Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
4 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,817 Year: 3,074/9,624 Month: 919/1,588 Week: 102/223 Day: 13/17 Hour: 1/1


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   The 2017 Republican Controlled U.S. Congress
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 55 of 86 (799807)
02-15-2017 2:18 PM


Congress blocks rule barring mentally impaired from guns:
quote:
The Republican-led Senate voted Wednesday to block an Obama-era regulation that would prevent an estimated 75,000 people with mental disorders from being able to purchase a firearm. The measure now goes to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it.
These are truly bizarre times.
--Percy

Replies to this message:
 Message 56 by jar, posted 02-16-2017 10:50 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 65 of 86 (824834)
12-04-2017 8:51 AM


The New Tax Bill: Will You Be Paying More or Less?
Has anyone estimated whether their taxes will be going up or down under the new tax bill? I have. New Hampshire has no state income tax and a relatively mild sales tax, so property taxes are the primary source of income for the state, making our property taxes very high. Property tax deductions are being capped at $10,000. Offsetting this is that the standard deduction for couples is being increased to $24,400, but the personal exemption of around $4000/person is being eliminated making it advantageous for the first time that we take the standard deduction instead of itemizing. Our taxes will be going up by around $1500.
This personal tax "cut" will expire on December 31, 2025 and revert to current law in order to conform to the Byrd Rule (you don't want to know), but the corporate tax cuts are permanent.
What does this mean for me? Well, I'm not a wealthy individual. I'm retired, and my younger wife will be retiring within a year or two. We always knew we couldn't afford to stay forever in the big house where we raised our kids, but this brings closer that time when we will have to sell and move to a smaller place. It also means we'll get less for the house, since the high property taxes lessened effect on federal taxes will drag down the value. It won't lessen the value of the smaller house we move to because it likely won't be in this state and so will not have reached the $10,000 property tax cap.
Here's an article about the property tax cap: The GOP’s $10,000 cap on property tax deductions and how it affects one congressional district
--Percy

Replies to this message:
 Message 66 by NoNukes, posted 12-04-2017 6:02 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 67 by dwise1, posted 12-05-2017 4:16 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 68 by Percy, posted 12-05-2017 9:01 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 68 of 86 (824913)
12-05-2017 9:01 AM
Reply to: Message 65 by Percy
12-04-2017 8:51 AM


Re: The New Tax Bill: Will You Be Paying More or Less?
This article in today's New York Times says that New Yorkers will be facing the same problems I am: How New Yorkers Would Lose Under the Republican Tax Bill. New York faces problems additional to mine, such as the potential for the wealthy fleeing urban regions because of the big increase in their tax bills. Because of the drop in property values, municipalities could see a decrease in tax revenue. The ability to fund affordable housing would be adversely affected.
The article makes very clear why the Republican tax bill is a dagger struck at the heart of blue country. Blue country is mostly urban where property values tend to be high.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by Percy, posted 12-04-2017 8:51 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 69 of 86 (824915)
12-05-2017 9:38 AM


The RNC Has No Shame
Evidently now fully under Trump's thumb, the Republican National Committee has thrown their full support behind sexual harasser Roy Moore's senatorial run in Alabama. Others in congress have walked back their rejection of Moore, such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Orrin Hatch. Politicians are evidently able to do something I find amazing, since I was never able to do it myself, separate how I did my job from my responsibilities to my fellow man, and especially my fellow women in this case:
This makes funds available to Moore in the eve of the election one week away.
--Percy

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 78 of 86 (825342)
12-13-2017 12:22 PM
Reply to: Message 73 by Pressie
12-13-2017 5:43 AM


Re: Some Good News
From a great American President:
Abraham Lincoln writes:
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
In my opinion Lincoln is unlikely to have said this, but you can find lots on the web discussing the possibility. It's a clever turn of phrase, but doesn't feel like Lincoln's phraseology to me.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 73 by Pressie, posted 12-13-2017 5:43 AM Pressie has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 84 by xongsmith, posted 03-24-2018 5:25 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 79 of 86 (825344)
12-13-2017 1:30 PM
Reply to: Message 74 by Pressie
12-13-2017 7:20 AM


Pressie writes:
On my limited experience in Poland, I learned that a lot of Polish people do despise the British. The aftermath of WW2. A lot of Poles think that the British sold them out to the USSR after the war. A lot of people in Poland despise the Brits.
Either you're mistaken that Poles despise the Brits for not defending them after WWII or the Poles are engaging in some seriously misplaced blame. After the war strategically it would have been impossible, even with the full support of the US. The western allies recognized that it would be a race from opposite sides of Europe between they and the Soviet Union for where the post war boundaries would be drawn. That the Soviet Union would control postwar Poland was already a foregone conclusion by 1944 as they overran German forces in Poland and entered Germany.
Politics followed the realities of the war. After the fall of Poland in 1939 the Poles set up a government in exile in France under Prime Minister Wladyslaw Sikorski (I'm a WWII buff but by no means an expert, so I'm drawing upon Wikipedia, e.g., Wladyslaw Sikorski), but with the fall of France in 1940 that government had to move to Britain. Was that Polish government given assurances by Britain that they would guarantee Polish independence after the war? That seems possible early in the war, maybe 1940 and 1941, but by 1943 after all the German successes and allied setbacks there were no doubts that Poland would fall under Soviet influence. At that point Sikorski hoped that Poland's borders might merely move westward, ceding land to the Soviet Union while gaining land from Germany, but in 1943 he was killed in a plane crash.
Sikorski's successor, Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, was not even invited to the Tehran Conference (1943) where the allies discussed how postwar Europe would be divided, ceding eastern Poland to the Soviets. This was not only reaffirmed at the Yalta Conference in 1945, it was further recognized that all of Poland would be under the Soviet sphere of influence, and this was formalized at the Potsdam conference later that year after the defeat of Germany. Stalin had already set up a puppet government in Poland.
Even if Britain's sole determination after the war was to free Poland from Soviet domination, it could not have happened. Even if America had joined Britain in such an effort it could not have happened. Poland was adjacent to the Soviet Union (which after the war dominated all of eastern Europe), and that fact of geography is not Britain's fault.
The Poles may also be forgetting how economically devastated Britain was after WWII, though of course not physically devastated like France or Germany or Poland. Rationing in Britain continued for a number of years after the war.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 74 by Pressie, posted 12-13-2017 7:20 AM Pressie has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 80 by Pressie, posted 12-14-2017 4:31 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 83 of 86 (830196)
03-24-2018 4:56 PM
Reply to: Message 82 by Tanypteryx
03-24-2018 4:14 PM


Re: $1.5 Trillion Tax Cut for the Rich and Now $1.5 Trillion Spending Bill
Tanypteryx writes:
The next thing I expect to hear from Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell is the need to get rid of "welfare" like Social Security and Medicare. Put those lazy old people back to work, work or starve......
Paul Ryan is already on record in favor of entitlement reform, meaning cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Mitch McConnell's position is more varied. He has expressed support for Senate bills that include Medicaid cuts, but has pushed back against Ryan's desire to cut social security and Medicare.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 82 by Tanypteryx, posted 03-24-2018 4:14 PM Tanypteryx has seen this message but not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024