Next US president
Poll: Next US president
Total Members Polled: 269
Discussion
Joe Biden is a solid shout.
He may not be popular with the progressives who are pushing for another female candidate as opposed to another old white guy but is popular with the average democratic voter.
Democrats have a problem where some people are trying to shift the party further left which is not what most people want.
McConnell calling a vote on AOC's Green New Deal was clever, as it forces house Democrats to either back it showing themselves as economically naïve or vote against it risking the ire of the ever more vocal progressives in the party.
The longer the in fighting goes on the better the chance of a Trump re-election.
He may not be popular with the progressives who are pushing for another female candidate as opposed to another old white guy but is popular with the average democratic voter.
Democrats have a problem where some people are trying to shift the party further left which is not what most people want.
McConnell calling a vote on AOC's Green New Deal was clever, as it forces house Democrats to either back it showing themselves as economically naïve or vote against it risking the ire of the ever more vocal progressives in the party.
The longer the in fighting goes on the better the chance of a Trump re-election.
captain_cynic said:
Trump barely won against Hillary who actually received more votes than Trump did. Had this been a UK style FPTP election he wouldn't have even been president.
FPTP means nothing of the sort. Unequal constituency sizes can produce the same perverse results as the electoral college system.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/vote2005/html/engla...
NoNeed said:
Halb said:
NoNeed said:
People thought he would lose last time, I guess they haven't learned much.
Some voters will have learned The swamp hasn’t been drained and financially they are worse off IRS figures also showed that Trump’s tax cuts were not necessarily filtering down to the average American, with some facing higher-than-expected tax bills.
Data released on February 14 revealed that the average tax refund was down 8.7 percent from the previous year: from $2,135 to $1,949.
Moreover, while 13.5 million tax refunds had been issued at this stage last year, the number has dropped to 11.4 million this year—a 16 percent decline.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-tax-cuts-bank-profi...
paulguitar said:
Many of my US colleagues are doing worse, not getting the tax refunds they had been expecting.
If you understand the US tax system I think you're being disingenuous.GroundEffect said:
...IRS figures also showed that Trump’s tax cuts were not necessarily filtering down to the average American, with some facing higher-than-expected tax bills.
Data released on February 14 revealed that the average tax refund was down 8.7 percent from the previous year: from $2,135 to $1,949.
Moreover, while 13.5 million tax refunds had been issued at this stage last year, the number has dropped to 11.4 million this year—a 16 percent decline.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-tax-cuts-bank-profi...
All this talk of refunds is totally meaningless without reference to how much tax was already withheld (aka PAYE) vs total income. I've had refunds of $50k and zero, it tells you absolutely nothing about my tax rate, simply that one year I overpaid and one year I didn't. The bigger the refund, the more you were overcharged in withholding; that's it; that's all it tells you! Using lower refunds to imply higher taxes is, to be polite, spin.Data released on February 14 revealed that the average tax refund was down 8.7 percent from the previous year: from $2,135 to $1,949.
Moreover, while 13.5 million tax refunds had been issued at this stage last year, the number has dropped to 11.4 million this year—a 16 percent decline.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-tax-cuts-bank-profi...
A quick go on NYC tax calculator reveals someone on $50k federal tax liability between 2017 and 2018 dropped from $5.6k to $4.3k and someone on 30k dropped from $2.5 to $2k, vs. someone on $500k went up from $136k to $146k.
https://smartasset.com/taxes/new-york-tax-calculat...
Now I concede that's far from conclusive, for a start single and married pay differently (married get huge tax breaks) and the rules for deductions have changed but still...
Groundeffect if you click on the link in the newsweek article you cited... https://www.newsweek.com/tax-refund-2019-irs-trump... you'll get the fuller picture.
Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 25th February 22:22
Halb said:
Some voters will have learned... they are worse off
How so? Employment is up. Unemployment is down. Wages are up. Reportedly 80% benefited from the tax cuts to some extent and their 401k's (pensions) are up 25%. Now, only 2 years in I think the previous administration probably has more to do with the US economy's current good health than Trump does but I'm struggling to see how the average or vast majority of Americans are any worse off financially. I think people are barking up the wrong tree if they are hanging their hope of a change of president on the state of the economy.GroundEffect said:
Moreover, while 13.5 million tax refunds had been issued at this stage last year, the number has dropped to 11.4 million this year—a 16 percent decline.
There was a government shutdown, which meant refunds couldn't be issued. As it lasted 25 days of January, I'm surprised it was only a 16% decline.GroundEffect said:
What a curious line of reasoning when you consider...
IRS figures also showed that Trump’s tax cuts were not necessarily filtering down to the average American, with some facing higher-than-expected tax bills.
Data released on February 14 revealed that the average tax refund was down 8.7 percent from the previous year: from $2,135 to $1,949.
Moreover, while 13.5 million tax refunds had been issued at this stage last year, the number has dropped to 11.4 million this year—a 16 percent decline.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-tax-cuts-bank-profi...
US tax system doesn’t work that way and is fiendishly complex compared to the U.K. system. It’s what you end up with following a regime of taxation without representation. IRS figures also showed that Trump’s tax cuts were not necessarily filtering down to the average American, with some facing higher-than-expected tax bills.
Data released on February 14 revealed that the average tax refund was down 8.7 percent from the previous year: from $2,135 to $1,949.
Moreover, while 13.5 million tax refunds had been issued at this stage last year, the number has dropped to 11.4 million this year—a 16 percent decline.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-tax-cuts-bank-profi...
Anyway, as an individual you’re responsible to ensure that you’re paying the correct amount of tax based on your own set of circumstances. The equivalent of standard PAYE deductions taken at source rarely cover all of your tax liabilities. You have to personally elect how much more (or less) tax should be withheld at source to cover your own tax liabilities, aka withholdings.
What’s happened to all these folks moaning about not getting the refunds they expected compared to prior years is that for 2018 their “PAYE” deductions were reduced, but they didn’t then alter their withholdings to compensate for the new tax laws. Boom, they’ve not paid enough tax, and owe the IRS come tax return time.
For the vast majority people, their overall annual tax burden has reduced, it just happened without them realizing (woohoo, extra $500 a month take home, let’s spend it!), and now it’s caught up with them.
Anyone complaining about it only has themselves to blame for being asleep at the wheel and overspending.
fblm said:
How so? Employment is up. Unemployment is down. Wages are up. Reportedly 80% benefited from the tax cuts to some extent and their 401k's (pensions) are up 25%. Now, only 2 years in I think the previous administration probably has more to do with the US economy's current good health than Trump does but I'm struggling to see how the average or vast majority of Americans are any worse off financially. I think people are barking up the wrong tree if they are hanging their hope of a change of president on the state of the economy.
Erm, employment is not a measure of how well off you are nor a measure of how good the economy is going.The easiest way to increase the employment rate is to use the old conservative trick of simply declaring a whole bunch of people "unemployable" therefore removing them from the statistics, you actually have fewer jobs but far fewer people looking for work so employment is up. Figures don't lie, but liars figure.
Actual indications of economic health like PPP and CPI aren't so pretty.
However all of this matters little to the average man on the street. What they see is the money in their bank accounts, their costs to live going up, their quality of life going down and most importantly, more money being taken by the taxman.
Trump's only saving grace was outside of his control. Oil prices have dropped since 2014 and remained low. With oil prices low the US should be booming instead of just hanging on, without low oil prices both the US and UK would be in dire straits.
fblm said:
FPTP means nothing of the sort. Unequal constituency sizes can produce the same perverse results as the electoral college system.
First, you don't understand either the Westminster or American electoral systems. Unlike us, the Americans directly vote for their president (like the French do) and vote separately for each their house and senate. So an american voter has 3 votes to cast, one for the Prez, one for their local Rep (MP equivalent) and one for their state senators.You have also missed the point. Trump was never popular, it's just that Hillary was more unpopular thanks to a huge smear campaign. Hillary Clinton even won the popular vote. If not for the US electoral collage, Trump would have lots. It is foolhardy to the point of stupidity to pretend that Trump was ever a popular candidate that won on his own merit because nothing is further from the truth.
That's why Trump's re-election is a long shot. He cant do the same to O'Rouke or Delaney.
He's facing a republican revolt and a revitalised opposition... Not to mention a hostile public.
Edited by captain_cynic on Tuesday 26th February 11:11
There is some serious democrat rose tinted glasses going on there...
In my opinion reasons Hillary lost:
Hillary was not a popular candidate despite what CNN tells you - in fact for many Americans whether to vote for Trump or Hillary was a choice of who do you dislike least...
Also a lot of Bernie Saunders supports felt Hillary stole the nomination from Bernie which undermined her democrat support further ( https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41850798 )
Hillary neglected a lot of the usual blue states during her campaign assuming they would vote for her which came back to bite her when they went red ( https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elect... )
The democrats lost sight of their historic core base - white working / middle class America and got perceived as a coastal elitist party more concerned about identity politics than the situation of the common American (look up the recent 'learn to code' controversy with liberal journalists if you want to see more about that)
There is a bigger rift in the democratic party than in the republican party.
Trump is likely to run unopposed, whereas there is a growing divide between the moderates and progressives led by AOC in the democratic party.
The recent mid terms were effectively a one all draw - Democrats took back the house but not by the landslide predicted, Republicans held the senate and won a few of the key state governor races.
The electoral college was designed as a concession to the smaller states at the start the Union to safeguard that their views would not get steamrolled by the more established states with bigger populations.
Is it fair that an Americans vote in one state is worth less proportionately than an Americans vote in another state? Probably not, but thems the rules until they decide to change them.
Whether all the above means Trump was popular or Hillary was just more unpopular is a bit moot - he ran a clever campaign and ended up in the white house.
captain_cynic said:
fblm said:
How so? Employment is up. Unemployment is down. Wages are up. Reportedly 80% benefited from the tax cuts to some extent and their 401k's (pensions) are up 25%. Now, only 2 years in I think the previous administration probably has more to do with the US economy's current good health than Trump does but I'm struggling to see how the average or vast majority of Americans are any worse off financially. I think people are barking up the wrong tree if they are hanging their hope of a change of president on the state of the economy.
Erm, employment is not a measure of how well off you are nor a measure of how good the economy is going.The easiest way to increase the employment rate is to use the old conservative trick of simply declaring a whole bunch of people "unemployable" therefore removing them from the statistics, you actually have fewer jobs but far fewer people looking for work so employment is up. Figures don't lie, but liars figure.
Actual indications of economic health like PPP and CPI aren't so pretty.
However all of this matters little to the average man on the street. What they see is the money in their bank accounts, their costs to live going up, their quality of life going down and most importantly, more money being taken by the taxman.
Trump's only saving grace was outside of his control. Oil prices have dropped since 2014 and remained low. With oil prices low the US should be booming instead of just hanging on, without low oil prices both the US and UK would be in dire straits.
fblm said:
FPTP means nothing of the sort. Unequal constituency sizes can produce the same perverse results as the electoral college system.
First, you don't understand either the Westminster or American electoral systems. Unlike us, the Americans directly vote for their president (like the French do) and vote separately for each their house and senate. So an american voter has 3 votes to cast, one for the Prez, one for their local Rep (MP equivalent) and one for their state senators.You have also missed the point. Trump was never popular, it's just that Hillary was more unpopular thanks to a huge smear campaign. Hillary Clinton even won the popular vote. If not for the US electoral collage, Trump would have lots. It is foolhardy to the point of stupidity to pretend that Trump was ever a popular candidate that won on his own merit because nothing is further from the truth.
That's why Trump's re-election is a long shot. He cant do the same to O'Rouke or Delaney.
He's facing a republican revolt and a revitalised opposition... Not to mention a hostile public.
Edited by captain_cynic on Tuesday 26th February 11:11
dvs_dave said:
GroundEffect said:
What a curious line of reasoning when you consider...
IRS figures also showed that Trump’s tax cuts were not necessarily filtering down to the average American, with some facing higher-than-expected tax bills.
Data released on February 14 revealed that the average tax refund was down 8.7 percent from the previous year: from $2,135 to $1,949.
Moreover, while 13.5 million tax refunds had been issued at this stage last year, the number has dropped to 11.4 million this year—a 16 percent decline.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-tax-cuts-bank-profi...
US tax system doesn’t work that way and is fiendishly complex compared to the U.K. system. It’s what you end up with following a regime of taxation without representation. IRS figures also showed that Trump’s tax cuts were not necessarily filtering down to the average American, with some facing higher-than-expected tax bills.
Data released on February 14 revealed that the average tax refund was down 8.7 percent from the previous year: from $2,135 to $1,949.
Moreover, while 13.5 million tax refunds had been issued at this stage last year, the number has dropped to 11.4 million this year—a 16 percent decline.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-tax-cuts-bank-profi...
Anyway, as an individual you’re responsible to ensure that you’re paying the correct amount of tax based on your own set of circumstances. The equivalent of standard PAYE deductions taken at source rarely cover all of your tax liabilities. You have to personally elect how much more (or less) tax should be withheld at source to cover your own tax liabilities, aka withholdings.
What’s happened to all these folks moaning about not getting the refunds they expected compared to prior years is that for 2018 their “PAYE” deductions were reduced, but they didn’t then alter their withholdings to compensate for the new tax laws. Boom, they’ve not paid enough tax, and owe the IRS come tax return time.
For the vast majority people, their overall annual tax burden has reduced, it just happened without them realizing (woohoo, extra $500 a month take home, let’s spend it!), and now it’s caught up with them.
Anyone complaining about it only has themselves to blame for being asleep at the wheel and overspending.
k all.Obviously my deductions were reduced (as I'd suspected they had been - it's been an easy year, financially), and I'd not adjusted my withholdings.
Fortunately, I run very conservative in my withholdings normally, and in my spending, so I still got a refund, just about half what I was expecting.
Having said that, I can see that the doubling of the standard deduction should make life a lot easier for folk not relying on mortgage interest payments to bring up their deductible, so I can see a lot of less well off families doing nicely out of this; vote buying at its finest.
As for the comments around tax refund being down, my tax payment was essentially f
k all this year. The oldies are doing well.
Iowa Poll: Biden and Sanders stand out among likely caucusgoers
Hillary Clinton rules out running for president in 2020
Iowa Poll: Biden and Sanders stand out among likely caucusgoers
cnn said:
The latest CNN/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll finds Biden and Sanders near even at 27% and 25% respectively, with no other candidate earning even 10% support. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts (9%) and Sen. Kamala Harris of California (7%) come closest, and of the rest of the 20-person field tested in the poll, just former US Rep. Beto O'Rourke of Texas (5%), Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota (3% each) rise above 1% support.
Meanwhile Hillary sees sense.Hillary Clinton rules out running for president in 2020
Ziplobb said:
Jasandjules said:
Most Americans I know seem to want Trump again.
agreed my small group of US living/voting/resident friends would all like to see him in his 2nd termWe certainly are living in interesting times, I feel a genuine sense of pity for my American friends and colleagues. Interestingly, all of my American friends are thoroughly ashamed of trump apart from one, who de-friended me on facebook when I made a joke about the orange one. They are a thin-skinned lot!
paulguitar said:
With new corruption being uncovered (at least) daily, this defies belief, and yet indeed, it seems around one-third of Americans are still in favour of this moron.
We certainly are living in interesting times, I feel a genuine sense of pity for my American friends and colleagues. Interestingly, all of my American friends are thoroughly ashamed of trump apart from one, who de-friended me on facebook when I made a joke about the orange one. They are a thin-skinned lot!
It's the economy, stupid!We certainly are living in interesting times, I feel a genuine sense of pity for my American friends and colleagues. Interestingly, all of my American friends are thoroughly ashamed of trump apart from one, who de-friended me on facebook when I made a joke about the orange one. They are a thin-skinned lot!
As long as you put money in their pockets, people (in general, not just the US) can put up with a lot.
Even with as much of a tit the orange one is, I can see him getting in again - or at least get a lot closer to getting in again that people might think, given his performance.
Put Bernie Sanders in against him, disable Trumps twitter, and I can see Trump winning, easily. Or not. The only thing the last election showed to me was how difficult it is to call it here.
Incidentally, I've seen or heard of more than 30 'de-friendings' on facebook because someone wasn't sufficiently condemnatory of the tit, or took a middle of the road approach, yours is absolutely the first the other way round - and I'd rate my friends list as being at least 60% democrat.
jimmyjimjim said:
It's the economy, stupid!
As long as you put money in their pockets, people (in general, not just the US) can put up with a lot.
I think it can be argued as to whether or not the moron is having a positive effect on the economy, with the ballooning deficit, etc., but for the sake of argument here, let's assume he is good for it. Seriously, just how much daily humiliation can a person take for the sake of say, another hundred dollars per month? I'd happily forgo that to be represented by someone vaguely acceptable or even human.As long as you put money in their pockets, people (in general, not just the US) can put up with a lot.
jimmyjimjim said:
Incidentally, I've seen or heard of more than 30 'de-friendings' on facebook because someone wasn't sufficiently condemnatory of the tit, or took a middle of the road approach, yours is absolutely the first the other way round - and I'd rate my friends list as being at least 60% democrat.
That's interesting. It's a relief that all my other US friends are either embarrassed by trump or we haven't discussed it.I am in the states until June, and right now every day I really do feel like I am living in a Twilight Zone episode.
jimmyjimjim said:
It's the economy, stupid!
As long as you put money in their pockets, people (in general, not just the US) can put up with a lot.
And ultimately I think that'll be his downfall. The US is entering tax season and early reports are not good, people are seeing far less in their returns than they did in previous years and all of that is the responsibility of the government. As long as you put money in their pockets, people (in general, not just the US) can put up with a lot.
Governments generally don't have that much of an effect on the economy until they start to eschew pragmatism for ideology, and at that point it's a negative effect. However distribution of taxation is something that they can effect and is very noticeable. Pretty much people are going to think that Trump has screwed them over and given tax cuts to his rich friends.
versus "wow I've got a lot more in my pay packet this month that last month, thanks Trump!".
It's a balancing act; give them more on a monthly basis or more as a refund. He's got another tax season to tweak it, don't get your hopes up yet.
It's a balancing act; give them more on a monthly basis or more as a refund. He's got another tax season to tweak it, don't get your hopes up yet.
Edited by jimmyjimjim on Monday 11th March 16:48
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