Who's voice is really on the Hollywood Access tapes?? Howdy Doody?

Voting should be about more than personal financial selfishness. And it is. Most of America is against this tax bill and pretty much everything else Trump is actually doing. Republicans largely know that they are acting in a manner that is not in the best long-term interests of the country. But they want to be able to claim that the did what they promised, no matter how stupid those irresponsible promises were to make.

The second Bush was the worst president in my lifetime. Trump is working hard to be the worst president in American history.

Promising business more cash to dole out to their shareholders in profits is certainly going to send the stock market rising in bubble fashion. Like Hillbilly, I am benefiting in the short term from that foolish policy as a matter of pure personal finance. But it is a long term disaster of a plan, and virtually every real expert recognizes it as such. Don't listen to the Fox echo chamber. They are as big a group of liars as Trump and his family.

Once this terrible tax plan settles in, the GOP's next move will be to further undermine the insurance markets for healthcare so that they can finish forcing Obamacare into insolvency by killing subsidies for the lower middle class and poor. That will have the desired effect Republicans want of forcing all premiums to rise so that they can try to blame liberals for passing Obamacare (the same kinds of tactics they have been employing ever since they gain control of Congress). They will "justify" this because they will suddenly purport to feel a renewed need for budget responsibilty having just given $1+ trillion dollars to themselve and their wealthiest and most powerful supporters. This will result in a net loss to non-rich voters when the destruction of insurance markets eats up more middle class voters' income than the sabatoge of a tax plan puts in place for those voters.

Companies will do some additional investment, but with unemployment already very low when Obama left office, with historically low interest rates needing to rise eventually to normal levels, and with working people actually not realizing any real gain in net wealth, there won't be more net money available to regular folks to spur greater demand for goods and thus no big gain in sources of new profits. So businesses will hang onto their cash or give it to already rich shareholder just as the are doing now.

In the long run, this plan will actually hurt the economy and most regular people because it is a cynical ploy to great a short-term bubble gain in economic growth to create the impression that Trump and his Republican Judases are helping the majority of Americans in order to retain political power. In reality, they have no good ideas for dealing with America's real challenges. They are merely interested in doing whatever is necessary to look like they can get anything done now and will worry about how to blame others for the mess they are creating in the long run.

I do watch FOX news, Peter. I watch MSNBC also. One is conservative, the other is liberal. I also watch CNN which is, kinda middle of the road. We need the opinions of all sides.

Two things about the tax plan that I have concerns about are the corporate tax rates/estate tax and the deficit.

I'm worried that companies, instead of hiring more workers or raising their pay, companies will increase dividends or buy back their own shares. (I posted an article about this yesterday).

There have been companies that have used profits and replaced workers with robots to further increase the bottom line.

I heard Susan Collins on Meet the Press today and she guaranteed that Medicare or Medicaid would not be breached. But this is a Republican and one of the things they do best is lie. I'd love to believe her. She was quite sincere about her statement.

I'm a little confused about the relocation of company's back to the United States. Is the cost of moving assets included in the bill???

What about Venezuela? General Motors was a U.S. corporation to have a factory or other assets seized by the government of Venezuela, and the Detroit automaker faces an uphill battle to recover any damages. I think this just happened in March of this year. Will their be compensation within the bill to cover GM losses?

What about other companies that have assets overseas? Are these costs going to be covered by the bill or absorbed by the tax payers?

Seems to me that there are a lot of hidden costs not discussed in the Republican's bill. I say Republican's because Democrats were excluded from discussing the bill until two hours before the vote was supposed to take place. This is a Republican bill.

All the Presidents Men (Women).......Trump promised during the campaign to hire the best people. He keeps hiring the worst.

Isn't there anything that the republicans can do to shut this guy down? Grow some balls folks !

WHAT ???

Trump has been by-passing Kelly by having staff meet after hours and told not to repeat any of the conversations to Kelly ?!?!?!? Instead, Ivanka has been receiving some of the phone messages and was told to relay them to her husband ?!?!?!

Tell me that this is "fake" news.

Beware of false equivalencies, Joe. MSNBC is not the liberal version of Fox, although occasionally it does go off the rails in terms of commentary. Fox's main mission is to twist the news and facts to advance the right wing's agenda, whatever that is at the moment and without concern whether the discussions are inconsistent from day to day or lack any intellectual honesty whatsoever. Seldom does it make any genuine effort to present a truly fair and balanced account of competing sides of an issue. While it's leftward leanings are clear, MSNBC does try to get the facts correct and brings in real conservatives to talk and actually lets them speak.

Led by Fox the right has focused more on propaganda than fair-minded analysis for at least fifteen years. It and Rush Limbaugh have done more damage to honest political discourse than any other media outlets. MSNBC has tried to be a liberal response to the success Fox has made as a propaganda outlet but without the fundamental lack of integrity that Fox is willing to adopt. It thus is more honest but also less willing to do whatever works best to manipulate the facts to its favored party's advantage. But that leaves it at a disadvantage against dirty trick approaches of right-wing "news" programming.

It is harder to win a street fight when you are the only one constrained by some sense of fair play.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/won ... 6eb9b768ed

Analysis of how "great" this tax plan really is for middle class America.

Trump has been lying. Who would have guessed?

And Republicans in Congress?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ri ... 334ca94dc5

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/04/us/p ... -news&_r=0

What does the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation report say?

https://www.jct.gov/publications.html?f ... wn&id=5046

For some reason, I can't open any WAPO links. I've seen models as high as 2.1 trillion an as low as 500 billion. Interesting that the budget committee took down one of the models from their website.

Peter, is that the same numbskulls that said if Trump won the election the economy and stock market would crash????

Stock marlet is up 30% since election!!! LMAO!!!

We all see what Trump has done for jobs and the economy. I posted the facts above. And they are the facts, period. And we will all see what his tax cuts do, before the next election. And he will be judged.

But not on Obamacare, get out of dreamland.

Obamacare was a disaster from the beginning, it is imploding as Trump pointed out during election. But not because of anything republicans did. Democrats wrote that law. You guys own it lock stock and barrel. And I will never forget it. My premiums have raised every year since it was enacted, and my coverage has gotten worse.

But I'm looking forward to seeing you guys try to blame that on republicans. That's cute. That's the kind of thing you get when you watch MSNBC.

The republican party is a disgrace. The president has now officially endorsed Moore, McConnell does a complete u turn on his evaluation of Moore, and the RNC is now funding Moore's campaign, I'm assuming with the support of the republicans. The republican party, by endorsing Moore, is condoning immorality in this country. Trump is leading the charge. Why isn't Trump under iinvestigation.......Oh! He is.

THEY'RE A MATCH

Beverly Young Nelson's yearbook has Moore's signature in it. Moore says it was forged.

Well! Debbie Wesson Gibson, reportedly told the Washington Post SHE has proof. The Florida resident said she had a relationship with the Republican Alabama Senate candidate when she was 17 and he was in his 30s. According to the Post, Gibson found a high school graduation card she claims Moore wrote that said, “Happy graduation Debbie. I wanted to give you this card myself. I know that you’ll be a success in anything you do. Roy.” He signed it! His signature is on the card !

THEY'RE A MATCH

The conduct being exhibited by the republican party is not normal. (Senator Bob Corker (R) of Tennessee may be the only exception.) Trump is not normal! I think they've all caught Trumpitis.

Is this what it takes to get ONE vote?!?!?

I see Trump still has his phone

As the days pass, the more exposed the republican party becomes.

Hillbilly,

You were wrong about Bush.

You were wrong about O'Bama.

You are wrong about Trump.

To think Trump is a worthy (or even a remotely adequate) president one really must choose to focus on the rise of stock market prices that inherently comes with promises of trillion-dollar tax concessions to the Fortune 500 companies rather than all the terrible, reckless, and idiotic things he says and does nearly all of the time. Laugh if you want, but that speaks for itself.

History will show that Trump is a disaster of a human being and as a national and world leader. It already has to anyone who is paying attention to the big picture. "Baffle the under-informed masses with bull**** and short-term trinkets, while you mortgage their future for huge gains for the richest that will set the most advantaged and their heirs up for generations." That is the essence of the Republican battle cry.

Glad you like getting whatever trickles down your way. Part of me does too because it is nicer to fall into the fortunate minority than to be part of the majority that struggle for relative scraps. But fairness matters to me, and I am still working to get a Government that returns to genuine values, moderation and compromise in order to work for all the people.

(P.S. It is on the record that Republicans did everything they could - and continue to do everything they can -- to force premiums to rise and to stop any corrective actions specifically to draw the wrath of people like you. You can try to pretend it is not so, but that is how your favorite party sets itself up to reclaim power and, in the end, they want power more than they want what's best for the country as a whole.)

People love bullshit artists. Some never figure out the joke's on them. When it comes time to vote, these moron voters will vote for a smile or a line of bullshit rather than their own financial interests.

Problem is our elected representatives believe their own bullshit and are puppets of special interests.

Peter, I can handle you being a Kool Aid drinking liberal but I will not stand for you outright lying and making things up.

I hated Bush! Both of them. Hated the daddy more. I told Mt.Fan in here one time he could bash W any time, hell, I'd help, but to lay off Laura. ... Posted here once that I would vote for a JFK democrat over Bush, McCain, or Romney any time. But there are no JFK democrats anymore. Just far left commies.

And you apparently forgot, I have mentioned many times I was a democrat until 2005. That's when the far left of the party started taking over and drove guys like me away.

Also, I posted some warnings about Obama before the '08 election. I said I was concerned that he would spend too much. Inflation would rise. Value of dollar would go down. Was concerned that he was anti-Israel. And I was concerned about a single payer health system. .... You called me a Fearmongerer if I remember correctly.

Inflation was 0.1 when Obama took office. It was 2.1 when he left. He more than doubled the national debt, adding more to the national debt than every other president in our history COMBINED. And our relationship with Israel was never worse under any president then it was with Obama. And he jammed through Obamacare, which has been an absolute disaster. Thank God the GOP took back the hill before Obama did any more damage than Obamacare.

So what exactly was I wrong about??? Seems you are as bad as the far left wing journalists you tout as fair. You take one anonymous source and run with it, later to be proved a boob.

I'm reminded now why I quit talking politics here. All you have are lies spouted by far left wackos hell bent on destroying a president they don't like and juvenile name calling.

One year in and Trump has been epic. If the lying RINO's on hill get in line it will only get better. Time will be the judge. Not liberal bean counters left over from Obama administration. In the 20's, 60's, and 80's tax cuts had great effect on the economy. I posted the facts earlier. I expect it to do it again. But if it doesn't have that effect and the middle class are hurt then Trump will be gone in 3 years. Simple as that, because it is indeed "the economy, stupid."