It's a partial reversal, isn't it? That makes it *not* a tax hike.
Yes, and a lot of people don't realize that the personal tax reduction rates of 2017 actually expire in 2024, whereas teh corporate cuts were permanent.
While I couldn't give a crap about Hunter Biden or Mayor Pete on a bike, I'm with you on this DeSantis thing. Even some prominent Florida democrats (like the mayor of Palm Beach) have been defending him saying the 60 Minutes thing was "intentionally false." DeSantis was a Trump lapdog bozo this time last year, but as far as rolling out the vaccine now, he seems to be doing a good job. And I'm not buying the pay-to-play allegations after hearing Florida Democrats defend him, watching that 60 Minutes edit, and hearing him defend himself and explain that CVS, Walgreens, and a church were all rolling out the vaccine before Publix.
Other than multiple mass shootings, it is all they've been talking about since the covid relief bill passed.
I should have said outrage, not silent. They cover it, but they aren't outraged over it. Compared to the coverage it got a few years ago. I don't see nearly as many saying the conditions are poor, or calling it cages, even though that hasn't really changed. The media is told they can't see inside and they say ok and walk away. Would they have done that a year ago? They would have found a way in and report what is happening. So yes, compared to what was going on with the coverage the last 4 years, this is pretty much a nothingburger to them. They ask a couple questions, they as the press sec if she'll call it a crisis, and when she says "no its not a crisis, its a challenge" they accept that answer. If Trump was president this would be a bigger story than it is, with a lot more humanitarian accusations being thrown around that what we're seeing. I see more media outrage over the upsets of March Madness that what is going on at the border.
lol you just moved your goal post back 20yards , I didn’t mean this but I meant that lol
Other than multiple mass shootings, it is all they've been talking about since the covid relief bill passed.
I should have said outrage, not silent. They cover it, but they aren't outraged over it. Compared to the coverage it got a few years ago. I don't see nearly as many saying the conditions are poor, or calling it cages, even though that hasn't really changed. The media is told they can't see inside and they say ok and walk away. Would they have done that a year ago? They would have found a way in and report what is happening. So yes, compared to what was going on with the coverage the last 4 years, this is pretty much a nothingburger to them. They ask a couple questions, they as the press sec if she'll call it a crisis, and when she says "no its not a crisis, its a challenge" they accept that answer. If Trump was president this would be a bigger story than it is, with a lot more humanitarian accusations being thrown around that what we're seeing. I see more media outrage over the upsets of March Madness that what is going on at the border.
lol you just moved your goal post back 20yards , I didn’t mean this but I meant that lol
We can't let go of something that was literally weeks ago? Clarifying is not moving the goal posts 20 yards. I admitted my use of "silent" wasn't accurate. But those shelters were described as "concentration camps" a year ago. They are even worse now, but no one is calling them that anymore. Lets move on to a topic not 3 weeks old now,
Biden open to compromise on infrastructure, but not inaction
By JOSH BOAK
Today
President Joe Biden drew a red line on his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan Wednesday, saying he is open to compromise on how to pay for the package but inaction is unacceptable.
The president turned fiery in an afternoon speech, saying that the United States is failing to build, invest and research for the future and adding that failure to do so amounts to giving up on “leading the world.”
“Compromise is inevitable,” Biden said. “We’ll be open to good ideas in good faith negotiations. But here’s what we won’t be open to: We will not be open to doing nothing. Inaction, simply, is not an option.”
Biden challenged the idea that low tax rates would do more for growth than investing in care workers, roads, bridges, clean water, broadband, school buildings, the power grid, electric vehicles and veterans hospitals.
The president has taken heat from Republican lawmakers and business groups for proposing that corporate tax increases should finance an infrastructure package that goes far beyond the traditional focus on roads and bridges.
“What the president proposed this week is not an infrastructure bill,” Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said on NBC's “Meet the Press,” one of many quotes that Republican congressional aides emailed to reporters before Biden's speech. “It’s a huge tax increase, for one thing. And it’s a tax increase on small businesses, on job creators in the United States of America."
Biden last week proposed funding his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan largely through an increase in the corporate tax rate to 28% and an expanded global minimum tax set at 21%. But he said Wednesday he was willing to accept a rate below 28% so long as the projects are financed and taxes are not increased on people making less than $400,000.
“I’m willing to listen to that," Biden said. "But we gotta pay for this. We gotta pay for this. There’s many other ways we can do it. But I am willing to negotiate. I’ve come forward with the best, most rational way, in my view the fairest way, to pay for it, but there are many other ways as well. And I’m open.”
He stressed that he had been open to compromise on his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan, but Republicans never budged beyond their $600 billion counteroffer.
“If they'd come forward with a plan that did the bulk of it and it was $1.3 billion or four ... that allowed me to have pieces of all that was in there, I would have been prepared to compromise,” Biden said. “But they didn’t. They didn’t move an inch. Not an inch.”
The president added that America's position in the world was incumbent on taking aggressive action on modern infrastructure that serves a computerized age. Otherwise, the county would lose out to China in what he believes is a fundamental test of democracy. Republican lawmakers counter that higher taxes would make the country less competitive globally.
“You think China is waiting around to invest in this digital infrastructure or on research and development? I promise you. They are not waiting. But they’re counting on American democracy, to be too slow, too limited and too divided to keep pace."
His administration on Wednesday was pressing the case for tax increases. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said it was “self-defeating” for then-President Donald Trump to assume that cutting the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35% in 2017 would make the economy more competitive and unleash growth. Yellen said that competing on tax rates came at the expense of investing in workers.
“Tax reform is not a zero-sum game,” she told reporters on a call. “Win-win is an overused phrase, but we have a win-win in front of us now.”
Yellen said the tax increases would produce roughly $2.5 trillion in revenues over 15 years, enough to cover the eight years' worth of infrastructure investments being proposed.
The roughly $200 billion gap between how much the taxes would raise and how much the administration wants to spend suggests there is space to address critics, such as West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a key Democratic vote, who would prefer a 25% rate.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said businesses and lawmakers should come to the bargaining table, noting that there could be room to negotiate on the rate and timeline.
“There is room for compromise,” Raimondo said at a White House briefing. “What we cannot do, and what I am imploring the business community not to do, is to say, ‘We don’t like 28. We're walking away. We're not discussing.'"
Key to the Biden administration's pitch is bringing corporate tax revenues closer to their historic levels, rather than raising them to new highs that could make U.S. businesses less competitive globally.
Trump's 2017 tax cuts halved corporate tax revenues to 1% of gross domestic product, which is a measure of the total income in the economy. Revenues had previously equaled 2% of GDP. That higher figure is still below the 3% average of peer nations in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Treasury Department said in its summary of the plan.
Still, some say the administration's claim is misleading.
“The administration should use statistics that directly measure the burden on the corporate sector,” said Kyle Pomerleau, a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “In fact, many measures of effective tax rates show that the U.S.’s burden is pretty close to middle of the road. Biden’s plan would certainly push up to the high end among our major trading partners.”
Business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable argue that higher taxes would hurt U.S. companies operating worldwide and the wider economy.
The Penn-Wharton Budget Model issued a report Wednesday saying the combined spending and taxes would cause government debt to rise by 2031 and then decrease by 2050. But following the plan, GDP would be lower by 0.8% in 2050.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Biden making new moves on guns, including naming ATF boss
By ALEXANDRA JAFFE, AAMER MADHANI and MICHAEL BALSAMO
5 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden, in his first gun control measures since taking office, announced a half-dozen executive actions Thursday aimed at addressing a proliferation of gun violence across the nation that he called an “epidemic and an international embarrassment."
“It is actually a public health crisis,” Biden said during remarks at the White House.
Greeting the families of gun violence victims and activists, he assured them: “We’re absolutely determined to make change."
His Thursday announcement delivers on a pledge Biden made last month to take what he termed immediate “common-sense steps” to address gun violence, after a series of mass shootings drew renewed attention to the issue. His announcement came the same day as yet another shooting, this one in South Carolina, where five people were killed.
But Thursday's announcement underscores the limitations of Biden's executive power to act on guns. They include moves to tighten regulations on homemade guns and provide more resources for gun-violence prevention, but fall far short of the sweeping gun-control agenda Biden laid out on the campaign trail.
Indeed, the White House has repeatedly emphasized the need for legislative action to tackle the issue. But while the House passed a background-check bill last month, gun control measures face slim prospects in an evenly divided Senate, where Republicans remain near-unified against most proposals.
Biden is tightening regulations of buyers of “ghost guns” — homemade firearms that usually are assembled from parts and milled with a metal-cutting machine and often lack serial numbers used to trace them. It’s legal to build a gun in a home or a workshop and there is no federal requirement for a background check. The goal is to “help stop the proliferation of these firearms,” according to the White House.
The Justice Department will issue a proposed rule aimed at reining in ghost guns within 30 days, though details of the rule weren't immediately issued.
A second proposed rule, expected within 60 days, will tighten regulations on pistol-stabilizing braces, like the one used by the Boulder, Colorado, shooter in a rampage last month that left 10 dead. The rule will designate pistols used with stabilizing braces as short-barreled rifles, which require a federal license to own and are subject to a more thorough application process and a $200 tax.
The department also is publishing model legislation within 60 days that is intended to make it easier for states to adopt their own “red flag” laws. Such laws allow for individuals to petition a court to allow the police to confiscate weapons from a person deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.
The department also will begin to provide more data on firearms trafficking, starting with a new comprehensive report on the issue. The administration says that hasn’t been done in more than two decades.
Biden is also nominating David Chipman, a former federal agent and adviser at the gun control group Giffords, to be director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The Biden administration will also make investments in community violence intervention programs, which are aimed at reducing gun violence in urban communities, across five federal agencies.
Officials said the executive actions were “initial steps” completed during Garland’s first weeks on the job and more may be coming.
The ATF is currently run by an acting director, Regina Lombardo. Gun-control advocates have emphasized the significance of this position in enforcing gun laws, and Chipman is certain to win praise from this group. During his time as a senior policy adviser with Giffords, he spent considerable effort pushing for greater regulation and enforcement on ghost guns, changes to the background check system and measures to reduce the trafficking of illegal firearms.
Chipman spent 25 years as an agent at the ATF, where he worked on stopping a trafficking ring that sent illegal firearms from Virginia to New York, and served on the ATF’s SWAT team. Chipman is a gun owner.
He is an explosives expert and was among the team involved in investigating the Oklahoma City bombing and the first World Trade Center bombing. He also was involved in investigating a series of church bombings in Alabama in the 1990s. He retired from the ATF in 2012.
The White House fact sheet said Chipman has worked “to advance common-sense gun safety laws.”
During his campaign, Biden promised to prioritize new gun control measures as president, including enacting universal background check legislation, banning online sales of firearms and the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. But gun-control advocates have said that while they were heartened by signs from the White House that they took the issue seriously, they've been disappointed by the lack of early action.
With the announcement of the new measures, however, advocates lauded Biden's first moves to combat gun violence.
“Each of these executive actions will start to address the epidemic of gun violence that has raged throughout the pandemic, and begin to make good on President Biden’s promise to be the strongest gun safety president in history,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety.
Feinblatt in particular praised the move to regulate ghost guns, which he said “will undoubtedly save countless lives,” and lauded Chipman as an “invaluable point person” in the fight against illegal gun trafficking. He also said the group is looking forward to continuing to work with the Biden administration on further gun control measures, but it's unclear what next moves the White House, or lawmakers on Capitol Hill, will be able to take.
Biden himself expressed uncertainty late last month when asked if he had the political capital to pass new gun control proposals, telling reporters, “I haven’t done any counting yet."
For years, federal officials have been sounding the alarm about an increasing black market for homemade, military-style semi-automatic rifles and handguns. Ghost guns have increasingly turned up at crime scenes and in recent years have been turning up more and more when federal agents are purchasing guns in undercover operations from gang members and other criminals.
It is hard to say how many are circulating on the streets, in part because in many cases police departments don’t even contact the federal government about the guns because they can’t be traced.
Some states, like California, have enacted laws in recent years to require serial numbers be stamped on ghost guns.
The critical component in building an untraceable gun is what is known as the lower receiver, a part typically made of metal or polymer. An unfinished receiver — sometimes referred to as an “80-percent receiver” — can be legally bought online with no serial numbers or other markings on it, no license required.
A gunman who killed his wife and four others in Northern California in 2017 had been prohibited from owning firearms, but he built his own to skirt the court order before his rampage. And in 2019, a teenager used a homemade handgun to fatally shoot two classmates and wound three others at a school in suburban Los Angeles.
___
Associated Press writer Lisa Marie Pane in Boise, Idaho, contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
biden is actively trying to bring the country together. it's a monumental task after all the damage that trump did, and is possibly impossible to undo.
Whoops? Are you interpreting this to mean Biden was predicting a crime free country under his presidency?
LOL.....the perceived "gotchas" are so fucking stupid it hurts my brain.
I'm still waiting on Mr. Rolesomemodels to explain not giving a shit what so ever about Trump's record setting, exploding, debt and then becoming a born again fiscal conservative on 1/20/21
biden is actively trying to bring the country together. it's a monumental task after all the damage that trump did, and is possibly impossible to undo.
It wasn’t Trump that got us here, the damage was already done, Trump just let everyone see it for what it is.
Whoops? Are you interpreting this to mean Biden was predicting a crime free country under his presidency?
LOL.....the perceived "gotchas" are so fucking stupid it hurts my brain.
I'm still waiting on Mr. Rolesomemodels to explain not giving a shit what so ever about Trump's record setting, exploding, debt and then becoming a born again fiscal conservative on 1/20/21
Lol thanks for not posting that ridiculously long article again!
biden is actively trying to bring the country together. it's a monumental task after all the damage that trump did, and is possibly impossible to undo.
It wasn’t Trump that got us here, the damage was already done, Trump just let everyone see it for what it is.
he encouraged the scum to come out from under the rock. of course it always existed, but he unleashed it.
biden is actively trying to bring the country together. it's a monumental task after all the damage that trump did, and is possibly impossible to undo.
It wasn’t Trump that got us here, the damage was already done, Trump just let everyone see it for what it is.
he encouraged the scum to come out from under the rock. of course it always existed, but he unleashed it.
As far as I’m concerned he just made them louder. I don’t think there was any less of that before trump or that the feelings and beliefs weren’t just as strong. Sure he made them feel ok to be that way, but Trump wasn’t the cause of our problems anymore than Biden will be the solution. We have a national reckoning that really no one here wants to even start processing.
Whoops? Are you interpreting this to mean Biden was predicting a crime free country under his presidency?
LOL.....the perceived "gotchas" are so fucking stupid it hurts my brain.
I'm still waiting on Mr. Rolesomemodels to explain not giving a shit what so ever about Trump's record setting, exploding, debt and then becoming a born again fiscal conservative on 1/20/21
Lol thanks for not posting that ridiculously long article again!
I demand an explanation from him though! Once of these days...
biden is actively trying to bring the country together. it's a monumental task after all the damage that trump did, and is possibly impossible to undo.
It wasn’t Trump that got us here, the damage was already done, Trump just let everyone see it for what it is.
he encouraged the scum to come out from under the rock. of course it always existed, but he unleashed it.
As far as I’m concerned he just made them louder. I don’t think there was any less of that before trump or that the feelings and beliefs weren’t just as strong. Sure he made them feel ok to be that way, but Trump wasn’t the cause of our problems anymore than Biden will be the solution. We have a national reckoning that really no one here wants to even start processing.
Please do not downplay the fact that Trump poured gasoline on this already existing fire instead of doing the opposite....
Whoops? Are you interpreting this to mean Biden was predicting a crime free country under his presidency?
LOL.....the perceived "gotchas" are so fucking stupid it hurts my brain.
I'm still waiting on Mr. Rolesomemodels to explain not giving a shit what so ever about Trump's record setting, exploding, debt and then becoming a born again fiscal conservative on 1/20/21
The point of the tweet was clear and makes sense. Trump was trying to blame the protests and unrest on Biden, if you recall. Joe was (rationally) pointing out that Trump is the president under whose leadership this is happening.
Whoops? Are you interpreting this to mean Biden was predicting a crime free country under his presidency?
LOL.....the perceived "gotchas" are so fucking stupid it hurts my brain.
I'm still waiting on Mr. Rolesomemodels to explain not giving a shit what so ever about Trump's record setting, exploding, debt and then becoming a born again fiscal conservative on 1/20/21
The point of the tweet was clear and makes sense. Trump was trying to blame the protests and unrest on Biden, if you recall. Joe was (rationally) pointing out that Trump is the president under whose leadership this is happening.
Yeah I got a laugh out of the stupid Trump commercials where it'd show burning buildings and riots and say "This is Joe Biden's America." Politically and for campaigning reasons, I understand what he was trying to get at. Those riots were happening mostly in cities run by Democrats (Portland, Seattle) and Biden is a Democrat so Trump was trying to link them together. I get it...but it was still dumb.
Whoops? Are you interpreting this to mean Biden was predicting a crime free country under his presidency?
LOL.....the perceived "gotchas" are so fucking stupid it hurts my brain.
I'm still waiting on Mr. Rolesomemodels to explain not giving a shit what so ever about Trump's record setting, exploding, debt and then becoming a born again fiscal conservative on 1/20/21
The point of the tweet was clear and makes sense. Trump was trying to blame the protests and unrest on Biden, if you recall. Joe was (rationally) pointing out that Trump is the president under whose leadership this is happening.
Yeah I got a laugh out of the stupid Trump commercials where it'd show burning buildings and riots and say "This is Joe Biden's America." Politically and for campaigning reasons, I understand what he was trying to get at. Those riots were happening mostly in cities run by Democrats (Portland, Seattle) and Biden is a Democrat so Trump was trying to link them together. I get it...but it was still dumb.
And then remember, out of the top 25 or so cities, there are only three Republican mayors (El Paso, Miami and SD). And every one of them had riots. So it was a stupid argument for anyone that thinks about things for a minute.
Whoops? Are you interpreting this to mean Biden was predicting a crime free country under his presidency?
LOL.....the perceived "gotchas" are so fucking stupid it hurts my brain.
I'm still waiting on Mr. Rolesomemodels to explain not giving a shit what so ever about Trump's record setting, exploding, debt and then becoming a born again fiscal conservative on 1/20/21
The point of the tweet was clear and makes sense. Trump was trying to blame the protests and unrest on Biden, if you recall. Joe was (rationally) pointing out that Trump is the president under whose leadership this is happening.
Yeah I got a laugh out of the stupid Trump commercials where it'd show burning buildings and riots and say "This is Joe Biden's America." Politically and for campaigning reasons, I understand what he was trying to get at. Those riots were happening mostly in cities run by Democrats (Portland, Seattle) and Biden is a Democrat so Trump was trying to link them together. I get it...but it was still dumb.
And then remember, out of the top 25 or so cities, there are only three Republican mayors (El Paso, Miami and SD). And every one of them had riots. So it was a stupid argument for anyone that thinks about things for a minute.
trump supporters don't. and he was counting on that. plus a few more.
biden is actively trying to bring the country together. it's a monumental task after all the damage that trump did, and is possibly impossible to undo.
It wasn’t Trump that got us here, the damage was already done, Trump just let everyone see it for what it is.
he encouraged the scum to come out from under the rock. of course it always existed, but he unleashed it.
As far as I’m concerned he just made them louder. I don’t think there was any less of that before trump or that the feelings and beliefs weren’t just as strong. Sure he made them feel ok to be that way, but Trump wasn’t the cause of our problems anymore than Biden will be the solution. We have a national reckoning that really no one here wants to even start processing.
Please do not downplay the fact that Trump poured gasoline on this already existing fire instead of doing the opposite....
Please do not downplay how fucked up our country is by laying so much blame on trump. The guy did some real damage, but it was only a matter of time before someone like him took the national stage. We were ripe for it. And if we want to try to come together without any reconciliation we will be in for it all over again, and the next guy will make trump look like a teddy bear.
biden is actively trying to bring the country together. it's a monumental task after all the damage that trump did, and is possibly impossible to undo.
It wasn’t Trump that got us here, the damage was already done, Trump just let everyone see it for what it is.
he encouraged the scum to come out from under the rock. of course it always existed, but he unleashed it.
As far as I’m concerned he just made them louder. I don’t think there was any less of that before trump or that the feelings and beliefs weren’t just as strong. Sure he made them feel ok to be that way, but Trump wasn’t the cause of our problems anymore than Biden will be the solution. We have a national reckoning that really no one here wants to even start processing.
Please do not downplay the fact that Trump poured gasoline on this already existing fire instead of doing the opposite....
Please do not downplay how fucked up our country is by laying so much blame on trump. The guy did some real damage, but it was only a matter of time before someone like him took the national stage. We were ripe for it. And if we want to try to come together without any reconciliation we will be in for it all over again, and the next guy will make trump look like a teddy bear.
biden is actively trying to bring the country together. it's a monumental task after all the damage that trump did, and is possibly impossible to undo.
It wasn’t Trump that got us here, the damage was already done, Trump just let everyone see it for what it is.
he encouraged the scum to come out from under the rock. of course it always existed, but he unleashed it.
As far as I’m concerned he just made them louder. I don’t think there was any less of that before trump or that the feelings and beliefs weren’t just as strong. Sure he made them feel ok to be that way, but Trump wasn’t the cause of our problems anymore than Biden will be the solution. We have a national reckoning that really no one here wants to even start processing.
Please do not downplay the fact that Trump poured gasoline on this already existing fire instead of doing the opposite....
Please do not downplay how fucked up our country is by laying so much blame on trump. The guy did some real damage, but it was only a matter of time before someone like him took the national stage. We were ripe for it. And if we want to try to come together without any reconciliation we will be in for it all over again, and the next guy will make trump look like a teddy bear.
biden is actively trying to bring the country together. it's a monumental task after all the damage that trump did, and is possibly impossible to undo.
It wasn’t Trump that got us here, the damage was already done, Trump just let everyone see it for what it is.
he encouraged the scum to come out from under the rock. of course it always existed, but he unleashed it.
As far as I’m concerned he just made them louder. I don’t think there was any less of that before trump or that the feelings and beliefs weren’t just as strong. Sure he made them feel ok to be that way, but Trump wasn’t the cause of our problems anymore than Biden will be the solution. We have a national reckoning that really no one here wants to even start processing.
Please do not downplay the fact that Trump poured gasoline on this already existing fire instead of doing the opposite....
Please do not downplay how fucked up our country is by laying so much blame on trump. The guy did some real damage, but it was only a matter of time before someone like him took the national stage. We were ripe for it. And if we want to try to come together without any reconciliation we will be in for it all over again, and the next guy will make trump look like a teddy bear.
I agree. It's not like America was some harmonious utopia and then Trump can along and ruined it. Trump came along exactly because America isn't a harmonious utopia.
Not sure anybody could make him look like a teddy bear by comparison though.
biden is actively trying to bring the country together. it's a monumental task after all the damage that trump did, and is possibly impossible to undo.
It wasn’t Trump that got us here, the damage was already done, Trump just let everyone see it for what it is.
he encouraged the scum to come out from under the rock. of course it always existed, but he unleashed it.
As far as I’m concerned he just made them louder. I don’t think there was any less of that before trump or that the feelings and beliefs weren’t just as strong. Sure he made them feel ok to be that way, but Trump wasn’t the cause of our problems anymore than Biden will be the solution. We have a national reckoning that really no one here wants to even start processing.
Please do not downplay the fact that Trump poured gasoline on this already existing fire instead of doing the opposite....
Please do not downplay how fucked up our country is by laying so much blame on trump. The guy did some real damage, but it was only a matter of time before someone like him took the national stage. We were ripe for it. And if we want to try to come together without any reconciliation we will be in for it all over again, and the next guy will make trump look like a teddy bear.
I agree. It's not like America was some harmonious utopia and then Trump can along and ruined it. Trump came along exactly because America isn't a harmonious utopia.
Not sure anybody could make him look like a teddy bear by comparison though.
biden is actively trying to bring the country together. it's a monumental task after all the damage that trump did, and is possibly impossible to undo.
It wasn’t Trump that got us here, the damage was already done, Trump just let everyone see it for what it is.
he encouraged the scum to come out from under the rock. of course it always existed, but he unleashed it.
As far as I’m concerned he just made them louder. I don’t think there was any less of that before trump or that the feelings and beliefs weren’t just as strong. Sure he made them feel ok to be that way, but Trump wasn’t the cause of our problems anymore than Biden will be the solution. We have a national reckoning that really no one here wants to even start processing.
Please do not downplay the fact that Trump poured gasoline on this already existing fire instead of doing the opposite....
Please do not downplay how fucked up our country is by laying so much blame on trump. The guy did some real damage, but it was only a matter of time before someone like him took the national stage. We were ripe for it. And if we want to try to come together without any reconciliation we will be in for it all over again, and the next guy will make trump look like a teddy bear.
I agree. It's not like America was some harmonious utopia and then Trump can along and ruined it. Trump came along exactly because America isn't a harmonious utopia.
Not sure anybody could make him look like a teddy bear by comparison though.
it's a tad silly to say that because I hold trump responsible for the current state is equal to me saying that the US was a harmonious utopia. come on prior to his rise.
he DID fill a void of hate and division, I agree. but to downplay just how destructive his presidency was is to have blinders on.
biden is actively trying to bring the country together. it's a monumental task after all the damage that trump did, and is possibly impossible to undo.
It wasn’t Trump that got us here, the damage was already done, Trump just let everyone see it for what it is.
he encouraged the scum to come out from under the rock. of course it always existed, but he unleashed it.
As far as I’m concerned he just made them louder. I don’t think there was any less of that before trump or that the feelings and beliefs weren’t just as strong. Sure he made them feel ok to be that way, but Trump wasn’t the cause of our problems anymore than Biden will be the solution. We have a national reckoning that really no one here wants to even start processing.
Please do not downplay the fact that Trump poured gasoline on this already existing fire instead of doing the opposite....
Please do not downplay how fucked up our country is by laying so much blame on trump. The guy did some real damage, but it was only a matter of time before someone like him took the national stage. We were ripe for it. And if we want to try to come together without any reconciliation we will be in for it all over again, and the next guy will make trump look like a teddy bear.
Comments
none?
shit we are already winning, haha
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Lets move on to a topic not 3 weeks old now,
President Joe Biden drew a red line on his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan Wednesday, saying he is open to compromise on how to pay for the package but inaction is unacceptable.
The president turned fiery in an afternoon speech, saying that the United States is failing to build, invest and research for the future and adding that failure to do so amounts to giving up on “leading the world.”
“Compromise is inevitable,” Biden said. “We’ll be open to good ideas in good faith negotiations. But here’s what we won’t be open to: We will not be open to doing nothing. Inaction, simply, is not an option.”
Biden challenged the idea that low tax rates would do more for growth than investing in care workers, roads, bridges, clean water, broadband, school buildings, the power grid, electric vehicles and veterans hospitals.
The president has taken heat from Republican lawmakers and business groups for proposing that corporate tax increases should finance an infrastructure package that goes far beyond the traditional focus on roads and bridges.
“What the president proposed this week is not an infrastructure bill,” Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said on NBC's “Meet the Press,” one of many quotes that Republican congressional aides emailed to reporters before Biden's speech. “It’s a huge tax increase, for one thing. And it’s a tax increase on small businesses, on job creators in the United States of America."
Biden last week proposed funding his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan largely through an increase in the corporate tax rate to 28% and an expanded global minimum tax set at 21%. But he said Wednesday he was willing to accept a rate below 28% so long as the projects are financed and taxes are not increased on people making less than $400,000.
“I’m willing to listen to that," Biden said. "But we gotta pay for this. We gotta pay for this. There’s many other ways we can do it. But I am willing to negotiate. I’ve come forward with the best, most rational way, in my view the fairest way, to pay for it, but there are many other ways as well. And I’m open.”
He stressed that he had been open to compromise on his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan, but Republicans never budged beyond their $600 billion counteroffer.
“If they'd come forward with a plan that did the bulk of it and it was $1.3 billion or four ... that allowed me to have pieces of all that was in there, I would have been prepared to compromise,” Biden said. “But they didn’t. They didn’t move an inch. Not an inch.”
The president added that America's position in the world was incumbent on taking aggressive action on modern infrastructure that serves a computerized age. Otherwise, the county would lose out to China in what he believes is a fundamental test of democracy. Republican lawmakers counter that higher taxes would make the country less competitive globally.
“You think China is waiting around to invest in this digital infrastructure or on research and development? I promise you. They are not waiting. But they’re counting on American democracy, to be too slow, too limited and too divided to keep pace."
His administration on Wednesday was pressing the case for tax increases. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said it was “self-defeating” for then-President Donald Trump to assume that cutting the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35% in 2017 would make the economy more competitive and unleash growth. Yellen said that competing on tax rates came at the expense of investing in workers.
“Tax reform is not a zero-sum game,” she told reporters on a call. “Win-win is an overused phrase, but we have a win-win in front of us now.”
Yellen said the tax increases would produce roughly $2.5 trillion in revenues over 15 years, enough to cover the eight years' worth of infrastructure investments being proposed.
The roughly $200 billion gap between how much the taxes would raise and how much the administration wants to spend suggests there is space to address critics, such as West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a key Democratic vote, who would prefer a 25% rate.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said businesses and lawmakers should come to the bargaining table, noting that there could be room to negotiate on the rate and timeline.
“There is room for compromise,” Raimondo said at a White House briefing. “What we cannot do, and what I am imploring the business community not to do, is to say, ‘We don’t like 28. We're walking away. We're not discussing.'"
Key to the Biden administration's pitch is bringing corporate tax revenues closer to their historic levels, rather than raising them to new highs that could make U.S. businesses less competitive globally.
Trump's 2017 tax cuts halved corporate tax revenues to 1% of gross domestic product, which is a measure of the total income in the economy. Revenues had previously equaled 2% of GDP. That higher figure is still below the 3% average of peer nations in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Treasury Department said in its summary of the plan.
Still, some say the administration's claim is misleading.
“The administration should use statistics that directly measure the burden on the corporate sector,” said Kyle Pomerleau, a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “In fact, many measures of effective tax rates show that the U.S.’s burden is pretty close to middle of the road. Biden’s plan would certainly push up to the high end among our major trading partners.”
Business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable argue that higher taxes would hurt U.S. companies operating worldwide and the wider economy.
The Penn-Wharton Budget Model issued a report Wednesday saying the combined spending and taxes would cause government debt to rise by 2031 and then decrease by 2050. But following the plan, GDP would be lower by 0.8% in 2050.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden, in his first gun control measures since taking office, announced a half-dozen executive actions Thursday aimed at addressing a proliferation of gun violence across the nation that he called an “epidemic and an international embarrassment."
“It is actually a public health crisis,” Biden said during remarks at the White House.
Greeting the families of gun violence victims and activists, he assured them: “We’re absolutely determined to make change."
His Thursday announcement delivers on a pledge Biden made last month to take what he termed immediate “common-sense steps” to address gun violence, after a series of mass shootings drew renewed attention to the issue. His announcement came the same day as yet another shooting, this one in South Carolina, where five people were killed.
But Thursday's announcement underscores the limitations of Biden's executive power to act on guns. They include moves to tighten regulations on homemade guns and provide more resources for gun-violence prevention, but fall far short of the sweeping gun-control agenda Biden laid out on the campaign trail.
Indeed, the White House has repeatedly emphasized the need for legislative action to tackle the issue. But while the House passed a background-check bill last month, gun control measures face slim prospects in an evenly divided Senate, where Republicans remain near-unified against most proposals.
Biden is tightening regulations of buyers of “ghost guns” — homemade firearms that usually are assembled from parts and milled with a metal-cutting machine and often lack serial numbers used to trace them. It’s legal to build a gun in a home or a workshop and there is no federal requirement for a background check. The goal is to “help stop the proliferation of these firearms,” according to the White House.
The Justice Department will issue a proposed rule aimed at reining in ghost guns within 30 days, though details of the rule weren't immediately issued.
A second proposed rule, expected within 60 days, will tighten regulations on pistol-stabilizing braces, like the one used by the Boulder, Colorado, shooter in a rampage last month that left 10 dead. The rule will designate pistols used with stabilizing braces as short-barreled rifles, which require a federal license to own and are subject to a more thorough application process and a $200 tax.
The department also is publishing model legislation within 60 days that is intended to make it easier for states to adopt their own “red flag” laws. Such laws allow for individuals to petition a court to allow the police to confiscate weapons from a person deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.
The department also will begin to provide more data on firearms trafficking, starting with a new comprehensive report on the issue. The administration says that hasn’t been done in more than two decades.
Biden is also nominating David Chipman, a former federal agent and adviser at the gun control group Giffords, to be director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The Biden administration will also make investments in community violence intervention programs, which are aimed at reducing gun violence in urban communities, across five federal agencies.
Officials said the executive actions were “initial steps” completed during Garland’s first weeks on the job and more may be coming.
The ATF is currently run by an acting director, Regina Lombardo. Gun-control advocates have emphasized the significance of this position in enforcing gun laws, and Chipman is certain to win praise from this group. During his time as a senior policy adviser with Giffords, he spent considerable effort pushing for greater regulation and enforcement on ghost guns, changes to the background check system and measures to reduce the trafficking of illegal firearms.
Chipman spent 25 years as an agent at the ATF, where he worked on stopping a trafficking ring that sent illegal firearms from Virginia to New York, and served on the ATF’s SWAT team. Chipman is a gun owner.
He is an explosives expert and was among the team involved in investigating the Oklahoma City bombing and the first World Trade Center bombing. He also was involved in investigating a series of church bombings in Alabama in the 1990s. He retired from the ATF in 2012.
The White House fact sheet said Chipman has worked “to advance common-sense gun safety laws.”
During his campaign, Biden promised to prioritize new gun control measures as president, including enacting universal background check legislation, banning online sales of firearms and the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. But gun-control advocates have said that while they were heartened by signs from the White House that they took the issue seriously, they've been disappointed by the lack of early action.
With the announcement of the new measures, however, advocates lauded Biden's first moves to combat gun violence.
“Each of these executive actions will start to address the epidemic of gun violence that has raged throughout the pandemic, and begin to make good on President Biden’s promise to be the strongest gun safety president in history,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety.
Feinblatt in particular praised the move to regulate ghost guns, which he said “will undoubtedly save countless lives,” and lauded Chipman as an “invaluable point person” in the fight against illegal gun trafficking. He also said the group is looking forward to continuing to work with the Biden administration on further gun control measures, but it's unclear what next moves the White House, or lawmakers on Capitol Hill, will be able to take.
Biden himself expressed uncertainty late last month when asked if he had the political capital to pass new gun control proposals, telling reporters, “I haven’t done any counting yet."
For years, federal officials have been sounding the alarm about an increasing black market for homemade, military-style semi-automatic rifles and handguns. Ghost guns have increasingly turned up at crime scenes and in recent years have been turning up more and more when federal agents are purchasing guns in undercover operations from gang members and other criminals.
It is hard to say how many are circulating on the streets, in part because in many cases police departments don’t even contact the federal government about the guns because they can’t be traced.
Some states, like California, have enacted laws in recent years to require serial numbers be stamped on ghost guns.
The critical component in building an untraceable gun is what is known as the lower receiver, a part typically made of metal or polymer. An unfinished receiver — sometimes referred to as an “80-percent receiver” — can be legally bought online with no serial numbers or other markings on it, no license required.
A gunman who killed his wife and four others in Northern California in 2017 had been prohibited from owning firearms, but he built his own to skirt the court order before his rampage. And in 2019, a teenager used a homemade handgun to fatally shoot two classmates and wound three others at a school in suburban Los Angeles.
___
Associated Press writer Lisa Marie Pane in Boise, Idaho, contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Pearl Jam bootlegs:
http://wegotshit.blogspot.com
www.headstonesband.com
I'm still waiting on Mr. Rolesomemodels to explain not giving a shit what so ever about Trump's record setting, exploding, debt and then becoming a born again fiscal conservative on 1/20/21
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
www.headstonesband.com
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
Pearl Jam bootlegs:
http://wegotshit.blogspot.com
www.headstonesband.com
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
Not sure anybody could make him look like a teddy bear by comparison though.
Pearl Jam bootlegs:
http://wegotshit.blogspot.com
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
he DID fill a void of hate and division, I agree. but to downplay just how destructive his presidency was is to have blinders on.
www.headstonesband.com