The Right Side of the News

This is still just as wrong as the first time you said it, but since you said it again I'll rebut it again. SNAP costs began falling under Obama during his second term and continued to fall under Trump: And the unemployment rate began falling under Obama around 2010, fell every year since, and have continued falling under Trump: You have really got to stop getting all your "information" from conservative talk show hosts. They're lying to you to get you worked up so that you have to keep coming back to get another adrenaline fix. Read some actual news.--Percy

Except that the rich didn't expand their businesses. There has been no significant increase in business investment since the Trump tax cuts, and concerning economic growth, here's the latest CBO data and projections: As you can see, economic growth quickened during 2016 and continued into the Trump years, but last year experienced the slowest growth of the Trump era (2.3%) and was only 2.1% in the fourth quarter. GDP growth is projected to continue declining. You're purposefully misstating the position. No one wants to eliminate the wealthy. The argument is that income should be taxed fairly, which means that in any progressive tax system, such as ours, the more income the higher percentage of that income one pays in taxes.Unfortunately it doesn't work this way. Through a variety of tax loopholes only available to those of wealth, higher income usually means lower taxes, as measured by percentage. For example, Mitt Romney pays about 20% of his annual income in taxes, and his annual income is many, many millions of dollars. When I was working I paid around 18%, and I never made anywhere close to a million dollars in any single year. Does that sound fair to you? You are again purposefully misstating the position. No one wants to eliminate capitalism and have the state own the means of production. Why do you keep raising this bogeyman? In western parlance socialism only mean social programs like Social Security, Medicare, SNAP, and so forth. Everyone's in favor of capitalism. Why are you implying some aren't?--Percy

Why do you continue making these ludicrously wrong statements? This has been disproven over and over. Here's the graph of the unemployment rate again: The unemployment rate began dropping around 2010 and has been dropping ever since.And here is the graph of GDP growth. GDP resumed growing after 2010 and has been growing ever since: There was a giant recession, almost a depression, that began at the end of the Bush presidency and continued through the first year of so of the Obama presidency. You can accurately characterize the economy as staggering at that time. For the rest of the Obama presidency there was continuous growth.--Percy

The Constitution gives Congress control over the purse strings, though of course the president does have influence because he must sign all legislation. Presidents are responsible for spending the money Congress allocates on the programs it creates through legislation.But presidents have their ways. I'm reminded of one of the early American presidents, it might have been Monroe, who wanted congressional funding for a world tour by the US Navy as a show of American strength. Congress wouldn't allocate the funds, so Monroe sent the fleet halfway around the world, which is all he had discretionary funds for, and then told Congress that if they wanted the fleet back that they'd have to allocate the money for it, which they did. They're called entitlements, and it's not true that they cannot be cut. They can be both increased and reduced through legislation. For instance, Trump has proposed reducing Social Security and Medicare in order to help reduce the deficit.What makes these programs entitlements is that anyone who qualifies under the specified criteria gets the money that year, regardless of anything like tax revenues or the size of the deficit that year. For example, many people defer receiving Social Security until age 70, but if some economic event caused a much larger number of people to decide to apply now then that would increase the financial demands upon Social Security. Everybody who applies and qualifies gets the money.But Congress can always make changes to the level of benefits. It has been predicted that sometime in, I think, the 2030's that Social Security will no longer be solvent and that benefits will have to be cut. I don't see what's so hard to understand. Ask questions.About Democrats wanting to cut the military, I don't really know. But I hope everyone would like to reduce our foreign entanglements so that we can reduce military spending.--Percy

A more honest appraisal is that Trump and today's Republicans would like to raid the funds in the Social Security and Medicare Trusts to steal those funds to pay for their stupidity and greed.

The Obama deficits during the 2010 recession were enormous, historic, and not expected to be exceeded anytime soon: --Percy

U.S. National Debt Clock : Real TimeActual deficit is very close. and the official deficit is over a trillion. Edited by frako, : No reason given.

Yes, Faith, write a book. You are a fantastic writer, and the forceful and effective way you make your points for the Trumpist point of view, particularly the way you make up or ignore facts as circumstances dictate, is top notch. I don't mean this as an insult. Your propaganda is amazing, especially since you believe it yourself. Kellyanne Conway has nothing on you. Let the conservative talk show hosts fill your head, then let the words flow.You'll need a detailed outline, maybe you could get some help here.Or maybe you want to write a novel. You can get practice at sites like NaNoWriMo.--Percy

Tracing back through the subdiscussion, you're talking about Social Security. It does not come out of tax money. When you were working you might recall that your paystubs had three federal deductions:

• Federal income tax
• Social Security
• Medicare

This month's Social Security payroll deductions fund this month's Social Security payments. There's a trust fund that's currently at a surplus to smooth out the inevitable variations.The trust fund is expected to begin running a deficit next year and will be insolvent by around 2035.--Percy

The only one here who's demonstrated confusion, ignorance, and an inability to look anything up, is you. Practically every claim you've made has been documented to be wrong.So of course you're impelled to throw up your hands and declare, "Nobody really knows anything for sure, we're all equals here," but that's not true.--Percy

Income tax revenues have increased slightly under Trump. I posted this earlier: I don't know about other sources of government revenue, but I expect income from tariffs have also increased.--Percy

Yes I know they are called entitlements, that's what I was calling them until I encountered people like the Heritage Foundation official calling them mandatory. Apparently both words are used.Obvoiusly there would be some noisy objections to cutting any of these programs; sure you can always add to them. But nobody mentions cutting them because it would threaten their political life.The Heritage Foundation guy, Bogie, did suggest on Mark Levin's program, nott this video as far as I remember, but Levin's program that they are going to have to be cut if we don't want the experience of their going bankrupt, that China and Japan own these programs so we are paying them when we pay into them as that the sooner we can cut them back the better.He said we'd have to cut them from those people who have the means to do without them, who have funds for their retirement without Social Security, and funds for medical care without Medicare or Medicaid. It's a socialist style solution, take from the rich, but it sounds to me like the only possible solution. It probably wouldn't survive mentioning in Congress or by the President, however, let alone ever get close to being enacted. Unless, I suppose, we had a huge public education program to pave the way. I don't recall his estimating how much cutting out these recipients would actually reduce the debt, however.

"Duh" yourself. Of course it was implicit that everything she said was true, that what Bolton told her was true. I was responding to the ridiculous statement MADE BY YOU that nowhere in the testimony did she claim what Boltonj said was true, as if that contradicted the idea that it was hearsay. That was the "duh" remark, YOUR own remark. Kindly follow the discussion. Thank you.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Or raise taxes until the rich pay their fair share.

DupeEdited by JonF, : No reason given.