Update: Senate shelves the BBB Act

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Quote

One idea that Sinema hasn’t ruled out is an annual tax on the unrealized gains of billionaires, also known as “mark to market.” This is an approach that has a powerful ally in Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, who was pushing it Thursday.

 

As much as I like that idea, it will get challenged in court in a nanosecond.  However, it can be argued that there's no substantive difference between that and the use of the "unrealized" fair market value of assets for the purpose of assessing estate taxes.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

1 minute ago, Jason said:

 

sarcasm how does it work

?

[Massdriver]

56 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

As much as I like that idea, it will get challenged in court in a nanosecond.  However, it can be argued that there's no substantive difference between that and the use of the "unrealized" fair market value of assets for the purpose of assessing estate taxes.

What's odd about it is that is far more radical than raising the corporate tax to 25%. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

3 minutes ago, Massdriver said:

What's odd about it is that is far more radical than raising the corporate tax to 25%. 

 

Without a doubt, it's an absolutely fundamental re-imagining of the concept of income derived from capital gains.  

 

Now the question becomes does this also similarly apply to the recognition of unrealized capital losses?

[Jwheel86]

Can we just not pay for the bill?

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

1 hour ago, Massdriver said:

What's odd about it is that is far more radical than raising the corporate tax to 25%. 

Given the makeup of the courts it's probably why corporate backers of manchinema are ok with putting it in the bill betting that they ultimately won't have to pay the tax

[SaysWho?]

14 hours ago, Jason said:

 

 

This is part of why this thread is so frustrating.

 

Here's why, despite being left-wing, I hate left-wing twitter (and right-wing Twitter sucks waaaayyyyy more considering their anti-democratic bent but some of the reasons they suck are startlingly similar): it's reactionary toward a type of media they don't even watch. This post was literally followed by a NYT article detailing her staff leaving because she cares more about big donors than her own constituents and the people who voted for her. 

 

They'll post something about how the media is helping conservatives by doing X and not doing Y... even is Y is done frequently. While I do read jacobin from time to time, they had an article in which they mention how a 6-minute segment on CNN didn't talk about what's in the bill. Far be it from me to not complain when political journalists talk about drama too much, but CNN frequently talks about the contents of the bill. They still post graphics that show a program in the bill (paid leave, child care) or infratructure (airports, highways, lead pipes) that is easily one of the more tangible and easy-to-understand ways to break down a comprehensive bill. But if you're not watching, you just take jacobin's word for it: I guess they never talk about it now I'm  at media!

 

How can they post reactions to the media when they don't watch something enough to react?

 

Journalists have been digging into Manchin and Sinema and the reason we know that Sinema goes to a trip to Europe and spoke to big-money donors or whatever else she does is because reporters catch it and report it. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Never read Jacobin trust me it's for your own mental health

[SaysWho?]

7 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Never read Jacobin trust me it's for your own mental health

 

That's the most recent example, but the issue with them isn't exclusive to them.

[SaysWho?]

Positive developments, even if it further shows how little sense Sinema makes.

 

 

Democrats move to finalize new ‘billionaire’ tax proposal, targeting 700 wealthiest Americans as key source of revenue for spending plan - The Washington Post

T.CO

---

Senior Biden officials and other senior Democrats are cautiously optimistic that centrist lawmakers will support the idea.

 

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

all this and a tax on billionaires is a W. It's not enough but it's a dub

[Jwheel86]

12 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

all this and a tax on billionaires is a W. It's not enough but it's a dub

 

$150b for eldercare is effectively $0 since there is a real risk the States won't take the money if it is less than $250b. You can't clear the 800k-1.2m people waiting lists with $150b.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

9 minutes ago, Jwheel86 said:

 

$150b for eldercare is effectively $0 since there is a real risk the States won't take the money if it is less than $250b. You can't clear the 800k-1.2m people waiting lists with $150b.

How is the money doled out? Would this just reduce waiting lists or really not do anything?

[PaladinSolo]

Only cares about the top line number and nothing else.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

That man is so very exhausting.

[CitizenVectron]

It could be $1.5 trillion for a 3km tall chocolate easter bunny and he'd be okay with it. "Everyone loves chocolate, and we're not putting our grandchildren into bigger debt." And then Sinema would vote against it because it's not white chocolate.

[Jwheel86]

The original number was $400b which equaled out to a 10% increase in Federal Matching Funds. Whatever the % ends up being, each State will get a grant to detail out how they'd spend the increase in funds. In order to get the increase, the State's proposal has demonstrate how the money would 1. clear the waiting lists and 2. raise home care worker (which is a major crisis, none of my disabled friends can find PCAs right now). The groups pushing the bill are a coalition of disability advocacy group (such as ADAPT which did those massive protests in the Capitol during the ACA repeal fight) and domestic worker unions. Trying to achieve both objectives with only $150b is impossible and the States, when it comes to HCBS, have really bad habit of declining federal money unless they are absolutely sure it isn't too difficult (hence the grant to come up with the plan) and they won't get fucked, because the nightmare is having to later delete slots that have been assigned. That's why none of the HCBS COVID money went to the waiting lists, since it was all temporary money. 

 

$150b would help but some of these waiting lists are 15 years long. In my State the Developmental Disability waiver has 13,000 slots and 15,000 on the waiting list. Each slot costs $135k a year. That's $2b/yr just to clear that one waiver's waiting list (there are 2 others as well). 

[Jason]

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

 

Tester wouldn't sign on to this either I'm sure

[Anathema-]

Can we also just take a step back and think about this time last year, what the odds would have been of getting 1) a trillion dollar covid package,  2) a trillion dollar infrastructure package,  OR 3) a 1.5T dollar democratic priorities package much less all three? At some point it feels like we're paulie walnuts screaming about leaving 38 grand "on the table."

[Jwheel86]

20 minutes ago, Anathema- said:

At some point it feels like we're paulie walnuts screaming about leaving 38 grand "on the table."

 

We're more Tony upset about what Ralphie did to the horse at this point. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

1 hour ago, Anathema- said:

Can we also just take a step back and think about this time last year, what the odds would have been of getting 1) a trillion dollar covid package,  2) a trillion dollar infrastructure package,  OR 3) a 1.5T dollar democratic priorities package much less all three? At some point it feels like we're paulie walnuts screaming about leaving 38 grand "on the table."

It's house money for sure. GA runoffs set expectations higher than they probably should have been

[SaysWho?]

I don't like Manchin's changes or Manchin himself.

 

But I will say, the fact that we have a Senate partly due to him running for re-election and his signing off to trillions in bills that overhaul infrastructure, lift millions of kids out of poverty, and finally get the US into child care and paid leave is a big fucking deal, as Biden would say. We couldn't get any "centrist" to go over a trillion for the 2009 stimulus, of all things, so the fact that Biden is at the forefront of all of this means progressives are pushing this party left successfully despite what reactionary Twitter believes.

 

So fuck Manchin, but still glad there's a 50th Democratic Senator (which, honestly, credit goes even more to Warnock and Ossoff).

[Jason]

 

[Remarkableriots]

 

[unogueen]

How does anyone tolerate this? It's theater for theater's sake. I cannot come to inform myself that somehow in the larger quantity of human history civics is just this incompetent.

[CitizenVectron]

16 minutes ago, unogueen said:

How does anyone tolerate this? It's theater for theater's sake. I cannot come to inform myself that somehow in the larger quantity of human history civics is just this incompetent.

 

The US is set up in such a way that the government can't really govern. In almost all other developed nations, the winner of the general election controls both the executive and the legislature, and effectively can do what they want (in other words, what they ran on) for 4-5 years. Then, they get judged on that (as well as future promises) in the next election. In the US, because the opposition has sooooo much power to stop anything from happening (by design), politics is about raising money, not doing things.

[unogueen]

I get the gist and recognize the failure of the system. But this is a machine that eats it's people, along with others. There's a psychotic dissonance when fictional media colours a people this much.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

 

 

[Kal-El814]

Tax the shit out of billionaires you fucking cowards. 

[Jason]

21 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

Tax the shit out of billionaires you fucking cowards. 

 

[Jason]

13 hours ago, Jason said:

 

No touching actually occurs:

 

 

 

[Jason]

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

The "patriotic tax" proposal stands a greater chance of surviving a court challenge than the "unrealized capital gains tax" proposal.

 

I'm telling you guys now that the unrealized capital gains tax proposal is completely DOA constitutionally.

[Jason]