The Goat Pen

I thought you guys probably knew that the US wasn't a democracy.

Donald Trump is the first President to be full on Zaphod Beeblebrox

Tree is right. The EC was a secret conspiracy by the disgusting white male cisgender religious nutjob racists who founded this disgusting white male cisgender religious nutjob racist country in order to keep the good tolerant pluralist diverse enlightened inclusive people from winning elections.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/taxes/t ... id=U142DHP

By 2027, over half of all Americans — 53 percent — would pay more in taxes under the tax bill agreed to by House and Senate Republicans, a new analysis by the Tax Policy Center finds. That year, 82.8 percent of the bill’s benefit would go to the top 1 percent, up from 62.1 under the Senate bill.

bluetick wrote:https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/taxes/t ... id=U142DHP

By 2027, over half of all Americans — 53 percent — would pay more in taxes under the tax bill agreed to by House and Senate Republicans, a new analysis by the Tax Policy Center finds. That year, 82.8 percent of the bill’s benefit would go to the top 1 percent, up from 62.1 under the Senate bill.

"Almost all provisions of the bill, with the exception of the reduction in the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, are temporary, expiring at the end of 2025. One exception is the adoption of a new slower-growing inflation measure to adjust tax brackets, a change which effectively raises taxes over time and helps pay for the permanent corporate rate cut. Since corporate rate cuts mostly help Americans rich enough to own stock, that means that in 2027, poor and middle class Americans would see a very ild tax increase on average:"

In 2027...Quite the reach there...

He should give this speech every day.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/t ... 11166.html

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... kback.html

Earlier this month, Bob Corker believed that the Republican tax bill was unconscionably reckless. The Tennessee senator had spent a decade decrying the “rapidly growing national debt” as the “greatest threat to our nation” — and months vowing to vote against any tax-cut legislation that added “one penny” to that sum. So, when he learned that the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” would add over $1 trillion to the deficit, Corker decided to take a lonely stand against it.

Two weeks later, Republican leaders in the House and Senate unveiled their final, consensus tax-cut legislation. The bill was nearly identical to the one Corker had voted against, except that it added even more money to the deficit — and included a special tax break for real-estate investors that would increase Bob Corker’s personal income by up to $1.2 million a year. On Friday afternoon, Corker announced that he would vote for the bill.

Shortly after this announcement, the International Business Times threw a spotlight on how Corker stood to benefit from the bill, and “#CorkerKickback” started trending on Twitter
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And yet the president looks into the camera and says this bill is "a great Christmas present for the middle class." And follows that with "and this is going to cost me a fortune, believe me." "Believe me"...even the true believers are starting to wince when he comes with that.

my take is pretty straight forward

If you have to look for ways to pay for a tax cut while using the justification that your corporate tax cuts are going to fuel economic growth, then you have no faith in the latter and hope the former covers your ass.

Tax revenue increases from increased employment and corporate revenues/decreased margins should offset any corporate tax cuts in a fiscally responsible plan.

I think they have vastly underestimated that backlash from ending net neutrality, but this is exactly the sort of thing I hoped would happen as a result

A Hawaii state lawmaker announced plans Monday to introduce a bill that would require the state to explore the feasibility of creating and supporting locally owned broadband networks that do not rely on traditional internet service providers.

Kaniela Ing, a state representative who recently announced his intention to run for Congress, told me that in order to protect net neutrality in a way that is unlikely to be preempted by the Federal Communications Commission, he believes the state can incentivize the creation of locally owned internet infrastructure.

Ing has not yet introduced the legislation but wrote in a press release that “states like Hawaii must act now to save the equal-and-open internet.”

“One option is to reject corporate internet service providers altogether, and control the internet ourselves,” he wrote.

Ing told me on the phone that the bill will declare that the internet should be equal and open to all, urge Congress to reverse the FCC’s ruling, and, most importantly, will “set up a task force to explore the feasibility of community-owned broadband in Hawaii.” He said that the task force will delve into whether governments should directly support community-owned networks and look at whether it makes sense to provide grants for the creation for them.

“We’re doing something positive,” he said. “Locally owned internet is the only way to protect net neutrality for decades to come.”

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another good role model

http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/20/technol ... index.html



now add to it that the FTC now has more broader powers to determine monopolies which this area is ate up with and my hope is that companies like Comcast go away forever.

"A Hawaii state lawmaker announced plans Monday to introduce a bill that would require the state to explore the feasibility of creating and supporting locally owned broadband networks that do not rely on traditional internet service providers."

That's what we have here in our little ol town in eastern NC. Greenlight. Seems like there will be plenty of opportunity for this type of thing now, but they have faced a measure of push back from the corporate fat cats, but I don't know the full details on that. Naturally, said fat cats are going to do everything in their power to see to it that they don't face competition from municipalities...

So what eCat hoped for is government control of the internet? I'm sure that'll still be a great idea decades from now when a new generation is in office.

aTm wrote:So what eCat hoped for is government control of the internet? I'm sure that'll still be a great idea decades from now when a new generation is in office.

I think you're kidding yourself if you think they don't control it now. I'm certain that somewhere there is a shutoff button, every major provider has a back door to the NSA and every major social media platform can and will deliver a detailed report to the FBI or CIA on user activities.

The threat of net neutrality was that the government would start regulating internet content but it did go thru two of the most extreme versions of each party and neither expressed interest in wielding its power to control access.

Their mentality at the state and local level is primarily seeing it as a utility, not the role of censor , arbitrator of common decency or safety.

I'm actually surprised a small community can actually manage it like a utility meaning that people need to have it hooked up and often need to provide trouble-shooting and maintenance, however at $70 a month, it most likely is a decent revenue stream.

Post Office missed its opportunity to remain viable and also provide a national service.

If people think that his corporate tax reduction will result in anything other than share buybacks, increased dividends, and capital investment in automation, they are nuts. These rust belt morons who voted for this are going to be more fucked than ever. Serves them right.

Well, we knew you'd be for it.

calculator that shows how the tax cuts will affect you

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/13/politics/ ... index.html

Cat, I agree with you about the GOP leaders vastly underestimating the backlash about net neutrality. I’ve got three millenial kids: two are stalwart Libertarian conservatives like me. One - the teacher - is a liberal like his mother - another teacher.

All three millenials were genuinely panicked the day net neutrality ended. They were surprised that when they logged into their computers, the darn things still worked. Even if the Republicans had good reasons to what they did, they did a perfectly horrible job explaining themselves to the millenials. The Dem’s absolutely won that argument in a rout. All three of my millenials kids are ready to go start a sustainable, non-judgemental, and responsibly sourced riot, even without the usual participation trophies for all. It was that bad.

Cletus got to keep his grad student cheap labor subsidy and he still is bitching.

Let’s not kid ourselves, the whole tax plan was centered around lowering that top corporate rate and changing the US international tax system to a territorial system. Everything else was just filler to get the votes. The reason the Euros, Dems and some R globalists hate it is that it is a HUGE first step in us stopping our funding of the rest of the world’s socialism. There is a reason European stocks are down and Dow futures are up this morning. The following article explains it better than I.

https://www.project-syndicate.org/comme ... in-2017-09

after I've read up on it a little more, I'm actually feeling better about it.

Basically every married couple making above $40K is going to see some kind of noticeable tax break until 2025

and gay people will be able to buy a cake.