In a surprising vote Thursday, the Senate voted 68-23 to pass a resolution from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) expressing opposition to President Trump’s plan to withdraw US troops from Syria, and expressing opposition to any theoretical pullout from Afghanistan that might result from a negotiated deal to end that war.
The non-binding resolution was passed with overwhelming support from the Republican majority, setting them squarely against parts of President Trump’s foreign policy. A number of Democrats who voted against it expressed concern that it was tantamount to a vote advocating a state of permanent war.
Which it realistically is. The 2001 authorization for the Afghan War was built around 9/11 and the defeat of al-Qaeda. Neither are hugely relevant issues in 2019 Afghanistan, and a peace treaty being negotiated centers heavily around the Taliban promising to keep al-Qaeda and ISIS out of the country in the future.
Congress never actually authorized the war in Syria at all, dodging that obligation repeatedly because of political concerns. President Obama invaded Syria unilaterally to “fight ISIS,” and President Trump has declared ISIS effectively defeated now that they have virtually no territory left.
Leaving Syria has become a political hot-button issue for many hawks, who argue variously that either ISIS isn’t defeated, that the US should transition the Syria War to fighting Iran, or that the US should transition the Syria War into permanently protecting the Syrian Kurdish groups the US was aligned with against Turkey. Within the administration, a number of hawks oppose leaving Syria just because the broad assumption was that the US would always be there.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was deeply critical of the resolution, saying Congress should be ending military interventions, not coming up with more reasons to continue them.
As colossally f**ked up as he is, there is a reason Trump beat these kind of Republicans in 2016 and there is a reason Hillary had to cheat to keep Bernie from beating him like a drum. Trump and Bernie may be charlatans, and their followers may be misguided, but their instincts are right on. All they have to do is ditch these corrupt parties and come together. That’s when the revolution begins. The big men in Washington can smell the smoke. They’re scared. They should be.
End the tyranny of DC over this country. We can do better than these corrupted bums in Congress and the White House.
But not if the populace remains comatose.
You and I don’t often agree, solly, but here we do. The question is, “What will have to happen — how bad will it have to get — for the populace to become sufficiently concerned to awaken from its coma?
I’m not aware that once an empire reaches its zenith, and then starts to go down, it can regain anything of its former glory.
I would not be surprised to see Americans even more divided and tearing each other apart.
If we allow the US to disintegrate into small stateless societies then we can actually unite TO divide and NOT tear each other apart. The problem rests in the idea that there is simply one solution for this huge land mass when in reality there can be a thousand little solutions that make both big government and big business obsolete. People can have their socialism in Vermont and there libertarianism in New Hampshire. We really can have our cake and eat it too.
Competing sovereignties. People could migrate to where they fit in.
The political class isn’t going to like it. It’s like the serfs leaving the estates! The political class would have to fight their own wars and pay for them.
As if the corporate overlords will allow that to happen. They’ll just declare you a “terrorist” and drone the crap out of you. It’s already “legal” for them and quite a simple process.
You’ll end up just like the Palestinians. You have to take over the current system and turn the guns on the rest of the world and destroy the ability for business to incorporate while reforming tort law in order to restore sole proprietor business to come back.
It’s the economy that’s the masters whip. If you don’t obey the capitalist whip you live on the street or out in the woods.
Or you can compete. Produce instead of complain.
When you do that, you run into your glorious State: regulations, inspectors, taxes, fees, endless paperwork and compliance. Bureaucracy that is multi tiered and feudal in its application. Within the same administration area, the rules are set by petty bureaucrats. They apply regulations on their whim. One will be reasonable and the next will not even pretend to adhere to their own written rules.
Fiefdoms abound. When I was doing a minor construction project, the general contractor told me to find out what wine they like and send a case. Approval would rapidly follow. A local business refused to play ball. A minor project took three years to be approved. Corrupt at all levels. Many personal experiences of this corruption. In multiple states.
The corporate overlords you cite use government and are mostly immune to and are part of the corrupt State. Without State power, they have to compete with those that are more innovative nimble and connected their markets. Creative destruction takes these corporate dinosaurs down. UNLESS they are protected by the State. Often in collusion with their labor dinosaur counterparts.
Who wins if the battle of creative destruction? Better products and lower prices benefit everyone, but mostly the lower income demographics. A wealthy person doesn’t even notice if a product drops in price, increases in quality and becomes more available. But those that have limited means sure win.
Likewise, those that have not been indoctrinated into the fable that “targeted inflation” helps them do understand that lower prices are what raises the standard of living of the general population.
On the other hand, who does win with economic and monetary policy of inflation? By leveraging ones assets, huge gains are made by the uber rich. Those huge gains are virtually guaranteed by monetary policy.
The State is not the answer. It is the problem.
… Yet you described a situation where the state was captured by private interests to enhance their competitiveness.
Monopolism would still arise, just call itself something other than the state if the word ‘state’ for that level or organization was unfashionable.
Explain how monopolies can exist over the long term without the State enforcing their monopolies.
They call it a feudal monarchy or baronage or peerage, or tribe or nation or theological sect; anything that can inspire self-perpetuating group identity and deep loyalty to common governing principles including governing organization, especially against rival groups.
The Sovereign State was invented at the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, and initially embraced as an alternative to abuses of decentralized feudal tyranny. At Westphalia ruling elites formally accepted that geographically fixed national identities had final exclusive sovereignty within a fixed geography, against conflicting trans-national individual (baronal or mercantile), Church and monarchial claims.
Who gets what and how tends to favour individual, local, then mass centralization because people free to make agreements make may also make agreements potentially in conflict with other freely made agreements.
The ‘state’ simplifies and clarifies the sandboxes of sovereignty. In theory, anyway; the break from trans-nationalism was far from clean.
Trans-state, trans-national monopolism (globalism) is the enemy of liberty by virtue of being the bigger monopoly than the state. Globalism merrily fans anti-statism for its own benefit under the pretext of liberty, swapping state sovereignty for provinciality.
The State is a Stone Age (actually New Stone Age) institution. Your reference to the modern nation state is not germane to the question I asked.
You asked how lasting monopolies can exist without the State to enforce them. The context of the thread presumes the more recent history of the State, which begins at Westphalia.
Paleolithic groups probably rarely framed social conflict within an objectivized ‘state’ philosophy. Nature enforces monopolies by enabling them.
Monopolies will always exist where there is capacity for social organization, because monopoly power is a quality of the individual translated into social organization. Social organizations regulate group identity and ratio of individualism (self-monopoly) cooperation and competition; a monopoly governing monopolies.
The first social organization we are naturally introduced to is ‘family’. Family may very in composition, but the traditional nuclear +extended family has existed as, with, without, because of, and in spite of the ‘state’.
Your dissatisfaction with ratios of monopoly:competition: cooperation is distinctly modern since it is individually focused.
Paleolithic and neolithic cultures appeared to minimize the self and competition to privilege cooperation, within a cyclic philosophy where maximizing the self is to be part of something greater than the self, the community.
Word salad.
… And some wannabe warlord will try and unite them all by force.
The end of the Roman Empire resulted in medieval feudalism, not a more enlightened era of peace and unity.
Trump is already a sort-of latter day Charlemagne trying to restore a declining Holy American Empire.
I question your assessment that Bernie is a charlatan – right here he comes out against our military adventure in Syria, so he is not an imperialist. And he proves his populist credentials by coming out in favor of a “wealth tax”. Ask yourself WWHD (what would Hillary Do?). Neither is Trump a charlatan – what he is – is a stupid, greedy blowhard, willing to kiss Netanyahu’s rear for a few shekels.
I do wish Bernie was not so insistent upon being polite to others in the Democratic Party – he should have sued the corrupt Clintons and the other corporate Democrats, but he didn’t. I know he thinks that he is being moderate, but it comes across as cowardly.
“right here he comes out against our military adventure in Syria, so he is not an imperialist”
Non sequitur.
Edmund Burke’s opposition to England’s war with its American colonies didn’t stop him from doing his damnedest to make imperialism “work” in India (as with the impeachment of Warren Hastings).
Mr. Knapp,
Again comes the response – “Since Bernie is not perfect, he must be a bum.”
One of Jesus’ parables was the story of the two brothers, both of whom were told by their father to work in the field that day. One said he wouldn’t but he did; one said he would but he didn’t. Which did his father’s will?
Likewise, just because Bernie does not speak out against our military atrocities, that does not make him an imperialist. The fact that he does speak out against untaxed imperialist wealth proves to me (at least) that he is not an imperialist.
Maybe in an unhinged country ready to go kill a lot of innocent people in Venezuela, I’m ready to accept a faint rebuttal to what everyone else is in agreement.
Sanders isn’t perfect but I agree with you. There is no reason to believe he is an imperialist. His ideology is not that of imperialism. He’s an authoritarian in many ways but that’s not the same as saying he is an imperialist.
Furthermore, although he “caved” to Hillary, it’s easy to forget why. Everyone assumed Hillary would win and that meant Sanders would get something out of the deal he made. Who knows what Sanders would have forced Hillary to concede on ($15hr stuff like that) but had it happened we would all see Sanders in a different light. Now he’s just the guy who caved in but not until he hurt Hillary enough to bring us Trump. Had Hillary won he would have been the guy who conceded to reality for the good of the country by helping the Dems keep the Orange Gollum out with that concession and then worked with her to get something for his base. Also keep in mind that Sanders surely assumed that he would not be running for president again anyway. If Hillary had won he wasn’t going to primary her and he’s to old to run after that. He would have stuck around and been a thorn in her side in many ways actually.
Sanders is an authoritarian, opportunist and a lot of other things that are sadly common traits for almost all politicians, he’s not an imperialist though, at least I’ve never looked at his ideology in that way. I think if Sanders had a choice and was made dictator he would try to turn us into what he claims. A mixed socialist economy with a larger domestic progrom vs the constant warfare state.
Sadly I would assume that under Sanders we would continued (as with Trump) to have the worst of both worlds; The warfare and welfare state combined with not much more than tweeking around the edges.
Sanders would have been isolated politically, slandered as a Putin Puppet and forced to go along with most of the current foreign policy anyway. But either Trump or Sanders would have brought us less war than either Clinton or Bush. That’s why I supported Sanders in the Democratic primary and ended up voting for Trump.
Boxofvapor, Everything you say is true, except that I see absolutely zero good ever coming out of the Clintons and/or the Corporate Democrats. Trump is an idiot but the Clintons are worse. Trump is stupid-corrupt but the Clintons, Obama and the rest of Wall Street/Zionist Democrats are smart-corrupt, which is worse. Trump can be bought off with a compliment or a tschotsky; the Clinton Democrats want and will demand your first born and all of your blood. I wound up voting for Jill Stein and will again in 2020 if the candidates are Trump or some Clinton protégé.
No, that’s not what I said.
All I said is that it does not follow from opposition to one piece of a larger imperialist agenda that the opponent is not an imperialist.
I didn’t opine as to whether or not Sanders is an imperialist. I simply pointed out that your claim “he comes out against our military adventure in Syria, so he is not an imperialist” fails basic logic. It is not a valid syllogism/if-then.
My actual opinion of Sanders is non-ideological, btw:
“Some of the most poignant criticism comes from those who question Bernie’s ‘outsider’ status — something the Vermont lawmaker claims he’s been more or less able to maintain since first winning a seat in Congress nearly 25 years ago. ‘He’s just another opportunistic political careerist, sort of a left version of Ron Paul,’ insists political writer Thomas L. Knapp. While he clearly started out with some ideological principles … ‘at some point that ideology took a back seat to establishment pragmatism and re-election necessities, while continuing to provide a great fundraising pitch to people in an unexploited ideological niche — if they don’t look to closely.’ ” — Bernie: A Lifelong Crusade Against Wall Street and Wealth, by Darcy G. Richardson
OK, OK – you are correct – in a nit-picking way. As the old cigarette commercial used to say, “What do you want – good grammar or good taste?”
To me in a time when we have total jerks like Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Elliot Abrams running our Government trying to get us into a war with Iran or Venezuela; how damned important is it whether Sanders pass your purity test or not? How in heavens name, could he possibly be any worse than the filthy swine we have in place now? Why don’t you just admit that Sanders bothers you because he might cost you another dime and not because he might get more people killed?
Sanders doesn’t bother me any more than any other political careerist who found a gullible fundraising niche does.
Bernie is a charlatan because he calls himself a revolutionary while differing to a counter-revolutionary party. That and he supports imperialism as long as it gets rubber stamped by the DNC (Kosovo, Libya, Syrian regime change, Russiagate…).
Trump is a charlatan because he claims to be a nationalist and put “America First” while differing to Israel and Saudi Arabia and whoever else agree to buy one of his gaudy towers or golf courses.
Dead on target again C H…
They aren’t scared. Money buys elections in the U.S. Look at Bloomberg & Schultz, L.P. ready to suck all attention away from legitimate independent opposition.
That hat trick won’t work forever. I honestly don’t see Bloomberg or Schultz getting a whole lot of votes. They both have the collective charisma of a wallpaper dealership. The spectacle of personality is the only thing that keeps Americans invested in our sham of a democracy. It’s American Idol with lower turnout.
I sent Trump to Washington to begin the Second American Revolution by burning the place down. He’s kinda sorta almost doing something like that (but of course not as severely as I would have liked) and it’s currently a toss-up whether he will drain the swamp or the swamp will drain him. So far it’s “advantage, swamp”. But he was precisely the sort of disruptive personality to bomb-throw the start of “the revolution”.
Now, the US approaches 2020 faced with a choice: let Trump with all his “issues” continue to lead the revolution, or choose a new general. I worry that a new general — Tulsi Gabbard — will face the same problem Trump faces: rock solid obstruction from the opposition party — the GOP — and foot dragging from the Dem old guard. Meanwhile, once Trump is gone, the GOP will heave a sigh of relief and revert straight back to pre-Trump form.
Interesting times to be sure. Sadly, it looks like the US is toast.
Perhaps, the recent Senate vote showed that more GOP members may willing to vote issues over party. A good sign. War weariness and military failure is sinking deep, I don’t think fly overs at the Super bowl will be enough.
Which vote? The vote to end the war in Yemen after it’s already almost over, during a ceasefire, while both sides are negotiating actual peace and after Trump already ended most of our support anyway and had his state department announce that it’s time for peace? That’s a very brave vote indeed. Or did you mean the vote where they just said Trump can’t get us out of either Syria or Afghanistan? It sounds to me more like they just like to oppose Trump, than any form of voting Issue over party.
Keep dreaming that congress is going to do something meaningful all you want, you are as delusional about that as you are about Trump. All they are doing is opposing Trump, you can’t claim they are voting on “issues” or care about ending the wars when they just voted to stop Trump from pulling out of two of them.
Not everyone takes whatever drool dribbling out of trump’s hole as something actually occurring in reality. Do you seriously believe that the CiC cannot remove troops, or decrease airstrikes that he himself put in place less than 2 years ago ? What would congress do ? Impeach him?…lol. Let me know when trumps deployments and bombing levels are down to the levels when he came in. I know it’s difficult to keep track of all the vegetables in trumps word salads, but he stated he would veto any congressional vote to bifurcate the US military from the Yemen war.
How long has the president been in charge of the budget of the US government ??
The implosion of at least one party of the duopoly would be an accomplishment.
However, the U.S. is far from toast, and if it were, the U.S. toaster fire could easily burn the rest of the planet down.
O.K. Bernie….!!! Too bad that war is so costly to those that live it, but so profitable for the perpetrators… Maybe the whole money laundry of defense appropriations going to those congress folk who sell & instigate the wars can some day be outed for the quid pro quo is inevitably is. I’m not so sure Bernie is the guy to do it… But seeing him mention it is a plus for me. Let’s see who becomes the likely Democrat contender. Then it will hopefully be clearer what way things are inclining..?
No politician can do it. Unless somebody comes from the outside the system. We could do better by randomly picking a person and vote him/her into office by write in. Cheap, and reasonably expected to have some common sense.
Sanders was half right. We should be ending these wars but saying Trump acted reckless on announcing the drawdowns is tired nonsense.
Sanders is not genuine. He never, ever cleanly opposed war profiteering called interventions.
Sanders was care to make sure he got a cut of the F-35 pie.
Spending is a tough barometer, once a budget for war productivity is passed, even an antiwar member is hard pressed to not obtain some of that spending for their districts. May not be right, but it is the kind of hard decision representatives have to make.
True. In a perverse way Sanders and everyone else who went along with the F-35 boondoggle set back the war machine, regardless of their stance on war.
Bernie is morally superior because he is a democratic socialist and a soft Zionist. At least he thinks so.
That’s also why he’s not yet the former Senator from Vermont. You can go ahead and list all the Senators who’s voting record reflects any different.
AIPAC pulling on the reins of power on the Hill.
As always.
The D presidential candidates in the senate, Harris, Sanders, Warren, Gillibrand voted against. Thought to be a fresh face, Sen Sinema voted for it. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=116&session=1&vote=00013
The only reason a number of these voted against it was to maintain the illusion that they are also against intervention.
No reason not to support any antiwar vote.
I’m a little cynical about Bernie, but at this point the antiwar movement is in no position to be choosy about any support it can get.
So, now Senate is running foreign policy, and making military decisions. In the meantime Trump is getting high praise from career diplomats who understand Afghan politics. Article by retired Ambassador Bhadrakumar in Asia Times — a perfect example.
Proof we are certifiably nuts–as if further proof was needed.
68 Senators from both parties, who are paid by the war corporations, voted in favor of prolonging the destruction and killing and keep the war corporations profit running.
I wholeheartedly agree with you, Jim, 68 corrupt Senators from both parties, who are paid by the war corporations, sold their souls to the Devil and voted in favor of prolonging the destruction and killing, keeping the war corporations’ profits running.
Are these 68 running foreign policy? If they are, they’re in violation of the US constitution, which states that foreign policy can only be run by the Chief Executive – in this case, Donald Trump. Trump has the authority to annul this Senate vote and put an end to this lunacy.
“If they are, they’re in violation of the US constitution, which states
that foreign policy can only be run by the Chief Executive”
That’s not true and you should really stop repeating it.
Yep.
Kill one of the parties. Americans can drain half the swamp in a couple of elections by keeping only one in power. The U.S. is already effectively a one-party state pretending to have two political parties.
The Dems look vulnerable right now.
I think if dick Nixon ran in 2020 he would be running as a Democrat
A liberal democrat. At least by todays standards.
These wars keep our tax dollars flowing into the pockets of the Federal Reserve Central Bank and the Rothschild Banking Cartel!
Your tax dollars don’t flow anywhere. They are written off the books and new bonds are sold to the elite’s and to other countries.
Taxes destroy currency. That’s why the joke is on the libertarians who simultaneously complain about creating too much currency while bawling about high taxes and the value of the dollar.
Also, there are faeries living in the woods behind my house. True story, bro.
As gullible as libertarians are about economics it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if you believed in fairies Thomas, after all you believe in the fairy tale of the “free market” too.
It’s typical for people that know nothing about how our tax system actually works to think there is just a pool of money and that the IRS sets around a table and say’s, this dollar goes here and that dollar goes there. Then get an intern to run a bag of money over to the pentagon, state dept., etc..
Collecting taxes is just an accounting exercise. They collect the money record it(maybe hassle you later), and write it off the books. After that they just issue new bonds. Other wise we’d still have every dollar ever created since the beginning of the system.
Add to this having to compete with all the countries who do not have reserve currency status, and you begin to see the case for a world currency after you devalue your dollar to the point it’s worthless and hardly anyone in your country can afford to live anymore. You know, the race to the bottom that the rent seeking trust fund babies keep us in, in order to avoid any real competition and make everyone else suffer while they stay on top through bribery.
That John Birch society branch that the Koch brothers is funding, is feeding you a line of crap Thomas.
The dirty little secret of capitalism is that it HATES competition. Add to that any system that demands you extort everyone around and below you is always going to lead to war and you understand why we loot and pillage the rest of the world.
IT’S THE ECONOMY STUPID…………..
The very definition of a deficit in terms of any individual country is the ratio of money created to the amount destroyed……
If you’re invested in a Ponzi scheme you should at least understand how it actually works, don’t you think ?
I don’t listen to the Birch Society at all and I usually only listen to the Kochs to find out what their latest corporate welfare scheme is.
I’m well aware that capitalism hates competition. That’s what happens when you get an economic system designed by, and for the benefit of, the political class.
Neither of those truths mean that your poor understanding of either economics in general or US monetary policy specifically reflects anything like reality.
Tell us how it works then Thomas. Don’t BS me, explain where I’m wrong………..
Sure.
1) Go back and read everything you’ve ever written about economics.
2) It’s all wrong.
Thanks for proving you know nothing about the subject Thomas. Until you can point out exactly what is wrong with post I’ll take that as proof you have no clue how macro economics or a fiat currency system actually works.
You can take anything you want as “proof” that you know what you’re talking about.
And I’ll just occasionally point out that you don’t.
It’s your job to educate yourself, not my job to educate you.
I’d run too if all I had was a libertarian understanding of how the tax system and economy actually worked.
So funny how you can’t even point out one error in my summery.
I think it’s your job to educate yourself about fiat currency and taxation before trying to attack someone for knowing more about it than you do.
You’d think as much as you enjoy correcting folks you’d be correcting me if you could.
Religious superstitions can’t be “corrected.” But the bottom line is this:
No, US currency isn’t just “destroyed by taxation.” Because US currency is “legal tender” (that’s the “fiat” part of “fiat currency”), it is the medium of exchange to which most wealth is tied, and taxation of the currency, among other schemes, transfers that wealth from the productive class to the political class. Absent its imposition as the medium of exchange, the US government could print all the dollars it wanted, hand them out, take them back, and burn them without any significant effect on society.
No it doesn’t transfer anywhere. They issue new bonds and sell them to investors. Please tell me which dept of the US government divides the money into stacks and sends it to each individual dept inside the government…..
Every sovereign nation has the power to create it’s own currency, so why would any country waste time and effort dividing revenue up when all it has to do is write it off the books ?
You’re conflating printing cash with creating currency. The fact is that cash has always been destroyed by the mint anyway.
Face it Thomas, Taxes destroy currency. That’s what a deficit is, the ratio between spent/created currency and taxed/ destroyed currency.
If there’s any religious superstitions being corrected around here it’s the libertarian belief that there’s a pool of money that the economy works on and that you have to balance the budget as if it were your personal checking account.
You can’t wiggle your way out of this one dude. They do not redistribute tax revenue, they write it off the books and just create new currency by writing bonds and selling them to investors. That’s why everyone calls it a ponzi and reminds you constantly that fiat currency relies upon trust alone.
” Please tell me which dept of the US government divides the money into stacks and sends it to each individual dept inside the government”
Why would it be my job to tell you the details of something I never claimed?
“If there’s any religious superstitions being corrected around here it’s the libertarian belief that there’s a pool of money that the economy works on and that you have to balance the budget as if it were your personal checking account.”
Or, rather, the superstition that such a belief is either unique to, or especially widespread among, libertarians.
Once again you’re dodging the fact you have no clue how the economy works.
The fact libertarians are constantly reciting the bumper sticker logic that you have to balance the budget or that taxation is theft would dispel your claim that no such consensus exists among the libertarian crowd.
What you’ve claimed is that I have to be wrong about how the tax system works within our fiat currency system.
That’s all you have is a claim due to the fact you couldn’t make an argument.
You couldn’t make an argument due to the fact you don’t know how the very system you oppose actually works.
“The fact libertarians are constantly reciting the bumper sticker logic that you have to balance the budget”
If they’re doing it constantly, presumably you can point to an instance.
Yes, libertarians do constantly note that taxation is theft. As if that was ever in question.
You have claimed that taxes “destroy currency” as if the monetary system is just some kind of shell game where pieces of paper are printed and then ritually set on fire.
You completely leave out what that printed, then “destroyed,” currency carries with it in its move from point A to point B: The value that is snagged by its status as a state-imposed medium of exchange.
I’d say that I’ve forgotten more about economics than you’ve ever bothered to know, but that would be untrue. I haven’t really forgotten very much.
Still trying to distract from where I said anything false I see.
You finally had to admit I didn’t say anything false I just “left something out” as if it wasn’t already apparent by publicly available studies and statistics.
The fact is when you lower taxes to the lowest rate they’ve been in over 80 years and still don’t get the effect you claim you were going to get, you never knew anything about economics that was worth remembering anyway.
Taxes destroy the currency you libertarians whine about destroying the value of the dollar. The fact that too much currency reduces the value of that currency at some point cannot be denied. The fact the US government can and still does destroy currency is undeniable.
Therefor you trying to claim libertarians have some moral or intellectual high ground when it comes to economics is just not true.
In the end you have to admit it. Taxes destroy currency, PERIOD.
“The fact is when you lower taxes to the lowest rate they’ve been in over 80 years and still don’t get the effect you claim you were going to get, you never knew anything about economics that was worth remembering anyway.”
I’m not sure what effect you think I claimed I was going to get.
I’m skeptical that taxes are at “the lowest rate they’ve been in over 80 years.”
For one thing, unless spending is cut, taxes aren’t cut (deficit spending is taxation with deferred payment, and at higher rates as well due to interest).
For another, Trump’s tariffs are already a bigger tax increase than the ObamaCare taxes he bitched about, and last time I noticed were on track to eclipse his smoke and mirrors income tax cuts as well.
Even if it’s a wash, all the Trump/GOP tax plan really did was make taxes more regressive, shifting the burden from his yacht-buying friends to Chinese-shower-shoes-buying regular people.
No, in the end I do not have to “admit” the cockamamie notion that taxes destroy currency, with a period or any other punctuation mark afterward.
This is perverse! They want war? Then declare war, dammit! Declare war on, what, Syria and the tribal peoples of Afghanistan? Would never happen, as the American people would blow up.
The president is the CoC … He conducts the war. Congress gets to start/end wars. They don’t get to control the conduct of a police action.