Octopus Overlords

There's a Democratic motion to recess for the weekend to give senators time to read the 500-page bill that was dropped on them without preview or debate this evening.

Republicans are voting No.

Captain Caveman wrote: ↑Fri Dec 01, 2017 10:14 pm It’s amazing how much they just don’t give a fuck. Not even a pretense.

I'd like to believe that they will face consequences...but I don't. Best-case scenario is that they won't accomplish anything else next year.

I'm voting no surprise.

On the one hand, I have a minor problem with the messaging that eliminating the individual mandate will kick people off insurance, since it doesn't explicitly do that. What it does is free up a pool of healthy people to decide "fuck it, I don't need no stupid insurance", and bail, which then raises premiums, and that causes more sick people to be unable to afford insurance.

So the reality is that it causes some combination of Rips to decide they'd rather just take the risk without insurance, along with some actually sick people to be forced off, but the net result is higher premiums for everyone. I wish the Dems would lean harder on "the GOP wants to force premiums higher for everyone" vs "this kicks people off insurance", since we're not there yet. That happens when they start cutting Medicaid and Medicare next year because of the deficit hole this donor bailout will put us in.

Lmk if my assessment on any of that is wrong, I'm super not an expert.

You are essentially right - PAYGO is going to force cuts as well so there are pieces that add up to potentially millions of folks falling off insurance. This is the big enchilada. It undermines SS, Medicare, and Medicaid and pays their donors. It is the sociopath Christmas miracle.

Mann/Ornstein are going to drop a barn burner of a write up on this shit show on Sunday. They were the ones who said that Washington dysfunction was almost completely a GOP caused problem. The prediction's that their book made are looking mighty solid right now; in fact actually we trended worse , faster than they expected. I don't expect this to be a victory lap - I think it might read like an obituary.

Edit: Here is there piece in the Washington Post from 2012 where they declared that the GOP was the problem. Pretty prescient now.

Passed.

Pissed.

I don't even know what to say to this nonsense. They wrote the bill in the margins three hours ago. It's going to add 1.5 trillion to the deficit, and they're fine with that, because they're convinced it'll be fine this time.

Enzi's up there right now trying to say that this bill went through regular order, because there have been general tax hearings over the last six years.

Everything these people say is lies and pipe dreams.

Another fiscally irresponsible Republican giveaway to their donors in December, passed in haste at the last minute while America is distracted.

Pair this bad law with Republican judges who are selected for their willingness to defer to the "original intent" this absurd legislative process, and you have another catastrophe.

Sen. McCain should be ashamed of himself. Only Sen. Corker has the guts to call his party on this atrocity.

I got served this video as an ad while watching Youtube. It explains how the progressive tax system is unjust and how everyone just needs to work harder. It was so enlightening I followed the link and there is apparently an entire "university" dedicated to making 5 minute videos to change people's minds and they are upset because Youtube restricts some of their content from young viewers. Wish I could find which ones.

Edit: Ugh, I found them.

Last year I was ashamed because we elected Trump. Now I am fed up with my country. It is run by evil people who don't give a damn about the future. I knew we were unstable and undemocratic but to see this level of hypocrisy and flat out greed and misuse of power really slammed it home.

malchior wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 7:55 am Last year I was ashamed because we elected Trump. Now I am fed up with my country. It is run by evil people who don't give a damn about the future. I knew we were unstable and undemocratic but to see this level of hypocrisy and flat out greed and misuse of power really slammed it home.

+a very sad 1

Oh and I guess I should start trying to figure out how to fix a $500 a month hole in my family budget. The easy thing to do to close it is just save less for retirement. It isn't like I should have hopes to retire anyway; it is clear my "parents" decided the party was for them and them alone.

We should all pull a Rip and not pay our income taxes. It’s not like the IRS is sufficiently funded to go after non-payers.

Hey they tried to be reasonable and fair. They voted down the Hillsdale amendment. That totally makes up for the Hatch amendment that give a tax break for private schools as long as they spend 30% of the day teaching religious study. Ironically i will call this the madrassa tax break henceforth. Thanks Hatch!

McConnell:

Holman wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 11:16 am McConnell:

Doubleplusgood doublespeak, Mitch.

Judging from what I've seen so far, I'll probably end up benefiting from this thing, at least in the short term. Ah who cares, my kids will figure out how to pay for it! Good luck, ya little rugrats!

YellowKing wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 11:55 am Judging from what I've seen so far, I'll probably end up benefiting from this thing, at least in the short term. Ah who cares, my kids will figure out how to pay for it! Good luck, ya little rugrats!

Ah don't worry by that point the Chinese will be outsourcing to us.

Every day, the future for our nation and our world gets bleaker and bleaker. The best thing any of us can hope for these days is to go to bed one night and just not wake up the next morning. It would be less painful than this.

I will have a shadenfreude moment though. I have a particularly dim ex-co-worker who was going on about this historic moment on a thread I posted on Facebook. I asked him to get back to me in April 2019 when he realizes his taxes went up $3-4K in 2018.

Zarathud wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 3:57 am Only Sen. Corker has the guts to call his party on this atrocity.

Sorry, he does not get a pass on this one since he could have ended this in committee, where the vote was 12-11.

Fireball wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 12:09 pm Every day, the future for our nation and our world gets bleaker and bleaker. The best thing any of us can hope for these days is to go to bed one night and just not wake up the next morning. It would be less painful than this.

It's been apparent (to me, anyway) since the Bush administration that we are living in a declining empire. Obama was able to halt the slide for most of his presidency, or at least manage it gracefully so that it was gradual and not obvious. In the past year we have slid downhill with breathtaking speed, and it's unlikely that we'll be able to reverse the damage inflicted on our prestige and influence. So it's unsurprising that the vultures are picking the corpse clean before it's even quite dead.

The US will not cease to exist, and might even be able to avoid social collapse, but it will cease to be a representative democracy and will become no more relevant on the world stage than any other second-tier power. One hopes that we don't lash out when we realize that military power is all we have left.

I suppose I should count myself lucky that I got to live through most of America's heyday, and watching an empire fall is not something everyone gets to experience.

I much prefer to watch them collapse from the outside.

malchior wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 12:17 pm I will have a shadenfreude moment though. I have a particularly dim ex-co-worker who was going on about this historic moment on a thread I posted on Facebook. I asked him to get back to me in April 2019 when he realizes his taxes went up $3-4K in 2018.

In April 2019 he will be blaming the Dems who came in on the 2018 wave.

Fireball wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 12:09 pm Every day, the future for our nation and our world gets bleaker and bleaker. The best thing any of us can hope for these days is to go to bed one night and just not wake up the next morning. It would be less painful than this.

Oh, come on. This is not the first time you've said this and it's still ridiculous. You think the best thing for all of us right now is to be dead?

I prefer life to your proposed best alternative.

Holman wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 11:16 am McConnell:

tldr: FAKE NEWS!

Holman wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 1:21 pm

malchior wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 12:17 pm I will have a shadenfreude moment though. I have a particularly dim ex-co-worker who was going on about this historic moment on a thread I posted on Facebook. I asked him to get back to me in April 2019 when he realizes his taxes went up $3-4K in 2018.

In April 2019 he will be blaming the Dems who came in on the 2018 wave.

Accurate - he is that type. Literally said that the snowflakes need to get out of Trump's way and let him fix things like he did last night. Unsurprisingly he is one of the least informed people I know on nearly anything because then he'd know that Trump had literally nothing to do with last night other than being expected to sign it.

pr0ner wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 1:27 pm

Fireball wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 12:09 pm Every day, the future for our nation and our world gets bleaker and bleaker. The best thing any of us can hope for these days is to go to bed one night and just not wake up the next morning. It would be less painful than this.

Oh, come on. This is not the first time you've said this and it's still ridiculous. You think the best thing for all of us right now is to be dead?

I prefer life to your proposed best alternative.

+1

I understand the whole "sky is falling" sentiment. Things look pretty bleak right now. But the country is not on the edge of dissolution or irrelevancy. Just a quick look at some key statistics should dispel that notion more or less. The U.S. remains:

• The 3rd largest country in the world by total area (in square kilometers)

• Ranked 3rd in terms of countries with the largest population in mid 2016 (in millions)

• First in gross domestic product (GDP) ranking by country 2017 (in billion U.S. dollars) -- and we're nearly double China which is #2

• 8th in countries with the largest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in 2017 (in U.S. dollars) -- and note the countries ahead of us are, in order, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Macao SAR, Norway, Iceland, Ireland and Qatar -- Which one of these is not like the other?

• Second among the top 20 export countries worldwide in 2016 (in billion U.S. dollars) -- China is #1

• Ranked 5th in terms of the percentage of the population 25 to 64 years old who had completed high school in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries -- and note the countries ahead of us are, in order, the Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Poland and Canada

• Near historic lows in terms of inflation rate

• Near historic lows in terms of unemployment

Of course, stats are stats, and I know I'm cherry-picking ones here to make myself feel better. That said, I don't think it's quite time for the pitch forks or the cyanide tablets yet.

We just had a select few members of an entire political party decide in the early hours of the morning that their own interests and the interests of their corporate donors are more important than the needs of American citizens. They shamelessly pushed through legislation that not only actively will harm certain segments of the electorate, but actually serves to directly enrich themselves and their corporate sponsors. If that's not a mortal strike against democracy, I'm not sure what is.

malchior wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 1:50 pm Accurate - he is that type. Literally said that the snowflakes need to get out of Trump's way and let him fix things like he did last night. Unsurprisingly he is one of the least informed people I know on nearly anything because then he'd know that Trump had literally nothing to do with last night other than being expected to sign it.

Right. Any Republican president from Cruz to Kasich would sign this bill. This bill is all the GOP is for.

This is what Citizens United did to us.

I wonder if any senators bothered to throw in Trump-friendly provisions (e.g. no tax for golf resorts or orange tanning products), and I wonder if he's aware of the potential gravy he has missed thereby.

Kurth wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 2:19 pm

pr0ner wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 1:27 pm

Fireball wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 12:09 pm Every day, the future for our nation and our world gets bleaker and bleaker. The best thing any of us can hope for these days is to go to bed one night and just not wake up the next morning. It would be less painful than this.

Oh, come on. This is not the first time you've said this and it's still ridiculous. You think the best thing for all of us right now is to be dead?

I prefer life to your proposed best alternative.

+1

I understand the whole "sky is falling" sentiment. Things look pretty bleak right now. But the country is not on the edge of dissolution or irrelevancy. Just a quick look at some key statistics should dispel that notion more or less. The U.S. remains:

• The 3rd largest country in the world by total area (in square kilometers)

• Ranked 3rd in terms of countries with the largest population in mid 2016 (in millions)

• First in gross domestic product (GDP) ranking by country 2017 (in billion U.S. dollars) -- and we're nearly double China which is #2

• 8th in countries with the largest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in 2017 (in U.S. dollars) -- and note the countries ahead of us are, in order, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Macao SAR, Norway, Iceland, Ireland and Qatar -- Which one of these is not like the other?

• Second among the top 20 export countries worldwide in 2016 (in billion U.S. dollars) -- China is #1

• Ranked 5th in terms of the percentage of the population 25 to 64 years old who had completed high school in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries -- and note the countries ahead of us are, in order, the Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Poland and Canada

• Near historic lows in terms of inflation rate

• Near historic lows in terms of unemployment

Of course, stats are stats, and I know I'm cherry-picking ones here to make myself feel better. That said, I don't think it's quite time for the pitch forks or the cyanide tablets yet.

It is totally pitch fork time - at a time when the economy needed no help they looted the treasury to pay off their donors in the most reckless and slapdash way possible. They were handwriting notes on the damn thing last night. At what point will people finally open their eyes and say *this is not the way a country with the attributes above should be run*.

And to reverse cherry pick a bit:

*Real income growth has been awful for a good portion of the population for decades.
*All those great GDP/person numbers are misleading -- the wealthy are taking a lion's share of income gains (as seen above).
*The labor participation rate is still historically low. It is true that unemployment is low but many able bodied folks are not in the labor force.
*Inflation is low because wage growth is non-existent. Some inflation is a good thing - it indicates growth.
*The massive overhaul of the tax code was passed with a slim majority. Zero dems involved. In fact, one dem begged to be involved (Manchin). The last time the tax code was reformed the vote was 97-3 in 1986.

What happened last night is not normal. I get the urge to believe that this is just a rough patch but it isn't. There has been a steady decline for a number of years. The people suffering the most from that decline have been targeted by a propaganda campaign like no other in recent history. They were ignored and it delivered them into the hands of evil men who literally are emptying their pockets. There is a lot to be worried about here. Some of us on this board are suddenly out of pocket thousands of dollars so the wealthy can write off their private jets and send their kids to private schools. We have a *right* to be furious right now.

To add a little more perspective, Congressional historian Norman Ornstein was apoplectic about this last night. He was explaining how something like last night has never happened. Not even during the run up to the civil war. Apparently he and his partner in crime Thomas Mann are going to be publishing a story on Sunday in the NY Times. I expect it to be an indictment on our political class and specifically the GOP.

Kurth wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 2:19 pm

pr0ner wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 1:27 pm

Fireball wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 12:09 pm Every day, the future for our nation and our world gets bleaker and bleaker. The best thing any of us can hope for these days is to go to bed one night and just not wake up the next morning. It would be less painful than this.

Oh, come on. This is not the first time you've said this and it's still ridiculous. You think the best thing for all of us right now is to be dead?

I prefer life to your proposed best alternative.

+1

I understand the whole "sky is falling" sentiment. Things look pretty bleak right now. But the country is not on the edge of dissolution or irrelevancy. Just a quick look at some key statistics should dispel that notion more or less. The U.S. remains:

• The 3rd largest country in the world by total area (in square kilometers)

• Ranked 3rd in terms of countries with the largest population in mid 2016 (in millions)

• First in gross domestic product (GDP) ranking by country 2017 (in billion U.S. dollars) -- and we're nearly double China which is #2

• 8th in countries with the largest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in 2017 (in U.S. dollars) -- and note the countries ahead of us are, in order, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Macao SAR, Norway, Iceland, Ireland and Qatar -- Which one of these is not like the other?

• Second among the top 20 export countries worldwide in 2016 (in billion U.S. dollars) -- China is #1

• Ranked 5th in terms of the percentage of the population 25 to 64 years old who had completed high school in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries -- and note the countries ahead of us are, in order, the Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Poland and Canada

• Near historic lows in terms of inflation rate

• Near historic lows in terms of unemployment

Of course, stats are stats, and I know I'm cherry-picking ones here to make myself feel better. That said, I don't think it's quite time for the pitch forks or the cyanide tablets yet.

Yep, and it's happened before and we survived. A that time it was Rockerfeller and Chinese immigrants. Ages come and go. The pendulum will swing back this time too.

stessier wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 4:03 pm Yep, and it's happened before and we survived. A that time it was Rockerfeller and Chinese immigrants. Ages come and go. The pendulum will swing back this time too.

I'll be honest. I don't give a crap what happens to the US in 50 or 60 years. I care what happens to it today, tomorrow and next year.

That the US has been through a pile of crap and come out the other side is great for historians. It's not that great for those who get to experience the pile of crap.

I can't really get worked up over this because isn't this what we expected? The people who voted for Trump, well this is what they wanted right? They won the election so this is what we got. Since he got elected the undercurrent on a lot of discussion is 'they need to stop this' but if 'they' didn't want this he wouldn't have been elected. All they are doing is making sure their interests are served as this stuff goes forward.

So I think people should prepare for more of the same. Most of the wet dreams of the Republicans will be coming true, at least for the next 3 years. The interesting bit of all this to me is seeing the dismay on more and more people's faces, the Republican and/or Trump voters, as they realize they aren't part of the club like they thought they were. Not everyone who voted for Trump is going to make out like a bandit, what will such a person think what it becomes obvious? Patience, "I"ll get mine, I just have to give him time"? Or "What? That's it? What about me?"

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 4:09 pm

stessier wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 4:03 pm Yep, and it's happened before and we survived. A that time it was Rockerfeller and Chinese immigrants. Ages come and go. The pendulum will swing back this time too.

I'll be honest. I don't give a crap what happens to the US in 50 or 60 years. I care what happens to it today, tomorrow and next year.

That the US has been through a pile of crap and come out the other side is great for historians. It's not that great for those who get to experience the pile of crap.

That's fine. I didn't say to sit back and take it. Unions weren't started because people just sat at home (although that was the end result ). It's fine to fight but running around saying the sky is falling is a waste of energy.

With respect, history is pretty definitely NOT a pendulum.

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 4:09 pm

stessier wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 4:03 pm Yep, and it's happened before and we survived. A that time it was Rockerfeller and Chinese immigrants. Ages come and go. The pendulum will swing back this time too.

I'll be honest. I don't give a crap what happens to the US in 50 or 60 years. I care what happens to it today, tomorrow and next year.

That the US has been through a pile of crap and come out the other side is great for historians. It's not that great for those who get to experience the pile of crap.

Well, most of us had the good fortune to live through the tail end of America's glory days, so that's some consolation.

Before I hit Submit I reminded myself that this is just a tax bill. It can be reversed. Someday it will be, if our political process ever rights itself. It's unsurprising, and maybe inevitable, that the side with all the money won the class war. America still has a lot going for it and someone might make it great again someday if the system isn't permanently borked. As somebody whose somedays are running out, though, I'm sympathetic to the Goo's POV. The kind of dysfunction that's happening now and that keeps getting worse usually does not end peacefully.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 2:27 pm We just had a select few members of an entire political party decide in the early hours of the morning that their own interests and the interests of their corporate donors are more important than the needs of American citizens. They shamelessly pushed through legislation that not only actively will harm certain segments of the electorate, but actually serves to directly enrich themselves and their corporate sponsors. If that's not a mortal strike against democracy, I'm not sure what is.

If only there was a way the people could go register a protest and have those people replaced with people that make decisions they want.......

We should pray for someone to break the chains that bind us.

Holman wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 2:28 pm

malchior wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 1:50 pm Accurate - he is that type. Literally said that the snowflakes need to get out of Trump's way and let him fix things like he did last night. Unsurprisingly he is one of the least informed people I know on nearly anything because then he'd know that Trump had literally nothing to do with last night other than being expected to sign it.

Right. Any Republican president from Cruz to Kasich would sign this bill. This bill is all the GOP is for.

This is what Citizens United did to us.

I wonder if any senators bothered to throw in Trump-friendly provisions (e.g. no tax for golf resorts or orange tanning products), and I wonder if he's aware of the potential gravy he has missed thereby.

Citizens United? Really? You need to go back and look at who has been spending the most money in the recent elections.

Campaign money buys elections has been thoroughly debunked.