American Politics: The Speaker's Cornered

[Arvenia]

How can DeSantis be liberal if he is a Republican?

Nelson Rockefeller and Ronald "Gipper" Reagan were both Republicans

I know, but there are big differences between those two and DeSantis. Rockefeller is what we call a "Rockefeller Republican", while Reagan was neoliberal (like Margaret Thatcher). The Republican Party is nowadays more conservative than the Democratic Party. DeSantis is also pretty anti-LGBT.

[Dimetrodon Empire]

Senator, I served with Nelson Rockefeller. I knew Nelson Rockefeller. Nelson Rockefeller was a friend of mine. Senator, Ronald Reagan and Ron DeSantis are no Nelson Rockefeller.

The point is that you don't necessarily have to be a conservative to be a republican

That was a different time. A more sane time in American politics.

[Port Caverton]

The point is that you don't necessarily have to be a conservative to be a republican

That was a different time. A more sane time in American politics.

Both parties being big tent was wacky, not sane.

If anything we should make it so that Democrats are only Social Liberals and that Republicans are only Neoconservatives

[Dimetrodon Empire]

That was a different time. A more sane time in American politics.

Both parties being big tent was wacky, not sane.

If anything we should make it so that Democrats are only Social Liberals and that Republicans are only Neoconservatives

Not really, it meant that things were more pragmatic and that neither party adopted an ultra-narrow set of positions.

And a neoconservative party will not do well in American politics. The era of Bush and the early 2000s are over.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Republicans are only Neoconservatives

You mean the Reactionary Party?

[Arvenia]

Republicans are only Neoconservatives

You mean the Reactionary Party?

The Republicans used to be neoconservative, but now they are pretty non-interventionist and even pro-Russian.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

You mean the Reactionary Party?

The Republicans used to be neoconservative, but now they are pretty non-interventionist and even pro-Russian.

Yes that's called reactionary twattery.

[Port Caverton]

Both parties being big tent was wacky, not sane.

If anything we should make it so that Democrats are only Social Liberals and that Republicans are only Neoconservatives

Not really, it meant that things were more pragmatic and that neither party adopted an ultra-narrow set of positions.

And a neoconservative party will not do well in American politics. The era of Bush and the early 2000s are over.

Most Republicans in congress support Ukraine and NATO, very few want to pull out of the conflict and the organization.

Plus Republicans still want a larger military. Neoconservatives are not dead

[Port Caverton]

Republicans are only Neoconservatives

You mean the Reactionary Party?

No party wants to go back to the era of kings and queens. It's just that the Republicans have a sizable right-wing populist faction

[Dimetrodon Empire]

Not really, it meant that things were more pragmatic and that neither party adopted an ultra-narrow set of positions.

And a neoconservative party will not do well in American politics. The era of Bush and the early 2000s are over.

Most Republicans in congress support Ukraine and NATO, very few want to pull out of the conflict and the organization.

Plus Republicans still want a larger military. Neoconservatives are not dead

Larger Military =/= Neoconservative.

And no, they don't support Ukraine and NATO. They give Biden shit for giving supplies to Ukraine.

[Port Caverton]

Most Republicans in congress support Ukraine and NATO, very few want to pull out of the conflict and the organization.

Plus Republicans still want a larger military. Neoconservatives are not dead

Larger Military =/= Neoconservative.

And no, they don't support Ukraine and NATO. They give Biden shit for giving supplies to Ukraine.

Congress Republicans keep voting for aid for Ukraine. It's just that the paleoconservative faction is more popular now since the war on terror has calmed down. Republicans always had an isolationist faction, its just that it's louder now due to globalization and people growing tired of foreign conflicts.

[Dimetrodon Empire]

Larger Military =/= Neoconservative.

And no, they don't support Ukraine and NATO. They give Biden shit for giving supplies to Ukraine.

Congress Republicans keep voting for aid for Ukraine. It's just that the paleoconservative faction is more popular now since the war on terror has calmed down. Republicans always had an isolationist faction, its just that it's louder now due to globalization and people growing tired of foreign conflicts.

They're so neoconservative that Liz Cheney got purged.

[Port Caverton]

Congress Republicans keep voting for aid for Ukraine. It's just that the paleoconservative faction is more popular now since the war on terror has calmed down. Republicans always had an isolationist faction, its just that it's louder now due to globalization and people growing tired of foreign conflicts.

They're so neoconservative that Liz Cheney got purged.

Just because one politician isn't there anymore doesn't mean others aren't there anymore.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Congress Republicans keep voting for aid for Ukraine. It's just that the paleoconservative faction is more popular now since the war on terror has calmed down. Republicans always had an isolationist faction, its just that it's louder now due to globalization and people growing tired of foreign conflicts.

They're so neoconservative that Liz Cheney got purged.

Well yeah in the "new" republican party you get stabbed in the back if you aren't 250% behind their Emperor Nero.

[Arvenia]

Most Republicans in congress support Ukraine and NATO, very few want to pull out of the conflict and the organization.

Plus Republicans still want a larger military. Neoconservatives are not dead

Larger Military =/= Neoconservative.

And no, they don't support Ukraine and NATO. They give Biden shit for giving supplies to Ukraine.

Some Republicans like MTG and Gosar even praised Vladimir Putin and supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the 2022 America First Political Action Conference.

[Haganham]

Considering that the IRS was given those funds with the promise that the would go after rich tax evaders and immediately when on a shakedown of low income earners I'm not missing that money.
We need to abandon the idea that we can get the rich to pay taxes by giving the IRS more money for audits. The IRS won't use it, because they know that the rich have so many avenues for avoiding tax that proving evasion costs more money then it brings in; and so they will go after people who are working gigs, have tip income or sidehustles, who don't have the resources to fight and will just pay up.

If we want to get the rich to pay taxes fairly we need to simplify the tax code and eliminate avenues for avoidance. But that's a legislative issue, not a budgetary one.

FYI, one of the reasons the tax code is so complex is that the rich keep inventing new financial instruments and structures to avoid it. Then we pass a law on how to treat that instrument.

The repeated calls to “simplify the tax code”, while understandable, will largely lead to it being more easy to avoid and lower effective taxes on the rich as they are more able to maneuver their way out of it.

(We do need to restructure capital gains tax though, and we need to put a catch in the system for floating loans based on stocks being recognizable income above a certain bar, those both significantly lower effective taxes on the wealthy)

The only reason it's even possible to create structures to avoid it is because of it's complexity, much of which is included, at the request of the the rich, for the purpose of lowering ther tax obligations.

Here.

Tax Owed\BMI payment=0.4*(Gross Income-46625)

Let them evade that.

[Galloism]

FYI, one of the reasons the tax code is so complex is that the rich keep inventing new financial instruments and structures to avoid it. Then we pass a law on how to treat that instrument.

The repeated calls to “simplify the tax code”, while understandable, will largely lead to it being more easy to avoid and lower effective taxes on the rich as they are more able to maneuver their way out of it.

(We do need to restructure capital gains tax though, and we need to put a catch in the system for floating loans based on stocks being recognizable income above a certain bar, those both significantly lower effective taxes on the wealthy)

The only reason it's even possible to create structures to avoid it is because of it's complexity, much of which is included, at the request of the the rich, for the purpose of lowering ther tax obligations.

Here.

Tax Owed\BMI payment=0.4*(Gross Income-46625)

Let them evade that.

Define gross income. Also why is tax owed divided by what I can only assume is “basic minimum income payment”.

Edit: never mind, you’re using the slash as an or, not as a division symbol. I understand now.

So let’s stick with defining gross income.

[Haganham]

The only reason it's even possible to create structures to avoid it is because of it's complexity, much of which is included, at the request of the the rich, for the purpose of lowering ther tax obligations.

Here.

Tax Owed\BMI payment=0.4*(Gross Income-46625)

Let them evade that.

Define gross income. Also why is tax owed divided by what I can only assume is “basic minimum income payment”.

Edit: never mind, you’re using the slash as an or, not as a division symbol. I understand now.

So let’s stick with defining gross income.

The total revenue generated from all sources, such as wages, salaries, interest, dividends, rental income, investment returns and any other income.

[Galloism]

Define gross income. Also why is tax owed divided by what I can only assume is “basic minimum income payment”.

Edit: never mind, you’re using the slash as an or, not as a division symbol. I understand now.

So let’s stick with defining gross income.

The total revenue generated from all sources, such as wages, salaries, interest, dividends, rental income, investment returns and any other income.

So, let’s break that down.

I buy a stock for $10 today, and sell it in six months for $20.

What is my gross income? Is it $20 (total revenue)? $10 (the net gain)? When is it recognized? When i sold it? Gradually as it rose?

[Restored Alaska]

The point is that you don't necessarily have to be a conservative to be a republican

I know.

Republicans who aren't right-wing in terms of ultra-nationalism these days are very thin on the ground these days. Not that the GOP is fiscally conservative as much in terms of traditional fiscal restraint or discipline, the way that Eisenhower was. Then again, Reagan spent like a drunken sailor himself.

[Bradfordville]

Well, we draft new white people when the numbers start to go against us. That's how Irish and Italians etc go from 'out group' to 'white'. Under different circumstances we might draft Persians into the club. Jewish people are like Schrodinger's minority. They're either white or the original hate depending on what one needs them to be. Apparently Filipinos who settled in the south bid for whiteness, but it's been a while since I studied all that so I don't have anything to verify that.

Honestly all you need to know about race being some bullshit we made up can be found in the White Draft.

There's a historian I follow on the bird site who has done a lot of work trying to debunk the myth of "white slavery" that floats around the US discourse, and he's argued that this thing of "The Irish weren't white" isn't actually true. Now, my understanding is that there was some old timey race science that tried to argue that the Celts were more closely related to Africans than the Anglo-Saxons, but the census data from back then included Irish and Italian people under the racial category "White".

Of course, the broader point still stands. These people can find highly specific granularity in race such that the people from one island are above the people from the island right beside them, or they can throw a whole continent and millennia of history together as if Greek hoplites, Roman legionaries, Norse vikings, and English crusader knights were all on the same team. It's all made up and they'll change the rules as they see fit. But they did sometimes treat people like shit even though they thought of those people as white.

The immigrants of the early 1900s were what we would term "situationally white" in the sense that they were white in certain situations but non white in others. The Arab Americans of today are a good example of a modern ethnic group that occupies this strange middle ground. If pressed into a corner, an American man in the 1900s would admit that Italians and Jews were Caucasians, just like almost everyone else from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. But they weren't the right type of Caucasians per se. This was the Era of scientific racism and not only was there a hierarchy between Caucasians and non-caucasians, but also within the Caucasian group between different subsets, with white skinned and light haired "nordics" on top and Mediterranean and alpine people on the bottom. Mediterranean and alpine people were "white enough" to avoid Jim Crow laws and be allowed to immigrate and vote, but not "white enough" to avoid violence, job discrimination, housing discrimination in some places, and the eventual 1924 immigration quotas. The debate over the whiteness of the ancestors of white ethnics is complicated by how race was seen in that Era, and as a result the "they were definitely not white" side and the "they were definitely white" side both get it kind of right and kind of wrong. Even today the relationship between whiteness and some white people groups is a tricky one. My dad's family is Jewish and while in everyday society they'd be seen as white and while the census sees them as such, they're unfortunately not "white enough" to avoid being blamed by certain people for every ill in society. And the number of "certain people" has grown alot unfortunately in just the last few years. The one thing we have going for us though that an African American doesn't is that we are "caucasian." We can be integrated, we can hide our jewishness if need be, but a Black man cannot hide his skin color and very apparent "non white" features. Also, the racial dichotomy is set up specifically so that black people can never be white. Without a Black group, there is no white group as the opposite. The white people can allow in Italians, Jews, Greeks, Mexicans and Arabs, but black people will always be the outcast in a racialized society.

[Hispida]

Senator, I served with Nelson Rockefeller. I knew Nelson Rockefeller. Nelson Rockefeller was a friend of mine. Senator, Ronald Reagan and Ron DeSantis are no Nelson Rockefeller.

The point is that you don't necessarily have to be a conservative to be a republican

nelson rockefeller was still pretty conservative, all things considered.

[Bradfordville]

Senator, I served with Nelson Rockefeller. I knew Nelson Rockefeller. Nelson Rockefeller was a friend of mine. Senator, Ronald Reagan and Ron DeSantis are no Nelson Rockefeller.

The point is that you don't necessarily have to be a conservative to be a republican

Are you really gonna find anyone in the party that isn't at least right of center? For example, I don't think the republican party has any communists in it.

[The Rio Grande River Basin]

The point is that you don't necessarily have to be a conservative to be a republican

Are you really gonna find anyone in the party that isn't at least right of center? For example, I don't think the republican party has any communists in it.

In the 60s, I think they had socialists…

[Bradfordville]

Are you really gonna find anyone in the party that isn't at least right of center? For example, I don't think the republican party has any communists in it.

In the 60s, I think they had socialists…

The only place in the 60s that had socialists was the blacklist.