Restoring SALT also incentivizes states to have generous social safety nets. There’s a practical effect to it as well. It restores the balance between blue and red states. As I said, I don’t care if my net taxes actually go up if they restore SALT. Has nothing to do with the personal boon.
Well if their goal is unified republican control of the government in 4 years, then yeah, they should by all means conitnue.
All of that is fair. Not completely fair to blue state residents and, with mobility between states, it isn’t costless. I’d still rather not restore SALT deductions. Use those dollars towards expanding the federal safety net or to reduce taxes/provide refundable credits.
Theres been a decades long drumbeat that taxing the upper middle class as a bad thing. If you make less than 250k/400k or whatever your taxes won’t go up. We need to figure out a way to change that mindset and convince people that higher taxes for a better safety net, healthcare for all, a better climate etc is a good trade off. Raising taxes on a somewhat broad group is politically challenging. In this case the dirty work has been done already, so Dems should leave it alone even though SALT not nearly the most egregious of deductions.
If we could restore SALT and raise taxes on the $100k plus group more broadly in order incentivize state safety nets that might be better, but I don’t think we are there yet politically without getting smoked in upcoming elections.
1 Like
lol don’t worry dems don’t need any help in that regard, I think they got it covered
3 Likes
This is great but always remember that the people in support of these laws want the law to hurt people. Appeals to their sense of fairness and equality and humanity don’t work - they want unfairness and inequality. They want the world divided up into advantaged groups and disadvantaged groups. It’s the unifying belief that underpins American conservatism. “This bill will have real negative impacts on real people.” Yeah. That’s the point.
4 Likes
If history does repeat itself we should expect Great Depression 2.0 in about a decade.
1 Like
I mean like just open support for imperialism, actual organisation for plutocracy, referring to Bernie as “pond scum” and open disdain for the lower classes as manifested by Rogan. I’m sure he has some high-minded reason for thinking Rogan is scum but I will go to my grave certain it’s just classism. Rogan lacks manners and good breeding. What we have here is a purely unreconstructed aristocratic right-wing reactionary. There just aren’t even any asterisks on that assessment. He probably thinks gay people are cool though so it’s fine?
This is what I mean when I say I think the Democrats are headed for becoming the Tories, essentially, but with progressive views on race and sexuality. This is not a “both sides” thing, as it stands the Republicans are still obviously worse. I can just see the augury in the tea leaves. Marco Rubio came out the other day in support of the efforts of Amazon workers to unionize. Of course he had to express himself in these absurd culture-war terms, but still. It’s another data point.
7 Likes
Yeah the fundamental error well meaning democrats make is appealing to their opponents non-existent sense of decency. They have no decency. These are people who watch the George Floyd murder video and feel absolutely nothing. There is no reasoning with them, they just need to be defeated.
4 Likes
He’s also an incurious dolt.
1 Like
So what?
I feel like you’re still missing the point by several light years here. I’ve been saying for some time now that you have to choose. You can’t have a political coalition consisting entirely of people who think just like you because that’s a minority. Now you’re faced with a fucking executive board member of the Democratic Party in one of the most liberal states in the country explicitly saying “Kissinger is awesome and Rogan is scum” and you can’t even say clearly “if it’s this guy or Rogan and his band of idiot supporters, get me Rogan”. Stupid, uneducated and uncouth people are more repellant to you than actual evildoers. That’s where the Democratic Party is headed.
1 Like
So stop saying people object to him because of “classism” or “lack of breeding.”
exactly this. Nobody making < 150k benefits from SALT deduction. idk why jman is so obsessed with red vs blue state, im fine with taxing the upper upper middle class more regardless or whether they live in a red or blue state, and not restoring SALT is less politically damaging than introducing a new tax. The fact that Nancy Pelosi is the one leading the charge to restore SALT should tell you everything you need to know.
also - why are people worrying about defund the police when Joe Biden is the president? he is never ever ever reducing the police or military budget by even .01.
It would be a lot easier for the upper middle class to swallow tax increases if the mega rich paid literally any tax at all. I know we all laugh at the “300k in NYC - is it rich” nonsense, but those people are still very much subject to tradeoffs and are already paying a lot of tax relative to their income. Meanwhile private equity assholes pay capital gains rates on almost all their income and Jeff Bezos pays no tax at all.
3 Likes
Then make THAT your slogan instead of “defund the police”. Every one here is in agreement that there needs to be serious structural reforms, the problem is that the vast majority of people still think we need police, and your slogan makes it seem like you think we don’t need any.
1 Like
Totally leaving aside whether it’s a good thing not to restore SALT deductions, this isn’t even close to true.
1 Like
Of course. It is yet another insidious effect of the way our current tax code works in general and of the Trump tax cuts in particular. Completely changing that that is a prerequisite to getting anywhere close to where we need to be long-term. Taxing the rich correctly is just necessary but not sufficient to fund what we need.
I can’t really believe we’re still having this discussion here. It’s literally two different things we’re talking about here.
It seems pretty clear that Defund the Police is currently a bad political slogan for many Democratic politicians to embrace if they want to stay in office. Should they embrace it anyway? Maybe? I mean, most of them certainly don’t think so, and I think I would way rather have them in office voting on all things than the Repub alternative, so I’m fine with them doing what they believe is the right thing to hold their seat in the general elections.
Should activists give a fuck if the slogan makes democratic politicians squeamish? I mean, maybe? I guess it depends on their goal. But it’s certainly not the place of Democratic politicians to tell them what their slogan should be, let alone their goals, and of course activists should do whatever the fuck they think is best. They seemed to be correct about the “Black Lives Matter” slogan, so maybe they see things more clearly.
7 Likes
Defund the Police.
3 words.
It identifies the problem: the police.
It states the goal: take their funds away.
Has a simple metric that measures whether the goal has been attained.
Man that is some elite messaging!
I can see why the liberals and centrists are jealous. Compare it to when the Dems run a former CIA officer for congress, or a co-architect of the Prison Industrial Complex for president. “Nothing will fundamentally change”. “If congress passes M4A, I will veto it.” People who stan for a clown that says that, while he gives more money to the police should be taken seriously when they claim we “have the same goals, but the messaging is bad”?
14 Likes