"While it's not my preferred position, the last election shows that the American People, including many of my own constituents, believe in the GOP's message of smaller government and curtailing government spending. It would be disrespectful of me to ignore those voters, so I'm going to help my Republican colleagues keep their campaign promises and will vote against raising the debt ceiling. I look forward to a vigorous debate about how best to spend our already considerable budget to help the most Americans without further condemning our children to endless federal debt."
Make them keep their word. Let people feel the pain, it's the only way to get them to change their votes: they have to feel the consequences of their votes directly. It'll hurt a lot of people, true, but in the long run, it'll hurt fewer people than the Religious Autocracy they're trying to build.
Give Nothing, Dems. Make them hang themselves.
When the US economy hangs itself, the wrld hangs with it. You don't threaten that for the sake of political snark.
You point out that a 401k ain't gonna stop the seas from rising, and demand every dollar raised is matched with $0.50 to disarming the clathrate gun aimed at our head.
It's not snark.
This is a fight for the soul of democracy. Either we cave and accept that self-governance is an impossibility and allow our country to become a de-facto Religious Autocracy, or we find a way to make people understand the responsibility of citizenship again. I'm tired of decades of slowly sliding. Make them own their dystopic nightmare-world: hold them to their words, force them to bleed their constituents. We're already threatening the stability of the world, nothing can stop that; it's just a matter of how quickly we let it fall.
Perhaps if things get bad enough, quick enough, we can recover. Or maybe we won't, but we were screwed anyway, so whatever. All I know is that letting the GOP slowly turn up the heat has proven to keep people numb to it all.
Defaulting on the debt ceiling would plunge the world into a deep Depression, shatter the world order and kill literally millions of people.
For as long as the US dollar is kept as a reserve currency. While the Euro has been rising since its first issuance, this would greatly accelerate its ascension to the top of that heap. We'd be looking at something happening in only a few days thanks to how interconnected the world is. In thinking about this, you'd only want that to happen if your goal was to devalue the US dollar to the point where it's on par with the Yuan or below, thus crashing the US economy. How that would ripple outward is a good question. It would certainly be financial anarchy until the switch to the Euro settled things down.
Unfortunately the world can't divest itself of America so easily or quickly without still going through at least a depression-like event. The euro can't absorb that much short term. It could potentially happen long term but there are potentially eurozone stability issues. Of course, it's possibly still better than an unstable us
"While it's not my preferred position, the last election shows that the American People, including many of my own constituents, believe in the GOP's message of smaller government and curtailing government spending. It would be disrespectful of me to ignore those voters, so I'm going to help my Republican colleagues keep their campaign promises and will vote against raising the debt ceiling. I look forward to a vigorous debate about how best to spend our already considerable budget to help the most Americans without further condemning our children to endless federal debt."
Make them keep their word. Let people feel the pain, it's the only way to get them to change their votes: they have to feel the consequences of their votes directly. It'll hurt a lot of people, true, but in the long run, it'll hurt fewer people than the Religious Autocracy they're trying to build.
Give Nothing, Dems. Make them hang themselves.
When the US economy hangs itself, the wrld hangs with it. You don't threaten that for the sake of political snark.
You point out that a 401k ain't gonna stop the seas from rising, and demand every dollar raised is matched with $0.50 to disarming the clathrate gun aimed at our head.
It's not snark.
This is a fight for the soul of democracy. Either we cave and accept that self-governance is an impossibility and allow our country to become a de-facto Religious Autocracy, or we find a way to make people understand the responsibility of citizenship again. I'm tired of decades of slowly sliding. Make them own their dystopic nightmare-world: hold them to their words, force them to bleed their constituents. We're already threatening the stability of the world, nothing can stop that; it's just a matter of how quickly we let it fall.
Perhaps if things get bad enough, quick enough, we can recover. Or maybe we won't, but we were screwed anyway, so whatever. All I know is that letting the GOP slowly turn up the heat has proven to keep people numb to it all.
Defaulting on the debt ceiling would plunge the world into a deep Depression, shatter the world order and kill literally millions of people.
For as long as the US dollar is kept as a reserve currency. While the Euro has been rising since its first issuance, this would greatly accelerate its ascension to the top of that heap. We'd be looking at something happening in only a few days thanks to how interconnected the world is. In thinking about this, you'd only want that to happen if your goal was to devalue the US dollar to the point where it's on par with the Yuan or below, thus crashing the US economy. How that would ripple outward is a good question. It would certainly be financial anarchy until the switch to the Euro settled things down.
It has nothing to do with currency. The US defaulting on Treasuries is like your employer bouncing on your paycheck. Only instead of it just screwing you and Steve from marketing it screws over nearly every medium-large corporation accounting department, insurer, bank, financial firm, pension fund, International Organization, &c.
It's the financial equivalent of saying that money actually isn't.
"While it's not my preferred position, the last election shows that the American People, including many of my own constituents, believe in the GOP's message of smaller government and curtailing government spending. It would be disrespectful of me to ignore those voters, so I'm going to help my Republican colleagues keep their campaign promises and will vote against raising the debt ceiling. I look forward to a vigorous debate about how best to spend our already considerable budget to help the most Americans without further condemning our children to endless federal debt."
Make them keep their word. Let people feel the pain, it's the only way to get them to change their votes: they have to feel the consequences of their votes directly. It'll hurt a lot of people, true, but in the long run, it'll hurt fewer people than the Religious Autocracy they're trying to build.
Give Nothing, Dems. Make them hang themselves.
When the US economy hangs itself, the wrld hangs with it. You don't threaten that for the sake of political snark.
You point out that a 401k ain't gonna stop the seas from rising, and demand every dollar raised is matched with $0.50 to disarming the clathrate gun aimed at our head.
It's not snark.
This is a fight for the soul of democracy. Either we cave and accept that self-governance is an impossibility and allow our country to become a de-facto Religious Autocracy, or we find a way to make people understand the responsibility of citizenship again. I'm tired of decades of slowly sliding. Make them own their dystopic nightmare-world: hold them to their words, force them to bleed their constituents. We're already threatening the stability of the world, nothing can stop that; it's just a matter of how quickly we let it fall.
Perhaps if things get bad enough, quick enough, we can recover. Or maybe we won't, but we were screwed anyway, so whatever. All I know is that letting the GOP slowly turn up the heat has proven to keep people numb to it all.
Defaulting on the debt ceiling would plunge the world into a deep Depression, shatter the world order and kill literally millions of people.
For as long as the US dollar is kept as a reserve currency. While the Euro has been rising since its first issuance, this would greatly accelerate its ascension to the top of that heap. We'd be looking at something happening in only a few days thanks to how interconnected the world is. In thinking about this, you'd only want that to happen if your goal was to devalue the US dollar to the point where it's on par with the Yuan or below, thus crashing the US economy. How that would ripple outward is a good question. It would certainly be financial anarchy until the switch to the Euro settled things down.
It has nothing to do with currency. The US defaulting on Treasuries is like your employer bouncing on your paycheck. Only instead of it just screwing you and Steve from marketing it screws over nearly every medium-large corporation accounting department, insurer, bank, financial firm, pension fund, International Organization, &c.
It's the financial equivalent of saying that money actually isn't.
And some of them will then default or otherwise crash. Which will cause other institutions to fail. And the massive job loss will represent a massive loss of savings and productivity. And the loss of confidence will cause people to economically turtle.....
The US Senate today voted to eliminate broadband privacy rules that would have required ISPs to get consumers' explicit consent before selling or sharing Web browsing data and other private information with advertisers and other companies.
The rules were approved in October 2016 by the Federal Communications Commission's then-Democratic leadership, but are opposed by the FCC's new Republican majority and Republicans in Congress. The Senate today used its power under the Congressional Review Act to ensure that the FCC rulemaking "shall have no force or effect" and to prevent the FCC from issuing similar regulations in the future.
The House, also controlled by Republicans, would need to vote on the measure before the privacy rules are officially eliminated. President Trump could also preserve the privacy rules by issuing a veto. If the House and Trump agree with the Senate's action, ISPs won't have to seek customer approval before sharing their browsing histories and other private information with advertisers.
The Senate vote was 50-48, with lawmakers voting entirely along party lines.
This seems like a big deal to me? I see privacy as fundamentally a personal safety issue. Too much data out there, and people start being able to get really specific. Sensitive data in the wrong hands could have real consequences for individual people. I'm imagining things like crossreferencing a list of people who look at abortion provider websites or something.
The US Senate today voted to eliminate broadband privacy rules that would have required ISPs to get consumers' explicit consent before selling or sharing Web browsing data and other private information with advertisers and other companies.
The rules were approved in October 2016 by the Federal Communications Commission's then-Democratic leadership, but are opposed by the FCC's new Republican majority and Republicans in Congress. The Senate today used its power under the Congressional Review Act to ensure that the FCC rulemaking "shall have no force or effect" and to prevent the FCC from issuing similar regulations in the future.
The House, also controlled by Republicans, would need to vote on the measure before the privacy rules are officially eliminated. President Trump could also preserve the privacy rules by issuing a veto. If the House and Trump agree with the Senate's action, ISPs won't have to seek customer approval before sharing their browsing histories and other private information with advertisers.
The Senate vote was 50-48, with lawmakers voting entirely along party lines.
This seems like a big deal to me? I see privacy as fundamentally a personal safety issue. Too much data out there, and people start being able to get really specific. Sensitive data in the wrong hands could have real consequences for individual people. I'm imagining things like crossreferencing a list of people who look at abortion provider websites or something.
In theory, you will probably be able to get around most of this by switching your DNS provider to someone with a better privacy policy if your ISP starts selling that data.
Hilariously, Google (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) has a pretty decent privacy policy for their DNS, better than most ISPs.
For now at least, it is financially impractical for ISPs to do deep packet inspection on all their traffic and sort it out in a sell-able format.
The US Senate today voted to eliminate broadband privacy rules that would have required ISPs to get consumers' explicit consent before selling or sharing Web browsing data and other private information with advertisers and other companies.
The rules were approved in October 2016 by the Federal Communications Commission's then-Democratic leadership, but are opposed by the FCC's new Republican majority and Republicans in Congress. The Senate today used its power under the Congressional Review Act to ensure that the FCC rulemaking "shall have no force or effect" and to prevent the FCC from issuing similar regulations in the future.
The House, also controlled by Republicans, would need to vote on the measure before the privacy rules are officially eliminated. President Trump could also preserve the privacy rules by issuing a veto. If the House and Trump agree with the Senate's action, ISPs won't have to seek customer approval before sharing their browsing histories and other private information with advertisers.
The Senate vote was 50-48, with lawmakers voting entirely along party lines.
This seems like a big deal to me? I see privacy as fundamentally a personal safety issue. Too much data out there, and people start being able to get really specific. Sensitive data in the wrong hands could have real consequences for individual people. I'm imagining things like crossreferencing a list of people who look at abortion provider websites or something.
The privacy ship has sailed. We gave it away for convenience and it is never coming back. I am disappointed in this change but frankly not very surprised.
With AHCA being a massive turd and failing badly because of how factious the GOP has become. This begs the question of how likely are they succeed with their shitty tax reform goals. Unless I missed something no one has been successful with a grand bargain, which will probably be required to pull off tax reform and that means touch on some of the very things that made AHCA unpopular. The modern GOP approach to taxes as been to scream that they are theft, give massive tax cuts to wealthy people that don't need them and then fuck the little guy over by tacking on user fees to everything that the wealthy get massive indirect benefits from. Plus, last time anyone did some polling, a the public was in favor of raising taxes on the wealthiest american and probably would not be thrilled to see those people getting to pay less, while everything they rely on the government for gets worse.
AHCA going down the way it did, has likely into a fair chunk of Republican political capital. No, doubt their reforms will involve trying to restructure Social Security, Medicare and likely things like Medicaid. After all, in order to make reconciliation work, they'll have to keep things revenue neutral and that means looking at the big spenders and we all know the shitty defense contractor game is off the table. I expect they'll get push back from the AARP on any changes to Social Security or Medicare. Likely, Medicaid or anything that deals with making healthcare more available or effective ends up being in the tax reform effort, they might very well end up having to deal with all the outside groups that went after them on AHCA.
Also if AHCA was a good indicator, this will be another attempt to rob from the poor and middle class, while given the wealthy more handouts that they don't need. So we might just see more angry town hall meetings that the GOP doesn't want to attend. Hell, I think any time the rat fuckers make any attempt to gut medicare or social security, everyone that isn't wealthy should gather at the offices of these clowns "No shit it's entitlement you stupid fucks, a part of fucking paychecks go into and we damn well are entitled to it you greedy fucks! Tell you wealth rat fucker masters to fuck off, they should be giving us raises, not looting our Social Security and Medicare!" Honestly, I think the sentiment of disdain for AHCA could easily be shifted to fighting Republican tax reforms because I suspect it will be very much in the vein of "fuck the not rich, we entitled rich people want more!"
I'm also wondering if we'll see the FC suicide this effort as well. Them killing AHCA will only emboldened them to be bigger pricks to their own caucus. I'm not entirely convinced they escape this shit unscathed, but enough of them are in heavily gerrymandered red districts, that they have every incentive to push for the most vile conservative initiatives possible with little fear of losing their next election (note it's not impossible they lose in a future election).
So I have to wonder if the tax reform even happens next year. Yeah, the GOP has a stance, but I suspect that policy wise, that is as well put together as their Healthcare attempt.
The US Senate today voted to eliminate broadband privacy rules that would have required ISPs to get consumers' explicit consent before selling or sharing Web browsing data and other private information with advertisers and other companies.
The rules were approved in October 2016 by the Federal Communications Commission's then-Democratic leadership, but are opposed by the FCC's new Republican majority and Republicans in Congress. The Senate today used its power under the Congressional Review Act to ensure that the FCC rulemaking "shall have no force or effect" and to prevent the FCC from issuing similar regulations in the future.
The House, also controlled by Republicans, would need to vote on the measure before the privacy rules are officially eliminated. President Trump could also preserve the privacy rules by issuing a veto. If the House and Trump agree with the Senate's action, ISPs won't have to seek customer approval before sharing their browsing histories and other private information with advertisers.
The Senate vote was 50-48, with lawmakers voting entirely along party lines.
This seems like a big deal to me? I see privacy as fundamentally a personal safety issue. Too much data out there, and people start being able to get really specific. Sensitive data in the wrong hands could have real consequences for individual people. I'm imagining things like crossreferencing a list of people who look at abortion provider websites or something.
The privacy ship has sailed. We gave it away for convenience and it is never coming back. I am disappointed in this change but frankly not very surprised.
It surprises me to say this, but I think there will be an increasing demand for technical and market solutions - ISPs with good ratings from the EFF, anonymous VPS proxies, Tor, etc.
It will be interesting to see what wins out, party unity or individual bargaining power.
The various wings of the GoP, I believe, are closer on the issue of taxes than they are on ACA, so IMO they are more likely to succeed with coming up with something than they were with healthcare.
...at least, that would be true if they didn't have to use reconciliation to get it through. I doubt the FC will sign off on anything if it means raising taxes elsewhere (almost) irregardless of who those taxes actually go to, and I doubt the moderates are going to be any more willing to screw over their voters for the budget than they were for the #1 thing they have been running on for the last 4 elections... at least, so long as their voters make sure that their reps know that they know that whatever cuts in the reform plan the GoP comes up with is going to screw them over.
What're the odds of any tax reform bills under this congress suffering from either something similar to the health bill (where it'll default to awful and annoy a bunch of Republicans who think it's either too awful or insufficiently awful), or running into something like "let's cram tangentially-related legislation into this since none would dare vote against lowering taxes"?
What're the odds of any tax reform bills under this congress suffering from either something similar to the health bill (where it'll default to awful and annoy a bunch of Republicans who think it's either too awful or insufficiently awful), or running into something like "let's cram tangentially-related legislation into this since none would dare vote against lowering taxes"?
I'd say pretty low if it would actually meet the Reconciliation rules. The only way I see the Freedom Caucus throwing a fit about lowering taxes is if it simultaneously raised the deficit. They tend to be genuine deficit hawks, not the Republican flavor of hawk who only cares when talking about Democratic programs. But reconciliation forces the bill to be neutral on that so I think it is unlikely.
Moderate Republicans might balk at massive cuts to spending that affects them or their states but what killed the AHCA bill was the pressure from the moderates simultaneous with the pressure from the FC on the other side. It may happen, especially in the Senate, if Ryan/Trump take no lessons from this and get overambitious but I don't think it is likely.
Edit: I suppose Ryan could get really outrageous with his "CBO will assume lower taxes cause revenue to rain from the sky" orders but the FC are kinda True Believers in that sort of magical thinking.
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
If history is a guide, the Freedom Caucus will look at the bill and say, "These massive tax cuts are great and all, but we're gonna hold out for even lower taxes," and the farther they pull the bill the more likely some moderates on the other end of the GOP will start to balk.
Entitlement reform through a randian's lens has been a big goal for Ryan. I fully expect to see his tax reform bill geared towards gutting medicare and social security (sure they'll say privatize, but that's the same damn thing). Probably will have plenty of other vile shit in it as well. I mean, this is is a guy that thinks taxes are too high for the wealthy, so it'll be several major tax cuts that only help the wealthy, massive cuts to several popular programs. Then a combo of either fees on things that the wealthy should be chipping into, that will only hit the non-wealthy or they'll do the fun fuck you of wanting to gut Medicare and Social Security benefits, but expect people to continue paying in what they do now and not get reasonable compensation for why they loose out of those programs.
Sad to say I think Republicans have more in common with tax reform than they did with healthcare. I'm bracing myself for a really shitty plan that either guts overall revenue and cuts taxes across the board or, arguably worse, keeps revenue where it's at and shifts the burden of raising it even more to the poor and excusing the "lol no taxes for people with gold yachts" by the usual job creator rhetoric.
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VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
Representative Ted Poe from Texas has resigned from the Freedom Caucus
"In order to deliver on the conservative agenda we have promised the American people for eight years, we must come together to find solutions to move this country forward," the Texas Republican said in a statement. "Saying no is easy, leading is hard, but that is what we were elected to do. Leaving this caucus will allow me to be a more effective member of Congress and advocate for the people of Texas. It is time to lead."
Entitlement reform through a randian's lens has been a big goal for Ryan. I fully expect to see his tax reform bill geared towards gutting medicare and social security (sure they'll say privatize, but that's the same damn thing). Probably will have plenty of other vile shit in it as well. I mean, this is is a guy that thinks taxes are too high for the wealthy, so it'll be several major tax cuts that only help the wealthy, massive cuts to several popular programs. Then a combo of either fees on things that the wealthy should be chipping into, that will only hit the non-wealthy or they'll do the fun fuck you of wanting to gut Medicare and Social Security benefits, but expect people to continue paying in what they do now and not get reasonable compensation for why they loose out of those programs.
Limitation on changes to Social Security Act
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any reconciliation bill or reconciliation resolution reported pursuant to a concurrent resolution on the budget agreed to under section 632 or 635 of this title, or a joint resolution pursuant to section 907d of this title, or any amendment thereto or conference report thereon, that contains recommendations with respect to the old-age, survivors, and disability insurance program established under title II of the Social Security Act [42 U.S.C. 401 et seq.].
So that largely tells me their tax reform is probably no viable. Granted, this is the GOP, I wouldn't be surprised if they are obviously to that act or try to pretend it doesn't exist. At this point, I just don't see how they find the money to offset a ton of pointless tax cuts. Bush probably trimmed everything that could be trimmed. Medicaid cuts will mean fighting everyone that took up arms against AHCA. I doubt food stamps are a viable option either, hell given the current economic state, we probably have a sizable number of seniors on them, so that could easily draw the ire of the AARP. Anything that shifts the tax share to the working and middle classes won't just be unpopular, but will probably not get support from the FC and possible the "moderates" that aren't Ayn Rand worshiping assholes. They aren't going to touch defense spending. Everything else is severely underfunded or the funding is so little that cutting it would do fuck all for what the GOP wants to do.
See why they really wanted to gut ACA, probably the only thing they could have touched before 2012, that would have allowed them to get away with robbing the not-rich to give more to the wealthy.
I mean they could try touching loopholes, but I doubt think any tax reform can be considered serious if it doesn't try to place a cap on the total amount people can write off, irregardless of how many loopholes or tax benefits they can find. As SKFM pointed out, those with a means can simply hire tax accounts to find new loopholes. Plus, going after the loopholes means having to deal with all the people that come out of the woodwork to defend those loopholes. Plus, I don't see the GOP willing to do this because it would mean raising the effective tax rate on the wealthy.
A month ago I would believe the GOP would come together in lockstep for tax policy. After all the toes being stepped on, attempts at bullying within the party, lack of communication, Russian ties leaving a bad taste in mouthes and sub factions squabbling, I don't know anymore. Good will and a willingness to cooperate is sinking into the depths. I will have to see the next major legislative push to see if the GOP can pull themselves together or this becomes a trend.
Comprehensive reform will be a Herculean task given all the different parties involved. They'd have more interest groups in their corner, for sure, but they'll also be dealing with a lot more of them.
Comprehensive reform will be a Herculean task given all the different parties involved. They'd have more interest groups in their corner, for sure, but they'll also be dealing with a lot more of them.
Yeah. There will be a tax cut bill, but a full on tax reform bill is a heavy lift. Even with all of them broadly agreeing on cutting taxes, the pay-for programs are a harder pill to swallow. Something will happen, and be called a win, but I doubt they can manage 1983 again. Especially after what just happened.
daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
I'd expect another one of those foreign profit repatriation deals. That's pretty easy to pull off and it lets them brag about companies bringing money into the country for investment and jobs (or dividends for wealthy people, whatever).
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
I'd expect another one of those foreign profit repatriation deals. That's pretty easy to pull off and it lets them brag about companies bringing money into the country for investment and jobs (or dividends for wealthy people, whatever).
I'd expect another one of those foreign profit repatriation deals. That's pretty easy to pull off and it lets them brag about companies bringing money into the country for investment and jobs (or dividends for wealthy people, whatever).
Haha no they won't do that
They might. Trump has said he's open to it, and, as well know, policy is made up after Trump blurts something out.
I'd expect another one of those foreign profit repatriation deals. That's pretty easy to pull off and it lets them brag about companies bringing money into the country for investment and jobs (or dividends for wealthy people, whatever).
Haha no they won't do that
Won't what, the companies won't use any repatriated income to enrich their shareholders either by buybacks or dividends, as opposed to giving raises to employees or investing in the company?
The other thing to keep an eye out for is an argument for cutting taxes on dividends using the old double-taxation argument. The estate tax is probably on the chopping block too.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Apparently the GOP deficit hawks are willing to allow the tax reform package to increase the deficit, according to the NY Times.
They're desperate to have some kind of victory after health care failures.
Kind of sad how quickly these principles get thrown out.
They're not actually principles. They're pretenses, typically to rile up the base against Democrats. Republicans run up the deficit even worse than the Democrats do over things like wars or military R&D programs.
Having a tax repatriation holiday would be the GOP admitting part of the problem is offshoring tax havens
they won't endanger that
Nah, that all that money is floating out there not coming back is clearly because our tax rates are much too high. It has nothing to do with us routinely having periods where we lower it for a bit. Nope. Those are totally unforeseeable and not something we do often enough that it would make sense to just wait for if you're a corporation.
They're not actually principles. They're pretenses, typically to rile up the base against Democrats. Republicans run up the deficit even worse than the Democrats do over things like wars or military R&D programs.
Having a tax repatriation holiday would be the GOP admitting part of the problem is offshoring tax havens
they won't endanger that
They did it in 2004 and tried again in 2009. It's basically free money for the investor and upper management classes, and it can be spun, as DevoutlyApathetic mentioned, as our taxes being too high.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Posts
Unfortunately the world can't divest itself of America so easily or quickly without still going through at least a depression-like event. The euro can't absorb that much short term. It could potentially happen long term but there are potentially eurozone stability issues. Of course, it's possibly still better than an unstable us
It has nothing to do with currency. The US defaulting on Treasuries is like your employer bouncing on your paycheck. Only instead of it just screwing you and Steve from marketing it screws over nearly every medium-large corporation accounting department, insurer, bank, financial firm, pension fund, International Organization, &c.
It's the financial equivalent of saying that money actually isn't.
And some of them will then default or otherwise crash. Which will cause other institutions to fail. And the massive job loss will represent a massive loss of savings and productivity. And the loss of confidence will cause people to economically turtle.....
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/senate-votes-to-let-isps-sell-your-web-browsing-history-to-advertisers/
This seems like a big deal to me? I see privacy as fundamentally a personal safety issue. Too much data out there, and people start being able to get really specific. Sensitive data in the wrong hands could have real consequences for individual people. I'm imagining things like crossreferencing a list of people who look at abortion provider websites or something.
A Handmaid's Tale implies that most of the world is fine.
A status quo that is pretty not great.
In theory, you will probably be able to get around most of this by switching your DNS provider to someone with a better privacy policy if your ISP starts selling that data.
Hilariously, Google (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) has a pretty decent privacy policy for their DNS, better than most ISPs.
For now at least, it is financially impractical for ISPs to do deep packet inspection on all their traffic and sort it out in a sell-able format.
The privacy ship has sailed. We gave it away for convenience and it is never coming back. I am disappointed in this change but frankly not very surprised.
AHCA going down the way it did, has likely into a fair chunk of Republican political capital. No, doubt their reforms will involve trying to restructure Social Security, Medicare and likely things like Medicaid. After all, in order to make reconciliation work, they'll have to keep things revenue neutral and that means looking at the big spenders and we all know the shitty defense contractor game is off the table. I expect they'll get push back from the AARP on any changes to Social Security or Medicare. Likely, Medicaid or anything that deals with making healthcare more available or effective ends up being in the tax reform effort, they might very well end up having to deal with all the outside groups that went after them on AHCA.
Also if AHCA was a good indicator, this will be another attempt to rob from the poor and middle class, while given the wealthy more handouts that they don't need. So we might just see more angry town hall meetings that the GOP doesn't want to attend. Hell, I think any time the rat fuckers make any attempt to gut medicare or social security, everyone that isn't wealthy should gather at the offices of these clowns "No shit it's entitlement you stupid fucks, a part of fucking paychecks go into and we damn well are entitled to it you greedy fucks! Tell you wealth rat fucker masters to fuck off, they should be giving us raises, not looting our Social Security and Medicare!" Honestly, I think the sentiment of disdain for AHCA could easily be shifted to fighting Republican tax reforms because I suspect it will be very much in the vein of "fuck the not rich, we entitled rich people want more!"
I'm also wondering if we'll see the FC suicide this effort as well. Them killing AHCA will only emboldened them to be bigger pricks to their own caucus. I'm not entirely convinced they escape this shit unscathed, but enough of them are in heavily gerrymandered red districts, that they have every incentive to push for the most vile conservative initiatives possible with little fear of losing their next election (note it's not impossible they lose in a future election).
So I have to wonder if the tax reform even happens next year. Yeah, the GOP has a stance, but I suspect that policy wise, that is as well put together as their Healthcare attempt.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
It surprises me to say this, but I think there will be an increasing demand for technical and market solutions - ISPs with good ratings from the EFF, anonymous VPS proxies, Tor, etc.
MWO: Adamski
The various wings of the GoP, I believe, are closer on the issue of taxes than they are on ACA, so IMO they are more likely to succeed with coming up with something than they were with healthcare.
...at least, that would be true if they didn't have to use reconciliation to get it through. I doubt the FC will sign off on anything if it means raising taxes elsewhere (almost) irregardless of who those taxes actually go to, and I doubt the moderates are going to be any more willing to screw over their voters for the budget than they were for the #1 thing they have been running on for the last 4 elections... at least, so long as their voters make sure that their reps know that they know that whatever cuts in the reform plan the GoP comes up with is going to screw them over.
I'd say pretty low if it would actually meet the Reconciliation rules. The only way I see the Freedom Caucus throwing a fit about lowering taxes is if it simultaneously raised the deficit. They tend to be genuine deficit hawks, not the Republican flavor of hawk who only cares when talking about Democratic programs. But reconciliation forces the bill to be neutral on that so I think it is unlikely.
Moderate Republicans might balk at massive cuts to spending that affects them or their states but what killed the AHCA bill was the pressure from the moderates simultaneous with the pressure from the FC on the other side. It may happen, especially in the Senate, if Ryan/Trump take no lessons from this and get overambitious but I don't think it is likely.
Edit: I suppose Ryan could get really outrageous with his "CBO will assume lower taxes cause revenue to rain from the sky" orders but the FC are kinda True Believers in that sort of magical thinking.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/26/politics/poe-resigns-freedom-caucus/
sorry if it was mentioned, just came up on my phone
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/641
See why they really wanted to gut ACA, probably the only thing they could have touched before 2012, that would have allowed them to get away with robbing the not-rich to give more to the wealthy.
I mean they could try touching loopholes, but I doubt think any tax reform can be considered serious if it doesn't try to place a cap on the total amount people can write off, irregardless of how many loopholes or tax benefits they can find. As SKFM pointed out, those with a means can simply hire tax accounts to find new loopholes. Plus, going after the loopholes means having to deal with all the people that come out of the woodwork to defend those loopholes. Plus, I don't see the GOP willing to do this because it would mean raising the effective tax rate on the wealthy.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Yeah. There will be a tax cut bill, but a full on tax reform bill is a heavy lift. Even with all of them broadly agreeing on cutting taxes, the pay-for programs are a harder pill to swallow. Something will happen, and be called a win, but I doubt they can manage 1983 again. Especially after what just happened.
Don't make me Laffer
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Haha no they won't do that
They might. Trump has said he's open to it, and, as well know, policy is made up after Trump blurts something out.
Won't what, the companies won't use any repatriated income to enrich their shareholders either by buybacks or dividends, as opposed to giving raises to employees or investing in the company?
The other thing to keep an eye out for is an argument for cutting taxes on dividends using the old double-taxation argument. The estate tax is probably on the chopping block too.
They're desperate to have some kind of victory after health care failures.
Kind of sad how quickly these principles get thrown out.
they won't endanger that
They're not actually principles. They're pretenses, typically to rile up the base against Democrats. Republicans run up the deficit even worse than the Democrats do over things like wars or military R&D programs.
Nah, that all that money is floating out there not coming back is clearly because our tax rates are much too high. It has nothing to do with us routinely having periods where we lower it for a bit. Nope. Those are totally unforeseeable and not something we do often enough that it would make sense to just wait for if you're a corporation.
They did it in 2004 and tried again in 2009. It's basically free money for the investor and upper management classes, and it can be spun, as DevoutlyApathetic mentioned, as our taxes being too high.