heybruce

Either you are badly misinformed or lying. The debt ceiling has been raised or suspended 25 times in the 21st century, including two raises and two suspensions during the Trump years. Your source shows that.

"Since 1960, Congress has acted 78 separate times to permanently raise, temporarily extend, or revise the definition of the debt limit – 49 times under Republican presidents and 29 times under Democratic presidents. Congressional leaders in both parties have recognized that this is necessary." https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-markets-financial-institutions-and-fiscal-service/debt-limit The debt ceiling was raised two times and suspended two times under Trump. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_debt_ceiling Only the Republicans, in 1995, 2011, and now, have used the routing raising of the debt ceiling to score political points without. Of course they never do it under Republican Presidents, who have run up deficits faster that Democratic Presidents for the last 50 years. https://www.thebalancemoney.com/us-debt-by-president-by-dollar-and-percent-3306296

Hundreds of classified documents were being held by Trump, and he resisted returning them to the point that they had to be recovered using a search warrant. You and other Trump supporters consistently ignore this important fact.

The number found in the Biden house and office is a small fraction of the number found in Mar-a-Lago. Plus the Biden team is responding in accordance with the law upon discovery, while the Trump team broke the law.

Do you ever follow real news? Do you think the news services of the US, UK, France, Germany, and every other democracy with a free press never criticize the nation's President or PM? Regarding your links, all they say is that there are differing claims on how he died.

That is the sort of post that is begging for a link to a credible source. Do you have one?

Just wondering how you can consider comparing Western media, which loves to investigate and report government malfeasance and incompetence, to Russia media. I suspect your posts using approved sources that were deleted were done so for being off-topic deflections. You do that a lot, as you are doing now. This topic is about someone who signed up for four months with Wagner, served his time, was horrified by what he saw, and, after being told his service commitment was being extended unilaterally, fled Russia. If you have credible evidence the story is false, feel free to post it. If all you've got is "I don't trust media" then don't post.

As has been explained repeatedly and in detail, the two scenarios are far from identical. The Biden team followed the law, the Trump team broke the law. Clear?

I know Russia Today is dodgy because the government puts strict limits on what they can and can't report. For example, they can't call the the war in Ukraine a war. I never trust a news source that is under the thumb of its government.

Do you mean the links to Russia Today and other dodgy, unapproved sources?

I posted that he did not desert because he had a four month contract which he fulfilled. You replied that I shouldn't believe everything I read. Your reply becomes meaningless unless one assumes you didn't want to believe the source you had originally relied upon to disparage Andrey Medvedev for "deserting".

The top 1% own sixteen times as much wealth as the bottom 50%. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/23/how-much-wealth-top-1percent-of-americans-have.html Are they paying sixteen times as much tax? Please don't limit the reply to income tax, but total tax.

You have gone to a new extreme in editing a post into one out-of-context sentence. After I closed with: "Once again you edited my post to one out of context sentence and replied to that, and you failed to specifically identify how you think the government should reduce spending. Both signs that your arguments are weak." you edited the entire post to the last seven words, followed by your usual "blah, blah, blah". You did not respond in any way to anything in my post, you offered a Tucker Carlson style opinionated rant. I won't bother to reply to blah blah. If you actually address my full post, or at least some of the facts, I will reply. If you ever do such a blatant out of context edit again to one of my posts I will report you.

Since the far right can't respond to your post without stating that the Founding Fathers got it wrong, they will probably ignore it.

Elected officials like to tell voters how they controlled spending while buying exciting big-ticket items like aircraft carriers, new generations of aircraft, etc. The easiest way to do that is to cut the budget for the boring essentials; munitions, maintenance, training, etc. Unfortunately I don't see that changing until voters get smarter.

Once again, you edit my lengthy post to one sentence and give a wildly out of context reply. Regarding the one sentence; I was pointing out the absurdity of of your claim that taxes on business are passed on to consumers then discussing how businesses paid the taxes, with the contradictory statements being in the same paragraph. My example of inheritance tax discussed investments which avoid capitol gains and any other taxes when passed on in an inheritance. I can see why you chose to edit that out, your argument against it has no logic against the facts I presented. BTW: You also didn't explain why unearned wealth should not be taxed. You dismiss the time when the US had much higher tax rates, a growing economy and much better fiscal balance with unsupported claims about deductions and the implication that the wealthy didn't really pay as high a tax rate as present. Prove that with some sourced facts. If the richest 1% are paying more in taxes than the the bottom 90% in spite of the low 21% tax rate your post shows they pay, it just shows how gross the income inequality is in the US. Your weak argument in favor of mortgage rate interest deduction ignores the fact that the deduction was initially intended to promote home ownership for all Americans, not to subsidize multiple homes/mansions for the rich. Tax deduction are often initially given to promote beneficial behavior (or are promoted as such) but there is rarely if ever follow-up to determine if the resulting outcome is genuinely beneficial. Also, once the foot is in the door with a type of deduction the individuals and businesses that are already wealthy enough to pay lobbyists go to work to expand the deductions in ways that only benefit the wealthy. America needs infrastructure to remain competitive. It needs defense to stay safe. It needs a social safety net because the citizens demand it. America needs many things that cost money, and people buying absurd yachts and companies paying for stock buybacks instead of investing in the business need to pay more for these things that benefit all Americans. In closing: Once again you edited my post to one out of context sentence and replied to that, and you failed to specifically identify how you think the government should reduce spending. Both signs that your arguments are weak.

If you look at the history of US budget deficits over the last 50 years it's clear that the Republican administrations have done most of the damage. Chart 1: Federal Deficit by Presidential Administration[14] [$ in Billions] A. President (Inauguration Date) B. Deficit or Surplus Inherited from Previous President C. Deficit or Surplus at the End of Final Budget D. Total Increase or Decrease in Deficit from First Budget to Final Budget E. Percent Increase or Decrease in Deficit from First Budget to Final Budget F. Fiscal Years of the President’s Budgets (10/1/xx- 9/30/xx) 1 Ronald Reagan (1/20/1981) -$79 (as of 9/30/1981) -$153 (as of 9/30/1989) $74 94% FY 1982-1989 2 George H.W. Bush (1/20/1989) -$153 (as of 9/30/1989) -$255 (as of 9/30/1993) $102 67% FY 1990-1993 3 Bill Clinton (1/20/1993) -$255 (as of 9/30/1993) $128 (as of 9/30/2001) $383 150% FY 1994-2001 4 George W. Bush (1/20/2001) $128 (as of 9/30/2001) -$1,413 (as of 9/30/2009) $1,541 1,204% FY 2002-2009 5 Barack Obama (1/20/2009) -$1,413 (as of 9/30/2009) -$665 (as of 9/30/2017) $748 53% FY 2010-2017 6 Donald Trump (1/20/2017) -$665 (as of 9/30/2017) -$2,772 (as of 9/30/2021) $2,107 317% FY 2018-2021 https://amarkfoundation.org/us-federal-deficits/

What historic negotiations? Kim Jong Un did the usual North Korea noise making for attention that he does after every new President is elected and Trump fell in love with him and gave him legitimacy that Kim had long craved but been denied under other Presidents. Then things returned to normal. Other than threatening to reduce support for NATO, Japan, South Korea and other allies (a gift to Putin and Xi) I can't think of any other "negotiations" Trump engaged in.

More Chinese tourists? What could go wrong? "Nearly a quarter of travelers flying from China to Italy in late December were COVID-positive, according to a new study—one that offers a glimpse at transmission occurring from the eastern superpower to the rest of the world." https://news.yahoo.com/nearly-quarter-travelers-flying-china-220507924.html

Endemic corruption is never easy to eliminate; reducing corruption in other countries takes decades of uninterrupted democratic rule. It's also a never ending battle, corruption is never completely eliminated and there are always greedy officials eager to bring it back. I am not aware of any military government or other autocracy that ever attempted to eliminate reduction, at best they might attack corruption that doesn't benefit the existing power structure. If Thailand is to get corruption under control it needs uninterrupted democratic rule that is not threatened by another military coup, not this facade of democracy it currently has. And it needs for people to be patient and not expect quick fixes. I well remember the people who cheered Prayut's coup because a few years of democratic rule hadn't eliminated corruption. They actually thought Prayut would make things better!

Weren't the lies Boris Johnson and others put out regarding the tremendous savings for the UK a bigger factor in fooling people to vote Leave?

Not difficult, but it won't faze him. He has a history of disavowing the credibility of news sources when he loses an argument, even the news sources he used in his argument.

You edited out the sourced facts of my post, probably because they were accurate and you couldn't refute them. Instead you replied to the final sentence with irrelevant nonsense, some of it quite amusing. For example, your paragraph that opens with: "First, companies don't pay tax.... It also robs the incentive for someone to go into business since they know the government will rob them of the fruits of their labor..." If the companies aren't paying taxes, how do taxes rob them of the fruits of their labor? Also, if companies pass on taxes to their customers, isn't that the fairest kind of tax? Consumers get to choose how much tax they pay by their consumption choices. There are ridiculous loopholes. For example, if a person invests a thousand and it grows to a million, that person will pay capitol gains tax if he cashes out the investment. However if he dies and leaves it to his heirs, they can cash in the investment tax free. In fact they can inherit quite a lot more; inheritance tax only kicks in at $12.6 million. Why should the people who don't invest or earn the money get it tax free? Allowing people to deduct interest on a first home is arguably justified in promoting home ownership (although the argument is far from ironclad), but what is the point of allowing interest deductions on second homes, or extravagant mansions? And what about the Trump trick of constantly changing the declared value of property to get the best loan or minimum tax? Doesn't that show that the really wealthy don't worry about income tax because their wealth is in property and other investments, and they can play games with declared wealth to dodge taxes? BTW: I don't think too many people are overly concerned about the top 1% paying a 21% tax rate. During the 1950's and early 1960's they were paying a top tax rate of 90% or more. https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-highest-marginal-income-tax-rates Granted, the yachts were much smaller back then, and private jets were unheard of. Yet somehow the rich muddled through. Funny thing; while the economy had its ups and downs, overall it did quite well in those days of high tax rates. https://www.thebalancemoney.com/u-s-gdp-growth-3306008 https://www.thebalancemoney.com/us-deficit-by-year-3306306 And the budget deficit was quite low. https://www.thebalancemoney.com/us-deficit-by-year-3306306 History shows that to reduce the deficit and improve the economy we need to tax the wealthy more. Before you delete the sourced facts on this post and reply to out of context sentences, why don't you first tell us where you want federal spending cut? You can see how the money is spent here: https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/united_states_federal_spending_pie_chart

I see; you believed the part about Osechkin deserting after four months, but not the part about him having only a four month contract. If you didn't trust the news source, why did you use the parts of the article that you thought could make him look bad?

When the UK withdrew from the EU it withdrew from the EU's existing trade deals. That meant starting over from scratch, with all the politics and lobbying in both countries that trade deal negotiations always entail. Did you think a UK trade deal would somehow avoid that? Did the you think the US would put all ongoing trade negotiations on hold to work exclusively with the UK? President Obama was explaining the reality of the situation. Trump, on the other hand, had a history of screwing everyone, including EU and NATO allies, with tariffs. These tariffs contributed to inflation in the US post-covid, including inflation in anything using Canadian lumber. That means we can thank Trump for part of the high house building costs, among other things. https://money.cnn.com/2017/04/24/investing/canada-lumber-tariff-trump/index.html https://globalnews.ca/news/4293847/tariffs-lumber-pricing-americans-out-of-housing-market-trump/