Kinda like a libertarian convention

 

Trump’s tax cuts are ‘stuck in the mud’ as Republicans split over spending 

 

. . . fiscal hawks said they could not support the massive package without more spending cuts. ...

Trump's tariff gambit has little to do with fentanyl but everything to do with increasing revenues on the backs of consumers so that he can pass his temporary tax cut package and not increase deficits

 It's complete madness. It's Donald Trump: "Everything will cost more but I'm cutting your taxes!"

 Wolfgang Munchau, here:

Economically, his tariff war will act like a tax on US consumers. The increased costs are inevitably borne by the consumers. But, as a form of rebalancing, it will raise a lot of revenue for the US treasury and together with the shrinking of the federal government, may well end up lowering the budget deficit and strengthening the US current account balance. Of course, there will be repercussions that could push in the other direction: the dollar might rise; the world might plunge into recession. But the truth is we have no experience of what happens when the largest economy on earth, with the dominating global reserve currency, imposes massive tariffs on its trading partners.

Munchau thinks Trump will win his tariff war. I do not. Munchau overestimates Trump's political support at home, and underestimates the fickleness of the US electorate. Continued inflation will throw sand into the gears of this gambit and sow discontent.

Control of the US House is everything, and Trump barely has it. He has two years and is already blowing it.

Trump has nothing but little gimmicks up his sleeve, not fundamental lasting transformation

 To help pay for Trump tax cuts, new taxes on worker benefits become GOP target

... House Republicans recently floated a list of potential measures to help compensate for lost revenue from trillions of dollars in tax cuts championed by President Donald Trump. Taxing employees for fringe benefits such as employer-provided transportation, free food and on-site gyms is up for discussion. ...

To be sure, these proposals are still in the early stages and there’s a lot of jockeying by lawmakers to accommodate Trump’s $4 trillion extension of the 2017 tax cuts as well as make good on campaign promises for tax breaks on tips, overtime pay and Social Security benefits — in all, the tax cut promises made on the campaign trail by Trump could take the total to near $10 trillion. The situation is especially tenuous given the hefty $36 trillion federal deficit. ...

Whatever gets passed will happen under reconciliation anyway, and therefore will be . . . temporary, just like Trump.

All of this small thinking is a reflection of the reality of the GOP's narrow majority in the US House, about which Donald Trump seems to care not at all, and will therefore most likely lose in 2026 unless Republicans push back against Trump, do what's right, and maybe save their own skins.

Kamala Harris, the candidate of confiscatory taxes, has the endorsement of the IRS union

 

America was an extremist country until 1913

So says this nut, Adam Grossman:

As a Libertarian, some of [Harry] Browne’s economic proposals were extreme—including, for instance, abolishing income taxes. 

Well now, since the total public debt is today $23.076 trillion and climbing inexorably, I'd say the extremism is all post-1913. Measured in trillions, the public debt in 1913 was less than $0.00 trillion. 

Isn't it obvious that income taxes have become irrelevant?

We spend in deficit every year and simply keep adding to the total owed. Might as well just stop collecting income taxes altogether, since we've decided we can borrow indefinitely. We never pay as we go, let alone make payments on what we owe.

Why are taxes even necessary anymore, since nothing has ever had to be paid for, or paid off?

Income taxes are dispensable.