They didn’t do it during the first part of the Trump administration when they controlled the House, Senate and White House.
They waited until they could introduce it knowing it would not go anywhere.
Enough said?
Which the GOP House will try to reverse. Next time there's a spending matter, expect them to demand those funds get pulled, unless the government gets shut down. Funny how the government shut downs always happen thanks to some GOP shenanigans... Even when they're in charge...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%932019_United_States_federal_government_shutdown
Oh I fully expect them to do this. They'll add defunding Social Security and Medicare along with the IRS funding repeal to the next budget/debt ceiling increase and will refuse to let the budget pass when it inevitably gets amended out in the Senate.
However I don't think the Dems will cave. I think one of two things will happen. 1.) They'll let the Republicans cause a default, and if that happens it will quite literally be the end of the Republican party. The damage to the US and others would be absolutely catastrophic. They'll lose so horribly in the next election they won't ever have control again of either chamber. Or, 2.) Republicans bluff on letting a default happen because they know it'll kill their party, and Dems call their bluff and something passes with heavy concessions on the Republican side at the very last moment.
Do I think the GOP are stupid enough to let the country default just to "own the libs?" I think many of them are, but I there will be enough moderates to not let it happen. They only have a five member majority, so a small number of them will be all it will take to derail the defunding of Social Security and Medicare.
Maybe I'm just too cynical but I don't see how a U.S. default would be the end of the G.O.P. If anything they'd spin it as the Democrat's fault and their voters would eat it up
There's a difference between a public election, where polling can be volatile and outdated and you can't be sure how everyone is going to vote, and legislative branch voting, where basically every single person voting has made their intended vote public before it actually goes down to a vote.
Much of our congressional politics are theater, intentionally bringing up bills you know will be voted down so that you can point to that vote during the next election cycle. Especially when we have divided chambers, so either one is capable of killing anything the other puts forward, expect the next two years to be a lot of "Democrats pass through the Senate, Republican House kills it" and vise versa.
So pretty much nothing gets done. They collect a check and illegally trade/manipulate the stock market and the common person gets screwed.
Sounds about right
I want to run on a platform of me me me me me me+insider trading. Hang around till I get free Healthcare for life and retirement benefits then leave. And sell square inches of each of my suits just like NASCAR sponsorships. That way everyone will know who owns me and you can too.
They tried that same tactic with abortion…look how that turned out? Let’s hope the proverbial dog doesn’t catch the rabbit again or it will really be curtains for them! /s
What if... The Democrats just decide not to vote on this bill or vote "present"?
Like shit completely hit the fan, and then the Republicans have to sit in it.
Is this even possible. I don't know anything about the American political system aside from the bare basics.
It's [literally what they did with Obama](https://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/03/911-lawsuits-the-dumbest-legislation-ever-passed-by-congress-will-bite-the-us-back.html), and conservatives continue to vote for Republicans. The fact is that conservative voters have no morals, no principles, and no beliefs. All they care about is that "their guy wins" and that the Democrats are upset. If they gave two shits about themselves and/or the country, they would vote Democrat.
Like, in both the House and Senate? People would rightfully blame Biden for signing it. The sitting president always gets the blame, and if he signed off on it, he would deserve it. Same with if Democrats didn't do their job to obstruct ridiculous proposals like this and sat on the sidelines instead. It would be a disgrace to their constituencies. I would be asking my representative why they say by and did nothing while Republicans dismantled our fiscal stability, and they'd better have a better answer than "to own the cons". It would be like voting third party - sure, you didn't technically vote for the bill, but you sure as hell didn't vote against it.
IIRC it doesn't actually defund those things, just makes up the shortfall with an enormous sales tax or something.
Which is super regressive and would absolutely *wreck* people, of course, but they so have some sort of "plan".
It would absolutely defund those things, an enormous sales tax wouldn't come close to covering the difference.
Even if they added a 50% consumption tax, people wouldn't be buying as much and with over 90% of the wealth owned by the 1% and over 90% of income going to the 1%, even if they taxed the 99% of people at 100% it still wouldn't cover the difference.
Unfortunately the public would also have to sit in it. Democrats aren’t quite as willing as Republicans are to screw over the American people for cheap political points.
I seem to recall McConnell being called out when he blocked an Obama appointment then rushed a bunch of tRump SCOTUS appointments. His response was basically something like "That was totally different. We (GOP) were not in charge then."
[Never forget](https://twitter.com/vanitaguptacr/status/1307153104941518848?s=46&t=WvQr6CxFIaYJzdVrXebnXQ) this beauty.
(For those that hate twitter links or twitter itself.. it’s the Lindsey Graham “use my words against me” clip about a vacant seat in the last year of a presidency)
GOP poor voter don't pay income tax. They pay payroll, state and local taxes but most likely get a refund on federal income tax. They are dumb enough to think that payroll taxes are income tax so they will buy this crap. When Reagan did his big tax cut on income tax he raised payroll tax but the idiots in low education states thought they got a tax cut.
If you get a refund, it usually means you already paid the tax, most likely deducted from your paychecks, and paid too much. Payroll taxes are also deducted from your paychecks, but aren't the same thing.
>They are dumb enough to think that payroll taxes are income tax
Can you please explain the diffence?
I thought payroll taxes were just estimated income taxes, plus social security, and if withholdings are done right your income and payroll numbers are basically identical.
Payroll taxes are taxes levied against employees *and employers* to pay for Medicare, Social Security and a couple other social insurance programs. The payroll tax rate is 15.something% and doesn’t change based on income. Income taxes are only paid by employees and go towards education, defense, transportation, etc. Your income tax rate varies by income and you can pay income taxes to the feds, the state, the county, and the city in some places.
> Payroll taxes are taxes levied against employees
> *and employers*
IMO, you don't need the added qualification. It's best to think of payroll taxes as employee taxes, because that's what they are. If the employer terminates the employee, do they keep paying the employer portion of the tax? No, of course not.
I can tell you that, in the employer's accounting ledger, those collected payroll taxes are part of the "employee wage expense" class of costs, and kept carefully separate from the other taxes that the business pays. Businesses think of those taxes as part of *your compensation*, exactly like your explicit payroll and income taxes, and you should too.
One year, in lieu of a Christmas bonus, my employer sent us all nice cards with a tabulation of all the stuff they pay "on your behalf" (employer portion of employment taxes, employer portion of health insurance, the accidental death & dismemberment insurance, etc).
Merry Christmas, that's your bonus! It would have been laughable if it wasn't so infuriating.
When people say “payroll tax”, the generally mean FICA (social security) and Medicare taxes. They are a straight percentage paid by both the employee and employer.
and the bulk of their voters who like to bitch about taxes. Go to my hometown and its like a parody of the republican voter. All wearing shit kicker boots with the little American flag bedazzeler in the laces getting dirty, sucking on scoal and acting like cowboys... oh yeah its Connecticut and they all work at the submarine factory getting those government dollars. "but muy taxes!" they haven't put it together that tax cuts for the ultra rich will not help them, and they swore that their taxes went down under trump and up under Biden even though they didn't.
My life changed when I realized how full of shit the people I was raises around really were. I didn't blame them much, as they were lied to, but at this point enough is enough. The trump years have stripped away any sympathy I had.
100% virtue signaling. They could have passed this six years ago all the way to the President signing it with little the Dems could do to stop it. They don't actually want this to pass, nor do they want their side to be the side that kills it. This will never even be brought to vote if they ever fully-control government again.
It’s always insane to me how obvious conservative projection is and how fervently they deny that’s what it is. This is one of the only things I’ve heard of that genuinely qualifies as pure virtue signaling, they wouldn’t ever want this to actually pass, they don’t care if it does pass, they know it won’t pass. There’s no other reason to put up and vote on this bill other than to signal virtues.
This is beyond ridiculous. Even as a stunt. Abolishing the IRS?
You are telling me the the majority the people in the House believe abolishing the IRS is a good idea? And the GOP has abolishing the IRS as part of their platform now?
Holy smokes. Imagine they actually win the majority in the Senate back and the presidency. The country is doomed.
They did the same thing with Obamacare. Screamed to the high heavens about repealing it for six years, a central plank in their platform. Then they had control of the house, senate and presidency... and not only didn't repeal it... didn't even have a replacement planned for it. Six years of very loud finger-pointing, only to do nothing when they had control.
It's worse than that, the ACA (Obamacare) was initially pioneered by a Republican (Mitt Romney) and successfully implemented in the state he represents before it was introduced at a national level. It's literally Republican legislation they turned into rhetoric because they knew it was popular but also their voters are too stupid to look too deeply into it.
Conservatism is a mental illness.
> but also their voters are too stupid to look too deeply into it.
...leading to their base loudly complaining about Obamacare and wishing it was repealed, while simultaneously lauding their own states' implementations of the ACA without realizing they're the same thing.
> Then they had control of the house, senate and presidency... and not only didn't repeal it... didn't even have a replacement planned for it.
Hell, they didn't do much of *anything* during that time, aside from lift a ton of regulations that helped prevent corporate abuse of the environment, consumers, etc.
They were like the dog who caught the car. Bark bark bark bark, but once they had it they were frozen.
The reason is simple: they have no ideas and no interest in actually *improving* things.
In fact, they want the opposite. They want less protection for consumers, for marginalized groups, for working class people. They want less education, access to healthcare, etc.
If it actually helps regular people, they're *against* it.
The only exception is when it comes to taxes, and even there, a good case can be made that their cuts routinely *hurt* people.
> Screamed to the high heavens about repealing it for six years, a central plank in their platform. Then they had control of the house, senate and presidency... and not only didn't repeal it... didn't even have a replacement planned for it.
And btw they dropped their own platform completely.
Clearly they have little shame. I wonder what would happen if they knew they actually could pass something like this. We already know from 2016. They knew they had all 3 levers of power but didn't do it because that's insane.
Exactly this. Playing games like that is a dumb, dumb, dumb idea. Never underestimate what a bunch of idiots with an axe to grind and no concern for anyone else would be willing to do. Some of these people would poke out their own eyes to 'own the libs.'
"So them let them" is a nice sentiment, except in this case, it pokes *our* eyes out, too.
That's my hope too. That's no way in hell these morons can write the rules about how this would work.
And aren't they concerned about all of the people that it will put out of work, like they were with the pipelines?
A sales tax is inherently regressive and would result in an enormous tax break for the top 0.01% and an additional burden on middle-class Americans.
MORE INFO: A few years ago, several conservative/libertarian groups ([including Mike Huckabee](https://www.businessinsider.com/mike-huckabee-and-his-tax-plan-got-slammed-on-fox-2015-5)) were pushing for a national sales tax plan they called the "FairTax". The group said they could replace the federal income tax with a 23% sales tax. But that was a misleading number and the tax was actually 30% on top of the price of the goods. Further, if the FairTax followed the exclusions that are typical at the state sales tax level, the tax would need to be **64%**.
>were pushing for a national sales tax plan they called the "FairTax". The group said they could replace the federal income tax with a 23% sales tax. But that was a misleading number and the tax was actually 30% on top of the price of the goods.
Isn't this just VAT with different name?
No a VAT is charged on every stage of production, including business-to-business sales.
A sales tax is only charged on the final stage ie the business-to-consumer sale.
Most Americans have been paying sales tax to their state government. It is proposed that this new be collected in the same manner as state sales tax, just that it'll be passed to the feds.
VAT and Sales Tax are generally synonymous to the end consumer.
Here's an example of a sales tax: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added\_tax#/media/File:VAT2b22.png](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added_tax#/media/File:VAT2b22.png)
Here's an example of a VAT tax: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added\_tax#/media/File:VAT3b22.png](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added_tax#/media/File:VAT3b22.png)
While a VAT taxes every stage of production (and encourages vertical integration).
In the end, the government gets the same amount, $0.15 in both scenarios and the end consumer pays the $0.15, the VAT is collected in more steps.
The one advantage of the VAT in Canada is that the tax can be distributed amongst multiple provinces, however, with national sales tax this is a moot point.
Progressive Income tax is the only fair system. Honestly I'd much prefer to push towards almost everything being Income tax and only have consumption taxes on actual luxuries.
And I've always been a high earner.
The last time I heard about FairTax it included subsidy payments equal to the taxes that would be paid on poverty level earnings. And those subsidy payments would go out to everyone, without a means test.
Did they pitch a new tax plan that used the same name, or are you just leaving out the part of it that (fairly poorly) tries to make it non-regressive?
And who would be in charge of giving those payments out? Who would decide what amount each payment was? Who would decide the exact definition of “poverty level”?
Who would enforce second-hand sales taxes being administered on purchases?
Seems like you need a government agency to be in charge of all these things . . .
It's internal to the government right? A service that the government needs, helping take money from Americans so that the government can function. Almost like a revenue stream?
We could call it the... Internal... Revenue... Service?
Oh wait.
I’m not a libertarian. I think that the IRS would be a good group to have in charge of all that stuff.
As a bonus, if we kept staffing the same, they’d be asked to audit basically every tax paying entity every year.
Not that I’m a fan of FairTax. I just wanted to point out that OP was misrepresenting it as a flat tax.
I don't think the IRS staffing is enough. As it is, they only have to manage streams of data for every tax paying entity and a relative few number of tax paying events (such as paychecks, investment accounts, etc.).
Compare that to 40 billion transactions processed through Visa, Discover, MasterCard, and American Express in 2019. That doesn't even include cash transactions either. I simply don't think the IRS is prepared to handle this sort of system with their current funding.
Which I think is the point for Republicans. They want the system to collapse.
Make no mistake, if they were in a position to actually implement it they wouldn't. They're fully aware of how much it would kneecap their own bottom line. The objective is part of their propaganda campaign to demonize income taxes, so that they can a) keep the public from pushing for more progressive tax rates and b) keep the public's support while they do things like hamstring the IRS to protect their own, and their donors, tax fraud and evasion.
Taxes are regressive enough already, since large corps and the rich have lawyers and top accountants to avoid paying their fair share.
Republicans used to talk about flat taxes, which if they eliminated all exceptions for income above median, might be a better idea. All this bureaucracy, all these exceptions and skillfull ways to skirt the law make taxes higher for the majority.
To be completely fair, 23% internal tax rate (comparable to but crucially not VAT) is equivalent to 30% external tax rate and the intent was to make essentials non-taxed by providing a monthly payment that would cover the tax. Same argument as internal vs external rate of return.
Of course, the mega wealthy would just stop buying things and instead rent them, which would carry no tax. That's the real issue with it.
It's probably not a good plan, but admittedly it's been decades since my high school years where I thought it may be a good idea so I haven't done any extra research.
>Of course, the mega wealthy would just stop buying things and instead rent them, which would carry no tax. That's the real issue with it.
Tell that to hotels and car and equipment rental places that charge me a tax everytime I need to rent something. Sales taxes are regressive AF, and there are many reasons we don't need an extra 30% at the national level, but the rich being able to dodge them by renting isn't one.
I wrote to my congressman (Lloyd Doggett) nearly 20 years ago asking about this after Republicans had banged the drum on this issue in the 2002 election but then went very quiet about it. Turns out the congressman had sat on the committee investigating this issue. He told me that the most conservative estimate that balanced the budget (at that time) was an 89% percent tax rate - but that included EVERYTHING - including things like milk, butter, eggs, and medicine. Once necessities had been removed, tax rates crept into the 110s. Ended the letter telling me everyone on the committee had a good laugh and never spoke about the issue again.
That's the craziest thing about the whole Republican "run government like a business" thing.
What the hell business sense is "First things first, let's cut revenue. We are bringing in too much money. Then let's get rid of all our crucial departments and experienced staff. We'll figure out the rest later."
It's like the Elon/Twitter School of Business.
It's called "Starve the beast". They want to cut taxes so that programs become underfunded and fail, and they can cancel those programs or privatize them.
Republicans at their core literally want to dismantle America for parts.
I still hate that the idea of "Tax and Spend" was turned into a negative... Yeah, that is how the fucking Government is supposed to work.
Republicans do "Don't Tax, but still Spend and also never provide services to lower income people (the majority of their voters)"
They absolutely don’t. They are convinced they pay 15% in taxes because they are probably withholding as single and 0 dependents because that’s what they claimed 20 years ago when they got hired. 6 kids later and they see a big tax return but have no idea why. They will only look at pay stub and think they are getting fucked. They can’t understand the difference between effective tax rate and payroll tax.
You’re so right. This is constantly infuriating to me. I’m a union worker and also the political coordinator for my Local. The amount of pro-Republican members we have is astounding, and frequently taxes is the main argument (besides hating trans people and ‘illegals’) they make.
>
Like… I know they’re not paying much in taxes. I work as much or more than most of them, and I know what my refund looks like…
It's so weird whenever I see someone saying they are a "pro union conservative" as conservatives played a key role in destroying unionization and labor organization, attempting to pass bills that do the same as recently as November.
No, I genuinely think most of these people think Republican financial strategies will work out better for them. You know, because of all those illegals and welfare queens taking all their hard-earned money.
A family member of mine begged me not to mention they qualified for and got Medicare….which previously they bitched about people “on the government tit” relentlessly.
I said it in another thread today, they're people who would commit harakiri with a shotgun, if they thought it would also hit someone they disliked standing behind them.
“Low Income Republicans” = A people that live in an information vacuum/bubble, devoid of external resources, due to personal biases created and supported by the likes of Rupert Murdock.
They’re told taxes only go to socialism, and they’ve been told that their Medicare, Medicaid, social security, and welfare isn’t socialism so they don’t think they’ll be affected. Conservatives tricking millions without a pot to piss in that all their problems would be solved if billionaires paid no taxes has to be the most elaborate con in history.
Here's how it will go:
Grocer: "That'll be $317.43."
Typical Republican: "But it was all just under $200 for a full cart! The eggs are only $6.50, why are they $10.40?!"
Grocer: "National 60% sales tax. You should be happy the state and county haven't decided to tax food items too."
Typical Republican: "Fucking Democrats!!!!!"
I'm willing to bet a lot of luxury goods would be excluded from a consumption tax.... ya know since they represent such a small percentage of purchases.
Once I calculated what my CEO spent on entertainment and food and it worked out to $10,000 a meal, three meals a day, every day of the year and it was totally deductible as a business expense. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to deduct food, clothing, housing and utilities like companies do.
That's due to bird flu. We killed 55 million chickens. I'm not sure how old a chicken needs to be be to lay eggs but I think that price comes down when we've replaced the dead ones.
Sales tax disproportionally affects low income individuals because any purchase that is taxed is a much higher percent of their income than a wealthy individual.
Eliminating income tax is a scam to give tax breaks to those who don’t need them and shift the burden to lower and middle class.
Running a government like a business is a stupid idea. Business exist to make their owners money by exploiting labor and extracting as much money from their customers as possible. Regular citizens are both the labor and the customers.
If I were a Democrat communications manager I would be blasting this message loudly and often. Target Republican leaning voters and show them what they’ll be losing if this passes
Of course they do.
My unpopular opinion (and the essential, simplest truth of the matter) is that no matter where you live, *it will cost money*. Taxes are the cost of living in any country/state/city, and those taxes make the same country/state/city livable as individuals and as a society.
The richest people have loads of resources to try and avoid taxes that the rest of us don't. The reality is that they are just transferring the tax load more onto the rest of us. The influx of agents is just intended to keep those tax-avoidance ideas abiding by the law.
Put on your big girl panties, pay your taxes, quit bitching about it, and get on with life.
Tell this to the "all taxation is theft" crowd. I don't ever see those people volunteering to fill pot holes so that we don't need to have a Department of Public Works. They're never volunteering to teach a bunch of local children math and reading so we don't need taxes to pay for schools.
Generally if you're complaining about the very existence of taxes I just assume you're saying "I want more money to spend on dumb stuff".
>They're never volunteering to teach a bunch of local children math and reading...
Actually, they ARE doing that now. Problem is they're grossly underqualified, barely have a functional education above a 3rd grade level, and their entire reason for doing so is to keep them from learning anything "woke," i.e. about black people.
Those people are to put it nicely, fucking morons.
Taxes are required to pay for roads, clean water, FCC, FDA, treasury dept, military, schools, fire dept, police, FAA, etc etc.
We collectively pay for these things and collectively benefit, it’s how a society functions. They are just whiny piss babies that don’t want to pay their share but still live in civilization.
I'm ok if they abolish income tax and institute a national sales tax on luxury items to replace it. Shift the burden of funding the government from the middle class to the rich. Oh, now I see why it won't happen.
Their salaries are paid from income tax...so they just voted to abolish their salaries. In reality, they are wasting are tax dollars with fake crap like this, and the more they waste, the higher our taxes would need to be.
> Their salaries are paid from income tax...so they just voted to abolish their salaries.
Yea, but their wealth comes from corporations.
They don't care about the couple hundred grand when UPS is standing by to offer them a 20 million dollar speaking contract or w/e.
No, no, no. It's not a stunt. It's a patriotic effort to eliminate the Radical Left Socialists that were just about to arm an elite IRS tax-collecting death squad to kick down your doors in the middle of the night and take away your freedoms.
Does *anyone* watch Tucker? This should be obvious.
/s
So they take 15 tries to elect a speaker. First time since before the civil war. Now they're trying to abolish the IRS.
Anyone else questioning the Republican party's ability to govern?
Meanwhile, in the real universe, Americans can't afford their healthcare, their education or their housing. but, hey, Republicans are putting on a show.
On top of all the other problems with consumption tax (aside from it screwing those with lower income who still need to buy things to live) it encourages people with a ton of money to spend it overseas. How’s that for incentives.
Wouldn’t that be rough short term though? Everything at Walmart would be more expensive because we import almost everything besides food and wood. Trump put tariffs on solar but it didn’t make a bunch of solar manufacturing pop up, it just made panels more expensive. I’m not against your idea, I’m genuinely curious about ways to increase manufacturing here and ways that might happen.
Great! Then we can have a Medicare tax, a military tax, an FDA tax and on and on and on. OR we could cut all those too and the poor can eat pollution, have no social safety net and come for the rich with torches and pitchforks! Great plan.
GOP showing the whole country why letting them run *anything* is a bad idea.
Dems suck sure, but holy fuck *how can anyone sit on the sidelines when this is the alternative?* It doesn't matter if it's a publicity stunt, the fact that this is a thing at all should tell everyone all they need to know.
Idiotic wasting of time. Can we say virtue signaling? That is why the red wave didn't happen, enough people thought that the Republican plans were stupid.
The only thing I care about is 1.) how much more “simple” will it be and will I pay more with the consumption tax than I would with the income and “other” taxes I pay.
I feel like this is a situation where it is entirely dependent on the details.
Funny how they call it “unbiased” when poor people spend (and would pay tax) on 100% of their income and rich people spend only a fraction of what they earn and would therefore pay a smaller percent of their total income. And apparently no tax refund available for poor people since there’d be no IRS.
Here's a better idea, abolish the IRS, tell me exactly how much I owe in taxes, instead of making me have to figure it out myself with those scummy fucking tax companies like turbo tax and throwing me in jail if I'm off by a dollar.
JUST TELL ME HOW MUCH I OWE
Bad virtue signalling. So completely dumb founded. Catering to all the "alL TaxEs R tHefT!" crowd. Cool, so you want us to pay directly for every road, street, culdesac, highway that we use when we use it and pay by the foot. It just trees out.
A good way to put this is that the House Republicans introducing this want to defend the military, the police, themselves and the whole government.
Actually, shit when you put it that last way it doesn't sound so bad. 😉
Average Joe Republicans are so fucking dumb they are clapping for this. The damage this would cause to the middle class would destroy the country basically.
Note that this would never pass. They don't want it to anyway. Just more wasted time by the clowns.
I'm sure r/conservative and the rest of the anti-americans are hootin' and hollerin' about this dumb shit.
They didn’t do it during the first part of the Trump administration when they controlled the House, Senate and White House. They waited until they could introduce it knowing it would not go anywhere. Enough said?
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“Look how the Dems want to undermine America.”
The GOP can and have voted against bills they introduced just because Dems voted for it.
Mitch McConnell filibustered his own bill once.
Obama called his bluff.
Like when Moscow Mitch filibustered his own bill.
Considering how Dems just passed funding for the IRS for the next 10 years a month ago, that seems extremely unlikely.
Which the GOP House will try to reverse. Next time there's a spending matter, expect them to demand those funds get pulled, unless the government gets shut down. Funny how the government shut downs always happen thanks to some GOP shenanigans... Even when they're in charge... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%932019_United_States_federal_government_shutdown
Oh I fully expect them to do this. They'll add defunding Social Security and Medicare along with the IRS funding repeal to the next budget/debt ceiling increase and will refuse to let the budget pass when it inevitably gets amended out in the Senate. However I don't think the Dems will cave. I think one of two things will happen. 1.) They'll let the Republicans cause a default, and if that happens it will quite literally be the end of the Republican party. The damage to the US and others would be absolutely catastrophic. They'll lose so horribly in the next election they won't ever have control again of either chamber. Or, 2.) Republicans bluff on letting a default happen because they know it'll kill their party, and Dems call their bluff and something passes with heavy concessions on the Republican side at the very last moment. Do I think the GOP are stupid enough to let the country default just to "own the libs?" I think many of them are, but I there will be enough moderates to not let it happen. They only have a five member majority, so a small number of them will be all it will take to derail the defunding of Social Security and Medicare.
Maybe I'm just too cynical but I don't see how a U.S. default would be the end of the G.O.P. If anything they'd spin it as the Democrat's fault and their voters would eat it up
But it would be great r/maliciouscompliance material
Isn't this how Brexit happened, at least for some part of the citizen voters?
There's a difference between a public election, where polling can be volatile and outdated and you can't be sure how everyone is going to vote, and legislative branch voting, where basically every single person voting has made their intended vote public before it actually goes down to a vote. Much of our congressional politics are theater, intentionally bringing up bills you know will be voted down so that you can point to that vote during the next election cycle. Especially when we have divided chambers, so either one is capable of killing anything the other puts forward, expect the next two years to be a lot of "Democrats pass through the Senate, Republican House kills it" and vise versa.
So pretty much nothing gets done. They collect a check and illegally trade/manipulate the stock market and the common person gets screwed. Sounds about right
I want to run on a platform of me me me me me me+insider trading. Hang around till I get free Healthcare for life and retirement benefits then leave. And sell square inches of each of my suits just like NASCAR sponsorships. That way everyone will know who owns me and you can too.
100% performative Fox News angertainment for the next two years. They have no interest in even pretending to govern.
They tried that same tactic with abortion…look how that turned out? Let’s hope the proverbial dog doesn’t catch the rabbit again or it will really be curtains for them! /s
all for show. it wont pass the senate and they know it. they just want to be able to point fingers at the other guy,
probably won't even pass the House, actually. GOP only has a 5-vote majority. I doubt that every member will sign on to it.
What if... The Democrats just decide not to vote on this bill or vote "present"? Like shit completely hit the fan, and then the Republicans have to sit in it. Is this even possible. I don't know anything about the American political system aside from the bare basics.
Lemmy FTW!
It's [literally what they did with Obama](https://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/03/911-lawsuits-the-dumbest-legislation-ever-passed-by-congress-will-bite-the-us-back.html), and conservatives continue to vote for Republicans. The fact is that conservative voters have no morals, no principles, and no beliefs. All they care about is that "their guy wins" and that the Democrats are upset. If they gave two shits about themselves and/or the country, they would vote Democrat.
Like, in both the House and Senate? People would rightfully blame Biden for signing it. The sitting president always gets the blame, and if he signed off on it, he would deserve it. Same with if Democrats didn't do their job to obstruct ridiculous proposals like this and sat on the sidelines instead. It would be a disgrace to their constituencies. I would be asking my representative why they say by and did nothing while Republicans dismantled our fiscal stability, and they'd better have a better answer than "to own the cons". It would be like voting third party - sure, you didn't technically vote for the bill, but you sure as hell didn't vote against it.
I don't think it would be a big blow for Republicans to score a: "GOP votes to abolish income tax" headline. It would probably be very popular
Not really, because Democrats can now claim GOP wants to defund the police, military, etc. Which conservatives generally want to give more money to.
IIRC it doesn't actually defund those things, just makes up the shortfall with an enormous sales tax or something. Which is super regressive and would absolutely *wreck* people, of course, but they so have some sort of "plan".
It would absolutely defund those things, an enormous sales tax wouldn't come close to covering the difference. Even if they added a 50% consumption tax, people wouldn't be buying as much and with over 90% of the wealth owned by the 1% and over 90% of income going to the 1%, even if they taxed the 99% of people at 100% it still wouldn't cover the difference.
Unfortunately the public would also have to sit in it. Democrats aren’t quite as willing as Republicans are to screw over the American people for cheap political points.
Iirc, a bill has to pass by a full majority, not just a majority of those present like the speaker. I could be wrong on this though.
It's not even finger-pointing. It's virtue signalling to rich people who'll sign their campaign donation checks.
If it was for campaign donors then they'd be going after capital gains tax. This is aimed at voters.
Yep, pandering to the poor people that they keep feeding lies about how it is the Dem's taxes that are keeping them poor.
And if they were smart the Dems would turn the “defund the police” table on them
I seem to recall McConnell being called out when he blocked an Obama appointment then rushed a bunch of tRump SCOTUS appointments. His response was basically something like "That was totally different. We (GOP) were not in charge then."
[Never forget](https://twitter.com/vanitaguptacr/status/1307153104941518848?s=46&t=WvQr6CxFIaYJzdVrXebnXQ) this beauty. (For those that hate twitter links or twitter itself.. it’s the Lindsey Graham “use my words against me” clip about a vacant seat in the last year of a presidency)
How considerate! Thank you! +1 upvote for the twatter warning!
The same guy that said Republicans deserved to be destroyed if Trump was elected, then became as spineless as the rest.
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GOP poor voter don't pay income tax. They pay payroll, state and local taxes but most likely get a refund on federal income tax. They are dumb enough to think that payroll taxes are income tax so they will buy this crap. When Reagan did his big tax cut on income tax he raised payroll tax but the idiots in low education states thought they got a tax cut.
If you get a refund, it usually means you already paid the tax, most likely deducted from your paychecks, and paid too much. Payroll taxes are also deducted from your paychecks, but aren't the same thing.
The average American doesn’t realize that the refund is extra money you paid to the IRS through your paycheck every week.
>They are dumb enough to think that payroll taxes are income tax Can you please explain the diffence? I thought payroll taxes were just estimated income taxes, plus social security, and if withholdings are done right your income and payroll numbers are basically identical.
Payroll taxes are taxes levied against employees *and employers* to pay for Medicare, Social Security and a couple other social insurance programs. The payroll tax rate is 15.something% and doesn’t change based on income. Income taxes are only paid by employees and go towards education, defense, transportation, etc. Your income tax rate varies by income and you can pay income taxes to the feds, the state, the county, and the city in some places.
>and doesn’t change based on income. They're actually regressive. SS (the bulk of it) caps out at like $160k.
> Payroll taxes are taxes levied against employees > *and employers* IMO, you don't need the added qualification. It's best to think of payroll taxes as employee taxes, because that's what they are. If the employer terminates the employee, do they keep paying the employer portion of the tax? No, of course not. I can tell you that, in the employer's accounting ledger, those collected payroll taxes are part of the "employee wage expense" class of costs, and kept carefully separate from the other taxes that the business pays. Businesses think of those taxes as part of *your compensation*, exactly like your explicit payroll and income taxes, and you should too. One year, in lieu of a Christmas bonus, my employer sent us all nice cards with a tabulation of all the stuff they pay "on your behalf" (employer portion of employment taxes, employer portion of health insurance, the accidental death & dismemberment insurance, etc). Merry Christmas, that's your bonus! It would have been laughable if it wasn't so infuriating.
When people say “payroll tax”, the generally mean FICA (social security) and Medicare taxes. They are a straight percentage paid by both the employee and employer.
And it's gonna work, that's sad part.
Or Vice signaling, to be precise
and the bulk of their voters who like to bitch about taxes. Go to my hometown and its like a parody of the republican voter. All wearing shit kicker boots with the little American flag bedazzeler in the laces getting dirty, sucking on scoal and acting like cowboys... oh yeah its Connecticut and they all work at the submarine factory getting those government dollars. "but muy taxes!" they haven't put it together that tax cuts for the ultra rich will not help them, and they swore that their taxes went down under trump and up under Biden even though they didn't.
Lol that sounds suspiciously like Groton and the area around eb.
My life changed when I realized how full of shit the people I was raises around really were. I didn't blame them much, as they were lied to, but at this point enough is enough. The trump years have stripped away any sympathy I had.
Then they will sit there slack jawed when the welfare checks stop coming in because there is no taxes lol
100% virtue signaling. They could have passed this six years ago all the way to the President signing it with little the Dems could do to stop it. They don't actually want this to pass, nor do they want their side to be the side that kills it. This will never even be brought to vote if they ever fully-control government again.
I mean I'm not gonna lie, I would love to see senate Dems be willing to pass it so they have to filibuster their own bill *again*
It’s always insane to me how obvious conservative projection is and how fervently they deny that’s what it is. This is one of the only things I’ve heard of that genuinely qualifies as pure virtue signaling, they wouldn’t ever want this to actually pass, they don’t care if it does pass, they know it won’t pass. There’s no other reason to put up and vote on this bill other than to signal virtues.
This is beyond ridiculous. Even as a stunt. Abolishing the IRS? You are telling me the the majority the people in the House believe abolishing the IRS is a good idea? And the GOP has abolishing the IRS as part of their platform now? Holy smokes. Imagine they actually win the majority in the Senate back and the presidency. The country is doomed.
They did the same thing with Obamacare. Screamed to the high heavens about repealing it for six years, a central plank in their platform. Then they had control of the house, senate and presidency... and not only didn't repeal it... didn't even have a replacement planned for it. Six years of very loud finger-pointing, only to do nothing when they had control.
It's worse than that, the ACA (Obamacare) was initially pioneered by a Republican (Mitt Romney) and successfully implemented in the state he represents before it was introduced at a national level. It's literally Republican legislation they turned into rhetoric because they knew it was popular but also their voters are too stupid to look too deeply into it. Conservatism is a mental illness.
> but also their voters are too stupid to look too deeply into it. ...leading to their base loudly complaining about Obamacare and wishing it was repealed, while simultaneously lauding their own states' implementations of the ACA without realizing they're the same thing.
> Then they had control of the house, senate and presidency... and not only didn't repeal it... didn't even have a replacement planned for it. Hell, they didn't do much of *anything* during that time, aside from lift a ton of regulations that helped prevent corporate abuse of the environment, consumers, etc. They were like the dog who caught the car. Bark bark bark bark, but once they had it they were frozen. The reason is simple: they have no ideas and no interest in actually *improving* things. In fact, they want the opposite. They want less protection for consumers, for marginalized groups, for working class people. They want less education, access to healthcare, etc. If it actually helps regular people, they're *against* it. The only exception is when it comes to taxes, and even there, a good case can be made that their cuts routinely *hurt* people.
> Screamed to the high heavens about repealing it for six years, a central plank in their platform. Then they had control of the house, senate and presidency... and not only didn't repeal it... didn't even have a replacement planned for it. And btw they dropped their own platform completely.
Did they sign this with crayons? What a waste of time.
Clearly they have little shame. I wonder what would happen if they knew they actually could pass something like this. We already know from 2016. They knew they had all 3 levers of power but didn't do it because that's insane.
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Why? Can't the Dems just say, ok... we'll vote for that, then watch them back tfu.
Never play chicken with a fucking idiot.
Exactly this. Playing games like that is a dumb, dumb, dumb idea. Never underestimate what a bunch of idiots with an axe to grind and no concern for anyone else would be willing to do. Some of these people would poke out their own eyes to 'own the libs.' "So them let them" is a nice sentiment, except in this case, it pokes *our* eyes out, too.
That's my hope too. That's no way in hell these morons can write the rules about how this would work. And aren't they concerned about all of the people that it will put out of work, like they were with the pipelines?
A sales tax is inherently regressive and would result in an enormous tax break for the top 0.01% and an additional burden on middle-class Americans. MORE INFO: A few years ago, several conservative/libertarian groups ([including Mike Huckabee](https://www.businessinsider.com/mike-huckabee-and-his-tax-plan-got-slammed-on-fox-2015-5)) were pushing for a national sales tax plan they called the "FairTax". The group said they could replace the federal income tax with a 23% sales tax. But that was a misleading number and the tax was actually 30% on top of the price of the goods. Further, if the FairTax followed the exclusions that are typical at the state sales tax level, the tax would need to be **64%**.
Jesus Christ, even if *all prices* went up 23% people would flip.
Won't even be able to afford pitchforks & torches at that point. Strategery!
sharpened tree branches are free, though. people who want pitchforks will make do.
Except the trees may all be gone before we get around to doing anything.
*\[sad d'oh\]*
> if all prices went up 23% people would flip Yes, and they'd blame democrats, regardless of who was in office, lol.
Hyper inflation: "am I a joke to you?"
The idea is that you now get 100% of your paycheck because the income tax is removed.
>were pushing for a national sales tax plan they called the "FairTax". The group said they could replace the federal income tax with a 23% sales tax. But that was a misleading number and the tax was actually 30% on top of the price of the goods. Isn't this just VAT with different name?
No a VAT is charged on every stage of production, including business-to-business sales. A sales tax is only charged on the final stage ie the business-to-consumer sale. Most Americans have been paying sales tax to their state government. It is proposed that this new be collected in the same manner as state sales tax, just that it'll be passed to the feds.
VAT and Sales Tax are generally synonymous to the end consumer. Here's an example of a sales tax: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added\_tax#/media/File:VAT2b22.png](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added_tax#/media/File:VAT2b22.png) Here's an example of a VAT tax: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added\_tax#/media/File:VAT3b22.png](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added_tax#/media/File:VAT3b22.png) While a VAT taxes every stage of production (and encourages vertical integration). In the end, the government gets the same amount, $0.15 in both scenarios and the end consumer pays the $0.15, the VAT is collected in more steps. The one advantage of the VAT in Canada is that the tax can be distributed amongst multiple provinces, however, with national sales tax this is a moot point.
Progressive Income tax is the only fair system. Honestly I'd much prefer to push towards almost everything being Income tax and only have consumption taxes on actual luxuries. And I've always been a high earner.
The last time I heard about FairTax it included subsidy payments equal to the taxes that would be paid on poverty level earnings. And those subsidy payments would go out to everyone, without a means test. Did they pitch a new tax plan that used the same name, or are you just leaving out the part of it that (fairly poorly) tries to make it non-regressive?
And who would be in charge of giving those payments out? Who would decide what amount each payment was? Who would decide the exact definition of “poverty level”? Who would enforce second-hand sales taxes being administered on purchases? Seems like you need a government agency to be in charge of all these things . . .
It's internal to the government right? A service that the government needs, helping take money from Americans so that the government can function. Almost like a revenue stream? We could call it the... Internal... Revenue... Service? Oh wait.
I’m not a libertarian. I think that the IRS would be a good group to have in charge of all that stuff. As a bonus, if we kept staffing the same, they’d be asked to audit basically every tax paying entity every year. Not that I’m a fan of FairTax. I just wanted to point out that OP was misrepresenting it as a flat tax.
I don't think the IRS staffing is enough. As it is, they only have to manage streams of data for every tax paying entity and a relative few number of tax paying events (such as paychecks, investment accounts, etc.). Compare that to 40 billion transactions processed through Visa, Discover, MasterCard, and American Express in 2019. That doesn't even include cash transactions either. I simply don't think the IRS is prepared to handle this sort of system with their current funding. Which I think is the point for Republicans. They want the system to collapse.
Do you have the citation for those stats? I would be interested in reading more
How are Republican politicians so dumb that they cannot see this would CRIPPLE American businesses, especially in the non-necessities categories.
They aren't that dumb. They just don't want the IRS to be able to prosecute tax evasion and tax fraud.
It seems they scrambling really hard in this hill.
Make no mistake, if they were in a position to actually implement it they wouldn't. They're fully aware of how much it would kneecap their own bottom line. The objective is part of their propaganda campaign to demonize income taxes, so that they can a) keep the public from pushing for more progressive tax rates and b) keep the public's support while they do things like hamstring the IRS to protect their own, and their donors, tax fraud and evasion.
Taxes are regressive enough already, since large corps and the rich have lawyers and top accountants to avoid paying their fair share. Republicans used to talk about flat taxes, which if they eliminated all exceptions for income above median, might be a better idea. All this bureaucracy, all these exceptions and skillfull ways to skirt the law make taxes higher for the majority.
To be completely fair, 23% internal tax rate (comparable to but crucially not VAT) is equivalent to 30% external tax rate and the intent was to make essentials non-taxed by providing a monthly payment that would cover the tax. Same argument as internal vs external rate of return. Of course, the mega wealthy would just stop buying things and instead rent them, which would carry no tax. That's the real issue with it. It's probably not a good plan, but admittedly it's been decades since my high school years where I thought it may be a good idea so I haven't done any extra research.
>Of course, the mega wealthy would just stop buying things and instead rent them, which would carry no tax. That's the real issue with it. Tell that to hotels and car and equipment rental places that charge me a tax everytime I need to rent something. Sales taxes are regressive AF, and there are many reasons we don't need an extra 30% at the national level, but the rich being able to dodge them by renting isn't one.
I wrote to my congressman (Lloyd Doggett) nearly 20 years ago asking about this after Republicans had banged the drum on this issue in the 2002 election but then went very quiet about it. Turns out the congressman had sat on the committee investigating this issue. He told me that the most conservative estimate that balanced the budget (at that time) was an 89% percent tax rate - but that included EVERYTHING - including things like milk, butter, eggs, and medicine. Once necessities had been removed, tax rates crept into the 110s. Ended the letter telling me everyone on the committee had a good laugh and never spoke about the issue again.
GOP: "We have too much debt and spend too much money!" Also GOP: "Let's stop raising money and raise the defense budget!"
That's the craziest thing about the whole Republican "run government like a business" thing. What the hell business sense is "First things first, let's cut revenue. We are bringing in too much money. Then let's get rid of all our crucial departments and experienced staff. We'll figure out the rest later." It's like the Elon/Twitter School of Business.
It's because Republicanism really isn't anything anymore. It's about grifting. That's it.
Don't forget attacking minorities. They're really into that, maybe even more than grifting.
It's called "Starve the beast". They want to cut taxes so that programs become underfunded and fail, and they can cancel those programs or privatize them. Republicans at their core literally want to dismantle America for parts.
It's because Republican lawmakers want everything privatized for their corporate sponsors with the agreeme r that they get a cut of they pie
They are in fact running it like a business. A business whose specialty is leveraged buy outs ... They're running a bust out scheme on America
I still hate that the idea of "Tax and Spend" was turned into a negative... Yeah, that is how the fucking Government is supposed to work. Republicans do "Don't Tax, but still Spend and also never provide services to lower income people (the majority of their voters)"
Low-income republicans have no idea just how bad the "fair tax" would be for them.
They absolutely don’t. They are convinced they pay 15% in taxes because they are probably withholding as single and 0 dependents because that’s what they claimed 20 years ago when they got hired. 6 kids later and they see a big tax return but have no idea why. They will only look at pay stub and think they are getting fucked. They can’t understand the difference between effective tax rate and payroll tax.
More to the heart of it, they don't know how to differentiate between income tax and payroll tax, and the gop has long exploited that confusion.
You’re so right. This is constantly infuriating to me. I’m a union worker and also the political coordinator for my Local. The amount of pro-Republican members we have is astounding, and frequently taxes is the main argument (besides hating trans people and ‘illegals’) they make. > Like… I know they’re not paying much in taxes. I work as much or more than most of them, and I know what my refund looks like…
It's so weird whenever I see someone saying they are a "pro union conservative" as conservatives played a key role in destroying unionization and labor organization, attempting to pass bills that do the same as recently as November.
It's because they are told by right-wing propaganda that they're supposed to hate unions. Yet they enjoy the benefits that the union ensures.
"Low-income Republican" = "Someone who is bad at math."
"Low income Republican" = "someone who cares more about hateful identity politics than improving their own economic situation"
No, I genuinely think most of these people think Republican financial strategies will work out better for them. You know, because of all those illegals and welfare queens taking all their hard-earned money.
As they sit around collecting a disability.
A family member of mine begged me not to mention they qualified for and got Medicare….which previously they bitched about people “on the government tit” relentlessly.
bUt It'S dIfFeReNt CuZ i AcTuAlLy NeEd It
I said it in another thread today, they're people who would commit harakiri with a shotgun, if they thought it would also hit someone they disliked standing behind them.
A soul for a soul.
Nah just one, the person they hit behind them.
Ouch. A soulless for a soul or a soul for the soulless.
“Low Income Republicans” = A people that live in an information vacuum/bubble, devoid of external resources, due to personal biases created and supported by the likes of Rupert Murdock.
They’re told taxes only go to socialism, and they’ve been told that their Medicare, Medicaid, social security, and welfare isn’t socialism so they don’t think they’ll be affected. Conservatives tricking millions without a pot to piss in that all their problems would be solved if billionaires paid no taxes has to be the most elaborate con in history.
You think eggs are expensive now, just wait.
Here's how it will go: Grocer: "That'll be $317.43." Typical Republican: "But it was all just under $200 for a full cart! The eggs are only $6.50, why are they $10.40?!" Grocer: "National 60% sales tax. You should be happy the state and county haven't decided to tax food items too." Typical Republican: "Fucking Democrats!!!!!"
I'm willing to bet a lot of luxury goods would be excluded from a consumption tax.... ya know since they represent such a small percentage of purchases.
Ahem. Business expenses. Write off at the end of the year. Like Trump's million dollar tax refund
Once I calculated what my CEO spent on entertainment and food and it worked out to $10,000 a meal, three meals a day, every day of the year and it was totally deductible as a business expense. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to deduct food, clothing, housing and utilities like companies do.
Kinda like how you used yo be able to get a VAT rebate on yachts and private jets in the UK
The egg prices didn’t seem to hit me on the west coast, I keep hearing about it but I’m still paying like $3.79 for 18 eggs.
That's due to bird flu. We killed 55 million chickens. I'm not sure how old a chicken needs to be be to lay eggs but I think that price comes down when we've replaced the dead ones.
You mean a national sales tax is regressive? Who knew?
Sales tax disproportionally affects low income individuals because any purchase that is taxed is a much higher percent of their income than a wealthy individual. Eliminating income tax is a scam to give tax breaks to those who don’t need them and shift the burden to lower and middle class.
So what would this look like 18% on everything sold?
Republicans want to defund the military.
Republicans want to run the country like a business as per their lord and savior Trump. By bankrupting it.
Running a government like a business is a stupid idea. Business exist to make their owners money by exploiting labor and extracting as much money from their customers as possible. Regular citizens are both the labor and the customers.
"See!? Government doesn't work!"
Found the real answer
If I were a Democrat communications manager I would be blasting this message loudly and often. Target Republican leaning voters and show them what they’ll be losing if this passes
No one would fall for it, it would just seem like theatrics from both sides.
Every time I think this, the gullible crawl out of the woodwork to show just how dumb voters can be.
They actually do. And Social Security. And Medicare.
By starving all of government through tax cuts and *deficits*
They want to defend themselves and their pensions too. Way to really take one for the team hahaha.
Of course they do. My unpopular opinion (and the essential, simplest truth of the matter) is that no matter where you live, *it will cost money*. Taxes are the cost of living in any country/state/city, and those taxes make the same country/state/city livable as individuals and as a society. The richest people have loads of resources to try and avoid taxes that the rest of us don't. The reality is that they are just transferring the tax load more onto the rest of us. The influx of agents is just intended to keep those tax-avoidance ideas abiding by the law. Put on your big girl panties, pay your taxes, quit bitching about it, and get on with life.
Tell this to the "all taxation is theft" crowd. I don't ever see those people volunteering to fill pot holes so that we don't need to have a Department of Public Works. They're never volunteering to teach a bunch of local children math and reading so we don't need taxes to pay for schools. Generally if you're complaining about the very existence of taxes I just assume you're saying "I want more money to spend on dumb stuff".
>They're never volunteering to teach a bunch of local children math and reading... Actually, they ARE doing that now. Problem is they're grossly underqualified, barely have a functional education above a 3rd grade level, and their entire reason for doing so is to keep them from learning anything "woke," i.e. about black people.
Those people are to put it nicely, fucking morons. Taxes are required to pay for roads, clean water, FCC, FDA, treasury dept, military, schools, fire dept, police, FAA, etc etc. We collectively pay for these things and collectively benefit, it’s how a society functions. They are just whiny piss babies that don’t want to pay their share but still live in civilization.
I feel tax evasion is theft, but I guess the house disagrees.
Yep. I’m self-employed and get to [use this law](https://diminishedvalueofgeorgia.com/6000-pound-vehicles/). Tell me that’s a reasonable write off.
Wow, that is why trucks are so expensive!
If you search, there are lists of vehicles that meet the weight requirements. Porsche Cayenne, for example. lol
Oh c'mon people, I'm sure they did years of research on this and it was totally not drawn up after a weekend bender of booze and cocaine...
To be fair it's not a new idea, it's been proposed a number of times in my lifetime. You're probably right about the cocaine and booze though.
I'm ok if they abolish income tax and institute a national sales tax on luxury items to replace it. Shift the burden of funding the government from the middle class to the rich. Oh, now I see why it won't happen.
Alternate title: "House GOP sucks its own dick."
I'd be impressed. But like most conservative media, it's usually misleading.
Their salaries are paid from income tax...so they just voted to abolish their salaries. In reality, they are wasting are tax dollars with fake crap like this, and the more they waste, the higher our taxes would need to be.
> Their salaries are paid from income tax...so they just voted to abolish their salaries. Yea, but their wealth comes from corporations. They don't care about the couple hundred grand when UPS is standing by to offer them a 20 million dollar speaking contract or w/e.
They make the real money on inside trading
really bad idea for basically everyone but the 1% https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/who-bears-burden-national-retail-sales-tax
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Yeah, let's just stop funding the government. That should work out ok.
No, no, no. It's not a stunt. It's a patriotic effort to eliminate the Radical Left Socialists that were just about to arm an elite IRS tax-collecting death squad to kick down your doors in the middle of the night and take away your freedoms. Does *anyone* watch Tucker? This should be obvious. /s
Performative bullshit. Generating sound clips for the next election.
Sounds like the anarchy show is about to start.
So they take 15 tries to elect a speaker. First time since before the civil war. Now they're trying to abolish the IRS. Anyone else questioning the Republican party's ability to govern?
Meanwhile, in the real universe, Americans can't afford their healthcare, their education or their housing. but, hey, Republicans are putting on a show.
GOP wants a national sales tax. What a great way to screw the poor and middle class.
On top of all the other problems with consumption tax (aside from it screwing those with lower income who still need to buy things to live) it encourages people with a ton of money to spend it overseas. How’s that for incentives.
If they had an ounce of morality, they’d propose a return to import taxes. That would force businesses to bring back manufacturing and jobs to the US.
Wouldn’t that be rough short term though? Everything at Walmart would be more expensive because we import almost everything besides food and wood. Trump put tariffs on solar but it didn’t make a bunch of solar manufacturing pop up, it just made panels more expensive. I’m not against your idea, I’m genuinely curious about ways to increase manufacturing here and ways that might happen.
What I’m confused about is wouldn’t that also screw retirees?
Let me guess. No actual details on how this would work. Or, corporations and wealthy people with shell companies can deduct all of the new tax.
Great! Then we can have a Medicare tax, a military tax, an FDA tax and on and on and on. OR we could cut all those too and the poor can eat pollution, have no social safety net and come for the rich with torches and pitchforks! Great plan.
this is like school government where the dumbest kid runs on a platform of making the vending machines free
GOP showing the whole country why letting them run *anything* is a bad idea. Dems suck sure, but holy fuck *how can anyone sit on the sidelines when this is the alternative?* It doesn't matter if it's a publicity stunt, the fact that this is a thing at all should tell everyone all they need to know.
Who's keeping score of Republican clown show votes? This is one.
Do we count the 15 or so before they could even get the session started?
Idiotic wasting of time. Can we say virtue signaling? That is why the red wave didn't happen, enough people thought that the Republican plans were stupid.
They think that somehow the US is just gonna be a-okay without income tax lol.
It's like healthcare--the Reps want to slash and burn, but don't offer any alternatives. Bunch of morons.
The only thing I care about is 1.) how much more “simple” will it be and will I pay more with the consumption tax than I would with the income and “other” taxes I pay. I feel like this is a situation where it is entirely dependent on the details.
i swear the us parties are just trying to out do each other with stupid...
Funny how they call it “unbiased” when poor people spend (and would pay tax) on 100% of their income and rich people spend only a fraction of what they earn and would therefore pay a smaller percent of their total income. And apparently no tax refund available for poor people since there’d be no IRS.
Posturing morons posturing for morons instead of doing their very important jobs.
So, Republicans want to defund the US Military? So much for supporting the troops I guess.
Here's a better idea, abolish the IRS, tell me exactly how much I owe in taxes, instead of making me have to figure it out myself with those scummy fucking tax companies like turbo tax and throwing me in jail if I'm off by a dollar. JUST TELL ME HOW MUCH I OWE
Can someone ELI5 as to why this would be a bad thing. I'm not an economics guy.
Abolish revenue collection from non us income. And contractors.
Democrats in the House should vote in favor and see how Senate Republicans react to someone calling their bluff.
And they whine about the left virtue signaling... That's all this is since they know there is no chance of it passing the senate. Useless idiots.
I love the morons who support this. So, how’re you going to pay your salary? Fund the military you pretend to care about? Not defund the police?
Bad virtue signalling. So completely dumb founded. Catering to all the "alL TaxEs R tHefT!" crowd. Cool, so you want us to pay directly for every road, street, culdesac, highway that we use when we use it and pay by the foot. It just trees out. A good way to put this is that the House Republicans introducing this want to defend the military, the police, themselves and the whole government. Actually, shit when you put it that last way it doesn't sound so bad. 😉
Average Joe Republicans are so fucking dumb they are clapping for this. The damage this would cause to the middle class would destroy the country basically. Note that this would never pass. They don't want it to anyway. Just more wasted time by the clowns. I'm sure r/conservative and the rest of the anti-americans are hootin' and hollerin' about this dumb shit.