The 7 Biggest Conservative Wins of 2017

Townhall.com ^ | December 30 | Erika Haas

[Neoliberalnot]

Wow, you are out there. How do you feel about those countries that have actually fought with our troops?

Israel should be our friends, since they get about 6 billion in annual aid, which is more per capita of their population tha any other country on the planet.

[Neoliberalnot]

To clarify my position. Fifty Years Later, NSA Keeps Details of Israel’s USS Liberty Attack ...
https://theintercept.com/2017/06/06/fifty-years-later...Proxy Highlight
Jun 6, 2017 ... On June 8, 1967, an Israeli torpedo tore through the side of the unarmed American naval vessel USS Liberty, approximately a dozen miles off the Sinai coast. The ship, whose crew was under command of the National Security Agency, was intercepting communications at the height of the Six-Day War.

34 dead doesn’t like like a great ally.

[MSF BU]

If you calculate that by county you will see the areas that vote left become much more pronounced whether it is the Mississippi Delta, Detroit or Los Angeles.

[remember]

I don’ t really want to argue with either one of you. The US had the highest corporate rate of all industrialized nations. The cut will stimulate job growth and the economy. I know it is far from perfect but it will fuel jobs and end the corporate move to other countries. I personally favor a national sales tax to replace the IRS jackboots, but that is unlikely to happen.

I frankly know more about individual taxes than I do about corporate taxes. Still, the Tax Foundation, NPR, and CBPP suggest that the U.S. corporate is not the highest but is, at most, above average when you look at the effective rate after deductions. As such, I think it would have been more prudent to cut the corporate to no lower that the 28% rate that I've heard proposed previously. It likely would have been easier to make that deficit-neutral. Cutting it clear down to 21% and betting on strong economic growth seems risky. Why not cut it to 28% and see what happens?

Jim Robinson did the calculations and as I recall he said otherwise. Last time I checked he is from CA.

What did he calculate? Anyhow, have a Happy New Year.

[remember]

Very good information and graph. Thanks for posting.

Thanks. The information and graph was generated by the interactive application at https://econdata.shinyapps.io/taxcuts/. You can see the actual calculations if you click on the "Calculation of Taxes" tab. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the app or the results, let me know.

[foreverfree]

bump

[SkyPilot]

I posted a thread on folks who scrambled to pre-pay some of their 2018 taxes by Dec 31st in order to claim that as a deduction on this year's (2017) taxes by April.

https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3617499/posts?page=1

Here is a photo of a local tax office from a suburb in New York state (Hempstead):

The IRS clarified that filers could pre-pay 2018 property taxes by Dec 31st, 2017 if they were both assessed and billed in 2017.

Take that photo, and multiply it by many other towns in many other states. These people are not all millionaires - most are middle or upper middle class folks who had to shell out money right in the middle of the holidays to pre-pay taxes because if they didn't they would lose thousands of dollars in deductions.

I know the "winners" of this tax law are happy to see Blue states screwed, but the victims in those states are NOT all liberal. Many of them are Republicans and Conservatives, and they got stabbed in the neck by the Tax Deduction Elimination Act.

I don't think the GOP Establishment really cares about these families at all. They wrote the bill to take care of the billionaire corporations and their donors first, and any collateral damage is just too bad.

We will have to see if this calculation on their part has any fallout in the 2018 elections, which are fast approaching.

[SkyPilot]

Also, thanks for that link to the interactive application and your offer of assistance!

[Neoliberalnot]

Can you do my taxes too? As a research veterinarian, I spent my career at a Collge of Vet Med. A couple of years ago,the university needed to cut staff, so they offered a tenure buy-out for full tenured professors ( Obama was a par time instructor; no resemblance to a professor). Anyway, they bought my tenure, which took 8 long years of high impact performance to secure. The IRS declared it was a bonus and took an additional 70K in taxes from this 200K buyout. How was this not a long term gain?

[central_va]

Hate Jews much?

[Neoliberalnot]

Cut the race pimping Al.

[Neoliberalnot]

uss liberty veterans association

USS LibertyON JUNE 8, 1967, while patrolling in international waters in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, USS Liberty (AGTR-5) was savagely attacked without warning or justification by air and naval forces of the state of Israel. Of a crew of 294 officers and men (including three civilians), the ship suffered thirty four (34) killed in action and one hundred seventy three (173) wounded in action. The ship itself, a Forty Million ($40,000,000) Dollar state of the art signals intelligence (SIGINT) platform, was so badly damaged that it never sailed on an operational mission again and was sold in 1970 for $101,666.66 as scrap.

At 1400 hours, while approximately about 17 nautical miles off the northern Sinai coast and about 25 nautical miles northwest of El Arish, USS Liberty’s crew observed three surface radar contacts closing with their position at high speed. A few moments later, the bridge radar crew observed high speed aircraft passing over the surface returns on the same heading. Within a few short moments, and without any warning, Israeli fighter aircraft launched a rocket attack on USS Liberty. The aircraft made repeated firing passes, attacking USS Liberty with rockets and their internal cannons. After the first flight of fighter aircraft had exhausted their ordnance, subsequent flights of Israeli fighter aircraft continued to prosecute the attack with rockets, cannon fire, and napalm.

During the air attack, USS Liberty’s crew had difficulty contacting Sixth Fleet to request assistance due to intense communications jamming The initial targets on the ship were the command bridge, communications antennas, and the four .50 caliber machine guns, placed on the ship to repel boarders. After the Israeli fighter aircraft completed their attacks, three Israeli torpedo boats arrived and began a surface attack about 35 minutes after the start of the air attack. The torpedo boats launched a total of five torpedoes, one of which struck the side of USS Liberty, opposite the ship’s research spaces. Twenty-five Americans, in addition to the nine who had been killed in the earlier air attacks, were killed as a result of this explosion.

Sixth Fleet Abandons USS Liberty Under Fire.
DoD Approves Of Their Action

USS LibertyThe Department of Defense Law of War Program (DoD Directive 2311.01E – formerly DoD Directive 5100.77) provides that “All reportable incidents committed by or against U.S. personnel, enemy persons, or any other individual are reported promptly, investigated thoroughly, and, where appropriate, remedied by corrective action.”

On June 8, 2005 the USS Liberty Veterans Association submitted A Report of War Crimes Committed Against the USS Liberty, June 8, 1967 to the Department of Defense in accordance with the DoD Law of War Program.

The War Crimes Report we filed lists allegations of acts committed during the attack on our ship, including:

The jamming of our radios on both US Navy tactical and international maritime distress frequencies;
The use of unmarked aircraft by the forces attacking the USS Liberty;
The deliberate machine gunning of life rafts we had dropped over the side in anticipation of abandoning ship; and
The recall of two flights of rescue aircraft that had een launched from Sixth Fleet aircraft carriers. After those flights were recalled, Sixth Fleet personnel listened to our calls for help as the attack continued knowing they were forbidden to come to our assistance.
The Department of Defense has unilaterally waived its obligation under the Department of Defense Law of War Program by refusing to investigate the allegations contained in the War Crimes Report. The Department of Defense has also refused to provide a speaker to address the crew of the USS Liberty and explain their actions with regard to the War Crimes Report.

[central_va]

The Israelis made a mistake. THE USA recognizes them as a vital ally, the only democracy ins a sea of totalitarian Muslim shit.. So f off. Go fantasize about cremating some Jews.

[Neoliberalnot]

Israel is a socialist state, period. Here is a verbal account of an officer that was there, you weren’t.

located the EXACT recorded point that a USN Lieutenant on the bridge of the USS Liberty during the attack expounded on that liferaft claim.

Here is wounded survivor Lt. James Ennes in his own words:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF_6k1c_0ds&feature=youtu.be&t=975

[dirtboy]

The most important conservative achievement - Hillary Clinton is not president.

[central_va]

Here is some oven porn for you to get off on;

[Neoliberalnot]

Last time I checked your Arab Semite brothers were hacking the heads off people around the planet in the contemporary world. You do have enough sense to know that Semites are not just in Israel, but inclusive of Arabs in many other nations. Do you support the Semites that also attacked other American citizens on 911?

[remember]

Take that photo, and multiply it by many other towns in many other states. These people are not all millionaires - most are middle or upper middle class folks who had to shell out money right in the middle of the holidays to pre-pay taxes because if they didn't they would lose thousands of dollars in deductions.

Yes, this was one of the worst things about the tax bill. By pushing it through at the very end of the year, they forced many taxpayers into making snap decisions and shell out money at the last minute in order to save on deductions. If Congress hadn't been rushing it so much, they could have likely foreseen these problems and phased in certain changes so as to avoid this situation. By the way, this MarketWatch article gives a way that taxpayers could similar "prepay" charitable deductions, to be granted in future years. Of course, only taxpayers who read that or already knew about it were able to benefit. That's not the way to run a tax system.

I know the "winners" of this tax law are happy to see Blue states screwed, but the victims in those states are NOT all liberal. Many of them are Republicans and Conservatives, and they got stabbed in the neck by the Tax Deduction Elimination Act.

This is one problem of our electoral system. For Senatorial and Presidential elections, Republicans feel that they have noting to lose by antagonizing blue states. Any Republicans in those states are just seen as collateral damage. It was likely only because of Republican Representatives that the state income tax elimination was watered down a little, combining it with the property tax for a $10,000 maximum.

I don't think the GOP Establishment really cares about these families at all. They wrote the bill to take care of the billionaire corporations and their donors first, and any collateral damage is just too bad.

Yes, that often seems to be the way. Buy off the donors with permanent tax cuts since they won't be fooled by sleights of hand (like eliminating the personal exemption and using the savings to pump up the standard deduction and child credit).

We will have to see if this calculation on their part has any fallout in the 2018 elections, which are fast approaching.

Yes, time will tell. Many Republicans seem sure that the tax cut will serve to buy off a majority of voters when they see a few extra dollars in their paycheck. I hope that voters will be a little more discerning and look at what their final taxes will be (hence the interactive application), what services will need to be cut, and the costs of the increasing deficit.

[remember]

Can you do my taxes too? As a research veterinarian, I spent my career at a Collge of Vet Med. A couple of years ago,the university needed to cut staff, so they offered a tenure buy-out for full tenured professors ( Obama was a par time instructor; no resemblance to a professor). Anyway, they bought my tenure, which took 8 long years of high impact performance to secure. The IRS declared it was a bonus and took an additional 70K in taxes from this 200K buyout. How was this not a long term gain?

Sorry, but I'm not a professional tax preparer. What I know is from doing my own taxes and some study on my own such as what I needed to learn to implement the interactive tax application. I have run into one or two cases where someone had to pay similarly high taxes on some unusual income like you describe. I've never done it but did you look into income averaging? Also, you could perhaps contact your representative. I doubt that they can do much about your specific case but they might be able to suggest who you could contact.

[SkyPilot]

what services will need to be cut, and the costs of the increasing deficit.

I hear cutting of services and entitlements is coming next. Paul Ryan can't wait.

And even though Trump promised not to touch Social Security and Medicare, we should keep in mind that Trump also promised "to give the middle class a tax cut first", and instead gave most of the benefits of this tax cut to corporations and the very wealthy (70% of the cuts go to them).

They may try to grandfather in current recipients, and cut for those on the cusp of retirement. I am not sure because everything is pretty close hold, and they are not telling the media exactly what they will do.

As far as the deficit, it is going to baloon at least by $1 Trillion over ten years. The GOPe cannot run as deficit hawks now without being total hypocrits.