Today In Biden Land

[Kirkland Laing]

House Passes Climate, Tax and Health Package https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/12/u...dU8dwJUQp-HvRA

Good work Americans.

Inflation also eased off a bit this month and the jobs report was a quite large gain,which might not be a good thing.

Maybe the worst of things is over for now... untill china invades Taiwan :S

The climate stuff is excellent. It'll give a huge return on investment, potentially trillions of dollars. And an all of the above policy on energy sources until they can transition to clean stuff. Perfect.

It'll take a few years before Medicare can really negotiate down drug prices but it's finally been done. The GOP blocked $35 a month insulin but Schumer might be able to bring it back as a standalone bill. All good healthcare bits and pieces in it though.

And the IRS get eight billion a year for the next ten years. They're losing 40 000 employees over the next couple of years. They'll be able to hire about 70 000 with the new money which gives them a net gain of thirty thousand which was where staffing levels were ten years ago before the GOP took an axe to the agency. Now they're going to focus on rich tax cheats who steal a trillion dollars a year from their fellow Americans instead of focusing on people fiddling a few EITC dollars like the GOP have had them doing. Problem is the GOP will just reverse all this the next time they can.


WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. government is losing some $1 trillion in unpaid taxes every year and needs more and consistent Internal Revenue Service funding to go after tax cheats, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said on Tuesday.


https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN2C0255



Current Revenue

The U.S. government's total revenue is estimated to be $3.863 trillion for FY 2021.

https://www.thebalance.com/current-u...evenue-3305762




About 0.3% of corporate tax returns filed in 2018 were audited, according to the IRS’s most recent annual data book. That’s compared with a 1.4% audit rate in 2010, according to IRS data.

IRS Is ‘Outgunned’ in Audits of Major Companies, Agency Chief Chuck Rettig Says - Bloomberg



Biden versus Trump:

https://twitter.com/JesseLee46/statu...60137944240129

Worth mentioning that none of the bills Biden has got through would have been possible without Trump telling Georgia voters to stay home because he was upset that Georgia GOP officials hadn't reversed the Georgia election result for him. Without those two Senate seats Biden would have done exactly nothing in office. Nice one Donald.

[NoSavingByTheBell]

[Kirkland Laing]

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/sta...06161981739011



https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/sta...22020982267907



https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/sta...22771930464256

[NoSavingByTheBell]

shameless

[NoSavingByTheBell]

Deep Blue Minnesota just crossed a line I never thought even NYC could cross:

[TIC]

sam harris is completely immoral

[NoSavingByTheBell]

[Spicoli]

Billions in relief debt for college loans. Yeh not keen on that and the way it's rolled out at all. In fairness I peaked at Community College and sure as shat paid more than I could afford. No loans no grants or tying myself to goliath loans I could not even comprehend. I get the intention but also think it's pure raw politics throwing a fraction of "relief" at standing debt for Graduates who earn under 125k ? and from what I've seen many say it's not enough, they want more of course. Here's an idea how about addressing cost in the first place, up front and the predatory loans. In general, it's a vicious racket stacking readily available 'credit' on kids fresh out of Highschool. Pro tip...learn a trade. Or two!

[NoSavingByTheBell]

[TitoFan]

Billions in relief debt for college loans. Yeh not keen on that and the way it's rolled out at all. In fairness I peaked at Community College and sure as shat paid more than I could afford. No loans no grants or tying myself to goliath loans I could not even comprehend. I get the intention but also think it's pure raw politics throwing a fraction of "relief" at standing debt for Graduates who earn under 125k ? and from what I've seen many say it's not enough, they want more of course. Here's an idea how about addressing cost in the first place, up front and the predatory loans. In general, it's a vicious racket stacking readily available 'credit' on kids fresh out of Highschool. Pro tip...learn a trade. Or two!

Excellent post! Must-read for both politicians and high school kids alike.

[Kirkland Laing]

Billions in relief debt for college loans. Yeh not keen on that and the way it's rolled out at all. In fairness I peaked at Community College and sure as shat paid more than I could afford. No loans no grants or tying myself to goliath loans I could not even comprehend. I get the intention but also think it's pure raw politics throwing a fraction of "relief" at standing debt for Graduates who earn under 125k ? and from what I've seen many say it's not enough, they want more of course. Here's an idea how about addressing cost in the first place, up front and the predatory loans. In general, it's a vicious racket stacking readily available 'credit' on kids fresh out of Highschool. Pro tip...learn a trade. Or two!

Not keen either. Ten thousand dollars of money to a bunch of people but then cut off this year so no new people get it. But the ones who do and are currently still in college will just see their tuition pushed up ten thousand or so dollars anyway. Why pick this kind of debt? Why not mortgage debt or credit card debt? Endless questions here. It does seem to be broadly popular though according to the polls.

The main problem is the system. Colleges like Harvard with endowment funds of tens of billions of dollars, bigger than most Wall Street fund managers look after have basically turned into investment funds whose main aim is to grow the fund. Half the world's wealthy want to study at an American university and because they all speak English it's easy for them to come and not say a top German or French institute because they'd have a language barrier. And because of zoning laws college towns can't expand accomodation so they're stuck with a fixed number of places which pushes the price up. And since Reagan aversion to higher education has led to its defunding while Clinton and Obama haven't had it as a priority to try and reverse when they were in office. Plus a million other things I could add.

This makes lots of good points. Scroll up and down. I think this is what I mean to post, twitter not working in Manhattan right now.

https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/sta...36250817572864


and

https://twitter.com/GOODProjectsDC/s...54431794282497


and definitely this

https://twitter.com/schwarz/status/1562521561118429187


And this is eye opening:


In the next few decades, she worked as a public-school teacher in Pittsburgh and Harlem, in addition to raising two children as a single mother. But she grew increasingly frustrated by the marks of educational inequity—moldy lunches, low-grade reading materials—that plagued her classrooms. “I thought the only way that I could change things was to have a higher degree,” she told me.
In 1983, at the age of fifty-two, Betty Ann enrolled in New York University’s law school. As a middle-aged Black woman, she wasn’t exactly the typical N.Y.U. law student. Her white male classmates would slyly elbow her books off the long library tables, and once, while standing at her locker, a classmate waved a ten-thousand-dollar tuition check, signed by his father, in her face. Betty Ann had borrowed twenty-nine thousand dollars in federal loans. Today, she owes $329,309.69 in student debt. She is ninety-one years old.
Americans aged sixty-two and older are the fastest-growing demographic of student borrowers. Of the forty-five million Americans who hold student debt, one in five are over fifty years old. Between 2004 and 2018, student-loan balances for borrowers over fifty increased by five hundred and twelve per cent. Perhaps because policymakers have considered student debt as the burden of upwardly mobile young people, inaction has seemed a reasonable response, as if time itself will solve the problem. But, in an era of declining wages and rising debt, Americans are not aging out of their student loans—they are aging into them.


https://www.newyorker.com/news/us-jo...&utm_brand=tny

[NoSavingByTheBell]

[Master]

Jennifer Lawrence has revealed that she always thought herself to be a Republican until an episode of 30 Rock she watched as a teenager changed her perception.

The Hunger Games actor revealed in 2020 that she voted for Republican candidate John McCain in the 2008 presidential election when he ran – and lost – against Democrat Barack Obama.

In Vogue’s October cover story, Lawrence recalled watching 30 Rock at home when she was 16, during which Liz Lemon (played by Tina Fey) uttered a line that struck a chord with her: “I’m not a crazy liberal. I just think people should drive hybrid cars.”

According to the article, travel opened Lawrence’s eyes to the concentration of wealth at the top of society around the world. For her, republicanism had meant: “Why should my taxes pay for your haughty lifestyle?”

Now, she sees that: “Nobody likes to see half their paycheck go away, but it made sense to me. Yeah, for the greater good, I guess it makes sense.”

Lawrence explained via Twitter in 2020: “I grew up in a Republican family and voted for John McCain in 2008, but through Obama’s presidency, and growing up to realise I was voting against my own rights, I am proud to say I am a Democrat.”

The actor was a vocal critic of former US president Donald Trump, recalling on a 2016 episode of The Graham Norton Show that she tried to track the politician down at a concert they were attending in order to yell “f*** you” at him.

Jennifer Lawrence has revealed that she always thought herself to be a Republican until an episode of 30 Rock she watched as a teenager changed her perception.

The Hunger Games actor revealed in 2020 that she voted for Republican candidate John McCain in the 2008 presidential election when he ran – and lost – against Democrat Barack Obama.

In Vogue’s October cover story, Lawrence recalled watching 30 Rock at home when she was 16, during which Liz Lemon (played by Tina Fey) uttered a line that struck a chord with her: “I’m not a crazy liberal. I just think people should drive hybrid cars.”

According to the article, travel opened Lawrence’s eyes to the concentration of wealth at the top of society around the world. For her, republicanism had meant: “Why should my taxes pay for your haughty lifestyle?”

Now, she sees that: “Nobody likes to see half their paycheck go away, but it made sense to me. Yeah, for the greater good, I guess it makes sense.”

Lawrence explained via Twitter in 2020: “I grew up in a Republican family and voted for John McCain in 2008, but through Obama’s presidency, and growing up to realise I was voting against my own rights, I am proud to say I am a Democrat.”

The actor was a vocal critic of former US president Donald Trump, recalling on a 2016 episode of The Graham Norton Show that she tried to track the politician down at a concert they were attending in order to yell “f*** you” at him.

Elsewhere in the Vogue interview, Lawrence expressed her frustration with the gender pay gap in Hollywood following reports that she earned $5m less than Leonardo DiCaprio for Don’t Look Up.

“It doesn’t matter how much I do. I’m still not going to get paid as much as that guy, because of my vagina?” she said of the common discrepancy.

Lawrence also revealed her infant son’s name for the first time and spoke about intending to get an abortion in her twenties before suffering a miscarriage.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainm...43fc0fc309d2bd

[NoSavingByTheBell]

Lil' Queenie Lizzy, inbred demon:

[NoSavingByTheBell]

Corn Pop shat his diaper and nothing changes, no questions allowed for grampa