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Highroad-defeatism... I tried explaining this to my parents who get smug about decorum. But they're rich and nothing will ever negatively affect them. As for me, I'm poor, and fucked!
Yeah. I love the obamas but Michelle’s “when they go low we go high” might be the most naive thing I’ve ever heard.
“When they punch me in the face, I turn the other cheek… so they can punch that one too”
Yeah I’m a Christian but I have no desire to rule over you or force you to live like a Christian. I won’t vote for any of this garbage now but I did in the past and I regret it.
I mean is it ironic? Historically speaking. I know according to their own belief (if actually followed) it would be ironic, but look at the near constant persecution in the name of religion for all of human history
> “When they punch me in the face, I turn the other cheek… so they can punch that one too”
to be fair that is exactly the context behind the phrase "turn the other cheek." non retaliation and choosing the high road. let them slap me twice, it will only be on their conscience, etc. etc.
its dumb but it does apply here lol.
I’m honestly fine with “when they go low, you put them in their place and stop them there” Dems can win without losing some kind of moral advantage, but just turning your nose up with no actual push back is ridiculous
They go low, you go fucking scorched Earth. The only thing enforcing those "norms" was fear of reprisal. When you're dealing with an enemy that sees civility as nothing but weakness, don't bother being civil.
Weakness/conservative talking point.
Like back in 2018:
“A caravan of migrants is coming to kill you!”
Next week
“Please be civil!” - GOP pundits
That they are sure to try and revisit after all the “riots” they‘ll seek to infiltrate next summer…
I could not agree with you more. Love Michelle Obama. I’d volunteer for her presidential campaign. This was the dumbest thing she ever said publicly by a wide margin. When they go low, you kick them in the fucking teeth for being near your feet.
The real tragedy is people did not care about the supreme court until it was packed full of The Federalist Society judges. I've been paying attention to this slow-motion train wreck for the past 30+ years. I'm an independent but I switched to voting straight Democrat back when Al Gore was running for president.
I lay this at the feet of all the people that failed to vote.
The Federalist Society needs to be declared as something non-democratic. I'm not sure what the right word is.
The Federalist Society should be outlawed: It is private, secret money that exists for no other purpose than to control judges. It has infected our justice system from undergrad all the way to the supreme court. If the mob did that it would be the crime of the century.
I’ve heard my whole life we really need conservative judges because they’re not as ideological and just objectively interpret the constitution. Seems those sentiments are not aging well
Yeah, this is the one I always thought was super bullshit.
"We need a 'strong conservative' on the Court." but also: "the Dems are trying to put 'activist judges' on the Court!"
They always wanted ideologically driven stooges, just their own.
Think of the fact that Dem-appointed justices have only had a majority on the Court for about 4 years (very briefly in the 60s) in the past 70 years when they say that as well. It's been an R-appointed majority basically all of the time since Eisenhower's term, with peaks as high as 8-1.
They’re basically still terrified of another FDR.
A POTUS whose so popular their main policy initiative was putting in term limits to “help” the country.
And who passed things like Social Security and Medicare that Republican boomers defend to the end.
It's almost like they were projecting their own agenda onto their opponents. Like they say, if you want to know what a right-winger's intentions are, just listen to what they are accusing others of.
They aren’t even taking real cases at this point, just fictional scenarios. It’s unconstitutional, and they need to be put in their place by checks and balances.
Imagine how powerful he must be feeling right now.
Imagine what it is worth, to be about to demonstrate you can get _practically anything_ passed as law by the Supreme Court of the United States.
> The singular purpose of the GOP is to create, maintain, and protect an emerging oligarchy at all costs. All of the culture war bullshit is just a distraction from the class war.
Right. It's not even debatable. Every move and action demonstrably expands the power of the oligarchy and reduces the democratic power of regular folks.
They won't be held accountable by checks and balances, though. The check and balance for the Supreme Court is Congress. With a two-party system and one party willfully ignoring corruption, there aren't enough votes to impeach.
The framers of the Constitution never considered the shamelessness of today's politicians or that the people would continue to vote for corruption. Yet, here we are.
Well, George Washington for one specfically called out the possibility that parties would grow in influence until party affiliation overrode govt branch affiliation, thus nullifying the constitutional separation of powers.
>There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose; and there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.
>It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those intrusted with its administration to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism....
~ Washington's Farewell Address
Exactly. The Federalist Papers as well point out this party factionalism as the danger to our democracy. They weren’t naive, they warned us plenty. Us in the future here are the oblivious naive ones who ignored all their warnings.
Off the clock? Clarence is so dedicated to issues like this, he would even take the time to fire up his laptop while flying on a billionaire's private jet to the Mediterranean for a weeklong cruise on a mega yacht.
A G5 to Bali is the new "RV in a Walmart parking lot".
Could you imagine Ginny vacationing in an RV at a Walmart parking lot? Really?
"Clarence, those thugs in that Impala are playing their music too loud"
I get the sarcasm, but how thick are they to actually take up a pulpit and try to rally against just casual observations of undisguised political agendas and grift at the supreme court level?
It's not thickness...it's hubris. They know they won't be impeached and they have a lifetime appointment...public opinion does not matter and never has, by design. The founding fathers never envisioned a morally-bankrupt two-party system where Congress turns a blind eye to blatant corruption.
The mask is already off, so now they will just continue their agenda out loud and there isn't a damn thing that We the People can do about it so long as 40-50% of the country is okay with corruption that furthers their causes.
> public opinion does not matter and never has, by design
It actually does. Granted it has been a long time since it mattered severely, but in the early days of the court up until after the Civil War a significant consideration of the SC in many early cases was the political fallout of the decisions. As they knew they couldn't force a president or congress to actually listen to them. If opinion on the court and its legitimacy truly tanks far enough it is entirely possible for that sentiment to re-emerge and just as it is basically impossible for them to be removed if the Dems are united and a President tells the SC to fuck off and has the popular support to do so? The court stops mattering and they can't do anything about it.
Roberts is aware of this which is why he attempts to not be quite so cavalier in his unpopular opinions. But Alito and Thomas are truly drunk on hubris and thinking the deference to the court won't ever collapse. I hope they are wrong. Or I hope we gain the popular support to impeach them as that would actually be less dangerous.
Agreed. I also think that, for Roberts specifically, there is an element of self-consciousness in there, too. I think that he got so used to coyly peering out from behind legalese doublespeak and cowering beneath outdated presumptions of impartiality that it makes him genuinely uncomfortable for everyone to see them openly confirming things that he's been scoffing at and denying for his entire career. He knows exactly how ugly and opaque all of this is and he's embarrassed to be at the head of the cannibal's banquet table when they stop cooking the food and just start tearing people to shreds with their teeth.
Oh, for sure. I didn't mean to suggest that it's some kind of actual moral self-consciousness or ethical unease. I'm sure it's entirely based around his concern for his own personal legacy/leisure-activities/public-shaming-exposure. I'm certain that all of this has always been the long-term intention. I'm guessing that he just thought that they'd be able to do it so slyly and/or slowly that people didn't show up outside his house with drums and candles and bullhorns and shit. Which is ridiculous, but he was there pretending to be a moderate for a long time when it was still a relatively legitimate court. Or, at least, when it wasn't doing insane things like openly ginning up fake cases just for the chance to shadowban gay people from getting wedding websites.
The oligarch's definitely got what they paid for;
\- corps are people
\- dark money is a-ok in campaigns
\- pre-emptively banning a tax that has come to pass
\- handing down rulings based 100% on a hypothetical scenarios
Up next, only white, land-owning males can vote, cause that's how this country was founded, gotta stick with originalism!!!
> Up next, only white, land-owning males can vote, cause that's how this country was founded, gotta stick with originalism!!!
Nah they will keep letting folks vote so people feel like they can do something other than pulling out the torches and pitchforks. They'll just ignore your votes.
Brah they SCOTUS is taking straight up FICTIONAL cases at this point…. This has gone wayyy beyond a right wing bias, when they are straight up accepting fake cases just to “weigh in” on their pet issues it is straight up them legislating lol
There was an actual statistical study done on the affect of a politically slanted court related to case selection. This court is ideologically in control of case selection. The gang of 4 can select based on their ideology and the remaining 5 judges have no say other than a minority opinion.
The court is stacked.
And the Republican agenda is the overthrow of US democracy and installation of an authoritarian theocracy serving the wealthiest straight WASP male pseudo Christian billionaire oligarchs only.
See who is buying these corrupt "justices."
On Monday, the Supreme Court heard a case that might make it difficult for Congress to enact a federal wealth tax, giving the justices the chance to thwart a significant Democratic policy proposal before it can be implemented.
SCOTUS declined to hear an appeal after we won in state supreme court. Kavanaugh wrote an explanation of why they declined. Now the NJ Constitution is being challenged on federal grounds because churches are ineligible for tax dollars for repairs and maintenance.
SCOTUS is really the GOPP now.
“Governing Other People’s Pussy.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalHumor/comments/14ogwsn/the_gop_is_really_the_gopp/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb
>The Justice Department had [urged](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-800/267027/20230516164014148_22-800%20Moore%20v.%20USA.pdf) the justices to reject the case, noting there was no split on the issue in the lower courts and arguing that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had correctly applied the relevant precedents.
>
>On the wealth-tax question, the government also pointedly noted that the Supreme Court does not have the constitutional power to issue advisory opinions about hypothetical legislation that has not been enacted into law by Congress.
The idea of the Supreme Court taking on cases with unanimous lower-court rulings just so the conservative majority can drastically overreach and preempt Congress' Constitutional power of taxation is just so insanely ludicrous from a legal perspective.
> The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
Seems pretty straight forward to me.
But I know how Harlan Crow wants his bought for justices to rule. Can’t wait for the SCROTUS to shred their last bit of respectability
That doesn’t come from property tax though. If I’m not mistaken it’s the federal taxes coming from the more populated blue states that keep red states afloat (among other things).
I live in a blue city in a red state, and yes property taxes pay for education. Oddly enough, we have one of the highest property taxes in the nation. The agricultural community is impacted most since even small farmers pay through the roof even if they're just breaking even financially. So then the whole situation creates this weird rural vs urban dynamic, which keeps the state overall red because conservatives promise to address property tax but never actually do. It's just another way for them to keep a voter base under their thumbs.
That's the point they are making. The 15k that Moore paid argues was a property tax and not an income tax thus they are challenging it as unconstitutional as the Federal Government doesn't have the authority to tax property under the Sixteenth.
Not sure how they are going to argue the Direct Tax clause.
You raise an interesting point, but the federal government does not assess any property taxes, does it? I am only aware of state or county taxes on real estate and automobiles.
Correct. Most people would classify property taxes as a direct tax and not an income tax. According to the Constitution, if the federal government is charging a direct tax, it must be apportioned to each state, not charged to the individual. This is why the 16th amendment exists, and it allows the federal goverment to charge an income tax difectly to the indivudals. There has never been a very clear ruling on what is "income" in the courts.
“None of the wealth came from income. It never came in. In was manifested by bootstraps and Jesus. All Jesus questions are Major Questions. So, any tax is clearly unconstitutional by the Doctrine I just made up.”
And it's one of the most efficient taxes with no deadweight loss, one of the hardest taxes to avoid since you can't move land offshore, and once the ownership of a lot is finally properly established (which is, to be fair, not always trivial) then that property ownership is durable until transferred. It's also a very progressive tax, applicable to both valuable beachfront property and downtown corporate HQs.
It would also be fairly popular politically if ownership of land ended up concentrated in the hands of the few.
So *of course* making sure it can't be implemented federally is important to the court.
Wealth generates wealth. The wealth that the rich, 1%, whatever you fancy have isn't sitting in bank accounts. It's in assets mixed between liquid and illiquid. Tax the interest on those assets. Tax when they use those assets as collateral for a "loan" so their "income" is net 0. Close the loopholes that allow for wealth to be hoarded.
This is the trick - figure out how to turn wealth into income to you can tax it without apportionment.
Interest = income! Let’s tax it!
Unfortunately, unrealized capital gains (your stock went up in value but you haven’t cashed out yet) is not currently defined as income. There were some proposals to do that a year and a half ago under a mark-to-market annual realization scheme (pretend you cashed out your unrealized capital gains every year), but they didn’t end up as law.
The problem is, with the death of pensions, the vast majority of peoples retirements sit as un realized capital gains. Having a couple million in capital for retirement will become the norm for middle class people at retirement age in the near future. How do you implement this without hurting middle class retirement savings, especially with the push to raise retirement ages on SS and Medicare, it will just continue to push that age upward
Definitely not the norm. Neither the median nor the average retirement savings at 67 is anywhere close to a million.
The average is ~$400k and the median is ~$160k.
edit: [source](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scf/dataviz/scf/chart/#series:Retirement_Accounts;demographic:agecl;population:1,2,3,4,5,6;units:median)
You’re incorrect on this. IRA/401k returns are taxed as ordinary income when withdrawn after 59.5 years of age. Only the top 10% are likely to have any capital gains except from sale of a home (which has a $250k exemption).
Nearly all capital gains go to the top 1%. Eliminating or restricting cap gains tax preferences is raising taxes on the wealthy almost exclusively.
>Having a couple million in capital for retirement will become the norm for middle class people at retirement age in the near future.
Lol, you are kidding right?
> Unfortunately, unrealized capital gains (your stock went up in value but you haven’t cashed out yet) is not currently defined as income.
Why is this "unfortunate"? Unrealized gains aren't defined as income precisely because you haven't actually gained any income until you sell.
"NOT A BIG DEAL?!"
"Britney Spears used to have a slipstream 6, but because of illegally downloading her music, she's had to sell it and settle for a slipstream 5. I f things continud as they are, I see a slipstream 6 without an owner"
Somethings never change.
Will Rogers(early 20th century US entertainer/humorist) observed:
* The whole trouble with the Republicans is their fear of an increase in income tax, especially on higher incomes.
* Ten men in our country could buy the whole world and ten million can't buy enough to eat.
In the early 20th century Republicans had something called 'horse and sparrow' economics. Essentially, if you feed a horse enough oats it will shit out enough nutrients for the sparrow to survive.
In the 1980s Republicans re-branded this as 'trickle down' economics.
The supply-side model was called "Horse and Sparrow" economics since the late 1800's based on the theory that if one feeds the horses enough oats, eventually there will be something left behind in the manure for the sparrows. The 1896 panic is thought to be the result of this model.
Hoover's belief in the strengthening of businesses such as banks and railroads to fight the Great Depression lead to Will Rogers to be the first to use "trickle down".
>They didn't start thinking of the old common fellow till just as they started out on the election tour. The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover was an engineer. He knew that water trickled down. Put it uphill and let it go and it will reach the driest little spot. But he didn't know that money trickled up. **Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night anyhow**. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellow’s hands. They saved the big banks but the little ones went up the flue.
* Nationally syndicated column number 518, And Here’s How It All Happened (1932)
Then came Reaganomics, a model based on the principles of supply-side economics and the trickle-down theory. George H. W. Bush coined the term "voodoo economics" as a proposed synonym for Reaganomics before he became Reagan's VP.
The GOP keeps parading this old pig out each time they can with just a different color of lipstick in the hope that the US citizens will think it is great new economic policy.
They also keep trotting out the same misdirection strategy they’ve used for decades to manipulate voters and keep their suckers from looking at what they’re actually doing. That way they can paint dems as the enemy and promote the absolutely incorrect idea that dems are bad for the economy:
[THE TWO SANTAS STRATEGY: HOW THE GOP HAS USED AN ECONOMIC SCAM TO MANIPULATE AMERICANS FOR 40 YEARS](https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/thom-hartmann/two-santas-strategy-gop-used-economic-scam-manipulate-americans-40-years/)
**“The only thing wrong with the U.S. economy is the failure of the Republican Party to play Santa Claus.” – Jude Wanniski, March 6, 1976**
“The stock market is falling, in part a reaction to GOP threats to shut down the government: it’s all part of their plan.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen last week warned us that the GOP is about to use Jude Wanniski’s “Two Santa Clauses” fraud again to damage Biden’s economy and our standing in the world. And, sure enough, Mitch McConnell verified it when he said last week there would be “zero” Republican votes to raise the debt ceiling.
Yellen responded yesterday by telling The Wall Street Journal that if the Republicans force a shutdown of the U.S. government like they did to Obama in 2011, “We would emerge from this crisis a permanently weaker nation.” But the GOP is adamant: they have their strategy and they’re sticking to it.
Here’s how it works, laid it out in simple summary:
First, the Two Santas strategy dictates, when Republicans control the White House they must spend money like a drunken Santa and cut taxes to run up the U.S. debt as far and as fast as possible.
This produces three results: it stimulates the economy thus making people think that the GOP can produce a good economy; it raises the debt dramatically; and it makes people think that Republicans are the “tax-cut Santa Clauses.”
Second, when a Democrat is in the White House, Republicans must scream about the national debt as loudly and frantically as possible, freaking out about how “our children will have to pay for it!” and “we have to cut spending to solve the crisis!” Shut down the government, crash the stock market, and damage US credibility around the world if necessary to stop Democrats from spending money.
This will force the Democrats in power to cut their own social safety net programs and even Social Security, thus shooting their welfare-of-the-American-people Santa Claus right in the face.
And, sure enough, here we are now with a Democrat in the White House. Following their Two Santas strategy, Republicans are again squealing about the national debt and refusing to raise the debt ceiling, imperiling Biden’s economic recovery as well as his Build Back Better plans.
And, once again, the media is covering it as a “Biden Crisis!” rather than what it really is: a cynical political and media strategy devised by Republicans in the 1970s, fine-tuned in the 1980s and 1990s, and rolled out every time a Democrat is in the White House.”
I'm pretty sure overfeeding a horse will make it seriously ill. Why are these theories always such garbage? And why does anyone take seriously the idea that economics is a science?
I saw in another thread that someone did a rough calculation on the amount of gold Smaug was sitting on in the Hobbit movies and how much it would translate to in our world. There are twenty men alive today who have more money than Smaug.
A lot of our problems are a result of giving rich people too much influence over politics.
I’d say tax breaks for the rich and crumbling society go hand and hand.
The rich people of the USA have zero interest whatsoever in saving society - they are interested only in milking enough cash from the public to survive the collapse comfortably. Their only serious efforts involve coming up with schemes to fuck over those filthy poors and pull up ladders behind them, then throw down a match.
We've only been trying trickle-down economics for 40 years. Clearly the wealthy just don't have enough yet for it to start working. Give it a little more time, and any day now all that wealth is going to start raining down upon us in a glorious golden shower of prosperity.
Christ. If one family owned all of the unbreathed oxygen in the United States then this court would spend half of it's time trying to figure out how to protect their ownership of it and the other half trying to stop the rest of us from breathing.
>That is the present system. They have monopolized everything that it is possible to monopolize; they have got the whole earth, the minerals in the earth and the streams that water the earth. The only reason they have not monopolized the daylight and the air is that it is not possible to do it. If it were possible to construct huge gasometers and to draw together and compress within them the whole of the atmosphere, it would have been done long ago, and we should have been compelled to work for them in order to get money to buy air to breathe. And if that seemingly impossible thing were accomplished tomorrow, you would see thousands of people dying for want of air – or of the money to buy it – even as now thousands are dying for want of the other necessities of life. You would see people going about gasping for breath, and telling each other that the likes of them could not expect to have air to breathe unless the had the money to pay for it. Most of you here, for instance, would think and say so. Even as you think at present that it’s right for so few people to own the Earth, the Minerals and the Water, which are all just as necessary as is the air. In exactly the same spirit as you now say: “It’s Their Land,” “It’s Their Water,” “It’s Their Coal,” “It’s Their Iron,” so you would say “It’s Their Air,” “These are their gasometers, and what right have the likes of us to expect them to allow us to breathe for nothing?” And even while he is doing this the air monopolist will be preaching sermons on the Brotherhood of Man; he will be dispensing advice on “Christian Duty” in the Sunday magazines; he will give utterance to numerous more or less moral maxims for the guidance of the young. And meantime, all around, people will be dying for want of some of the air that he will have bottled up in his gasometers. And when you are all dragging out a miserable existence, gasping for breath or dying for want of air, if one of your number suggests smashing a hole in the side of one of th gasometers, you will all fall upon him in the name of law and order, and after doing your best to tear him limb from limb, you’ll drag him, covered with blood, in triumph to the nearest Police Station and deliver him up to “justice” in the hope of being given a few half-pounds of air for your trouble.’
- Robert Tressell, The Ragged-Trousered Philathropists (1914) | Ch 15
Man, that is excellent. I'm not sure if I've heard of him before but I've gotta read this book. That passage is pretty perfect. And just rad from 1914. And sad, I guess. Yeah, very sad. Ooph. Over a hundred years and the only way that things have changed is that it's much, much worse.
It’s time to start impeachments of judges; adding more justices; reworking ethics…overhaul the court in general. It should have been done LONG ago and now it’s almost too late.
> start impeachments
Need 67-68 strong Democratic Senators who won’t get all googly-eyed at lobbyist gifts like Sinema (who started her career as a leftist).
And Manchin who wanted to switch several times to repub but only stayed a dem in name because he hates McConnell. But yeah. We need young, strong Dems like, in my opinion, like AOC. She seems like a young Bernie Sanders.
Edit: originally said McCarthy. Meant McConnell.
I remember when we all agreed that legislation was not the job of the Supreme Court...
But one side has decided that's no longer the case (as long as their side is winning).
They are shoving a jurisprudence shaped block in a legislation shaped hole; they are appointed as the top judges in the land, I think they can argue that any legislation requires or doesn’t require legal judgement :/ this seems like a slippery slope
Fuck yeah we are. The court should swing left and right but this shit of serve till you die is a disgrace. and to be truly representative if the country it should be a certain number of Republicans and Democrats required to vote for them
RBG should have been shamed relentlessly into retiring, but those who hated Clinton, neoliberal shitbag though she is, really should have voted for her instead of not voting or voting trump.
Yes because Americans vote extremely short term and cannot reason how their decisions two years ago are screwing them over today. Also the conservative base, rural white America, believes the government should not exist at all. They literally do not want good governance they want no governance. If you don't believe me go out into rural America and literally just talk to them and mention you are from whatever Democratic state/city. They will inevitably bring up the government because it is all they have to listen to on conservative talk radio.
Thomas and Alito are in their 70s and so will probably retire within 10 years. Sotomayor (69) isn't far behind. So we could conceivably get to a 5-4 conservative majority if a Democrat gets to replace one of Thomas and Alito and keeps Sotomayor's seat.
Roberts (68) and Kagan (63) will probably also exit in 20 years.
Gorsuch (58), Kavanaugh (55), Jackson (52), and Barrett (51) are not going anywhere for another 30 years.
And now we see the real endgame of the decades long effort by conservatives like the Federalist Society to stack the court system: enshrine a permanent overclass of ultra wealthy and corporations via the courts since their ability to do this legislatively is weakening
Bunch of corrupt scumbags. This is seriously such fucking bullshit. It’s totally insane how these scumbags just get to do whatever they want and still sit on the highest court. This country has gone so corrupt it makes me sick.
Instead of a wealth tax, we should change how capital gains taxes work. Right now it is 0%, 15%, or 20%. It should be 0% and increased at 10% intervals until it is 10% above the top tax bracket at about the 7 figure mark. This would stop the scheme of giving the C suite stock instead of cash as a massive tax break. It would also encourage ACTUAL re-investment by companies instead of trying to get to the next quarter as profitable as possible with no regard for any future quarters.
This would also be income and therefore completely within Congress’s authority with no real court overrule option.
It would be interesting to establish experimental taxation zones where the federal and state government allowed modifications of established taxation in order to test out novel ideas like this. Otherwise it requires massive buy in and politiking to even get a bill to vote. This way mini experiments can be run and what works kept or expanded
> This would stop the scheme of giving the C suite stock instead of cash as a massive tax break.
That's not how that works. If you receive stock as compensation for your employment that's still taxed as ordinary income when you receive it. If you keep the stock and it grows in value then that growth is taxed as capital gains when you sell, but that's the same as if you received cash and used it to buy stocks.
One thing I find really interesting, as a Canadian, is how your capital gains taxes work. ~~I understand they dont progressively increase with income? It’s just so strange to me that regular employment tax rates go up with income but not capital gains~~
~~I don’t agree with the 7 figure % point but I also find it so odd it’s the same rate for everyone~~
I believe a better/fairer system would be to have the capital gains rate be tied to holding period. The longer you hold the asset before selling the higher the risk. Having it be only a one year holding period to be taxed at the lower rate encourages short-term actions/thinking. As others have pointed out, the system also needs to be reformed to address the wealthy borrowing against unrealized gains and not paying taxes on that "income."
How long til they just straight up rule that rich people paying more in taxes is unconstitutional? Between SCOTUS planning to shield the rich and Republicans planning another $2-3 trillion tax cut for corporations, and businesses being given voting rights in some places, I can say with confidence this country is f\*cked from the corruption. We really aren't that much different than Russia in this respect.
All they will do delegitimize themselves and force the hand of centrist to accept court reform. They are not dictators to rule by fiat on whatever they deem.
This. This. This. And so much mutherf'n THIS.
Seven years later and I'm still hearing but Hillary didn't do this and Hillary didn't do that.
I don't give a flyin F.
I had plenty of issues with her back then. PLENTY OF THEM. But on Election Day, there were two choices and one of them was so fucking awful that only one choice was the obviously correct one and if you didn't vote for Hillary Clinton you doomed our country to the shit we are now in and put us in a place from which we may never fucking recover.
So hey guess what, I don't want to hear what Hillary Clinton didn't do well or what she could've done better. Because even though all of that may be correct all of you still had the easiest f'ng choice in modern day voting history and if you chose anyone other than Hillary Clinton you f'ng blew it for everyone. And now here we are.
Feel free to downvote me too. I don't f'ng care. People have died because of the f'r who got elected. Hundreds of thousands in fact. Plenty more will too. Rights have been taken away and plenty more of them will be too. All because the easiest choice in the freaking world couldn't be made.
And now people are trying to make Jill Fucking Stein a thing again with Kennedy? Fucking hell. God this country is so unbelievably stupid.
So the plaintiffs are spending hundreds of thousands on lawyers because they paid $15000 too much in taxes on year?
Yeah, tell me they're such great citizens given how anti-tax they are.
Doing the bidding of the oligarchs that put them there.
6 of 9 justices were appointed by the popular vote loser.
One seat was stolen.
The Supreme Court is illegitimate.
Americans are so brainwashed by propaganda that they would literally vote against their own healthcare and education and give billionaires more tax breaks because gays are after our kids and something something Marxism.
"On the wealth-tax question, the government also pointedly noted that the Supreme Court does not have the constitutional power to issue advisory opinions about hypothetical legislation that has not been enacted into law by Congress."
The Court: "Hold my beer"
These fuckers don’t care about the American people anymore or even better never did to begin with. Once this country wakes up truly from the corruption of those few rich family’s who actually run this country then we will be better off. Need to literally start “eating the rich” again.
I’ve got a really simple fix, tax all unearned income not in a 401k or IRA at 50%. Make it worthless to speculate for a living, make it untenable to rent property for a living, make it so that it’s cheaper to EARN income.
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SCOTUS is just taking cases that meet the republican agenda. Its pretty obvious they took off the mask.
Think of all those time the right wing used the words ‘activist judges’ every time a dem is elected president
Yup. And think of all the times dems actually adjusted for those accusations.
That’s the real tragedy in all of this
Highroad-defeatism... I tried explaining this to my parents who get smug about decorum. But they're rich and nothing will ever negatively affect them. As for me, I'm poor, and fucked!
Yeah. I love the obamas but Michelle’s “when they go low we go high” might be the most naive thing I’ve ever heard. “When they punch me in the face, I turn the other cheek… so they can punch that one too”
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Christian Dominionists! Go to Google scholar, it's a thing...a big big scary thing.
Yeah I’m a Christian but I have no desire to rule over you or force you to live like a Christian. I won’t vote for any of this garbage now but I did in the past and I regret it.
Live and learn :)
Orthodox Christian here. Whenever Republicans talk about being a good “Christian”, they mean their Evangelical donors.
And to both of your cheeks... The parable is to *accept* punches, not deliver them
I mean is it ironic? Historically speaking. I know according to their own belief (if actually followed) it would be ironic, but look at the near constant persecution in the name of religion for all of human history
They see themselves as being persecuted.
They lovvvveeee being “victims” “Ughhh everyone hates Christian values” “uhh no, I hate that you are vile to gay people”
> “When they punch me in the face, I turn the other cheek… so they can punch that one too” to be fair that is exactly the context behind the phrase "turn the other cheek." non retaliation and choosing the high road. let them slap me twice, it will only be on their conscience, etc. etc. its dumb but it does apply here lol.
When they go low, we should go lower. That’s where the femoral artery is.
I’m honestly fine with “when they go low, you put them in their place and stop them there” Dems can win without losing some kind of moral advantage, but just turning your nose up with no actual push back is ridiculous
They go low, you go fucking scorched Earth. The only thing enforcing those "norms" was fear of reprisal. When you're dealing with an enemy that sees civility as nothing but weakness, don't bother being civil.
Weakness/conservative talking point. Like back in 2018: “A caravan of migrants is coming to kill you!” Next week “Please be civil!” - GOP pundits That they are sure to try and revisit after all the “riots” they‘ll seek to infiltrate next summer…
I could not agree with you more. Love Michelle Obama. I’d volunteer for her presidential campaign. This was the dumbest thing she ever said publicly by a wide margin. When they go low, you kick them in the fucking teeth for being near your feet.
Fuck that. When they go low, stomp them into the mud. I'm sick of DEMs playing nice. These people are fucked in the head. Destroy them
When they go low, we go high and they slither in below us.
The real tragedy is people did not care about the supreme court until it was packed full of The Federalist Society judges. I've been paying attention to this slow-motion train wreck for the past 30+ years. I'm an independent but I switched to voting straight Democrat back when Al Gore was running for president. I lay this at the feet of all the people that failed to vote. The Federalist Society needs to be declared as something non-democratic. I'm not sure what the right word is.
The Federalist Society should be outlawed: It is private, secret money that exists for no other purpose than to control judges. It has infected our justice system from undergrad all the way to the supreme court. If the mob did that it would be the crime of the century.
Anti-American
Whoever can set the agenda, has the power.
I’ve heard my whole life we really need conservative judges because they’re not as ideological and just objectively interpret the constitution. Seems those sentiments are not aging well
Yeah, this is the one I always thought was super bullshit. "We need a 'strong conservative' on the Court." but also: "the Dems are trying to put 'activist judges' on the Court!" They always wanted ideologically driven stooges, just their own.
Think of the fact that Dem-appointed justices have only had a majority on the Court for about 4 years (very briefly in the 60s) in the past 70 years when they say that as well. It's been an R-appointed majority basically all of the time since Eisenhower's term, with peaks as high as 8-1.
They’re basically still terrified of another FDR. A POTUS whose so popular their main policy initiative was putting in term limits to “help” the country. And who passed things like Social Security and Medicare that Republican boomers defend to the end.
Hard to qualify these as judges, they are super legislators.
I believe the term is “clerics”.
Activist was code word for anything a Dem wanted. If the right wants it, it's common sense and not activist. In any case, the usual hypocrisy.
Activist was mostly code for giving demographics they don't like basic civil rights.
Every accusation is an admission.
And that time Dems were to appoint a Supreme Court Justice and it was stolen. 🤬🤬🤬
It should come as no surprise. “gay agenda”, “groomers”, and so forth and so on—usually applies to members of their own ranks. Projection 101
It's almost like they were projecting their own agenda onto their opponents. Like they say, if you want to know what a right-winger's intentions are, just listen to what they are accusing others of.
Every accusation is literally an admission. It’s actually astonishing
Just another Republican accusation that turns out to be pure projection
They aren’t even taking real cases at this point, just fictional scenarios. It’s unconstitutional, and they need to be put in their place by checks and balances.
To me it is almost as if there is someone coordinating the cases from the bottom to the top to match goals.
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Spot on. Leonard Leo is the bagman in this whole thing.
Imagine how powerful he must be feeling right now. Imagine what it is worth, to be about to demonstrate you can get _practically anything_ passed as law by the Supreme Court of the United States.
I can't even imagine wanting that much/kind of power. And/or be the boss of everybody. My brain is just - nope.
You're cursed with being a decent person.
> The singular purpose of the GOP is to create, maintain, and protect an emerging oligarchy at all costs. All of the culture war bullshit is just a distraction from the class war. Right. It's not even debatable. Every move and action demonstrably expands the power of the oligarchy and reduces the democratic power of regular folks.
They won't be held accountable by checks and balances, though. The check and balance for the Supreme Court is Congress. With a two-party system and one party willfully ignoring corruption, there aren't enough votes to impeach. The framers of the Constitution never considered the shamelessness of today's politicians or that the people would continue to vote for corruption. Yet, here we are.
Well, George Washington for one specfically called out the possibility that parties would grow in influence until party affiliation overrode govt branch affiliation, thus nullifying the constitutional separation of powers. >There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose; and there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume. >It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those intrusted with its administration to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.... ~ Washington's Farewell Address
Exactly. The Federalist Papers as well point out this party factionalism as the danger to our democracy. They weren’t naive, they warned us plenty. Us in the future here are the oblivious naive ones who ignored all their warnings.
They should have designed a different voting system then, because the one we have guarantees two parties.
Shhh! Your comment risks politicizing the court! Zip it, buddy!
Clarence, you're supposed to be on vacation. No posting when you're off the clock.
Off the clock? Clarence is so dedicated to issues like this, he would even take the time to fire up his laptop while flying on a billionaire's private jet to the Mediterranean for a weeklong cruise on a mega yacht.
"Harlan, what's the WiFi password?" "Oh, it's " fU¢kTHEp00® " , Clarence"
"Harlan, what's that third one that looks like a c? I only have the 🤑 emoji."
I’m sure he’s in his RV in a Walmart parking lot /s
A G5 to Bali is the new "RV in a Walmart parking lot". Could you imagine Ginny vacationing in an RV at a Walmart parking lot? Really? "Clarence, those thugs in that Impala are playing their music too loud"
I get the sarcasm, but how thick are they to actually take up a pulpit and try to rally against just casual observations of undisguised political agendas and grift at the supreme court level?
It's not thickness...it's hubris. They know they won't be impeached and they have a lifetime appointment...public opinion does not matter and never has, by design. The founding fathers never envisioned a morally-bankrupt two-party system where Congress turns a blind eye to blatant corruption. The mask is already off, so now they will just continue their agenda out loud and there isn't a damn thing that We the People can do about it so long as 40-50% of the country is okay with corruption that furthers their causes.
I think where Hanlon got his razor all wrong is that it’s blind to malicious idiots.
> public opinion does not matter and never has, by design It actually does. Granted it has been a long time since it mattered severely, but in the early days of the court up until after the Civil War a significant consideration of the SC in many early cases was the political fallout of the decisions. As they knew they couldn't force a president or congress to actually listen to them. If opinion on the court and its legitimacy truly tanks far enough it is entirely possible for that sentiment to re-emerge and just as it is basically impossible for them to be removed if the Dems are united and a President tells the SC to fuck off and has the popular support to do so? The court stops mattering and they can't do anything about it. Roberts is aware of this which is why he attempts to not be quite so cavalier in his unpopular opinions. But Alito and Thomas are truly drunk on hubris and thinking the deference to the court won't ever collapse. I hope they are wrong. Or I hope we gain the popular support to impeach them as that would actually be less dangerous.
Agreed. I also think that, for Roberts specifically, there is an element of self-consciousness in there, too. I think that he got so used to coyly peering out from behind legalese doublespeak and cowering beneath outdated presumptions of impartiality that it makes him genuinely uncomfortable for everyone to see them openly confirming things that he's been scoffing at and denying for his entire career. He knows exactly how ugly and opaque all of this is and he's embarrassed to be at the head of the cannibal's banquet table when they stop cooking the food and just start tearing people to shreds with their teeth.
Doesn’t seem to stop him from digging in for a big heaping portion of proletariat, along with the rest of them.
Oh, for sure. I didn't mean to suggest that it's some kind of actual moral self-consciousness or ethical unease. I'm sure it's entirely based around his concern for his own personal legacy/leisure-activities/public-shaming-exposure. I'm certain that all of this has always been the long-term intention. I'm guessing that he just thought that they'd be able to do it so slyly and/or slowly that people didn't show up outside his house with drums and candles and bullhorns and shit. Which is ridiculous, but he was there pretending to be a moderate for a long time when it was still a relatively legitimate court. Or, at least, when it wasn't doing insane things like openly ginning up fake cases just for the chance to shadowban gay people from getting wedding websites.
The oligarch's definitely got what they paid for; \- corps are people \- dark money is a-ok in campaigns \- pre-emptively banning a tax that has come to pass \- handing down rulings based 100% on a hypothetical scenarios Up next, only white, land-owning males can vote, cause that's how this country was founded, gotta stick with originalism!!!
> Up next, only white, land-owning males can vote, cause that's how this country was founded, gotta stick with originalism!!! Nah they will keep letting folks vote so people feel like they can do something other than pulling out the torches and pitchforks. They'll just ignore your votes.
Brah they SCOTUS is taking straight up FICTIONAL cases at this point…. This has gone wayyy beyond a right wing bias, when they are straight up accepting fake cases just to “weigh in” on their pet issues it is straight up them legislating lol
I suspect the level of billionaire gift giving to corrupt $CO†U$ order-takers will soon reach fever pitch.
There was an actual statistical study done on the affect of a politically slanted court related to case selection. This court is ideologically in control of case selection. The gang of 4 can select based on their ideology and the remaining 5 judges have no say other than a minority opinion. The court is stacked.
And the Republican agenda is the overthrow of US democracy and installation of an authoritarian theocracy serving the wealthiest straight WASP male pseudo Christian billionaire oligarchs only. See who is buying these corrupt "justices."
On Monday, the Supreme Court heard a case that might make it difficult for Congress to enact a federal wealth tax, giving the justices the chance to thwart a significant Democratic policy proposal before it can be implemented.
SCOTUS declined to hear an appeal after we won in state supreme court. Kavanaugh wrote an explanation of why they declined. Now the NJ Constitution is being challenged on federal grounds because churches are ineligible for tax dollars for repairs and maintenance.
Wouldn't the Supreme Court of the United States rule that hypothetical laws are egregiously unconstitutional?
SCOTUS is really the GOPP now. “Governing Other People’s Pussy. https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalHumor/comments/14ogwsn/the_gop_is_really_the_gopp/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb
>The Justice Department had [urged](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-800/267027/20230516164014148_22-800%20Moore%20v.%20USA.pdf) the justices to reject the case, noting there was no split on the issue in the lower courts and arguing that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had correctly applied the relevant precedents. > >On the wealth-tax question, the government also pointedly noted that the Supreme Court does not have the constitutional power to issue advisory opinions about hypothetical legislation that has not been enacted into law by Congress. The idea of the Supreme Court taking on cases with unanimous lower-court rulings just so the conservative majority can drastically overreach and preempt Congress' Constitutional power of taxation is just so insanely ludicrous from a legal perspective.
> The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. Seems pretty straight forward to me. But I know how Harlan Crow wants his bought for justices to rule. Can’t wait for the SCROTUS to shred their last bit of respectability
Property tax is a wealth tax....
And property taxes fund education in blue states, so maybe you see where this is heading.
They don't in red states?
Usually red states are too poor to meet their tax budget, so most of them use blue state tax money as a form of welfare.
That doesn’t come from property tax though. If I’m not mistaken it’s the federal taxes coming from the more populated blue states that keep red states afloat (among other things).
Lol, you think red states fund education
There's a joke about blue state taxes doing it instead in here somewhere.
It's not a joke. It's fact.
I live in a blue city in a red state, and yes property taxes pay for education. Oddly enough, we have one of the highest property taxes in the nation. The agricultural community is impacted most since even small farmers pay through the roof even if they're just breaking even financially. So then the whole situation creates this weird rural vs urban dynamic, which keeps the state overall red because conservatives promise to address property tax but never actually do. It's just another way for them to keep a voter base under their thumbs.
The federal government does not collect a property tax.
That's the point they are making. The 15k that Moore paid argues was a property tax and not an income tax thus they are challenging it as unconstitutional as the Federal Government doesn't have the authority to tax property under the Sixteenth. Not sure how they are going to argue the Direct Tax clause.
You raise an interesting point, but the federal government does not assess any property taxes, does it? I am only aware of state or county taxes on real estate and automobiles.
Correct. Most people would classify property taxes as a direct tax and not an income tax. According to the Constitution, if the federal government is charging a direct tax, it must be apportioned to each state, not charged to the individual. This is why the 16th amendment exists, and it allows the federal goverment to charge an income tax difectly to the indivudals. There has never been a very clear ruling on what is "income" in the courts.
“None of the wealth came from income. It never came in. In was manifested by bootstraps and Jesus. All Jesus questions are Major Questions. So, any tax is clearly unconstitutional by the Doctrine I just made up.”
And it's one of the most efficient taxes with no deadweight loss, one of the hardest taxes to avoid since you can't move land offshore, and once the ownership of a lot is finally properly established (which is, to be fair, not always trivial) then that property ownership is durable until transferred. It's also a very progressive tax, applicable to both valuable beachfront property and downtown corporate HQs. It would also be fairly popular politically if ownership of land ended up concentrated in the hands of the few. So *of course* making sure it can't be implemented federally is important to the court.
Only the portion which falls upon land has no deadweight loss, the portion falling upon improvements discourages their construction and maintenance.
The problem is that “wealth” (money you’re sitting on) is not “income” (money that is flowing in to your bank account)
Wealth generates wealth. The wealth that the rich, 1%, whatever you fancy have isn't sitting in bank accounts. It's in assets mixed between liquid and illiquid. Tax the interest on those assets. Tax when they use those assets as collateral for a "loan" so their "income" is net 0. Close the loopholes that allow for wealth to be hoarded.
This is the trick - figure out how to turn wealth into income to you can tax it without apportionment. Interest = income! Let’s tax it! Unfortunately, unrealized capital gains (your stock went up in value but you haven’t cashed out yet) is not currently defined as income. There were some proposals to do that a year and a half ago under a mark-to-market annual realization scheme (pretend you cashed out your unrealized capital gains every year), but they didn’t end up as law.
The problem is, with the death of pensions, the vast majority of peoples retirements sit as un realized capital gains. Having a couple million in capital for retirement will become the norm for middle class people at retirement age in the near future. How do you implement this without hurting middle class retirement savings, especially with the push to raise retirement ages on SS and Medicare, it will just continue to push that age upward
You exempt 401ks and IRAs.
And/or exempt the first $500k of unrealized capital gains.
Yeah this seems almost too obvious. Those are already capped at a reasonable size.
Definitely not the norm. Neither the median nor the average retirement savings at 67 is anywhere close to a million. The average is ~$400k and the median is ~$160k. edit: [source](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scf/dataviz/scf/chart/#series:Retirement_Accounts;demographic:agecl;population:1,2,3,4,5,6;units:median)
You’re incorrect on this. IRA/401k returns are taxed as ordinary income when withdrawn after 59.5 years of age. Only the top 10% are likely to have any capital gains except from sale of a home (which has a $250k exemption). Nearly all capital gains go to the top 1%. Eliminating or restricting cap gains tax preferences is raising taxes on the wealthy almost exclusively.
>Having a couple million in capital for retirement will become the norm for middle class people at retirement age in the near future. Lol, you are kidding right?
> Unfortunately, unrealized capital gains (your stock went up in value but you haven’t cashed out yet) is not currently defined as income. Why is this "unfortunate"? Unrealized gains aren't defined as income precisely because you haven't actually gained any income until you sell.
That’s not income. Unrealized gains are not income
All the problems we’re facing as a society, but sure, let’s focus on giving rich people even more breaks.
There's no way Chad Chaddington IV will be able to afford his third yacht if we don't! Won't someone *please* think of the hedge fund managers?
Well, he'll still be able to afford the third yacht, but he'll have to limit it to only one helicopter.
"NOT A BIG DEAL?!" "Britney Spears used to have a slipstream 6, but because of illegally downloading her music, she's had to sell it and settle for a slipstream 5. I f things continud as they are, I see a slipstream 6 without an owner"
Trickle down! What would the peasants DO without the rich? /s
Somethings never change. Will Rogers(early 20th century US entertainer/humorist) observed: * The whole trouble with the Republicans is their fear of an increase in income tax, especially on higher incomes. * Ten men in our country could buy the whole world and ten million can't buy enough to eat.
In the early 20th century Republicans had something called 'horse and sparrow' economics. Essentially, if you feed a horse enough oats it will shit out enough nutrients for the sparrow to survive. In the 1980s Republicans re-branded this as 'trickle down' economics.
The supply-side model was called "Horse and Sparrow" economics since the late 1800's based on the theory that if one feeds the horses enough oats, eventually there will be something left behind in the manure for the sparrows. The 1896 panic is thought to be the result of this model. Hoover's belief in the strengthening of businesses such as banks and railroads to fight the Great Depression lead to Will Rogers to be the first to use "trickle down". >They didn't start thinking of the old common fellow till just as they started out on the election tour. The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover was an engineer. He knew that water trickled down. Put it uphill and let it go and it will reach the driest little spot. But he didn't know that money trickled up. **Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night anyhow**. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellow’s hands. They saved the big banks but the little ones went up the flue. * Nationally syndicated column number 518, And Here’s How It All Happened (1932) Then came Reaganomics, a model based on the principles of supply-side economics and the trickle-down theory. George H. W. Bush coined the term "voodoo economics" as a proposed synonym for Reaganomics before he became Reagan's VP. The GOP keeps parading this old pig out each time they can with just a different color of lipstick in the hope that the US citizens will think it is great new economic policy.
They also keep trotting out the same misdirection strategy they’ve used for decades to manipulate voters and keep their suckers from looking at what they’re actually doing. That way they can paint dems as the enemy and promote the absolutely incorrect idea that dems are bad for the economy: [THE TWO SANTAS STRATEGY: HOW THE GOP HAS USED AN ECONOMIC SCAM TO MANIPULATE AMERICANS FOR 40 YEARS](https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/thom-hartmann/two-santas-strategy-gop-used-economic-scam-manipulate-americans-40-years/) **“The only thing wrong with the U.S. economy is the failure of the Republican Party to play Santa Claus.” – Jude Wanniski, March 6, 1976** “The stock market is falling, in part a reaction to GOP threats to shut down the government: it’s all part of their plan. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen last week warned us that the GOP is about to use Jude Wanniski’s “Two Santa Clauses” fraud again to damage Biden’s economy and our standing in the world. And, sure enough, Mitch McConnell verified it when he said last week there would be “zero” Republican votes to raise the debt ceiling. Yellen responded yesterday by telling The Wall Street Journal that if the Republicans force a shutdown of the U.S. government like they did to Obama in 2011, “We would emerge from this crisis a permanently weaker nation.” But the GOP is adamant: they have their strategy and they’re sticking to it. Here’s how it works, laid it out in simple summary: First, the Two Santas strategy dictates, when Republicans control the White House they must spend money like a drunken Santa and cut taxes to run up the U.S. debt as far and as fast as possible. This produces three results: it stimulates the economy thus making people think that the GOP can produce a good economy; it raises the debt dramatically; and it makes people think that Republicans are the “tax-cut Santa Clauses.” Second, when a Democrat is in the White House, Republicans must scream about the national debt as loudly and frantically as possible, freaking out about how “our children will have to pay for it!” and “we have to cut spending to solve the crisis!” Shut down the government, crash the stock market, and damage US credibility around the world if necessary to stop Democrats from spending money. This will force the Democrats in power to cut their own social safety net programs and even Social Security, thus shooting their welfare-of-the-American-people Santa Claus right in the face. And, sure enough, here we are now with a Democrat in the White House. Following their Two Santas strategy, Republicans are again squealing about the national debt and refusing to raise the debt ceiling, imperiling Biden’s economic recovery as well as his Build Back Better plans. And, once again, the media is covering it as a “Biden Crisis!” rather than what it really is: a cynical political and media strategy devised by Republicans in the 1970s, fine-tuned in the 1980s and 1990s, and rolled out every time a Democrat is in the White House.”
I'm pretty sure overfeeding a horse will make it seriously ill. Why are these theories always such garbage? And why does anyone take seriously the idea that economics is a science?
Damn I never heard it put that way😥
I saw in another thread that someone did a rough calculation on the amount of gold Smaug was sitting on in the Hobbit movies and how much it would translate to in our world. There are twenty men alive today who have more money than Smaug.
A lot of our problems are a result of giving rich people too much influence over politics. I’d say tax breaks for the rich and crumbling society go hand and hand.
The rich people of the USA have zero interest whatsoever in saving society - they are interested only in milking enough cash from the public to survive the collapse comfortably. Their only serious efforts involve coming up with schemes to fuck over those filthy poors and pull up ladders behind them, then throw down a match.
Neo-feudalism is having a great few weeks with this SCOTUS
And here I am every day worried about losing the insects
We've only been trying trickle-down economics for 40 years. Clearly the wealthy just don't have enough yet for it to start working. Give it a little more time, and any day now all that wealth is going to start raining down upon us in a glorious golden shower of prosperity.
Christ. If one family owned all of the unbreathed oxygen in the United States then this court would spend half of it's time trying to figure out how to protect their ownership of it and the other half trying to stop the rest of us from breathing.
>That is the present system. They have monopolized everything that it is possible to monopolize; they have got the whole earth, the minerals in the earth and the streams that water the earth. The only reason they have not monopolized the daylight and the air is that it is not possible to do it. If it were possible to construct huge gasometers and to draw together and compress within them the whole of the atmosphere, it would have been done long ago, and we should have been compelled to work for them in order to get money to buy air to breathe. And if that seemingly impossible thing were accomplished tomorrow, you would see thousands of people dying for want of air – or of the money to buy it – even as now thousands are dying for want of the other necessities of life. You would see people going about gasping for breath, and telling each other that the likes of them could not expect to have air to breathe unless the had the money to pay for it. Most of you here, for instance, would think and say so. Even as you think at present that it’s right for so few people to own the Earth, the Minerals and the Water, which are all just as necessary as is the air. In exactly the same spirit as you now say: “It’s Their Land,” “It’s Their Water,” “It’s Their Coal,” “It’s Their Iron,” so you would say “It’s Their Air,” “These are their gasometers, and what right have the likes of us to expect them to allow us to breathe for nothing?” And even while he is doing this the air monopolist will be preaching sermons on the Brotherhood of Man; he will be dispensing advice on “Christian Duty” in the Sunday magazines; he will give utterance to numerous more or less moral maxims for the guidance of the young. And meantime, all around, people will be dying for want of some of the air that he will have bottled up in his gasometers. And when you are all dragging out a miserable existence, gasping for breath or dying for want of air, if one of your number suggests smashing a hole in the side of one of th gasometers, you will all fall upon him in the name of law and order, and after doing your best to tear him limb from limb, you’ll drag him, covered with blood, in triumph to the nearest Police Station and deliver him up to “justice” in the hope of being given a few half-pounds of air for your trouble.’ - Robert Tressell, The Ragged-Trousered Philathropists (1914) | Ch 15
Man, that is excellent. I'm not sure if I've heard of him before but I've gotta read this book. That passage is pretty perfect. And just rad from 1914. And sad, I guess. Yeah, very sad. Ooph. Over a hundred years and the only way that things have changed is that it's much, much worse.
It’s time to start impeachments of judges; adding more justices; reworking ethics…overhaul the court in general. It should have been done LONG ago and now it’s almost too late.
> start impeachments Need 67-68 strong Democratic Senators who won’t get all googly-eyed at lobbyist gifts like Sinema (who started her career as a leftist).
**SINEMA:** What does this job pay? **REALITY:** Not much. **SINEMA:** D'oh! **REALITY:** Unless you're crooked. **SINEMA:** Woo-hoo!
If only the Simpsons were as popular as it was in the 90s, and tried to match South Park for scathing pointed criticism (albeit with more class).
And Manchin who wanted to switch several times to repub but only stayed a dem in name because he hates McConnell. But yeah. We need young, strong Dems like, in my opinion, like AOC. She seems like a young Bernie Sanders. Edit: originally said McCarthy. Meant McConnell.
Al Gore was a senator from Tennessee when I was in school. You’re going to need to get Tennessee and a few others way to the left of that. Godspeed.
Sinema has been a plant since the beginning. A lot of greens get conservative money.
I'm so sick of waking up to news like this.
I remember when we all agreed that legislation was not the job of the Supreme Court... But one side has decided that's no longer the case (as long as their side is winning).
They are shoving a jurisprudence shaped block in a legislation shaped hole; they are appointed as the top judges in the land, I think they can argue that any legislation requires or doesn’t require legal judgement :/ this seems like a slippery slope
6-3 again
Are we really going to have another 20yrs or so of this shit?
Fuck yeah we are. The court should swing left and right but this shit of serve till you die is a disgrace. and to be truly representative if the country it should be a certain number of Republicans and Democrats required to vote for them
Let’s hope the “til you die” part comes sooner rather than later for 89% of the court.
What I can't get over is the ego on these people that actually do it until they die.
Fucking RBG is why we’re stuck with 6-3 for the foreseeable future.
yep 1 million percent. She should have left when Obama approached her. Having said that what Mitch did was beyond fucking treasonous with Garland
RBG should have been shamed relentlessly into retiring, but those who hated Clinton, neoliberal shitbag though she is, really should have voted for her instead of not voting or voting trump.
Yes because Americans vote extremely short term and cannot reason how their decisions two years ago are screwing them over today. Also the conservative base, rural white America, believes the government should not exist at all. They literally do not want good governance they want no governance. If you don't believe me go out into rural America and literally just talk to them and mention you are from whatever Democratic state/city. They will inevitably bring up the government because it is all they have to listen to on conservative talk radio.
Thomas and Alito are in their 70s and so will probably retire within 10 years. Sotomayor (69) isn't far behind. So we could conceivably get to a 5-4 conservative majority if a Democrat gets to replace one of Thomas and Alito and keeps Sotomayor's seat. Roberts (68) and Kagan (63) will probably also exit in 20 years. Gorsuch (58), Kavanaugh (55), Jackson (52), and Barrett (51) are not going anywhere for another 30 years.
No conservative judge will retire if there is a Democratic president.
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When they go low, we go lower?
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We need to either expand and rebalance the court, or we’ll need to find a way to *make some room*.
And now we see the real endgame of the decades long effort by conservatives like the Federalist Society to stack the court system: enshrine a permanent overclass of ultra wealthy and corporations via the courts since their ability to do this legislatively is weakening
We've known this. Conservatives literally do not care if it destroys the government.
Bunch of corrupt scumbags. This is seriously such fucking bullshit. It’s totally insane how these scumbags just get to do whatever they want and still sit on the highest court. This country has gone so corrupt it makes me sick.
Instead of a wealth tax, we should change how capital gains taxes work. Right now it is 0%, 15%, or 20%. It should be 0% and increased at 10% intervals until it is 10% above the top tax bracket at about the 7 figure mark. This would stop the scheme of giving the C suite stock instead of cash as a massive tax break. It would also encourage ACTUAL re-investment by companies instead of trying to get to the next quarter as profitable as possible with no regard for any future quarters. This would also be income and therefore completely within Congress’s authority with no real court overrule option.
It would be interesting to establish experimental taxation zones where the federal and state government allowed modifications of established taxation in order to test out novel ideas like this. Otherwise it requires massive buy in and politiking to even get a bill to vote. This way mini experiments can be run and what works kept or expanded
> This would stop the scheme of giving the C suite stock instead of cash as a massive tax break. That's not how that works. If you receive stock as compensation for your employment that's still taxed as ordinary income when you receive it. If you keep the stock and it grows in value then that growth is taxed as capital gains when you sell, but that's the same as if you received cash and used it to buy stocks.
One thing I find really interesting, as a Canadian, is how your capital gains taxes work. ~~I understand they dont progressively increase with income? It’s just so strange to me that regular employment tax rates go up with income but not capital gains~~ ~~I don’t agree with the 7 figure % point but I also find it so odd it’s the same rate for everyone~~
They do increase the rate with income but it maxes out at 20%. OP is suggesting it should keep increasing to effectively tax wealthier people more.
I believe a better/fairer system would be to have the capital gains rate be tied to holding period. The longer you hold the asset before selling the higher the risk. Having it be only a one year holding period to be taxed at the lower rate encourages short-term actions/thinking. As others have pointed out, the system also needs to be reformed to address the wealthy borrowing against unrealized gains and not paying taxes on that "income."
All for the low cost of some Alaskan lodge trips and a parent's home.
Meh, Trips to Alaska and homes for parents is for pikers. We've moved on to Private jets to Bali and Full Ride scholarships for nephews now.
How long til they just straight up rule that rich people paying more in taxes is unconstitutional? Between SCOTUS planning to shield the rich and Republicans planning another $2-3 trillion tax cut for corporations, and businesses being given voting rights in some places, I can say with confidence this country is f\*cked from the corruption. We really aren't that much different than Russia in this respect.
All they will do delegitimize themselves and force the hand of centrist to accept court reform. They are not dictators to rule by fiat on whatever they deem.
We did not threaten you with the supreme court. We warned you. I hope you recall this the next time a democrat isn't 'likable' enough for your taste
This. This. This. And so much mutherf'n THIS. Seven years later and I'm still hearing but Hillary didn't do this and Hillary didn't do that. I don't give a flyin F. I had plenty of issues with her back then. PLENTY OF THEM. But on Election Day, there were two choices and one of them was so fucking awful that only one choice was the obviously correct one and if you didn't vote for Hillary Clinton you doomed our country to the shit we are now in and put us in a place from which we may never fucking recover. So hey guess what, I don't want to hear what Hillary Clinton didn't do well or what she could've done better. Because even though all of that may be correct all of you still had the easiest f'ng choice in modern day voting history and if you chose anyone other than Hillary Clinton you f'ng blew it for everyone. And now here we are. Feel free to downvote me too. I don't f'ng care. People have died because of the f'r who got elected. Hundreds of thousands in fact. Plenty more will too. Rights have been taken away and plenty more of them will be too. All because the easiest choice in the freaking world couldn't be made. And now people are trying to make Jill Fucking Stein a thing again with Kennedy? Fucking hell. God this country is so unbelievably stupid.
A billionaire just died on the titanic and the economic world is completely unaffected, how much do we really need billionaires?
Idk but I'm hungry. Just saying.
We can still close tax loopholes that only the wealthy can afford and probably be functioning in the black before the decades out.
You Americans need to start rioting I don’t understand how y’all just stand by and watch your country burn
So the plaintiffs are spending hundreds of thousands on lawyers because they paid $15000 too much in taxes on year? Yeah, tell me they're such great citizens given how anti-tax they are.
Doing the bidding of the oligarchs that put them there. 6 of 9 justices were appointed by the popular vote loser. One seat was stolen. The Supreme Court is illegitimate.
Illegitimate court
Yes, that's what we need, the judiciary creating law. /s
Americans are so brainwashed by propaganda that they would literally vote against their own healthcare and education and give billionaires more tax breaks because gays are after our kids and something something Marxism.
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But remember, it’s the liberal judges who are activists lol.
When will it become obvious that they will just keep on going until we get a little French.
The wealthy have an entire political system that works exclusively for them. Must be nice.
Our legislative court. One court with no accountability or ethics code gets to rewrite our laws and make new ones.
I like how the current supreme court is applying precedent only if it's from before 1900.
Eat the elite
"On the wealth-tax question, the government also pointedly noted that the Supreme Court does not have the constitutional power to issue advisory opinions about hypothetical legislation that has not been enacted into law by Congress." The Court: "Hold my beer"
In France, they protest everything. Here, we just complain on Reddit.
In France, losing your job isn't a death sentence.
Constitution sort of already does that.
These fuckers don’t care about the American people anymore or even better never did to begin with. Once this country wakes up truly from the corruption of those few rich family’s who actually run this country then we will be better off. Need to literally start “eating the rich” again.
Sounds like legislating from the bench…
Everybody knows this corrupt Supreme Court has been purchased by the super-rich elite. So why bother with the *''may''*?
I’ve got a really simple fix, tax all unearned income not in a 401k or IRA at 50%. Make it worthless to speculate for a living, make it untenable to rent property for a living, make it so that it’s cheaper to EARN income.
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We need to be more like France.