White Christianity seething in its own soup.

Not really. The main reform was to the corporate rate. The cuts for the middle class average $4 a day--not enough for a latte at Starbucks.

 

It's a naked redistribution if it's paid for by welfare cuts like Medicare and so called 'entitlement reform' (code for 'we don't like the poor once they're born')

 

So is it incompetence or malice or a bit of both?

 

Even if there are cuts to wasteful welfare programs, that is not redistribution, as ITL has already told you. In case you don't know on the other side of the of pond, the GOP is divided and people like Dobbs and probably Forbes want McConnell and Ryan removed from leadership. The conservative bloc in the house and senate want spending cuts. Everyone wanted corporate tax cuts to compete with countries like Ireland, which, as you know, has a low corporate tax level. American corporate taxes, as you know, were so high, perhaps the highest in the world, that American goods were not competitive. Already several major corporations gave pay raises or bonuses to their employees. During the Obama years, there were no raises for anyone and it was difficult to find a good job. The Trump boom is like the Reagan boom after Carter went back to Georgia. Christmas was the best in years in that everyone had a little more.

Now the working people will get to keep an extra $4 per day--hardly enough to afford much of anything extra in this expensive economy where so many people refuse to work.

 

Yes, there are a lot of GOPers that are hopping mad that Marco Rubio's tax refund as implemented is a wealth redistribution scheme. The government takes money from the middle class and gives it away to the poor.

 

I have no idea what you are trying to say here. Can you elaborate?

 

Maybe re-redistribution...

 

Of course welfare is always branded as 'wasteful' by those who don't need it...

 

Whataboutism. Not interested.

 

By all means: you and Rob dressed up the downside of the Bill (I presume you therefore admit that there is a downside, otherwise why dress it up?) by saying that, strictly speaking, cuts to welfare programs are not federal income tax rises and neither are state sales taxes. Strictly speaking I suppose you are correct, but all of these are fiscal measures which, taken together, amount to robbing the poorest to line the nests of the richest in society, and therefore all your categorizing and other window dressing won't cover up the foul stench of the net result.

 

1. I said nothing about welfare cuts. Even so, cuts are not income tax increases. Sheesh, where do you get this stuff?

2. State sales taxes are paid by everyone. The federal government does not determine state sales taxes. If state law makes a poor person pay the same sales tax rates as the wealthy that does not "line the nests of the wealthy". That's just ludicrous.

 

I identify a specific instance where the poor are being subsidized by the middle class and wealthy as a direct result of the tax reform bill, the exact subject matter we are discussing, and you don't want to talk about it.

 

Thanks for proving my point! Window dressing again.

 

It's not that I don't want to talk about it but rather that it is not germane to the issue of welfare cuts being used to fund tax cuts which disproportionately benefit the wealthy.

 

I hate to break it to you but the issue of welfare cuts being used to fund tax cuts is a fantasy made up by liberals to scare people.

 

You have a serious misunderstanding about state, local, and federal taxes in this country.

And as far as paygo, if that's your strongest complaint, shouldn’t you wait and see if it actually goes into effect?

 

Sorry, but nothing proves your point. You have failed to show how an extra $4 per day for a working person affects anyone else in American or British society. It is a complete error on your part to say that the $4 per day cuts are being funded by non-existent welfare cuts. Are you trying to out-Herod Herod as your own Shakespeare wrote? The Democrats turned their backs on the working people and left them to fend for themselves. The rural poverty in this country is horrendous. Hillary refused to even visit some of the rust belt states. As ITL says, "..welfare cuts being used to fund tax cuts is a fantasy made up by liberals to scare people." I thought that you are a lawyer.

 

So PAYGO doesn't exist then? Just a liberal fantasy?

 

Sigh. No, but it's why they limited the tax cuts to $150 trillion over 10 years and why the tax cuts are sunset after 10 years. To get around PAYGO rules.

 

Leftist fearmongering. Britons buy it every time.