So, Bobby, what is the 2020 Republican platform?
“Block Democrats from any progress”, absolutely nothing else.
There wa a proposal for a Republican Party platform….”1) raise taxes by $4500 on all low income people who today don’t pay taxes because they are below the poverty level and 2) end all social programs like Medicare, Medicare, social security, food assistance programs, etc. by “sun setting” any social program every 5 years and requiring the new legislature to start over from scratch (unless the right has control, then forget it).

“We cannot blame republicans (for rich people not paying taxes) when HOUSE democrats have the majority” 1) the tax breaks for the rich were enacted when Republicans held the house, senate, presidency, and a supermajority in the Supreme Court…a simple majority in the house and no where else after the fact does not give Democrats the ability to repeal a horrific law.

Then he wants to blame the California legislature for local groups fighting against low income housing in their neighborhood, for zoning and construction laws that severely limit where and how you can build. Such nonsense. The housing crisis in California is not limited to the homeless, there just aren’t enough houses to buy or rent. Pretending there are just no programs to secure housing, that the legislatures just don’t care and are ignoring the issue isn’t just ignorant, it’s outright dishonest. No surprise at all considering the source. California has a housing crisis, not simply an “ignoring the homeless “ problem. Property in California is so in demand that average workers are priced out of the market and fully employed people find themselves homeless. Red states have cheap property because successful professional people don’t want to live there, which leads to more affordable housing and fewer homeless. My property has quadrupled in value over 20 years, and I’m not in any town or city.

California just approved $12 BILLION to spend on our homeless issues. Red states pass laws essentially making homelessness a crime, so many homeless migrate to “blue states” where services exist and they aren’t put in jail for sleeping in public or loitering.

Texas just made it illegal for homeless people to camp in tents.

So, Bob, tell me about the Republican plans to house the homeless in red states. About all the services and assistance they want to provide but are blocked by democrats from moving forward. Show me the high end Republican neighborhoods inviting low income housing into their neighborhoods, keeping in mind that many, even in California, are right wing neighborhoods with Republican led local government that blocks construction.

You’ve tried this nonsense propaganda before, about 6 months ago when it was originally posted if I recall, I debunked it thoroughly then. So sad @bobknight33 can’t remember anything for over 3 seconds or he would recall the last time he posted this nonsense opinion piece and I rubbed his nose in it.

Downvote into oblivion this right wing projection,

You can’t be that dumb.

1) these rich people pay our “leaders” to write unfair tax code so they can not pay taxes. Legalized by Republican pushes to allow unlimited corporate donations and bribes. In many cases, they DO in fact write the code, then hand it to those “leaders”.
2) these “leaders” writing tax loopholes for the super rich, all Republicans, are also rich people, legislating for personal gain.

If the top 1% made 80% of all income, they underpayed by more than half if flat tax were the law or in any way fair. In the 50’s, the time period conservatives want to return to, the top 1% paid 91% tax rates, and America was booming. Today it’s actually <24% and you whine.
How much did they pay AFTER their last massive tax cut, much less than 40%….not that I’m taking your word for those statistics, you are hardly a trustworthy source, the actual number in 2018 is 37% of personal income taxes, which ignores a lions share of non income taxes we all pay.

If you count ALL federal taxes, they payed <24% of taxes collected.
Their highest income tax rate for the rich was +-25% (before deductions, exemptions, loopholes, tax heavens, etc), 66% less than in the 50’s. Under Clinton they paid almost 40% income tax (not 24%), and the economy was again much stronger and growing much faster.

Edit: it was possibly the highest share of that portion of federal taxes paid by the top 1% since 1982, although your track record indicates that’s also a huge exaggeration, but if it’s even remotely true that would be because they took (not really earned) that much more income, not because they paid a higher percentage of earnings. In the 90’s they paid 40%, not today’s 25%…yet today they pay more….can you understand what that means? It means they take almost twice as much “income” as they did in the 90’s when the economy was strong.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/fact-check-richest-1-dont-pay-40-of-the-taxes.html

Republicans are ALL stupid people who do not think, proven every time they are forced to think and realize they have everything backwards. You idiots think Covid is a fraud, the election was stolen, and CRT in grade school is a thing.

Such a nonsensical blatant red herring. They often do “just write a check to the irs” btw. I’m not rich, but I don’t take deductions I legally could because I want to pay my share, not weasel out of it. That’s called being patriotic, not attacking congress and shirking any and all civic duties.
Pushing for a fair tax code, unlike Republicans who plan to raise taxes on anyone making under $250k AND end social security, Medicaid, Medicare, and any other social safety nets they can think of, is not just the ethical and moral thing, it’s the only sane economic move based on ALL economic history ever.

Right, stop wasting, like billions wasted on useless monuments to failure (Trump’s failing fence), trillions more on stupid failed trade wars, billions on political stunts like blockading the border (Texas), trillions to try to fix the disastrous Covid (lack of) response thanks to insane mismanagement and the removal of safeguards, billions to fight the non existent CRT in grade school nonsense…etc. you are ecstatic to waste billions-trillions on idiotic Republican nonsense with absolutely zero return for the money, not complaining once while Trump tried to double the debt in 4 years (nearly succeeding), but not on programs that keep the poor from turning to crime because they have literally nothing to lose, or start to fix our crumbling infrastructure, you call that pork. 🤦‍♂️

So fucking stupid, bob. Delusional, dumb, prejudiced, and always wrong. You must be playing the character of ignorant moronic trumptard, no real human being is this deluded or dumb. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, you are like a clock specifically designed to NEVER show the correct time….you actively avoid being truthful.

Rich people do pay their fair share. Its called tax code. They did not write the code our Leaders did.
So don't bitch at rich people, bitch at our leaders

According to the latest IRS data for 2018— the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid $616 billion in income taxes. That amounts to 40 percent of all income taxes paid, the highest share since 1980..

Just proves republicans also have stupid people who do not think .

Worse yet is that there are leaders who believe this false narrative also. They are themselves rich.. If they are so moved into paying their fair share why don't they just write a check to the IRS.

Better yet is to quit spending money on shit we don't need with money we don't have.

Ruh-Roe.
Republicans, at least some like Rick Scott, have finally put forth a platform for Republicans.
That plan he put forward is to raise taxes on low income taxpayers (but not top earners) and it would sunset (set an end date for) programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and social security.
It’s so terrible he even has to lie about it on Fox News, claiming those features were really just Democrat talking points….it’s so bad in fact that Fox News actually called him out for lying about it and pointed out that all that is in his stated written plan.

This Republican’s only platform just ostracized everyone over 65 in America and everyone making under $50k per year….and you think they’ll sweep the mid term?! Hmmmmmm.

Elon is dumping Tesla to pay some enormous capital gains and income taxes he’s avoided for the last decade by taking out loans against his stocks instead of selling any. He likes to say he’s paying the most taxes anyone ver has, and right wing propaganda is trying to back that up, but he didn’t pay any taxes for over 10 years while becoming the richest man ever…so divide by 10 and try again, liar, and his stock gains are also from his companies making artificially high profits by not paying taxes.
If reports are to be believed, he’s worth $200 billion now, so really that amounts to 5.25% total taxes (fed and state)….hardly his fair share…because he’s really a socialist welfare queen!
Be prepared for a massive slump in its value. He’s planning on selling off 10%, but prices will drop far more.

Government had been shutting down businesses / schools etc for last 2 years. Disrupting lives and incomes. Now the people have had enough so they gather and shut down traffic and now the government is upset for essentially doing the same thing.

All Trudeau needs to do is end the the restrictions, which are not even needed anymore.

Ok. I admit that’s unnecessary and confusing.

A bit more than a rewording, a complete overhaul from the current American system. Never expect us to be reasonable or simple in our plans like our northern cousins can be.

I agree, without a means test, income limits for participation, assistance programs can’t be funded enough to actually help the needy and hand out the same amount to the well off. Those plans are nuts IMO.

I understand your issue with UBI. I support it in the sense of a safety net, no one should be forced to live on less than $X and IMO there should be no requirement besides no/low income….but to function that requires those who already make over $X to get nothing and just be happy they won’t be mugged for food money. I don’t support the “here’s a free $500 for everybody”, inflation would make it meaningless in a year, more circulating dollars with no more in the treasury/total value = inflation on top of your valid points.

Yeah, the crutch of it for me is the UBI moniker.

What you describe at the end of your post, minimum income, is really just a rewording of the existing social security and welfare systems across the western world. I know they look different in each, but here in Canada what you describe is more or less our already existing system's design goal. Welfare money exists for those that straight up can not work, and an employment insurance system exists to protect those inbetween jobs, meanwhile other multiple programs are aimed at distributing financial assistance to the lower income groups.

Despite all of that already existing, UBI is still being heralded up here in trials as well as a replacement. The problem being that for the needy the UBI pitches are generally a step backwards.

Eg. $500/month is the UBI pitch, and they say it'll be great because everyone gets it no matter what so it's simple and fair and nobody is left behind. The trouble though is that the reality is the truly in need people were already benefitting more than the $500/month under the existing systems, and the cost was much less because it was targeted.

I here UBI and get very worried about folks just selling snake oil 'solutions' that in the end are just a demand to adopt their own particular flavor of wealth redistribution.

Did they offer that in the program, or was it only random individuals….or are you extrapolating, assuming the program became universal? I thought this plan was just for the indigent.

$500 each for 4 works out to more than my wife brought home for 40 hours a week after 15 years at her last job…..barely livable for 4 anywhere in California, a nice income in some states. Not a huge amount to provide for 6 months. How much does temporary housing, services, extra law enforcement, etc cost over that time for 4 people? I assume they’re close.

Yes, universal income is costly, but most on the right won’t consider giving the destitute money if they don’t get a handout too, that likely multiplies the amount by over 10 times. With a means test, it would be billions, maybe under $100 billion. We spent nearly $6 trillion on bad Covid response in 2020, including trillions to corporate welfare handouts with no strings attached and they still fired millions of workers. I think if that’s ok we can afford to invest in making people productive again instead of drains on society (of course, not everyone will benefit, but 75% success must be a win overall). If not, socialize any corporation that took a bailout, we bought em, we should own them.

…Or taking on more debt like every government project, but the increase in gdp from turning costs into profits likely pays for the program without a dime in new taxes, just a reduction in costs of handling the homeless and new taxes from their incomes….especially if you have a means test and not universal income.

Yes, they convoluted by calling it universal income but focusing on homeless. It should be UMI. Universal Minimum Income….under employed get less than unemployed up to a certain minimum livable combined income, fully employed (with living wages) get nothing….IMO. Sadly, a large portion of people can’t see what’s in that plan for them (no homeless, less crime dumbshits) so won’t consider it unless they also get $500 even though that’s not even a noticeable amount to them….one more ivory backscratcher.

I'm gonna have to be that guy. $500 a month for a family of four is $2k, which is a very good chunk of money to drop in your lap.

That works out the same as it they were on a single income, working 40 hour weeks at $10/hr, so almost equivalent to a full time job. No doubt that's gonna be a big deal and noticeable financial improvement to the recipient(s).

As always with UBI schemes, the devil is in how you pay for it. If it's truly universal, paying $500/month to ~330 million Americans would cost $1.98 Trillion dollars, meanwhile the current entire US gov budget for 2022 is estimated at $1.2 Trillion.

So, to implement $500/month universally in America would require not only increasing overall tax revenues by almost 50% it would also require the cancellation of 100% of every single other expenditure. That not includes military spending going to zero, but even cancelling the jobs of everyone that collects taxes and would presumably have been responsible for distributing the $500 checks.

If the 'fix' is to just tax the pants off anyone earning more than the $500/month, or limiting who we give it to, then it ceases to be a UBI scheme, and is instead just a mundane modification of the existing social security scheme by shuffling more money back and forth between different folks.

The issue is the wrong guy, a dishonest blowhard trying to cover his own failures, claimed this early on with absolutely zero evidence. It was a clear dodge, his normal MO. Refusing any responsibility for ending the international pandemic response team that would have been able to actually say when and where the outbreak started, and likely be able to keep it relegated to one small area in China. By blaming it on a Chinese lab, actually saying it was intentional, he deflects from his abject failure to protect America from a clear, obvious, incontrovertibly deadly threat on the horizon….or any time after it’s discovery.
Were the Chinese studying Covid, yes, so were we. That’s not an indication of where it came from. There’s no evidence it came from any lab, only supposition at best.

Edit:Even if the guess that it came from a Chinese lab is correct, it doesn’t excuse one second of Trump’s (lack of) response and outright denials for months-years. The origin has nothing to do with the danger level, in fact, if it WERE enhanced/created in a lab as he claimed, that’s more reason to consider it MORE dangerous, not reason to claim it’s just a cold or mild flu and will disappear like magic in a few weeks. Granted, it was fun to see him (only after his trade deal fell apart) blame this deadly virus on the Chinese as an unforgivable deliberate act of germ warfare and accuse them of minimizing the danger and hiding the size and severity of the outbreak and in the same breath claim it’s nothing to worry about, not dangerous, probably not deadly, not worth any action to protect against, and just a minimal annoyance soon to disappear….but also disappointing to see how easily so many Americans glossed over the two faced hypocritical responsibility shirking stance he took.

This guy claims most, nearly all viruses can’t both infect people and be transmitted….what utter nonsense. If that were true, there would have never been epidemics, pandemics, not even outbreaks. Credibility destroyed.

I guess he didn’t hear about swine flu, or bird flu, or flu, or colds, or any transmittable virus. 🤦‍♂️
I guess they haven’t heard new mutations are far less deadly (but more transmittable) than earlier versions, so they are getting less dangerous, contrary to his claim.

Not transmitting well outdoors means it’s not natural?! Bullshit, animals nest together. Many natural viruses require close contact to transmit.

DNA testing proved early on that this is not a man made virus. Is it possible a Chinese lab made a natural virus more dangerous, then a lab mistake released it? Yes, but there’s no evidence that’s the case, even these people who’s livelihood relies on people accepting “the lab hypothesis” (hypothesis=guess) admit it’s all conjecture, there’s no evidence, certainly no proof. It’s not the lab theory because it’s unproven.

Duh.

BTW, this couple are married, anti vaxers, Ivermectin proponents, and were thrown out of Evergreen College, and are now both now discredited and disgraced. Their main source of income is now their anti vax, pro Ivermectin, Covid isn’t dangerous podcasts loved by morons like Joe Rogan, and a source of much of his misinformation that’s getting him removed from his platform.
“Bret Weinstein is one of the foremost purveyors of COVID-19 disinformation out there,” says Dr. David Gorski, a surgical oncologist and professor at Wayne State University who also debunks quack remedies as managing editor at a website called Science-Based Medicine. “Weinstein can be ‘credited’ with playing a large role in popularizing the belief that ivermectin is a miracle cure or preventative for COVID-19, that the vaccines are dangerous, and that the disease itself is not. Why are Rogan and Maher attracted to his messages? Contrarians and conspiracy theorists tend to be attracted to each other.”
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2021/09/16/bret-weinstein-and-heather-heying-go-unvaccinated-take-ivermectin/

Downvote discredited shills who profit from misinformation. No surprise at all, considering who posted this dishonest propaganda from discredited propagandists.

Mate, if those two got any closer together, that LIGO would be detecting the birth of a new black hole somewhere in the Sol system.

I used to love Church: a dinner of Taco Bell burritos, a wooden pew, and the word of Christ. Clench, lean 15 degrees to the left, relax your sphincter and PUSH! The silence that is golden will last about 10 seconds before the retching and piling out the doors brings an end to today's sermon. That's when you snatch the collection plate and bolt out the back door.

I lost a major source of income when I became an atheist.

Did you know Taco Bell delivers? At least in Seattle they do. I have to wonder what life choices lead to the terminus of hauling two dollar food between source and the customer 25 miles away. Yeah, that $5 tip will more than pay for gas, upkeep, insurance and oil changes on that riced-out K car you've been driving since The Pet Shop Boys were still popular.

Also, "...blahblah whining and such..." -- look, if I want unfair criticism of a job well-done, I'll ask my clients to pay up. That's primo Gonzo humor you're tut-tutting and you paid exactly nothing to enjoy it. Y'know who else was a cheap ingrate? HITLER! Why ya gotta by like Hitler, Moonsammy -- IF THAT IS YOUR REAL NAME. I have my doubts on this topic, by the way.

Hey, what's Bob up to? I always enjoy a cheap laugh at the expense of the less fortunate.

(seriously dude -- I can hold 1:1 with a Clydesdale for an hour and have enough left in the tank to draw a standing ovation at Centurylink Field.)

I would rather be thought an elitist by middle school dropouts who think they know everything but in reality are 100% wrong >98% of the time and partially wrong the rest of the time than be one of them.
Elitist!?! Lol. Are we back in 2016!? What do you think that word means?
Elitist: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/elitist
a: giving special treatment and advantages to wealthy and powerful people
b: regarding other people as inferior because they lack power, wealth, or status
That hardly fits, I think the rich should pay MORE by percentage of income, not LESS. Technically "special treatment", but definitely not more advantages.

Q: Do you think Trump is elitist? Explain your answer. (Pretty sure you just decided elitism is good).

If you would read, and not just insanity that agrees with your preconceptions, if you weren't so smarmy and dismissive whenever you THINK you have some point to make or gotcha tidbit of data, acting like a third grader who just took the last desert at lunch taunting the next in line, your bad grammar wouldn't get you ridiculed so often and you would be far less aggressive about making your mistaken points, and would again receive less ridicule.

But instead you swing nonsense with vitriol and hate like a club, clearly trying to do damage, but your club is a fake made of foam rubber lies, making it impossible to not smack you down every time you try to knock someone out with it and stand dumbstruck that it bounced back into your face.
If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough.-Jackass

This time you're again wrong about what you claim, you backed yourself into a corner by claiming this IS your area of expertise and by deriding others without personal hands on experience in the field, then you got the facts completely backwards....as usual...then hid from your mistakes....as usual.

Again, I'll ask for 3 examples of that 1/3 of what I say that's wrong. I post enough that you should be able to find 3 from yesterday alone. I don't really expect you'll answer, because I don't think you can.

You mean like Trump's last year in office when he spent well over the conservative estimates of $6.55 Trillion and collected only $3.4 Trillion in total income?
($1.6 trillion of which came from personal income taxes, $212 billion from corporate taxes...sure, that seems fair and proper)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/216928/us-government-revenues-by-category/

So essentially a tax Holliday year with the money going back to all citizens? What a major improvement that would be....and with the economy coming back after the Trump recession/depression, Biden doesn't have to put everything on credit, he can pay for his spending, and maybe pay for some of Trump's massive debts he left.

Trump came in with under $19.5 Trillion and left with over $28.5 Trillion in debt and his last year yielded a $5.2 Trillion deficit and the worst unemployment and biggest GDP drop EVER!!! Obama shrank the deficit to below $500 BILLION! Clinton had a surplus!!! Bush turned that into a deficit within one year and a near $1.5 Trillion deficit and depression when he left.

BTW, it should be a comma after "matter", not a period and double spacing. It's only one complete sentence. Even just 8th grade English class would have taught you that....also "let's" has an apostrophe, it means "let us"....are you sure you really graduated middle school? I can't see someone passing third grade with these English skills.

@bobknight33 ohhhhh shit
Lol and I just learned trump signed the checks for that income stashing.


Let me ask you. What would the irs do to YOU if you didn't pay 1.7 million in taxes?