Well, it's not accurate, even if you are not bright enough to realize that. When you cut taxes for everyone, the "wealthy" also get a tax cut, but that doesn't mean it was for them. I mean, it's damn near impossible to significantly cut taxes if you don't also cut taxes for the wealthy since they are the ones who pay damn near all of them. Hell the top 0.1% pay nearly 20% of all taxes while the bottom 50% pay 2.7%....and if you factor in how many people in the bottom 50% receive back far more taxes than they pay every year it would be fair to say that the bottom 50% have a negative tax burden. The top 1% pay more in taxes than the bottom 90% combined. So yeah, if you are going to cut taxes, it'll benefit those who pay more of them more than it benefits those who pay little to nothing, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't benefit everyone who actually pays. If you used to pay $100 in taxes, now you don't pay at all....that's a benefit. Is it as much as the guy who pays 50 million in taxes every year? No....but how could it be?
One of my biggest grievances about the Democratic Party was the turnaround in the 90s to compete with the GOP for the contributions from defense contractors, Wall Street, Big Pharma, and the medical industry. Sure, it helped them to win elections in the post-Reagan era but it made them much less accountable to voters than monied interests and much less of a counter to the GOP. If what Macolm X said in the sixties and Gore Vidal said in the 70s about both parties being a false dichotomy, it is even truer now. I will also concede that Cruz is one of the biggest benefactors of fat cat largesse, so much so that when Trump won both the GOP primary and the election, I saw the silver lining that at least it wasn't Ted Cruz. I realize that's a low bar, but he's just that odious to me. Long books could be written about the negative affect his angel contributor Sheldon Adelson did to undermine the free press and politics in Israel by buying up a bunch of left-leaning newspapers and creating a free one to replace them that is 100% pro-Netanyahu rag. With that said, Beto might be better than most legislators in DC, but he's not being completely honest: Link I think that lesser-evilism voting and you-are-wasting-your-vote arguments are part of the reason the US has become an oligarchy. There is no Green candidate on the ballot, but there are still choices that are preferable to not voting if someone doesn't truly like either candidate. There is a pro-choice, pro-2nd Amendment, pro-privacy, anti-interventionist Libertarian, Neil Dikeman, and there is the red blooded ex-oil and gas CPA, anti-UN, anti-abortion, Marine Corps veteran, paleo-conservative independant Bob Mcneil. In full disclosure I donated $30 to O'rourke when he first announced his candidacy, and there is much to like about his platform besides not-being-Ted-Cruz, but I was disappointed by the prominence and scope of his anti-2A position. I replied to a donor email that focused on his anti-gun initiatives writing that he stood to lose a voters that were otherwise ostensibly supporters. I made the case that while I respected that his opinion on the subject was a sincere one, prioritizing disarming the peasants in an age of unprecedented economic inequality and populist frustration was not a good look in a red state mid-term election. I added that I would be disappointed if gun ownership rights became what decided an election at the expense of more pressing issues of immediate concern and that I want to vote for a candidate that earns my vote, not against one I dislike. To his staff's credit, I got a reply saying they would pass it up the chain. I think any candidate who focuses on culture war issues like gun rights and reproductive rights is going to both attract and repel single-issue voters, but that in principle it's preferable to not advocate changing the status quo for what many regard as a protected right, whether one personally agrees with it or not. If I was elected to office, I would never feel comfortable taking anyone's rights away.
100% agree and I wrote a letter to Beto's campaign demanding he curtail the gun talk because it was a sure fire way to destroy everything for something that is actually insignificant. I pleaded with them to try to win instead of trying to be right. Win first, be right later, but the left has a major issue with that concept. I always remind by democrat friends to study the complex relationship of Thomas Jefferson (wrote all men are created equal) and slavery if they want more success in winning.
That's why accepting those debates was a mistake for him, he needs to keep his political views as secret as possible because Texans won't support him if they know what he stands for. His best bet was to remain silent on the issues and keep giving motivational speeches devoid of substance while leading with his nickname. If he fully spells out his leftist agenda, he's sunk. He needs to surprise people with it after he suckers them into voting for him.
i disagree. ted is unlikable and the debates can help push that narrative further. having said that, beto doesn't have to avoid his positions he just has to frame them in a winning perspective as opposed to a i'm right you're wrong perspective. he's done better recently with that. you won't care about his improvement because you're close minded and stubborn and are willing to toss out dozens of good ideas for one. folks with that disposition usually end up with none.
I agree that Ted is unlikable, but O'Rouke's policies are equally unlikable to Texans. When it comes down to it, people vote policy over likability and with the debates Ted Cruz is going to do his best to force O'Rourke into defending his stances and so he either outright lies about them which can cause great sound bytes, actually attempts to defend them which creates even better sound bytes, or renounces them which harms him with his base. If O'Rouke was running in a significantly more left leading state, he could be honest about his stances and it wouldn't be seen as a negative, but it will be in Texas.
And that's possible if Beto is judicious and tactical. Cruz is an elitist aristocrat if provoked, with his whiny voice and snarky, smug, face and facial expressions. He's so unlikable that if Beto can make it appear that Cruz is a bully (I would use the term bully tactics in debates personally, "true to form using bully tactics to win because for Cruz winning is more important than Texans") become a victim to a certain extent. Needs to use phrases like lying, spin, spinning, all the things that got Trump elected because folks more than anything were tired of politicians politicking. Cruz is a great politician (Beto should say that in the debate imo) and folks need to be reminded of that.
That's probably O'Rouke's best tactic because he simply can't win on anything substantive. If he makes it a popularity contest devoid of substance, he's got a chance.
As opposed to a contest of lies, bullshit, and spin? Interesting that you find the absence of crap less appealing than crap itself.
What you described was "bullshit and spin", and that's O'Rouke's only hope. If he simply spelled out what he stood for, he'd have no chance.
Nope. Bullshit and spin is pretending to stand for something when you only stand for nothing except yourself, i.e. Cuban Canadian Rafael Edward Cruz. I can respect someone for having substance even if we do not agree 100% because substance proves character which means a working relationship is possible. As opposed to a shapeless, empty, masturbator, who will work with no one but themselves. Also, I'm concerned about your aversion that fuels you to spend the time and effort to write O'Rouke instead of Beto in every single one of your posts. That kind of fuel for living is unhealthy friend. You're going out of your way to prove a point that no one cares about. There are important things but something like that isn't one of them imo.
Ted Cruz tweets out viral Beto O’Rourke video in a bizarre move https://www.vox.com/midterm-elections/2018/9/23/17893424/ted-cruz-beto-orourke-debate-botham-jean
Well [sigh] you are probably correct, but perhaps like Don Quixote I was trying to bring some sanity and reality to the oft-deluded denizens of this forum...…
Let's leave the wall out of this, since it doesn't seem to be happening. Now, who is fiscally responsible and who isn't? Is it: the politician that cuts taxes, knowing that it could make the deficit worse, but bringing relief to taxpayers (and oh by the way probably actually bringing in more tax revenue because the economy gets better under a tax cut) Or is it: The politician that raises taxes, to bring revenue closer to spending levels -- knowing that by doing so, he (or she) is screwing the taxpayer even more than they are already screwed; and knowing that federal spending is out of control? As I said elsewhere in this thread, the federal government is like a drunk sailor at a XXXXX house. They just can't control spending. Look at Social Security Title 4d. There's no reasonable argument for the federal government to be funding that. It's pandering, and leftism, pure and simple. So, if the politicians cannot stop the federal government from spending like a drunk sailor, it can be argued that the only way to curb federal spending is to "starve" the government. So, you cut taxes. Yes, the deficit may go up (but it may not), but at some point govt budgets and staffs will have to be squeezed and shrunk. So, who is really the fiscally (ir)responsible one? I'd rather keep my own money that I earn, thank you very much. The government will never rid itself of its spending addiction. Oh, and by the way, has anyone here actually tried to contact Social Security? I have (not for me). It's an exercise in frustration. And you think they'll be around to answer the phone when it's time for you (or me) to actually draw upon it?
A straw man argument. Of course he would not be a dictator, I never said he would be. What Cruz could do, possibly, is join with the Democrats on a bill that raises taxes, all for some hypothetical "greater good." But he would be less likely to do that. Beta would be very likely to do that. All part of the democratic process -- which has it downsides, it should be noted. There is something called "the tyranny of the majority." The Republic was designed to protect against that. But we have become less of Republic and more of a democracy, perhaps for better and worse.
Some people seem to want to be in love with their politicians. All I want them to do is leave me alone, financially and otherwise. What they do with their families is their business, not mine.
Leave you alone like drink and smoke whatever you want?! Then vote for Beto and vote out those fake do as I say not as I do Christians. Or you gonna let them tell you what you can and can't do with your own body?
I have not seen anything about subsidies to farmers, but we have been subsidizing them since the 1930s, so it isn't exactly new. You must have missed the part where the "wealthy" now get hammered on their deductions; ie, their deductions (which could be huge in the past) are now severely curtailed, both on the deduction for local property taxes and the home interest mortgage deduction. That means that the "wealthy" are now going to be paying a lot more in taxes, if they own property. Not sure I would be citing Newsweek for anything (if I wanted to be accurate), and the Brookings Institution has always been lefty.
I actually liked that aspect about Beto…..and then I read the rest of his agenda. Suffice it to say, financially and tax wise, Beta would not "leave us alone."
