True, but those cases are efforts to allow Republicans to gerrymander even MORE than they have thus far (and thus would not result in the claimed Dem gerrymandering)... and the biggest ones have already been decided.
Sounds like a good enough reason to vote right there: stop MORE gerrymandering.
Still doesn't help. State legislatures and governors control the redistricting process in most states... and it'll be those in power after the 2020 census who do so. Ergo, the 2020 election will likely have a bigger impact than the 2016.
Putting encumbants in now will help them retain office later. Congress has the turnover rate of a stagnant pond in winter.
True, but those cases are efforts to allow Republicans to gerrymander even MORE than they have thus far (and thus would not result in the claimed Dem gerrymandering)... and the biggest ones have already been decided.Sounds like a good enough reason to vote right there: stop MORE gerrymandering.Still doesn't help. State legislatures and governors control the redistricting process in most states... and it'll be those in power after the 2020 census who do so. Ergo, the 2020 election will likely have a bigger impact than the 2016.Putting encumbants in now will help them retain office later. Congress has the turnover rate of a stagnant pond in winter.Though it's state legislators & governors that control redistricting, not Congress.
The largest effect the federal elections will have on gerrymandering is through court appointments.
Even on the state level, 2020 will have a bigger impact than 2016, as will 2018. (And some governors who are elected in odd years, IIRC.) Which means, make sure to vote in those off-year elections.
But to the original point, more democratic gerrymandering would just work to balance out the existing republican gerrymandering. We've also seen in the past that although democrats have done some gerrymandering, they're far more likely to support independent, technocrat approaches that aim for more balance than the republicans are. Partly of course because more balanced districts tend to work in favor of Democrats.
Still, that's just another example of the parties not just being the same.
Unlike past Presidential candidates, Clinton's efforts to help elect down ticket Democrats have been for all intents and purposes, non-existent. There really isn't going to be much movement in Congress this year.
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State legislatures have the turnover rate of a hermetically sealed canopic jar.
Better?
If you still think I am wrong, please find a different theory to explain . If it isn't deliberate, it is one of the worst economic policy f!~#-ups of all time.I noticed no one touched this point.
Why? Seems salient to me.
Because the laws regarding the economic policies that lead to that are drawn up by congress and require congress to change it. Merely having the presidency isn't enough.
Given that that is the one thing republicans actually care about, you not only need an act of congress (something i find less likely than an act of god) you need the senate to be able to get through the filibuster and every delaying tactic available.
Getting in Clinton or trump is the difference between staunching the bleeding or playing razor wire hopscotch. fixing the problem is MUCH bigger than one election.
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If you still think I am wrong, please find a different theory to explain . If it isn't deliberate, it is one of the worst economic policy f!~#-ups of all time.I noticed no one touched this point.
Why? Seems salient to me.
Because the laws regarding the economic policies that lead to that are drawn up by congress and require congress to change it. Merely having the presidency isn't enough.
Given that that is the one thing republicans actually care about, you not only need an act of congress (something i find less likely than an act of god) you need the senate to be able to get through the filibuster and every delaying tactic available.
Getting in Clinton or trump is the difference between staunching the bleeding or playing razor wire hopscotch. fixing the problem is MUCH bigger than one election.
OK, thanks.
But if it's actually trending the wrong way over the past 8 years what's there to make us believe that it will change for the better over the next 8 years?
It may or may not improve, but it is certainly possible for it to get much worse. Even status quo is an improvement over uncontrolled freefall.
Sanders should NOT have changed his party regstration back after losing the primary IMO - he could have leveraged his primary results into being a leader of the Senate and pushed his agenda through there. Clinton can only sign new laws that actually get through Congress, after all (or veto them, of course). Sanders and Warren both pushing to lead the left wing would have given it far more power than Warren alone.Because the laws regarding the economic policies that lead to that are drawn up by congress and require congress to change it. Merely having the presidency isn't enough.
Given that that is the one thing republicans actually care about, you not only need an act of congress (something i find less likely than an act of god) you need the senate to be able to get through the filibuster and every delaying tactic available.
Getting in Clinton or trump is the difference between staunching the bleeding or playing razor wire hopscotch. fixing the problem is MUCH bigger than one election.
OK, thanks.
But if it's actually trending the wrong way over the past 8 years what's there to make us believe that it will change for the better over the next 8 years?
Not a lot.
We could make it worse, if you'd like.I mean, you have a choice between people who're promising to try to improve things, who might be lying and might fail even if they're telling the truth and people promising to make things worse who are almost certainly not lying (about that at least).
To be fair, they're not actually promising to make it worse, but they're promising policies that will do so.
Bingo!
Which is why I'm voting for Bernie.
Sanders will do what he's always done... He'll caucus with the Democrats as he has before. He'll most likely vote with them as he has on all but one measly bill. His Independent tag is more like his branding strategy than anything else. He still gets membership on committees. His "I" tag won't hurt him in that regard. Remember that despite his age, he's a relatively junior Senator.
Bingo!
Which is why I'm voting for Bernie.
Unless Sanders filled out the paperwork in your state to qualify as a write-in candidate, your vote will be ignored. Not counted. No message sent to anyone.
I personally would never vote for Stein or Johnson or Evan McMullin, but if they're on your state's ballot, voting for them would at least be counted. Whether anyone listens to the message you are sending is another matter entirely, but at least your message would be sent.
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But if it's actually trending the wrong way over the past 8 years what's there to make us believe that it will change for the better over the next 8 years?
It might not. But
1) The chances of it doing so are WAY better with clinton than with trump
2) Trending the wrong way slowly is better strapping rockets to your ski's and sailing down the slipper slope at mach 6.
I understand the frustration with not having a good option but it's not two equal choices. Its mushy oatmeal or powdered plutonium flakes.
If you are in a state with a predetermines outcome by all means make your protest vote. if you are in a contested state please: this vote matters. If you want, find a new yorker to vote for bernie in your place and vote clinton in yours. President bush was bad enough, we don't need the low budget sequel.
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And you haven't seen the politics on Sigma Draconis 4 either.I am ashamed of my country and my species that this is a race at all.This is nothing compared to how bad things are in other areas of the world.
Calling this election something to be ashamed of the whole of humanity and country is peanuts compared to 5 1/2 years of civil war in Syria, 5+ decades of human rights horrors in North Korea, human trafficking the world over, Somali pirates and zealots actively seeking to inflict nuclear destruction on others. And worse.
You'll forgive me for considering such things far more worthy of shaming my species and/or country for than an election.
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You'll forgive me for considering such things far more worthy of shaming my species and/or country for than an election.
I know how few very bad people it takes to make something like that happen. Thats why it makes me despise the individuals, most of whom are themselves in desperate straits, without hating the entire species.
Because they could be better if they had peace. If they had homes, if they had jobs , if they had education. If that had rain and food and...]
And then i see people who HAVE all of these things, still falling the the patently obvious bs . Still willing to go along with it. Still willing to vote for donald trump.
And it crushes my hopes that there's any possibility of genuine improvement. We're stuck like this.
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But if it's actually trending the wrong way over the past 8 years what's there to make us believe that it will change for the better over the next 8 years?
The fact that it HASN'T been trending the wrong way over the last eight years.
A: Your source graph doesn't even SHOW the last four years.
B: It doesn't break down 2009 - 2012 by year.
Ergo... it supplies no data with which to determine the trend over the last eight years. You just ASSUMED the trend was the 'wrong way'.
Year with highest middle class income growth rate ever recorded? 2015
The income inequality situation, like most other economic indicators, was horrible at the start of the Obama administration, but has gotten much better since then. The trend is thus improving... which is why eight more years of such improvements would be a good thing.
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The chart is skewed to push people glancing at it to draw exaggerated or even flat-out wrong conclusions (the durations of the periods are not the same, which is an easy way of tampering with stats). And that is a damn shame because the phenomenon it illustrates is a reality and gathering support to actually deal with it is weakened by this kind of tampering
I wholeheartedly believe that the gathering of more money in less hands is a natural corollary of sustained periods of economical uncertainty. It would be interesting BTW to see what the data were like before WWII, especially at the time of the Great Depression
And conflating that is the fact that in periods of growth when the average person feels that they are not wanting for money, this gap in wealth distribution stings far less and thus matters little
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Donald trump to add ferengi rules of acquisition to Constitution
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Hah hah, that is a funny joke article.
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That article is a joke, right?
I never thought I would see a time where you could apply Poe's law to a presidential candidate.
Income Inequality and the 2015 Blip:
BILL CLINTON’S INEQUALITY WHISPERER EXPLAINS WHAT TRUMP GOT RIGHT
and, further to the left:
Income inequality is a fact of life... I find it bizarre that people always rage about it. And this is coming from someone that will in all probability never be a millionaire!
The deluded utopian notion of equality that the left insist on.... is just that... deluded.
Artificially punishing the successful and rewarding the less successful does nothing but promote inefficiency.
Left leaning economics promote nothing but debt, public sector bloat and corruption and lack of incentive.
Human society is so screwed up because it doesnt obey the fundamental laws of nature.
What I am hugely in favour of is completely revamping the tax system to make sure that everybody pays their taxes. I would close every loophole.
Flat rate of income tax.... bring it on! :)))
Just because income inequality is natural and healthy for an economy and society (without some level of income inequality there's no incentive other than prestige and community-mindedness to contribute which doesn't get the jobs done in a 300 million person economy), but that doesn't mean that it's healthy at the current levels.
There are many nuances to the story, but from my perspective as long as starvation of self and family is on the table when somebody doesn't have a job, the negotiation between most employees and employers will be uneven from the start because the downside of not having a job is (typically) greater than the downside of not filling a job.
And with increased automation we're decreasing the demand for labor, so the price naturally decreases (leading to more profit for the capital/entrepreneur side of the equation and inequality) unless we artificially increase it or decrease supply.
That's where the problem with inequality comes in - when people adding more value (because they're a larger portion of the labor producing the value) get a smaller piece of it because it's easy to replace them. I haven't had this problem with my employer, but it's the natural result of the fiduciary responsibility of CEOs to maximize profit for shareholders.
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Income inequality is a fact of life... I find it bizarre that people always rage about it. And this is coming from someone that will in all probability never be a millionaire!
So is death -- every one of us will eventually die -- but that doesn't mean that we should abandon medicine and the hope of increasing our lifespans. Similarly, disease is probably inevitable, but there's a lot we can do to make sure that we remain as disease-free as possible for as long as possible.
The "flat rate of income tax" is about as stupid an idea as is possible to push, precisely because it doesn't obey the fundamental laws of nature, to wit, that people value things differently depending upon their circumstances. What is a smelly nuisance in a stable is valuable fertilizer out in the fields.
The psychological value of a dollar, and the comparative improvement in cost of living that it will buy, varies dramatically depending on how many dollars you already have and what you're doing with them. As Dickens' Mr. Micawber put it, "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery." Adding another shilling to the tax (or to the expense) of a typical struggling London family would drive them into starvation, while at the same time the Baron Gotrocks, with his annual income of several thousands pounds, could easily pay several hundred additional pounds in tax and never notice it. Similarly, Bill Gates, who is worth about $90 billion (with a B) dollars literally can't spend away his wealth. (He makes roughly a billion dollars per year in interest income alone, which in turn means that if he spent $1 million dollars per day -- buying a house every morning, for example -- he would still be richer at the end of the year than he was at the beginning.)
The average household spends about 18% of its income on housing, and about 10% on food. Poor families spend a lot more, proportionately, because there's a level below which you can't spend less on food; similarly, there's a level below which you can't really spend less on housing, on transportation, and whatnot. This means that poor families have a lot less discretionary income than the plutocrats.
This, in turn, means that the plutocrats both can and should pay a higher percentage of their income subsidizing the people that need it the most (and can afford it the least). If you look at any of the actual "flat tax" proposals that have been suggested, they're generally based on some sort of threshold (i.e. a flat tax on all income above a certain point). But here again, if you dig into the details, this ends up being a highly regressive tax that relieves Baron Gotrocks of the bulk of his tax burden while balancing the budget on the backs of ordinary middle class people.
TL;DR version -- no, don't bring on the flat tax.
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The notion that our system rewards success is a shaky proposition at best; there are umpteen examples of corporate CEOs who captain their companies into dire financial straits or even outright bankruptcy, only to bail--and their "golden parachute" clauses give them hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses. Many of these people (almost entirely white and male) then go to BECOME CEOs FOR ANOTHER COMPANY. This kind of thing also occurs with administrators of universities, though fewer of those have gone under.
Hard to make cases about how reform would eliminate incentives to strive or whatever. If you're high enough up the pyramid, that's already the case.
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Income inequality is a fact of life... I find it bizarre that people always rage about it. And this is coming from someone that will in all probability never be a millionaire!
The existance of inequality isn't the problem its the gap in the difference.
This old saw comes up because unless you strawman the issue to absolute black and white the absurdity of your position becomes clear.
No one is arguing against there being income equality.
We are arguing against the idea that the top 1% gets almost half of the money and..this is the kicker, doesn't have to give any of it back. when the rest of us do.
The deluded utopian notion of equality that the left insist on.... is just that... deluded.
So sweden is a figment of our imaginations?
Artificially punishing the successful and rewarding the less successful does nothing but promote inefficiency.
Regressive taxes aren't arbitrary, artificial, or punishing.
Left leaning economics promote nothing but debt, public sector bloat and corruption and lack of incentive.
As opposed to right leaning economics which gave us the national debt in the first place, public sector bloat, corruption, and incentive to buy the government.
Human society is so screwed up because it doesnt obey the fundamental laws of nature.
For starters, appeal to nature is a recognized logical fallacy (ie, its horsepuckey)
Secondly if we were obeying the laws of nature and I was starving i would simply bash a billionaire over the head with a rock and take their stuff. Our unnatural system helps billionaires the most.
What I am hugely in favour of is completely revamping the tax system to make sure that everybody pays their taxes. I would close every loophole.
Are you going to try to tell me that someone barely scraping by can afford to pay the same % of income as Trump should be paying?
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Flat rate of income tax.... bring it on! :)))
Johnson wants to go even further:
Eliminate the IRSFund the government with a 28% Federal sales tax.
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The deluded utopian notion of equality that the left insist on.... is just that... deluded.So sweden is a figment of our imaginations?
Yes. Yes, Sweden as you believe it to be, I am sad to say, that is just a figment of your imagination.
Income inequality is a fact of life... I find it bizarre that people always rage about it. And this is coming from someone that will in all probability never be a millionaire!
The problem is not, never has been, about inequality itself. It's the LEVELS of inequality that we haven't seen since before the end of the Gilded Age, and the creation of the modern middle class.
The problem with too much inequality is that it essentially brings about the inverted pyramid that destroys the functioning of the economic structure. When the HaveNots don't have money to spend even to meet basic survival needs, the whole demand-based structure of the capitalist economy comes crashing down.
If trends continue, we will revert back to the "normality" of the Gilded Age, and the term middle class will become a myth.
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The problem is not, never has been, about inequality itself. It's the LEVELS of inequality that we haven't seen since before the end of the Gilded Age, and the creation of the modern middle class.Income inequality is a fact of life... I find it bizarre that people always rage about it. And this is coming from someone that will in all probability never be a millionaire!
And as in most things, there's probably a desirable Goldilocks zone. (This chair is too hard, this chair is too soft, but this one is just right....) If your body temperature is too high, you will die of heat stroke, but if your body temperature is too low, you will die of hypothermia. If you have too much potassium in your blood (hyperkalemia), bad things happen -- but hypokalemia isn't good for you, either. Too much inflation will destroy the economy, but so will too little.
... and similarly, too little inequality is a problem, but so is too much inequality. But when someone is rolled into the emergency room with the classic symptoms of heat stroke, I'm not going to waste a lot of time worrying about them freezing to death. Similarly, I'm not actually worried about too little income inequality in the modern United States.
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The problem is not, never has been, about inequality itself. It's the LEVELS of inequality that we haven't seen since before the end of the Gilded Age, and the creation of the modern middle class.Income inequality is a fact of life... I find it bizarre that people always rage about it. And this is coming from someone that will in all probability never be a millionaire!
And as in most things, there's probably a desirable Goldilocks zone. (This chair is too hard, this chair is too soft, but this one is just right....) If your body temperature is too high, you will die of heat stroke, but if your body temperature is too low, you will die of hypothermia. If you have too much potassium in your blood (hyperkalemia), bad things happen -- but hypokalemia isn't good for you, either. Too much inflation will destroy the economy, but so will too little.
... and similarly, too little inequality is a problem, but so is too much inequality. But when someone is rolled into the emergency room with the classic symptoms of heat stroke, I'm not going to waste a lot of time worrying about them freezing to death. Similarly, I'm not actually worried about too little income inequality in the modern United States.
If you want the correct example you only have to look at the united states. In the 60s and early 70s. There was no shortage of wealthy people in that time. The difference is, the burdon of the funding of the nation was far more heavily skewed towards those that were benefiting the most of it. Since about 1920 the US has collected roughly the same percentage of its GDP in taxes. The difference is, since the 1980s, where that money has been coming from is from the lower and middle classes more and more.
The reason this is a problem is because we are a consumer economy. The economy grows when people spend. By definition, people who are wealth, and corporations that make heavy profits SAVE their money. They wouldn't be wealthy if they spent it all. Normal people spend their money, and save less. By shifting the burdeon of tax to the middle and lower class, you effectively reduce spending which is what fuels our economy. The greater the income inequality, though, the less overall spending there is. Because as mentioned, wealthy people by definition, spend less of the money they earn then average people.
50 years ago, this sort of wasn't an issue. If a wealthy person wanted to make money, usually they either had to invest in a business, or loan money to someone for either a business or to purchase something. With the cluster that the financial market has become, that's no longer actually the case. You can make money without ever giving any of it to someone who is trying to make something, do something, or buy something.
So short of literally setting fire to the financial system (which in and of itself would be really volatile and probably as catastrophic as America trying to 'renegotiate' its debt), your choices are limited. Do nothing, and what the wheel spin down, or actively fight income inequality with tax policy, that deliberately takes from those who have benefited most from society, to pay for all the things that keep it moving.
Johnson wants to go even further:
Eliminate the IRS
Fund the government with a 28% Federal sales tax.
I was dating an accountant briefly and brought the subject up.... I kid you not she went beserk!
Not surprising... flat rate = no need for accountants!! :))
It really is the logical choice.... we all benefit from public services, why should there be a disparit level of contribution?
Logically if I contribute a higher % of my income then I should be entitled to a priority level of service? If I dial 999, then the police should get to me first......?!
Equality...... fix it at 22.5% for all.
The problem IMO has always been tax avoidance, either by the rich or by people doing cash in hand work.... close EVERY SINGLE TAX LOOPHOLE....problem solved
If anyone wants to understand the simple reality behind lefty economics and politics, the greatest piece of work to this day is 'Animal Farm'...... pure unadulterated genius
You see it with lefty political parties all the time... they hook you in with jabbering on about equality and workers rights and wealth distribution... BLAHBLAHBLAH.....
It always ends up the same way though..... the vast majority of the population in the gutter and the politicians with everything...
Left corruption >>> right corruption
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It always ends up the same way though..... the vast majority of the population in the gutter and the politicians with everything...
Yes. Always. Because no left leaning country is doing better than we are. Except for Denmark and. Switzerland and Australiaand New Zealand and Germany and Austria and Netherlands and Spain and Finland....
There are serious problems with the argument you're making and you can't just handwave the objections being made to them with -well animal farm...-
Then again you CAN"T answer the objections.
You do realize you could close loopholes without going to a flat tax, right?
The flat tax is a fiscal lens of true seeing. That's gonna be Trump's next promise: "Bring out a flat tax and I'll show you my returns!"
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I was dating an accountant briefly and brought the subject up.... I kid you not she went beserk!
Not surprising... flat rate = no need for accountants!! :))
No. Fewer tax accountants certainly, but still plenty of accountants. Countries with a flat tax (e.g. Russia) still have accountants.
It really is the logical choice.... we all benefit from public services, why should there be a disparit level of contribution?
Because we receive disparate levels of benefit?
Who benefits more from police preventing thieves from stealing everything... someone with no money or a billionaire? Seems obvious that the billionaire benefits more. Ditto for military forces preventing other countries coming in and taking over.
Equality...... fix it at 22.5% for all.
The problem IMO has always been tax avoidance, either by the rich or by people doing cash in hand work.... close EVERY SINGLE TAX LOOPHOLE....problem solved
How do you arrive at 22.5%? Currently the median rate in the US is 15%, but income taxes only cover about 35% of government spending... so if we had ONLY a flat income tax it'd have to be in the neighborhood of 45%.
Now consider all the people living paycheck to paycheck... suddenly instead of ~20% of their pay going to taxes it has jumped to 45%. That's a huge swath of the population falling in to poverty levels.
Meanwhile, the wealthy then just make sure that they don't receive 'income'. If their company instead provides 'benefits' (e.g. free housing, all meals catered on the company dime, massive life insurance policies which are not considered income, stocks and options that are not income, etc) then they can maintain an extremely comfortable lifestyle without paying much tax at all. If you consider those various options 'loopholes' then you've got to come up with HOW you would go about closing them... are we going to have a massively inflated IRS which constantly monitors these benefits and assigns an 'effective income' value to them for each individual?
Johnson wants to go even further:
Eliminate the IRS
Fund the government with a 28% Federal sales tax.I was dating an accountant briefly and brought the subject up.... I kid you not she went beserk!
Not surprising... flat rate = no need for accountants!! :))
It really is the logical choice.... we all benefit from public services, why should there be a disparit level of contribution?
Logically if I contribute a higher % of my income then I should be entitled to a priority level of service? If I dial 999, then the police should get to me first......?!
Equality...... fix it at 22.5% for all.
The problem IMO has always been tax avoidance, either by the rich or by people doing cash in hand work.... close EVERY SINGLE TAX LOOPHOLE....problem solved
Yeah, the problem with a federal sales tax is that it isn't a flat across the board tax, it is actually VERY regressive. The poor and most of the middle class tend to spend 100% of their incomes. So they will bear the brunt of the tax burden. Whereas the rich are able to save, invest, or otherwise do things with their money that do not incur sales taxation.
Someone receiving a service or a good from a company or a public institution gets to pay tax on getting it. Simple. That is what we did in Sweden. The Social Democrats absolutely out and out HATED IT.
How do you arrive at 22.5%? Currently the median rate in the US is 15%,
And thats just for the income tax that they call the income tax. Its not including social security and medicaid taxes that are also regressive income taxes
Someone receiving a service or a good from a company or a public institution gets to pay tax on getting it. Simple. That is what we did in Sweden. The Social Democrats absolutely out and out HATED IT.
How is that different than an income tax?
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Yeah, the problem with a federal sales tax is that it isn't a flat across the board tax, it is actually VERY regressive. The poor and most of the middle class tend to spend 100% of their incomes. So they will bear the brunt of the tax burden. Whereas the rich are able to save, invest, or otherwise do things with their money that do not incur sales taxation.
Agree. That said, there IS a way to make sales tax work pretty well.
If you calculated an 'annual cost of living' and exempted all purchases up to that amount then, depending on how generous the 'cost of living' value was, you could allow most people to only pay sales tax on 'luxuries' above and beyond what they need to survive. Of course, then there would be an ongoing battle over the cost of living value with progressives wanting to include child care, college expenses, health care, et cetera and conservatives wanting to cut it back to only cover bread and water.
Yeah, the problem with a federal sales tax is that it isn't a flat across the board tax, it is actually VERY regressive. The poor and most of the middle class tend to spend 100% of their incomes. So they will bear the brunt of the tax burden. Whereas the rich are able to save, invest, or otherwise do things with their money that do not incur sales taxation.Agree. That said, there IS a way to make sales tax work pretty well.
If you calculated an 'annual cost of living' and exempted all purchases up to that amount then, depending on how generous the 'cost of living' value was, you could allow most people to only pay sales tax on 'luxuries' above and beyond what they need to survive. Of course, then there would be an ongoing battle over the cost of living value with progressives wanting to include child care, college expenses, health care, et cetera and conservatives wanting to cut it back to only cover bread and water.
Also, that basically means that the government tracks all of my purchases which I am not comfortable with.