2016 Presidential Election

[SundayJam]

I think that George HW, not George W Bush, was a good president. He was made famous because he said in his campaign, read my lips, I will not raise taxes but he did and he reduced the deficit. Back in 1961, the tax rate for anyone making $100K was 91%, then the Kennedys cut it to 75% for >$200K in 1963, then Reagan cut the highest tax rate from 75% to 50% with trickle down economics. Ever since then the highest tax rate has been going down to 37% for the highest income from 39.6% during the Trump administration. Bill Gates was on TV last week during an interview on climate change and he said that the rich need to pay higher taxes and even Warren Buffet came out and said he should be paying more taxes than his secretary in 2018. So, taxes are not easy to talk about because it's early death for any campaign. If Trump does not get elected the tax rate will go back to 39.6% in 2025 and he will probably get rid of the IRS agents tracking rich people who haven't paid their taxes funded by the Biden administration. Also, for Harris, anybody who makes more than $100M will be taxed on unrealized capital gains. But, talking about taxes for the Democrats would spell death for the Presidency because it may alienate a lot of people making a large income per year. This is part of the reason George HW lost besides the fact that Quayle was an idiot.

I still remember when George HW initially called Reaganomics Voodoo economics. Reagan made him vice president and Bush never said another thing about trickle-down-economics. The reason Daddy Bush lost was because Bill Clinton walloped him. Ironically, I'm pretty sure Daddy Bush was the one who started taxing tips...a thing both candidates are espousing to cancel. What Trump...and the Senate Republicans...did was cut taxes for corporate America. The result was: a record deficit and higher prices. Some of the pundits are pointing to deficit spending for the current administration, but fail to take into account the corporate tax cuts initiated by the Republicans and Trump.

[SundayJam]

Nonetheless, it's a heavy lift for UH alumni to take-on Yale alumni.

I disagree with you here. Privilege does not determine one's lift. It does provide access. Sometimes that ease of access disables...sometimes that lack of access motivates.

[HS Football Fanatic]

I think that George HW, not George W Bush, was a good president. He was made famous because he said in his campaign, read my lips, I will not raise taxes but he did and he reduced the deficit. Back in 1961, the tax rate for anyone making $100K was 91%, then the Kennedys cut it to 75% for >$200K in 1963, then Reagan cut the highest tax rate from 75% to 50% with trickle down economics. Ever since then the highest tax rate has been going down to 37% for the highest income from 39.6% during the Trump administration. Bill Gates was on TV last week during an interview on climate change and he said that the rich need to pay higher taxes and even Warren Buffet came out and said he should be paying more taxes than his secretary in 2018. So, taxes are not easy to talk about because it's early death for any campaign. If Trump does not get elected the tax rate will go back to 39.6% in 2025 and he will probably get rid of the IRS agents tracking rich people who haven't paid their taxes funded by the Biden administration. Also, for Harris, anybody who makes more than $100M will be taxed on unrealized capital gains. But, talking about taxes for the Democrats would spell death for the Presidency because it may alienate a lot of people making a large income per year. This is part of the reason George HW lost besides the fact that Quayle was an idiot.

I still remember when George HW initially called Reaganomics Voodoo economics. Reagan made him vice president and Bush never said another thing about trickle-down-economics. The reason Daddy Bush lost was because Bill Clinton walloped him. Ironically, I'm pretty sure Daddy Bush was the one who started taxing tips...a thing both candidates are espousing to cancel. What Trump...and the Senate Republicans...did was cut taxes for corporate America. The result was: a record deficit and higher prices. Some of the pundits are pointing to deficit spending for the current administration, but fail to take into account the corporate tax cuts initiated by the Republicans and Trump.

@SundayJam: GOOD job; YOU called it. What the Republican Party is guilty of is corporate welfare, and they've been guilty of it for decades.

[HS Football Fanatic]

Nonetheless, it's a heavy lift for UH alumni to take-on Yale alumni.

I disagree with you here. Privilege does not determine one's lift. It does provide access. Sometimes that ease of access disables...sometimes that lack of access motivates.

@ SundayJam:
Well, I mean, really: If you put-up a UH grad against a Yale grad, nine times out of ten, the UH grad will get his or her butt kicked. And again, I'm speaking as a UH grad.

[shrek2]

There is a really sad story that unfortunately, the Democrats will not bring up since they respect that the unfortunate incident should not be used for political purposes. In 2018, Molly Tibbetts was killed by an illegal immigrant in Iowa. Iowa is a red state and the president and governor at the time were both GOP and they both said they needed tougher immigration laws. Rivera, the illegal, was hired by an Iowan Republican leader, Craig Lang who said he vetted by the national E-Verify but E-Verify said Yarrabee Farms did not subscribe to E-Verify. Since I spent some time in Iowa, although it's predominantly white, they do used to have a small town near a pork packing plant where all the signs are in Spanish. Also, the GOP controlled both houses in 2017, so what's wrong with this picture? Do as I say, not as I do?

[HS Football Fanatic]

@shrek2: I'm a liberal, but when it comes to crime, I become very conservative. Why? Because both conservatives and liberals can be victims of crime. Many of my fellow liberals believe in rehabilitation; I don't. I believe in punishment. If some lowlife has the gall to commit a crime against you, the full weight of the law should fall on his or her butt. That criminal needs to pay.

[Walkoff Balk]

Nonetheless, it's a heavy lift for UH alumni to take-on Yale alumni.

I disagree with you here. Privilege does not determine one's lift. It does provide access. Sometimes that ease of access disables...sometimes that lack of access motivates.

@ SundayJam:
Well, I mean, really: If you put-up a UH grad against a Yale grad, nine times out of ten, the UH grad will get his or her butt kicked. And again, I'm speaking as a UH grad.

Embrace debate is to yell at each other. I'll put my money on the sarcastic smartass who would throw some zingers. Frasier Crane was an Ivy league grad who would get his comeuppance on "Cheers."

[HS Football Fanatic]

@Walkoff Balk: Well, as someone who's not an Ivy League grad, I enjoy seeing them get their comeuppance. It's just that, how often does it happen in real life?

[SundayJam]

Hey, I'm a UH alum too. I've rubbed shoulders with all types over the years. (I am old.) The Ivy League...or whatever 'biggly' school type...bestows advantage to the individual who graduates. It doesn't make them more qualified or better. They simply have more options...privilege.

OMG, I had to work with a Summa Cum Laude from UW (Cougar) once--it was not fun. Cheers.

[shrek2]

@shrek2: I'm a liberal, but when it comes to crime, I become very conservative. Why? Because both conservatives and liberals can be victims of crime. Many of my fellow liberals believe in rehabilitation; I don't. I believe in punishment. If some lowlife has the gall to commit a crime against you, the full weight of the law should fall on his or her butt. That criminal needs to pay.

Well, people don't want to talk about it but it's really an unfortunate situation. But, the Trump/Vance team is demonizing immigration but this crime occurred on their watch. Cristhian Rivera worked in Iowa for 7 years but he could not speak English. This leads me to believe that they don't allow the migrants to assimilate which is typical of their closed community culture. I recall one of my co-workers in Iowa telling me that he teaches Sunday School at the Lutheran Church he goes to, but then I learn that he's taking kickbacks or bribes. I also heard of more husbands and wives in eastern Iowa cheating on their spouses there although they all talked about being Catholic, Methodist, etc. For some of the people in Iowa, it's how much can I get away with. But, there are a lot of good people there as well that I played pickup basketball, sand volleyball with or tackle football in snow fields keeping in mind everybody had to work on Monday. People who never really talked about religion but if they did they said I can't make on Sunday morning. My whole long winded take on this is, this is a problem and it needs to be talked about to come to some kind of resolution on immigration.

[HS Football Fanatic]

Hey, I'm a UH alum too. I've rubbed shoulders with all types over the years. (I am old.) The Ivy League...or whatever 'biggly' school type...bestows advantage to the individual who graduates. It doesn't make them more qualified or better. They simply have more options...privilege.

OMG, I had to work with a Summa Cum Laude from UW (Cougar) once--it was not fun. Cheers.

@SundayJam:

1. Well, we've got two things in common: We're both UH grads, and we're both old.
2. The Cougar UW is actually Wazoo (Washington State U). But, they're not Ivy League.

[HS Football Fanatic]

@shrek2: I'm a liberal, but when it comes to crime, I become very conservative. Why? Because both conservatives and liberals can be victims of crime. Many of my fellow liberals believe in rehabilitation; I don't. I believe in punishment. If some lowlife has the gall to commit a crime against you, the full weight of the law should fall on his or her butt. That criminal needs to pay.

Well, people don't want to talk about it but it's really an unfortunate situation. But, the Trump/Vance team is demonizing immigration but this crime occurred on their watch. Cristhian Rivera worked in Iowa for 7 years but he could not speak English. This leads me to believe that they don't allow the migrants to assimilate which is typical of their closed community culture. I recall one of my co-workers in Iowa telling me that he teaches Sunday School at the Lutheran Church he goes to, but then I learn that he's taking kickbacks or bribes. I also heard of more husbands and wives in eastern Iowa cheating on their spouses there although they all talked about being Catholic, Methodist, etc. For some of the people in Iowa, it's how much can I get away with. But, there are a lot of good people there as well that I played pickup basketball, sand volleyball with or tackle football in snow fields keeping in mind everybody had to work on Monday. People who never really talked about religion but if they did they said I can't make on Sunday morning. My whole long winded take on this is, this is a problem and it needs to be talked about to come to some kind of resolution on immigration.

@shrek2: Well, there shouldn't be illegality. I may sound like a conservative here, but people should not be entering this country illegally. I'm a liberal, but liberals and conservative alike should not be encouraging/tolerating illegality.

[Walkoff Balk]

@Walkoff Balk: Well, as someone who's not an Ivy League grad, I enjoy seeing them get their comeuppance. It's just that, how often does it happen in real life?

I don't see an Ivy Leaguer winning a Rap Battle.

[shrek2]

@shrek2: Well, there shouldn't be illegality. I may sound like a conservative here, but people should not be entering this country illegally. I'm a liberal, but liberals and conservative alike should not be encouraging/tolerating illegality.

Well, that's the major talking point of the Republican party is how the Biden/Harris team screwed up immigration. But when it comes down to it, Trump failed as much as anybody. Why didn't he force all employers to need to verify all their employees through the E-Verify which is funded through homeland security or face jail time. Unfortunately, the problem with Cristhian Rivera was Republican up and down. I once saw an article about how Micronesians were brought in by Iowan farmers and then had their passports taken away and they had to work off their fare.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/13/us/i ... rkers.html
Okay, both Vance and Trump are making false claims about the Haitian immigrants when they can pull real life examples of what they plan to do? The wall was only a symbol not a real deterrent. Otherwise, they'd pass it when the legislature was completely Republican. The Border Security Bill is what would have secured the border which includes shipments of drugs via the Caribbean or the ships that sail along the western coastline. All they've done is just complain about cats and dogs. Maybe, the incident in Iowa wouldn't have happened if they allowed 17yo Cristhian to socialize but I think they wanted to have someone who would work overtime without laws and kept him socially locked up. But, I think you can do that with illegals because you can always threaten them with sending them back into conditions of poverty. Almost sounds like human trafficking.

[HS Football Fanatic]

@Walkoff Balk: Well, as someone who's not an Ivy League grad, I enjoy seeing them get their comeuppance. It's just that, how often does it happen in real life?

I don't see an Ivy Leaguer winning a Rap Battle.

@Walkoff Balk: Well, you're probably correct there. However, if I were to debate a Yale grad, I don't know that I'd win; I probably wouldn't.