America is lost...

The problem I have with student debt forgiveness is that is buying votes. Also the free college, nothing is free, what do you think colleges will do with tuition fees? Go down, yeah right probably increase 100 %.

 

This is Liberalism.

Coronavirus stimulus: ‘I know exactly where we can get the money’ to pay for stimulus checks, says Rep. Tlaib

“I’m hearing as we try to debate this COVID relief package that we now can’t afford to give people another $1,200 stimulus check,” Tlaib told Yahoo Finance. “Well, guess what, I know exactly where we can get the money to pay for it. And I believe Jeff Bezos knows exactly where as well.”

This woman is the future of America. Anyone calling themselves a Liberal thinks like this. What else can you say?

My opinion is this; we have been stuck in our homes and Amazon was a lifeline. This sick, hateful woman, along with AOC DID NOTHING. Now they are spewing their hatred and pulling on the emotional chains of the absolute loser class of America.

Thank God for men like Jeff Bezos. F people like Tlaib.

 

I don't think government should fleece Amazon like that.

However, the problem is that Amazon has greatly benefitted from the government lockdowns. Their growth this year has been facilitated by the death of many small businesses. This is not how we all should want our economy to develop. Government doing dirty work for large corporations is bad news for the rest of us.

 

Uh...not all Liberal's agree with Tlaib? "Liberals" are not some monolithic group, just as conservatives aren't. We all sit at different points on the political spectrum.

Here's what I'd say, our progressive tax system is askew. We are at historic lows in the upper tax rate since our Income Tax system was implemented. Can taxing the upper class fund everything? No. Does it need to be increased significantly? Yes. Honestly, I'd rather that money simply go to balancing our budget and/or paying down our debt. The services we ask of our government cost $$. We should be paying for those services in real-time rather than borrowing consistently.

 

Liberal liars. That's how they operate; LIE TO YOUR GD FACE...

Minneapolis Lawmakers Deny They Support ‘Defund the Police’ after $8M in Budget Cuts

 

I don't know anything about Minneapolis but can speak to the "Defund the Police" efforts in Seattle. First, the "Defund the Police" slogan may be the worst slogan ever adopted, politically speaking. The goal of the movement by most progressives is to leave "policing" to to the police and pull other social services they are being asked to do out of their mandate. Should Police be responsible for wellness checks on people with prior mental illness problems? Should the non-uniformed city reps that work with moving homeless off the streets be part of the police department? They were in Seattle until recently. At least in Seattle, the police budget and responsibility had expanded well beyond traditional law enforcement activities. The money (and people) that were moved out of the police department didn't go away but simply report up though different leadership. "Defund the Police" in Seattle was more akin to a corporate reorg.

 

Seattle Husker, if they wanted to choose a slogan to irritate the general population, they certainly did so. I'd expect to hear this thrown back in their face for quite a while.

 

Every time I read about someone who has called for defunding the police that then calls the police for help I laugh. Didn't it just happen in Minnesota?
Do these leftists ever apologize for being stupid?

 

I know why BLM and the activist community did it. It was frustration that change wasn't occurring. The shock part sparked communities like Seattle into action. It likely hurt the Federal legislators elections for D's. More than likely, the people protesting locally couldn't give a flying 'f' about the national races if it meant local change.

 

Taxing the rich more isn't going to help anything. Isn't like 50% of the annual spending on credit now? Services must be either cut way back or the bottom 50% need to start paying way more in taxes. Then you still have to phase out Social Security somehow, and probably Medicare too.

Talking about taxing the rich more is a myth or a mantra that won't do anything to the debt.

 

I'm not saying that's the only remedy but part of the solution. That was specifically referenced from Tlaib and pointed to by @bystander thus I was responding, especially since he claimed all liberals must think like her. Even if you taxed the uber-wealthy 100% of their wealth you wouldn't have enough money for all their pet programs, not to mention it would be horrible for our economy. Still, our vast income disparity in the US has it's roots in Reagan's lowering the top marginal tax rate to 28% in 1983. Remember the "Trickle down" economics? Here is the historical top marginal tax rate. The lower classes get scraps while the wealthy class gets caviar.

The tax laws themselves need to be overwritten. Tax free religious, political and activist organizations need to have their tax exemption removed. These tax loopholes are a major reason that uber-wealthy often pay so little in taxes. Setup a foundation to control where your tax money goes. Capital gains? Make them income, especially stock sales the moment they are sold regardless of when they are sold. The social safety net pyramid scheme of Social Security and Medicare need to be scaled back.

 

I'm not interested in increasing taxes. Taxation is theft. It is legal and understandable since the government exists but it is barely ethical at best. The government needs to cut their budget to conform to the money they bring in. Anything else is meddling in people's lives. It takes away their private property rights and power to live their own lives the way they want.

 

Yes, I understand that you believe that philosophically. As you can imagine I disagree though agree that the government should live within its means. Of course, we like roads, police, education, fire departments, social safety nets like Social Security and Medicare which nobody on average pays in nearly as much as they take out, Foodstamps, Welfare, strong military for defense, etc. etc. All of that cost money and clearly we as a country have decided we need these things because we don't want to be speaking Russian/Chinese, we will not accept people to go hungry, abandon our elderly or infirmed, nor give up the security of our police forces, quality infrastructure, free education, or fire and rescue on demand. To me at least, that's where the true libertarian philosophy is fantasy.

 

You think it's fantasy because you don't understand it. Your statement above shows that.

 

It depends on which progressives you ask. Some actually did call for abolishing the police, and early on they got an outsized platform from the media that seemed very much caught up in the moment. That made it difficult for moderate Democrats to disassociate from that crackpot position without angering the base. Jacob Frey's confrontation with protestors illustrated that.

In addition to that, the slogan was terrible, because if taken literally, it wasn't unreasonable to assume it meant actually eliminating the police. "Police reform" would have been a far less polarizing slogan, but of course, it would have motivated the base far less.

It would be like if Trump had called for executing all illegal aliens and then the mainstream media gave a big platform to Richard Spencer and David Duke, who said, "yep, executing illegal aliens means just that; get a rope." Republicans would have had to dance around and say, "we don't actually mean we want to kill illegal aliens. We just want to deport them so they won't be illegal aliens anymore and won't need to be executed." Could someone plausibly go with that explanation? I guess, but they have already associated themselves with a position and with people who are completely ridiculous and inflammatory. Anyone who does something like that is going to be on the defensive from that point on.

 

No, deficit spending is theft. I'm all for cutting spending and major entitlement reforms. However, if the public demands a large government sector, then it should have to pay for it through taxation. Frankly, that's the biggest deterrent to a government that spends too much. Right now the public can get big government spending without the taxes to pay for it. Why would they go along with cutting spending under those conditions?

 

Well they made a huge mistake in how they implemented it. The City of Austin jumped right on it. That's not governance; that's knee-jerk Liberalism by way of virtue signaling without accountability.

But there is some good news from the Left:

Ocasio-Cortez passed over for key committee assignment

 

That's what I've been telling you. AOC and her crowd do not run the D party. They were repudiated by the Centrists when Biden won the nomination and this is further example that AOC is merely a fringe element of the party with an outsized platform thanks to twitter. Did you notice that AOC pledged to leave the House at the end of her current term? I know you like to focus on Tlaib, AOC and their ilk but they are still just fringe parts of the D party no different than Sanders/Warren in the Senate.

Can they pull the party left? Absolutely. Can their ideas ever reach the panacea they envision? Absolutely not as the more centered parts of the party have the power and set the agenda.

 

Are you sure? I googled that and only found articles saying she thought about quitting. I can't imagine her actually doing that. It sounds a lot like the celebrities who threatened to move to Canada when George W. Bush won.

 

I thought I read it somewhere within the last few days but it's entirely possible I'm mistaken. It was a reference to a recent interview she did on a podcast but I can't find it. In absence of confirmation, I'll have to go with her widely published comments a month back that she was considering not running for another term. One thing is clear that she is extremely frustrated at being told to wait in line to step into party leadership. She's claiming in this interview that Committee leaders have fund raising quotas to hit thus inferring you can purchase a Committee Chair if you raise enough money. Recognizing that newly minted congresspeople spend more time fundraising than anything else (it's why Tom Osborne left politics), I wasn't aware that Committee Chairs carry an extra burden of fundraising, assuming AOC wasn't stretching the truth which also may be possible.

 

A dose of reality for AOC.

 

Just like most liberals, she doesn't understand starting at the bottom. Stomp her feet hard enough and it should just be given to her.

 

There are so many corollaries between AOC and Trump. It's not a liberal issue but one born of narcissism. Both became internet famous through superficial Twitter retorts, promoted by their supporters who's primary fandom quality is that they poke the eye of the opposition.

 

That has absolutely nothing to do with my post. Trump has been in business and leading people for pretty much his entire life. Worked hard and made billions building businesses. AOC...well....was a bartender, cleaned houses, worked on Bernie Sanders campaign, traveled the US then got elected. Such a distinguished career.

 

Did Trump start at the bottom of politics and work his way up? Had he ever demonstrated any civil service before demanding to be at the top? Yes, it absolutely applies to both, whether you choose to admit it or not.

I'm sure we are both distinguished in our careers. I do not have the experience to manage retail just as you may not have the experience to lead large IT organizations. If I demanded to be given your position your boss would laugh me out of the room.

 

Not sure why politicians are placed on a higher pedestal than your average garbage collector.

 

She's not totally wrong. I don't know that there's a quota, but there's no doubt that raising money for the party and seniority (which often go together anyway) play a massive role in determining who's going to be in the leadership. Since she's a socialist, she isn't going to be a big money-raiser. She'll be able to raise enough to win on her own, but you can't be a big cash machine without whoring for the business and Wall Street lobbies. And she's only in her second term, so she's a hell of a long way away from being considered for a leadership position based on seniority.

She might be laying the groundwork for a repeat of what the Watergate Babies did after the 1974 midterms. They led a revolt in the Democratic caucus and got some moderate to conservative committee chairmen shitcanned. They didn't get replaced with freshmen, but they got replaced with more liberal members and at least somewhat busted the seniority system in the House Rules.

 

I thought the committee chairs and key committee folks had to show ability to fundraise for the benefit of House members via their PACS. They spread their fundraising around to insure loyalty. It’s how the house leaders control their lesser members. Right or wrong, it’s a system. AOC is just another *****. Austin is full of them.

 

She is a *****, but that system is bad and corrupt.

 

I've never been in favor of publicly funded elections but this extreme need for fundraising within the parties is an argument in its favor.