Showing posts with label Donald Trump 2017. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Donald Trump 2017. Show all posts

Thursday, November 30, 2017

Jimmy P has it right: Tax cuts never jazzed core Trump voters the way immigration restriction and The Wall did

Here for The Week:

Remember, the U.S. is in its 101st month of a steady-if-unspectacular economic expansion. The unemployment rate is low. While there are obviously millions upon millions of Americans who continue to struggle, overall the economy simply isn't the priority for voters that it is in times of real economic crisis. What's more, a failed tax cut is unlikely to derail the expansion, since expectations of a fat tax cut aren't responsible for the growing economy and rising stock market. (You can thank a global economic upturn for that.) And tax cuts — much less corporate tax cuts — weren't the motivating factor behind the Trumpopulist surge. Tax cuts never jazzed core Trump voters the way immigration restriction and The Wall did. Trump's diehard supporters won't howl over a failure to slash corporate tax rates. ... [N]o magic tax cut will turn 2 percent GDP growth into sustained 3 percent or 4 percent growth.

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Presidents' first nine months of current dollar GDP compared, including LBJ

Typically I present the data for JFK/LBJ as a unit because Kennedy was shot and Johnson finished his first term and then one of his own, making eight years. Same with Nixon/Ford, because Nixon resigned and Ford finished Nixon's second term, making eight years.

But when comparing first time office holders, LBJ really should be included. The key difference is that LBJ was elected in his own right in 1964, while Ford was not in 1972. So LBJ should be included, but not Ford in order to compare apples to apples.

Johnson was like Truman in three respects: For serving out a dead president's term, for being elected in his own right, and for deciding against standing for re-election.

So, the updated chart including Old Guns 'n Butter himself (note that Trump thus ranks 7th out of 12 starts in this update):





Today's second estimate of GDP for 3Q2017 doesn't give Trump much of a bump in the rankings

Trump remains in 6th place among 11 starts since 1948.



Thursday, November 23, 2017

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Jeff Greenfield is a Democrat political hack forging equivalency between Roy Moore, Donald Trump and Bill Clinton

Here in Politico: 

So what changed? Three people: Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump and Roy Moore.

Actually, nothing's changed.

When blacks like Bill Cosby and Jews like Harvey Weinstein suddenly get outed and become ground zero for sex crime in the popular imagination, Democrats have to act quickly to change the narrative to deflect the attention away from themselves and onto their opponents.

Same old same old.

Sunday, November 5, 2017

New York Antifa demonstration fizzles on November 4th, only diehard commies show up

And it wasn't even raining.

From the story here:

[A] little more than 300 people showed up, according to NYPD officers tasked with securing it. Many of the signs Refuse Fascism had prepared sat stacked against a metal railing. Organizers handed out leaflets about the Revolutionary Communist Party, an older, radical group with ties to Refuse Fascism. Over a thousand people had previously committed to going to the November 4 protests on Facebook, and roughly five thousand had pledged interest, but when all was said and done, burgeoning leftist groups like Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), protest mainstays like Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the masked anarchists that had captured the imagination of people on the far right failed to attend.

Saturday, November 4, 2017

Laugh of the Day: President Copafeel calls President Trump a blowhard

Ruh-roh, in his senile dotage 41 has also taken to feelin' up the ladies at photo-ops, hence the permanent shit-faced grin.

Story here.

Friday, November 3, 2017

House Republicans won't allow floor amendments to tax reform, will ram it through instead

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Kevin Brady, quoted here:

He also said that there would be no House floor amendments to the bill, and that changes would be made in his committee and potentially in a conference with the Senate down the road.

Republican tax reform includes a sneaky tax increase on itemizers, removing the personal exemption privilege

Josh Barro, here:

Currently, you get to take the personal exemption even if you also itemize deductions, but you get to take the standard deduction only if you forego itemized deductions. Combining these provisions into a single, standard deduction would mean itemizers lose their personal exemption and get nothing back — meaning they'll typically pay tax on an extra $4,050 of income if they're single, or $8,100 if they're married.

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Yeah, Hillary and Harvey, they know who Trump is


Putin did not want Trump and $50 a barrel oil, Putin wanted Hillary and $120 a barrel oil

Seen here in the comments.

If you're having trouble summarizing the Russia mess so far, Pat Buchanan lays it out for you

Thus we have Free Beacon neocons, never-Trump Republicans, the Hillary Clinton campaign, the DNC, a British spy and comrades in Russian intelligence, and perhaps the FBI, all working with secret money and seedy individuals to destroy a candidate they could not defeat in a free election.

Monday, October 30, 2017

Laugh of the Day: "I'm not afraid to call myself a moderate"

Only in election season.

Senatrix Claire McCaskill, Missouri's arch feminist, here.

Sunday, October 29, 2017

Strike Three and You're Out: Both National Associations, of Homebuilders and of Realtors, pull support from House tax plan

Trump looks set to be defeated on tax reform as 2017 winds down, just as he has failed to overturn Obamacare and build The Wall. And considering what the tax reform is looking like, it's just as well.

The tax plan as it stands this weekend eliminates the itemized deductions for mortgage interest and state income taxes, keeping only the deduction for property taxes.

Reported here:

[I]n a sign of the complex balancing act that [House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin] Brady must perform to produce a tax-overhaul bill this week, the property-tax announcement came on the same day that the National Association of Home Builders pulled its support for the legislation. The group’s chief cited concerns that the bill might undermine existing tax breaks that support the housing market. Likewise, a coalition that includes the National Association of Realtors said in an emailed statement that it “will vigorously oppose this plan.” ... It would appear that deductions for state and local income taxes and sales taxes would still be repealed under the planned House bill.

This is all the fault of our so-called conservatives in the US House. They aren't conservatives. They're doctrinaire libertarians who HATE people who want to get married, settle down and buy a house and have children. They view people as CAPITAL, whose value only decreases if it is too difficult to move them around at the whim of GLOBAL BUSINESS. That's why you'll never hear these people target the tax revenue lost to the lower capital gains and dividend tax rates, which are almost TWICE those lost to the mortgage interest deduction. These people are the enemies of localism and are instead the champions of the homogenization of society with its bland sameness everywhere. They are the ones who've shipped our jobs overseas and let in the tens of millions of immigrants who've further reduced our wages and opportunities.

One year from now you'll have another chance to send them packing.

I'll be voting for Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck before voting for a libertarian in 2018.