Monday, April 3, 2017
And right now the boob Rush Limbaugh is ranting against homeownership and its tax deduction
Rush says the mortgage industry lobbied to get the mortgage interest deduction, not realizing it's been there since the Income Tax became law in 1913.
It's like a conspiracy, this coordinated attack on homeownership today.
Real Clear Markets doesn't hide its libertarian bias, runs three anti-homeownership articles today
The American Dream That's Not Backed Up by History APRIL 1, 2017 10:00 AM EDT By Stephen Mihm
Is the American Dream Killing the American People? By Robert Samuelson April 03, 2017
Ilargi: Our Economies Run On Housing Bubbles Posted on April 1, 2017 by Yves Smith By Raúl Ilargi Meijer, editor of Automatic Earth
That last one is a doozy, from Occupy Wall Street friendly Naked Capitalism, showing to what depths libertarianism will stoop to advance its ideology.
University of Georgia historian minimizes the magnitude of foreclosures during the Great Depression, missing their significance for the value of homeownership today
Stephen Mihm, at Bloomberg here:
While home ownership became increasingly popular in the early twentieth century, the U.S. was still a majority-renter nation in 1930, though by this time homeowners numbered 48 percent of the total population. But the Great Depression knocked that figure back down to 43 percent, roughly on par with late nineteenth century levels.
Things changed dramatically in the 1940s, when home ownership levels began moving toward unprecedented highs, hitting 66 percent by 1980. Economists are still arguing over why that happened, but the most compelling explanations are pretty banal and do little to support the sentimental blather associated with home ownership.
Does this guy even know that the nonfarm foreclosure rate nearly quadrupled between 1926 and 1933?
Through 1933 there were over 1 million completed foreclosures, about 1% of US population of the time. Compare that to the current crisis. We've had 8.5 million completed foreclosures since 2004, about 2.5% of population.
Homeownership as a cultural value in the post-war was so high because so many people lost their homes before it.
And it still is today and will continue to be, despite what some people say with an axe to grind from the safety of their sinecures.
Robert Kuttner gets out there pretending there isn't already a shadow government
If this were a parliamentary democracy, there would be a leader of the opposition, and a whole “front bench” of opposition spokespeople, issue by issue ― a kind of Shadow Cabinet. ... Even better would be if a leading Democrat put herself forward now, as the presidential candidate for 2020. That way, there would be head-to-head comparisons and challenges, as well as almost equal coverage.
Sunday, April 2, 2017
Hey Trump, we're still waiting for you to repeal Obamacare "immediately"
Trump tweeted this about one month after Obama vetoed HR 3762.
Saturday, April 1, 2017
Grand Rapids, Michigan, climate update for March 2017
Mean average temperature was 35.0 degrees F in March 2017 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The mean for March is 34.1.
The lowest minimum temperature was 12.0. The mean for March is 7.
The highest maximum temperature was 71. The mean for March is 66.
Precipitation was 3.27 inches. The mean for March is 2.46.
March snowfall was 4.7 inches. The mean for March is 9.1.
Heating degree days came to 921. The mean for March is 953. The total through March from July 2016 comes to 4975 vs. mean to date of 5849.
The heating season to date has been about 15% warmer than normal.
Friday, March 31, 2017
Wikileaks publishes CIA's Marble software used to disguise hacks as Russian, Chinese etc. to mislead forensic investigators
From the story here:
Experts who've started to sift through the material said it appeared legitimate - and that the release was almost certain to shake the CIA.
Krauthammer thinks Trump might go for single payer in the end, in which case Americans should get it, good and hard
Think of it as socialism with Republican characteristics.
Krauthammer, here:
Obamacare may turn out to be unworkable, indeed doomed, but it is having a profound effect on the zeitgeist: It is universalizing the idea of universal coverage.
Acceptance of its major premise — that no one be denied health care — is more widespread than ever. Even House Speaker Paul Ryan avers that “our goal is to give every American access to quality, affordable health care,” making universality an essential premise of his own reform. And look at how sensitive and defensive Republicans have been about the possibility of people losing coverage in any Obamacare repeal. ...
As Obamacare continues to unravel, it won’t take much for Democrats to abandon that Rube Goldberg wreckage and go for the simplicity and the universality of Medicare-for-all.
Simplicity? Draco's laws were simple. The penalty for every crime was death.
I wonder if Krauthammer has a clue what he's talking about.
Total Medicare outlays in 2015 came to $632 billion.
Total Medicaid outlays in 2015 came to $552 billion country wide (read the Notes).
Total Social Security and Disability outlays in 2015 came to $897.1 billion.
That is a total of $2.0811 trillion from 2015 total net compensation of $7.4158 trillion, or 28%, without even talking about "universal coverage" yet.
Yet all your typical American pays now for this is 10.63%:
6.2% in Social Security tax and 1.45% for Medicare, plus whatever taxes are paid at the state and local level toward Medicaid, which federal law mandates must account for at least 40% of program revenues. So $221 billion from 160.8 million wage earners across the country in 2015 represents another 2.98% paid by them at the state level.
6.2% in Social Security tax and 1.45% for Medicare, plus whatever taxes are paid at the state and local level toward Medicaid, which federal law mandates must account for at least 40% of program revenues. So $221 billion from 160.8 million wage earners across the country in 2015 represents another 2.98% paid by them at the state level.
The status quo therefore is funded only 38% by its beneficiaries, at best. I say "at best" because many beneficiaries pay NOTHING because they don't work and never have. But I digress.
So bring about Krauthammer's revolution, for that is what he's talking about, and reset the table as follows.
Total healthcare outlays in the United States in 2015 came to $3.2 trillion. Add in $897.1 billion for Social Security and Disability, and you now have a "universal" obligation bloated to $4.097 trillion, which represents 55% of net compensation that year.
That's your tax.
You've become France, Germany, Denmark or some other Western European paradise which depends on the United States for its defense.
And that's before even talking about funding the $1.2 trillion part of the federal budget which is discretionary, like defending ourselves against that little fat kid playing with hydrogen bombs in North Korea.
Of course there's another chunk of money out there being made in the United States apart from net compensation, about $8 trillion in 2015. The recipients of this income typically pay the lower capital gains tax rates, not the payroll and income tax rates which are for the chumps.
It's a nice little system which isn't paying its fair share for socialism in the United States, even though it is rich guys who typically shout the loudest on behalf of it. They do this because they know it will keep the little guy down, from whom they don't want the competition some day. But tax that system equally to net compensation and you cut that 55% tax in half, to say 27.5%. That, however, means a big fat tax increase on the rich, and on everybody else. I doubt they'll stand for that any more than they open their checkbooks now to make patriotic voluntary donations to the US Treasury.
We live in a fantasy land where no one wants to pay what it costs for anything.
We think we can have our cake and eat it too.
We want infrastructure spending, and a tax cut dammit.
We want infrastructure spending, and a tax cut dammit.
Thursday, March 30, 2017
57-year old female spacewalker drops and loses 18-pounds of thermal shielding outside International Space Station
Can't they find anybody younger and stronger to do this job and do it right?
She's on her 8th spacewalk for crying out loud.
Story here.
Property and sales tax revenues in fiscal 2016: $915.49 billion
$374.79 billion in sales and gross receipts taxes and $540.7 billion in property taxes.
Beancounter says so here.
The combined total is about 28% of total state and local revenues in fiscal 2016, which came to $3.26 trillion, according to usgovernmentrevenue.com .
Bush era current dollar GDP grew 38.97% vs. Obama era at 29.62%
Had Obama era current dollar GDP grown at the Bush rate, we would have $1.36 trillion more GDP at the end of 2016 than we do.
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Clinton era neocon seriously worries about US starvation and societal collapse from EMP attack
James Woolsey, here.
Yeah, but Bill Clinton enabled North Korea's current nuclear capabilities, which you won't learn from the story.
Yeah, but Bill Clinton enabled North Korea's current nuclear capabilities, which you won't learn from the story.
Hillary's new mantra is R.I.P.E.
Resist.
Insist.
Persist.
Enlist.
h/t to a caller to the Chris Plante Show
The Laugh of the Day is an oxymoron from Rush Limbaugh
"Genuine, legitimate fraud."
As opposed to your fake, illegitimate fraud.
Just when Bill O'Reilly begins to turn me on, he somehow immediately finds a way to turn me off
Liberals never apologize for ridicule.
Here:
[Maxine Waters] deserves a hearing and should not be marginalized by political opponents. In fact I made that mistake this morning on Fox & Friends. I said in a simple jest that the congresswoman's hair distracted me ["I didn't hear a word she said, I was looking at the James Brown wig"]. Well that was stupid, I apologize. It had no place in the conversation.
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
DNC didn't allow FBI to examine servers for malware, used private firm issuing opinion it was Russian, other firms disagree
The Miami Herald has the story here.
Mark Levin's twisting of Mitch McConnell's statements about Obamacare repeal failure is as bad as MSM
Levin is proving to be as untrustworthy as the main stream media in reporting the news, as for example the source of the McConnell quotations provided below. But read the statements, and forget the commentary, whether The Hill's or Levin's.
McConnell isn't resigned to Obamacare staying in place forever as Levin implied on the radio tonight. McConnell is resigned to the recent failure to overturn Obamacare, that's all.
Of course the bill that failed is out of the question going forward.
McConnell, quoted in the story here, acting above it all and nonpartisan for public consumption, which is his job as Senate Majority Leader:
"[W]e have the existing law in place and I think we’re just going to have to see how that works out."
"We believe it will not work out well, but we’ll see. [Democrats] have an opportunity now to have the status quo go forward, regretfully," he added. ...
"I want to thank the president and the Speaker, they went all out to try to pass a repeal and replacement," McConnell said. "I’m sorry that didn’t work, but our Democratic friends now have the law that they wrote in place, and we’ll see how that works out."
LawNewz calls armed teenage burglars shot dead in Oklahoma kitchen by homeowner's son "victims"
For a change it wasn't WaPo.
Story here.
This is why 100 lawyers at the bottom of the sea is called a good start.
Trump reverses Obama's Clean Power Plan, lifts ban on coal mining leases on federal lands
Another promise kept. Now if we could just get back all the income we lost because Obama deliberately did nothing about middle class jobs for eight years.
From the story here:
The Clean Power Plan required states to collectively cut carbon emissions [CO2] from power plants by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
Second night in a row, Mark Levin praises HR 3762 as a "clean repeal bill"
After trashing it as a sham last week.
That audio of Paul Ryan talking all tough about reintroducing the veteod HR 3762 after the 2016 election really impressed Mark Levin.
HR 3762 wasn't a clean repeal in the Senate's form passed by the House. It was veto bait, and political posturing.
Monday, March 27, 2017
Alabama's Mo Brooks introduces one sentence Obamacare Repeal Act
The Obamacare Repeal Act, here:
"Effective as of Dec. 31, 2017, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is repealed, and the provisions of law amended or repealed by such Act are restored or revived as if such Act had not been enacted," the bill states.
Last week HR 3762 was a sham, now Mark Levin calls the Freedom Caucus standing for it heroes
Mark Levin obviously used the weekend to bone up on the legislative history.
Why weren't bills for Trump to sign lined up like planes on a runway on January 20th?
Glenn Reynolds wants to know, here.
Ted Poe quits House Freedom Caucus because it sees itself as the opposition party to the Republicans
Well there you go. It dawns on Ted that their self-identity is not Republican.
He's right. They see themselves as libertarians.
Here:
[T]he Freedom Caucus has always been the opposition caucus against the Democrats, and now that we are in the majority, it continues to be the opposition caucus.
Sunday, March 26, 2017
Jim Jordan blames House leadership for not beginning 2017 with HR 3762 from 2015
Quoted here:
Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), a member of the [House Freedom] caucus, also said that House Republican leaders were the ones who had moved the goal posts, not the caucus, when they decided against bringing up a bill that would simply have repealed the 2010 health law.
“You know when the goal posts were moved? When they didn’t start with the legislation we all voted for 15 months ago,” Mr. Jordan said on Fox.
Mick Mulvaney, charter member of House Freedom Caucus, is not too happy with it
Quoted here:
Mick Mulvaney, formerly a member of the Freedom Caucus and now Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, denied any move against the speaker.
“Never once have I seen him blame Paul Ryan,” Mulvaney said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “The people who are to blame are the people who would not vote yes.”
Mulvaney was one of the leading officials lobbying House Republicans to pass the bill, which was pulled less than an hour before lawmakers were due to vote.
“We haven’t been able to change Washington in the first 65 days,” Mulvaney said. “I know the Freedom Caucus. I helped found it. I never thought it would come to this.”
Since 2012 Republicans have voted against the Bush tax cuts and against repeal of Obamacare
We have no representation.
Mark Meadows: Ousted Boehner, voted against the original HR 3762 in October 2015, leads House Freedom Caucus against Obamacare repeal in 2017
In view of the fact that Meadows was in the extreme minority in October 2015 voting with only six other Republicans against Obamacare repeal in the form of HR 3762, it was hypocritical of him to accuse John Boehner of bypassing the majority in the House in the summer of 2015 and filing the motion for him to vacate the chair. Meadows bypassed the majority in October.
Meadows only flipped his position on HR 3762 when it was revamped and hardened by the Senate to make a political point to the voters back home.
In other words, Meadows only supported the bill when it allowed him to hide behind the skirts of the Senate version which both they and he knew was designed merely to be vetoed:
[T]he Senate's version would have implemented a two year phase-out of Medicaid expansion and exchange subsidies.
The House agreed to the Senate's changes, so the final version of the bill included the Senate's modifications.
There were concerns in Congress – particularly among lawmakers from states that have expanded Medicaid – that repealing the law would result in millions of people losing their health insurance coverage. But Politico reported that "senators were reminded that the president would veto the repeal bill anyway, meaning Republicans could vote on the measure without having to deal with the political risks of actually making major changes to existing law."
But there are still 206 Republican members in the US House in 2017 who voted for the original, honest HR 3762 in October 2015, and who should do so again in 2017, if only someone (not Mark Meadows, and not Paul Ryan) would lead them there:
The House version of H.R. 3762 included repealing the individual mandate, the employer mandate, the medical device excise tax, and the "Cadillac tax" on expensive employee health insurance premiums.
It also included a measure to eliminate federal Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood for one year. But it called for increasing funding for community health centers by $235 million/year for two years (a 6.5 percent increase over the currently scheduled funding).
Republicans used the budget reconciliation process to ensure that their bill could advance through the senate as long as it received a simple majority of at least 51 votes, instead of needing 60 votes. By using reconciliation, the measure was filibuster-proof, and advanced to a vote in the Senate.
Meadows only flipped his position on HR 3762 when it was revamped and hardened by the Senate to make a political point to the voters back home.
In other words, Meadows only supported the bill when it allowed him to hide behind the skirts of the Senate version which both they and he knew was designed merely to be vetoed:
[T]he Senate's version would have implemented a two year phase-out of Medicaid expansion and exchange subsidies.
The House agreed to the Senate's changes, so the final version of the bill included the Senate's modifications.
There were concerns in Congress – particularly among lawmakers from states that have expanded Medicaid – that repealing the law would result in millions of people losing their health insurance coverage. But Politico reported that "senators were reminded that the president would veto the repeal bill anyway, meaning Republicans could vote on the measure without having to deal with the political risks of actually making major changes to existing law."
But there are still 206 Republican members in the US House in 2017 who voted for the original, honest HR 3762 in October 2015, and who should do so again in 2017, if only someone (not Mark Meadows, and not Paul Ryan) would lead them there:
The House version of H.R. 3762 included repealing the individual mandate, the employer mandate, the medical device excise tax, and the "Cadillac tax" on expensive employee health insurance premiums.
It also included a measure to eliminate federal Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood for one year. But it called for increasing funding for community health centers by $235 million/year for two years (a 6.5 percent increase over the currently scheduled funding).
Republicans used the budget reconciliation process to ensure that their bill could advance through the senate as long as it received a simple majority of at least 51 votes, instead of needing 60 votes. By using reconciliation, the measure was filibuster-proof, and advanced to a vote in the Senate.
Paul Ryan could have passed repeal easily, but deliberately crafted a bill that wouldn't pass
The 206 Republicans in the current House of Representatives named below voted for H.R. 3762 in October 2015, repealing Obamacare with the additional votes of 33 Republicans no longer there (Mulvaney, Pompeo, Price and Zinke resigned in 2017 to serve in Trump's administration--all voted for repeal in 2015). The bill passed the House 240-189-5.
More importantly the repeal bill passed the Senate as well, winding up on Obama's desk, where Obama promptly vetoed it.
Now we're supposed to believe Paul Ryan couldn't whip this vote again, and couldn't require repeal votes from the 28 freshmen just elected in 2016. All he needed was 216 votes. He had 206 in his pocket, 206 Republicans he could publicly and effectively intimidate if he needed to, and needed only 10 more from the freshman class.
How hard was that?
We can only conclude Paul Ryan and leadership deliberately didn't bring up that repeal bill again for a vote because they knew it would pass. They obviously didn't want repeal to pass. They crafted a different bill they knew the Republican caucus would reject.
Now it is Paul Ryan who must be rejected.
| Abraham Aderholt Allen Amash Amodei Babin Barletta Barr Barton Bilirakis Bishop (MI) Bishop (UT) Black Blackburn Blum Bost Brady (TX) Brat Bridenstine Brooks (AL) Brooks (IN) Buchanan Bucshon Burgess Byrne Calvert Carter (GA) Carter (TX) Chabot Chaffetz Coffman Cole Collins (GA) Collins (NY) Comstock Conaway Cook Costello (PA) Cramer Crawford Culberson Curbelo (FL) Davis, Rodney Denham Dent DeSantis DesJarlais Diaz-Balart Donovan Duffy Duncan (SC) Duncan (TN) Emmer (MN) Farenthold Fitzpatrick Fleischmann Flores Fortenberry Foxx Franks (AZ) Frelinghuysen Garrett Gibbs Gohmert Goodlatte Gosar Gowdy Granger Graves (GA) Graves (LA) Graves (MO) | Griffith Grothman Guthrie Harper Harris Hartzler Hensarling Herrera Beutler Hice, Jody B. Hill Holding Hudson Huizenga (MI) Hultgren Hunter Hurd (TX) Issa Jenkins (KS) Jenkins (WV) Johnson (OH) Johnson, Sam Jordan Joyce Katko Kelly (MS) Kelly (PA) King (IA) King (NY) Kinzinger (IL) Knight Labrador LaHood LaMalfa Lamborn Lance Latta LoBiondo Long Loudermilk Love Lucas Luetkemeyer MacArthur Marchant Marino Massie McCarthy McCaul McClintock McHenry McKinley McMorris Rodgers McSally Meehan Messer Moolenaar Mooney (WV) Mullin Murphy (PA) Newhouse Noem Nunes Olson Palazzo Palmer Paulsen | Pearce Perry Pittenger Poe (TX) Poliquin Posey Ratcliffe Reed Reichert Renacci Rice (SC) Roby Roe (TN) Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rohrabacher Rokita Rooney (FL) Ros-Lehtinen Roskam Ross Rothfus Rouzer Royce Russell Ryan (WI) Sanford Scalise Schweikert Scott, Austin Sensenbrenner Sessions Shimkus Shuster Simpson Smith (MO) Smith (NE) Smith (NJ) Smith (TX) Stefanik Stewart Stivers Thompson (PA) Thornberry Tiberi Tipton Trott Turner Upton Valadao Wagner Walberg Walden Walorski Walters, Mimi Weber (TX) Webster (FL) Wenstrup Westerman Williams Wilson (SC) Wittman Womack Woodall Yoder Yoho Young (AK) Young (IA) Zeldin |
Flashback January 1, 2013, 2257 hours: 151 House Republicans who voted against making the Bush tax cuts permanent
The roll call vote is here.
| Adams Aderholt Akin Amash Amodei Austria Bachmann Bachus Bartlett Barton (TX) Berg Bilirakis Bishop (UT) Black Blackburn Bonner Boustany Brooks Broun (GA) Bucshon Burgess Campbell Canseco Cantor Capito Carter Cassidy Chabot Chaffetz Coffman (CO) Conaway Cravaack Crawford Culberson DesJarlais Duffy Duncan (SC) Duncan (TN) Ellmers Farenthold Fincher Flake Fleischmann Fleming Flores Forbes Foxx Franks (AZ) Gardner Garrett | Gibbs Gingrey (GA) Gohmert Goodlatte Gosar Gowdy Granger Graves (GA) Griffin (AR) Griffith (VA) Guinta Guthrie Hall Harper Harris Hartzler Hensarling Huelskamp Huizenga (MI) Hultgren Hunter Hurt Issa Jenkins Johnson, Sam Jones Jordan King (IA) Kingston Labrador Lamborn Landry Lankford Latham Long Lummis Mack Marchant Massie McCarthy (CA) McCaul McClintock McHenry McKinley Mica Miller (FL) Mulvaney Myrick Neugebauer Nugent Nunes | Nunnelee Olson Palazzo Paulsen Pearce Pence Petri Poe (TX) Pompeo Posey Price (GA) Quayle Rehberg Renacci Rigell Rivera Roby Roe (TN) Rogers (AL) Rohrabacher Rokita Rooney Roskam Ross (FL) Scalise Schilling Schmidt Schweikert Scott (SC) Scott, Austin Sensenbrenner Smith (NE) Southerland Stearns Stutzman Terry Tipton Turner (OH) Walberg Walsh (IL) Webster West Westmoreland Whitfield Wilson (SC) Wittman Wolf Woodall Yoder Young (IN) |
Flashback January 1, 2013, 0159 hours: Senate Republicans who voted against making the Bush tax cuts permanent
From the roll call vote (89-8-3) here:
Grassley of Iowa, Lee of Utah, Paul of Kentucky, Rubio of Florida, Shelby of Alabama.
Demented Jim of South Carolina didn't vote, and neither did Mark Kirk of Illinois (stroke victim).
Democrats still controlled the Senate at the time, the close of the 112th Congress, 53-47. Their caucus power increased by 2 in the 113th Congress.
John Boehner must be laughing his ass off this morning
John Boehner got Obama to sign the Bush tax cuts, but Paul Ryan can't even get a bill on Trump's desk.
Saturday, March 25, 2017
Real GDP forecast for 1Q2017 from the Atlanta Fed: 1.0%
Watch how fast that great Obama economy becomes Trump's awful economy.
Friday, March 24, 2017
HR 3762 should have been on Trump's desk on January 20th, but Republicans were too full of themselves for that
 |
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/03/24/its-true-trump-didnt-pledge-obamacare-repeal-in-64-days-he-pledged-it-in-one/?utm_term=.87eb1e98525d |
We'd be long into tax reform by now.
Day One repeal of Obamacare my sweet German-American ass.
Mark Levin is a jerk . . .
P.O.S. is Mark Levin.
We don't need no stinkin' new bill: Obamacare repeal H.R. 3762 passed the Senate on Dec. 3, 2015 52-47
The roll call vote is here.
Senate Republicans passed the repeal of Obamacare despite two defections, from liberal Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Mark Kirk of Illinois.
Pass H.R. 3762 again and dare Trump to veto it.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)