USA Politics

bearfan said:
What I had hoped for was more of an emphasis on simplification .. lower rates, few (if any) deductions.
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That's how they originally sold it, 3 brackets and less deductions, ended up with 8 (I think) and even more deductions. They don't have the ability to get it done either, at least to make the code less complex.
 
Yeah .. that would have been ideal ... I think the number of brackets is the same as before .. honestly, I would prefer 1 bracket, but 3 was better for sure .. the deductions are not all that different, some limits .. the ones the blue states are complaining about the most is the limit of $10K on local taxes that can be deducted.
 
LooseCannon said:
I find that to be very weird - I don't think you can deduct local or provincial taxes here.
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Legislatures in places like California are floating ideas like having people donate to charity (in this case the charity being the state of California/New York/Illinois, etc) ... so they can keep their deductions.

A better question people should be asking are "why are our taxes so fucking high in some states"

Other options are to bump up the payroll tax, though I think making a state even less competitive to attract and keep business is not a wise move either ...
 
The impression I get of this entire tax overhaul is that it is terribly rushed. The Republicans in Congress, and the White House, were desperate to get something done before the end of Trump's first year. I'm sure this reform has things in it that many Americans will like, but I can't help but think that they rushed it, with the short time between the votes in the Senate.
 
bearfan said:
yeah ... which is why the taxes are what they are .. they need more money to piss away
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I'm not going to pretend we're immune to spending scandals, all governments have them and I think it's fair to accept that they're going to happen (IE the current government of Ontario flushed a billion dollars down the drain recently by cancelling some natural gas power plants), but California seems to really fuck their spending up in truly epic ways. Like, Italian government level bad.
 
LooseCannon said:
I'm not going to pretend we're immune to spending scandals, all governments have them and I think it's fair to accept that they're going to happen (IE the current government of Ontario flushed a billion dollars down the drain recently by cancelling some natural gas power plants), but California seems to really fuck their spending up in truly epic ways. Like, Italian government level bad.
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California is the worse .. the "bullet" train they are building is a perfect example .. as are the deals they struck with various public unions, there was a study that a California prison guard makes more than a Harvard graduate.

Beyond the big things, so much much wasted money in smaller amounts ... a few hundred thousand here, a few million there .. that all adds up and is impossible to root out. Illinois is quite similar. Also interesting that according to recent census data, states like California, Illinois, and New York are losing population ... in part due to the high cost of living (taxes, property, etc) ... it is not going to get better and the population they are losing are the exact kind of people any state would want, namely skilled labor that make decent to good money.
 
bearfan said:
California is the worse .. the "bullet" train they are building is a perfect example .. as are the deals they struck with various public unions, there was a study that a California prison guard makes more than a Harvard graduate.
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I can see how high speed transport would be useful in the coastal California corridor, absolutely. But the costs need to be weighed carefully, and the debt-to-income ratio of California is getting out of spec by a huge amount.

bearfan said:
in part due to the high cost of living (taxes, property, etc) ...
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Absolutely part of that. But a bigger part is the lack of return for the taxes - you can choose to live in a state with high taxes and higher returns like Mass, or you can choose to live in a state with lower taxes and lower returns, but high tax/low returns is something nobody wants.
 
LooseCannon said:
I can see how high speed transport would be useful in the coastal California corridor, absolutely. But the costs need to be weighed carefully, and the debt-to-income ratio of California is getting out of spec by a huge amount.
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The train is going through central California .. think Fresno and Bakersfield .. eventually going from San Francisco to LA. it will also be the slowest "high speed" train in the world

Edit: If you have every had the displeasure to drive through that part of California .. it is basically flat farmland ... miles and miles of nothing

however ... (and this is from 1 year ago .. I would place a bet it is worse now)


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California’s bullet train could cost taxpayers 50% more than estimated — as much as $3.6 billion more. And that’s just for the first 118 miles through the Central Valley, which was supposed to be the easiest part of the route between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

A confidential Federal Railroad Administration risk analysis, obtained by The Times, projects that building bridges, viaducts, trenches and track from Merced to Shafter, just north of Bakersfield, could cost $9.5 billion to $10 billion, compared with the original budget of $6.4 billion.

The federal document outlines far-reaching management problems: significant delays in environmental planning, lags in processing invoices for federal grants and continuing failures to acquire needed property.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority originally anticipated completing the Central Valley track by this year, but the federal risk analysis estimates that that won’t happen until 2024, placing the project seven years behind schedule.

The report, the most critical official assessment of the project to surface so far, is labeled a “confidential-draft deliberative document for internal use only” and was presented by senior Federal Railroad Administration executives to California rail authority board Chairman Dan Richard and Chief Executive Jeff Morales on Dec. 1 in Washington.

This analysis puts the state on notice that it could face bigger cost overruns than anticipated and much longer delays than have been made public, a troubling critique by an agency that has been a stalwart supporter and longtime financier of the nation’s largest infrastructure project.
 
bearfan said:
Edit: If you have every had the displeasure to drive through that part of California .. it is basically flat farmland ... miles and miles of nothing
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I wouldn't call it quite "nothing." There's a humongous cattle feed lot a little ways north of Bakersfield, which is guaranteed to wake up the entire car when you pass by it.
 
AlexS said:
I wouldn't call it quite "nothing." There's a humongous cattle feed lot a little ways north of Bakersfield, which is guaranteed to wake up the entire car when you pass by it.
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No kidding, I drove San Diego to San Francisco several times in the late 90s ... the first time was "what is that smell" .. then 40 miles later you see a field of cows and the accompanying cow shit
 
bearfan said:
No kidding, I drove San Diego to San Francisco several times in the late 90s ... the first time was "what is that smell" .. then 40 miles later you see a field of cows and the accompanying cow shit
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The best is when there's multiple people in the car and nobody expects it -- first one to smell it will go "God, who farted?" and roll their windows down .... which of course only makes it worse.
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
That is shockingly less negative than I would assume. Honestly, if you did the same interviews with people in 7 U.S. cities it would probably look pretty similar (if less dignified in the responses).
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It is easier when you are further away from the daily life of a country ... realistically though .. Trump, like any President (or elected officials) .. is a mixed bag when you can take away the emotion of it (positive or negative) ... and also like most, it will be years before anyone can properly analyze (again free of emotion) ... the pluses and minuses. Odds are there are things that seem like a big deal now that will not even warrant a footnote and things that no one cares about could end up being a big deal.

I don't like the guy, but I am not going to get into the "the whole world is coming to an end, how will we survived" and live in constant outrage. I did not care for Obama (policy wise) ... and did not do it with him either. It is a waste of time
 
Agreed. Unfortunately, we live in a world where the man's idiocy is on display every second of every day, but dumb tweets aren't going to stand the test of time or the history of public opinion. Most likely he'll go down as one more unqualified, mostly ineffectual president who did some good, some bad, and ultimately didn't change very much in people's day-to-day lives.
 
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