Is the GOP Tax Bill a Smuggler's Charter?

[Stavros]

See that's funny. Again with that attempt to condescend. I am as well. So either you're full of shit which is certainly possible, or my mind is legitimately boggled at how someone could be so clouded by a desire to throw this entire nation and what is currently for better or worse a positively booming economy into the lurch because they can't handle the results of a freely held election, and wait unforced error after unforced error out for four years.

But the question is simple -does the USA have a 'positively booming economy' and if so, what does it look like?

In a country so large and diverse, the headline figures for growth nationwide mask deep disparities in its regions. The stock market may be registering record transactions but some analysts think the Bull market will either slow down in 2018 or register shock falls, maybe not as bad as 2008 or just as bad, or worse- as no two economists can ever agree on anything.

There is in fact a long-term sickness in the US economy, one that emerges when you look at states where mostly Republican administrations have followed a broadly 'Reaganomic' policy that has failed to tackle low-wages and poverty, and where the outstanding features are tax-cuts for businesses intended to create jobs, and the corresponding reduction of taxes on citizens that has reduced the ability of the State to perform its functions and led to increases in debt.

Thus, in Kansas, tax cuts mean that the state can barely maintain 200 out of 1,000 miles of road; that it is struggling to maintain its prisons and because of staff shortages is hiring high school graduates with no work experience. The state is heavily in debt, but cannot plan for a future of growth because there is no significant long term investment in the state.

Similarly, in Alabama, the Republican administration has also given businesses sweetheart deals on taxes, but the assumption this would lead to industrial re-generation following the decline of its textile industry in the 20th century has been a disappointment, as Valerie Gray of the Chambers Country Development Authority has conceded:

Since 1994, Chambers County’s textile mills have lost 20,000 jobs, Ms Gray says. But the county found ways to attract other industries, including abatements on non-education taxes, aid for infrastructure, a lack of unions and an interstate highway providing easy access to Atlanta 90 miles away. If a company would hire at least 100 people, Ms Gray says, the county would kick in $1,500 in incentives per job.
The policies helped Chambers County steer clear of the abyss. But Ms Gray acknowledges that the area remains a work in progress. She said county authorities were surprised that roughly a fifth of the new manufacturing jobs were temporary and have adjusted incentives to encourage full-time hiring. “We had been so accustomed to the textile industry of all full-time employees . . . so that was an eye-opening experience,” she says, adding: “I would not say anything we have done is a mistake. But I would say that it is a valuable learning experience.”

But here is the key point, because it feeds directly into the Tax Bill passed in the Senate: tax cuts not only do not produce the jobs that provide the foundation for a family to live and plan long term, it also eats into the services the State is responsible for, such as education:

Wayne Flynt, an Alabama historian, says the state has failed to absorb the lessons of the past. Since the 19th century, he says, Alabama has been caught in a vicious circle. It has sought to attract industry with low taxes, government assistance and cheap non-unionised labour. As a result, it never collects enough revenue to fund the kind of education system it needs to move up in the world. “The only thing we have to sell is the labour of our people,” Mr Flynt says. “We don’t have the minds to sell.”
https://www.ft.com/content/54d05c3e-...c-082c54a7f539

It may argued that it is time for the State to stop raising taxes to provide services that should be provided by the private sector, but what is so striking about this entire argument is that there is no sustained evidence that tax cuts at either the Federal or the State level lead directly to local investment increasing across the economy be it investment in manufacturing, social services, the physical infrastructure, health and education etc. A rich state like Connecticut may be able to fund local schools from taxation, but where states have in effect impoverished themselves through tax cuts, education suffers, even though it is the key investment in the future.

It remains to be seen if this new Tax Bill will encourage economic growth across all sectors of the economy, or merely transfer vast sums of money from the poorest and average income family who do not own an LLC, to the richest, thereby widening an already frightening division in America between the haves and the have-nots. One wonders what the US economy would look like if all those billions invested in property were invested in jobs instead.

[broncofan]

The idea that the President of the United States doesn't have prosecutorial discretion to direct the end of an investigation is completely ridiculous. There's constitutional authority and precedent. But I mean it's only Dershowitz and I on this point right? It's not Jonathan Turley (a real friend to conservatives as he's repeatedly called for W to be jailed for war crimes...fuck W, but I digress), or Elizabeth Foley, or Andrew McCarthy, etc. etc. The amazing thing is, we both just admitted what a shitheap Fox is, but you're on the side of Andrew Napolitano on this one. Not I.

Now that I’m looking at this with a fresh head I think you conflated analytically distinct concepts. I can think of at least three questions that are relevant and should be looked at distinctly.

First, can a sitting President be criminally convicted? Most scholars believe the answer is no and while this is noteworthy it’s really only tangentially relevant here.

Second, is it possible for a President to violate statutory law if he is acting within the scope of his Article II authority? The answer to this according to most scholars appears to be yes. I’ve described my views at length here. Even Jonathan Turley, who you cited as agreeing with both you and Dershowitz believes the answer to this question is yes.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opini...umn/103006254/

Third, if a President is capable of violating a statute while acting within his Article II authority, did Trump in fact do that? Turley believes the answer is no, but people tend to have mixed responses to this. You will notice that this last question should be distinguished from the first two since it is not a pure legal question but more a highly fact specific analysis.

But then, you should not be merely arguing that the facts don’t add up to obstruction since you’ve already claimed that all of this is manufactured. If the issue is whose story is most believable, and what precisely happened, then we’re discussing something real and consequential. That is never resolved without an investigation.

And I suppose I skimmed the parts of your post that went outside the lines of what we discussed or I’d have noticed you claimed the estate tax is levied twice. As Filghy posted it’s not. It’s a one-time tax on the transmission of wealth levied on the estate. The unified credit that I talked about in my first post also applies to gift taxes and I believe the generation skipping transfer tax. So that should really give you a clue as to the purpose of the levy; wealth transmission.

[buttslinger]

Supposedly Cain turned to God after he caught some flak for that Abel killing and argued "Am I my brother's keeper?" He never got an answer.
It really isn't up to Congress to butt into the lives of US Citizens, they're supposed to be impartial civil servants, but I think it's safe to say those days are over. I'm not sure of the facts but supposedly they jammed an 84 billion dollar gift for Real Estate Tycoons in at the very end behind closed doors, while cutting some preschool program for kids, or something, that would have cost only 14 billion,,,cough cough......Can you look up the details on that, McGee?
Republicans have only just begun to fight, however, their New Year's wish is to up the costs of Military Hardware, and NOT slash entitlements, they're just going to make sure they don't rise with the cost of living.
Any time you dip into the budget to live beyond your means, your COST OF LIVING goes up. This is where I get in way over my head, like I told the teller at my bank as he was rapidly counting out a pile of Christmas twenty dollar bills "you know, if you took a couple magician lessons you could deal me just about anything and I'd never be the wiser" (Luckily, he smiled) I'm pretty sure the government can give a poor person an extra 10 bucks a week, and raise his cost of food 12 bucks a week and still say you gave him 10 bucks a week. There is a reason no two economists agree and there is a reason all the smartest people do so well on Wall St. THEY CHEAT. Trump can read a prepared speech that says everything Obama would say, then turn around and do the exact opposite of what he just said he was going to do. You can live in the richest country in the world and not be able to afford rent. The real crime here is that Republicans ignore their own constituents and pay off the "LOANS" they got from their Donors. I missed that part of the Constitution, but if you squint you can see it.
2018 wish for Republicans: Raise Military Spending and cut cut cut entitlements!!!
2020 wish for Republicans: Let the next Democratic government save the starving fools who don't vote while they cruise over to Europe and spend the money they stole this week.