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The Joe Biden Presidency Thread


swordfish

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The State of Our Union Sucks: https://reason.com/2023/02/08/the-state-of-our-union-sucks/

Quote

It was only a matter of time before the still-ascendant national conservative bloc within the Republican Party would begin noticing out loud that President Joe Biden has been embracing some of the very policies they've been using to differentiate themselves from your father's GOP: mercantilistic trade, subsidies for strategic U.S. manufacturing, incoherent belligerence toward Beijing, crabby attacks on Big Tech, and—yes!—protection of old-age entitlement programs.

"I was texting with [Chronicles magazine writer Pedro L. Gonzalez]," Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk tweeted late last night, "and we both agree Biden's speech was, surprisingly, kind of… MAGA? It sounds strange, but it's true. Biden appropriated themes from the nationalist movement and laced them into his speech."

Added New York Times conservative columnist Ross Douthat: "Biden just gave a State of the Union speech whose key themes and most enthusiastic riffs could have been lifted—albeit with more Bidenisms and fewer insults—from Trump's populist campaign."

Whether Biden lifted from Trump and his back-filling ideologists or whether the populist right has just learned from the trad-left the electoral joys of industrial policy and demagoguing Social Security is a question for historians, or at least those handy with Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man memes.

But the effects of this ecstatic-if-tumultuous policy embrace on the rest of us will now stretch out indefinitely into the future, more likely to be halted only by external shock rather than by any major-party spade-work to prepare for utterly predictable, self-inflicted policy failure. Our long (and global) populist moment now looks more like an era.

On the governance front, we should expect not just status-quo extensions of Social Security and Medicare but attempts to expand them. Until a decade or so from now, when either taxes will have to be increased, or benefits will be hit with an automatic 20 percent haircut, because we were too busy "protecting" Social Security to actually fix its cruel demographic arithmetic.

Annual federal spending, which was around $2 trillion at the turn of the millennium, then nearly $3 trillion under George W. Bush, ratcheted up to the mid-3s by Barack Obama, yanked above $4 trillion by Donald Trump, and then hoisted above $6 trillion by the Trump/Biden response to COVID-19, will likely treat that latest level as a baseline, asserting the federal government's permanent ahistorical claim to one-quarter of the country's Gross Domestic Product.

Those deficit-spending binges require massive amounts of debt. Let's see, are there any bad outcomes associated with that? "High and rising federal debt makes the economy more vulnerable to rising interest rates and, depending on how that debt is financed, rising inflation," the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) presciently warned in 2019. Last year, while updating its long-term forecasts in the wake of coronavirus spending, the CBO opined that unless current spending trajectories change, "The likelihood of a fiscal crisis in the United States would increase. Specifically, the risk would rise of investors' losing confidence in the U.S. government's ability to service and repay its debt, causing interest rates to increase abruptly and inflation to spiral upward, or other disruptions." Oh.

To the applause of too many conservatives, Biden last night proposed a long list of Made in America malarkey, maybe-they'll-work-this-time price controls, and other regulatory micro-aggressions that will inexorably make both government and business more expensive. "Nearly all of President Biden's economic proposals," former congressman Justin Amash tweeted last night, "will increase the cost of goods and services on Americans. Government intervention, whatever its intention, almost always reduces competition and makes things more expensive, hitting those with the least the hardest."

A decade ago, Amash's critique would not have been uncommon in the Republican Party or Congress writ large, but now he's a voice in the wilderness. This fact gets obscured, particularly on the journalistic left, by the thrilling spectacle of Uncle Joe allegedly setting a cunning trap for insane GOP backbenchers. "Dark Brandon shows up at State of the Union, mops the floor with lost Republicans," went the cringe-inducing USA Today headline over a Rex Huppke piece.

Institutional journalism's continued descent into policing "platforms," dissing "objectivity," and bending facts in the name of defending democracy all but guarantees an almost comical inability to read the Republican room. Huppke couldn't contain his enthusiasm for Biden "backing the whole party into a corner and getting them to swear to protect Medicare and Social Security benefits," writing: "I've never seen anything like it in a State of the Union speech—they ran at him like a pack of lemmings and, with a wink and a grin, he politely directed them to the cliff."

Yeah, man, it's such a ninja maneuver to trick Republicans into agreeing with (checks notes) Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and Kevin McCarthy!

Yet it's true, and significant, that several House Republicans acted like a bunch of rowdy middle schoolers Tuesday night, making Joe Wilson's old "You lie!" outburst at Obama in 2009 seem positively decorous by comparison. Part of modern populism is a deranged and deliberately provocative style. If I were a betting man, I'd wager we'll see during the 118th Congress the kind of open fisticuffs more associated with countries like South Africa, Kosovo, and Taiwan.

This is an awful development, one that threatens to become a vicious cycle. Biden was right to aspirationally assert last night that "There is no place for political violence in America." Still, he was characteristically wrong about presenting the problem as politically one-sided, reducing the deeply deranged attacker of Paul Pelosi to "an unhinged Big Lie assailant" and neglecting to even nod in the direction of Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R–La.) who was literally in the audience and survived a politically motivated assassination attempt in 2017.

Conservatives are too willing to react to Democratic and media imbalance by giving a whataboutist shrug; such a cowardly approach incentivizes even more brazen behavior in the future. Democrats and journalists, on the other hand, become so fixated on the lunacy of Republicans like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R–Ga.) that they treat left extremism as more virtue than vice.

Biden has accused the GOP of wanting to "destroy the country," accused congressional Republicans of seeking to "crash the economy," accused Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Rick Abbott of "playing politics with the lives of their citizens, especially children," and accused social media companies of flat-out "killing people." Like Trump calling the media or anyone else "enemies of the state," I'm sure this can be pleasurable, even cathartic, for some audiences.

But putting political rhetoric on a continuous war footing, particularly in a two-party system, is a recipe for mimetic escalation. So we'll likely have the worst of both worlds—bipartisan comity when it comes to constantly growing the size of government, but then bitter and occasionally violent competition over who gets to wield Leviathan against their most hated domestic enemies. The economy will underperform, trust in all ostensibly impartial institutions will sag, corruption will increase.

Republican fevers are such that plausible contenders for the GOP presidential nomination must demonstrate loudly that they are willing to weaponize government against wokes and other underminers. The Democratic reaction requires maximalist deployment of pejorative adjectives, open bribes for preferred constituents (college grads, teachers unions), and the permanent rejection of Econ 101.

It is, in other words, the perfect time to touch grass instead of obsess over national politics and to start looking for escape hatches from the applied irrational populism that surrounds us. The state of our union has sucked since at least 2015, and it's hard to imagine it unsucking anytime soon.

Agreed.  And it will continue to suck until the uni-party stranglehold is broken.

 

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Flying out of South Bend for work all these years, I had various opportunities to fly with "Mayor Pete" especially when his focus turned to getting out of SB and moving more into Federal politics.  I told him once to stick to his own convictions (he is a smart guy), and to not let the Democrat Party pigeon-hole him into a corner just to keep him where they want him to be.  (A gay guy to illustrate diversity)  It appears that he didn't take my advice and finds himself in a position he is ill-equipped for and is simply floundering while carrying the Democrat fallback position for everything.  (It's Trump's fault) This dude would have been fired in the public sector by now.  (Rail strike, Air traffic issues, ports issues - all during which he is noticeably absent from until afterwards https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ohio-residents-erupt-town-hall-wheres-pete-buttigieg)

 We’re constrained by law on some areas of rail regulation (like the braking rule withdrawn by the Trump administration in 2018 because of a law passed by Congress in 2015), but we are using the powers we do have to keep people safe.  

https://www.foxnews.com/media/complete-embarrassment-buttigieg-blasted-touting-rail-safety-blaming-trump-ohio-train-derailment

'Complete embarrassment:' Buttigieg blasted for touting 'rail safety,' blaming Trump for Ohio train derailment

Edited by swordfish
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22 hours ago, swordfish said:

Flying out of South Bend for work all these years, I had various opportunities to fly with "Mayor Pete" especially when his focus turned to getting out of SB and moving more into Federal politics.  I told him once to stick to his own convictions (he is a smart guy), and to not let the Democrat Party pigeon-hole him into a corner just to keep him where they want him to be.  (A gay guy to illustrate diversity)  It appears that he didn't take my advice and finds himself in a position he is ill-equipped for and is simply floundering while carrying the Democrat fallback position for everything.  (It's Trump's fault) This dude would have been fired in the public sector by now.  (Rail strike, Air traffic issues, ports issues - all during which he is noticeably absent from until afterwards https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ohio-residents-erupt-town-hall-wheres-pete-buttigieg)

 We’re constrained by law on some areas of rail regulation (like the braking rule withdrawn by the Trump administration in 2018 because of a law passed by Congress in 2015), but we are using the powers we do have to keep people safe.  

https://www.foxnews.com/media/complete-embarrassment-buttigieg-blasted-touting-rail-safety-blaming-trump-ohio-train-derailment

'Complete embarrassment:' Buttigieg blasted for touting 'rail safety,' blaming Trump for Ohio train derailment

Wow.  It's 2023, right?

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On 2/16/2023 at 9:49 AM, swordfish said:

Flying out of South Bend for work all these years, I had various opportunities to fly with "Mayor Pete" especially when his focus turned to getting out of SB and moving more into Federal politics.  I told him once to stick to his own convictions (he is a smart guy), and to not let the Democrat Party pigeon-hole him into a corner just to keep him where they want him to be.  (A gay guy to illustrate diversity)  It appears that he didn't take my advice and finds himself in a position he is ill-equipped for and is simply floundering while carrying the Democrat fallback position for everything.  (It's Trump's fault) This dude would have been fired in the public sector by now.  (Rail strike, Air traffic issues, ports issues - all during which he is noticeably absent from until afterwards https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ohio-residents-erupt-town-hall-wheres-pete-buttigieg)

 We’re constrained by law on some areas of rail regulation (like the braking rule withdrawn by the Trump administration in 2018 because of a law passed by Congress in 2015), but we are using the powers we do have to keep people safe.  

https://www.foxnews.com/media/complete-embarrassment-buttigieg-blasted-touting-rail-safety-blaming-trump-ohio-train-derailment

'Complete embarrassment:' Buttigieg blasted for touting 'rail safety,' blaming Trump for Ohio train derailment

I’m calling bullshit, the railroads answer to NO ONE!

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The purest definition of "overkill"  - Those dang kids and their science projects anyway......

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cruz-responds-biden-authorized-200-million-fighter-jet-shoot-science-project?fbclid=IwAR0Y6fkIvgY-alF7T8NneE3wfVpSwGR7f7w-o8Phckbetmkw5Fe200mRNBE

Sen. Ted Cruz took to Twitter Thursday to criticize President Joe Biden for ordering an F-22 fighter jet to shoot down what may have been a hobby club’s science project off the coast of Alaska earlier last week.

Cruz, R-Texas, joked that Biden’s decision to authorize the $200 million fighter jet to use a $400,000 missile to shoot down what may have been a $12 balloon serves as a "powerful deterrence" to high school students interested in creating their own at-home science balloons.

The comment came after the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade’s (NIBBB), an Illinois-based hobbyist club, said their pico balloon that was floating off the west coast of Alaska went missing the same day a Lockheed Martin jet shot down an unidentified object matching its description.

"To be fair, Biden is providing is powerful deterrence for any high school science clubs that might try to invade America…." Cruz wrote on Twitter.

"President Biden needs to tell the American people whether this is true," Cruz added in a separate tweet.

The club’s globe-trotting balloon, which was last reported to be hovering at 38,910 ft. on Feb. 10, may have been one of three unidentified aerial objects the U.S. Air Force shot out of the sky via the president’s authorization between Feb. 10-12.

The group said that its trajectory put it directly over the central Yukon Territory on Feb. 11, where an object was shot out of the sky.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby also said the objects shot down Feb. 10-12 may not have been from China or another foreign country but "could just be balloons."

"I can confirm that the Department of Defense was tracking a high-altitude object over Alaska airspace in the last 24 hours. The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight. Out of an abundance of caution and the recommendation of the Pentagon, President Biden ordered the military to down the object. And they did. And it came in inside our territorial waters," Kirby added during Friday's White House press briefing.

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1 hour ago, swordfish said:

The purest definition of "overkill"  - Those dang kids and their science projects anyway......

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cruz-responds-biden-authorized-200-million-fighter-jet-shoot-science-project?fbclid=IwAR0Y6fkIvgY-alF7T8NneE3wfVpSwGR7f7w-o8Phckbetmkw5Fe200mRNBE

Sen. Ted Cruz took to Twitter Thursday to criticize President Joe Biden for ordering an F-22 fighter jet to shoot down what may have been a hobby club’s science project off the coast of Alaska earlier last week.

Cruz, R-Texas, joked that Biden’s decision to authorize the $200 million fighter jet to use a $400,000 missile to shoot down what may have been a $12 balloon serves as a "powerful deterrence" to high school students interested in creating their own at-home science balloons.

The comment came after the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade’s (NIBBB), an Illinois-based hobbyist club, said their pico balloon that was floating off the west coast of Alaska went missing the same day a Lockheed Martin jet shot down an unidentified object matching its description.

"To be fair, Biden is providing is powerful deterrence for any high school science clubs that might try to invade America…." Cruz wrote on Twitter.

"President Biden needs to tell the American people whether this is true," Cruz added in a separate tweet.

The club’s globe-trotting balloon, which was last reported to be hovering at 38,910 ft. on Feb. 10, may have been one of three unidentified aerial objects the U.S. Air Force shot out of the sky via the president’s authorization between Feb. 10-12.

The group said that its trajectory put it directly over the central Yukon Territory on Feb. 11, where an object was shot out of the sky.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby also said the objects shot down Feb. 10-12 may not have been from China or another foreign country but "could just be balloons."

"I can confirm that the Department of Defense was tracking a high-altitude object over Alaska airspace in the last 24 hours. The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight. Out of an abundance of caution and the recommendation of the Pentagon, President Biden ordered the military to down the object. And they did. And it came in inside our territorial waters," Kirby added during Friday's White House press briefing.

Absolute clown show if true.

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https://nypost.com/2023/02/21/biden-says-he-wanted-to-add-ski-to-end-of-his-name/

Biden, 80, who was in Warsaw to mark the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, talked after his bilateral meeting with Poland President Andrzej Duda about his family’s big move.

“As a young man, I was born in a coal town of Scranton, Pa., in northeastern Pennsylvania, in an Irish Catholic neighborhood. Then when coal died, we moved down to Delaware, to a town called Claymont, Del., which was a working-class town,” Biden recalled. “But everyone in town was either Polish or Italian. I grew up feeling self-conscious my name didn’t end in an ‘s-k-i’ or an ‘o.'”

I got nothing......smh.....

 

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18 hours ago, swordfish said:

https://nypost.com/2023/02/21/biden-says-he-wanted-to-add-ski-to-end-of-his-name/

Biden, 80, who was in Warsaw to mark the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, talked after his bilateral meeting with Poland President Andrzej Duda about his family’s big move.

“As a young man, I was born in a coal town of Scranton, Pa., in northeastern Pennsylvania, in an Irish Catholic neighborhood. Then when coal died, we moved down to Delaware, to a town called Claymont, Del., which was a working-class town,” Biden recalled. “But everyone in town was either Polish or Italian. I grew up feeling self-conscious my name didn’t end in an ‘s-k-i’ or an ‘o.'”

I got nothing......smh.....

 

45 gets raked over the coals if he makes this very same statement.

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This story won't die.....Apparently this guy/gal/it has hit more bags than were reported....

https://nypost.com/2023/02/22/fashion-designer-claims-sam-brinton-wore-her-stolen-clothes/

Fashion designer claims Sam Brinton wore her clothes that were stolen from DC airport in 2018

A fashion designer from Houston claimed that disgraced former Department of Energy official Sam Brinton wore the custom-made clothes that she had reported missing from a Washington, DC, airport in 2018.

Asya Khamsin, a Tanzanian fashion designer who has made her own clothing for years, shared the shocking connection in a Monday tweet that has since gone viral.

Khamsin said she found photos of Brinton wearing her custom clothing that she had packed in the missing bag after learning that Brinton had been charged with stealing multiple pieces of luggage from two US airports.

The fashion designer tweeted photos showing some of the clothes she lost and then Brinton — who identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns — wearing the same outfits.

“I saw the images. Those were my custom designs, which were lost in that bag in 2018,” she told Fox News. “He wore my clothes, which was stolen.”

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  • 2 weeks later...

So what POTUS is saying is "look like you want to try to enforce the ALREADY EXISTING LAWS ON THE BOOKS!!!!"  There is no new "law" coming from the Executive Branch, (since it doesn't create laws) this is merely an attempt to make the underinformed think the administration is marching out a bunch of new gun control restrictions/rules.

But Kudos to POTUS for calling on his AG to maybe try enforcing laws.......

https://nypost.com/2023/03/14/biden-to-beef-up-background-checks-on-gun-sales/

President Biden will issue an executive order Tuesday increasing the number of background checks before gun purchases and strengthening the use of “red flag” laws — in what the White House has touted as the most comprehensive policy the president can enact without Congress.

The president will unveil the beefed-up policy in an afternoon speech from Monterey Park, Calif., where a man armed with an assault-style rifle opened fire during a Lunar New Year celebration in January, killing 11 people. 

Despite the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act last June, the White House said the administration’s calls for banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, requiring universal background checks and repealing gun makers’ immunity from liability have been stymied by Congress.

Biden’s executive order, marshaling a cabinet-level response, will move the US as close to universal background checks as possible under existing laws without requiring Congress to pass additional legislation.  

It will direct Attorney General Merrick Garland “to do everything he can to ensure that firearms sellers who do not realize they are required to run background checks under existing law, or who are willfully violating existing law, become compliant with background check requirements,” the White House said in a fact sheet released Tuesday.

Biden will also ask Garland to carry out a plan to stop firearms dealers whose federal licenses have been revoked or surrendered from selling guns. 

The order will also raise public awareness of “red flag” orders, which allow a judge to remove a firearm from someone deemed likely to hurt themselves or others, and calling on members of the cabinet, law enforcement agencies, educators, health care providers and community leaders to encourage their use. 

Biden will ask the Federal Trade Commission to issue a public report on how gun makers market firearms to minors and how the manufacturers use military imagery to advertise weapons to the general public. 

Federal law enforcement agencies will also be directed to develop regulations mandating that state and local authorities better report ballistics data to the federal clearinghouse.

The National Integrated Ballistics Information Network allows federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to match shell casings to guns.

As part of the executive order, Biden is calling on every federal agency involved in implementing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act to “maximize the benefits of the law” and increase public awareness of the resources it makes available. 

 

 

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Biden’s Math of Just Taxing the Rich Doesn’t Add Up: https://www.cato.org/blog/bidens-math-just-taxing-rich-doesnt-add

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Despite the headlines, the President’s 2024 Budget demonstrates how challenging it is to raise significant new tax revenue from a small minority of wealthy taxpayers. The budget raises about $1.8 trillion from non‐corporate taxpayers over ten years. Yet, following all the rhetoric about the rich not paying their fair share, it should be striking that across more than twenty new and expanded taxes, the administration’s plan does not even raise enough revenue from wealthy taxpayers to cover new spending proposed in Biden’s budget, let alone the projected $20 trillion deficit over the next ten years.

So, what’s going on? By promising the American people he would only raise taxes on people earning over $400,000, President Biden has made his budget math next to impossible. There is simply not enough income at the top of the distribution to cover the projected federal budget deficit, let alone a significant expansion in federal spending over the next decade.

What’s left to tax?

Using IRS data, we can illustrate the difficulty of raising a lot more revenue from a narrow segment of the population.

In 2020, the IRS reported that there were 164 million individual tax returns filed, with $12.6 trillion in Adjusted Gross Income (AGI). AGI includes wages, capital gains, and personal business income, in addition to other forms of income and adjustments for things like student loan interest and retirement contributions. This IRS data can show an upper bound on how much revenue could be extracted from the highest‐income taxpayers.

The IRS reports statistics by different income groups, separating taxpayers into buckets with AGIs of $200,000, $500,000, $1 million, and $10 million, among others. Table 1 shows four income groups and information from 2020 on how much total income was earned and taxes paid by each group.

 

 

For example, $2.9 trillion in total AGI was reported by taxpayers earning over $500,000, and they paid a total of $722 billion in federal income taxes, leaving them with about $2.2 trillion after‐tax income. There were 1.8 million tax returns above $500,000 or about one percent of all returns.

In the most extreme case of the federal government taxing all income over $500,000 at a 100 percent tax rate—confiscating every dollar earned past this point—not all of the $2.2 trillion is available to tax. The graduated income tax system is such that raising the top tax rate only increases taxes on the income in that tax bracket and above. Essentially, everyone’s income below the maximum rate is taxed the same. If Congress wants to raise taxes only on people earning over $500,000, the system of progressive rates effectively exempts the first $500,000 earned from additional taxes.

The IRS data show that for the $500,000 and above group, there is $2 trillion in taxable income above the $500,000 threshold. These high‐income taxpayers pay an average income tax rate of 25 percent, so they already paid roughly $500 billion in taxes on their above‐threshold income. Thus, only about $1.5 trillion remains after taxes (and is available for additional taxes), across all taxpayers earning more than $500,000.

If Congress confiscated every dollar earned by individuals and businesses past their first $500,000, it would still be about $200 billion short of covering the cost of next year’s projected $1.7 trillion deficit—unrealistically assuming no behavioral or other economic effects from taxing 100 percent of earnings.

Table 1 shows how the math of taxing the rich gets even more challenging the more income Congress exempts, showing figures for only raising taxes on people earning over $1 million or $10 million. Lowering the income threshold to $200,000 can expand income available for Congress to tax, but it is still not a realistic way to raise significant additional revenue. Common sense and economic incentives tell us that Congress cannot raise income tax rates anywhere close to 100 percent and still bring in any new revenue. Therefore, even a substantial fraction of the available income earned above $200,000 would not cover currently projected deficits.

Where’s the rest of the money going to come from?

Political rhetoric about raising taxes on the rich primarily serves as a distraction from the United States’ fiscal reality. If spending is not constrained, large and growing deficits will remain even after taxes are raised on corporations and the wealthy. The only way to significantly increase revenue is by raising taxes on a broader swath of middle‐income Americans.

Talking points like those President Biden routinely uses about the rich not paying their fair share in taxes have historically provided political cover to raise taxes on other segments of the population. Tax historian Joseph Thorndike explains how high marginal income tax rates in the New Deal era were used “to help justify regressive consumption taxes on alcohol and tobacco, which supplied anywhere from a third to half of federal revenue during the early 1930s.” Again, in the 1940s, Thorndike explains that high marginal tax rates of 90 plus percent (even though few people paid these rates) were used to provide political cover for a “dramatic downward expansion of the income tax.” Narrow taxes on the rich are leveraged into mass taxes on everyone.

As I’ve written elsewhere, every other large modern welfare state funds its higher levels of government spending with high taxes on a broad swath of the population. This is not because politicians in those countries do not want to tax the rich; it is because there is not enough money at the top of the income distribution to fund their desired spending levels.

It is often reported as irresponsible or implausible to suggest reducing federal spending as the key mechanism to stabilize the budget. However, it is accepted at face value that we can raise more than $2 trillion in additional annual revenue from the highest‐income one percent of American taxpayers. “Tax the rich” is not a serious budget proposal, and it should be treated as irresponsible and implausible.

Agreed.  The middle class is about to get screwed.  Again.

 

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Maybe it's different in the White House, but in the real world, normally it's the boss's responsibility to DELEGATE responsibility before complaining someone isn't "taking anything off your plate" or "rising to the occasion"......IDK

https://nypost.com/2023/03/23/biden-irked-by-kamala-harris-not-rising-to-occasion/

WASHINGTON — Two former White House officials said President Biden is frustrated with Vice President Kamala Harris’ performance — even if he remains committed to keeping her as his running mate in the 2024 election, a new report reveals.

The 80-year-old Biden, who has gone out of his way to praise Harris in recent public remarks, reportedly has griped about his No. 2’s reluctance to take on risky assignments.

“A point of tension in their relationship is that I don’t think that the president sees her as somebody who takes anything off of his plate” due to a “fear of messing up,” one former White House official told Reuters.

Another former White House official told the wire service that Biden, already the oldest-ever president, intends to seek a second term in part because he’s concerned that Harris may not be able to beat former President Donald Trump, who is seeking the GOP nomination.

“If he did not think she was capable, he would not have picked her. But it is a question of consistently rising to the occasion,” that former official said.

 

 

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https://nypost.com/2023/03/27/white-house-slams-gop-on-gun-control-following-nasvhille-school-shooting/

“How many more children have to be murdered before Republicans in Congress will step up and act to pass the assault weapons ban, to close loopholes in our background check system or to require the safe storage of guns,” she added. “We need to do something.”

Can someone actually come up with a bonafide definition of an "assault weapon" besides how it looks or how many rounds it holds? 

A true "automatic weapon" has been banned from private ownership (without federal permission) since the 1930's and is normally military.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/25/text

“(40) The term ‘semiautomatic assault weapon’ means any of the following, regardless of country of manufacture or caliber of ammunition accepted:

“(A) A semiautomatic rifle that—

“(i) has the capacity to accept a detachable ammunition feeding device; and

“(ii) has any 1 of the following:

“(I) A pistol grip.

“(II) A forward grip.

“(III) A folding, telescoping, or detachable stock, or a stock that is otherwise foldable or adjustable in a manner that operates to reduce the length, size, or any other dimension, or otherwise enhances the concealability, of the weapon.

“(IV) A grenade launcher.

“(V) A barrel shroud.

“(VI) A threaded barrel.

“(B) A semiautomatic rifle that has a fixed ammunition feeding device with the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds, except for an attached tubular device designed to accept, and capable of operating only with, .22 caliber rimfire ammunition.

“(C) Any part, combination of parts, component, device, attachment, or accessory that is designed or functions to accelerate the rate of fire of a semiautomatic firearm but not convert the semiautomatic firearm into a machinegun.

“(D) A semiautomatic pistol that—

“(i) has an ammunition feeding device that is not a fixed ammunition feeding device; and

“(ii) has any 1 of the following:

“(I) A threaded barrel.

“(II) A second pistol grip.

“(III) A barrel shroud.

“(IV) The capacity to accept a detachable ammunition feeding device at some location outside of the pistol grip.

“(V) A semiautomatic version of an automatic firearm.

“(VI) A manufactured weight of 50 ounces or more when unloaded.

“(VII) A buffer tube, stabilizing brace or similar component that protrudes horizontally behind the pistol grip, and is designed or redesigned to allow or facilitate a firearm to be fired from the shoulder.

“(E) A semiautomatic pistol with a fixed ammunition feeding device that has the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds.

“(F) A semiautomatic shotgun that—

“(i) has the capacity to accept a detachable ammunition feeding device or a fixed ammunition feeding device that has the capacity to accept more than 5 rounds; and

“(ii) has any 1 of the following:

“(I) A folding, telescoping, or detachable stock.

“(II) A pistol grip or bird's head grip.

“(III) A forward grip.

“(IV) A grenade launcher.

“(G) Any shotgun with a revolving cylinder.

 

Edited by swordfish
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1 hour ago, swordfish said:

https://nypost.com/2023/03/27/white-house-slams-gop-on-gun-control-following-nasvhille-school-shooting/

“How many more children have to be murdered before Republicans in Congress will step up and act to pass the assault weapons ban, to close loopholes in our background check system or to require the safe storage of guns,” she added. “We need to do something.”

Can someone actually come up with a bonafide definition of an "assault weapon" besides how it looks or how many rounds it holds? 

A true "automatic weapon" has been banned from private ownership (without federal permission) since the 1930's and is normally military.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/25/text

“(40) The term ‘semiautomatic assault weapon’ means any of the following, regardless of country of manufacture or caliber of ammunition accepted:

“(A) A semiautomatic rifle that—

“(i) has the capacity to accept a detachable ammunition feeding device; and

“(ii) has any 1 of the following:

“(I) A pistol grip.

“(II) A forward grip.

“(III) A folding, telescoping, or detachable stock, or a stock that is otherwise foldable or adjustable in a manner that operates to reduce the length, size, or any other dimension, or otherwise enhances the concealability, of the weapon.

“(IV) A grenade launcher.

“(V) A barrel shroud.

“(VI) A threaded barrel.

“(B) A semiautomatic rifle that has a fixed ammunition feeding device with the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds, except for an attached tubular device designed to accept, and capable of operating only with, .22 caliber rimfire ammunition.

“(C) Any part, combination of parts, component, device, attachment, or accessory that is designed or functions to accelerate the rate of fire of a semiautomatic firearm but not convert the semiautomatic firearm into a machinegun.

“(D) A semiautomatic pistol that—

“(i) has an ammunition feeding device that is not a fixed ammunition feeding device; and

“(ii) has any 1 of the following:

“(I) A threaded barrel.

“(II) A second pistol grip.

“(III) A barrel shroud.

“(IV) The capacity to accept a detachable ammunition feeding device at some location outside of the pistol grip.

“(V) A semiautomatic version of an automatic firearm.

“(VI) A manufactured weight of 50 ounces or more when unloaded.

“(VII) A buffer tube, stabilizing brace or similar component that protrudes horizontally behind the pistol grip, and is designed or redesigned to allow or facilitate a firearm to be fired from the shoulder.

“(E) A semiautomatic pistol with a fixed ammunition feeding device that has the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds.

“(F) A semiautomatic shotgun that—

“(i) has the capacity to accept a detachable ammunition feeding device or a fixed ammunition feeding device that has the capacity to accept more than 5 rounds; and

“(ii) has any 1 of the following:

“(I) A folding, telescoping, or detachable stock.

“(II) A pistol grip or bird's head grip.

“(III) A forward grip.

“(IV) A grenade launcher.

“(G) Any shotgun with a revolving cylinder.

 

Perhaps Biden should just instruct the ATF to handle it, that seems to be working out well for them. 

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