Trump budget plan slashes food stamps, healthcare for poor

[selftaopath]

12 hours ago, impulse said:

 

You're thinking in the short term, and it looks pretty bleak.  But whether HRC was going to allow her sponsors to bleed the country dry over 8 years, or Trump runs the car into a wall tomorrow, in 2024 we'd be in exactly the same spot.  Broke and enslaved to the 1% who will own 90% of the nation's wealth instead of just 50% like they do today.

 

Who knows, things may get bad enough that some folks will read the Declaration of Independence and take it to heart again...  Good stuff there.  And as relevant today as it was 240 years ago. 

 

With HRC, we'd just be boiled frogs by 2024.

 

How many Republicans - I know Trump hasn't - read The U.S. Constitution? Trump wants to be the 1st U.S. dictator. He wants to gain as much wealth as possible from being in a lofty position he does not deserve. His embrace of Putin and the Russians - openly also - spits in the face of real American patriots. 

 

I'm a vet and would hate to have gone to war under this despicable individual.

 

Oh wait Trump is a draft dodger. 

[habanero]

22 minutes ago, WaywardWind said:

It appears that you are wrong again.

Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA)

FICA stands for “Federal Insurance Contributions Act”. FICA taxes are payroll taxes originally part of the Social Security program but made part of the Internal Revenue Code in 1939. This is the tax that pays for Social Security Disability, Social Security retirement and Medicare benefits. Therefore, to be eligible for Social Security Disability benefits you are required to have contributed to the Social Security fund and paid a minimum amount of FICA taxes, which varies by age.

Both employees and employers pay FICA funding Social Security Disability and retirement benefits through payroll deductions on income up to $118,500 per year. (bold added)

http://www.disability-benefits-help.org/glossary/federal-insurance-contributions-act-fica

 

 

 

Maybe I was paying them all along.  I must "stand corrected".  My book keeper always told me that these were separate entities. My apologies to you and Ilostmypassword.

[selftaopath]

12 hours ago, impulse said:

 

Interesting that the top tax rate during America's Golden Years ( WWII thru 1963) was 91% and the country thrived.

 

http://federal-tax-rates.insidegov.com/

 

Then Kennedy got assassinated and it went down to 70% (Hmmmmm?)  through 1980 and yet we still had middle class wage growth in real terms.  

 

Then came Reagan's trickle down economics and a lower top tax rate and real (real = inflation adjusted) wage growth has been negative ever since.

 

Capital gains tax rates followed the same general trend, being highest when the country was thriving...  I wonder what that's telling us.

 

For a good wingnut lecture, get a hold of Richard Wolff's "Capitalism Hits the Fan" on audio or video from YouTube. He's a little animated for my taste, but he explains it perfectly...

 

Edit:  Remember, it was FDR, from one of the wealthiest families in the US, who raised the top tax rate from 25% eventually to 90+% to make the rich pay for the damage they had done leading to the Great Depression, then to pay for WWII.  And that was a compromise after he called all his rich buddies in for a scolding and told them he'd go to 100% if they tried to fight him on the increase.  He knew it was the rich that brought on the depression, and he made them pay for the damages.  I was hoping Trump would step up and make the guilty pay for the damages from 2008.

 

LOL. Seriously? Trump and his pals - pay taxes? Hell I think he avoided paying his workers too. Oh but then he went bankrupt - how many times? Good business man? lol lol lol oh boyyyyyy... 

[impulse]

1 hour ago, selftaopath said:

LOL. Seriously? Trump and his pals - pay taxes? Hell I think he avoided paying his workers too. Oh but then he went bankrupt - how many times? Good business man? lol lol lol oh boyyyyyy... 

 

I was pointing out that there was once a rich guy elected president (FDR) who put the country before his personal and family fortunes.  (Edit: And ahead of his rich cronies, too)   And Americans kept electing him, again and again- until he died in office- of natural causes.

 

Perhaps there's a lesson there for Repubs and Dems...  It seems that the only lesson they did take was to impose term limits on Presidents (but not on their own positions in Congress- go figure)

 

Edited May 24, 2017 by impulse

[maewang99]

be ****happy**** to see this.... esp. as it's not just spin. TG.

without this side of it....

 

while Trump does stuff like yesterday making a scene that he didn't say 'Isreal' even once..... in front of a room of live media.. not just video but folks with battery charged smartphones.... and thinks.... what?????
 

but he wasn't in his pajamas! he was wearing a suit and tie!!!!
 

.... without this side of it.... and the US military....  the *****dollah***** is just a story... a narrative.... 


but one firmly connected to the same narrative that says a rich American businessman ****must**** be a 'smart cookie'.... 

hello?


 

 

Edited May 24, 2017 by maewang99

[geriatrickid]

23 hours ago, darksidedog said:

Throw crazy money at the military, spend billions on an unwanted wall and pay for it by taking food from the mouths of the hungry? Is this what Making America great again, is all about?

Billions will not be spent on a "wall". The expression "throwing crazy money" isn't appropriate for a proposed budget that would increase the Obama administration's defense budget by 3%.

You assume the money is coming from the "mouths of hungry", but you don't know, do you?  Funding will be cut to programs rife with abuse,  with fraud and double dippers. A large number of people collecting benefits should not.  Exaggerated accusations do not support your position.

 

23 hours ago, funandsuninbangkok said:

Last trip home I learned my sister got food stamps. She has a well paid job, owned a home and has a tenant paying rent for her back yard cottage. 

Obama got everyone on the dole. Time to toss out the leaches(love you sis)

Obama did not "get everyone on the dole". Your sister is allegedly misusing the benefits system. Instead of blaming Obama, why not ask her why she is taking money away from those  who need it most? Did you ask her? If she is engaged in fraud, did you report her? If not, why do you refuse to take responsibility?

 

 

22 hours ago, KarenBravo said:

Cut farm subsidies?

I actually think that's a good idea, but, I doubt whether many of the farmers in "fly-over country" that voted for Trump will agree.

Farm subsidies will not be cut. Farm lobby controls more  seats than the inner city poor. They have bigger problems now as Trump seeks to end NAFTA. The US farmers have been running massive trade surpluses with Canada and Mexico at the  expense of   Canadian and Mexican farmers.  They are about to suffer the consequences of a nice trade war when they are told to sell their products elsewhere, but no one wants them.

[maewang99]

more good news from the Trump White House.... this morning...

 

as if they didn't get enough 'show boating' stuff out yet.... for one day....

the WP says the WH may sell off government assets to raise money....

such as airports.  gee whiz. can you imagine that?

aviation might become less subsidized instead of more for a change? now that's a shocker.

money. money. money.

to pay for tax cuts for........ folks who have their OWN airports.. or more apropro..... folks who don't think ANYTHING is expensive... everything is cheap.... they just don't 'like' paying taxes...... 
 

go Trump go!







    

Edited May 24, 2017 by maewang99

[WaywardWind]

3 hours ago, geriatrickid said:

Billions will not be spent on a "wall". The expression "throwing crazy money" isn't appropriate for a proposed budget that would increase the Obama administration's defense budget by 3%.

You assume the money is coming from the "mouths of hungry", but you don't know, do you?  Funding will be cut to programs rife with abuse,  with fraud and double dippers. A large number of people collecting benefits should not.  Exaggerated accusations do not support your position.

 

Obama did not "get everyone on the dole". Your sister is allegedly misusing the benefits system. Instead of blaming Obama, why not ask her why she is taking money away from those  who need it most? Did you ask her? If she is engaged in fraud, did you report her? If not, why do you refuse to take responsibility?

 

 

Farm subsidies will not be cut. Farm lobby controls more  seats than the inner city poor. They have bigger problems now as Trump seeks to end NAFTA. The US farmers have been running massive trade surpluses with Canada and Mexico at the  expense of   Canadian and Mexican farmers.  They are about to suffer the consequences of a nice trade war when they are told to sell their products elsewhere, but no one wants them.

Here is a chart showing the impact of the Trump budget:

 

 

As you can see, Defense is slated to increase by 10%, not 3%, and nearly every other department and agency will face substantial cuts, some far worse than others. The budget also includes over 3 billion dollars for the wall.

 

 

[thehelmsman]

20 hours ago, KarenBravo said:

What if there are no jobs. What if you have a low paying job and bills like mortgages, fuel costs etc. take up all the money?

This is where getting rid of illegals comes into play. Used to be they stayed off the radar by taking seasonal farm jobs, now they're everywhere, in every industry driving wages down.

[thehelmsman]

6 hours ago, selftaopath said:

When will working Americans realize Republicans and Trump are not interested in them? Democrats are the only ones who support helping those less fortunate than Republicans rich class.

The Dems are not interested in helping the working class, they only want to grow their voting base. How?? By getting as many people to rely on Gov handouts, help the illegals and so forth.

[impulse]

45 minutes ago, thehelmsman said:

The Dems are not interested in helping the working class, they only want to grow their voting base. How?? By getting as many people to rely on Gov handouts, help the illegals and so forth.

 

Dems buy votes pretty directly with giveaways to the poor, with the effect of propping up corporations that serve up the welfare goodies (often at gobsmacking prices).

 

Repubs buy them a little more indirectly with giveaways to the rich and to corporations who then fund their campaigns.

 

There isn't a foot between them on a 10 foot long political spectrum.

 

Left out of the gravy train are the middle class who create most of the jobs, do most of the work, and whose taxes fund most of the programs.

[mtls2005]

President Trump's Budget Includes a $2 Trillion Math Mistake

President Trump's budget includes simple accounting error that adds up to a $2 trillion oversight.

Under the proposed budget released Tuesday, the Trump Administration's proposed tax cuts would boost economic growth enough to pay for $1.3 trillion in spending by 2027. But the tax cuts are also supposed to be revenue-neutral, meaning that trillion dollars is already supposed to pay for the money lost from the tax cuts.

Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers called the oversight an "elementary double count" and "a logical error of the kind that would justify failing a student in an introductory economics course" in an op-ed in the Washington Post.

 

 

http://time.com/4791113/trump-budget-math-mistake/

 

 

 

Larry Summers: Trump’s budget is simply ludicrous

 

Details of President Trump’s first budget have now been released. Much can and will be said about the dire social consequences of what is in it and the ludicrously optimistic economic assumptions it embodies.  My observation is that there appears to be a logical error of the kind that would justify failing a student in an introductory economics course.

 

Apparently, the budget forecasts that U.S. economic growth will rise to 3.0 percent because of the administration’s policies — largely its tax cuts and perhaps also its regulatory policies.  Fair enough if you believe in tooth fairies and ludicrous supply-side economics.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/05/23/larry-summers-trumps-budget-is-simply-ludicrous/?utm_term=.1bf9138107ad

[ilostmypassword]

1 hour ago, impulse said:

 

Dems buy votes pretty directly with giveaways to the poor, with the effect of propping up corporations that serve up the welfare goodies (often at gobsmacking prices).

 

Repubs buy them a little more indirectly with giveaways to the rich and to corporations who then fund their campaigns.

 

There isn't a foot between them on a 10 foot long political spectrum.

 

Left out of the gravy train are the middle class who create most of the jobs, do most of the work, and whose taxes fund most of the programs.

It's not so much that the middle class is left out of the gravy train as that the wealthiest Americans are gobbling up a greater percentage of the wealth. If the minimum wage was linked to productivity instead of to inflation, it would be at about $21 per hour. Instead the rich have taken virtually all of the productivity gains since the 1990's.

Edited May 24, 2017 by ilostmypassword

[impulse]

3 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

It's not so much that the middle class is left out of the gravy train as that the wealthiest Americans are gobbling up a greater percentage of the wealth. If the minimum wage was linked to productivity instead of to inflation, it would be at about $21 per hour. Instead the rich have taken virtually all of the productivity gains since the 1990's.

 

That's true to a large degree, but keep in mind that a lot of that productivity gain is the result to $$ trillions of investment in IT, CNC, robotics- and not because of smarter or better workers.

 

The problem I have with that is that even the shareholders whose investment enabled the tech upgrades are left out.  The upper management rolls most of those gains into their bonuses, and leaves the shareholders with piddly returns during the good years. and huge haircuts in years like 2000, 2008, etc.  

 

Unless, of course, the investors hold those rare classes of stock that we're not allowed to buy on the markets that are open to us...  They do okay.  Then they pay diddly squat (if anything) in taxes on those gains.

 

[ilostmypassword]

1 minute ago, impulse said:

 

That's true to a large degree, but keep in mind that a lot of that productivity gain is the result to $$ trillions of investment in IT, CNC, robotics- and not because of smarter or better workers.

 

The problem I have with that is that even the shareholders whose investment enabled the tech upgrades are left out.  The upper management rolls most of those gains into their bonuses, and leaves the shareholders with piddly returns during the good years. and huge haircuts in years like 2000, 2008, etc.  

 

Unless, of course, the investors hold those rare classes of stock that we're not allowed to buy on the markets that are open to us...  They do okay.  Then they pay diddly squat (if anything) in taxes on those gains.

 

The thing about robotics and such is that it requires a more highly skilled workforce to work with advanced technology. And why should all the benefits of more advanced technology go to management?

 

Also, starting with Reagan, taxes were slashed on the highest earnings level.  It used to be at the old marginal tax rates there wasn't so much incentive to take higher pay since the government would keep most of it. But once Reagan lowered taxes and loopholes blossomed, there was much more incentive for the managerial class to keep it all for themselves.

 

And there's another factor: the decline of unions. Here's a link to how truckers' pay declined as the the percentage represented by unions declined: https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/trucking-and-blue-collar-woes/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs&region=Body

You think Trump is going to start pushing for reunionization? No one seems to have noticed that those great jobs Trump claimed he saved were all union jobs.

[impulse]

28 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

The thing about robotics and such is that it requires a more highly skilled workforce to work with advanced technology. And why should all the benefits of more advanced technology go to management?

 

Yes, it does.  But you don't need as many of them.  So instead of having 4 machinists at a decent salary, you have 1 machinist at a higher salary, 1 guy to sweep the floor for peanuts and 2 people walking down the road kicking rocks.

 

And management gets a bonus for reducing headcount and average pay.  Profits rolled over to the shareholders just had to be a little higher than bank rates, which today means a little higher than ZERO.   The rest goes into bonuses- mostly for the upper management.   No, it's not fair.

 

And I absolutely agree with you about the tax rates.  The country was at its strongest when the top rate was 91% and middle class real wages were on an increase so people could actually buy the stuff the factories were putting out, also confident that they'd be making more money next year.

[Thakkar]

[Redline]

On 5/23/2017 at 8:54 AM, Ahab said:

Simple answer, yes. If you believe that everyone on food assistance in the USA is hungry then you are someone that knows nothing about the massive fraud that occurs throughout this system.

Please elaborate, as you must be an expert...and maybe they should step up enforcement instead?.

[Redline]

On 5/23/2017 at 9:25 AM, funandsuninbangkok said:

Last trip home I learned my sister got food stamps. She has a well paid job, owned a home and has a tenant paying rent for her back yard cottage. 

 

Obama got everyone on the dole. Time to toss out the leaches(love you sis)

Report her.  Start at home

[Redline]

On 5/23/2017 at 9:55 AM, YetAnother said:

the anti-trumpsters , whose numbers seem to be swelling, will be all over this

And, the Trumpsters that aren't billionaires will be crying in their powdered milk

[jerojero]

Way to go Trumpy! F.the poor! You're such a fine specimen of decent human being. Such a caring individual. You will be sainted (in hell).

[Ahab]

8 hours ago, Redline said:

Please elaborate, as you must be an expert...and maybe they should step up enforcement instead?.

Enforcement should be stepped up and the fraud if widespread and well known. People work for cash, don't report the income and apply for assistance, or druggies sell the food stamps (it is actually a debt card now) for cash to buy drugs (typically 25-50% of the value). The sad thing about the fraud is that  the people who really need the assistance will find it harder to get.

[Ahab]

16 hours ago, ilostmypassword said:

It's not so much that the middle class is left out of the gravy train as that the wealthiest Americans are gobbling up a greater percentage of the wealth. If the minimum wage was linked to productivity instead of to inflation, it would be at about $21 per hour. Instead the rich have taken virtually all of the productivity gains since the 1990's.

People seem to think that somehow if Bill Gates was a billion dollars less wealthy that miraculously everyone else that is not rich would become one billion dollars more wealthy? Makes no sense to me, but leftism makes no sense to me either.

[YetAnother]

when living in the usa, i saw food stamps used to buy cigarettes and beer; and it IS true that the practice exists of multiplying babies to get more benefits

[mtls2005]

5 minutes ago, YetAnother said:

when living in the usa, i saw food stamps used to buy cigarettes and beer; and it IS true that the practice exists of multiplying babies to get more benefits

 

https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligible-food-items

 

No comment on baby multiplication.

[Scott]

28 minutes ago, YetAnother said:

when living in the usa, i saw food stamps used to buy cigarettes and beer; and it IS true that the practice exists of multiplying babies to get more benefits

I doubt that very much.   The penalties are steep and they are steep for the store, which will lose its license to sell alcohol and cigarettes.  

[Ahab]

25 minutes ago, Scott said:

I doubt that very much.   The penalties are steep and they are steep for the store, which will lose its license to sell alcohol and cigarettes.  

You can doubt it all you want, but the practice is widespread and common. Are the penalties steep if no one enforces them? 

[Scott]

30 minutes ago, Ahab said:

You can doubt it all you want, but the practice is widespread and common. Are the penalties steep if no one enforces them? 

Well, there is a little problem with getting a scanner and a till to ring up cigarettes and beer (as well as a number of other disallowed products, including cleaning products) as food.   Most people using food stamps, or the card that is issued, pay for non-food items with cash.  

[ilostmypassword]

29 minutes ago, Ahab said:

You can doubt it all you want, but the practice is widespread and common. Are the penalties steep if no one enforces them? 

Really?

This nonsense about the high level of Food Stamp Fraud was started by Fox News which later retracted the story.

http://thehill.com/homenews/media/312213-fox-news-retracts-claim-food-stamp-fraud-at-all-time-high

 

 

[Ahab]

2 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

Really?

This nonsense about the high level of Food Stamp Fraud was started by Fox News which later retracted the story.

http://thehill.com/homenews/media/312213-fox-news-retracts-claim-food-stamp-fraud-at-all-time-high

 

 

Food stamp fraud has been occurring since the system started and well before FOX News was a glimmer in Roger Ailes eye. I don't know the exact level (high, very high, all time high) but it is common.