Where have you been for this millennium? Republicans in office have consistently created major tax breaks for the ultra-rich, and Republican supporters bitterly complain about any attempt to just reverse the breaks, much less increase taxes on the rich just to 1990s levels. There are consistent, loud, complaints anytime taxing the 1% is brought up, I’m not sure how you can ‘doubt’ something that has happened repeatedly and will happen over and over.
Someone once said, the problem is that people don’t listen for the sake of understanding; they listen for the sake of replying. I think that sums up a lot of the discourse conflict in American politics today. Both sides want to be heard but don’t care to listen to the other side.
Michael Moore in Trumpland is a new film in which the filmmaker reaches out to Trump voters, compliments them and discusses shared values. Does he succeed? I’ve just started watching the film now.
The introduction has some humor. One Trump voter explains his choice: Donald was a self-made man, while Hillary inherited wealth from her parents. :smack:
Based on the little bit I know of Michael Moore, I doubt this outreach is sincere. Let me know if it turns out to be something other than poking fun at the hicks that live in the sticks.
Funny how the Democrats, while they still controlled the House and Senate, voted to extend the Bush era tax cuts, and Obama signed the bill. They didn’t have to do anything if they didn’t want to extend the cuts - they were going to expire. But they acted to extend them.
So either the Bush tax cuts were not really for the 1% as you claim (and Obama also contradicts you), or Obama was lying and the Democrats are not as avid to tax the rich as you claim.
Regards,
Shodan
I have not seen the film, but the NYT’s review doesn’t make it sound like an outreach effort:
*"…Mr. Moore gets to his real purpose, which is to support Mrs. Clinton.
He compares her — this will irk her detractors — to Pope Francis, though not on religious grounds. The pope, Mr. Moore says, has been surprisingly activist since assuming the office; he postulates that Francis was biding his time for decades, patiently and unobtrusively waiting for his chance, which he seized once he ascended to the papacy. Mrs. Clinton, too, he says, has waited for years. He fantasizes that if elected she will release the pent-up idealism she’s been clinging to since college, resulting in a flurry of landmark legislation reminiscent of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous first 100 days."*
That sounds like it would scare the shit out of most Republicans.
I swear there was more to the story than that…
…Oh right. The options were “extend these tax cuts” or “implement a tax increase across the board at a time when we badly needed the lower and middle class to start spending again”. In fact, your own source is fairly clear:
The package, brokered by Obama and Republican leaders in the wake of the November elections, angered many Democrats, who have long argued that the Bush tax cuts were skewed to benefit the wealthy. But their last-minute campaign to scale back the bill’s benefits for taxpayers at the highest income levels failed, and the House passed the measure 277 to 148 Thursday night, with 112 Democrats and 36 Republicans voting “no.”
[…]
The $858 billion package prevents taxes from rising on New Year’s Day for virtually every American household. The measure also will guarantee unemployed workers in hard-hit states up to 99 weeks of jobless benefits through the end of next year. And it will create major new incentives for business and consumer spending in 2011, including a two-percentage-point reduction in the Social Security payroll tax that would let workers keep as much as $2,136.
Whoops. So in other words, the democrats tried to scale back the tax cuts on the super rich and keep the tax cuts for the poor and middle-class, and they couldn’t get it through. I’m kind of left wondering why that measure failed.
Yes, yes, we all know the meme that Michael Moore is the Ann Coulter of the left. :smack: Instead Moore grew up in Trumpland itslef — in Flint, Michigan heart of the pro-Trump Rust Belt. Do keep whining your confused rhetoric about “hicks.” Let us know if you grow up.
I watched the presentation, and found it fun and … moving! I get the impression many Ohioan wives dragged their husbands to this presentation. Moore “milked” the wives but tried to appeal to the husbands. He understands and empathises with their concerns, states his opinions (mentioning that he’s never voted for Hillary), offers his own personal anecdotes about Hillary, and pleads for Hillary haters to indulge their hatred but still hold their noses and make the rational choice in the polling booth.
Moore finishes off with a list of very progressive executive actions that Hillary might sign in her first 100 days; says he will give her two years to demonstrate that her progressive promises; and then closes his show with an attention-grabber:
If by the 2018 midterms Hillary appears to have reneged on her progressive promises, Michael Moore will throw his own hat into the ring for the 2020 Presidential election. He gives a whimsical list of executive actions he’ll sign in his first 100 days, such as 2 joints for every American each weekend!
So you think cutting taxes during an economic boom is the same as not raising taxes during a recession. :smack:
Is there any science in which you have a sixth-grade understanding? I ask so that I can construct an analogy tailored at your level, and give you a hint about your colossal ignorance of economics.
The article that you linked to clearly states that a significant portion of democrats wanted to remove the tax cuts for the richest taxpayers from the bill but were not able to get support for the bill without leaving that part in. Are you seriously trying to assert that there were no tax breaks for the 1% in that bill or the original Bush bill? I also made no claim that the Democrats are ‘avid to tax the rich,’ it would help if you’d respond to what I actually wrote instead of a position that someone else holds that you want to argue with.
I’ve been deeply skeptical of Moore ever since his misleading cherry-picking and slanted tactics; for instance, his anti-Bush spiel in a book that discussed the Bush vs. Gore election - “200 million Americans didn’t vote for Bush in 2000; therefore, out of a country of 250 million, that made us the majority!” Sure - by that logic, 200 million Americans didn’t vote for Gore, either. Also ignoring, of course, the fact that many of those “Americans” were children or other people who weren’t eligible to vote anyway.
septimus, I’m giving you a warning for this. This post, and a few others, have denigrated and insulted other posters. Please don’t do this in the future.
I don’t disagree with that interpretation, but if they truly think abortion equals murder, then I can see some people being convinced that its ok to get a little dirty in order to reduce murder. Its all about the bigger perspective here.
In fairness, there were a LOT of emails and only ONE raped minor.
Do you really find a civil suit that hasn’t even been tried yet convincing enough evidence to claim someone committed rape?
Okay, let’s do a deal. 10000 deleted emails are worth one allegedly raped minor, with an option for 35000 emails upon presentation of a processed sexual assault kit. You’re not gonna get a better deal. Trust me. You’re not. It’s a great deal. Hillary’s the puppet.
With all this talk about scientific answers, one wonders what science has to say about the effectiveness of villainizing the political opposition if one’s goal is to convince them of the errors of their ways as opposed to making oneself feel better.
Well, speaking for myself I have to report that I do know how villianized the extremists that are against GMO’s are, and yet that did not bother me at all to get convinced to be in favor of GMOs, perhaps is because I do look at science first but I have to say that paying attention to science first is one big reason why I arrived to the conclusion that GMO’s are important and can be used for good, and will become more so in the future.
One big reason was finding that experts and scientific reports already did take a look at the dangers and they do not ignore the risks. I also did notice that a lot of the top scientists in the field like Paul Nurse are also very liberal. (He is a socialist) so I’m aware that whereas a lot of the people I support politically are being demonized for their opposition to GMO’s the reality is that that was not an obstacle to get people like me to be convinced of the scientific and human value that we get from GMO’s. Besides the reality is that there are a lot of conservatives and independents that are also against GMOs and several leaders among the Democrats are not against it, with that issue the NIMBY is very bipartisan.
But those aren’t the only two outcomes. Personally, I don’t care about convincing the right wing to see the error of their ways, I just want them to die out and I think that’s happening. Trump supporters are largely older, white and uneducated according to what I’ve read; as long as the movement is seen as unattractive and uncool, it will die out. It’s how we curtailed smoking, it went from being cool to being a bunch of losers huddled outside in the rain by a dumpster.
No, they also had the option of keeping the cuts in place for everyone else, and raising taxes on the rich. After all, they controlled the Senate, House, and the Presidency. But they didn’t.
So am I - the Dems had the opportunity to do it, they say they want to do it, they claim to believe that raising taxes on the rich is the right thing to do, but they don’t do it. They just fall back on their usual excuse - “the GOP has us outnumbered 41-59!”
Regards,
Shodan