Overhauling seems like quite the euphemism here. Also having listened to the bill’s wording of untaxed tips it only applies to cash tips and is implemented as a federal tax deduction. Edit: Under...
the bill includes scaled-down versions of his campaign priorities, such as “no tax on tips,” while overhauling social safety-net programs
Overhauling seems like quite the euphemism here.
Also having listened to the bill’s wording of untaxed tips it only applies to cash tips and is implemented as a federal tax deduction.
Edit:
Under this bill ICE has a budget so high it would make them the 8th highest funded military on earth. Trump is now talking about deporting citizens (of course under the guise of them being horrific criminals). The DOJ is talking about de-naturalization.
Yeeeup. This is almost certainly going to wind up being "oh well the dems stopped us!" when it suddenly doesn't show up anywhere. Edit- That said to be fair, there are large operations that still...
Yeeeup. This is almost certainly going to wind up being "oh well the dems stopped us!" when it suddenly doesn't show up anywhere.
Edit-
That said to be fair, there are large operations that still collect cash tips and distribute them after tracking, which does get reported on taxes. I suspect that kind of operation will care, but I'm suspicious it'll actually affect much.
Thats usually just handled by the staff though. I doubt they leave much of a paper trail. FWIW people I know who used to get a lot of cash tips said they would claim some of it on taxes so that it...
That said to be fair, there are large operations that still collect cash tips and distribute them after tracking, which does get reported on taxes. I suspect that kind of operation will care, but I'm suspicious it'll actually affect much.
Thats usually just handled by the staff though. I doubt they leave much of a paper trail.
FWIW people I know who used to get a lot of cash tips said they would claim some of it on taxes so that it wasn't as suspicious as having NO cash tips.
When I worked as a server they assumed you got ten percent and taxed you that if you didn’t report tips higher than that. I lived in a really small farming town, I usually got tipped a dollar no...
When I worked as a server they assumed you got ten percent and taxed you that if you didn’t report tips higher than that. I lived in a really small farming town, I usually got tipped a dollar no matter how big the party. I don’t know if the ten percent thing was a state rule.
The tipped minimum wage has not changed there since the 90’s, it’s still under $3/hour.
If elections were fair and not so gerrymandered and full of voter suppression, this would basically be the end of the Republican Party for at least a decade. This is extremely unpopular to anyone...
If elections were fair and not so gerrymandered and full of voter suppression, this would basically be the end of the Republican Party for at least a decade. This is extremely unpopular to anyone who is paying attention, even to those within a conservative disinformation bubble.
But unfortunately the system is super rigged and getting worse so I’m not confident this will be corrected by the midterms. Even then, who knows how many people will be gone forever from lack of services.
In addition to the structural problems with our democracy, there’s the coordinated propaganda to get people to harm each other in service of the rich and powerful.
Here’s a recent Atlantic article The Conservative Attack on Empathy
They want a bunch of fanatical Christian Nationalists who ignore the actual contents of the Bible, and their own human nature, so that a few evil people can have even more wealth and power.
When I sit down and think about the best articles I've ever read including blog posts and essays, the Atlantic is responsible for probably a third or half of them. Some of my favorites aren't even...
When I sit down and think about the best articles I've ever read including blog posts and essays, the Atlantic is responsible for probably a third or half of them.
Some of my favorites aren't even particularly important or historically significant on a large scale. But the articles are just so in-depth and engaging that they end up sticking with me.
This Canadian pays to have it shipped up here 3 months late purely because you guys need it. A publication that punches way above its weight, and I'm happy to have been a subscriber for the last...
This Canadian pays to have it shipped up here 3 months late purely because you guys need it. A publication that punches way above its weight, and I'm happy to have been a subscriber for the last decade.
It's not voter suppression. New data shows that If Everyone Had Voted, Harris Still Would Have Lost. The Democrats lost a lot of ground with millions of young, nonwhite, and irregular voters.
I think Hobbes is referring to how the house of representatives is structured. I've seen conflicting reports on whether it benefits Republicans or if democratic efforts in blue states have...
I think Hobbes is referring to how the house of representatives is structured. I've seen conflicting reports on whether it benefits Republicans or if democratic efforts in blue states have cancelled out the advantage. Regardless, everything they said about the information environment is true and heavily favors conservatives.
At this point I assume they're a fake opposition party. They're so deep in bed with the same types of people funding Trump they don't want to fight too hard. Not to say "both parties are the same".
At this point I assume they're a fake opposition party. They're so deep in bed with the same types of people funding Trump they don't want to fight too hard. Not to say "both parties are the same".
I think of it as having them differ only when it does not matter... to their bottom line. Issues like gender or abortion or immigration? Perfect for division, doesn't stop them from going to the...
I think of it as having them differ only when it does not matter... to their bottom line. Issues like gender or abortion or immigration? Perfect for division, doesn't stop them from going to the bank to collect our tax money. Issues that really matter, like slashing the budget, reigning in corporatism, or election reform? Those must not be mentioned by either group and will never get any real action or change. Even talking about them results in instant exile from both groups.
I think the best real solution to this problem may be radical transparency. If everything a government does is by law public (all data, emails, bills, reports, etc - no exceptions) within 24 hours it's a lot harder to hide the maliciousness and ineptitude. If bills are restricted to one topic only, and open for public comment for a minimum of 30 days before they can even be discussed on the floor of the legislature, it's much more difficult for them to bury a ton of corruption in an 1100 page bible of bullshit like this one. Fat chance of that ever happening though, it'd ruin their fun.
This is the worst bill I've ever seen. We should enshrine it in a museum in DC as a warning to the next ten generations of what pure unaccountable corruption looks like in the legislature. When I look at this thing it's hard to imagine it as anything other than a blatant, naked attempt to bankrupt the federal government within ten years.
You're not wrong, though I think there's some portion of this that is due to ineptness. I'm not sure what the ratio of ineptness to complicity is, though it probably varies by person. For example,...
You're not wrong, though I think there's some portion of this that is due to ineptness. I'm not sure what the ratio of ineptness to complicity is, though it probably varies by person. For example, Chuck "strongly worded statement" Schumer is really high up there on the complicity side.
Yeah, I think the fact that so many Dem leaders are old and came up (and had their last competitive elections) during a very different time politically (Third Way democrats, Clinton’s...
Yeah, I think the fact that so many Dem leaders are old and came up (and had their last competitive elections) during a very different time politically (Third Way democrats, Clinton’s administration, etc) really hinders an appropriate response. That, coupled with the dominance of Obama-era political consultants, leads to the floundering we see now. Trump was a revolution for the Republican party specifically and American politics generally and old guard dems still think it is an aberration and that reversion to the mean is still coming. Why wouldn’t they, when he’s only been on the scene for about 25% of their time in office? We need generational change to combat the threat we are facing.
But that incumbent leadership will manage to flub the response needed. By the time they're gone, the opportunity for "easy" opposition will have passed. The problem now is that the left are going...
But that incumbent leadership will manage to flub the response needed. By the time they're gone, the opportunity for "easy" opposition will have passed. The problem now is that the left are going to need to undo a remarkable volume of remarkably malicious legislation/actions. "Undo" may not be the best word, because some things are permanent, perhaps "counter" or "handle".
"Don't punch down on the suddenly-popular true progressive in the national spotlight who basically cinched the mayoral race for the nation's largest & most influential city, basically without his...
"Don't punch down on the suddenly-popular true progressive in the national spotlight who basically cinched the mayoral race for the nation's largest & most influential city, basically without his party's help," for starters. If the DNC wanted what the GOP has convinced their voters that they want, or even what Bernie Sanders, the most liberal non-Democrat Democrat we've got, wants, then we would 100% have it. But they ("they" being party leadership, the ones who won't retire & are themselves now multi-multi-millionaires thanks to billionaire donations) can't have people actually effecting change out there, because then tax rates for 1%ers would go up, emissions standards not tied to rando trade disputes from the 70s would go away, etc. It's about their bottom line, & @teaearlgraycold naild it with "fake opposition"—the political compass test is super-enlightening about how close all American mainstream politicians really are platform-wise, Obama was a centrist at most & even Bernie is barely on the left.
The best comparison I've seen is that GOP is the Uvalde shooter in the elementary school & the DNC are the cops standing around outside. Painful time to be watching the news.
The Zohran response has been one of the most infuriating things I've seen in recent Dem politics. He's basically a walking, talking fantasy projection that embodies everything Dem strategists have...
The Zohran response has been one of the most infuriating things I've seen in recent Dem politics.
He's basically a walking, talking fantasy projection that embodies everything Dem strategists have been clamoring for since the 2024 election. He's laser-focused on "kitchen table" issues, fueled by grassroots support, insanely popular with young people, (WHITE!) men, AND high-income earners, excellent communicator and social media darling, and has a set of policy proposals that are both bold and reasonably attainable.
You'd think they would rally around this guy like he is the future of the party - ya know, like they did when Eric Adams won by a razor-thin margin - but that hasn't been the case. Instead, it's been a mixed bag, ranging from indifference to outright Islamophobic smears. He still hasn't secured endorsements from NY big wigs, Jefferies or Schumer.
It sure seems like party leadership is more interested in protecting megadoners and Israel's reputation than winning.
He does seem to be popular. I'm not seeing how some of the things he's proposing would help, so I'm not getting the appeal. Opening state-run grocery stores seems very unlikely to succeed. Maybe...
He does seem to be popular. I'm not seeing how some of the things he's proposing would help, so I'm not getting the appeal.
Opening state-run grocery stores seems very unlikely to succeed. Maybe it would look like a success if they were run at a loss? (That is, they were subsidized.)
I don't see New York City rents going down? At most, building more housing will keep them from going up as much as they would otherwise. The best thing to be done for affordability might be to help people move out of New York City to cheaper places.
Probably true of most urban areas in the US, but how could that be facilitated? People generally live where they do because of some combination of proximity to employment and desire to live there,...
The best thing to be done for affordability might be to help people move out of New York City to cheaper places.
Probably true of most urban areas in the US, but how could that be facilitated? People generally live where they do because of some combination of proximity to employment and desire to live there, neither of which seems easy to change. I guess you could do something like tax incentives for companies that offer full remote work, but that would pose a number of challenges…
I don't know how much an individual can do to mitigate the damage of a broken and corrupt system. To paraphrase a former NYer, he's turning a tanker. Plus we're comparing him to Cuomo and Adams,...
I don't know how much an individual can do to mitigate the damage of a broken and corrupt system. To paraphrase a former NYer, he's turning a tanker. Plus we're comparing him to Cuomo and Adams, so we've got to grade on a curve here.
For starters, he plans to freeze the rent for stabilized apartments, which have been increasing in recent years. That alone would help alleviate financial pressure for nearly 2 million working class residents. Unfortunately, you can't build overnight, but he plans to build affordable housing over the next 10 years, in part by using the Abundance-friendly tactic of changing zoning restrictions.
His platform also calls for one of the quickest and easiest ways to improve public transportation by expanding and improving the bus system (and making them free).
As for the public grocery stores, the idea is to place them in food deserts, where access to fresh affordable food is restricted, and sell items at wholesale prices. The estimated cost of the pilot program is a fraction of what the city spends subsidizing private grocery stores. There are various ways to determine success, but I would argue that increasing access, competition, and affordability has more value than profit margins.
Above all else, I think his greatest contribution is how he effects politics. When he entered the race, the number one issue was crime. By focusing on economic issues and highlighting the proper adversaries (billionaires), he almost single-handedly pointed the ship in the right direction. This, in my opinion, is the most important step that Democrats need to take before they try to fix the many broken things in our society. Bringing it back to the OBBB, there is no way to recover without massive New Deal-style changes. The only way to get something like that on the table is to change the politics first. Zohran's campaign is a blueprint for that.
Right, he's not an inside man, may or may not play ball—hell he hasn't even lived here long enough to be entrenched in lobbying money & bribes or whatever, and he still won. Now with the new ICE...
Right, he's not an inside man, may or may not play ball—hell he hasn't even lived here long enough to be entrenched in lobbying money & bribes or whatever, and he still won. Now with the new ICE budget & no one to constitutionally stand up for much of anything, I just hope he's okay.
yeah & as it turned out unfortunately pretty accurate, I dunno what textbooks will be like in 50 years but the photo of Mike Johnson shaking boomers' hands with that smug grin would be a good...
yeah & as it turned out unfortunately pretty accurate, I dunno what textbooks will be like in 50 years but the photo of Mike Johnson shaking boomers' hands with that smug grin would be a good choice for the first page of this unit in history class; real 2020 vibes when people would complain about covid lies & then six weks later be dead from covid. Really doesn't do much good to be able to tell what will happen, worst-case scenario, when it seems that is what people want.
Dems don't have the votes to stop bills, lack the right's vast propaganda apparatus, and don't control any branch of government; they're only the Uvalde cops if they're also disarmed. I disagree...
Dems don't have the votes to stop bills, lack the right's vast propaganda apparatus, and don't control any branch of government; they're only the Uvalde cops if they're also disarmed. I disagree with what (a handful of) centrists have said about the mayor's race, but they're doing it because they fear what's popular in NYC won't play well in their districts. (Billionaire donations go to campaigns, btw, not the candidate's wallet.)
Also, that political compass test is pseudoscientific horseshit designed to support self-defeating "both sides are the same" apathy. For example, compare their 2020 "analysis" with their archived version from 2008. They purport Biden '20 was significantly more auth/right than 2008 (putting him alongside fundamentalist Mike Huckabee and nativist Tom Tancredo) despite his 2020 campaign being objectively more progressive on every front. Yet they have the much more centrist Biden '08 primary campaign halfway between Harris and Warren. There's a reason they make these comparisons hard to find and refuse to explain their so-called methodology.
Sure they're the underdogs now, but they're not doing anything appreciable with that, there's no rallying going on because other than a handful of younger folks in congress that seem to actually...
Sure they're the underdogs now, but they're not doing anything appreciable with that, there's no rallying going on because other than a handful of younger folks in congress that seem to actually care about people, they are also benefiting (& will continue to benefit) from the current chaos—and that definitely includes campaign contributions, R & D alike. I'm sure it's tricky to find out how much actual cash is going to actual politicians vs. campaigning, because of course it is, & someone like Nancy Pelosi with her $30,000 refrigerators has done fine outside of politics so they probably don't need what amounts to bribes from lobbyists—so then why was she under scrutiny for obvious insider trading, like one year ago?
Mamdani-wise, of course more conservative areas aren't going to be a fan—but he's the one, & I think the treatment he's received is the same outcome that Bernie would have faced had he gotten the nom, because he's too far from the DNC center of gravity. I'm not saying all of his ideas are great or even going to work, I'm just excited that someone is still trying instead of complete kowtows all around to christo-fascist-corpo-techno-capitalist whatever.
Re: the political compass test, I definitely am not & haven't seen anyone claiming it is scientific or validated—mainly it's just a lot of people's first experience with a paradigm outside of the classicalm number line-style, Left v. Right post-WWII US political worldview; clearly you're read up on this, and I'd guess most tildesean users are too, but I think that additional dimension is a useful tool. I don't know anything about their methodology or historicity other than using voting records, & I mean I feel like Joe & Dems et al. did get kind of winded liberalism-wise during & after 2022, and again—why? They had everything the Rs have now, & couldn't pull anything off, yet here we are three years later, staring down a pseudo-fascist conglomeration & still paying student loans.
I can't speak for whoever originated the Uvalde comparison, but I don't believe DNC hand-wringing while watching the opposition politically break into someone's car and beat them up before stealing it started Jan 2025, I am including the whole run since 2016 in that—there was potential & it was wasted, for whatever reason, while Peter & Curtis & JD & Elon used 2020-2024 to get this "How can we recreate 2020 without causing an actual pandemic" nailed down exactly. So yeah feeling pretty analogous to the self-defeating apathy you mention lol
Filibusters aren't allowed for the budget reconciliation process. That's why they did it that way. I think there are only certain places where a populist left candidate would succeed? Sometimes it...
Filibusters aren't allowed for the budget reconciliation process. That's why they did it that way.
I think there are only certain places where a populist left candidate would succeed? Sometimes it works in New York City.
Cory Booker filibustered a couple of months ago. I’d like to see other senators at least doing that to show a willingness to put in effort. There’s a clear lack of leadership. I want to see a...
Cory Booker filibustered a couple of months ago. I’d like to see other senators at least doing that to show a willingness to put in effort.
There’s a clear lack of leadership. I want to see a “project 2027” for the Democrats to work on after midterms. Tell voters what they’re voting for if they can take both chambers.
Yes but it made it clear to me he gives a damn. I don’t hear much from other senators (although my senator Padilla has been making some good noise). It feels like a “we’ve tried nothing and we’re...
Yes but it made it clear to me he gives a damn. I don’t hear much from other senators (although my senator Padilla has been making some good noise). It feels like a “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas” situation.
Schumer tweeting* about managing to change the name of the bill as if it was a meaningful opposition action was pretty galling. I don't understand how the GOP manage to so effectively stymie...
Schumer tweeting* about managing to change the name of the bill as if it was a meaningful opposition action was pretty galling. I don't understand how the GOP manage to so effectively stymie progress when they're in a minority and so brutally push forward their agenda the moment they have a majority. What are they doing that another party needs to learn/copy?!
*I continue to marvel that people keep contributing to that platform's relevance by remaining on it and creating content there.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries is making a marathon last stand against President Donald Trump's major tax cut and spending bill.
Jeffries took to the House floor just after 5 a.m. on Thursday and has now been speaking for more than six hours, delaying a final vote in the chamber on the domestic policy bill at the heart of Trump's second term agenda.
Jeffries has stacks of binders next to him at the podium as he picks apart the bill and some of the Republicans who voted for it.
…
The "magic minute" speech is a procedure that grants members of House leadership unlimited time to speak after debate on a bill has concluded. For context, then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, spoke for more than eight hours in 2021 when the House passed President Joe Biden's Build Back Better Act.
Jeffries has focused much of his speech on the bill's projected impact on Medicaid, the federal program that primarily serves seniors and people with disabilities, sharing personal stories from people he says will struggle as a result of the megabill.
"People will die. Tens of thousands, perhaps year after year after year, as a result of the Republican assault on the healthcare of the American people," Jeffries said. "I'm sad. I never thought I would be on the House floor saying this is a crime scene."
The cynical part of me says that it's too little, too late and it's doesn't do that much to stall the voting process. Unless he's going to talk until midnight just to mess with Trump and mess with...
The cynical part of me says that it's too little, too late and it's doesn't do that much to stall the voting process. Unless he's going to talk until midnight just to mess with Trump and mess with a bunch of vacation plans, but even then, talking longer isn't really providing an off ramp for anyone to reconsider and it only serves to get your name out there as "resisty" if it's not changing the vote count at the end of the day.
Some of the things that Democratic legislators do seem a bit like publicity stunts to me, but there seems to be plenty of appetite for that sort of thing. It's a way to show they're doing...
Some of the things that Democratic legislators do seem a bit like publicity stunts to me, but there seems to be plenty of appetite for that sort of thing. It's a way to show they're doing something when they haven't got the votes.
The appetite for that mostly exists in the media as a spectacle. The main benefit of this type of thing is that it gives someone like Booker or Jefferies something to point to when voters say they...
The appetite for that mostly exists in the media as a spectacle. The main benefit of this type of thing is that it gives someone like Booker or Jefferies something to point to when voters say they want a "fighter" in office. It's still better than nothing, but at the end of the day, it's mostly self-serving.
Compare that to what Chris Van Hollen did when Kilmar Abrego Garcia was in prison, or even the rallies that Sanders & AOC held in the wake of the DOGE cuts. Those efforts led to actual change and political mobilization. It doesn't seem like there was any national strategy to put pressure on Republican-held districts/states that will be hit hardest by this monstrosity.
No problem. So Van Hollen (autocorrect got me the first time) met with Abrego Garcia during his unjust detention. His visit helped to make sure that Abrego Garcia was alive, put additional...
No problem. So Van Hollen (autocorrect got me the first time) met with Abrego Garcia during his unjust detention. His visit helped to make sure that Abrego Garcia was alive, put additional pressure on the Trump administration to bring him back, and brought a ton of negative attention to Trump's policy. The spike in that chart occured during the visit. There's a better version of the chart here in this blog post where you can see the specific days.
Sanders and AOC went on an 'end the oligarchy' tour across the US. When they came to Los Angeles, they drew a crowd of more than 30k. I do some volunteer work with some local political organizations and we had more people sign up and donate than any other day, including the biggest ICE protests that took place last month. I know that's my own anecdotal experience, but I wouldn't be surprised if other organizations saw a similar increase in support. I haven't come across concrete data like the previous example, but I get the sense that their efforts did a lot more to put the stink on Musk than the tepid response from Schumer and Jefferies.
Because people need it drilled into their heads until they remember it and can bring it up in conversation without even thinking about it. This is what the conservative ecosystem has been doing...
Because people need it drilled into their heads until they remember it and can bring it up in conversation without even thinking about it. This is what the conservative ecosystem has been doing for decades, quite successfully and it's paid off for them, in spades.
Maybe not here, maybe not to you, but someone somewhere is saying "Well but voter fatigue, people don't want to hear bad news"—it has been literally without pause for seven months lol. I am...
Maybe not here, maybe not to you, but someone somewhere is saying "Well but voter fatigue, people don't want to hear bad news"—it has been literally without pause for seven months lol. I am fatigued. It's going to keep getting worse until someone stops it, & now the person who tries to stop it can just be deported? I feel like it's past an ad campaign at this point, but also literally anything would be better than nothing. If they're not in bed with the 1% (and who am I kidding), then they are just watching someone burn their house down.
what a relief, glad you're here to say this—I feel like part of the approach is "Welp, there's no use in doing anything, they're going to get what they want regardless" like we're being nationally...
what a relief, glad you're here to say this—I feel like part of the approach is "Welp, there's no use in doing anything, they're going to get what they want regardless" like we're being nationally kidnapped or assualted, just try to wait it out? At least there's hope still.
Am I crazy or would it be a good idea to impose limits on the number of words and/or topics in any legislation? No “big [any adjective] bill” should ever exist. Lots of small, focused bills? Sure....
Am I crazy or would it be a good idea to impose limits on the number of words and/or topics in any legislation? No “big [any adjective] bill” should ever exist. Lots of small, focused bills? Sure. I feel like half of our current problem is that this kind of leviathan is allowed in the first place. It’s too complex for anyone to read and comprehend entirely, and creates these perverse incentives where legislators will hold their noses and vote for stuff even they think is egregious, just because other unrelated parts of the same bill are so important to them.
We also need to curb the omnibus spending bills passed at the 11th hour to approve a budget before a government shutdown. So much pork barrel get shoved in there, and it has an innocuous name that...
We also need to curb the omnibus spending bills passed at the 11th hour to approve a budget before a government shutdown. So much pork barrel get shoved in there, and it has an innocuous name that masks just how much corrupt add-ons are actually contained in it.
It's not necessarily the bill itself. But the fact of the matter is that we've hit our debt ceiling multiple times in the last 39 years. IIRC they had to raise the ceiling 4 times in that period,...
It's not necessarily the bill itself. But the fact of the matter is that we've hit our debt ceiling multiple times in the last 39 years. IIRC they had to raise the ceiling 4 times in that period, and at times there were talks to eliminate the debt ceiling altogether.
It's very simple economics from there. If you say "I'll pay you back later" and they see some 50 trillion dollars of debt, you'll question if they will pay you back to begin with.The other big problem is interest payments; if we can't even pay those, we risk defaulting. And that's petty much when all trust collapses.
It's not simple to know how large a debt the US can get away with. The US is a special case. I assume there is some limit to what bondholders will buy, but where? My guess is that inflation is...
It's not simple to know how large a debt the US can get away with. The US is a special case. I assume there is some limit to what bondholders will buy, but where?
My guess is that inflation is more likely than collapse. When it has to, the Fed will buy government debt, converting it into dollars.
It isn't simple indeed. But we are already staring to see the effects of such trust degrading, so I assume we don't really have much room to raise the national debt without consequence that will...
It isn't simple indeed. But we are already staring to see the effects of such trust degrading, so I assume we don't really have much room to raise the national debt without consequence that will last decades.
The US is one of only 2 counties in the world with a fixed debt ceiling (most of the rest use some percentage of GDP). It's been raised 78 times since it's inception, most of them completely...
The US is one of only 2 counties in the world with a fixed debt ceiling (most of the rest use some percentage of GDP). It's been raised 78 times since it's inception, most of them completely unremarkable mundane events. It's only in the last few decades that is become a useful political tool. Mostly because it can be used as leverage by one party against the other, and because the word "debt" carries some negative connotations to most Americans. Problem is, the US carrying debt indefinitely is actually 100% fine and is actually a key component of how any country operates.
It's fine, until it isn't. I'm sure it was fine for the UK as well until it suddenly wasn't. It became a useful tool in recent decades because it got to points of worry to begin with. % GDP sounds...
It's fine, until it isn't. I'm sure it was fine for the UK as well until it suddenly wasn't. It became a useful tool in recent decades because it got to points of worry to begin with.
% GDP sounds like a fine ceiling too and if we measure that for the US it is currently... 87%. With this Big Ugly bill that will rise to 92% or so. The EU example in your article pledges for 60%, as reference. I'm not a stickler for any particular metric to use, but it seems by all metrics we are well past "healthy debt".
I agree that there still should be limits, however I have conflicted feelings on where that lies. Normal rules of debt/spending/income don't really apply to a nation state. A nation that has its...
I agree that there still should be limits, however I have conflicted feelings on where that lies. Normal rules of debt/spending/income don't really apply to a nation state. A nation that has its own currency can literally create money from thin air when it chooses to and make it disappear just as easily.
Yes. I'm not an economic expert so I don't know the exact lines to draw and where warning bells should toll. I do try to listen to such experts, though. And they've even worried for quite a while....
Yes. I'm not an economic expert so I don't know the exact lines to draw and where warning bells should toll. I do try to listen to such experts, though. And they've even worried for quite a while. Clearly something needs to be addressed before it's too late, and instead we're accellerating the train off the rails.
Overhauling seems like quite the euphemism here.
Also having listened to the bill’s wording of untaxed tips it only applies to cash tips and is implemented as a federal tax deduction.
Edit:
Under this bill ICE has a budget so high it would make them the 8th highest funded military on earth. Trump is now talking about deporting citizens (of course under the guise of them being horrific criminals). The DOJ is talking about de-naturalization.
And sunsets once Trump leaves office. He loves temporary relief for the poor with permanent tax cuts for the rich.
Aren't most people who earn cash tips just not reporting those tips anyway?
Yeeeup. This is almost certainly going to wind up being "oh well the dems stopped us!" when it suddenly doesn't show up anywhere.
Edit-
That said to be fair, there are large operations that still collect cash tips and distribute them after tracking, which does get reported on taxes. I suspect that kind of operation will care, but I'm suspicious it'll actually affect much.
Thats usually just handled by the staff though. I doubt they leave much of a paper trail.
FWIW people I know who used to get a lot of cash tips said they would claim some of it on taxes so that it wasn't as suspicious as having NO cash tips.
When I worked as a server they assumed you got ten percent and taxed you that if you didn’t report tips higher than that. I lived in a really small farming town, I usually got tipped a dollar no matter how big the party. I don’t know if the ten percent thing was a state rule.
The tipped minimum wage has not changed there since the 90’s, it’s still under $3/hour.
If elections were fair and not so gerrymandered and full of voter suppression, this would basically be the end of the Republican Party for at least a decade. This is extremely unpopular to anyone who is paying attention, even to those within a conservative disinformation bubble.
But unfortunately the system is super rigged and getting worse so I’m not confident this will be corrected by the midterms. Even then, who knows how many people will be gone forever from lack of services.
In addition to the structural problems with our democracy, there’s the coordinated propaganda to get people to harm each other in service of the rich and powerful.
Here’s a recent Atlantic article The Conservative Attack on Empathy
They want a bunch of fanatical Christian Nationalists who ignore the actual contents of the Bible, and their own human nature, so that a few evil people can have even more wealth and power.
I’m glad we still have The Atlantic in these trying times.
When I sit down and think about the best articles I've ever read including blog posts and essays, the Atlantic is responsible for probably a third or half of them.
Some of my favorites aren't even particularly important or historically significant on a large scale. But the articles are just so in-depth and engaging that they end up sticking with me.
One that stands out to me is What really happened to Malaysia's missing airplane
They’re the only news outlet I’m paying for at the moment.
Me, too. I ended my WaPo subscription.
This Canadian pays to have it shipped up here 3 months late purely because you guys need it. A publication that punches way above its weight, and I'm happy to have been a subscriber for the last decade.
It's not voter suppression. New data shows that If Everyone Had Voted, Harris Still Would Have Lost. The Democrats lost a lot of ground with millions of young, nonwhite, and irregular voters.
I think Hobbes is referring to how the house of representatives is structured. I've seen conflicting reports on whether it benefits Republicans or if democratic efforts in blue states have cancelled out the advantage. Regardless, everything they said about the information environment is true and heavily favors conservatives.
If Democrats were smart they'd be running commercials 7/24 about the $3.3T hit to the deficit this bill carries.
At this point I assume they're a fake opposition party. They're so deep in bed with the same types of people funding Trump they don't want to fight too hard. Not to say "both parties are the same".
I think of it as having them differ only when it does not matter... to their bottom line. Issues like gender or abortion or immigration? Perfect for division, doesn't stop them from going to the bank to collect our tax money. Issues that really matter, like slashing the budget, reigning in corporatism, or election reform? Those must not be mentioned by either group and will never get any real action or change. Even talking about them results in instant exile from both groups.
I think the best real solution to this problem may be radical transparency. If everything a government does is by law public (all data, emails, bills, reports, etc - no exceptions) within 24 hours it's a lot harder to hide the maliciousness and ineptitude. If bills are restricted to one topic only, and open for public comment for a minimum of 30 days before they can even be discussed on the floor of the legislature, it's much more difficult for them to bury a ton of corruption in an 1100 page bible of bullshit like this one. Fat chance of that ever happening though, it'd ruin their fun.
This is the worst bill I've ever seen. We should enshrine it in a museum in DC as a warning to the next ten generations of what pure unaccountable corruption looks like in the legislature. When I look at this thing it's hard to imagine it as anything other than a blatant, naked attempt to bankrupt the federal government within ten years.
Also these last-minute, late-night addendums and rewrites are ridiculous. Every revision should reset the process. It's supposed to be slow.
well see the thing is is that is exactly what they are attempting to do
You're not wrong, though I think there's some portion of this that is due to ineptness. I'm not sure what the ratio of ineptness to complicity is, though it probably varies by person. For example, Chuck "strongly worded statement" Schumer is really high up there on the complicity side.
Yeah, I think the fact that so many Dem leaders are old and came up (and had their last competitive elections) during a very different time politically (Third Way democrats, Clinton’s administration, etc) really hinders an appropriate response. That, coupled with the dominance of Obama-era political consultants, leads to the floundering we see now. Trump was a revolution for the Republican party specifically and American politics generally and old guard dems still think it is an aberration and that reversion to the mean is still coming. Why wouldn’t they, when he’s only been on the scene for about 25% of their time in office? We need generational change to combat the threat we are facing.
But that incumbent leadership will manage to flub the response needed. By the time they're gone, the opportunity for "easy" opposition will have passed. The problem now is that the left are going to need to undo a remarkable volume of remarkably malicious legislation/actions. "Undo" may not be the best word, because some things are permanent, perhaps "counter" or "handle".
“Mitigate” is a good word.
What would fighting harder look like?
"Don't punch down on the suddenly-popular true progressive in the national spotlight who basically cinched the mayoral race for the nation's largest & most influential city, basically without his party's help," for starters. If the DNC wanted what the GOP has convinced their voters that they want, or even what Bernie Sanders, the most liberal non-Democrat Democrat we've got, wants, then we would 100% have it. But they ("they" being party leadership, the ones who won't retire & are themselves now multi-multi-millionaires thanks to billionaire donations) can't have people actually effecting change out there, because then tax rates for 1%ers would go up, emissions standards not tied to rando trade disputes from the 70s would go away, etc. It's about their bottom line, & @teaearlgraycold naild it with "fake opposition"—the political compass test is super-enlightening about how close all American mainstream politicians really are platform-wise, Obama was a centrist at most & even Bernie is barely on the left.
The best comparison I've seen is that GOP is the Uvalde shooter in the elementary school & the DNC are the cops standing around outside. Painful time to be watching the news.
The Zohran response has been one of the most infuriating things I've seen in recent Dem politics.
He's basically a walking, talking fantasy projection that embodies everything Dem strategists have been clamoring for since the 2024 election. He's laser-focused on "kitchen table" issues, fueled by grassroots support, insanely popular with young people, (WHITE!) men, AND high-income earners, excellent communicator and social media darling, and has a set of policy proposals that are both bold and reasonably attainable.
You'd think they would rally around this guy like he is the future of the party - ya know, like they did when Eric Adams won by a razor-thin margin - but that hasn't been the case. Instead, it's been a mixed bag, ranging from indifference to outright Islamophobic smears. He still hasn't secured endorsements from NY big wigs, Jefferies or Schumer.
It sure seems like party leadership is more interested in protecting megadoners and Israel's reputation than winning.
He does seem to be popular. I'm not seeing how some of the things he's proposing would help, so I'm not getting the appeal.
Opening state-run grocery stores seems very unlikely to succeed. Maybe it would look like a success if they were run at a loss? (That is, they were subsidized.)
I don't see New York City rents going down? At most, building more housing will keep them from going up as much as they would otherwise. The best thing to be done for affordability might be to help people move out of New York City to cheaper places.
Probably true of most urban areas in the US, but how could that be facilitated? People generally live where they do because of some combination of proximity to employment and desire to live there, neither of which seems easy to change. I guess you could do something like tax incentives for companies that offer full remote work, but that would pose a number of challenges…
I don't know how much an individual can do to mitigate the damage of a broken and corrupt system. To paraphrase a former NYer, he's turning a tanker. Plus we're comparing him to Cuomo and Adams, so we've got to grade on a curve here.
For starters, he plans to freeze the rent for stabilized apartments, which have been increasing in recent years. That alone would help alleviate financial pressure for nearly 2 million working class residents. Unfortunately, you can't build overnight, but he plans to build affordable housing over the next 10 years, in part by using the Abundance-friendly tactic of changing zoning restrictions.
His platform also calls for one of the quickest and easiest ways to improve public transportation by expanding and improving the bus system (and making them free).
As for the public grocery stores, the idea is to place them in food deserts, where access to fresh affordable food is restricted, and sell items at wholesale prices. The estimated cost of the pilot program is a fraction of what the city spends subsidizing private grocery stores. There are various ways to determine success, but I would argue that increasing access, competition, and affordability has more value than profit margins.
Above all else, I think his greatest contribution is how he effects politics. When he entered the race, the number one issue was crime. By focusing on economic issues and highlighting the proper adversaries (billionaires), he almost single-handedly pointed the ship in the right direction. This, in my opinion, is the most important step that Democrats need to take before they try to fix the many broken things in our society. Bringing it back to the OBBB, there is no way to recover without massive New Deal-style changes. The only way to get something like that on the table is to change the politics first. Zohran's campaign is a blueprint for that.
Right, he's not an inside man, may or may not play ball—hell he hasn't even lived here long enough to be entrenched in lobbying money & bribes or whatever, and he still won. Now with the new ICE budget & no one to constitutionally stand up for much of anything, I just hope he's okay.
Woah. It’s a decent analogy but that is grim.
yeah & as it turned out unfortunately pretty accurate, I dunno what textbooks will be like in 50 years but the photo of Mike Johnson shaking boomers' hands with that smug grin would be a good choice for the first page of this unit in history class; real 2020 vibes when people would complain about covid lies & then six weks later be dead from covid. Really doesn't do much good to be able to tell what will happen, worst-case scenario, when it seems that is what people want.
Dems don't have the votes to stop bills, lack the right's vast propaganda apparatus, and don't control any branch of government; they're only the Uvalde cops if they're also disarmed. I disagree with what (a handful of) centrists have said about the mayor's race, but they're doing it because they fear what's popular in NYC won't play well in their districts. (Billionaire donations go to campaigns, btw, not the candidate's wallet.)
Also, that political compass test is pseudoscientific horseshit designed to support self-defeating "both sides are the same" apathy. For example, compare their 2020 "analysis" with their archived version from 2008. They purport Biden '20 was significantly more auth/right than 2008 (putting him alongside fundamentalist Mike Huckabee and nativist Tom Tancredo) despite his 2020 campaign being objectively more progressive on every front. Yet they have the much more centrist Biden '08 primary campaign halfway between Harris and Warren. There's a reason they make these comparisons hard to find and refuse to explain their so-called methodology.
Sure they're the underdogs now, but they're not doing anything appreciable with that, there's no rallying going on because other than a handful of younger folks in congress that seem to actually care about people, they are also benefiting (& will continue to benefit) from the current chaos—and that definitely includes campaign contributions, R & D alike. I'm sure it's tricky to find out how much actual cash is going to actual politicians vs. campaigning, because of course it is, & someone like Nancy Pelosi with her $30,000 refrigerators has done fine outside of politics so they probably don't need what amounts to bribes from lobbyists—so then why was she under scrutiny for obvious insider trading, like one year ago?
Mamdani-wise, of course more conservative areas aren't going to be a fan—but he's the one, & I think the treatment he's received is the same outcome that Bernie would have faced had he gotten the nom, because he's too far from the DNC center of gravity. I'm not saying all of his ideas are great or even going to work, I'm just excited that someone is still trying instead of complete kowtows all around to christo-fascist-corpo-techno-capitalist whatever.
Re: the political compass test, I definitely am not & haven't seen anyone claiming it is scientific or validated—mainly it's just a lot of people's first experience with a paradigm outside of the classicalm number line-style, Left v. Right post-WWII US political worldview; clearly you're read up on this, and I'd guess most tildesean users are too, but I think that additional dimension is a useful tool. I don't know anything about their methodology or historicity other than using voting records, & I mean I feel like Joe & Dems et al. did get kind of winded liberalism-wise during & after 2022, and again—why? They had everything the Rs have now, & couldn't pull anything off, yet here we are three years later, staring down a pseudo-fascist conglomeration & still paying student loans.
I can't speak for whoever originated the Uvalde comparison, but I don't believe DNC hand-wringing while watching the opposition politically break into someone's car and beat them up before stealing it started Jan 2025, I am including the whole run since 2016 in that—there was potential & it was wasted, for whatever reason, while Peter & Curtis & JD & Elon used 2020-2024 to get this "How can we recreate 2020 without causing an actual pandemic" nailed down exactly. So yeah feeling pretty analogous to the self-defeating apathy you mention lol
A 50 senator filibuster for the BBB. Funding viable populist left candidates around the country. Genuinely engaging with the population.
Filibusters aren't allowed for the budget reconciliation process. That's why they did it that way.
I think there are only certain places where a populist left candidate would succeed? Sometimes it works in New York City.
Cory Booker filibustered a couple of months ago. I’d like to see other senators at least doing that to show a willingness to put in effort.
There’s a clear lack of leadership. I want to see a “project 2027” for the Democrats to work on after midterms. Tell voters what they’re voting for if they can take both chambers.
To clarify, in that instance Booker was not filibustering a bill that was in budget reconciliation, this isn't the same situation.
Yes but it made it clear to me he gives a damn. I don’t hear much from other senators (although my senator Padilla has been making some good noise). It feels like a “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas” situation.
Schumer tweeting* about managing to change the name of the bill as if it was a meaningful opposition action was pretty galling. I don't understand how the GOP manage to so effectively stymie progress when they're in a minority and so brutally push forward their agenda the moment they have a majority. What are they doing that another party needs to learn/copy?!
*I continue to marvel that people keep contributing to that platform's relevance by remaining on it and creating content there.
Possibly of interest:
Democrat Hakeem Jeffries blasts Trump megabill in marathon speech
…
The cynical part of me says that it's too little, too late and it's doesn't do that much to stall the voting process. Unless he's going to talk until midnight just to mess with Trump and mess with a bunch of vacation plans, but even then, talking longer isn't really providing an off ramp for anyone to reconsider and it only serves to get your name out there as "resisty" if it's not changing the vote count at the end of the day.
Some of the things that Democratic legislators do seem a bit like publicity stunts to me, but there seems to be plenty of appetite for that sort of thing. It's a way to show they're doing something when they haven't got the votes.
The appetite for that mostly exists in the media as a spectacle. The main benefit of this type of thing is that it gives someone like Booker or Jefferies something to point to when voters say they want a "fighter" in office. It's still better than nothing, but at the end of the day, it's mostly self-serving.
Compare that to what Chris Van Hollen did when Kilmar Abrego Garcia was in prison, or even the rallies that Sanders & AOC held in the wake of the DOGE cuts. Those efforts led to actual change and political mobilization. It doesn't seem like there was any national strategy to put pressure on Republican-held districts/states that will be hit hardest by this monstrosity.
Could you elaborate? I'm a bit vague on what they did and how it helped.
No problem. So Van Hollen (autocorrect got me the first time) met with Abrego Garcia during his unjust detention. His visit helped to make sure that Abrego Garcia was alive, put additional pressure on the Trump administration to bring him back, and brought a ton of negative attention to Trump's policy. The spike in that chart occured during the visit. There's a better version of the chart here in this blog post where you can see the specific days.
Sanders and AOC went on an 'end the oligarchy' tour across the US. When they came to Los Angeles, they drew a crowd of more than 30k. I do some volunteer work with some local political organizations and we had more people sign up and donate than any other day, including the biggest ICE protests that took place last month. I know that's my own anecdotal experience, but I wouldn't be surprised if other organizations saw a similar increase in support. I haven't come across concrete data like the previous example, but I get the sense that their efforts did a lot more to put the stink on Musk than the tepid response from Schumer and Jefferies.
Why should they should run commercials now rather than next year when there will be an election?
Because people need it drilled into their heads until they remember it and can bring it up in conversation without even thinking about it. This is what the conservative ecosystem has been doing for decades, quite successfully and it's paid off for them, in spades.
Maybe not here, maybe not to you, but someone somewhere is saying "Well but voter fatigue, people don't want to hear bad news"—it has been literally without pause for seven months lol. I am fatigued. It's going to keep getting worse until someone stops it, & now the person who tries to stop it can just be deported? I feel like it's past an ad campaign at this point, but also literally anything would be better than nothing. If they're not in bed with the 1% (and who am I kidding), then they are just watching someone burn their house down.
And yet, it's apparently not over yet? The House might not pass the Senate bill?
Yeeeeup. It's quite the trash fire of a bill all things considered.
Which is saying something, considering the general “trash fire” of the world in comparison!
Yeah, it seems like our only hope is the house freedom caucus going full-batshit. Tough times.
what a relief, glad you're here to say this—I feel like part of the approach is "Welp, there's no use in doing anything, they're going to get what they want regardless" like we're being nationally kidnapped or assualted, just try to wait it out? At least there's hope still.
Edit: (Ron Howard narrating) There wasn't.
Am I crazy or would it be a good idea to impose limits on the number of words and/or topics in any legislation? No “big [any adjective] bill” should ever exist. Lots of small, focused bills? Sure. I feel like half of our current problem is that this kind of leviathan is allowed in the first place. It’s too complex for anyone to read and comprehend entirely, and creates these perverse incentives where legislators will hold their noses and vote for stuff even they think is egregious, just because other unrelated parts of the same bill are so important to them.
We also need to curb the omnibus spending bills passed at the 11th hour to approve a budget before a government shutdown. So much pork barrel get shoved in there, and it has an innocuous name that masks just how much corrupt add-ons are actually contained in it.
That was a republican talking point not too long ago. Funny how quickly things change when it's a thing they want.
This headline soon to feature in history books under the heading "factors leading to the end of the US dollar as global reserve currency"
I must admit I know very little about the actual contents of the bill. What in it may reduce faith in the dollar?
The massive increase in the US national debt that happens when you cut taxes and increase spending while already running a deficit
Nah, it's all good, we have Crypto now! We can tie the libertarian land fun bucks to the public sector and surely nothing can go wrong!
It's not necessarily the bill itself. But the fact of the matter is that we've hit our debt ceiling multiple times in the last 39 years. IIRC they had to raise the ceiling 4 times in that period, and at times there were talks to eliminate the debt ceiling altogether.
It's very simple economics from there. If you say "I'll pay you back later" and they see some 50 trillion dollars of debt, you'll question if they will pay you back to begin with.The other big problem is interest payments; if we can't even pay those, we risk defaulting. And that's petty much when all trust collapses.
It's not simple to know how large a debt the US can get away with. The US is a special case. I assume there is some limit to what bondholders will buy, but where?
My guess is that inflation is more likely than collapse. When it has to, the Fed will buy government debt, converting it into dollars.
It isn't simple indeed. But we are already staring to see the effects of such trust degrading, so I assume we don't really have much room to raise the national debt without consequence that will last decades.
The US is one of only 2 counties in the world with a fixed debt ceiling (most of the rest use some percentage of GDP). It's been raised 78 times since it's inception, most of them completely unremarkable mundane events. It's only in the last few decades that is become a useful political tool. Mostly because it can be used as leverage by one party against the other, and because the word "debt" carries some negative connotations to most Americans. Problem is, the US carrying debt indefinitely is actually 100% fine and is actually a key component of how any country operates.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/24/the-us-isnt-the-only-country-with-a-debt-ceiling-heres-how-denmark-avoids-the-drama.html
It's fine, until it isn't. I'm sure it was fine for the UK as well until it suddenly wasn't. It became a useful tool in recent decades because it got to points of worry to begin with.
% GDP sounds like a fine ceiling too and if we measure that for the US it is currently... 87%. With this Big Ugly bill that will rise to 92% or so. The EU example in your article pledges for 60%, as reference. I'm not a stickler for any particular metric to use, but it seems by all metrics we are well past "healthy debt".
I agree that there still should be limits, however I have conflicted feelings on where that lies. Normal rules of debt/spending/income don't really apply to a nation state. A nation that has its own currency can literally create money from thin air when it chooses to and make it disappear just as easily.
Yes. I'm not an economic expert so I don't know the exact lines to draw and where warning bells should toll. I do try to listen to such experts, though. And they've even worried for quite a while. Clearly something needs to be addressed before it's too late, and instead we're accellerating the train off the rails.
Cowards.