply look at this as being deficit-neutral, you’re never going to get the type of tax reform and tax reductions that you need to get to sustain 3 percent economic growth.”
    : thumbup: Yes! As I have been saying! Higher gov't deficits whether by tax cuts or increased outlays are appropriate for higher output! The Tea Party Conservative at the OBM now agrees??? #MAGA
  • BoatShoes
    gut;1874508 wrote:My EDUCATION in economics and EXPERIENCE in business would lead me to conclude the Democrats are led by kooks....or anyone could just listen to all the crazy sound bites out there for Pelosi, Reid, Feinstein, Warren, DWS, Sanders and agree. Socialism plus identity politics is really not a good fit, for ANY govt.

    You are completely nuts if you can't see the Dem party is led by kooks and has moved much further left than the Republican party has to the right.

    It's only when people think the Dem party hasn't moved that the false narrative of the Repub party moving far to the right comes into play. More conservative right wingers have won seats, and they have some power, particularly in the Senate, when their votes are needed. But Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are as moderate and establishment as you get. Reince Preibus was not a guy you hear about before, or really during, his time as RNC chair. While you may hear plenty of soundbites from the fringe whackjobs on the Daily Show and Bill Maher, you don't really hear anything about those people on actual policy and leadership.

    But you just don't see the same disputes in the Democratic party because their whack jobs and their leadership are very much aligned....I mean, their whack jobs ARE their leadership. Heck, we might even be seeing now that Pelosi isn't radical enough for some in that party....I think Pelosi might possibly be in the early stages of dementia.
    I disagree that Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are moderate Republicans in comparison to the mainstream Washington economic consensus that you refuse to acknowledge that your views are far to the right of.

    For example, Paul Ryan's earlier path to prosperity budget outlines when he was chairman of the budget committee proposed the privatization of Medicare which is - even if you think this is the correct position - it is definitely not a moderate position.

    Paul Ryan is just much more likeable than anybody in the leadership of the Democrats.
  • BoatShoes
    gut;1874615 wrote:No one has suggested they do. It's just that, aside from Ted Cruz (well, and Trump who isn't really a Repub), the kooks are not leading the party.
    Maybe we should put it this way. In the GOP the kooks are in the tail and the tail wags the dog.
  • BoatShoes
    Dr Winston O'Boogie;1874305 wrote:Steel imports are way up for 2017. How about all of that promised protection?
    Funny enough, Trump's campaign rhetoric that was loosely related to free floating exchange rates and why that leads to trade deficits showed that he kind of knows what he is talking about in that area.

    Sadly of course, he failed to be forthright about how little the U.S. can do via trade deals. I mean would we ever accept other countries trying to cajole the Fed into not doing quantitative easing? No.
  • Automatik
    When does the wall construction begin?
  • BoatShoes
    More cookery

    The U.S. National Debt climbs for the 60th straight year!

    https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/federal-debt-increases-60th-straight-fiscal-year

    (And the Gut's of the world have been predicting imminent doom every one of those years!)

    Per the article, the last year the federal debt actually declined was in 1957. Guess what immediately happened thereafter in 1958? The worst recession in the post war boom from 1945 - 1970.

    But thankfully, back then Republicans like Eisenhower believed in using lower interest rates and increased gubmint spending to end recessions and so it was over by 1959.
  • QuakerOats
    Automatik;1875226 wrote:When does the wall construction begin?
    Four prototypes are currently under construction.
  • QuakerOats
    Food exports up 9% already: dairy up 25%; beef up 16%; beef in China for the first time since '03 thanks to Trump/Ross/Perdue. Exporting food, not jobs. Just another of the many wins.
  • QuakerOats
    BoatShoes;1875223 wrote:Sadly of course, he failed to be forthright about how little the U.S. can do via trade deals.


    NAFTA under major rewrite currently.

    TPP dead.




    Not fake news.
  • CenterBHSFan
    BoatShoes;1875219 wrote:For example, Paul Ryan's earlier path to prosperity budget outlines when he was chairman of the budget committee proposed the privatization of Medicare which is - even if you think this is the correct position - it is definitely not a moderate position.
    When people like Ptown think that programs like Social Security should probably, at some point, be sunsetted, then it's not a stretch to say that moderates would think that Medicare should be also.
  • ptown_trojans_1
    CenterBHSFan;1875281 wrote:When people like Ptown think that programs like Social Security should probably, at some point, be sunsetted, then it's not a stretch to say that moderates would think that Medicare should be also.
    Sunsetted, not likely.
    It just needed updated and reformed. I would favor increasing the age from 65 to 70-72 as more people are working past 65 anyways.
    I'm not against privatizing some part of it, if done right, but with the option to keep it for the people that really need and do not have the access to 401k or pension plans.
  • ptown_trojans_1
    QuakerOats;1875245 wrote:
    BoatShoes;1875223 wrote:Sadly of course, he failed to be forthright about how little the U.S. can do via trade deals.


    NAFTA under major rewrite currently.

    TPP dead.




    Not fake news.
    Yeah and all sides have wide disagreements on what that new agreement will be. Also, in any negotiations, you don't get everything you want.

    The TPP dead is insanely dumb as now China has the upper hand in all trade agreements in Southeast Asia.
  • QuakerOats
    Not dumb; avoiding insanely unfair agreements is good.
  • QuakerOats
    QuakerOats;1875243 wrote:Four prototypes are currently under construction.

    The House Homeland Security Committee approved the Border Security for America Act, which includes $10 billion in funding for a border wall between the US and Mexico, $5 billion for entry-port improvements and $35 billion to reimburse states for National Guard expenses. It is expected to pass the full House but face tough obstacles in the Senate.
    The Hill (10/4)
  • ptown_trojans_1
    QuakerOats;1875297 wrote:Not dumb; avoiding insanely unfair agreements is good.
    Sure, then I guess China can run all the trade agreements in Southeast Asia.
  • QuakerOats
    As if they would live up to anything they sign.
  • QuakerOats
    • Dow 3022,760.77+99.13 (+0.44%)



    • Too much winning, my investment accounts and 401k can't handle all this winning. :)
  • ppaw1999
    http://www.newsweek.com/trump-pee-tape-dossier-ruined-russian-reputations-lawsuit-claims-678516

    Finally the story we all have been waiting on!
  • O-Trap
    QuakerOats;1875303 wrote:The House Homeland Security Committee approved the Border Security for America Act, which includes $10 billion in funding for a border wall between the US and Mexico, $5 billion for entry-port improvements and $35 billion to reimburse states for National Guard expenses. It is expected to pass the full House but face tough obstacles in the Senate.
    The Hill (10/4)
    Are you endorsing an additional federal expense of $50 billion?
  • QuakerOats
    absolutely; to be more than offset by cutting 5 times that much elsewhere.
  • O-Trap
    QuakerOats;1875347 wrote:absolutely; to be more than offset by cutting 5 times that much elsewhere.
    Line items you're referencing?

    Also, does the cutting get us UNDER spending more than we're bringing in? If not, it's still deficit spending.
  • Spock
    QuakerOats;1875314 wrote:
    • Dow 3022,760.77+99.13 (+0.44%)



    • Too much winning, my investment accounts and 401k can't handle all this winning. :)
    Yep. Same here. I like making a couple grand a month
  • QuakerOats
    O-Trap;1875358 wrote:Line items you're referencing?

    Also, does the cutting get us UNDER spending more than we're bringing in? If not, it's still deficit spending.

    I have said it a thousand times, you could cut spending by 20% ($700 billion) and not miss a beat. We increased spending by nearly one trillion for TARP, which was supposed to be a ONE-TIME measure, unfortunately it NEVER went away. Look at annual spending and all that pork is still in there --- sickening.