***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[EddieDoyers]

^Carrier did the same thing in 2011 and got 1.5 million dollar in tax breaks to not outsource
In this year, they were already planning to leave to Mexico when Mike Pence told them to pay back their tax breaks, which the billion dollar corporation paid back some of it. However, with this situation, now they are getting paid more to retain only half of their workforce while still being able to ship half the other jobs to Mexico, and this trend will continue on and on to extort the state of Indiana every couple years. If you can't see the long term play by Carrier to maximize their profits when they are already making billions at the expense of the taxpayer, I have an island to sell to you in Idaho.

It's nothing like the auto bailout where our American car companies were bankrupt....these guys are still earning major profits.

 

[AZwildcats]

This popular vote nonsense is garbage rhetoric... those votes came from cali and they hold their weight heavily in the electoral college. Subtract that and trump has the popular vote in the bag

Subtract the whole south and trump wins nothing, what's your point bro?

Your girl ever come back?

 

[noskey]

Rhetoric if Clinton won electoral college:
"But da electoral college is rigged! It's a sham! A liberal conspiracy!"

Nah George Soros name would have came before any of that lol

Okay buddy.

 

[nephew]

Subtract the whole south and trump wins nothing, what's your point bro?

Your girl ever come back?

My point is I'm tired of hearing an insignificant rant about a lost election that has to do with popular votes. It doesn't matter. I was responding to the town hall audio ninja posted where Kelly Ann flamed dude

Yeah..

 

[gry60]

EddieDoyers

The right doesn't think "long term." That's the problem. They also don't recognize that one of the things they looooove to complain about, choosing winners and losers, is exactly what Trump has just done.

What about the company next door to Carrier, who is also moving jobs out of Indiana? What about the 1300 jobs that are leaving the US? What does that tax break accomplish for those people left behind?

Would it not be better policy to take that taxpayer money and reinvest it in retraining programs so that those whose careers have been made obsolete can gain the skills for the jobs created by this economy?

What is happening right now is that Robin Hood is being robbed by the King.

 

[EddieDoyers]

EddieDoyers

The right doesn't think "long term." That's the problem. They also don't recognize that one of the things they looooove to complain about, choosing winners and losers, is exactly what Trump has just done.

What about the company next door to Carrier, who is also moving jobs out of Indiana? What about the 1300 jobs that are leaving the US? What does that tax break accomplish for those people left behind?

Would it not be better policy to take that taxpayer money and reinvest it in retraining programs so that those whose careers have been made obsolete can gain the skills for the jobs created by this economy?

What is happening right now is that Robin Hood is being robbed by the King.

Well, the only thing we can hope for is that Trump can renegotiate NAFTA into something that will benefit the American workers for the long term....but I'm not going to hold my breath on that until that actually happens.

 

[nephew]

Trump consistently voiced his dislike for nafta since I've heard him campaigning.. seems like a good possibility. At least do away with the one lane highway to Mexico. We are in no shape to help other countries revitalize their economy right now. I think Nafta was drafted with a positive outlook on our economy which defenetly hasn't been he case as of late

 

[ninjahood]

Except she didn't win the electoral college. Trump won swing states and she won cali. Bad analogy on your part

Oh ok ninjahood 2.

maybe u should tabulate da number of counties Trump won over Clinton...*psst* Trump destroyed her *pssst*

multiple pipelines cross da same river upstream.

what it is really is? environmentalists co-opting Native American reservations into inserting their "leave fossil fuels in da ground" dogma.

I think they are bored and want purpose

most people find purpose from god...

 

[iDon’tRead]

so a county with about 1000 or less voters is the same representation of a county with 100000 voters?

 

[EddieDoyers]

Trump consistently voiced his dislike for nafta since I've heard him campaigning.. seems like a good possibility. At least do away with the one lane highway to Mexico. We are in no shape to help other countries revitalize their economy right now. I think Nafta was drafted with a positive outlook on our economy which defenetly hasn't been he case as of late

Don't hold your breath on it
It would require Mexico's cooperation to renegotiate the terms, and Canada is already taking advantage of Trump's threat to withdraw by lifting the visa limit on Mexico. And let's say if Trump withdraws from the trade agreement, many US corporations and American citizens are going to riot against him.
https://www.google.com/amp/www.vox....ession-trade-warren-sanders-tpp?client=safari
It's good to have optimism on his promises, but I'm skeptical

 

[ninjahood]

so a county with about 1000 or less voters is the same representation of a county with 100000 voters?

as far as proportionality in a general election? yea.

 

[nephew]

Yeah I get the skepticism for sure for the simple fact of where the peso is right now and how much they probably depend on the exports. I still want to say it's almost better to cut the slack where we can as soon as possible, if possible

 

[RustyShackleford]

Ninja got a new position to ride or him.

Still think it CL-1B

 

[Belgium]

Ninja got a new position to ride or him.

Still think it CL-1B

If it is him he won't be able to contain himself whenever the next police brutality thread pops up so he won't be here for long

 

[nephew]

Trump supporters are challenging the recount in rust belt states

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wa...c4d256-b8bb-11e6-959c-172c82123976_story.html

 

[boris]

maybe u should tabulate da number of counties Trump won over Clinton...*psst* Trump destroyed her *pssst*

You should read. Comprehension is important.

 

[Belgium]

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-carrier-wall-street-journal-232115

 
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, a reliable bastion of free-market conservatism, isn’t cheering the Carrier deal that Donald Trump is touting as his first major political victory since becoming president-elect.

In an editorial  published Thursday evening, the Journal argued that Trump’s method to persuade the manufacturer to keep some 1,000 jobs in Indiana instead of moving them to Mexico — what it described as an “arm-twisting” — in the long run will lead to a loss of jobs.

Indiana offered Carrier $7 million in tax incentives to stay in the state, but the Journal editorial board asserted that Trump’s “real hammer” in the deal was his earlier threat to impose a tariff on the company’s imports if they moved. Overall, staying in the United States when it would operate more competitively in Mexico will only undercut the company’s profitability and its ability to manufacture other goods in the U.S. to export, the board wrote.

“A mercantilist Trump trade policy that jeopardized those exports would throw far more Americans out of work than the relatively low-paying jobs he’s preserved for now in Indianapolis,” the Journal wrote. “Mr. Trump’s Carrier squeeze might even cost more U.S. jobs if it makes CEOs more reluctant to build plants in the U.S. because it would be politically difficult to close them.”

The editorial is a sign of continued establishment conservative doubts about Trump, who despite running as a Republican, eschewed much of the party’s free-market orthodoxy in favor of lambasting trade deals and pledging to impose tariffs on companies that relocate abroad.

Looking ahead to the president-elect’s time in office, the Journal urged conservatives to resist “bad” Trump policies “that appear to be popular” but that “they’d never accept from President Obama.” The Republican president-elect’s “unpredictable, non-ideological policy-making will sometimes be disorienting for those who claim to believe in free markets,” the editorial board wrote.

“The better strategy is to support him when his policies promote growth and try to block him when he veers into big-government cul-de-sacs,” it concluded. “In that spirit, his Carrier shakedown is a short-term political victory that will hurt workers and the economy if it becomes the norm for the next four years.”

 

[d nice]

I thought this was a good read about the monopoly of charitable giving by wealthy elites and the potential corruption behind it.

http://www.ips-dc.org/billionaires-dominate-philanthropy/

Unchecked, private foundations can become blocks of concentrated unaccountable power with considerable clout in shaping our laws and culture.

 
The last couple of years have been boom years for philanthropy. Total donations from individuals, foundations, and corporations rose in 2015 to over $373 billion, a 10 percent increase since 2013.

But behind this statistic is a troubling trend. The charitable sector is getting a growing number of mega-donations from wealthy donors and experiencing a simultaneous decline in donations by low and middle-income households.

According to new study that we co-authored, Gilded Giving: Top Heavy Philanthropy in an Age of Extreme Inequality,  the U.S. is moving toward a philanthropic sector dominated and controlled by billionaire mega-donors, their foundations, and donor-advised funds. This has dangerous implications for the independent nonprofit sector and the health of U.S. democracy.

Charitable contributions by the wealthy have risen significantly in the last decades. Between 2003 and 2013, itemized contributions from people making $10 million or more increased by 104 percent. The number of private grant-making foundations, mostly established by wealthy individuals and their families, doubled since 1993, from 43,956 to 86,726 in 2015.

Meanwhile, charitable giving by low and middle-income donors has steadily declined. From 2003 to 2013, itemized charitable deductions by donors making less than $100,000 declined by 34 percent. And, according to one estimate, the number of low-dollar and midrange donors giving to national charities declined by 25 percent from 2005 to 2015.

One explanation is rising economic inequality. There is a high correlation between donor declines and economic insecurity indicators such as declining homeownership and employment rates.

This top-heavy philanthropy is a danger to the independent nonprofit sector, as it contributes to funding unpredictability and a growing focus on wooing a finite, relatively small number of mega-donors. It also increases the risk of mission drift, as wealthy donors press their particular interests and projects.

But the largest peril is for our wider civil society and democracy. Unchecked, private foundations can become blocks of concentrated unaccountable power with considerable clout in shaping our laws and culture. They can become extensions of personal power, privilege, and influence for a handful of families.

This can lead to a wide range of abuses. In 2013, the Minnesota-based Otto Bremer Foundation gave out $38 million in grants and paid their three trustees a total of $1.2 million to make the decisions. Two of the trustees, Brian Lipchultz and Daniel Reardon, paid themselves over $465,000 each.

“It’s just an outrageously high level of compensation for trustee service,” said Aaron Dorfman, executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.

“These institutions get tremendously preferential tax treatment,” he told The Pioneer Press. “And because of the tax-exempt status they enjoy, the rest of us pay higher taxes and, in effect, subsidize nonprofit tax-exempt charitable foundations.”

Indeed, taxpayers have a legitimate interest in the conduct of private charities. Through tax deductions, we subsidize up to 50 cents of every dollar that wealthy donors shift into the charitable sector. The wealthier the donor and the bigger the gift, the greater the amount of tax revenue lost from income and estate taxes.

Some wealthy people use foundations and donor-advised funds as an extension of a tax avoidance strategy, along with trusts and offshore tax havens.

When reducing or avoiding taxes is a significant driver of philanthropic giving, the urgency of moving funds directly to charities on the ground becomes a secondary consideration. By giving to private foundations, donors receive immediate tax deductions for the full amount of their donations, but are required to make only minimal payouts over time.

A similar warehousing of wealth occurs with donor-advised funds. The Fidelity Charitable Fund, an arm of Fidelity Investments, just surpassed United Way as the largest recipient of charitable contributions. These philanthropic assets may sit for years or decades after the initial tax deduction has been taken and before any significant payout is made. Charity Watch estimates that the growth of donor-advised funds has delayed an estimated $15 billion in donations to public charities.

And, in a troubling number of cases, wealthy families of all political persuasions have been able to deploy private foundation assets to advance a narrow set of interests under the guise of philanthropy.

For example, donors can use large donations to private schools and universities to secure admissions for their progeny. Foundations in affluent public school districts allow parents to make tax-deductible contributions to support their children’s schools, compounding inequalities between rich and poor school districts. Wealthy donors fund nonprofit think tanks and tax exempt advocacy groups that further a wealth-protection agenda in the political arena. As journalist Jane Mayer has documented in her book Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, a segment of multi-millionaire donors have “weaponized philanthropy” to advance a self-interested public policy agenda of tax cuts, deregulation, and opposition to climate change policy.

The last time the legal rules governing the charitable sector were overhauled was 1969. Congress should modernize these rules, in this new era of inequality, to protect the independent sector, expand giving by low and middle-income households, prohibit the warehousing of wealth, and protect the integrity of our tax system.

Rule changes could include increasing incentives for low and middle-income donors, capping the charitable deduction for high-end donors, and requiring greater board independence. Rules governing donor-advised funds should require timely distributions. Lawmakers should levy a lifetime cap on tax-deductible charitable giving to ensure that those who possess some of the largest fortunes in the United States cannot use such deductions to entirely dodge tax obligations through donations and bequests.

To fundamentally address the perils of top-heavy philanthropy, however, the public must also demand that policymakers reduce concentrations of wealth and power in our society at large. This includes closing loopholes and restoring steeply progressive income and wealth taxation. And under a Trump administration, we will again be required to defend the federal estate tax, our nation’s only levy on the inherited wealth of multi-millionaires and billionaires.

Without action, we could drift further toward an oligarchy of wealth, with family-controlled philanthropy becoming an extension of private power.

Chuck Collins is the director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Helen Flannery is an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.

 

[Nike Jordan]

@samsteinhp

It got little mention over the past couple days, but Trump has financial investments in Carrier’s parent company

https://t.co/bKx3ltrTDi

 

[rolaholic]

@NBCNightlyNews: JUST IN: Trump aide says Pres.-elect Trump has spoken via phone with Taiwan Pres. Tsai Ing-wen -- a move likely to anger China - @ajjaffe

https://www.ft.com/content/fd19907e-b8d4-11e6-961e-a1acd97f622d

So over the course of 2 days,dude has managed to worry India after his lavish praise of Pakistan and their pm,he's invited Duterte to the WH and is now pissing off the Chinese on one of the few issues they categorically won't negotiate...

Dude's foreign policy is gonna be chaotic :x

His new secretary of defense has pushed for war with Iran for years and considers them a bigger threat than ISIS

 

[moe fab]

This popular vote nonsense is garbage rhetoric... those votes came from cali and they hold their weight heavily in the electoral college. Subtract that and trump has the popular vote in the bag

You right, subtrakt Cali from the whole damn kountry

#Calexit

 

[nephew]

So over the course of 2 days,dude has managed to worry India after his lavish praise of Pakistan and their pm,he's invited Duterte to the WH and is now pissing off the Chinese on one of the few issues they categorically won't negotiate...

Dude's foreign policy is gonna be chaotic :x

His new secretary of defense has pushed for war with Iran for years and considers them a bigger threat than ISIS

Shake everything up as far as I'm concerned. We need to be weened off of China anyways, the trade deficit with them is absurd.

The whole thing with the Middle East is it is getting more out of control with the spread of radicalism so the issues need to be addressed. I'm not supporting war but these drone strikes haven't been doing anything but provoking Russia lately

 

[rillo561]

Sarah Palin: Trump's Carrier deal is 'crony capitalism'

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/sarah-palin-donald-trump-carrier-deal-crony-capitalism-232139

We're definitely living in bizzaro world.

There goes that VA job Sarah!

 

[EddieDoyers]

Sarah Palin: Trump's Carrier deal is 'crony capitalism'

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/sarah-palin-donald-trump-carrier-deal-crony-capitalism-232139

We're definitely living in bizzaro world.

There goes that VA job Sarah!

You know it's getting bad for the Republican Party when she is critical of this deal

 

[nephew]

You think they were really going to give that air head the VA? Please. That was strictly for pub