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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez


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2 hours ago, Orca of Peace said:

was it El-Sayed? He finished 2nd.

ok, wtf, my bad.  I read that in a comments section and didn't check it before posting.  fake news I guess.

here are the results with 99.6% reporting:

Democratic Primary

Map Percent Candidate Votes Winner
  52.1% Gretchen Whitmer 585,165  
  30.3% Abdul El-Sayed 339,740  
  17.6% Shri Thanedar 197,795

Republican Primary

Map Percent Candidate Votes Winner
  50.7% Bill Schuette 500,147  
  25.2% Brian Calley 248,249  
  13.1% Patrick Colbeck 129,246  
  11% Jim Hines 108,289

 

https://www.politico.com/election-results/2018/michigan/

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17 hours ago, bad_teammate said:

Odds are very low she'll be "bought off" in any meaningful way. It's neither in her best interest or in those who buy off politicians. Bernie Sanders is 800 years old and is not bought off.

I am not interested in influencing AOC, but if I were assigned that task, I wouldn't use money. I would jam her phone, cut off her access to social media.

It'd be like that scene where Darth Vader chokes the dude using his mind. "You're killing her, RD! Let her check Instagram!"

I could probably mess with a lot of politicians if I had that power.

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1 hour ago, Huckleberry said:

You might want to consider the fact that you ran from a comments section to post something snarky over here without verifying it and what it might mean for your credibility and claims to be an honest guy just looking for truth on this board.

 

 

with the way he lost it isn't as if he was  a close second.  i owned my mistake.  

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15 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

Yeah, she’s actually one of the most likely people imaginable to be bought off.  She either doesn’t even remotely understand what she’s talking about or she is a total charlatan.  She included in her argument on CNN this week about the cost savings of Medicare for all the idea that it will produce significant savings in funeral costs.  She’s a total joke.

Whether she just doesn’t know better and is about to get money and power for the first time, or whether she’s a calculating grifter who saw an opportunity to quit bartending and bank off left wing populist rage, either way she is a prime candidate to stop practicing what she preaches once she gets what she wants.

Doubtful she ever pract-tized what she's preaching. Few ever do (Bernie may be one of the only modern examples). It's always aimed at the other guy....

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Only time will tell on her but for the moment she appears to be in it for the right reasons and at least has a positive message. 

Yeah, she's probably ignorant AF on foreign policy issues but as long as she's willing to acknowledge her ignorance and educate herself before making any policy decisions, those shortcomings can be overcome.  

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz
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20 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Only time will tell on her but for the moment she appears to be in it for the right reasons and at least has a positive message. 

Yeah, she's probably ignorant AF on foreign policy issues but as long as she's willing to acknowledge her ignorance and educate herself before making any policy decisions, those shortcomings can be overcome.  

Her policy decisions have already been made for her by the party................. comrade......

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21 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

Not just foreign policy.  In fact, it seems pretty likely to me that she’s not simply ignorant AF on economic questions, but rather/also willfully misleading.  You can write that off as, “Well, that’s politics.”  Which is true, but that’s because most politicians are rightfully despised and it means she forfeits her sincere do-gooder charm, which is all she really has going for her.

this is the thing, though. she's the result of people pushing back on the current generation of olds. many people see the government we've got as ineffective, so why not vote for the young lady from the bronx, can't be any worse, right? the problem with this thinking is that it is remarkably similar to the attitude that landed us with donald trump. 

the distinction here, however, is that this lady wants to do right by her district, it seems, whereas donald wants to do right by himself. i'm okay with some ignorance along with good faith, as long as the good faith is genuine.

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This quote is not edited. It is directly from the transcript.

"So, we’re paying for this system. We — Americans have the sticker shock of healthcare as it is, and what we’re also not talking about is, why aren’t we incorporating the cost of all the funeral expenses of those who died because they can’t afford access to healthcare? That is part of the cost of our system."

 

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1808/08/CPT.01.html

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24 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

This quote is not edited. It is directly from the transcript.

"So, we’re paying for this system. We — Americans have the sticker shock of healthcare as it is, and what we’re also not talking about is, why aren’t we incorporating the cost of all the funeral expenses of those who died because they can’t afford access to healthcare? That is part of the cost of our system."

 

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1808/08/CPT.01.html

Convenient selective quote.  Why not quote her entire statement? 

She continued:

“Why don't we talk about the cost of reduced productivity because of people who need to go on disability, because of people who are not able to participate in our economy because they have -- because they are having issues like diabetes or they don't have access to the healthcare that they need?

I think at the end of the day, we see that this is not a pipedream. Every other developed nation in the world does this, why can't America? And that is the question that we need to ask.  

We have done these things before. We write unlimited blank checks for war. We write a $2 trillion -- we just wrote a $2 trillion check for that tax cut, the GOP tax cut, and nobody asked those folks how are they going to pay for it. So, my question is why is it that our pockets are only empty when it comes to education and healthcare for our kids? Why are our pockets only empty when we talk about over 100 percent renewable energy is going to save this planet and allow our children to thrive?  

We only have empty pockets when it comes to the morally right things to do. But when it comes to tax cuts for billionaires and when it comes to unlimited war, we seem to be able to be -- to invent that money very easily.  

And to me, it belies a lack of moral priorities that people have right now, especially the Republican Party.”

 

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47 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Convenient selective quote.  Why not quote her entire statement? 

She continued:

“Why don't we talk about the cost of reduced productivity because of people who need to go on disability, because of people who are not able to participate in our economy because they have -- because they are having issues like diabetes or they don't have access to the healthcare that they need?

I think at the end of the day, we see that this is not a pipedream. Every other developed nation in the world does this, why can't America? And that is the question that we need to ask.  

We have done these things before. We write unlimited blank checks for war. We write a $2 trillion -- we just wrote a $2 trillion check for that tax cut, the GOP tax cut, and nobody asked those folks how are they going to pay for it. So, my question is why is it that our pockets are only empty when it comes to education and healthcare for our kids? Why are our pockets only empty when we talk about over 100 percent renewable energy is going to save this planet and allow our children to thrive?  

We only have empty pockets when it comes to the morally right things to do. But when it comes to tax cuts for billionaires and when it comes to unlimited war, we seem to be able to be -- to invent that money very easily.  

And to me, it belies a lack of moral priorities that people have right now, especially the Republican Party.”

 

She speaks from a conveniently biased place so its just tit for tat. She is either too dumb or naive or downright pandering to her base. Here are some of the fallacies in her dumbass statements:

We didn't "write" a check for tax cuts for the rich. Tax cuts were for everyone, the rich pay pretty much ALL the taxes so of course they saw a larger benefit. When bottom fifty percent of this country accounts for (a whopping) less than 3% of all the income tax collected they will obviously see a lower impact when there is a tax reduction. Because you know, uh math. 

Its intellectually dishonest at best and a lie at worst to say that "we wrote a check". You didn't do anything, people are just keeping more of THEIR OWN fucking money. And the CBO data suggests it will be a bit over a trillion dollars over 10 years. Her demand for universal healthcare will cost 3 trillion every year. Apples and oranges. 

However I can agree with her on war related expenses but we have the benefit of hindsight and again its 2 trillion over 17 years vs 3 trillion every year. 

She makes these false equivalencies and obviously her base who is equally adept at bad math cannot see the difference that spending 200 billion/year does not equal spending 15 times as much every year forever. 

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19 minutes ago, this said:

She speaks from a conveniently biased place so its just tit for tat. She is either too dumb or naive or downright pandering to her base. Here are some of the fallacies in her dumbass statements:

We didn't "write" a check for tax cuts for the rich. Tax cuts were for everyone, the rich pay pretty much ALL the taxes so of course they saw a larger benefit. When bottom fifty percent of this country accounts for (a whopping) less than 3% of all the income tax collected they will obviously see a lower impact when there is a tax reduction. Because you know, uh math. 

Its intellectually dishonest at best and a lie at worst to say that "we wrote a check". You didn't do anything, people are just keeping more of THEIR OWN fucking money. And the CBO data suggests it will be a bit over a trillion dollars over 10 years. Her demand for universal healthcare will cost 3 trillion every year. Apples and oranges. 

However I can agree with her on war related expenses but we have the benefit of hindsight and again its 2 trillion over 17 years vs 3 trillion every year. 

She makes these false equivalencies and obviously her base who is equally adept at bad math cannot see the difference that spending 200 billion/year does not equal spending 15 times as much every year forever. 

The tax cuts weren't for everyone. In fact, some people will see a tax hike.

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I still don’t understand this thread or the media obsession. Her ousting a top incumbent in a primary was certainly news worthy. A month or more of coverage for a (likely to win) candidate for Congress representing one district in NY? Why should I care what she plans to do for Queens or wherever?

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25 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

I still don’t understand this thread or the media obsession. Her ousting a top incumbent in a primary was certainly news worthy. A month or more of coverage for a (likely to win) candidate for Congress representing one district in NY? Why should I care what she plans to do for Queens or wherever?

i think much of the media obsession is surface. she's pretty (at least i think so), she's young, and she did the previously unthinkable. she's been using her recent celebrity to stump for some like-minded candidates, and that's kept her in the news cycle, where she probably wants to be.

but another significant bit of the media obsession is driven by what candidates like her mean for republicans. you can see from this thread, the facile insults, minimizing her by playing on feminine tropes such as "naive, dumb she's a bartender, lol," and by the general anxiety that sort of rhetoric exhibits, despite every intention of the user of that rhetoric to pretend to be above it all. 

she's got republicans scared for some reason, and i don't get it. she hasn't even beaten a republican candidate yet.

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The Republicans are looking for a new female to beat up on.  Hillary is out of the picture (but not their heads), Pelosi isn't going anywhere, but you've got a young, attractive, well educated latina who appears to be gaining traction?  Perfect target for angsty elderly white males.  

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28 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

i think much of the media obsession is surface. she's pretty (at least i think so), she's young, and she did the previously unthinkable. she's been using her recent celebrity to stump for some like-minded candidates, and that's kept her in the news cycle, where she probably wants to be.

but another significant bit of the media obsession is driven by what candidates like her mean for republicans. you can see from this thread, the facile insults, minimizing her by playing on feminine tropes such as "naive, dumb she's a bartender, lol," and by the general anxiety that sort of rhetoric exhibits, despite every intention of the user of that rhetoric to pretend to be above it all. 

she's got republicans scared for some reason, and i don't get it. she hasn't even beaten a republican candidate yet.

Right wing media made her a big deal FIRST and everyone else followed suit.  It was like challenge accepted.  You want to make her the face of the Democratic Party, go right ahead.  

She’s going to resonate with a lot more people than Pelosi or Maxine Waters. 

I also think the right miscalculated and thought she would be divisive for the left.  Traditional democrats would reject her as another Bernie outsider.  Turns out the democrats are rallying around her which is bad news for the GOP.

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1 hour ago, this said:

Its intellectually dishonest at best and a lie at worst to say that "we wrote a check". You didn't do anything, people are just keeping more of THEIR OWN fucking money.

I am no bleeding heart liberal but this statement is just flat out incorrect-especially the last part.

The basis for a for a modern (or ancient ) economy is taxation, or more properly progressive taxation.  The notion that any individual is keeping all their own money is ridiculous.  All the things we do to make money rest on a foundation of easy commerce-everything from actual infrastructure to keeping the poor from rioting in the streets-and those things need to be paid for.  One can argue whether the government machinations are efficient or if we are being taxed too much for the services we get, but some portion of the money we make is not ours by virtue of the fact that the ability to make it  has been made possible, convenient, and codified by many forms of taxation. In reality it is simply another line item of expense.

One of the great ironies about the taxation of the wealthy is that with a larger better educated middle class populace, the burden on the wealthy is relieved both in the form of tax relief due to a large broad tax paying demographic below them, and by the wealthy business owners being able to use that educated productive workforce. In other words it trickles up, not down.

 

Lifelong republican, CPA, and business owner.

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15 minutes ago, Jiggy-Z said:

I am no bleeding heart liberal but this statement is just flat out incorrect-especially the last part.

The basis for a for a modern (or ancient ) economy is taxation, or more properly progressive taxation.  The notion that any individual is keeping all their own money is ridiculous.  All the things we do to make money rest on a foundation of easy commerce-everything from actual infrastructure to keeping the poor from rioting in the streets-and those things need to be paid for.  One can argue whether the government machinations are efficient or if we are being taxed too much for the services we get, but some portion of the money we make is not ours by virtue of the fact that the ability to make it  has been made possible, convenient, and codified by many forms of taxation. In reality it is simply another line item of expense.

One of the great ironies about the taxation of the wealthy is that with a larger better educated middle class populace, the burden on the wealthy is relieved both in the form of tax relief due to a large broad tax paying demographic below them, and by the wealthy business owners being able to use that educated productive workforce. In other words it trickles up, not down.

 

Lifelong republican, CPA, and business owner.

I don't disagree with any of what you have just said. I just hate the rhetoric from Bernie and AOC that the "rich" dont pay their fair share. 

Bull shit.

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18 minutes ago, this said:

I don't disagree with any of what you have just said. I just hate the rhetoric from Bernie and AOC that the "rich" dont pay their fair share. 

Bull shit.

Well that really is the debate.

I don't want to derail this thread into a debate on where we should be federally on Laffer Curve but there is ample evidence that there is a decades long trend that the very wealthy are in fact not paying their fair share, which has been shifted in many ways to the middle class.  It happens in subtle ways that are not always even seen as direct federal taxation.

Case in point is college tuition.  Even though it is more of a state issue.  The notion used to be that affordable state college tuition was a societal benefit paid mostly by various governments(ie wealthier taxpayers/businesses) as an investment in the future to be cashed in -in the form of an educated workforce (by the wealthy/businesses and society as a whole) without placing a crushing burden on working families to pay for it. The burden has shifted to the working families without the tax relief on the other side of the equation. Now one could argue that it is not the fault of the wealthy that the burden shifted, but it has shifted.

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2 hours ago, hayden_horn said:

i think much of the media obsession is surface. she's pretty (at least i think so), she's young, and she did the previously unthinkable. she's been using her recent celebrity to stump for some like-minded candidates, and that's kept her in the news cycle, where she probably wants to be.

but another significant bit of the media obsession is driven by what candidates like her mean for republicans. you can see from this thread, the facile insults, minimizing her by playing on feminine tropes such as "naive, dumb she's a bartender, lol," and by the general anxiety that sort of rhetoric exhibits, despite every intention of the user of that rhetoric to pretend to be above it all. 

she's got republicans scared for some reason, and i don't get it. she hasn't even beaten a republican candidate yet.

Hey! You don't have to be a girl to be naive and dumb, you misogynist. I said the same things about Jon Ossoff. Dunno if he was a bartender though.

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Some of the stellar Republicans swept into office in 2011 from the tea party wave included:

An auctioneer (Billy Long)

A youth camp director (James Lankford)

A gospel singer (Stephen Fincher)

A radio talk show host (Blake Farenthold)

A roofing contractor (Reid Ribble)

A former reality TV star (Sean Duffy)

 

But I mean, AOC was a bartender. Let's all pillory and mock her.

 

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15 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

Dammit, I don't like agreeing with JS1.

But her Firing Line interview was pretty bad.

The lesson is that a lot of these people we elect have no fucking idea what they're talking about. About anything.  Putting them on live TV is a recipe for disaster, period. 

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21 minutes ago, Jiggy-Z said:

Well that really is the debate.

I don't want to derail this thread into a debate on where we should be federally on Laffer Curve but there is ample evidence that there is a decades long trend that the very wealthy are in fact not paying their fair share, which has been shifted in many ways to the middle class.  It happens in subtle ways that are not always even seen as direct federal taxation.

Case in point is college tuition.  Even though it is more of a state issue.  The notion used to be that affordable state college tuition was a societal benefit paid mostly by various governments(ie wealthier taxpayers/businesses) as an investment in the future to be cashed in -in the form of an educated workforce (by the wealthy/businesses and society as a whole) without placing a crushing burden on working families to pay for it. The burden has shifted to the working families without the tax relief on the other side of the equation. Now one could argue that it is not the fault of the wealthy that the burden shifted, but it has shifted.

So (your) or democratic stance is that every time there is an increase in (voluntary) cost anywhere in the economy the burden to cover it should fall on the wealthy because they might benefit from it? Now I also don't want to get into the discussion that a constant flood of tax dollars has led to unnecessary luxuries such as lounging pool at UT to Ritz Carlton quality education buildings in colleges and universities which has a more of a direct relationship to the hike in costs. Something that has spurred competition amongst state universities to "keep up" with each other. You must attend a semester in other countries around the world to really see the stark difference in college amenities Americans enjoy vs. the world. I'd argue that by raising the fees due to these ludicrous amenities shifted on to the people attending it vs govt writing the check for the difference is more helpful in keeping that in reign. Affordable state college tuition has a lot more to do with that than anything else. And as a life long republican, you must know that throwing more dollars at something like this only worsens the problem. Just like it did with housing. But that's for another time. 

 

 

 

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13 minutes ago, Js1 said:

The lesson is that a lot of these people we elect have no fucking idea what they're talking about. About anything.  Putting them on live TV is a recipe for disaster, period. 

No argument here. But that doesn't mean AOC shouldn't be criticized if she says something stupid. They should all be called out.

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14 minutes ago, this said:

So (your) or democratic stance is that every time there is an increase in (voluntary) cost anywhere in the economy the burden to cover it should fall on the wealthy because they might benefit from it? Now I also don't want to get into the discussion that a constant flood of tax dollars has led to unnecessary luxuries such as lounging pool at UT to Ritz Carlton quality education buildings in colleges and universities which has a more of a direct relationship to the hike in costs. Something that has spurred competition amongst state universities to "keep up" with each other. You must attend a semester in other countries around the world to really see the stark difference in college amenities Americans enjoy vs. the world. I'd argue that by raising the fees due to these ludicrous amenities shifted on to the people attending it vs govt writing the check for the difference is more helpful in keeping that in reign. Affordable state college tuition has a lot more to do with that than anything else. And as a life long republican, you must know that throwing more dollars at something like this only worsens the problem. Just like it did with housing. But that's for another time. 

 

 

 

when all the wealth in the country is isolated in one wealthy class, where the fuck else do you want to get it?

the american middle class has been in decline for some time as the capital in this country has coalesced at the top, and the income disparity has been increasing at an alarming rate. you can only get so much blood from a stone.

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14 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

I am not familiar with a few of those names, but the ones I have heard of are definitely worthy of being pilloried and mocked.  This is like when Trumpkins “But Obama” instead of denying the underlying charge.

I assume you're mostly talking about being familiar with Pajama Boy.

My point was not a "but Obama." My point was - wave elections tend to sweep in un/underqualified candidates.  Less criticism of her as a bartender and more discussion of her platform is warranted.  At least she's talking about something and creating a discussion instead of just parroting the same tired party talking points.

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14 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

when all the wealth in the country is isolated in one wealthy class, where the fuck else do you want to get it?

the american middle class has been in decline for some time as the capital in this country has coalesced at the top, and the income disparity has been increasing at an alarming rate. you can only get so much blood from a stone.

We are already doing that. 

Top 1% pays for 40% of all income tax generated (27% effective tax rate)

Top 5% pays for 60% of all income tax generated

Top 10% pays for 70% of all income tax generated

Top 25% pays for 86% of all income tax generated. 

Bottom 50% pays for 3% of all income tax generated. (3% effective tax rate)

 

No one's suggesting tax the poor, but fuck the right off with asking for more shit. Just because you keep repeating that this or that is a right does not make it so.

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13 minutes ago, this said:

We are already doing that. 

Top 1% pays for 40% of all income tax generated (27% effective tax rate)

Top 5% pays for 60% of all income tax generated

Top 10% pays for 70% of all income tax generated

Top 25% pays for 86% of all income tax generated. 

Bottom 50% pays for 3% of all income tax generated. (3% effective tax rate)

 

No one's suggesting tax the poor, but fuck the right off with asking for more shit. Just because you keep repeating that this or that is a right does not make it so.

i want to cut spending. let's start with the military. 

the top 1% owns somewhere around 20% of all the wealth in the country. the 0.1% owns somewhere around 10% of the wealth in the country.

this is fine.

US_GDP_per_capita_vs_median_household_in 

the middle class is shrinking, when that should be a strong foundation tax base. your stats may be right, but there is some fairly clear reasons for that. and our current republican government wants to spend more money. 

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14 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

i want to cut spending. let's start with the military. 

the top 1% owns somewhere around 20% of all the wealth in the country. the 0.1% owns somewhere around 10% of the wealth in the country.

this is fine.

US_GDP_per_capita_vs_median_household_in 

the middle class is shrinking, when that should be a strong foundation tax base. your stats may be right, but there is some fairly clear reasons for that. and our current republican government wants to spend more money. 

Fine, let's cut military spending in half. We'll save 350 billion dollars/year. 

Let's forget about universal healthcare, we'll save 3.3 trillion dollars/year. Something we do not have. The entire 1% makes 2 trillion dollars in income/year.  

We tax on income, not wealth. Wealthy having more wealth as a data point is ridiculous because they are a self selected group. Not only do they have more disposable dollars to save but they are better at managing money than the rest so they will always have more wealth. 

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18 minutes ago, this said:

So (your) or democratic stance is that every time there is an increase in (voluntary) cost anywhere in the economy the burden to cover it should fall on the wealthy because they might benefit from it?

In a progressive tax system it necessarily must fall to them-math. If the wealthy want less of a tax burden then make the middle class richer and tax them appropriately.

There is no "might" about it.  That is how this works.

20 minutes ago, this said:

We are already doing that. 

Top 1% pays for 40% of all income tax generated (27% effective tax rate)

Top 5% pays for 60% of all income tax generated

Top 10% pays for 70% of all income tax generated

Top 25% pays for 86% of all income tax generated. 

Bottom 50% pays for 3% of all income tax generated. (3% effective tax rate)

 

No one's suggesting tax the poor, but fuck the right off with asking for more shit. Just because you keep repeating that this or that is a right does not make it so.

Who is asking for more shit?  i would be happy with a balanced budget and a fair tax plan.

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15 minutes ago, this said:

Fine, let's cut military spending in half. We'll save 350 billion dollars/year. 

Let's forget about universal healthcare, we'll save 3.3 trillion dollars/year. Something we do not have. The entire 1% makes 2 trillion dollars in income/year.  

We tax on income, not wealth. Wealthy having more wealth as a data point is ridiculous because they are a self selected group. Not only do they have more disposable dollars to save but they are better at managing money than the rest so they will always have more wealth. 

US_high-income_effective_tax_rates.png

U.S._Income_Share_of_Top_1%25_of_Househo

1024px-Income_inequality_panel_-_v1.png

this pretty much explains it all.

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14 minutes ago, Jiggy-Z said:

In a progressive tax system it necessarily must fall to them-math. If the wealthy want less of a tax burden then make the middle class richer and tax them appropriately.

There is no "might" about it.  That is how this works.

Who is asking for more shit?  i would be happy with a balanced budget and a fair tax plan.

Uh, have you not read the AOC bill of rights? This thread is about her and the ones supporting her. 

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Here is how Democrat Socialist Nordic countries the left jerks off to tax income:

High, but Flat Income and Payroll Taxes

Scandinavian countries are known for having high taxes on income. According to the OECD, Denmark (26.4 percent), Norway (19.7 percent), and Sweden (22.1 percent) all raise a high amount of tax revenue as a percent of GDP from individual income taxes and payroll taxes. This is compared to the 15 percent of GDP raised by the United States through its individual income taxes and payroll taxes.

In order to raise a lot of income tax revenue, income tax rates in Scandinavian countries are rather high except for in Norway. Denmark’s top marginal effective income tax rate is 60.4 percent. Sweden’s is 56.4 percent. Norway’s top marginal tax rate is 39 percent.

However, the rates are not necessarily the most important feature of the Scandinavian income tax systems. In fact, the United States’ top marginal income tax rate is higher than Norway’s and only 18 percent lower than Sweden’s, yet raises 40 percent less income and payroll tax revenue than Norway and 50 percent less than Sweden.

Scandinavian income taxes raise a lot of revenue because they are actually rather flat. In other words, they tax most people at these high rates, not just high-income taxpayers. The top marginal tax rate of 60 percent in Denmark applies to all income over 1.2 times the average income in Denmark. From the American perspective, this means that all income over $60,000 (1.2 times the average income of about $50,000 in the United States) would be taxed at 60 percent.

Sweden and Norway have similarly flat income tax systems. Sweden’s top marginal tax rate of 56.9 percent applies to all income over 1.5 times the average income in Sweden. Norway’s top marginal tax rate of 39 percent applies to all income over 1.6 times the average Norwegian income.

Compare this to The United States. The top marginal tax rate of 46.8 percent (state average and federal combined rates) kicks in at 8.5 times the average U.S. income (around $400,000). Comparatively, few taxpayers in the United States face the top marginal rate.

 

 

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here's a fun side question: what generally happens to the top 10% of wealth when the 90% figure out the scam? throughout history, it's usually pretty ugly, which is why america's middle class and economic freedom was such a shining light on the hill. there are a growing number of people who are starting to question the system as it is, because it clearly favors the rich getting richer, and as that happens, more people will become disillusioned. when that happens, you get firebrand candidates like bernie sanders or AOC gaining traction. believe me, none of us want that. so what is the answer? is there an answer?

income is coalescing at the top. there's only so much capital to go around. 

 

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13 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

US_high-income_effective_tax_rates.png

 

 

this pretty much explains it all.

This is a cute chart but here is the reality:

https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/

Taxes on the Rich Were Not That Much Higher in the 1950s

August 4, 2017

SEG-150x150.jpg
Scott Greenberg
 

There is a common misconception that high-income Americans are not paying much in taxes compared to what they used to. Proponents of this view often point to the 1950s, when the top federal income tax rate was 91 percent for most of the decade.[1] However, despite these high marginal rates, the top 1 percent of taxpayers in the 1950s only paid about 42 percent of their income in taxes. As a result, the tax burden on high-income households today is only slightly lower than what these households faced in the 1950s.

The graph below shows the average tax rate that the top 1 percent of Americans have faced over the last century. The data comes from a recent paper by Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman that attempts to account for all federal, state, and local taxes paid by different groups of Americans over the last 100 years.[2]

Average Effective Tax Rate on the Top 1 Percent of U.S. Households

The data shows that, between 1950 and 1959, the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid an average of 42.0 percent of their income in federal, state, and local taxes. Since then, the average effective tax rate of the top 1 percent has declined slightly overall. In 2014, the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid an average tax rate of 36.4 percent.

All things considered, this is not a very large change. To put it another way, the average effective tax rate on the 1 percent highest-income households is about 5.6 percentage points lower today than it was in the 1950s. That’s a noticeable change, but not a radical shift.[3]

How could it be that the tax code of the 1950s had a top marginal tax rate of 91 percent, but resulted in an effective tax rate of only 42 percent on the wealthiest taxpayers? In fact, the situation is even stranger. The 42.0 percent tax rate on the top 1 percent takes into account all taxes levied by federal, state, and local governments, including: income, payroll, corporate, excise, property, and estate taxes. When we look at income taxes specifically, the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid an average effective rate of only 16.9 percent in income taxes during the 1950s.[4]

There are a few reasons for the discrepancy between the 91 percent top marginal income tax rate and the 16.9 percent effective income tax rate of the 1950s.

  • The 91 percent bracket of 1950 only applied to households with income over $200,000 (or about $2 million in today’s dollars). Only a small number of taxpayers would have had enough income to fall into the top bracket – fewer than 10,000 households, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal. Many households in the top 1 percent in the 1950s probably did not fall into the 91 percent bracket to begin with.
  • Even among households that did fall into the 91 percent bracket, the majority of their income was not necessarily subject to that top bracket. After all, the 91 percent bracket only applied to income above $200,000, not to every single dollar earned by households.
  • Finally, it is very likely that the existence of a 91 percent bracket led to significant tax avoidance and lower reported income. There are many studies that show that, as marginal tax rates rise, income reported by taxpayers goes down. As a result, the existence of the 91 percent bracket did not necessarily lead to significantly higher revenue collections from the top 1 percent.

All in all, the idea that high-income Americans in the 1950s paid much more of their income in taxes should be abandoned. The top 1 percent of Americans today do not face an unusually low tax burden, by historical standards.


[1] The top federal income tax rate was 91 percent in 1950 and 1951, and between 1954 and 1959. In 1952 and 1953, the top federal income tax rate was 92 percent.

[2] Some of the distributional assumptions in the Piketty, Saez, and Zucman paper are questionable. In particular, the authors assume that the full burden of the corporate income tax falls on owners of capital, which may not be correct. However, the authors note that they “have tested a number of alternative tax incidence assumptions, and found only second-order effects.”

[3] It is worth noting that, per the Piketty, Saez, and Zucman data, the tax rates of the top 0.1 and 0.01 percent of taxpayers have dropped substantially since the 1950s. The average tax rate on the 0.1 percent highest-income Americans was 50.6 percent in the 1950s, compared to 39.8 percent today. The average tax rate on the top 0.01 percent was 55.3 percent in the 1950s, compared to 40.8 percent today.

[4] The data from Piketty, Saez, and Zucman is not divided among federal, state, and local taxes, so it is difficult to tell exactly how much the rich were paying in federal income taxes specifically during this period.

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Some of the stellar Republicans swept into office in 2011 from the tea party wave included:
An auctioneer (Billy Long)
A youth camp director (James Lankford)
A gospel singer (Stephen Fincher)
A radio talk show host (Blake Farenthold)
A roofing contractor (Reid Ribble)
A former reality TV star (Sean Duffy)
 
But I mean, AOC was a bartender. Let's all pillory and mock her.
 
Have you factored in she's a woman.
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16 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

here's a fun side question: what generally happens to the top 10% of wealth when the 90% figure out the scam? throughout history, it's usually pretty ugly, which is why america's middle class and economic freedom was such a shining light on the hill. there are a growing number of people who are starting to question the system as it is, because it clearly favors the rich getting richer, and as that happens, more people will become disillusioned. when that happens, you get firebrand candidates like bernie sanders or AOC gaining traction. believe me, none of us want that. so what is the answer? is there an answer?

income is coalescing at the top. there's only so much capital to go around. 

 

Here's a better question: Would you rather have the income, amenities and lifestyle of someone in the middle class of the 50s or someone today? 

By any objective method of reasoning, we have it better today. What the one percent has, is irrelevant. 

  • Fuck You 1
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49 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Some of the stellar Republicans swept into office in 2011 from the tea party wave included:

An auctioneer (Billy Long)

A youth camp director (James Lankford)

A gospel singer (Stephen Fincher)

A radio talk show host (Blake Farenthold)

A roofing contractor (Reid Ribble)

A former reality TV star (Sean Duffy)

 

But I mean, AOC was a bartender. Let's all pillory and mock her.

 

You have a problem with roofing contractors?

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5 hours ago, hayden_horn said:

this is the thing, though. she's the result of people pushing back on the current generation of olds. many people see the government we've got as ineffective, so why not vote for the young lady from the bronx, can't be any worse, right? the problem with this thinking is that it is remarkably similar to the attitude that landed us with donald trump. 

the distinction here, however, is that this lady wants to do right by her district, it seems, whereas donald wants to do right by himself. i'm okay with some ignorance along with good faith, as long as the good faith is genuine.

15k New Yorkers is not a movement. 

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  • hayden_horn changed the title to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez


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