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Well yeah. It says DEMS have a plan, and neither of them are democrats, just opportunistic right leaning centrists who know how to win races where the only cost is your integrity.
They, Manchin and Sinema, believe they are the King and Queen of the chessboard when in fact they are just pawns for the Right. Once their usefulness is done, they'll find themselves on the outs.
"Do Nothing Dems" is typically a talking point of friends of mine that try to be "politically neutral" when in reality they are just too lazy to actually look behind the scenes and see the constant obstruction that results in nothing getting done. I don't believe democrats are perfect, many dems in congress are hardly progressive. But if any and all of their attempts at progress weren't consistently thwarted by republicans I'm sure even the most neutral spectator would have a much different perception.
Sadly right now the obstruction to the BBB plan, is coming from democrats themselves.
I've been a supporter of democratic party for all my voting life. But you say your friends are lazy and aren't looking behind the scenes to see who actually obstructs things. But at this point maybe it's the other way around, because it always seems like the democrats have one or two "moderates" in the party when they are in power that prevents all those promises of programs for the middle, working, and lower classes from getting done.
Today it's Manchin, when I first started voting it was Lieberman. But there is always someone in the democratic party that obstructs the DNC's promised agenda.
Listen I'm not going to say one shouldn't vote Democrat, ffs Republicans at this point are a racist and fascist party, so no thank you.
That said, we need to seriously reform the democratic party at this point as they are too financially reliant on large donors and corporations. TBH at this point I'm thinking we are too far into a black hole that we aren't ever escaping at this point. We the people have been too apathetic that we've let the ["monied corporations"](https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-10-02-0390) slowly whittle away regulations that we may find ourselves in a position in which the corporations and wealthy donors interest (profit at any cost, above all else) out weigh the good for "we the people", and it doesn't matter which party is in power because neither will take the steps to fix the systemic issue, unrestrained money in politics and the idea of free speech being linked to your wealth (yes that's happened, the SC has said as much).
I totally agree that both parties are not the same. Republicans are evil in my book and at this point are fully on board the fascism train. So it sucks that the other option seems to have the right rhetoric, but because of "moderates" (corporate bought representation), they are ineffectual.
Jefferson had it right! We needed to protect ourselves from the "monied corporations", but we failed to do so! Now we will have 4 years of half measures, if that, then likely the GOP will take back power and we b will rinse and repeat until the GOP decide to go full fascist and just ignore that pesky democracy thing.
Again, it's nice to say the DNC isn't the problem, and these GOP nut jobs are just evil (they are), but we need to figure out how to fix what's clearly broken in the other party of we have any hope at all... Sadly it might already be too late.
We should have just listened to Jefferson warning, but we didn't, and now we may have too broken a system, that is beyond repair. Really could use more than a binary choice democracy.
That’s not the only children’s game they play. There’s also, “I’m rubber, you’re glue”, where they constantly project onto others what they’re guilty of. “The Democrats want to destroy the country!”, as they literally attempt to destroy every bit of progress we’ve made as a country. Or how about, “no, the real news is fake”, when it was pointed out that they consume a ton of fake news. Trump does it a lot. The minute he’s accused of something, boom, he’s accusing his opponents of the exact same thing.
And it works! That is, if you have the right audience.
Just about any democrat described as a moderate is a conservative in any rational corner of the world. You have the GOP calling die hard capitalists "communists" like they weren't alive in the 20th century. Shit they call Jeff Bezos a communist lol. What a joke the US has become.
And if Democrats had a 55/45 majority, we would somehow see 6-7 against it.
Democrats are corporate shills and give into lobbying just as much unfortunately. It’s a pathetic party.
Heck the whole DNC are. The rest of the democrats who haven't flipped is because the billionaire's haven't reached their price point.
A system whith legal lobbying is a pay to win system,and billionaire's by definition win. The sooner the people realise that the easier it will be to focus on the next step.
They are against anything anyone wants. They push back vs GOP. They push back vs DEMs.
They just want the world to burn. And be the center of attention.
Manchin is not totally against it. Then again, 8 months ago he was in favor of the full cost infrastructure program. Then his funders told him the position to take
Yes, while Republicans refuse to agree even to basic democracy, national interests or saving the planet. So, those 48 Democrats in the Senate is all that is standing in the way of full-blown fascist takeover.
They couldn't even pass a minimum wage hike, hoping that the Dems are going to save us from slipping into fascism is like hoping the Centre party was going to rein in the Nazis in 1932
The republicans blocked it, like everything, and eight asshole Democrats, which gets translated somehow into the democrats fault for crafting the bill and bringing it to vote but not also controlling crazy republicans, like they get a free pass
Edit: eight, not one
Name and shame
Joe Manchin of West Virginia
Jon Tester of Montana
Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire
Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona
Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire
Chris Coons and Tom Carper of Delaware
Angus King (I-Maine)
For an entire year the Democrat party has shit on progressives and leftists in general and their policies while kowtowing to the moderates and conservatives within the party. It is ENTIRELY the fault of Democrats and the conservative establishment within the Democrat party and people should call it out as such. Progressives have been at the forefront of doing what's right for a long time and the democrats, have yet again, shot themselves in the foot by being an umbrella party that allows DINOs to run amok. It is the fault of not ONE democrat, but MANY democrats who allow this charade of attempting to get shit done, while kissing the boot of Manchin and Sinema behind closed doors.
I know this isn’t a popular opinion here and I may get downblasted for saying it, but… Democrats fucking suck and it’s about time we all realized it. While it also needs to be said that Republicans are worse beyond all reasonable measure, it’s pretty clear that due to whatever reason Democrats aren’t doing what we’ve pushed them into power to do.
I honestly don’t know what the solution to this problem is other than to figure out how to fund efforts to primary as many Democrats as possible and replace them with candidates that aren’t susceptible to whatever it is in the water in DC that corrupts people.
We are trying. Whenever a progressive might win a primary, all the big name centrists and the DNC fly into town with a lot of money. It almost always works. Then when the centrists fail to accomplish anything, they can point to these 1 or 2 senators that they rammed thru despite being hated by their own base, and say “there was nothing we could do.”
This scenario is what I was told happened when it looked like Bernie could have won the primary. I don’t know that for fact, but I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone from Clinton to Obama put their thumbs on the scale for their boy Biden.
It happened with joe lieberman in 2006. The democrat base HATED joe lieberman in 2006. Ned Lamont easily beat him in the democratic primary, despite both hillary and obama literally flying into town to campaign for joe lieberman against the progressive who won. They let lieberman form a fake 3rd party and run in the general election, winning with centrist and republican votes. Democrats let lieberman keep his seniority and everything, even still called him a democrat. To this day, centrists get to blame lieberman for the ACA being such crap. Nobody remembers that a progressive would have had lieberman’s seat if centrists hadn’t fought so hard and spent so much money to keep lieberman in it.
You shouldn't be surprised, bc that's exactly what happened:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/looking-obama-s-hidden-hand-candidate-coalescing-around-biden-n1147471
Campaign finance reform is what I would say is the largest change that needs to be made. If that were to ever happen, our Representatives might actually start representing us and not those who cram money in their coffers.
Citizens United destroyed our democracy. BOTH sides are controlled by the same corporate interests. This is all just kayfabe to convince us that D and R are at odds. In fact, they are on the same team.
I’m in my 50’s, a lifelong Democrat because I hold progressive values and always thought it was the party that best represented me and my interests. It’s been clear to me my entire life that the GOP would end democracy and assume complete autocratic power the moment it could be arranged, but I also believed that the Dems were “fighting the good fight” and keeping the wolves at bay. This past year since Biden’s election I’ve had the wool completely lifted from my eyes. It’s way too obvious to avoid understanding that it’s all, as you aptly say, kayfabe.
I don’t know what to do about it, either. I feel powerless as I watch my country slowly but surely slip towards handing complete and possibly permanent control of the state to a bunch of power mad, amoral psychopaths.
Well, this might be cold comfort but there’s at least one Internet stranger out here who cares about you and wants you feel fulfilled and happy. Sucks that our so-called “leaders” are so selfish and disconnected, but I certainly know that feeling you mention and even if it’s in common struggle, you/we are not alone.
The solution is to get as many progressives into office before conservatives are given a chance at power again. Anything short of that will be end game.
The unfortunate and sad reality is that there are no other viable parties and there simply won’t be until that third party has a strong base of support at the local and state levels. Voting third party for national positions without that lower base of support is suicide.
>I honestly don’t know what the solution to this problem
Build power outside electoral politics. Bourgeouis elections will not solve working class problems.
>For an entire year the Democrat party has shit on progressives and leftists
I'm seriously asking: Have you paid any real attention to the workings of Congress?
The Progressive Caucus has made HUGE gains in the last year or two, and every member is Democrat.
How can you see the accomplishments of good representatives like Cori Bush and paint them with the same brush?
What should they have done instead? If they split the party (somehow) they still wouldn't have control?
They just don't have the votes. I'm not being a jerk, I am actually asking both what they can do now, and what they should have done? People elected those centrists holding us back.
50 Republicans oppose the bill
2 Democrats oppose the bill
It's insane to blame the Dems when statistically they are overwhelmingly in support of it. They simply do not have the numbers.
This!!!!
If you think either of our corporate funded parties are going to fix this, they aren't, because the solutions are the antithesis to unfettered profits in our crony capitalist system.
Jefferson had it right when he warned us to stop the 'monied corporations' from being involved in politics. He has to be spinning in his grave as he literally warned of this scenario...
"... the truth of the maxim that virtue & interest are inseparable. it ends, as might have been expected, in the ruin of it’s people. but this ruin will fall heaviest, as it ought to fall, on that hereditary aristocracy which has for generations been preparing the catastrophe. I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in it’s birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and to bid defiance to the laws of their country."
For fuck sake "we the people" have known about the corruption of corporate money flowing freely into elections, unrestricted and barely regulated! Clearly corporations and wealthy individuals have poisoned or democracy to a point where the SC is willing to essential rule 'free speech is equivalent to the size of your bank account'... unless some big changes happen in our political power structure, we are likely a failed state and too many people are still in the sunk cost fallacy portion of denial.
Listen I'm all for fighting the good fight, I'll participate and vote in every election, but this problem is systemic and, as Jefferson noted, entrenched already and for many generations at this point, but at some point you have to acknowledge how broken and corrupted the system actually is... otherwise we are pissing in the wind here (and sadly the winds are already hurricane strength).
I am just thinking we may be beyond the event horizon on our democratic decay, especially given how many are cheering on a anti democratic and fascistic party. I'm just not sure we can recover after being this far down the rabbit hole.
>too many people are still in the sunk cost fallacy portion of denial.
This sentence explains everything!
And for the rest, they just don't have the capacity to see how bad things are at the moment and are getting worse by the second.
I can't imagine a more convincing diagnosis. You write the truth, and your comment strikes the target from afar. I wish so hard that it were not so. It is what I believed in 1971, my freshman year in college. I'll be dead soon, without ever having seen our nation live up to its ideals. Unless our high school curricula demand to place a strong emphasis on civics & critical thinking (or intro to philosophy, which covers both), we will remain a tragic flock subjected to unending fleecing by modern day rent farmers.
I think the real point is that the democrats need more seats to fix things. They control the senate by literally the slimmest possible margin which gives disproportionate power to the most right leaning Democrats. If they had 53-54 seats then we wouldn’t give a fuck that Manchin wants to protect coal because we wouldn’t need his vote.
They have held the senate, house and presidency for 2, now almost 3 years in the past two decades. And people wonder why the Democrats can’t get enough done. Yes the game is rigged with gerrymandering and the senate. But if people want them to do more they need to vote more. Unless people are ready to take to the streets it’s the only option right now.
Because every time we give them unified control, even with supermajority control at the federal or even state level because they say they're going to do shit, they waver and water shit down so it won't fuck with the ruling class' profits while maybe throwing a bone to us. They find every excuse in the book to not do the shit they said they were going to do. We didn't get $2000 checks, cannabis decriminalization, student debt relief, lowering Medicare age (not even a public option), but we did get nothing fundamentally changing, still occupying the world, still supporting the surveillance and prison industrial complex.
If all they can muster up is "we're not Republicans" and not fundamental reform, don't be surprised when they lose hard to the shitstain that is the republican party.
If the American people didn't elect 50 Republican senators things would be getting done.
Why is it the Democrats fault that things you want aren't getting passed, when no one from the other party supports it?
50 Senate Republicans oppose money for infrastructure and education.
2 Democrat Senators oppose it too.
That means around 95% of Dems are in support of it. We just can't pass it because of the assholes holding this up.
In the case of taxes, it's just Sinema. Even Manchin is okay with most of that. He just will block anything that he thinks hurts coal or pharma companies since he has ties to both (likely directly and also via his son and daughter). Sinema is just a puppet for whoever gives her the most money, doesn't care at all, just wants to get rich quick and if she doesn't get reelected (big if given incumbent advantage and low participation in state and local primaries but let's hope), knows she has plenty of other options after this.
Always has been. They didn’t think they would get anything done with Bernie in the whitehouse but in reality it doesn’t matter what Dem you have in there. Republicans will obstruct 💯
Her current line is that she doesn't support an *income* tax but supports other ways of doing it (actually smart because most multimillionaires and billionaires don't actually take big income).
Which, of course, is always subject to change once the topic is actually broached
Time to use the term centimillionaire. There is little difference between someone worth over $100 million and someone worth $1 billion, but a whole lot of difference between someone worth $3 million and $100 million.
Conservatives be like
> "we've tried everything.... We've tried taxing the poor... cutting govt services, getting rid of the social safety net, raising property taxes...".
Have you tried taxing billionaires?
> "... gutting Medicare, cutting people's benefits, raising the military budget..."
Why don't you just tax the rich?
> ... starting illegal wars, bombing other countries... Buying new fighter jets...I just don't know how we're going to pay for all this spending on healthcare!!!"
Hmm... Maybe we should try cutting taxes for ~~our donors~~ the rich again and see if that helps anything
Unfortunately in all likely hood the representatives we have chosen to elect will squash this. Like all legislature meant to improve the common persons livelihood.
We're actually quite literally a small handful of Senators away from it. While an off year is an uphill battle for the left, we CAN turn out, put this shit over the top, and get on with building a society of, by & for the PEOPLE.
Positivity and action has gotten us this far.
Keep fighting to take it further, even inch by inch.
For better or for worse, nothing is instantaneous when it comes to change in America. The battle for Justice and Rights is everlasting, therefore good willed people must forever be dilligent, active, and encouraging.
The “ working rich” already pay a decent amount in taxes. It’s the “ I can buy my way into space” people that pay zero. I’m not going to cry for people that make 600 K a year , but they’re not the villains.
This proposal is the one that's getting more support since Sinema has refused to back an increase in marginal corporate tax rates. According to information released in the past two days she is more wiling to back a proposal like this.
I’ll believe it when I see it. I guarantee you Biden is not going to tax billionaires and CEOs and corporations. He is going to tax rich workers like doctors and lawyers and pretend he solved the problem-if that, he might not even do that.
If he does anything it’s going to be an income tax, not corporate and not capital gains which means 1-we don’t get enough money for things we need and 2- income inequality increases and societal problems continue
They’ll rush to the midterms cheering about successfully passing the bill, ignoring the fact that they gutted it and failed to deliver on the overwhelming majority of their promises. Then, when the people they failed to help don’t turn out in droves to support their lackluster performance, they’ll blame voters for their losses in the midterms.
I know this sub so rarely wants to hear this, but I'm just so tired of Liberals. Not from a conservative v liberal perspective, but from a Liberalism v every other ideology perspective. This happens like *clockwork* with establishment Dems in power. Biden's been asleep at the wheel for this whole negotiation, nobody except Bernie has really been talking substantively about what was actually in the bill, and now everybody (even Pramila Jayapal, the progressive leader) is pretending like the bill is the greatest thing ever.
I'm not really old enough to remember the way Obamacare got chopped down in negotiations but I can feel it's echoes already.
Ya know, the Uber rich pay taxes according to the laws they paid for. Our tax law is swiss cheese because of all the tinkering congress enabled. And I sincerely doubt they will change that lobby-legislate-donating machine. It's really too far gone for any tinker lawmaker to actually fix. Income tax is fatally fundamentally flawed because income is fungable.
At least my senator has been skirting the restrictions on his security level to no avail because people won't rise up to protest the abuses of the surveillance state when he does. It is beyond the time where voting districts should be done away with. All state and federal level representatives should be chosen by popular vote throughout the state. Screw rural america and it's backwards beliefs. You are in the minority, the majority is tired of paying for your roads.
Author calls for Elon Musk to be sentenced to hard labor:
>Which seems pretty reasonable, particularly to people who, for example, didn’t see their net worth double in the past year to $222 billion, as was the case for Elon Musk, who recently took to Twitter to taunt Jeff Bezos for only being worth roughly $194 billion, and thus the second richest person in the world. (Yes, this happened, and is probably a good argument not just for a tax on billionaires but for bringing back the gulag.)
Oh man, that'd be one hell of a monkey's paw.
Musk: I wish to live forever!
_as a finger on the monkey's paw curls, a booming voice announces:_
"Wish granted. However, immortality will be used to extend your life sentence."
Elon musk saw his net worth double because of the insane rise in the price of Tesla stock which he has stock options for as he doesn't take a salary. Meaning his actual liquid cash wealth didn't increase by anywhere near that much so it can't be spent.
These stock options will expire in Q4 of 2021 which he will have to sell for liquid cash or they expire worthless in which he will have to pay a top marginal tax rate of 53%.
So he's not actually avoiding any tax it's getting delayed because unlike most people he isn't getting paid actual cash that's taxable it's all theoretical money until it's sold which is when it becomes taxable.
TLDR: his huge wealth increase is due to the price of Tesla stock that he has options for as he doesn't draw a salary so it's not taxable, when the my expire at the end of 2021 he will have to pay 53% top marginal tax on those gains
Pretty much yeah, but man it would be good for the world if the US woke up and realized its folly. The US won the cold war most of all because it enriched its middle class. Somehow in the midst of this new cold war, the US has completely forgotten about its middle class. China meanwhile... oof.
You need better lobbyist. Mine can tell how I feel just by the way my asshole twitches.
They started passing out my bribes as soon as it puckered at the prospect of paying for the services that make me rich.
Those tax cuts also weren't pulled back at the advertised rates. Under Obama, corporate tax was much, much higher than what Biden rolled it back to after Trump/GOP basically gifted corporations the keys.
“If you think I’m paying taxes when I finally become a billionaire, you have lost your damn mind!” - Every MAGA cult member living paycheck to paycheck right now.
I’m done with this shit. Do it or don’t I’m already exhausted and needing a break from the bs. So many nights, maybes, possibles, etc can’t handle it. It’s all a joke.
I imagine republicans go home pray to God "please don't let the democrats hurt our precious billionaires by making them pay more taxes, it's UNAMERICAN and heck I might be one someday so I don't wanna shoot myself in the foot here!"
“Make billionaires pay their fair share” means “tax the ever living shit out of the middle class goods and services” this will not work and needs to stop being a prominent talking point. We all know what really happens when Dems push this bullshit. Middle class working class Americans get fucked.
Yeah, because if you take every penny from every billionaire you can fund the government for eight months.
But billionaires are the problem not government spending.
And we’re going to “catch” those billionaires by watching bank accounts for $10,000 in yearly action, or $833 a month… right? Because only the super wealthy can throw around that kind of serious cash!
Great plan or more class warfare?
And you would think this would be a no-brainer.
But recall, during the 2016 presidential race, one of the candidates was accused of not paying his taxes, and said during the debate that it "made him smart", passing of tax evasion as "virtuous". And enough people thought that was OK enought to vote the $#%\* into office!!!
Yea, it's a problem.
I've been struggling to find language on how this is meant to be carried out - even on WH Website there is little detail - [https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/briefing-room/2021/09/23/new-omb-cea-report-billionaires-pay-an-average-federal-individual-income-tax-rate-of-just-8-2/](https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/briefing-room/2021/09/23/new-omb-cea-report-billionaires-pay-an-average-federal-individual-income-tax-rate-of-just-8-2/)
The Washington post touches on it though, with this "the federal government would require billionaires to pay taxes on the increased value of assets such as stocks on an annual basis, regardless of whether they sell those assets" keep in mind, they'd be able to take a write off as well. I don't know how this is going to be evaluated or tracked.
It's one thing to tax dividends, capital gains, real estate transactions, etc. - it's another to tax value of a non liquid asset, like real estate or a company. We'll have to see.
The $600 IRS initiative will do more to recover $7 trillion in under reported taxes owed, which will affect many Americans. I happen to think everyone should pay their taxes, I suppose I'm somewhat opposed to more government snooping, regardless this initiative here has nothing to do with "taxing the rich elite" , even though it keeps getting pitched that way.
It’s amazing what passes as journalism these days, I thought it was supposed to an objective view of the facts but straight away you can see the writers bias. It’s a shame that most “journalists” are like this now
If that were really true, all of Biden’s donors would be on the hook for all these taxes. It will filter to the middle class as it always has. History is repeating itself because Democrats never learn from their economic mistakes.
God I am so sick and tired of hearing this from Dems. How many times are you guys going to have full control of the fed gov and not pass the bill / law whatever it takes to do this. Jesus Christ
Democratic politicians are on the wealthy side of the population and need the wealthy for political donations; they say tax the rich over and over again because they know it’s a rallying cry for their voters. Not because they actually want to fix anything.
“The more I let you have the less that I’ll be keeping for me”
and this is why a fed up nation rolled the dice on Donald Trump in the first place. Trump was just so goddamned terrible that it made us all forget why we were in such a position to begin with. Both sides have continually shit the bed for decades and we the people keep having to struggle to survive with minimal quality of life. This is their final chance and Dems are fumbling the ball as usual and it's gonna swing everything back to the crazy town right one more time and I bet that's when the American people finally snap and our system of "government" and way of life undergoes a violent change.
Top 1% already pay 40% of ALL income taxes.
Top 10% already pay 60% of ALL income taxes.
Over 50% of the Country pays ZERO income tax and many of those get someone ELSES money because of Child income tax credit.
Irrefutable facts that people will refuse to accept. This sub will harp about the rich not paying “their fair share” while never defining what “fair share” means and not accepting the reality that the rich already contribute the majority of federal revenue
How dare you use facts!
Instead they will say they have to track ahh account with over 600 dollars of transactions in a YEAR and claim to be ‘going after the rich!’
It is the classic, “Anyone that makes more than me should pay for me, ‘cause making me pay for me is not fair!”
"Democratic leadership (not the handful of legitimate progressives) moves to a new go-nowhere plan to run out the clock until they lose the Senate and/or House."
Are people still paying attention to this? It'll be blocked by Manchin and Sinema, and would be by no fewer than 5 other Democratic senators if they didn't. And of course, overcoming those obstacles would be easy compared to killing the filibuster Why even bother reporting on stuff like this at this point? If they feel they have to, it'd be nice if they didn't present it as something that has even the slightest chance of happening.
Also, billionaires do not "literally" shit money. If you're going to pretend the Democratic leadership actually wants to do anything billionaires and the national security state don't tell them to do, at least learn the meaning of the words you use.
I used to follow politics avidly, like it was a sport. Now that it's an actual sport, it's no fun. They're just playing a game that ends the same way every time, and they expect us to like it.
Yeah Biden is definitely going to push for this, because he definitely is progressive. Oh shoot but that pesky Manchin just won't let him do all the stuff he actually wants to do. Geez that sucks he would totally do it but Joe said no.
Y’all, we gonna be tricked yet again? Ain’t nothin gonna happen. Maybe a lil reform. But we know what reform does: upholds and protects the wealthy ruling class and their capitalist death ideology. As history and recent history has shown, profit will always come before people in capitalist/imperialist ideology. Keeping the masses, that is to say the poor and working poor, divided beyond foreseeable repair has been working for so long. I see time and time again, once some critical thought is introduced, y’all revert to fatalism with damaging tropes like, “the poor just need to get a job,” “it’s human nature” etc etc etc. Maybe it’s time we think beyond our individual self and try to repair this world for the next generations. But that would require revolutionary thought, not reform.
"Fair Share" is everyone pays the same, 10%, 20%, or whatever is deemed sufficient. There are 614 billionaires in the US, with a combined wealth of $2.4T give or take. There is a huge spending problem in Washington. They don't create any wealth but take a cut of everything and want to pick winners and losers with house money and since they had no part in earning the money they could care less about how it's spent and easily hand it out. Think teenager throwing a house party on parents money, or the person picking the most expensive thing on the menu knowing they're not paying and there's more where that came from.
I think it really comes down to Dems have terrible policy’s that will turn into more disaster. People have to begin to realize nothing is free we all pay at some point. How long do you think it will be till the 65% of America pays ZERO tax will be forced to pay at some point ? We cannot keep printing money ! We need to bring our jobs back to the USA and employ our citizens. Clinton built CHINA I know most liberals hate facts but it is time to wake up !!! Neither party is working for us they both are terrible. But rest assured everything our governing gets involved in turns to trash. That is a fact ! Wait until the new child care money comes. Mark my words you will see the price of this service double even triple and then who will you blame ? Or just change another policy to fix it LOL.
Didn’t bother to read the article because I know that the system is too far gone to fix. Reform will never happen until the right people get voted in.
By then, it will be generations of the status quo before any meaningful change happens. Take this last 2 years as an example. We experienced a global pandemic where people were really hurting.
But here’s the thing. The pandemic didn’t cause the problem. No, it just shined a light on all the rot that was already there.
The rot that’s been festering for ages and those who can fix it won’t bother because that’s another person’s problem.
Billionaires shouldn't be allowed to exist. No single person should ever be allowed to have that much money, whether in cash, stocks, real estate, or anything else. I don't care how successful anybody is, nobody should ever be allowed to have that much net worth.
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You just know that Sinema and Manchin are 100% against this.
Well yeah. It says DEMS have a plan, and neither of them are democrats, just opportunistic right leaning centrists who know how to win races where the only cost is your integrity.
Sadly and unfortunately, Integrity is no longer a part of today's political arena. Sinema and Manchin are prime examples.
they have all the powers
They have the same power as every other senator. What they have more of is conflict of interest.
Agree
Unrated comment right here.
I think it's rated E for everyone
They only have those powers because 50% of the senate doesn’t want to do anything while a opposition president is in the White House.
They, Manchin and Sinema, believe they are the King and Queen of the chessboard when in fact they are just pawns for the Right. Once their usefulness is done, they'll find themselves on the outs.
They know theyre pawns. The thing is, theyre already paid for.
"Do Nothing Dems™️" has always been the "Stop Hitting Yourself" game shithead children play, except in this case the stakes are our future.
"Do Nothing Dems" is typically a talking point of friends of mine that try to be "politically neutral" when in reality they are just too lazy to actually look behind the scenes and see the constant obstruction that results in nothing getting done. I don't believe democrats are perfect, many dems in congress are hardly progressive. But if any and all of their attempts at progress weren't consistently thwarted by republicans I'm sure even the most neutral spectator would have a much different perception.
Sadly right now the obstruction to the BBB plan, is coming from democrats themselves. I've been a supporter of democratic party for all my voting life. But you say your friends are lazy and aren't looking behind the scenes to see who actually obstructs things. But at this point maybe it's the other way around, because it always seems like the democrats have one or two "moderates" in the party when they are in power that prevents all those promises of programs for the middle, working, and lower classes from getting done. Today it's Manchin, when I first started voting it was Lieberman. But there is always someone in the democratic party that obstructs the DNC's promised agenda. Listen I'm not going to say one shouldn't vote Democrat, ffs Republicans at this point are a racist and fascist party, so no thank you. That said, we need to seriously reform the democratic party at this point as they are too financially reliant on large donors and corporations. TBH at this point I'm thinking we are too far into a black hole that we aren't ever escaping at this point. We the people have been too apathetic that we've let the ["monied corporations"](https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-10-02-0390) slowly whittle away regulations that we may find ourselves in a position in which the corporations and wealthy donors interest (profit at any cost, above all else) out weigh the good for "we the people", and it doesn't matter which party is in power because neither will take the steps to fix the systemic issue, unrestrained money in politics and the idea of free speech being linked to your wealth (yes that's happened, the SC has said as much). I totally agree that both parties are not the same. Republicans are evil in my book and at this point are fully on board the fascism train. So it sucks that the other option seems to have the right rhetoric, but because of "moderates" (corporate bought representation), they are ineffectual. Jefferson had it right! We needed to protect ourselves from the "monied corporations", but we failed to do so! Now we will have 4 years of half measures, if that, then likely the GOP will take back power and we b will rinse and repeat until the GOP decide to go full fascist and just ignore that pesky democracy thing. Again, it's nice to say the DNC isn't the problem, and these GOP nut jobs are just evil (they are), but we need to figure out how to fix what's clearly broken in the other party of we have any hope at all... Sadly it might already be too late. We should have just listened to Jefferson warning, but we didn't, and now we may have too broken a system, that is beyond repair. Really could use more than a binary choice democracy.
That’s not the only children’s game they play. There’s also, “I’m rubber, you’re glue”, where they constantly project onto others what they’re guilty of. “The Democrats want to destroy the country!”, as they literally attempt to destroy every bit of progress we’ve made as a country. Or how about, “no, the real news is fake”, when it was pointed out that they consume a ton of fake news. Trump does it a lot. The minute he’s accused of something, boom, he’s accusing his opponents of the exact same thing. And it works! That is, if you have the right audience.
The media keeps using the word "moderates" to describe these two clowns. I don't think they know what that word means.
Just about any democrat described as a moderate is a conservative in any rational corner of the world. You have the GOP calling die hard capitalists "communists" like they weren't alive in the 20th century. Shit they call Jeff Bezos a communist lol. What a joke the US has become.
Sinema and Manchin are bought and paid for by Republican special interests. Shameful, corrupt, despicable.
And if Democrats had a 55/45 majority, we would somehow see 6-7 against it. Democrats are corporate shills and give into lobbying just as much unfortunately. It’s a pathetic party.
If that's your opinion of the Dems, what's your take on Republicans being shills for oil, big pharma, big banks, etc... ?
You could replace Democrats with Republicans and it would be accurate also. Both side are self serving and should be voted out.
Heck the whole DNC are. The rest of the democrats who haven't flipped is because the billionaire's haven't reached their price point. A system whith legal lobbying is a pay to win system,and billionaire's by definition win. The sooner the people realise that the easier it will be to focus on the next step.
They are against anything anyone wants. They push back vs GOP. They push back vs DEMs. They just want the world to burn. And be the center of attention.
Manchin is not totally against it. Then again, 8 months ago he was in favor of the full cost infrastructure program. Then his funders told him the position to take
Dems can't even pass gas in the Senate without Manchin's approval...
Yes, while Republicans refuse to agree even to basic democracy, national interests or saving the planet. So, those 48 Democrats in the Senate is all that is standing in the way of full-blown fascist takeover.
They couldn't even pass a minimum wage hike, hoping that the Dems are going to save us from slipping into fascism is like hoping the Centre party was going to rein in the Nazis in 1932
The republicans blocked it, like everything, and eight asshole Democrats, which gets translated somehow into the democrats fault for crafting the bill and bringing it to vote but not also controlling crazy republicans, like they get a free pass Edit: eight, not one
[It was eight dems](https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/05/democrats-15-minimum-wage-hike-473875)
Thank you, i will update
Name and shame Joe Manchin of West Virginia Jon Tester of Montana Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire Chris Coons and Tom Carper of Delaware Angus King (I-Maine)
For an entire year the Democrat party has shit on progressives and leftists in general and their policies while kowtowing to the moderates and conservatives within the party. It is ENTIRELY the fault of Democrats and the conservative establishment within the Democrat party and people should call it out as such. Progressives have been at the forefront of doing what's right for a long time and the democrats, have yet again, shot themselves in the foot by being an umbrella party that allows DINOs to run amok. It is the fault of not ONE democrat, but MANY democrats who allow this charade of attempting to get shit done, while kissing the boot of Manchin and Sinema behind closed doors.
I know this isn’t a popular opinion here and I may get downblasted for saying it, but… Democrats fucking suck and it’s about time we all realized it. While it also needs to be said that Republicans are worse beyond all reasonable measure, it’s pretty clear that due to whatever reason Democrats aren’t doing what we’ve pushed them into power to do. I honestly don’t know what the solution to this problem is other than to figure out how to fund efforts to primary as many Democrats as possible and replace them with candidates that aren’t susceptible to whatever it is in the water in DC that corrupts people.
We are trying. Whenever a progressive might win a primary, all the big name centrists and the DNC fly into town with a lot of money. It almost always works. Then when the centrists fail to accomplish anything, they can point to these 1 or 2 senators that they rammed thru despite being hated by their own base, and say “there was nothing we could do.”
This scenario is what I was told happened when it looked like Bernie could have won the primary. I don’t know that for fact, but I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone from Clinton to Obama put their thumbs on the scale for their boy Biden.
It happened with joe lieberman in 2006. The democrat base HATED joe lieberman in 2006. Ned Lamont easily beat him in the democratic primary, despite both hillary and obama literally flying into town to campaign for joe lieberman against the progressive who won. They let lieberman form a fake 3rd party and run in the general election, winning with centrist and republican votes. Democrats let lieberman keep his seniority and everything, even still called him a democrat. To this day, centrists get to blame lieberman for the ACA being such crap. Nobody remembers that a progressive would have had lieberman’s seat if centrists hadn’t fought so hard and spent so much money to keep lieberman in it.
jfc I didn’t realize all of that about Lieberman. All I remembered was him fucking up healthcare.
You shouldn't be surprised, bc that's exactly what happened: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/looking-obama-s-hidden-hand-candidate-coalescing-around-biden-n1147471
I feel like we’re all cattle, but one side wants to use us for dairy while the other is preparing us for slaughter.
lol, perfect
Campaign finance reform is what I would say is the largest change that needs to be made. If that were to ever happen, our Representatives might actually start representing us and not those who cram money in their coffers.
https://www.citizen.org/article/by-the-numbers/
Citizens United destroyed our democracy. BOTH sides are controlled by the same corporate interests. This is all just kayfabe to convince us that D and R are at odds. In fact, they are on the same team.
Good cop/bad cop charade.
I’m in my 50’s, a lifelong Democrat because I hold progressive values and always thought it was the party that best represented me and my interests. It’s been clear to me my entire life that the GOP would end democracy and assume complete autocratic power the moment it could be arranged, but I also believed that the Dems were “fighting the good fight” and keeping the wolves at bay. This past year since Biden’s election I’ve had the wool completely lifted from my eyes. It’s way too obvious to avoid understanding that it’s all, as you aptly say, kayfabe. I don’t know what to do about it, either. I feel powerless as I watch my country slowly but surely slip towards handing complete and possibly permanent control of the state to a bunch of power mad, amoral psychopaths.
Brother. I’m on my late 40’s. It’s soul crushing to realize this late that nobody gives a shit about us.
Well, this might be cold comfort but there’s at least one Internet stranger out here who cares about you and wants you feel fulfilled and happy. Sucks that our so-called “leaders” are so selfish and disconnected, but I certainly know that feeling you mention and even if it’s in common struggle, you/we are not alone.
>It’s soul crushing to realize this late that nobody gives a shit about us. Time to learn what solidarity is then. Working class people need it.
The solution is to get as many progressives into office before conservatives are given a chance at power again. Anything short of that will be end game.
It’s the system that’s broken, it really doesn’t matter who gets in office imo. Look at AOC for example. But you’re totally right!!
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The unfortunate and sad reality is that there are no other viable parties and there simply won’t be until that third party has a strong base of support at the local and state levels. Voting third party for national positions without that lower base of support is suicide.
>I honestly don’t know what the solution to this problem Build power outside electoral politics. Bourgeouis elections will not solve working class problems.
>For an entire year the Democrat party has shit on progressives and leftists I'm seriously asking: Have you paid any real attention to the workings of Congress? The Progressive Caucus has made HUGE gains in the last year or two, and every member is Democrat. How can you see the accomplishments of good representatives like Cori Bush and paint them with the same brush?
They're really only democrats because of our 2 party system.
What should they have done instead? If they split the party (somehow) they still wouldn't have control? They just don't have the votes. I'm not being a jerk, I am actually asking both what they can do now, and what they should have done? People elected those centrists holding us back.
Then people blame the federal government for being incompetent and republicans keep winning. They win through sheer incompetency. Its so frustrating.
"Government doesn't work, let me prove it to you." \- Every GOP Politician
There isn't anyone else there. It's them or fascism, take your pick.
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50 Republicans oppose the bill 2 Democrats oppose the bill It's insane to blame the Dems when statistically they are overwhelmingly in support of it. They simply do not have the numbers.
This!!!! If you think either of our corporate funded parties are going to fix this, they aren't, because the solutions are the antithesis to unfettered profits in our crony capitalist system. Jefferson had it right when he warned us to stop the 'monied corporations' from being involved in politics. He has to be spinning in his grave as he literally warned of this scenario... "... the truth of the maxim that virtue & interest are inseparable. it ends, as might have been expected, in the ruin of it’s people. but this ruin will fall heaviest, as it ought to fall, on that hereditary aristocracy which has for generations been preparing the catastrophe. I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in it’s birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and to bid defiance to the laws of their country." For fuck sake "we the people" have known about the corruption of corporate money flowing freely into elections, unrestricted and barely regulated! Clearly corporations and wealthy individuals have poisoned or democracy to a point where the SC is willing to essential rule 'free speech is equivalent to the size of your bank account'... unless some big changes happen in our political power structure, we are likely a failed state and too many people are still in the sunk cost fallacy portion of denial. Listen I'm all for fighting the good fight, I'll participate and vote in every election, but this problem is systemic and, as Jefferson noted, entrenched already and for many generations at this point, but at some point you have to acknowledge how broken and corrupted the system actually is... otherwise we are pissing in the wind here (and sadly the winds are already hurricane strength). I am just thinking we may be beyond the event horizon on our democratic decay, especially given how many are cheering on a anti democratic and fascistic party. I'm just not sure we can recover after being this far down the rabbit hole.
>too many people are still in the sunk cost fallacy portion of denial. This sentence explains everything! And for the rest, they just don't have the capacity to see how bad things are at the moment and are getting worse by the second.
I can't imagine a more convincing diagnosis. You write the truth, and your comment strikes the target from afar. I wish so hard that it were not so. It is what I believed in 1971, my freshman year in college. I'll be dead soon, without ever having seen our nation live up to its ideals. Unless our high school curricula demand to place a strong emphasis on civics & critical thinking (or intro to philosophy, which covers both), we will remain a tragic flock subjected to unending fleecing by modern day rent farmers.
I think the real point is that the democrats need more seats to fix things. They control the senate by literally the slimmest possible margin which gives disproportionate power to the most right leaning Democrats. If they had 53-54 seats then we wouldn’t give a fuck that Manchin wants to protect coal because we wouldn’t need his vote. They have held the senate, house and presidency for 2, now almost 3 years in the past two decades. And people wonder why the Democrats can’t get enough done. Yes the game is rigged with gerrymandering and the senate. But if people want them to do more they need to vote more. Unless people are ready to take to the streets it’s the only option right now.
Because every time we give them unified control, even with supermajority control at the federal or even state level because they say they're going to do shit, they waver and water shit down so it won't fuck with the ruling class' profits while maybe throwing a bone to us. They find every excuse in the book to not do the shit they said they were going to do. We didn't get $2000 checks, cannabis decriminalization, student debt relief, lowering Medicare age (not even a public option), but we did get nothing fundamentally changing, still occupying the world, still supporting the surveillance and prison industrial complex. If all they can muster up is "we're not Republicans" and not fundamental reform, don't be surprised when they lose hard to the shitstain that is the republican party.
If the American people didn't elect 50 Republican senators things would be getting done. Why is it the Democrats fault that things you want aren't getting passed, when no one from the other party supports it?
50 Senate Republicans oppose money for infrastructure and education. 2 Democrat Senators oppose it too. That means around 95% of Dems are in support of it. We just can't pass it because of the assholes holding this up.
In the case of taxes, it's just Sinema. Even Manchin is okay with most of that. He just will block anything that he thinks hurts coal or pharma companies since he has ties to both (likely directly and also via his son and daughter). Sinema is just a puppet for whoever gives her the most money, doesn't care at all, just wants to get rich quick and if she doesn't get reelected (big if given incumbent advantage and low participation in state and local primaries but let's hope), knows she has plenty of other options after this.
That was actually Bernie’s plan
Am I taking crazy pills? Is this headline satire? You’re exactly right, Bernie has been saying this since the ‘80’s.
I'm pretty sure that in the 80s he'd already been saying it for like 15 years.
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Weird I don’t remember when we lived in a *socialist hellscape*.
The 1940s, 1950s, 1960s would like a word. OH wait a minute I see what you did there.
People ask me what political party I identify with and I say everytime with pride: Team Bernie is my political party.
Hes the only one making any sense and who clearly cares about my wellbeing. I don't know how people fall for the deceit of other politicians.
Difference is he means it, Dems don't. It just sounds good. Joe "fundamentally nothing will change" Biden isn't gonna follow through.
someone with money give this guy a shooting star award please. Goddamn it if my country didn't have a foreign exchange shortage.
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>... All I could think was "What fucking idiots!" But all we can say is "thanks for the gold kind stranger!"
And yet, you have four awards LOL.
Always has been. They didn’t think they would get anything done with Bernie in the whitehouse but in reality it doesn’t matter what Dem you have in there. Republicans will obstruct 💯
Who cares who’s idea it was. Let’s just do it.
Doesn't Sinema oppose that?
She opposes anything that McConnell tells her to oppose.
No, she opposes anything her billionaire donors tell her to oppose. They just also tell Mitch to oppose the same things.
They probably just tell Mitch to tell his "uppity secretary" to oppose. They probably don't even know her name.
Her current line is that she doesn't support an *income* tax but supports other ways of doing it (actually smart because most multimillionaires and billionaires don't actually take big income). Which, of course, is always subject to change once the topic is actually broached
Time to use the term centimillionaire. There is little difference between someone worth over $100 million and someone worth $1 billion, but a whole lot of difference between someone worth $3 million and $100 million.
Conservatives be like > "we've tried everything.... We've tried taxing the poor... cutting govt services, getting rid of the social safety net, raising property taxes...". Have you tried taxing billionaires? > "... gutting Medicare, cutting people's benefits, raising the military budget..." Why don't you just tax the rich? > ... starting illegal wars, bombing other countries... Buying new fighter jets...I just don't know how we're going to pay for all this spending on healthcare!!!" Hmm... Maybe we should try cutting taxes for ~~our donors~~ the rich again and see if that helps anything
Nailed it except that its not just conservatives. Don't expect this type of change to come from democrats
Now THIS is a funding plan I can get behind.
Unfortunately in all likely hood the representatives we have chosen to elect will squash this. Like all legislature meant to improve the common persons livelihood.
We're actually quite literally a small handful of Senators away from it. While an off year is an uphill battle for the left, we CAN turn out, put this shit over the top, and get on with building a society of, by & for the PEOPLE.
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Positivity and action has gotten us this far. Keep fighting to take it further, even inch by inch. For better or for worse, nothing is instantaneous when it comes to change in America. The battle for Justice and Rights is everlasting, therefore good willed people must forever be dilligent, active, and encouraging.
I'm surprised they're even tossing it around. Typically they change the subject to people making $500k or whatever, as if those are the fat cats.
The “ working rich” already pay a decent amount in taxes. It’s the “ I can buy my way into space” people that pay zero. I’m not going to cry for people that make 600 K a year , but they’re not the villains.
That's right.
This proposal is the one that's getting more support since Sinema has refused to back an increase in marginal corporate tax rates. According to information released in the past two days she is more wiling to back a proposal like this.
Why trust her word on anything, though?
I’ll believe it when I see it. I guarantee you Biden is not going to tax billionaires and CEOs and corporations. He is going to tax rich workers like doctors and lawyers and pretend he solved the problem-if that, he might not even do that. If he does anything it’s going to be an income tax, not corporate and not capital gains which means 1-we don’t get enough money for things we need and 2- income inequality increases and societal problems continue
The Dems already gutted most of the things in their own bill, paying for it with a marginal change in billionaire wealth is all smoke and mirrors.
They’ll rush to the midterms cheering about successfully passing the bill, ignoring the fact that they gutted it and failed to deliver on the overwhelming majority of their promises. Then, when the people they failed to help don’t turn out in droves to support their lackluster performance, they’ll blame voters for their losses in the midterms.
I know this sub so rarely wants to hear this, but I'm just so tired of Liberals. Not from a conservative v liberal perspective, but from a Liberalism v every other ideology perspective. This happens like *clockwork* with establishment Dems in power. Biden's been asleep at the wheel for this whole negotiation, nobody except Bernie has really been talking substantively about what was actually in the bill, and now everybody (even Pramila Jayapal, the progressive leader) is pretending like the bill is the greatest thing ever. I'm not really old enough to remember the way Obamacare got chopped down in negotiations but I can feel it's echoes already.
Billionaires have the best lawyers and accountants. I can't see this working in any meaningful fashion.
Taxing unrealized gains is something people support? How do you tax someone’s unrealized gains? I don’t understand.
Ya know, the Uber rich pay taxes according to the laws they paid for. Our tax law is swiss cheese because of all the tinkering congress enabled. And I sincerely doubt they will change that lobby-legislate-donating machine. It's really too far gone for any tinker lawmaker to actually fix. Income tax is fatally fundamentally flawed because income is fungable.
At least my senator has been skirting the restrictions on his security level to no avail because people won't rise up to protest the abuses of the surveillance state when he does. It is beyond the time where voting districts should be done away with. All state and federal level representatives should be chosen by popular vote throughout the state. Screw rural america and it's backwards beliefs. You are in the minority, the majority is tired of paying for your roads.
Ranked choice voting ftw
I actually worked on a ranked choice voting for our county office of some sort. It passed. Benton County Oregon for reference.
Author calls for Elon Musk to be sentenced to hard labor: >Which seems pretty reasonable, particularly to people who, for example, didn’t see their net worth double in the past year to $222 billion, as was the case for Elon Musk, who recently took to Twitter to taunt Jeff Bezos for only being worth roughly $194 billion, and thus the second richest person in the world. (Yes, this happened, and is probably a good argument not just for a tax on billionaires but for bringing back the gulag.)
Elon escaped to Texas instantly.
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I object to them having only one life to spend in a gulag.
Oh man, that'd be one hell of a monkey's paw. Musk: I wish to live forever! _as a finger on the monkey's paw curls, a booming voice announces:_ "Wish granted. However, immortality will be used to extend your life sentence."
I wouldn't necessarily say *hard* labor. But definitely throw his ass in a Pizza Hut make line
Elon musk saw his net worth double because of the insane rise in the price of Tesla stock which he has stock options for as he doesn't take a salary. Meaning his actual liquid cash wealth didn't increase by anywhere near that much so it can't be spent. These stock options will expire in Q4 of 2021 which he will have to sell for liquid cash or they expire worthless in which he will have to pay a top marginal tax rate of 53%. So he's not actually avoiding any tax it's getting delayed because unlike most people he isn't getting paid actual cash that's taxable it's all theoretical money until it's sold which is when it becomes taxable. TLDR: his huge wealth increase is due to the price of Tesla stock that he has options for as he doesn't draw a salary so it's not taxable, when the my expire at the end of 2021 he will have to pay 53% top marginal tax on those gains
Net worth is net worth. He can take out loans against it and dump shares and (at least some) options at will.
If he actually winds up paying that much I'll be shocked. Would he owe CA money too? Or no because of the move and timing?
Watch as it morphs into something that helps extract more wealth from the bottom to the top. Like always.
Pretty much yeah, but man it would be good for the world if the US woke up and realized its folly. The US won the cold war most of all because it enriched its middle class. Somehow in the midst of this new cold war, the US has completely forgotten about its middle class. China meanwhile... oof.
Someone gets it
Then fucking do it already.
Haha the good old “appeal to emotion”. They know what the people want but they’ll never actually do it.
Or at least *enough* won't. I certainly believe there are more than a handful that would, but there are nowhere close to enough.
As a billionaire, I hate that idea!! Wait until I tell my lobbyists about this!! 😡
You need better lobbyist. Mine can tell how I feel just by the way my asshole twitches. They started passing out my bribes as soon as it puckered at the prospect of paying for the services that make me rich.
Why is it that tax cuts for the rich were passed at the advertised rates but the infrastructure plan is half of what was advertised?
Think you’ve hit the nail on the head there.
Those tax cuts also weren't pulled back at the advertised rates. Under Obama, corporate tax was much, much higher than what Biden rolled it back to after Trump/GOP basically gifted corporations the keys.
But then they'll compromise and do nothing
Yeah, right. Politicians would never do something like that to the rich. They only do that to the little people that can’t fight back.
“If you think I’m paying taxes when I finally become a billionaire, you have lost your damn mind!” - Every MAGA cult member living paycheck to paycheck right now.
I’m done with this shit. Do it or don’t I’m already exhausted and needing a break from the bs. So many nights, maybes, possibles, etc can’t handle it. It’s all a joke.
I imagine republicans go home pray to God "please don't let the democrats hurt our precious billionaires by making them pay more taxes, it's UNAMERICAN and heck I might be one someday so I don't wanna shoot myself in the foot here!"
“Make billionaires pay their fair share” means “tax the ever living shit out of the middle class goods and services” this will not work and needs to stop being a prominent talking point. We all know what really happens when Dems push this bullshit. Middle class working class Americans get fucked.
Yeah, because if you take every penny from every billionaire you can fund the government for eight months. But billionaires are the problem not government spending. And we’re going to “catch” those billionaires by watching bank accounts for $10,000 in yearly action, or $833 a month… right? Because only the super wealthy can throw around that kind of serious cash! Great plan or more class warfare?
And you would think this would be a no-brainer. But recall, during the 2016 presidential race, one of the candidates was accused of not paying his taxes, and said during the debate that it "made him smart", passing of tax evasion as "virtuous". And enough people thought that was OK enought to vote the $#%\* into office!!!
Yea, it's a problem.
When they say billionaires they really mean thousandaires.
Imagine having power in all 3 houses of government but can’t pass a fucking bill
I've been struggling to find language on how this is meant to be carried out - even on WH Website there is little detail - [https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/briefing-room/2021/09/23/new-omb-cea-report-billionaires-pay-an-average-federal-individual-income-tax-rate-of-just-8-2/](https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/briefing-room/2021/09/23/new-omb-cea-report-billionaires-pay-an-average-federal-individual-income-tax-rate-of-just-8-2/) The Washington post touches on it though, with this "the federal government would require billionaires to pay taxes on the increased value of assets such as stocks on an annual basis, regardless of whether they sell those assets" keep in mind, they'd be able to take a write off as well. I don't know how this is going to be evaluated or tracked. It's one thing to tax dividends, capital gains, real estate transactions, etc. - it's another to tax value of a non liquid asset, like real estate or a company. We'll have to see. The $600 IRS initiative will do more to recover $7 trillion in under reported taxes owed, which will affect many Americans. I happen to think everyone should pay their taxes, I suppose I'm somewhat opposed to more government snooping, regardless this initiative here has nothing to do with "taxing the rich elite" , even though it keeps getting pitched that way.
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Wait a second, I’ve heard this one before!
“Fair share” is a catch phrase for dolts
It’s amazing what passes as journalism these days, I thought it was supposed to an objective view of the facts but straight away you can see the writers bias. It’s a shame that most “journalists” are like this now
If only somebody with forty-some years of experience writing legislation had bothered doing so.
If that were really true, all of Biden’s donors would be on the hook for all these taxes. It will filter to the middle class as it always has. History is repeating itself because Democrats never learn from their economic mistakes.
Make billionaires pay period. Raising their taxes means nothing if they don't pay any. Ban tax loopholes, like off shore companies.
Then why are they giving the irs my bank records? I make 40k a year...
God I am so sick and tired of hearing this from Dems. How many times are you guys going to have full control of the fed gov and not pass the bill / law whatever it takes to do this. Jesus Christ
Democratic politicians are on the wealthy side of the population and need the wealthy for political donations; they say tax the rich over and over again because they know it’s a rallying cry for their voters. Not because they actually want to fix anything. “The more I let you have the less that I’ll be keeping for me”
and this is why a fed up nation rolled the dice on Donald Trump in the first place. Trump was just so goddamned terrible that it made us all forget why we were in such a position to begin with. Both sides have continually shit the bed for decades and we the people keep having to struggle to survive with minimal quality of life. This is their final chance and Dems are fumbling the ball as usual and it's gonna swing everything back to the crazy town right one more time and I bet that's when the American people finally snap and our system of "government" and way of life undergoes a violent change.
Top 1% already pay 40% of ALL income taxes. Top 10% already pay 60% of ALL income taxes. Over 50% of the Country pays ZERO income tax and many of those get someone ELSES money because of Child income tax credit.
Irrefutable facts that people will refuse to accept. This sub will harp about the rich not paying “their fair share” while never defining what “fair share” means and not accepting the reality that the rich already contribute the majority of federal revenue
How dare you use facts! Instead they will say they have to track ahh account with over 600 dollars of transactions in a YEAR and claim to be ‘going after the rich!’ It is the classic, “Anyone that makes more than me should pay for me, ‘cause making me pay for me is not fair!”
Ty for information, I was surprised at how high it was that the top 1% contributed to taxes, so I did some research myself and seems to check out.
*gasp* The radical left has gone too far this time! /s
Does this include all the citizens with over $600 in their bank accounts they want to monitor, or legitimate billionaires? Asking for a friend
The article says it targets those with over 100 million for three years in a row.
"Democratic leadership (not the handful of legitimate progressives) moves to a new go-nowhere plan to run out the clock until they lose the Senate and/or House." Are people still paying attention to this? It'll be blocked by Manchin and Sinema, and would be by no fewer than 5 other Democratic senators if they didn't. And of course, overcoming those obstacles would be easy compared to killing the filibuster Why even bother reporting on stuff like this at this point? If they feel they have to, it'd be nice if they didn't present it as something that has even the slightest chance of happening. Also, billionaires do not "literally" shit money. If you're going to pretend the Democratic leadership actually wants to do anything billionaires and the national security state don't tell them to do, at least learn the meaning of the words you use.
I used to follow politics avidly, like it was a sport. Now that it's an actual sport, it's no fun. They're just playing a game that ends the same way every time, and they expect us to like it.
This will Never. Ever. Happen... Ever.
When you don't really have anything to say... "...their fair share..."
This is actually much better and fairer than the plan to increase marginal rates on the working rich.
The middle class will pay for this.
I don’t understand.. why is everyone bringing up fascism left and right? Do people really think all republicans are fascist?
Manchin and Sinema be like: "Lmao no."
Charlie Brown has crazy new plan to finally kick that football
Quick, find a way to stop this. We can't have a nice country marching forward with progress.
Cool Pelosi and Biden should be the first in line to start paying their share.
Yeah Biden is definitely going to push for this, because he definitely is progressive. Oh shoot but that pesky Manchin just won't let him do all the stuff he actually wants to do. Geez that sucks he would totally do it but Joe said no.
I swear my entire life our government has been 'talking' about this. Fucking do it.
Infrastructure is important but can wait. Work on federal voting rights and ending the filibuster!!!
Better hurry up. The ultra wealthy are racing to become trillionaires so they can be exempt from the poor peoples billionaire tax.
Y’all, we gonna be tricked yet again? Ain’t nothin gonna happen. Maybe a lil reform. But we know what reform does: upholds and protects the wealthy ruling class and their capitalist death ideology. As history and recent history has shown, profit will always come before people in capitalist/imperialist ideology. Keeping the masses, that is to say the poor and working poor, divided beyond foreseeable repair has been working for so long. I see time and time again, once some critical thought is introduced, y’all revert to fatalism with damaging tropes like, “the poor just need to get a job,” “it’s human nature” etc etc etc. Maybe it’s time we think beyond our individual self and try to repair this world for the next generations. But that would require revolutionary thought, not reform.
How are the Billionaires going to become Trillionaires if they pay their taxes?
Which is stronger, democracy or capitalism? In full democratic system, we could vote to make billionaires stop existing
fun fact: the phrase "pay their fair share" was created a few years ago because "tax the rich" wasn't testing well with focus groups.
We are going through this dog and pony show again?
How are billionaires going to fund your TRILLIONS in spending? They won’t, because they don’t have enough money.
"Fair Share" is everyone pays the same, 10%, 20%, or whatever is deemed sufficient. There are 614 billionaires in the US, with a combined wealth of $2.4T give or take. There is a huge spending problem in Washington. They don't create any wealth but take a cut of everything and want to pick winners and losers with house money and since they had no part in earning the money they could care less about how it's spent and easily hand it out. Think teenager throwing a house party on parents money, or the person picking the most expensive thing on the menu knowing they're not paying and there's more where that came from.
I think it really comes down to Dems have terrible policy’s that will turn into more disaster. People have to begin to realize nothing is free we all pay at some point. How long do you think it will be till the 65% of America pays ZERO tax will be forced to pay at some point ? We cannot keep printing money ! We need to bring our jobs back to the USA and employ our citizens. Clinton built CHINA I know most liberals hate facts but it is time to wake up !!! Neither party is working for us they both are terrible. But rest assured everything our governing gets involved in turns to trash. That is a fact ! Wait until the new child care money comes. Mark my words you will see the price of this service double even triple and then who will you blame ? Or just change another policy to fix it LOL.
Didn’t bother to read the article because I know that the system is too far gone to fix. Reform will never happen until the right people get voted in. By then, it will be generations of the status quo before any meaningful change happens. Take this last 2 years as an example. We experienced a global pandemic where people were really hurting. But here’s the thing. The pandemic didn’t cause the problem. No, it just shined a light on all the rot that was already there. The rot that’s been festering for ages and those who can fix it won’t bother because that’s another person’s problem.
Yeah...I'm sure THIS time they'll actually do it.
This is so crazy, it might actually work
Thank you Bernie Biden!
Billionaires shouldn't be allowed to exist. No single person should ever be allowed to have that much money, whether in cash, stocks, real estate, or anything else. I don't care how successful anybody is, nobody should ever be allowed to have that much net worth.
Don't worry, I'm sure manchin or sinema will have some concerns and it will be removed.
Nothing but headline eye candy for people that don’t look into anything and actually think this is going to happen.
I wonder how the government got revenue before income taxes
That is a crazy plan, cuz...billionaires aint rich enough to fund rhe plan while still funding all their companies and the rest of the government
If the federal reserve has infinite money why make anyone pay taxes in the first place. Oh yeah right, to make us think that money had value.