The Goat Pen

more from the Forbes article:

Where would these cuts come from to pay for this horrendous legislation? Since they are not coming from defense or paring corporate tax breaks, the biggest target on the table are social insurance programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
There's more in this draconian giveaway to the wealthiest entities on the planet. Medical expense write-offs would be slashed in the House version, although they stay in the Senate bill. Loss of medical write-offs would clobber everyone with poor insurance, especially retirees.

Here's a joint statement from the AARP and 27 other non-profits representing everyone from retirees to cancer patients:
"For the past 75 years, Americans with high health care costs have been able to deduct medical expenses from their taxes. For the approximately 8.8 million Americans who annually take this deduction, it provides important tax relief which helps offset the costs of acute and chronic medical conditions for older Americans, children, pregnant women and other adults as well as the costs associated with long term care and assisted living.

Even those with Medicare can spend a large portion of their income on out-of-pocket expenses. The average Medicare beneficiary spends about $5,680 out-of-pocket on medical care.

Furthermore, older Americans and individuals with disabilities or chronic illnesses often face high costs for long term services and support, which are generally not covered by Medicare or private insurance, as well as hospitalizations and prescription drugs, which may have significant copayments."

House Speaker Paul Ryan and the GOP have long wanted to privatized Medicare and have repeatedly called to slash $1 trillion from Medicaid in their myriad attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

What the GOP should be doing is finding a way to bring back the trillions that corporations, colleges and individuals have offshored and invest it in health and public infrastructure. Apple alone has secreted more than $252 billion offshore. Everyone from Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to Ivy League Colleges have moved their money away from U.S. taxation.

The GOP could do the fiscally sensible thing by allowing more wage earnings to be taxed to support Social Security and Medicare while allowing more Americans to deduct massive expenses for college (also being cut) in-home and long-term elderly care.

Currently you're only taxed on earnings until you reach $127,200. That's one of the biggest tax breaks for the wealthy, who avoid their fair share to fund two of the most popular retirement programs in the country.

Welcome to middle-class tax reform. You pay more, corporations and the super-affluent pay much, much less. It's a hurricane coming to every town, only it will somehow spare the mansions.

I wonder how many middle class families itemize more than 24,000 a year

just saw that the average deduction for income earners making 100 to 200K is $25,598 and 30.6% of those people itemized. So I would assume that roughly 70% of the people took the standard deductions for their tax bracket. So would that mean that approximately 15% of all income earners making between 100 and 200K would be screwed by a $24K standard deductions while everyone making less than that would benefit from the standard deduction?

What am I missing here?

also 63% of those people largest deduction was mortgage with an average of $9K
charitable gifts was $4K (holy hell, I thought I was pushing it by claming $1200 every year) 68%
real estate taxes was $4800 while 7% claimed medical expenses at $11K

Medicare tax is on all wages. There is no cap of $127k like there is for SS. Medicare and SS need to be cut. Right now, it’s unsustainable in current form no matter how much you tax the rich. The retirement age needs to increase to 72 to start and increase later.

I have a hard time expecting the wealthiest people to pay a ton more in SS tax when they are already participating in a progressive income tax. I also don't think SS payouts should be be means based.

I do agree that the retirement age should be raised. At the same time they should let people collect social security and still work regardless of what wage they earn if they are capable. You're penalizing people from collecting on money they've put into a system but forcing them to live off of it if they haven't been able to save for retirement.

My grandparents were both retired and collecting social security for more than 22 years. I'm certain they collected more than they ever paid in.

sardis wrote:

Tree wrote:

AlabamAlum wrote:When you say the poor pay a high percentage of "taxes" you mean things like SS, Medicare, State, local, and sales tax and NOT federal income tax, correct?

All taxes combined. In some of the more regressive states the poor are paying up to 7 times as much of their income as the rich.

Again, hyperbole?

Fact actually. And you could have looked it up in about the time it took you to make that post.

First, the GOP wants to make higher education in the US less competitive by taxing the tuition waiver. Next, they intend to kill entrepreneurship by taxing options. The plan is to tax stock options and RSUs at the time of vesting - which makes them a liability rather than a lottery ticket. It means that you're going to highly tax someone making a nominal salary and a bunch of options that they can't exercise on the idea that the stock options might some day have real value. How's a startup going to find any talent if they can't offer stock options?

http://www.recode.net/2017/11/13/166447 ... mpensation

But, golf course owners are still in the clear and that's really what matters.

A Billion Dollars to Trump Family if GOP Tax Plan Passes https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... id=U142DHP

The Donald says he will pay more in taxes.. would he lie?

Well to be fair, Donald Sr will be dead when the real savings happen. So he won't personally benefit.

Let's hope his family benefits from this very, very soon.

Heard this on a radio station while driving across South Carolina yesterday:

“At least there as absolutely, positively, zero chance, whatsoever, that our Senator - Lindsay Graham - will ever be accused of sexually harrassing..... a woman.”

Like you havent. I did, they liked it.

I'm actually kinda shocked that Prof and Co. haven't accused these women of being "snowflakes"...

its about at the point where its ridiculous. That woman that is accusing Franken.

That picture was clearly a joke, and maybe it was in bad taste and inappropriate but is that really the bar for sexual harassment nowadays. Now the tongue kiss part, OK , bring it up, its valid I guess.

and again. 10, 20, 30, 40 years after it happens.

I saw this and it fits...

Not defending Franken, and granted Ms. Tweeden was a marine, but it seems to me that she handled the harassment properly. I understand that many women don't feel powerful enough to say "if you do that again, I'm going to kick your ass", much less have the ability to back it up (and also the fact that Franken isn't exactly the most menacing of men), but it seems like her reaction would stop a lot of these incidents dead in their tracks. Again, not saying any of this to defend Franken, just saying maybe this woman displayed a blueprint on how to stop many of these types of incidents before they can really go anywhere...

by most accounts, Mike Pence is a decent guy - while its a bit weird, its certainly doesn't seem nearly as weird in today's environment that he never meets a woman alone and often includes his wife.

Of course Pence is miles away in terms of ideology from being an ideal candidate to the left.

So my question is, lets say Mike Pence is running against the Democratic equivalent of Roy Moore in your home state for Senator.

The Democratic Roy Moore is going to play a key role in appointing a left leaning SCOTUS, his vote is needed to support the platform for funding Obamacare and moving toward a single payer system, tax reform that helps balance the wealth inequality in this country and compassionate immigration reform

but the Democratic Roy Moore raped 14 year old girls 15 years ago.

So as a Democrat - are you going to vote for the rapist or Mike Pence?

Its easy to sit there throw shade on Moore being a shitty human being, but at the end of the day are you going to not vote at all or vote for the the decent human being that will vote in favor of everything you stand against?

Any male in the workplace with half a brain knows to be extremely careful about what they say and do around females, especially the ones you supervise (except, obviously, in Hollywood.)

A simple, “Good morning. Is that a new hairstyle?” can land you in HR, or a lawyer’s office.

eCat wrote:by most accounts, Mike Pence is a decent guy - while its a bit weird, its certainly doesn't seem nearly as weird in today's environment that he never meets a woman alone and often includes his wife.

Of course Pence is miles away in terms of ideology from being an ideal candidate to the left.

So my question is, lets say Mike Pence is running against the Democratic equivalent of Roy Moore in your home state for Senator.

The Democratic Roy Moore is going to play a key role in appointing a left leaning SCOTUS, his vote is needed to support the platform for funding Obamacare and moving toward a single payer system, tax reform that helps balance the wealth inequality in this country and compassionate immigration reform

but the Democratic Roy Moore raped 14 year old girls 15 years ago.

So as a Democrat - are you going to vote for the rapist or Mike Pence?

Its easy to sit there throw shade on Moore being a shitty human being, but at the end of the day are you going to not vote at all or vote for the the decent human being that will vote in favor of everything you stand against?

Are you serious? Of course you don't vote for the guy who raped a 14 year old. What the fuck?

Democrats have been covering up for pervs and sexual assaulters for decades. I’m not sure the age the victim of a Democrat rapist would make any difference.

Girls creator Lena Dunham has sparked controversy by defending a writer and producer on her HBO show accused of sexually assaulting an actress when she was 17. Dunham issued a statement to The Hollywood Reporter on Friday dismissing the allegations against Murray Miller, who actress Aurora Perrineau alleges raped her at a hotel in 2012. Calling Perrineau's complaint to police over the alleged assault one of very few “misreported” assault cases, Dunham and Girls showrunner Jenni Konner issued a joint statement describing the accusations as an example of “taking down the wrong targets.

I think the only thing that everyone in America can agree upon is that Lena Dunham is a moron and needs to go away.