2018 gerrymandering problem is really bad

[Daelak]

NO historian blames the Depression or the Recession specifically on tax policy. Literally no human alive has ever even uttered those words.

Taxation is a parcel of the entirety of public policy towards wealth and income inequality, which throughout history, is shown to cause massive unrest and violent overthrow. As a percentage of their wealth and their income the wealthiest people in the US pay a pittance because of the hero worship conservatives have one the wealthy as the anointed ones, because modern conservatism is grounded in antebellum southern authoritarian hierarchy where deference to the rich and powerful was mandatory and as such their society was tailored to preserve their wealth.

[Elegiac]

You would never know currently if there was widespread voter fraud.

Despite all evidence to the contrary.

And ids have been considered a poll tax and a violation of the voting rights act.....which is an odd position to have considering anything can be considered a poll tax under that logic

Intent is what matters.

[Ishayu]

Not just gerrymandering but also the extraordinary voter suppression the GOP is doing. A Texas voter ID law just got struck down for targeting minorities.... And it was a replacement for another law that got struck down.... And for every law struck down there are dozens of examples of other foul play.

You do realise it was struck down by an Obama appointed judge, right?

The republicans want voter ID laws, by and large. It's the democrats who don't, usually saying that it's racist. And if they don't, the judges they appoint do. It is a patently ridiculous assertion unless minorities were unable to get ID's, which is not the case.

However, somehow, the Democratic party and the media have conspired to make a large portion of the population, including you apparently, believe that this is all the GOP's fault. Nothing could be further from the truth. Trump is pushing VERY hard for voter ID law because he thinks there were a ton of illegal immigrants voting democrat last election. Whether that's true or not I don't know, but I do know that you're simply wrong on the GOP and Voter ID.

[Elegiac]

Whether that's true or not I don't know, but I do know that you're simply wrong on the GOP and Voter ID.

You don't know something which is has been repeatedly demonstrated, i.e. that widespread voter fraud is a myth started by the Republicans in the 70s and 80s.

[Daelak]

You do realise it was struck down by an Obama appointed judge, right?

The republicans want voter ID laws, by and large. It's the democrats who don't, usually saying that it's racist. And if they don't, the judges they appoint do. It is a patently ridiculous assertion unless minorities were unable to get ID's, which is not the case.

However, somehow, the Democratic party and the media have conspired to make a large portion of the population, including you apparently, believe that this is all the GOP's fault. Nothing could be further from the truth. Trump is pushing VERY hard for voter ID law because he thinks there were a ton of illegal immigrants voting democrat last election. Whether that's true or not I don't know, but I do know that you're simply wrong on the GOP and Voter ID.

They have already been struck down as discriminatory and unconstitutional. This has nothing to do with partisanship and everything to do with the ever hardening authoritarian/supremacist views of the republican base that have been stoked by their propaganda outfits like talk radio, online blogs, 'news' sites, conspiracy theories.

[Tijuana]

Taxation is a parcel of the entirety of public policy towards wealth and income inequality, which throughout history, is shown to cause massive unrest and violent overthrow. As a percentage of their wealth and their income the wealthiest people in the US pay a pittance because of the hero worship conservatives have one the wealthy as the anointed ones, because modern conservatism is grounded in antebellum southern authoritarian hierarchy where deference to the rich and powerful was mandatory and as such their society was tailored to preserve their wealth.

You are making yourself sound silly with your wild accusations. Maybe I can help.

It isn't hero worship to want a system where anyone can make it if they work hard enough.

Trump's tax plan included a modest cut for the top bracket, but it also does away with loop holes, creating a net equivalence. His staff is on the record saying they are committed to NOT lowering the tax burden of the top bracket overall, and will not accept a plan from congress that does so. Maybe they are lying, who knows. But the bottom line is, you have no basis for your argument, given these statements by the administration.

BOTH plans by the Democrat candidates raised taxes for EVERYONE. Wait, I thought they were for helping the poor and the middle class? I guess not. The infamous "Bush tax cuts for the rich" cut taxes more for the poor than any income tax cut in history. So, we are used to the false narratives of partisan Democrat hacks.

Modern Conservatism is not grounded in anything antebellum. That is an outrageous lie. It was DEMOCRATS who held slaves, formed the KKK, and wrote the Jim Crow laws. Pick up a history book, you might really benefit personally from it.

It's not "preserving wealth" to stop taxing everyone and everything so hard it completely restrains the economy to the worst record in US history, under Obama (not a single year of 3% GDP growth/only US president to fail in that).

[Elegiac]

It isn't hero worship to want a system where anyone can make it if they work hard enough.

It is when you start equating accumulated wealth with personal virtue.

[DarkTZeratul]

Modern Conservatism is not grounded in anything antebellum. That is an outrageous lie. It was DEMOCRATS who held slaves, formed the KKK, and wrote the Jim Crow laws. Pick up a history book, you might really benefit personally from it.

You know what else is an outrageous lie? Contrasting modern conservatism with a version of the Democratic party that's anything but modern.

[Hobb]

Modern Conservatism is not grounded in anything antebellum. That is an outrageous lie. It was DEMOCRATS who held slaves, formed the KKK, and wrote the Jim Crow laws. Pick up a history book, you might really benefit personally from it.

Political ideologies for the parties changed over the course of the 1860s through mid 1930s. Democrats of today are more like the republicans of yesteryear and the republicans like yesteryear's democrats.

Republicans of today can really only claim to be the party of Lincoln in name only, but ideology wise not so much.

Source: https://www.livescience.com/34241-de...platforms.html

http://factmyth.com/factoids/democra...hed-platforms/

[Tijuana]

You know what else is an outrageous lie? Contrasting modern conservatism with a version of the Democratic party that's anything but modern.

But that was who actually did the crimes he is trying to put on modern Conservatives! He is literally trying to blame, essentially ME and what I believe, for things done by a party I despise, and that he supports! It's fucking madness.

[Gestopft]

The term relative high to relative low is intended to reference the gap between them. Perhaps I could have worded that better. My point, is that a DRAMATIC change in tax rates WILL impact the economy in a significant way, as it has done every time prior in US history. I just didn't want everyone chasing down that one president that cut taxes by a tiny amount and low and behold got a tiny amount less in revenue. I'm talking about big tax cuts, that have the capability to change public perception about the economy. There are cases all around the world of this, and nearly every time it resulted in an economic boom. Heck, Reagan's boom from doing it lasted for 3 presidents after him.

In order to make this argument, you have to start with the premise that growth is slow because tax rates are too high. Currently, statutory rates are not high in any historical sense, and effective rates on the top earners and corporations have been trending downward for decades.

Remember the Bush Jr tax holiday? Where instead of reinvesting in the company most (90%+) of the repatriated profits just went to shareholders, stock buybacks, and acquisitions while the companies that benefitted the most actually cut jobs? Cutting taxes for the middle class is fine (but what they really need is a pay raise), but cutting taxes for the rich? We're going to get more of what happened with the Bush tax holiday, not rampant growth (except in the stock market).

[Daelak]

You are making yourself sound silly with your wild accusations. Maybe I can help.

It isn't hero worship to want a system where anyone can make it if they work hard enough.

Trump's tax plan included a modest cut for the top bracket, but it also does away with loop holes, creating a net equivalence. His staff is on the record saying they are committed to NOT lowering the tax burden of the top bracket overall, and will not accept a plan from congress that does so. Maybe they are lying, who knows. But the bottom line is, you have no basis for your argument, given these statements by the administration.

BOTH plans by the Democrat candidates raised taxes for EVERYONE. Wait, I thought they were for helping the poor and the middle class? I guess not. The infamous "Bush tax cuts for the rich" cut taxes more for the poor than any income tax cut in history. So, we are used to the false narratives of partisan Democrat hacks.

Modern Conservatism is not grounded in anything antebellum. That is an outrageous lie. It was DEMOCRATS who held slaves, formed the KKK, and wrote the Jim Crow laws. Pick up a history book, you might really benefit personally from it.

It's not "preserving wealth" to stop taxing everyone and everything so hard it completely restrains the economy to the worst record in US history, under Obama (not a single year of 3% GDP growth/only US president to fail in that).

That system will never exist in a society that is still battling and willfully ignoring the egregious acts of violence and destruction that it put upon other human beings. Full stop, to so simplistically say that a tax policy will "fix" long term joblessness in the most impoverished areas of the country is only showing how deluded you are with right wing propaganda.

There is no net equivalence or 6% growth under his plan, because economists of all stripes said it would create the largest deficits and destabilize the economy, sending us into an avoidable recession.

I would personally see all federal taxation be burdened by the wealthy rather than the rest of the population because we are a service oriented economy whose growth is dependent on consumer demand/consumption/investment, not by the dietary and lifestyle choices of the wealthy, however any tax increase on the wealthy is a good thing to extract from them in order to stabilize wealth inequality.

Modern conservatism is most definitely grounded in white supremacy and neo-confederate language, you just willfully refuse to see the writings of Goldwater, Buckley et al. They basically plagiarized John Calhoun, Daniel Webster, and Henry Clay. Look at Goldwater's presidential tally to see.

The modern republican party does worship the wealthy, and will literally tolerate an incompetent, narcissistic president in order to get their tax cut proposal to pass. Taxation isn't even the reason why developed nations have low GDP growth.

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But that was who actually did the crimes he is trying to put on modern Conservatives! He is literally trying to blame, essentially ME and what I believe, for things done by a party I despise, and that he supports! It's fucking madness.

There is nothing similar to what the democratic party was in the 19th century to what it is today, the same can be said for republicans, but conservatism, no matter what century in the US, began in the slave plantations of the Deep South by Barbary slave lords, not by New Englanders and Midlanders during ratification. Own it, accept it, and try to change.

[Tijuana]

Political ideologies for the parties changed over the course of the 1860s through mid 1930s. Democrats of today are more like the republicans of yesteryear and the republicans like yesteryear's democrats.

Source: https://www.livescience.com/34241-de...platforms.html

http://factmyth.com/factoids/democra...hed-platforms/

Ah "the big switch" argument. This one always greatly amuses me.

Let's look at some facts about "the big switch".

We are told that all the racists changed sides when Democrats stopped being racist. But the years don't add up.

Black Americans switched to the Democrats in the 1930's, not in the 1960's. Southerners didn't go red in congress until the 1990's. If racists changed parties over the civil rights movement, why did it take them 30 years to do so, and why did black voters change sides 30 years prior? Did they just not notice for a generation and a half? If black voters left the GOP over racism, why did they do it at a time in history when the Democrat party was working hand in glove with the KKK (the REAL KKK that actually lynched people and had power)? The reason black voters switched in the 1930's, was in support of the New Deal programs. Remember, at this time, there was little equality and most black Americans lived in abject poverty, the likes of which modern Americans have never lived. They sided with racist Democrats in a sad, Faustian bargain, out of real need. The saddest part of this bargain, is that black Americans weren't even eligible for ALL of the aid programs, due to Jim Crow laws passed by Democrats.

Other random facts that refute "the big switch":

1. Northern Democrats were every bit as racist as Southern Democrats. They just didn't have enough support from their neighbors to secede like the Southern states did.

2. Even to this day, the Democrat party wholly focuses on race. They clearly think race means something. This is not what MLK believed, and I agree with him.

4. No Republican ever voted for a Jim Crow law.

5. Republicans voted in higher ratio for the Civil Rights Bill, than the Democrats did. They did this so much so that the bill could not have passed without them, and if their seats had been held by Democrats voting in proportion to how Democrats voted on the bill, it would have not been passed.

6. Democrat politicians claim to care about minorities, yet look at what they actually DO. Look at the long held Democrat stronghold cities. How have minorities been helped by Democrats, in the ~50 years since they flipped to the Democrats?

7. If Democrats care about black Americans, why does their immigration policy directly harm them, via unemployment and wages? Surely they are not so dense that they cannot see who is harmed by endless illegal immigration. Yet, they keep at it. Why? Is it because they only care about the votes of minorities, and therefore getting more minorities is more important than helping the ones already here?

8. It was Republicans, not Democrats, who forced the de-segregation of the South.

[DarkTZeratul]

4. No Republican ever voted for a Jim Crow law.

5. Republicans voted in higher ratio for the Civil Rights Bill, than the Democrats did. They did this so much so that the bill could not have passed without them, and if their seats had been held by Democrats voting in proportion to how Democrats voted on the bill, it would have not been passed.

8. It was Republicans, not Democrats, who forced the de-segregation of the South.

None of which are valid arguments because all this happened before the Southern Strategy that flipped most of the racist Democrats to the Republican Party.

[Elegiac]

None of which are valid arguments because all this happened before the Southern Strategy that flipped most of the racist Democrats to the Republican Party.

It's almost as if the big switch was a process taking about half a century or more, not a singular event.

[Tijuana]

That system will never exist in a society that is still battling and willfully ignoring the egregious acts of violence and destruction that it put upon other human beings. Full stop, to so simplistically say that a tax policy will "fix" long term joblessness in the most impoverished areas of the country is only showing how deluded you are with right wing propaganda.

There is no net equivalence or 6% growth under his plan, because economists of all stripes said it would create the largest deficits and destabilize the economy, sending us into an avoidable recession.

I would personally see all federal taxation be burdened by the wealthy rather than the rest of the population because we are a service oriented economy whose growth is dependent on consumer demand/consumption/investment, not by the dietary and lifestyle choices of the wealthy, however any tax increase on the wealthy is a good thing to extract from them in order to stabilize wealth inequality.

Modern conservatism is most definitely grounded in white supremacy and neo-confederate language, you just willfully refuse to see the writings of Goldwater, Buckley et al. They basically plagiarized John Calhoun, Daniel Webster, and Henry Clay. Look at Goldwater's presidential tally to see.

The modern republican party does worship the wealthy, and will literally tolerate an incompetent, narcissistic president in order to get their tax cut proposal to pass. Taxation isn't even the reason why developed nations have low GDP growth.

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There is nothing similar to what the democratic party was in the 19th century to what it is today, the same can be said for republicans, but conservatism, no matter what century in the US, began in the slave plantations of the Deep South by Barbary slave lords, not by New Englanders and Midlanders during ratification. Own it, accept it, and try to change.

1. The idea is to boost the economy, not set a new normal. If you recall, Reagan's tax rates were steadily raised, after the economic boom was under way. Why is it, in the mind of a Democrat, stimulus works, but only if it comes as an expenditure, instead of a tax cut? Could you be more transparently partisan?

2. This is factually incorrect. MANY economists agree that 3% growth is achievable, or more. Also, obviously all historians agree this is achievable, as there has only been ONE president to ever fail to achieve this low bar: Barrack Hussein Obama. Lastly, economists worked on the plan so saying none agree with it is just juvenile.

3. Your plan of taxing ONLY the wealthy is completely ridiculous. They don't have enough money for you take. There simply is not enough of them for that. If you seized ALL of the income of the top 1%, you can't even balance the budget, much less eliminate the debt. Did you ever wonder WHY both Bernie and Hillary's plan raised taxes in ALL brackets? It's because if you want to spend that much, you have to take from the even the poor for the math to work.

4. If Conservatives worship the wealthy, then why are most wealthy people Democrats? Why are there more poor Conservatives than there are poor Democrats? Why does literally ALL of wall street vote Democrat? These sort of arguments are nonsensical, and only serve as a means for you to throw a digital tantrum.

5. Goldwater is long dead, and he didn't even win. He is completely irrelevant to the party. The REAL racists in our history were ALL Democrats, to a man and to a woman. That is a fact.

6. The noting that Conservatism is based in slavery is ridiculous dude. You are legit making the claim that half of the entire political spectrum, didn't exist until slavery. What. The. Fuck.

7. Why am I even bothering to respond to your kicking and screaming fit, that is merely masquerading as ideas? I need to get back to work. LOL

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In order to make this argument, you have to start with the premise that growth is slow because tax rates are too high. Currently, statutory rates are not high in any historical sense, and effective rates on the top earners and corporations have been trending downward for decades.

Remember the Bush Jr tax holiday? Where instead of reinvesting in the company most (90%+) of the repatriated profits just went to shareholders, stock buybacks, and acquisitions while the companies that benefitted the most actually cut jobs? Cutting taxes for the middle class is fine (but what they really need is a pay raise), but cutting taxes for the rich? We're going to get more of what happened with the Bush tax holiday, not rampant growth (except in the stock market).

I agree a pay raise would help the middle class more than a tax cut. But you are failing to miss the point that the tax cut leads to growth, which leads to a pay raise. Pay raises happen in a booming economy, not an endless recession.

Also, your notion that tax policy has no impact on growth is just about the most ridiculous notion I have ever heard. Please give us the name of your economics instructor, so we can have their teaching license revoked.

The Trump administration is no the record saying they will not sign a tax bill that gives any significant cut to the wealthy. The modest rate reduction is off set by loop hole removal, which I think we can all agree is the actual big issue.

So again, just like every time in US history, the left sees a tax cut for all brackets as a "tax cut for the rich". The blatant commitment to being non-serious is pretty telling, imo.

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None of which are valid arguments because all this happened before the Southern Strategy that flipped most of the racist Democrats to the Republican Party.

ROFL

I'm wrong about these three items, in your mind, yet you took no issue with the others. Thank you for agreeing with me on most of what I said. Also, the Southern Strategy was ran in ONE election, that failed. Yet, the "big switch" didn't happen until 30 years later. Are you legit saying that all these Southern racists were just UNAWARE that these changes had happened, for THIRTY FREAKING YEARS? REALLY? WOW....

[Elegiac]

I'm wrong about these three items, in your mind, yet you took no issue with the others. Thank you for agreeing with me on most of what I said. Also, the Southern Strategy was ran in ONE election, that failed. Yet, the "big switch" didn't happen until 30 years later. Are you legit saying that all these Southern racists were just UNAWARE that these changes had happened, for THIRTY FREAKING YEARS? REALLY? WOW....

No, we're saying you're wrong from the get go since you're compressing 'the big switch', a process that took more than half a century, into a single event at some arbitrary point in the 90s.

[Ishayu]

You don't know something which is has been repeatedly demonstrated, i.e. that widespread voter fraud is a myth started by the Republicans in the 70s and 80s.

If the voter fraud isn't real and Voter ID is instituted, then nothing will change.

You're not really providing any argument against voter ID here. You're basically just saying that we don't need it, but if half the country believes we do, then why not? The worst that could happen is these people get shut up.

Of course, if you can supply an actual argument against voter ID, I'll take that back.

[Elegiac]

If the voter fraud isn't real and Voter ID is instituted, then nothing will change.

You're not really providing any argument against voter ID here. You're basically just saying that we don't need it, but if half the country believes we do, then why not? The worst that could happen is these people get shut up.

Of course, if you can supply an actual argument against voter ID, I'll take that back.

The fact that every single attempted implementation of Voter ID by the Republican party has always had caveats designed with the intent of making the accepted forms of ID difficult to obtain for poor people and minorities, or are implemented alongspread increased restrictions to obtain ID and closing down of the places that issue them?

If you're actually concerned about preventing fraud, these wouldn't exist. The GOP would be pushing for things like cost-free state issued ID cards, or switch to mail in voting like Washington has.

[Ishayu]

They have already been struck down as discriminatory and unconstitutional. This has nothing to do with partisanship and everything to do with the ever hardening authoritarian/supremacist views of the republican base that have been stoked by their propaganda outfits like talk radio, online blogs, 'news' sites, conspiracy theories.

On what basis are they discriminatory and unconstitutional? They appear to be considered unconstitutional based on the fact that they're discriminatory, which is a strange claim given the US's past, but even if we ignore that - you have to prove that voter ID would cause discrimination.

Voter ID, for those who don't know, works like this:

You show your picture ID outside the booth along with your voting ticket that also has your name on it
Your name is checked off a list
You are given an anonymous ballot in exchange
Everyone writes their cross with the same pencil
The ballots are put into a box, which is then shaken before counting so that it is impossible to tell who threw in which vote
All parties can watch the counting process as it happens to prevent cheating

In this way, the ballot cannot be correlated with the identity of the person. This includes their name, race, ethinicity, creed, background, wealth, etc. and yet only living people can vote, and each person can only vote once.

Denmark implements this and it works very well. So does Sweden and Norway in fact. Are these countries racist?

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The fact that every single attempted implementation of Voter ID by the Republican party has always had caveats designed with the intent of making the accepted forms of ID difficult to obtain for poor people and minorities, or are implemented alongspread increased restrictions to obtain ID and closing down of the places that issue them?

If you're actually concerned about preventing fraud, these wouldn't exist. The GOP would be pushing for things like cost-free state issued ID cards, or switch to mail in voting like Washington has.

This is not an argument against voter ID. This is an argument against corruption.

A voter ID MUST be free for anyone to acquire, be very low cost, and it MUST contain a photo of the holder as well as a name. Anything else won't work.

Meanwhile, such a thing exists today, and it costs around 10 pence and anybody can get it. We already have the ID we need. What's the problem here?