The Many Faces of US Politics...

[whitey]

It's very hard to do an apples to apples because the systems are completely different

I pay $6k a year in property tax, about $3k a year in water charges and a YEARS  tuition at a good college will cost me $40-50k WHEN MY KIDS GO.....so yes while relatively speaking it looks like taxes are lower, Yanks pay an arms and a leg for other things that are virtually free in other parts of  He globe

[muppet]

It's very hard to do an apples to apples because the systems are completely different

I pay $6k a year in property tax, about $3k a year in water charges and a YEARS  tuition at a good college will cost me $40-50k WHEN MY KIDS GO.....so yes while relatively speaking it looks like taxes are lower, Yanks pay an arms and a leg for other things that are virtually free in other parts of  He globe

In fairness that is pretty shocking.

[J70]

In my opinion this is going to get even nastier before election day. Looks like Trump is employing a scorched earth policy, going to try and play his ultimate bully tactic in the face of defeat, trying to stir up the far right into a frenzy with his delusional and dangerous comments on vote rigging. The cops are going to have a job on their hands come election time, all the anti government, gun slinging, militant nuts will be out in force.
Hopefully it will have a peaceful end, but whatever happens, the post election period will be very interesting. I think the Hillary presidency could be a short one, she's just so divisive, even amongst Democrats. Long term, I predict the beginning of a new political map in the US comprising of a new far right party with maybe Trump leading in the beginning. The GOP to the right lead by Paul Ryan, maybe even reinventing themselves slightly to pull in some disillusioned centre ground Democrats, who I think will have a new leader, maybe Kaine.

The post election period will be very volatile. Trump is odious but he speaks on behalf of a community that has been abandoned. There is a lot of bad blood on both sides. Every time Clinton attacks blue collar whites with words like deplorables she is digging a bigger hole for herself as President. The GOP is collapsing which also makes things interesting.

The coverage of the election over here by the media is disgraceful and sickening.
I for one, will not be tuning into CNN or reading the NYT among others anytime soon after Hilary becomes president.
They should all take a collective shower after looking in the mirror at what they have pushed down the throats of the American public.

Some of the far right on Fox are similar, but in terms of the constant propaganda, it pales in comparison with all of the other channels put together.

As a parent of kids, I truly fear what the future will hold for them if we have eight more years like the last eight, and there is no reason to believe that it will be any different.
The well paying manufacturing jobs that propelled Americans into the middle class seem to be disappearing as industries such as Energy, Banking and Healthcare are becoming so highly regulated that these industries are retrenching and for each additional regulatory person they are compelled to hire, they lay off somebody else. That is fact.
Throw in higher taxation and stealth taxes, and at some point the wealthy or successful will just say FFit and stop spending and reinvesting. Highest tax rate eight years ago was 35.5% or thereabouts, which I would say was fair even a bit below what highest earners should pay. However now it has jumped to almost 44% including Obamacare tax. Throw in the stealth taxes such as medical co-pays that did not exist eight years ago. 
On topic I was at a wedding over the weekend stayed over , hotel  was $225 not outrageous, but there was an additional almost $30 in sales tax, I rarely pay that much attention to bills, that I looks at line items of taxes but it makes one shake their heads.

Finally J70, you appear smarter than anybody on this board, so a couple of points I believe in that I feel are worth pointing out;

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich,
you cannot lift a wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down,
you cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

Last one may be over simplistic, as I truly believe that if someone who has worked all their life and loses their job in their 50's
should be taken care of, but when you have generational cases of entitlements , it becomes a very difficult cycle to break.

But what is the solution to the loss of manufacturing jobs? How do you reverse automation and the loss of jobs to outsourcing for cheaper costs and labour? Trump's trade war threats aren't going to do anything to help upstate NY or the midwest.

And what specific regs are you talking about? Should banks be free to abuse their customers, both on the investment and retail sides? Should Wall Street be free to package crappy mortgages and sell them as A-rated investments to pension plans and individuals? Should energy companies be free to emit whatever they want into the atmosphere or frack away to their hearts' content, no matter what the implications for local water supplies? As for the higher tax rates, the GOP agreed to let the higher marginal rates increase right after the 2012 election. Obama campaigned on that. While sales taxes are a state and local affair, not a federal tax.

As for the last bit, ok, nice slogan, but who is advocating "destroying the rich"?

You have a presidential candidate who has admitted not paying federal income tax in two decades!

And to continue with the simplicity, tax decreases are more effective at the bottom end. A working class person spends far more, if not all, of their income on a week to week basis than a rich person. Their money is far more likely to go directly into the economy.
Whereas flat taxes or increased sales taxes will pull their money out of the economy.

As I said, simplistic. Luckily for us all there is a real life experiment in trickle-down economics going on right now in Kansas. Last I heard, it wasn't going too well!

And yes, the cycle of dependency is something that needs to be fought. The question is how? Just cutting off welfare and booting people off or denying them Medicaid doesn't solve anything.

[AZOffaly]

It's very hard to do an apples to apples because the systems are completely different

I pay $6k a year in property tax, about $3k a year in water charges and a YEARS  tuition at a good college will cost me $40-50k WHEN MY KIDS GO.....so yes while relatively speaking it looks like taxes are lower, Yanks pay an arms and a leg for other things that are virtually free in other parts of  He globe

In fairness that is pretty shocking.

It's the cost of college in the US that I find unbelievable.

[whitey]

That's nothing, people in CT, NJ and NY routinely pay $10k just in property taxes

https://www.coldwellbankerhomes.com/ct/west-hartford/41-trotwood-dr/pid_14797999/

This would be regarded as a very modest house for this town and they're getting hit up for $8600 in tax annually

[J70]

I don't get why it would be illegal for viewers to "possess" those documents but not journalists? Just sounds dumb to me, but maybe I'm missing something.

Also, the texts are widely published anyway, so I don't see how Cuomo is claiming that we need "interpretation" or "deciphering", presumably along the lines of priests interpreting scripture.

And come on Whitey, for every example like this from CNN you could stack up five examples of idiocy from Fox News!

Agreed, but the difference is that everyone knows what Fox News is and what their agenda is, whereas CNN is still presenting as an impartial arm of the main stream media

But Fox presents themselves as that too!

I did hear Michael Smerconish talking, sarcastically, in a piece about the emails, about CNN being known as the Clinton News Network the other evening!

(I'm stuck with CNN now since we got rid of cable and went with Sling TV!)

[J70]

It's very hard to do an apples to apples because the systems are completely different

I pay $6k a year in property tax, about $3k a year in water charges and a YEARS  tuition at a good college will cost me $40-50k WHEN MY KIDS GO.....so yes while relatively speaking it looks like taxes are lower, Yanks pay an arms and a leg for other things that are virtually free in other parts of  He globe

In fairness that is pretty shocking.

It's the cost of college in the US that I find unbelievable.

Why do you think Bernie resonated so well with young people?!

[screenexile]

Very strange for wikileaks to be doing what they're doing? Looks like revenge against Clinton being Secretary of State at the time of the Manning affair.

Anyway it seems so strange now all the Republicans backing Wikileaks now after them all asking for it to be disbanded and for Assange to be arrested back in 2010. Even more strange that they are calling on hackers to do their own work for them in uncovering dirt to oust Clinton.

From what I've seen so far it's all pretty harmless stuff really with little else in it other than the mildly embarrassing... will we see something a bit more damning to her candidacy in the coming weeks? Time's running out!!

Violating election law, pay for play with the Clinton Foundation, rigging the primary, rigging the debates.....nothing to see here folks.....move along

If you're so worried that the system is rigged then don't forget to volunteer...

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/landing/volunteer-to-be-a-trump-election-observer

[whitey]

If they were willing to cheat their own people it's not too much of a stretch to assume they will try and cheat everyone else too

[joemamas]

It's very hard to do an apples to apples because the systems are completely different

I pay $6k a year in property tax, about $3k a year in water charges and a YEARS  tuition at a good college will cost me $40-50k WHEN MY KIDS GO.....so yes while relatively speaking it looks like taxes are lower, Yanks pay an arms and a leg for other things that are virtually free in other parts of  He globe

In fairness that is pretty shocking.

Muppet,

You obviously don't live in the US.
It may be time to take a deep breadth and focus on some facts.

Catholic high school in US avg cost 18-20k, you could argue optional, but not in all cases.
College 55-65k x 4 fact, I just wrote a check for year one. This does not include spending money.
All of the above are post tax #'s

Average Real Estate taxes are 18-25k again post tax #
as mentioned earlier, there are so many stealth taxes today that in reality, tax rate is not anywhere near 44%.
Still not totally unreasonable mind you, except when you hear Hilary say she is going to increase taxes on wealthy again.
At some point, you just retrench and dig in.
Result. You don't take that vacation, impact on who , Taxi driver, hotels workers, people who are less fortunate.
The five year old car become a six or seven year old car, impact on who. a lot of people.
You donate less, impact on who again, less fortunate.

It does trickle down at the end of the day.

[screenexile]

I don't get why it would be illegal for viewers to "possess" those documents but not journalists? Just sounds dumb to me, but maybe I'm missing something.

Also, the texts are widely published anyway, so I don't see how Cuomo is claiming that we need "interpretation" or "deciphering", presumably along the lines of priests interpreting scripture.

And come on Whitey, for every example like this from CNN you could stack up five examples of idiocy from Fox News!

Agreed, but the difference is that everyone knows what Fox News is and what their agenda is, whereas CNN is still presenting as an impartial arm of the main stream media

But Fox presents themselves as that too!

I did hear Michael Smerconish talking, sarcastically, in a piece about the emails, about CNN being known as the Clinton News Network the other evening!

(I'm stuck with CNN now since we got rid of cable and went with Sling TV!)

Is it not a case with CNN that they are not necessaily pro Clinton but Anti Trump? Who could blame them!!

Is there not a fair chance they will go back to being a reasonably neutral news organisation after the election?

[whitey]

They leaked debate questions to Hillary......what planet are you on?

[J70]

They leaked debate questions to Hillary......what planet are you on?

Questions?

I know about the Donna Brazile-death penalty one. Are there others?

Don't you think that the GOP talking heads on these networks ever pass on intel to their campaigns?

Regardless, its not like the question was a very complex, unexpected one that she would not have a stock answer for anyway. The execution of innocent people is probably the primary argument against it, so I would be stunned if their canned answer didn't address it. So I'm not sure what advantage would have been gained. They (Trump excepted, though that's his own fault!) prep the f**k out of these candidates for debates!

[screenexile]

They leaked debate questions to Hillary......what planet are you on?

A former employee leaked one question after she had left the Network... bad for Brazile but hardly mind blowing stuff!

[Puckoon]

It's very hard to do an apples to apples because the systems are completely different

I pay $6k a year in property tax, about $3k a year in water charges and a YEARS  tuition at a good college will cost me $40-50k WHEN MY KIDS GO.....so yes while relatively speaking it looks like taxes are lower, Yanks pay an arms and a leg for other things that are virtually free in other parts of  He globe

In fairness that is pretty shocking.

Muppet,

You obviously don't live in the US.
It may be time to take a deep breadth and focus on some facts.

Catholic high school in US avg cost 18-20k, you could argue optional, but not in all cases.
College 55-65k x 4 fact, I just wrote a check for year one. This does not include spending money.
All of the above are post tax #'s

Average Real Estate taxes are 18-25k again post tax #
as mentioned earlier, there are so many stealth taxes today that in reality, tax rate is not anywhere near 44%.
Still not totally unreasonable mind you, except when you hear Hilary say she is going to increase taxes on wealthy again.
At some point, you just retrench and dig in.
Result. You don't take that vacation, impact on who , Taxi driver, hotels workers, people who are less fortunate.
The five year old car become a six or seven year old car, impact on who. a lot of people.
You donate less, impact on who again, less fortunate.

It does trickle down at the end of the day.

Joe you are paying substantially over the median for college tuition. The number you just listed is more than most states medical/dental/law school tuition.

In state tuition averages slightly less than $10k
Out of state tuition averages around $25k (depending on good neighbor status etc..)
Private colleges average in the $35k range

I would argue that catholic high school is 100% optional. Catholic/private, whatever. All optional.

What additional real estate taxes above property tax are you paying that take you to 18-25k yearly?