General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsKrugman on why Republican budget deficit is about $300 billion above what CBO projected.
Trump Tax Scam - Tax cuts for corprats & billionaires.Link to tweet
Link to tweet
Wounded Bear
(58,706 posts)but deficits only matter when Dems are in the white house.
Doodley
(9,124 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)transition to Democratic control, both that giant sucking sound revved up while they can, plus breaking the budget so there's no money to fulfill our plans to advance the nation's wellbeing.
2: They did that this time in case they lost control; however, the transfer has been of the nation's wealth AND power. They are trying to take permanent control of our nation, and this is the pattern they intend for the future.
Nothing to do with Obama's skin color. Everything to do with the new billionaire and centimillionaire classes that have grown up over the past 40 years becoming far too powerful for democracy.
Nancy Pelosi to the nation at the opening of the 116th congress. This is what she meant.
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,414 posts)There are millions who still haven't caught on to the GOP scheme that has been repeated over and over since Rotten Ronnie.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)florida08
(4,106 posts)Doodley
(9,124 posts)The billionaire vote is less than 0.1%
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Not to Trump's idiot voters. Racism's a ring in their noses, not diamonds on their fingers.
Speaking of the "tax scam," on TOP of all the rest of that, the Republicans also assigned ordinary taxpayers a $1.6 TRILLION debt, a transfer of wealth to that 0.1%, but actually almost all to the 0.01%. The third of our ten annual payments will be "PAYGO"ed to them in just a couple of months.
Doodley
(9,124 posts)Garrett78
(10,721 posts)Racism is the primary tool in their tool belt.
As I wrote recently:
Barr, Bannon, Mulvaney, Pompeo and many others have a goal of undermining faith in government and undermining all democratic institutions. The Republican Party has been trying for decades, with quite a bit of success, to undermine faith in government. Run up debt so as to cut entitlements, have corporations write legislation, deregulate industry, install heads of departments whose mission it is to erode those very departments, deny the stark reality that past and present injustice is not evenly distributed, etc.
Since the likes of Putin also wish to undermine democratic institutions for the purpose of self-enrichment, Putin and Republicans make for interesting bedfellows.
This is a war of ideologies: we vs. me. "It takes a village" vs. "every person for themselves" (cheating permitted...nay, encouraged). The likes of Barr, Bannon, Pompeo et al. are especially dangerous--they're white nationalists, isolationists and despise secularization.
They've seen the writing on the wall (social progression, increased secularism, changing demographics, etc.), so their tactics have become increasingly extreme in recent years (intense voter suppression and gerrymandering, full-throated attacks on science and public education, persistent attacks on the "liberal media" to help shift the Overton Window, stealing a Supreme Court seat and packing the judiciary with right wing ideologues, aligning with dictators who share the goal of undermining democracy for personal enrichment, replacing the dog whistle with a bullhorn, and so on). They take comfort, though, in a tyranny of the minority system which, paradoxically, makes major structural reform nearly impossible to bring about for the very reasons why such reform is so desperately needed.
Also, I always feel the need to mention the Powell Memo of the early 1970s, which served as a sort of blueprint for modern corporatocracy.
If this current cast of characters is still in power after 1/20/21, the damage wrought may be irreparable.
Trump didn't happen in a vacuum. He's a symptom of a much larger problem (to which the GOP as a whole is contributing). All will not be well simply by getting rid of Trump. At the same time, it's vital that we remove Trump from office as soon as possible, as he's an especially diseased carrier pigeon for the ideologues who are taking full advantage of his narcissistic appeal to the tens of millions of racists, sexists and xenophobes. I wonder if seeing the big picture (or being helped to see it) would dissuade even a fraction of Trump's soft support (the portion that approves of him but not strongly) from continuing to support him. Are 100% of his supporters really okay with the world Republicans are seeking to realize? If so, they'll regret it.
Lastly, we must continue to recognize that there is an undercurrent of white male supremacy that maintains the Republican Party (i.e., without that, the GOP would cease to be viable). There was a Black man in the presidency, and millions of people (including elected officials) are absolutely beside themselves. The fact that Obama won so easily and is so popular gnaws at them day and night.
PSPS
(13,614 posts)If only! "Corporations are people, my friend." About 98% of all elections are won by the candidate who spends the most on TV advertising. That costs money. Big money. (This is why the media creates a horse race even if there is none.) The billionaires fund that advertising because they know they'll get back far more than their "contribution" via favorable policy (like the tax cut.)
It's true the rubes who support trump do so because "he hates the same people I do" and what they're told to do by the RW media Wurlitzer. But they have no money. The oligarchs do.
Doodley
(9,124 posts)not fooled
(5,801 posts)of a country to the rest of us, when the inevitable demographic shift finally does them in.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)This has always been a plot of RW economic extremists who call themselves libertarians, signed onto by the Republican leadership.
On the plus side, it's looking like many of the wealthy families and business leaders who are not RW extremists, just riders of the gravy train, are concerned at what's happening and realizing that turning a nation of previously mostly contentedly prosperous workers and consumers into a nation of angry resistance, who could only to be controlled temporarily by ruthless authoritarian government, would be a horrible mistake.
Interestingly, the wealthy average more economically liberal than the electorate.
Evolve Dammit
(16,763 posts)nm
SlogginThroughIt
(1,977 posts)demigoddess
(6,644 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Too much aggressive malice not to harness and target it.
And no one knew at that point that the real thing would be along so soon.
Evolve Dammit
(16,763 posts)Perseus
(4,341 posts)You never hear anyone talk about the "Economic Cycle" when we have a Democratic government, but we do when republicans take power because it is there way to con people into thinking that there is a cycle, the economy goes up, so because of that cycle, it must come down.
The real "Economic Cycle" goes like this:
1. Republicans take government - The Economy goes down
2. Democrats take government - The Economy goes up.
3. Republicans take government - The Economy goes down
4. Democrats take government - The Economy goes up.
5. Republicans take government - The Economy goes down
6. Democrats take government - The Economy goes up.
And it repeats over and over.
Republicans not only destroy the economy, they destroy everything in their paths in order to put money in their pockets, they are the most unpatriotic people a country can have.
hughee99
(16,113 posts)alittlelark
(18,890 posts)He is likely making a fortune (again) telling his butt boy in the WH what to say in regards to trade agreements and making trades based on obvious, predictable market fluxuations.
The 'tax cuts' that have weakened our economy are a huge part of his plans.
Perseus
(4,341 posts)Lets face it, republicans are crooks, they have understood there is a lot of money to be made from the people's contributions to the tax system, and they want it all. That is why they have been wanting to destroy public education and instead came out with the "Charter" school system where they can pocket a lot of money while weakening public education.
Putin is a lot of bad things, but the tax cuts have always been a republican thing. All they talk about is tax cuts during political campaigns, they con people into thinking they are going to benefit tremendously from those cuts to get people to vote for them.
People do not understand that a country needs taxes, money to provide social services, good education, health services, etc.
gibraltar72
(7,511 posts)rickyhall
(4,889 posts)ie: they're stealing us blind into yet another recession. It's what they do.
MyOwnPeace
(16,937 posts)Thank you!
roamer65
(36,747 posts)Tax cuts AND and a decelerating economy due to a trade war.
The two together will create a massive fiscal crisis that will morph into a currency crisis.