Trump supporters do you like this tax bill?

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Balbus, Nov 29, 2017.

  1. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    6

    And as 6 knows this is part of the same far right propaganda.

    The underlying argument – ‘nothing can be done to alleviate ‘poverty’ so there is no point in trying’

    And it is something that is pushed out by many wealth sponsored groups and think tanks on the net.

    But you guessed it this is also a con game

    *

    A recent study from economists at Columbia broke down changes in poverty before and after the government gets involved in the form of taxes and transfers, and found that, when you take government intervention into account, poverty is down considerably from 1967 to 2012, from 26 percent to 16 percent

    While that doesn't allow us to see how poverty changed between the start of the war in 1964 and the start of the data in 1967, the most noticeable trend here is that the gap between before-government and after-government poverty just keeps growing. In fact, without government programs, poverty would have actually increased over the period in question. Government action is literally the only reason we have less poverty in 2012 than we did in 1967.

    What's more, we can directly attribute this to programs created or expanded during the war on poverty. In 2012, food stamps (since renamed Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) alone kept 4 million people out of poverty:

    And is even more important in fighting extreme poverty (that is, people living under $2 a day)

    In fairness, SNAP isn't the biggest anti-poverty program on the books. That would be Social Security, also expanded by the war on poverty. The Earned Income Tax Credit, which came a few decades after, and other refundable credits are No. 2:

    The impact of non-transfer programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Job Corps on poverty is harder to measure, but what indications there are are promising. Amy Finkelstein and Robin McKnight have found that Medicare significantly reduced out-of-pocket medical expenditures for seniors, which increased their real incomes. The Oregon Medicaid Study found that the program significantly reduces financial hardship for its beneficiaries, who, under Oregon's eligibility rules at the time, all fell below the poverty line. A randomized evaluation of the Job Corps found that it caused improvements on a variety of outcomes, most notably a 12 percent increase in earnings of participants but also reductions in rates of incarceration, arrest, and conviction.

    Everything you need to know about the war on poverty

    How the War on Poverty Succeeded (in Four Charts)
     
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  2. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    Now many right wingers argue that they are against companies paying people low wages meaning that they have to turn to public assistance, but the way that they would do that would be by removing the public assistance, in the hope that then employers would out of the goodness of their hearts pay them more.

    That the market would work things out somehow – that would seem to run contrary to history but as I’ve pointed out this is a con game its about propaganda not reality.
     
  3. 6-eyed shaman

    6-eyed shaman Sock-eye salmon

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    Where did I say everyone on public assistance is a feckless scrounger? (neat word choice btw)

    Believing that all of them are deadbeats, is just as naive as believing that every single one of them are actively looking to improve their lifestyle and become a citizen who contributes to the system, rather than live off of it.

    Why do you feel that government is the only capable solution to combating poverty?

    Do you give to the poor, or to an organization that specializes in poverty assistance? Or do you just sit back and trust the government to distribute your income taxes to the correct people who will use it to better themselves, rather than give to those who will use the funds to feed their bad habits?

    Would you rather choose to be bad, or be forced to be good?

    Not really, but I think it's rather fucked up that we have an institution that subsidizes poverty, and rewards those for being poor. This is how the left wing politicians buy votes from the lower class. Without a poor and struggling class, the left would have a harder time marketing themselves on the campaign trail. They know their policies hurt the poor, that's why they implement policies that keep making more citizens poor. It's a vicious and fucked up cycle.

    I'd be OK with a compromise though. I think we could make welfare a diminishing asset for those who apply to receive it. Meaning they get a smaller and smaller check as time goes on, as it discourages the deadbeat lifestyle, and encourages them to find a job or become a sole proprietor in their own company.

    Corporations should not be receiving welfare. Period.[/quote][/QUOTE]
     
  4. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    [/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
    So you believe that all liberal policies are designed...on purpose...to promote poverty?
    Quote: ..."but I think it's rather fucked up that we have an institution that subsidizes poverty, and rewards those for being poor. This is how the left wing politicians buy votes from the lower class. Without a poor and struggling class, the left would have a harder time marketing themselves on the campaign trail. They know their policies hurt the poor, that's why they implement policies that keep making more citizens poor."

    Can you give us factual examples? Laws passed or sponsored by Liberals only, not bipartisan, that can be proven to have increased poverty and then show us that was the sole intent of those laws?
     
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  5. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    Oh 6 the same old same old…when you are called out you shed crocodile tears and bemoan ‘oh I didn’t say all [lefties, feminists, the poor etc].

    We have been through this charade numerous time already and the sad thing is that I know that in a post not too far in the future you will make another ‘all’ claim about some group or other (and once again claim you didn’t mean ‘all’ when pulled up on it).
     
  6. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    A few things here we have covered before -

    The welfare system in the UK was set up to combat the five problems of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.

    But for them it was idleness due to an economic system that was based on exploitation free market thinking. The left wing view of censor for not working came with an accompanying promise of a social contract that socialist or Keynesian economic model would be followed to try and bring about ‘full’ employment at living wages, (as well as publically funded healthcare, education, assistance, housing etc)

    The basis behind free market/neoliberal ideas on "don't work, don't eat" is exploitative it’s about bring down wages and maximizing profits for a few. It isn’t about striving for full employment and it tries to lessen or remove welfare systems.

    *

    Welfare recipients are often characterized as lazy, simply waiting for the next month's benefits to roll in. But nearly 73% of people receiving public benefits are members of working families.

    Some programs, like TANF, actually operate under the expectation that families are working but need temporary assistance to become financially stable. Many argue the problem is really income inequality, which leaves minimum wage earners struggling to afford basic needs, and therefore reliant on public assistance.

    Viewing people as morally responsible for their own situations "obviously ignores the systemic inequalities in the economy and polity that make people poor in the first place," independent scholar Gwendolyn Mink, who authored Welfare's End and several other works on public assistance programs, tells Mashable. "The kind of income inequality that is in the system puts especially women of color at the lowest end of the earning spectrum, which is a sentence of abject poverty."

    Even though welfare recipients are in the labor force, Mink explains, they aren't earning enough money to support a family and provide food security for their children while at the same time pay bills, such as rent and utilities.

    6 welfare myths we all need to stop believing
     
  7. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    Oh and we have been through this before –

    The simple answer to your question is history – here is something I wrote here a few years ago

    Charity

    It should be remembered that private assistance was never capable on its own, it was always backed up or ran alongside public assistance. In the US this was based originally on the English Elizabethan poor laws, which the colonists had brought with them when they came to Americas.

    Now even in upturns such private assistance as was given however genuine and heartfelt as it could be, could be inadequate, but during downturns that system was often overwhelmed (and giving could even drop in times of greatest need as people looked to their own needs).

    “While the genuine warmth emanating from these volunteer institutions produced a true sense of community with revitalising effects in depressed urban neighbourhoods, participants quickly realised that private charity was not enough. Charity Organisation Societies modelled on those of London and Berlin had emerged in the early 1880’s to be succeeded by Associated Charities designed to prevent duplication of effort among the score of secular and church philanthropies, but relief measures possible under a system of private endeavour, no matter how earnest or how efficiently organised, could not handle the problems arising in periods of economic distress.

    Public institutions to care for indigents, the ill, the widows and orphans, the aged and the insane never had money enough during boom times, and when hard times set in and the burden increased, city welfare budgets lagged still further behind the amounts needed.”
    The Rise of Urban America by Constance Mclaughlin Green

    Also on the forum such things as sewage works and housing amongst other things have been discussed where public money and government legislation did a lot to help to improve the lives of poor and middle class people.
    http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/s....php?p=7470925
     
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  8. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    Yes and I’ve run to raise money for them and have friends and family who work for such organisations. I’m a believer in and supporter of such organisations - I’m not like you who seems to think very much in black and white, its either/or (EITHER a charity based system OR a government based system) it has to be one thing or another BUT as I keep explaining to you in the real world and especially the socio-economic world things are rarely are or should be that clean cut.

    As I say you only seem able to think in either or – it a simplistic mind-set that seems to make it hard for you to grasp reality and the nuances of the real world.
     
  9. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    Again the simplistic mindset – first the same implied ‘all’ viewpoint – ‘all poor people are lazy and will not try to improve their lot’ that they are all the type of people that once given assistance will never try and work again and once again it has to be pointed out many who receive public help are working.

    Basically it’s back again to the deserving and undeserving poor argument - The deserving being those that don’t ask for help and so don’t need any. And the undeserving being those who do ask for help thereby showing that they are deadbeat scroungers who don’t deserve any help.

    So it was plain - the argument went – that there was no need to give assistance to the disadvantaged.

    It’s propaganda spread by wealth to try and justify it not having to pay taxes to welfare programmes.

    Oh and of course the other method used by the wealth sponsored propagandists is to discredit welfare is to claim that it’s a conspiracy by the left to buy votes.
     
  10. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    Oh yes ALL recipients of public assistance are deadbeats and the ones already with a job should….?

    Anyway wouldn’t it be better if there was in place an economic system based on providing full employment at a living wage?

    A system that helped in setting up jobs and helped in training and relocation?

    A system that was about helping people and the problems they have rather than labeling then deadbeat scumbag scroungers and threatening them with hardship?
     
  11. Cashtwenty2

    Cashtwenty2 Members

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    Ive learned that the polls may not always right. Also the same white people voted Barrack Obama but wasn’t criticized anywhere near this aggressively..
     
  12. Asmodean

    Asmodean Slo motion rider

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    Why would they be?
     
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  13. 6-eyed shaman

    6-eyed shaman Sock-eye salmon

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    The War on Poverty: 50 years of failure

    The U.S. Census Bureau has just released its annual poverty report. The report claims that in 2013, 14.5 percent of Americans were poor. Remarkably, that's almost the same poverty rate as in 1967, three years after the War on Poverty started. How can that be? How can government spend $9,000 per recipient and have no effect on poverty? The answer is - it can't.


    A Retrospective on Johnson's Poverty War



    Besides, take a look at left-run cities like Detroit and Chicago. Crime and poverty traps that are on par with third world countries. Keeping the poor reliant on the state is the perfect way to buy votes.

    I mean, it's possible that these policies were thought of with good humanitarian intentions in mind. But on the other hand, it might be a diabolically evil plot to impoverish a populace to the point they depend on the government to look after them as their great provider from cradle to grave. Permanently buying the votes of the struggling and poor through the tax dollars of the working class.
     
  14. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    Post 172

    Just ignoring criticisms of your views does not make them go away

    To repeat

    And as 6 knows this is part of the same far right propaganda.

    The underlying argument – ‘nothing can be done to alleviate ‘poverty’ so there is no point in trying’

    And it is something that is pushed out by many wealth sponsored groups and think tanks on the net.

    But you guessed it this is also a con game

    *

    A recent study from economists at Columbia broke down changes in poverty before and after the government gets involved in the form of taxes and transfers, and found that, when you take government intervention into account, poverty is down considerably from 1967 to 2012, from 26 percent to 16 percent

    While that doesn't allow us to see how poverty changed between the start of the war in 1964 and the start of the data in 1967, the most noticeable trend here is that the gap between before-government and after-government poverty just keeps growing. In fact, without government programs, poverty would have actually increased over the period in question. Government action is literally the only reason we have less poverty in 2012 than we did in 1967.

    What's more, we can directly attribute this to programs created or expanded during the war on poverty. In 2012, food stamps (since renamed Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) alone kept 4 million people out of poverty:

    And is even more important in fighting extreme poverty (that is, people living under $2 a day)

    In fairness, SNAP isn't the biggest anti-poverty program on the books. That would be Social Security, also expanded by the war on poverty. The Earned Income Tax Credit, which came a few decades after, and other refundable credits are No. 2:

    The impact of non-transfer programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Job Corps on poverty is harder to measure, but what indications there are are promising. Amy Finkelstein and Robin McKnight have found that Medicare significantly reduced out-of-pocket medical expenditures for seniors, which increased their real incomes. The Oregon Medicaid Study found that the program significantly reduces financial hardship for its beneficiaries, who, under Oregon's eligibility rules at the time, all fell below the poverty line. A randomized evaluation of the Job Corps found that it caused improvements on a variety of outcomes, most notably a 12 percent increase in earnings of participants but also reductions in rates of incarceration, arrest, and conviction.

    Everything you need to know about the war on poverty

    How the War on Poverty Succeeded (in Four Charts)
     
  15. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    The Heritage Foundation was founded by the billionaire Joseph Coors who was described even by his brother as "a little bit right of Attila the Hun"

    The Mises Institute was set up by Lew Rockwell a far right anarcho-capitalist

    6

    I mean I did ask before about what you based your economic ideas on and you said the badly written sci-fi novel ‘Atlas Shrugged’ and some articles by wealth sponsored lobbying groups like the Cato Institute.

    Well now we can add the wealth sponsored right wing Heritage lobbyists and the far right Mises' Austrian school nutters

    I've read stuff by both but you really have to get a balanced diet and also treat what is often just propaganda with a heavy doss of salt.

    Anyway as I said before such sources alone are not going to give you a good, balanced or even rational grounding and I suggested you do a bit more reading and study (by the way did you read the things I suggested?)
     
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  16. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    You started by claiming that liberals alone purposely encourage poverty through the institution of unilateral laws.
    Then, when asked for examples, you march out Johnson's War on Poverty which wasn't a law but a statement made in the 1964 State of the Union Address , as if Johnson alone was responsible for every aspect of his challenge to combat poverty.

    For example the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, a major part of the War on Poverty, was passed in the Senate with only 1 Republican out of 31 voting against it. It passed the House with 22 Republican votes...it was bipartisan.

    But anyway, what proof are you offering that liberals are purposely keeping people poor?
    Your links were opinion pieces, not proof.

     
  17. scratcho

    scratcho Lifetime Supporter Lifetime Supporter

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    Just passing through to say that I appreciate baldnbares contributions because IMO, he says exactly what is on Trumps mind but won't state right out loud. It's good to be reminded of the mind set of the genius that now occupies the white house. Channeling the "great one'. Thank you sir.
     
    Last edited: Jan 19, 2018
    MeAgain and stormountainman like this.

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