Official Off Topic Discussion Thread #1

[jaws7777]

. I agree with the concept of not punishing someone for being successful, but don’t sell the plan as huge break for the middle class because it’s not. The democrats are positioned well to take the senate during midterms and that is not a good thing. Who knows.

See this reminds me of the promises that were made with obamacare.

Most of the people i talk to are conservative like myself and 99% of them are done with the GOP they (myself included) cant believe how a Republican pres whose party has the votes cant get done what was promised. Im way past the point of hearing "well its not his fault the republicans are fighting him" the bottom line is my life hasnt changed much from the last administration.

Those channels are definitely not for educating anyone. This site has some examples of the how the new tax bill works out in different cases.
https://taxfoundation.org/final-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-taxpayer-impacts/

This does not seem like a simplified tac system. On the surface it feels like we are gerting duped again. So some will get the. Hild tax credit and other wont.... what about the mortgage deduction is it capped ?
How do you feel about it mike ?

......and here I am about to impose my own ban on the news shows as all the negativity,accusations and petty bickering from both sides of political line is starting to wear thin with me.
Tarheel,thanks for posting that link.

Dude its crazy i havent watched the news for months. Turned it on and its the same exact stories....like yeah ik man we already knkw all of the endless statistics on illegal immigrarion. The little i did hear on the tax bill was more of the anylists opinion but not giving any hard facts....jjst trump fanboys saying its great

 

[nzafi]

J jaws7777 if you already own a home you are grandfathered in. For new purchases you can only deduct up to $750k of mortgage, old cap was $1M.

I didn’t hate Obama, I thought he was a good president. Probably because I’m very socially liberal. I was excited about republican control because I wanted tax reform and social program reform. I hate that our debt is $20T even though I believe in social programs.

The biggest problem today is there is too much hate on both sides and finger pointing. I don’t identify with either party but I believe some action is better than no action. Our economy today is too gray to assume pure theories on both sides. I think most just wish for common sense and some compromise versus all the bipartisan showmanship that is going on.

 

[nzafi]

Those channels are definitely not for educating anyone. This site has some examples of the how the new tax bill works out in different cases.
https://taxfoundation.org/final-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-taxpayer-impacts/

That is probably the best representation and different sampling of scenarios I’ve seen. Most news organizations are trying skew it to specific scenarios.

 

[jaws7777]

J jaws7777 if you already own a home you are grandfathered in. For new purchases you can only deduct up to $750k of mortgage, old cap was $1M.

I didn’t hate Obama, I thought he was a good president. Probably because I’m very socially liberal. I was excited about republican control because I wanted tax reform and social program reform. I hate that our debt is $20T even though I believe in social programs.

The biggest problem today is there is too much hate on both sides and finger pointing. I don’t identify with either party but I believe some action is better than no action. Our economy today is too gray to assume pure theories on both sides. I think most just wish for common sense and some compromise versus all the bipartisan showmanship that is going on.

I agree with allot of what you feel the problem is. Im conservative but dont disagree with all of the thought process moderate dems have.

I have equel amount of distrust for both parties. I dont feel the Republicans represent me. Yeaj all the lip service is there but thats about it. I liked the 1st bush, love clinton allot of people feel he benefited from the .com boom but either way i liked him. I hated the 2nd bush as well as obama. Imo they are the same lying sacks of crap. Weapons of mass destruction in iraq = free health care/ you can keep your own drs.

I seriously cant believe both of them arent in jail.

I was really looking forward to this health care revamp theres no way this obama care is sustainable. Ive been spoiled when it comes to health insurance. My previous employer paid 100% of the premiums. They offer HIP amd GHI at no cost. We could have elected to take others but why pay. I recently retired from the job due to injuries and decided to move out of NYC since GHI is a national plan we thought we were ok. Only to move and find out that none of the drs accept it. Since the obama care took affect it changed what the pay scales were and one dr desctibe it to us saying that GHI may only pay 25% of an office visit he couldnt maintain an office on that level of payment. So we figure we would look into obama care.....i was completely blown away. For my family we would have had a premium of 1500ish with a 14k deductible and co pays that insane its basically no healthcare. Ended up takinf a plan through the job. Its almost 1000 a month in premiums but atleast no deductibles and low copays. I also find it interesting that the uear he leaves office is the year the fed stops paying back the insurance companies for their losses, which is the same yr many of them start droping out of it. Just heard that aetna is leaving the exchange this yr.

 

[skjl47]

but doesnt the GOP have the majority of the votes ?

Hello; the problem the GOP has in in the senate. For general passage it takes 60 votes to pass bills thru the senate. The GOP has 52 and soon will have 51 after the vote to replace Jeff Sessions seat.
They have been using a very limited senate rule which allows the change in laws with only 51 votes. I think it is called "reconciliation" (sp) and has very strict limits. This is one reason he GOP cannot get all the things they may want.

Back during the first two years of President Obamas tenure the Dems had the needed votes in both the house and the senate. That is why they could push a major law thru without any GOP votes.

 

[nzafi]

they stopped paying the insurance companies because trump refused to renew funding. Healthcare is also specific. I’ve had to deal with high deductible for 12 years now because that’s how my work plan is structured. Each year I’ve had a kid I’ve spent $15k out of pocket. To me the failure of Obamacare was it was strictly focused on expanding care. The biggest issue is medical costs which it didn’t solve, just tried to spread the cost from old and sick to young and healthy. No one is talking about reducing costs. Repealing Obamacare at this stage will just make insurance more expensive.

The US is close to 50/50 divided on so many things it’s very hard to keep people happy. Saw a poll where they compares trumps first year against Obama and how their constituents felt about the direction of the country. They were almost direct copies excerpt under Obama’s democrats were happy and republicans angry, now republicans are happy and democrats pissed off.

 

[nzafi]

Hello; the problem the GOP has in in the senate. For general passage it takes 60 votes to pass bills thru the senate. The GOP has 52 and soon will have 51 after the vote to replace Jeff Sessions seat.
They have been using a very limited senate rule which allows the change in laws with only 51 votes. I think it is called "reconciliation" (sp) and has very strict limits. This is one reason he GOP cannot get all the things they may want.

Back during the first two years of President Obamas tenure the Dems had the needed votes in both the house and the senate. That is why they could push a major law thru without any GOP votes.

Agree but also disagree. Republican Party is a lot more fractured than Democrat. Even with 60 seats I don’t see them getting much done.

 

[skjl47]

Agree but also disagree. Republican Party is a lot more fractured than Democrat. Even with 60 seats I don’t see them getting much done.

Hello; Interesting in that while your speculation may be true, the bottom line is the GOP do not yet have the 60 votes in the senate.
I also get that some individual senators hold back their support to get "special" consideration at the time of crucial votes. I do think this has been true of both parties over time.

There is also a core of the long term party faithful who consider President Trump an outsider. By that I mean he did not pay his dues and rise thru the ranks over time. I do think for many months these party insiders were almost as upset as the dems because one of their fellow members of the core faithful did not make the cut.
It seems they have to some degree come around to working with their new leader.

 

[krichardson]

It's going to be interesting to see just who kills the Reciprocity bill.

 

[jaws7777]

Hello; Interesting in that while your speculation may be true, the bottom line is the GOP do not yet have the 60 votes in the senate.
I also get that some individual senators hold back their support to get "special" consideration at the time of crucial votes. I do think this has been true of both parties over time.

There is also a core of the long term party faithful who consider President Trump an outsider. By that I mean he did not pay his dues and rise thru the ranks over time. I do think for many months these party insiders were almost as upset as the dems because one of their fellow members of the core faithful did not make the cut.
It seems they have to some degree come around to working with their new leader.

Oh i dont doubt it but in the end maybe more would have gotten done if and insider was elected...just thinking out loud