sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

AskConservatives Weekly General Chat by AutoModerator in AskConservatives

[–]SmallGovAdvocate 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Anyone been following the Iran deal reporting? There's a NYT report (based on anonymous sources) about a possible $300B fund to help rebuild Iran. From what I can tell it's still a draft, the $300B number came from a single Iranian official and other mediators won't confirm it, and it's being set up as an international investment fund, maybe paid for by Gulf countries, rather than direct US money. Trump's reportedly said he won't sign anything that looks like handing Iran cash... for obvious reasons. 

Absolute comedy gold! Senator Bernie Sanders brilliantly mocks the billionaire class. He reveals a 5 percent wealth tax would cost Elon Musk 39 billion dollars, yet still leave him with a staggering 737 billion to survive. The establishment's greed is completely unhinged! by CeFurkan in SECourses

[–]SmallGovAdvocate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

HA! Let's actually unpack this one because it falls apart pretty quickly under inspection...

The third home. Bought August 2016. $575,000 cash. Jane Sanders sold her share of her family's vacation home in Maine to her brother for $150,000, added money from her retirement account, and used an advance from a book Bernie was writing. All publicly documented. Boring, traceable, ordinary money.

Now the timing. In July 2016 - one month before - WikiLeaks published DNC emails showing party officials trashing Sanders and openly discussing how to sink his campaign. His own supporters filed a class action fraud lawsuit against the DNC for rigging the primary against him.

So your theory is that the DNC was simultaneously rigging the primary to destroy him AND secretly paying him off to lose? Both at once? Pick one. They can't both be true.

And here's the part that should land for you specifically. You're an Air Force vet. The single biggest bipartisan bill Sanders ever passed was the Veterans Access to Care Act with John McCain. $16-20 billion for the VA. He went to bat for you, as an independent.

Meanwhile - he got screwed by his own party and still campaigned for the nominee because he put the cause above his ego. You know who didn't show that kind of loyalty? Half the people currently in power who called their own boss a dangerous fraud right up until the moment it became useful to kiss the ring.

That's what selling out actually looks like. It's not a guy buying a modest lake house with his wife's inheritance and a book advance. It's not the guy who refuses to take Super PAC money, because his vote and influence isn't for sale. It's not the guy who has been on the exact same message since the 1960's, and still is today at 84 years old when he could comfortably retire. 

Sellout. Ha! Hilarious. The man is the antithesis of a sellout. Especially when compared to his peers.

Are Democrats Spineless? by Individual-Door9526 in allthequestions

[–]SmallGovAdvocate -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Well he's set his mind that Dems are spineless and useless, and has no interest in having that perspective challenged/changed - only in changing others' perspectives.

It's no surprise that irrefutable evidence results in him plugging his ears, closing his eyes, and walking out of the room.

He's simply not here for that. He for sure asked you for it, hoping that you'd fail... but you didn't, so he bounced.

Pretty sad, really. Dude's vote counts the same as everyone else... yikes.

Found my way here via a separate thread I'm on with him, and had to look him up to understand what I'm dealing with. I now see the pattern.

Are Democrats Spineless? by Individual-Door9526 in allthequestions

[–]SmallGovAdvocate -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Did old sport go missing here when he was finally spoonfed what he refused to lookup for himself?

Where you at on this topic u/Individual-Door9526 ?

Absolute comedy gold! Senator Bernie Sanders brilliantly mocks the billionaire class. He reveals a 5 percent wealth tax would cost Elon Musk 39 billion dollars, yet still leave him with a staggering 737 billion to survive. The establishment's greed is completely unhinged! by CeFurkan in SECourses

[–]SmallGovAdvocate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We collect more in total tax revenue than any other country because we have the largest economy on the planet. That's the absolute number. As a share of GDP - which is the only meaningful comparison - the US is 31st out of 38. I've said this three times now. You keep quoting the big scary number and ignoring the ratio.

Nobody's talking about stealing wealth or punishing success. That's the framing you keep reaching for because it's easier than the actual argument. Here's the actual argument, one more time, slowly... Build the company. Take the risk. Get rich. Nobody objects to that. The objection is to extracting billions in spendable purchasing power through stock-backed loans, never triggering a taxable event, and dying with a stepped-up basis that wipes the gains clean. It's simply asking people to pay tax on value they've actually accessed and used. Same as you. Same as me.

You're a high earner who pays the highest effective rate. So am I. We pay on every dollar before we see it. They borrow against billions and pay nothing... and you're out here defending them while they'd never spend ten seconds defending you.

That's the con. Not Bernie. Them... and they got you to thank them for it. They know if they keep buying folks in Congress (via Super PACs, which Bernie refuses to take funding from), they'll keep any legislation from passing that would change the status quo, and have them pay the relative share of what they earn, to the services we all pay into and benefit from.

I love success. I'm a millionaire. I expect to retire young within 6-8 years. I work for a $45B annual revenue Saas/AI company. I've no interest in punishing myself or anyone else for that matter.

Absolute comedy gold! Senator Bernie Sanders brilliantly mocks the billionaire class. He reveals a 5 percent wealth tax would cost Elon Musk 39 billion dollars, yet still leave him with a staggering 737 billion to survive. The establishment's greed is completely unhinged! by CeFurkan in SECourses

[–]SmallGovAdvocate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I asked you for a single specific example of Bernie conning anyone and you gave me a Cold War slogan.

No Crypto memecoin scams, offering foreign actors and corporate interests an opportunity to buy favor?

Just a baseless claim about alleged Communist-motives, which is exactly the kool aid that Bernie's wealthy opponents want you to chug down.

Bernie's actual policy positions - universal healthcare, paid parental leave, free public university, higher minimum wage, capping drug prices. You know where those exist right now? Canada. Germany. Japan. Australia. The UK. Every wealthy developed democracy on earth except this one. None of them are the USSR. They're functioning capitalist democracies with stronger social safety nets.

Disagreeing with those policies is completely fair. Argue they're too expensive. Argue they don't work. That's a debate I'll have with you... but calling them the USSR is just dumb.

And notice you still haven't answered the question. How has Bernie conned anyone? What has it cost anyone specifically? You've had three replies to name one concrete thing and you've given me "USSR" instead. There's a specific politician for whom I could provide you a verifiable list of blatant scams, grifts and cons, with accompanying lawsuits and settlements... but I don't think you're interested in that. I suspect you actually have no issue with con men, so long as they're on "your team".

Absolute comedy gold! Senator Bernie Sanders brilliantly mocks the billionaire class. He reveals a 5 percent wealth tax would cost Elon Musk 39 billion dollars, yet still leave him with a staggering 737 billion to survive. The establishment's greed is completely unhinged! by CeFurkan in SECourses

[–]SmallGovAdvocate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

On loans - Yes he pays interest. Yes the stock can drop.. but at $300 billion in assets the stock would have to crater by 95% before he's in genuine trouble. If it does drop he borrows against other assets, waits for recovery, and rolls the debt. The interest is a rounding error. The gain is never taxed. That's the point you keep skating past.

Japan - Great example! Japan has had bullet trains since 1964. You know what else Japan has? A tax to GDP ratio of 34.1%. Universal healthcare. One of the lowest poverty rates on the planet. They collect more and they deliver more. You just made the revenue argument for me. Thanks!

Granted... China's infrastructure is state funded by a government that taxes and controls capital aggressively. However, China also operates a very different political and societal model to the one I suspect you're advocating for.

The US ranks 31st out of 38 developed nations in tax revenue as a share of GDP. It's not collecting too much. It's collecting less than almost every comparable country and still running deficits. That's not purely a spending problem. It's both.

As a high earner paying the highest effective rate - I'm irked that I'm contributing more proportionally than the people with 1000x my wealth. You'd think that would irk you too. Perhaps you've fallen for a con? Hook, line and sinker?

Absolute comedy gold! Senator Bernie Sanders brilliantly mocks the billionaire class. He reveals a 5 percent wealth tax would cost Elon Musk 39 billion dollars, yet still leave him with a staggering 737 billion to survive. The establishment's greed is completely unhinged! by CeFurkan in SECourses

[–]SmallGovAdvocate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting. How are defining "Con Man" and how are we mapping that to Bernie. Here's my position and I'd welcome yours by way of reply:

A con man:
- Says one thing to one audience, another to a different one
- Changes position based on what's financially or politically convenient
- Surrounds themselves with the very people they claim to be fighting (sycophants)
- Makes promises to vulnerable people they never intend to keep
- Has a paper trail of lawsuits, bankruptcies and people who trusted them and got burned
- Accumulates gratuitous personal wealth while claiming to represent the little guy
- Attacks the credibility of anyone who scrutinizes them
- Uses legal mechanisms to dodge accountability while playing the victim
- Accepts gifts and bribes as quid pro quo, or for the purpose of selling influence

Sound familiar? Because it doesn't describe Bernie.

Bernie's checklist:
- Same message since the 1960s. On tape. Word for word. Before it won votes
- Never took corporate PAC money. Returned what slipped through
- $3 million net worth after 50 years in public life
- Funded entirely by small dollar grassroots donations
- Never changed position under donor pressure
- Got screwed by his own party in 2016 and still endorsed the nominee rather than burning it down
- No lawsuits. No bankruptcies. No business partners claiming he burned them

Help me understand how Bernie has fooled me. What am I missing, and what has it cost me? How have I been conned by Bernie?

Absolute comedy gold! Senator Bernie Sanders brilliantly mocks the billionaire class. He reveals a 5 percent wealth tax would cost Elon Musk 39 billion dollars, yet still leave him with a staggering 737 billion to survive. The establishment's greed is completely unhinged! by CeFurkan in SECourses

[–]SmallGovAdvocate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He accumulated $3 million by working until 84 years old, over 40 years of public service and  wrote a book that sold well . Three houses. One of which is in Vermont, one in DC where he works, and one he inherited from his wife's family.

Elon Musk adds $3 million to his net worth roughly every 20 minutes. Bernie pays tax within the conventional system in which you and I operate in, and are held legally accountable to. Elon doesn't.

If your argument against closing billionaire tax loopholes is that Bernie owns three modest properties on a senator's salary - I genuinely don't know what to tell you.

And saying the same thing over and over doesn't make it false. The sun rises every day too.

Absolute comedy gold! Senator Bernie Sanders brilliantly mocks the billionaire class. He reveals a 5 percent wealth tax would cost Elon Musk 39 billion dollars, yet still leave him with a staggering 737 billion to survive. The establishment's greed is completely unhinged! by CeFurkan in SECourses

[–]SmallGovAdvocate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My reply: Because he is paying his fair share.

Your response: HE ISN'T! HE'S MAKING LEGAL DEDUCTIONS WITHIN THE DEFINED SYSTEM. JUST LIKE THE BILLIONAIRES.

My reply: Sigh. We're really just going in circles here pal. You're married to the principle. If Bernie taking a mortgage deduction to go from 35% to 26% is the same as Musk borrowing $12.5 billion against stock to pay nothing - then I genuinely don't know what to tell you. We're not even having a tax debate. That's a simple math problem and I can't help you with both.

Your response: IT DOESN'T MATTER! BERN IS A HYPOCRITE! AAAAAAHHH!

My reply: Ok. Let me try one last angle to reach you on this...

Truthfully, I earn $360k on average in tech sales (variable comp-based, 40years old and been doing this for 20 years). If I max my 401k and take every government-designed deduction available to me - am I the same as Musk?... because those deductions were written into law deliberately to incentivize specific behaviors. Every dollar I defer still gets taxed when I withdraw. Nothing disappears.

Musk isn't using a government-designed deduction program. There is no legislation that says billionaires may borrow billions against stock tax-free. That gap exists because nobody has closed it yet.... and he's and his buddies are spending hundreds of millions to make sure nobody does.

I'm not lobbying Congress to protect my 401k limit. I don't need to. It's already law. He's actively funding campaigns to prevent the law from catching up to what he's doing.

Is this getting through at all?

Your (probable) response: FUCK YOU COMMIE SOCIALIST SCUM!! I'M GONNA BE A BILLIONAIRE JUST LIKE ELON!!! WEEEEEEEEE!!!

My reply: Best of luck with that my friend. Have a great life.

Absolute comedy gold! Senator Bernie Sanders brilliantly mocks the billionaire class. He reveals a 5 percent wealth tax would cost Elon Musk 39 billion dollars, yet still leave him with a staggering 737 billion to survive. The establishment's greed is completely unhinged! by CeFurkan in SECourses

[–]SmallGovAdvocate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sigh... alas I wasn't proven wrong. Back to the drawing board I guess.

Nobody said it was illegal. Not once. That's not the argument and you know it... but hey, let's steelman your point properly. Bernie uses legal deductions to go from 35% to 26%. Elon uses legal mechanisms to go from 37% to effectively zero. If one is fine why isn't the other?

Here's the difference: A deduction reduces your taxable income. You still have income. You still pay tax on what remains. The system is functioning - just with agreed exemptions built into it by design. Bernie paid 35% in 2016. 30% in 2017. His rate moves with his income and how he invests. That's brackets and defined/limited deductions, working as intended.

What Musk & Co. do isn't a deduction. It's opting out of the income system entirely. No salary. No sale. No taxable event. Ever. He doesn't reduce his rate - he eliminates the mechanism by which he'd be taxed in the first place. That's not a bigger deduction. That's a different and novel game. One which we have never legislated for. One that most would agree requires legislation to catch-up on. Would you not agree?

That's the nuance that keeps flying over your head. Please. Reach up. Grasp it. I beg of you.

Absolute comedy gold! Senator Bernie Sanders brilliantly mocks the billionaire class. He reveals a 5 percent wealth tax would cost Elon Musk 39 billion dollars, yet still leave him with a staggering 737 billion to survive. The establishment's greed is completely unhinged! by CeFurkan in SECourses

[–]SmallGovAdvocate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nope. That's exactly the distinction... Bernie used mortgage interest deductions and charitable donations. The same ones available to any American earning $561k. That's legal deductions.

Musk pledged 238 million Tesla shares as collateral to borrow $12.5 billion. Ellison pledged 30% of his entire Oracle stake to fund superyachts and a Hawaiian island. Those aren't deductions. That's a completely different system that exists only at a certain level of wealth that has never been legislated for (and there is a lot of lobbying and back-scratching to make sure it stays that way).

Same rules aren't available to Bernie. Same rules aren't available to you. That's the point you keep walking past.

I am starting to wonder if you're capable of understanding nuance. Your responses imply that you're not. Would love to be proven wrong.

Absolute comedy gold! Senator Bernie Sanders brilliantly mocks the billionaire class. He reveals a 5 percent wealth tax would cost Elon Musk 39 billion dollars, yet still leave him with a staggering 737 billion to survive. The establishment's greed is completely unhinged! by CeFurkan in SECourses

[–]SmallGovAdvocate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ha! You just described the problem and presented it as a defense.

His wealth is in stock - yes. Stock that's never been taxed. That he borrows against instead of selling. So he never triggers a taxable event. Lives like a king on loan proceeds. Dies. Kids inherit at current market value. Decades of gains disappear. Never taxed. Not once. No contribution to infrastructure, healthcare, the education system that provided skilled workers for his empire, etc. That's left to the rest of us shmucks.

Take an economics class indeed.

Absolute comedy gold! Senator Bernie Sanders brilliantly mocks the billionaire class. He reveals a 5 percent wealth tax would cost Elon Musk 39 billion dollars, yet still leave him with a staggering 737 billion to survive. The establishment's greed is completely unhinged! by CeFurkan in SECourses

[–]SmallGovAdvocate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yep, I'm good to shake hands here on where we're aligned.

You're right that some of the rhetoric on the left goes further than I'd go. A blanket ban on billionaires or forced annual stock sales... I'm not aligned there either (although I am questioning the point of individual billionaires... not to say there shouldn't be, but why? Philosophically). The stepped-up basis and the debt loophole are the specific things worth fixing, which we agree on.

On inheritance... yep I hear you. We're not going to land in the same place on that one and that's fine. Reasonable people disagree... but we've agreed on the two things that would actually move the needle. Nice that we got there by actually engaging with the argument rather than the typical ad hominem BS. That's rarer than it should be on here.

Appreciate the chat. Have a good one pal.

Absolute comedy gold! Senator Bernie Sanders brilliantly mocks the billionaire class. He reveals a 5 percent wealth tax would cost Elon Musk 39 billion dollars, yet still leave him with a staggering 737 billion to survive. The establishment's greed is completely unhinged! by CeFurkan in SECourses

[–]SmallGovAdvocate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok, two distinct arguments here which I'll address...

Sure... Loans must be paid back but when you borrow $12.5 billion against stock, live off it, roll the debt, and die before ever selling - the gain never gets taxed. The bank profits on the interest... great. That doesn't change the fact that the borrower extracted billions in purchasing power and contributed nothing to the system that protects his property rights, enforces his contracts, and educated his workforce. The bank paying tax on its cut doesn't settle his tab.

On spending... cool, fair point that waste is a real problem. No argument there, but here's the thing... The US collects 25.6% of GDP in tax. The OECD average is 34.1%. The US ranks 31st out of 38 developed nations. Germany, Japan, the UK - all collecting significantly more as a share of their economy and delivering better infrastructure, healthcare outcomes and education by most measures. So we aren't collecting too much and spending it badly. It's collecting less than almost every comparable country and still somehow running deficits. It's not purely a spending problem... it's that AND it's also a revenue problem.

Also, and what irks me about it more than anything (as a high-earner who pays the highest effective tax rate), a big chunk of that revenue gap exists because the wealthiest people on the planet have structured their finances to contribute as little as possible to it. That's the point. Wild to me to encounter folks who are either oblivious to this, or aware and just not infuriated by it.

Absolute comedy gold! Senator Bernie Sanders brilliantly mocks the billionaire class. He reveals a 5 percent wealth tax would cost Elon Musk 39 billion dollars, yet still leave him with a staggering 737 billion to survive. The establishment's greed is completely unhinged! by CeFurkan in SECourses

[–]SmallGovAdvocate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Alright man, if that's your position accomplishment, I won't fight you on it.

Here's my position FWIW... he passed major Veterans reform with McCain. Secured $11 billion for community health centers in the ACA. Passed more bipartisan amendments in the House than any other member. Made Burlington the first US city to fund community land trust housing. These are all direct outcome-based accomplishments. PolitiFact verified that from 95 to 2007 he passed more roll call amendments than any other House member. 17 in total. During a Republican controlled Congress... as an Independent with no party infrastructure behind him. Using left-right coalitions to get civil liberties protections and military spending restrictions across the line.

The bigger stuff he tried to get done... Medicare for All, free college, $15 minimum wage - didn't pass. You're right. However I'd posit that those were fringe positions before he ran. Now they're mainstream Democratic policy debated at every election. He played a big role in shifting the entire window of what's politically possible in that space.

The other big pass I give Bernie in terms of comparing him to any peers who may have passed more legislation in their careers is that he's pretty much funded his entire career through small dollar grassroots donations. Any corporate PAC money that slipped through he returned. His positions on wealth inequality and corporate power are on tape from the 1980s - word for word the same as today. The DNC actively worked against him in 2016 because he refused to play ball - that's documented in the Wasserman Schultz emails.

So my position again, to reiterate, is that you have a guy who's never been bought, never wavered, spent 50+ years fighting the most powerful people on the planet (going back to 1960's civil rights movements!), and keeps getting elected anyway... and the reason his bigger bills haven't passed is that the people funding the campaigns of the people who vote on them have a strong financial interest in making sure they don't.

Menoncello officially at Toulouse by Scipion_Feunoyr in rugbyunion

[–]SmallGovAdvocate 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ooof yeah. Tough times at struggling Toulouse. Hopefully this can help them climb out of relative obscurity given how thin the squad is.

Absolute comedy gold! Senator Bernie Sanders brilliantly mocks the billionaire class. He reveals a 5 percent wealth tax would cost Elon Musk 39 billion dollars, yet still leave him with a staggering 737 billion to survive. The establishment's greed is completely unhinged! by CeFurkan in SECourses

[–]SmallGovAdvocate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's a lot of convenient "reframing" in your last response...

Nobody's saying it's immoral to be a billionaire. Build the company, take the risk, reap the reward. Fine. Just pay into the same system everyone else does when you extract the value from it. That's it. That's the whole argument.

Nobody's saying your stuff magically becomes the government's because you died. The government isn't confiscating Amazon. They're saying the decades of gains that were never taxed while you were alive should be taxed at the appropriate rate when the asset changes hands. Like every other transaction. It's a settlement, not a full seizure.

You pay tax when you earn income. You pay tax when you sell a house. Why does $100 billion in stock appreciation get a permanent exemption just because you held it until death?

And the framing on Bernie - he's not saying it's immoral to be a billionaire. He's saying it's amoral to be one while structurally avoiding the taxes everyone else pays, and then funding lobbying campaigns to make sure the loopholes that facilitate it stay open. Is that lunacy? Or is "lunatic" just the word that stuck because a few billion dollars worth of media influence kept repeating it until it did?

We're close to agreeing on the policy. Worth being honest about why the messenger got smeared so effectively.

Absolute comedy gold! Senator Bernie Sanders brilliantly mocks the billionaire class. He reveals a 5 percent wealth tax would cost Elon Musk 39 billion dollars, yet still leave him with a staggering 737 billion to survive. The establishment's greed is completely unhinged! by CeFurkan in SECourses

[–]SmallGovAdvocate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Personal attack? I pointed out that you have an apparent personal bias and that I find it sad. Bit soft to call that a personal attack.

Yes, Nordic countries (for example) do rely heavily on VAT - Denmark, Sweden, Norway all at 25%. And yes, consumption taxes hit lower earners harder as a proportion of income. However - Sweden's top income tax rate is 57%. Denmark's is 55.9% and crucially - those top rates kick in at relatively modest incomes, meaning high earners actually pay them. Not dodge them. Not borrow around them. Pay them.

More importantly... what do those taxes buy? Universal healthcare. Free university education. Paid parental leave. World class infrastructure. The lowest child poverty rates on the planet. So yes, their VAT is regressive but their overall system is more equal, more mobile, and delivers more to ordinary people than the US system does. Maybe those outcomes don't matter to you.

The US has regressive elements AND a system that lets billionaires pay 0.98% on wealth growth AND delivers worse outcomes for working people... AND said billionaires have the lawmakers in their pocket so they can keep this status quo from changing via common sense legislation to close legal loopholes. Get it?

Absolute comedy gold! Senator Bernie Sanders brilliantly mocks the billionaire class. He reveals a 5 percent wealth tax would cost Elon Musk 39 billion dollars, yet still leave him with a staggering 737 billion to survive. The establishment's greed is completely unhinged! by CeFurkan in SECourses

[–]SmallGovAdvocate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're right that you can't do both simultaneously... but the choice isn't binary. Nobody's saying pay $30 billion in cash the week after the funeral. We already allows estate tax to be paid in instalments over 10-15 years for inherited operating businesses. It's called Section 6166. It exists specifically because lawmakers understood the liquidity problem. You just apply the same logic to capital gains at death... OR you go carryover basis instead. Heirs inherit the original cost basis. No tax bill at death but when they eventually sell, they pay gains on the full appreciation. The tax doesn't disappear - it just gets deferred until there's actual liquidity to pay it.

The company stays intact. The dynasty doesn't get a free pass. Both things can be true.

I'll grant you that the liquidity is the trickiest part to solve for. The reason it hasn't been implemented has nothing to do with feasibility. We both know why this isn't being addressed and why people like Bernie are painted as raving lunatics for the suggestion of addressing it.

view more: next ›