Trump / Musk (other than DOGE) Omnibus Thread

[BillOfRights]

 

[Silence Dogood]

How are tax cuts benefitting the rich? Seriously? The share of the country's income and wealth going to the rich (whether you want to isolate it to the top 20%, 10%, 1%, or whatever) has steadily increased over the past 40+ years, the time during which the tax rates for the rich have steadily been cut. Their income and wealth are rising by much more than the amount their total tax payments are increasing.

Perhaps you truly don't understand the math side of this. Let's try a simple example, ignoring the marginal levels for the simplicity of the math. Let's say someone is paying a 50% tax rate on $500k of income. That's 250k in taxes. Now let's say 10 years later that same person pays a 35% tax rate on $1 million of income. That's $350k in taxes. The amount of taxes the person is paying went up by $100k even though his tax rate went down! Does that mean the tax cut hurt him? No, of course not. He now gets to keep a much greater share of his much greater income. That is what has been happening for the rich in this country. It's why their wealth and their income is rising much more quickly, on a percentage basis, than anyone in the classes below them.

It's hard to tell whether you just don't understand this or if you're trolling.

You proved my point, as an individual increased their income they paid more into the system. Of course wealthier individuals incomes will rise more quickly. No different than investing. If you invest more initially or more over time the quicker it increases.

 

[Duke Mu]

DOGE Claimed It Saved $8 Billion in One Contract. It Was Actually $8 Million.​

The biggest single line item on the website of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team appears to include an error.

“… Almost half of those line-item savings could be attributed to a single $8 billion contract for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. But it appears that the DOGE list vastly overstated the actual intended value of that contract. A closer scrutiny of a federal database shows that a recent version of the contract was for $8 million, not $8 billion. A larger total savings number published on the site, $55 billion, lacked specific documentation.

The contract, with a company called D&G Support Services, was to provide “program and technical support services” for the Office of Diversity and Civil Rights at ICE. The Trump administration has been purging diversity programs from the federal government.

By examining past versions of the contract listed on the Federal Procurement Data System, The Upshot determined that the federal award, approved in September 2022, had initially listeda total value of $8 billion. But on Jan. 22 this year, that figure was updated to $8 million. According to the database, the contract was terminated about a week later. (For context, $8 billion is nearly the size of the entire budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.) …”

Three orders of magnitude. Let's drain a few orders of magnitude from Musk's inflated bank account and call it even.

 

[BillOfRights]

 

[rodoheel]

You proved my point, as an individual increased their income they paid more into the system. Of course wealthier individuals incomes will rise more quickly. No different than investing. If you invest more initially or more over time the quicker it increases.

Dude no one is disputing that as your income rises you will pay more in taxes. Who are you even arguing with?

One of the major purposes of our progressive tax system is supposed to be making it harder for the wealthiest to accumulate vast fortunes that contribute to growing income inequality. The incomes and fortunes of the rich have not, in fact, always grown at a faster rate than everyone throughout American history, in large part because of our progressive taxation system. But income inequality has been steadily growing over the past several decades, in large part due to huge cuts to the tax rates for the wealthy that have substantially decreased their effective tax rates. Republicans have consistently pitched tax cuts for the wealthy on the basis that a rising tide will lift all boats, but that very much has not been borne our in reality.. As an example, between 2001 and 2016, the median wealth of the upper class of American families increased by approximately 33%, the median wealth of middle class decreased by about 20%, and the median wealth of the lower class decreased by over 40%. Not only did the rising tide for the rich not lift all boats, but most of the country was sinking.

(ETA: link for data: 1. Trends in income and wealth inequality)

There simply is no evidence to support your statement that "tax cuts promote prosperity." In fact they seem to promote misery and income inequality. I find it hard to believe that anyone could see it as a good thing for the richest people in the country to become much richer while everyone else becomes poorer.

 

[rodoheel]

Just a little oopsie! No one is going to bat 1.000!

 

[nycfan]

DOGE Claimed It Saved $8 Billion in One Contract. It Was Actually $8 Million.​

The biggest single line item on the website of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team appears to include an error.

“… Almost half of those line-item savings could be attributed to a single $8 billion contract for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. But it appears that the DOGE list vastly overstated the actual intended value of that contract. A closer scrutiny of a federal database shows that a recent version of the contract was for $8 million, not $8 billion. A larger total savings number published on the site, $55 billion, lacked specific documentation.

The contract, with a company called D&G Support Services, was to provide “program and technical support services” for the Office of Diversity and Civil Rights at ICE. The Trump administration has been purging diversity programs from the federal government.

By examining past versions of the contract listed on the Federal Procurement Data System, The Upshot determined that the federal award, approved in September 2022, had initially listeda total value of $8 billion. But on Jan. 22 this year, that figure was updated to $8 million. According to the database, the contract was terminated about a week later. (For context, $8 billion is nearly the size of the entire budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.) …”

 

[nycfan]

 

[Centerpiece]

"The middle class is seeing slower income growth than both the rich and the poor"

Could this (poor) be due to the forced increases in minimum wage? I'd venture that none in the middle class work for minimum wage while many poor do.

Minimum wage in AZ has close to doubled, but those already above aren't getting comparable increases.

Oh my! The poor saw some increase in income! And oh no! The minimum wage has fucking doubled in Arizona! Those fucking poor SOB’s need to learn their place! I swear some of those brown ones need to work for nothing. What we need is some slavery up in here!

 

[Centerpiece]

How are tax cuts benefitting the rich? Seriously? The share of the country's income and wealth going to the rich (whether you want to isolate it to the top 20%, 10%, 1%, or whatever) has steadily increased over the past 40+ years, the time during which the tax rates for the rich have steadily been cut. Their income and wealth are rising by much more than the amount their total tax payments are increasing.

Perhaps you truly don't understand the math side of this. Let's try a simple example, ignoring the marginal levels for the simplicity of the math. Let's say someone is paying a 50% tax rate on $500k of income. That's 250k in taxes. Now let's say 10 years later that same person pays a 35% tax rate on $1 million of income. That's $350k in taxes. The amount of taxes the person is paying went up by $100k even though his tax rate went down! Does that mean the tax cut hurt him? No, of course not. He now gets to keep a much greater share of his much greater income. That is what has been happening for the rich in this country. It's why their wealth and their income is rising much more quickly, on a percentage basis, than anyone in the classes below them.

It's hard to tell whether you just don't understand this or if you're trolling.

Do good is trolling. Wish he would be silent.

 

[ChapelHillSooner]

Sig Heil, baby.

Article I of the Constitution. Who needs it?

Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Reins in Independent Agencies to Restore a Government that Answers to the American People

Why the hell is nobody here talking about this?

For what little I know, this seems like a good post on reddit.

 

[ChapelHillSooner]

Maybe this is some grand plot to turn liberals into gun advocates.

Because it sure as hell is working for me.

 

[1moretimeagain]

Turrible Thom

 

[altmin]

Trump Media Group Sues Brazilian Judge Weighing Arrest of Jair Bolsonaro

The lawsuit came hours after the justice received an indictment of Brazil’s former president, who is an ally of President Trump.

www.nytimes.com

President Trump’s media company sued a Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Wednesday, accusing him of illegally censoring right-wing voices on social media.

The unusual move was made all the more extraordinary by its timing: Just hours earlier, the Brazilian justice had received an indictment that would force him to decide whether to order the arrest of Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president and an ally of Mr. Trump. The justice is overseeing multiple criminal investigations into Mr. Bolsonaro.

The Trump Media & Technology Group — which is majority owned by Mr. Trump and runs his Truth Social site — sued the Brazilian justice, Alexandre de Moraes, in U.S. federal court in Tampa on Wednesday morning. Joining as a plaintiff was Rumble, a Florida-based video platform that, like Truth Social, pitches itself as a home for free speech.

The companies accused Justice Moraes of censoring political discourse in the United States and infringing upon the First Amendment by ordering Rumble to remove the accounts of certain right-wing Brazilian pundits.

The companies argued that those orders could apply to how those accounts appeared in the United States, breaking American law. Mr. Trump’s company has not been subject to Justice Moraes’s orders, but it argued in the lawsuit that it relied on Rumble’s technology and therefore could be harmed if Rumble’s operations were affected.

Justice Moraes has argued that his actions are necessary to protect Brazil from the anti-democratic acts of Mr. Bolsonaro and his supporters. His spokeswoman said that Justice Moraes did not have immediate comment.

 

[altmin]

Trump Signs Order Expanding Power Over Independent Agencies Like FCC and SEC

The president has already challenged statutory protections against summarily firing officials overseeing such agencies without cause.

www.nytimes.com

President Trump issued an executive order on Tuesday that seeks greater authority over regulatory agencies that Congress established as independent from direct White House control, part of a broader bid to centralize a president’s power over the government.

The order requires independent agencies to submit their proposed regulations to the White House for review, asserts a power to block such agencies from spending funds on projects or efforts that conflict with presidential priorities, and declares that they must accept the president’s and the Justice Department’s interpretation of the law as binding.

“This is a power move over independent agencies, a structure of administration that Congress has used for various functions going back to the 1880s,” said Peter M. Shane, who is a legal scholar in residence at New York University and the author of a casebook on separation-of-powers law.

The order follows Mr. Trump’s summary firings of leaders of independent agencies in defiance of statutes that bar their removal without cause before their terms are up. Collectively, the moves constitute a major front in the president’s assault on the basic shape of the American government and his effort to seize some of Congress’s constitutional power over it.

The directive applies to various executive branch agencies that Congress established and empowered to regulate aspects of the economy, structuring them to be run by officials the president would appoint to fixed terms but whose day-to-day actions he would not directly control.

Those agencies include the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission and the National Labor Relations Board. Still, the order applies only partly to one particularly powerful agency, the Federal Reserve, covering issues related to its supervision and regulation of Wall Street, but exempting its decisions related to monetary policy, like raising and lowering interest rates.

 

[rodoheel]

"The middle class is seeing slower income growth than both the rich and the poor"

Could this (poor) be due to the forced increases in minimum wage? I'd venture that none in the middle class work for minimum wage while many poor do.

Minimum wage in AZ has close to doubled, but those already above aren't getting comparable increases.

“Forced increases” in minimum wage? Isn’t any increase in minimum wage “forced” (by the government) by definition?

Also - as I’m sure you’re aware the federal minimum wage hasn’t increased in 15+ years.

 

[ChileG]

Trump Signs Order Expanding Power Over Independent Agencies Like FCC and SEC

The president has already challenged statutory protections against summarily firing officials overseeing such agencies without cause.

www.nytimes.com

President Trump issued an executive order on Tuesday that seeks greater authority over regulatory agencies that Congress established as independent from direct White House control, part of a broader bid to centralize a president’s power over the government.

The order requires independent agencies to submit their proposed regulations to the White House for review, asserts a power to block such agencies from spending funds on projects or efforts that conflict with presidential priorities, and declares that they must accept the president’s and the Justice Department’s interpretation of the law as binding.

“This is a power move over independent agencies, a structure of administration that Congress has used for various functions going back to the 1880s,” said Peter M. Shane, who is a legal scholar in residence at New York University and the author of a casebook on separation-of-powers law.

The order follows Mr. Trump’s summary firings of leaders of independent agencies in defiance of statutes that bar their removal without cause before their terms are up. Collectively, the moves constitute a major front in the president’s assault on the basic shape of the American government and his effort to seize some of Congress’s constitutional power over it.

The directive applies to various executive branch agencies that Congress established and empowered to regulate aspects of the economy, structuring them to be run by officials the president would appoint to fixed terms but whose day-to-day actions he would not directly control.

Those agencies include the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission and the National Labor Relations Board. Still, the order applies only partly to one particularly powerful agency, the Federal Reserve, covering issues related to its supervision and regulation of Wall Street, but exempting its decisions related to monetary policy, like raising and lowering interest rates.

The kind of thing one does if one has plans of never ceding power, ever.

 

[ZenMode]

“Forced increases” in minimum wage? Isn’t any increase in minimum wage “forced” (by the government) by definition?

The market could force an increase in minimum wage to hire people for certain jobs or in certain locations.

Also - as I’m sure you’re aware the federal minimum wage hasn’t increased in 15+ years.

Right, but many states have and those changes would be reflected in federal government data.

 

[HandsonFire]

The kind of thing one does if one has plans of never ceding power, ever.

What this is perfectly normal, Democrats did this all the time. /s

 

[HandsonFire]

The kind of thing one does if one has plans of never ceding power, ever.

And pubs are going to support it. The sooner we come to grips with the fact that Trump and anyone who voted for him and now supports him are traitors. They voted for a dictatorship and that’s what they want . And they aren’t going to give it up peacefully.