comment: >
  
  Shit, isn't that what happened in the 1920s?
context: Dude I can scream this shit till my face is blue and they deny it. Donnie literally used this as a re-election talking point and said he’s make em permanent as a way to buy votes but well hurr hurr Biden pelosi hurr hurr >
  
  
  Dude I can scream this shit till my face is blue and they deny it.
  
  I mean I still can't get the republicans in my life to understand progressive taxation. They are still convinced that they can make less money if they barely cross over the threshold of a new tax bracket... For a group of people who like to waste so much air moralizing about fiscal responsibility and chiding other for how they spend their money, they don't know shit about any of it. >
  
  
  They are still convinced that they can make less money if they barely cross over the threshold of a new tax bracket..
  
  My god yes, this is infuriating to me. >
  
  Never get angry because people were never taught something.
  Be angry it isn't taught. >
  
  Thanks, I agree. These are good words to live by. 
  I do get frustrated though when I have to teach them about progressive taxation every time they bring it up yet forget by their next paycheck. >
  
  Of course, to borrow from you, it's infuriating. You are forced "to drag" along "the confused" every day like Sisyphus. Similar to the "No Child Left Behind"?
  The poorly educated are easy to control, to manipulate, to swindle.
  How do we handle the better educated? How do we keep them under control?
  One way is by making them responsible for the poorly educated. They are then too busy to see how they too are getting swindled, just differently. Wearing multiple hats at a job? Another way of getting the work of many but only paying for one.
  I like paying my taxes, because I hate living with uneducated people.
  Harrison Bergeron - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
  
  And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.
  
  You don't need high intelligence, or way above normal intelligence. The screaming radios are in all our ears via controlled media, social media, our leaders, and our work places. We will not make progress forward until a solution is put in place. >
  
  I'm all for universal Healthcare, universal education, universal child care, and universal basic income... Because it will mean I need to interact with fewer shit people. >
  
  The real crime here, which nobody talks about, is that the trump tax cuts were deficit spending, meaning the US borrowed the money and added to the deficit. That means the rich got the tax breaks and now the tax payers have to pay off the loan. It's the largest transfer of wealth in history and no one seems to realize they've just been robed. >
  
  Almost all of our fiscal policy since the 70’s has been a wealth transfer. Today, I think the largest robbery is happening on Wall-Street, who are fueling their “infinite-growth” with workers wages, and by destroying companies for short term-profit, which is likely who bought the tax cuts from Trump…I mean “lobbied” for them. >
  
  Look, man. No one said the trickle down was gonna me immediate. Give it another couple generations, and we will all be swimming in the flood…they promise. >
  
  In the late 1800's, the supply-side model was called "Horse and Sparrow" economics, on the theory that if one feeds the horses enough oats, eventually there will be something left behind for the sparrows.  The 1896 panic is the result of this model. 
  Hoover's belief in the strengthening of businesses such as banks and railroads to fight the Great Depression lead to Will Rogers to be the first to use "trickle down".
  
  They didn't start thinking of the old common fellow till just as they started out on the election tour. The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover was an engineer. He knew that water trickled down. Put it uphill and let it go and it will reach the driest little spot. But he didn't know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellow’s hands. They saved the big banks but the little ones went up the flue.
  
  
  Nationally syndicated column number 518, And Here’s How It All Happened (1932)
  
  Then came Reaganomics, a model based on the principles of supply-side economics and the trickle-down theory.  George H. W. Bush coined the term "voodoo economics" as a proposed synonym for Reaganomics before he became Reagan's VP.
  The GOP keeps parading this old pig out each time they can with just a different color of lipstick in the hope that the US citizens will think it is great new economic policy.  Unfortunately, do believe it to be so. >
  
  The problem is that the rich build dams to build their wealth and the trickle down river runs low. Now that river is almost dry and the dam is overflowing, so they just build another dam. >
  
  While having taxpayers pay for the dam. >
  
  While having everyone pay through inflation which barely affects the wealthy. >
  
  The Republican playbook is to run up the bill as much as possible when in power and then complain that the Democrats don’t do enough to reduce it.
  Edit: everyone trying to , “both sides,” this ate paste in school. >
  
  They were blaming Biden for the runaway debt before he even took the oath. >
  
  Very true.  But the problem is this:
  How many people read Axios?
  How many people get their news from Fox "News"?
  They were called out for it, but nobody knows.  Unfortunately. >
  
  I dont need to read something to confirm what I have seen going on before my very eyes for the last...what 30 years? >
  
  40 years. Since Reagan. >
  
  And when Clinton actually balanced the budget — supposedly the conservative holy grail — literally every republican in congress voted against it. Then they campaigned against it in the next election and the first thing they did after winning back the house was make limbaugh an honorary member of congress because they only care about power, not governing.
  Lucky for maga, the so-called liberal media doesn't think its their job to remind the voters of their history.  Instead, its like each day the slate is wiped clean. >
  
  Wouldn't want to be accused of media bias, so surely the thing to do is frame every single issue as a balanced debate, even when one side is playing the game in bad faith.
  Mainstream journalism, especially the televised variety, has been little more than a senstionalised he said/she said for decades now. Looking at you, Crossfire* and other "news debate" shows. Journalism is not a debate, it's a time-honored craft with rules and conventions. None of those rules is meant to include making sure both sides of every debate get equal screen time, no matter how nutty or demonstrably false.
  *Typo >
  
  
  Wouldn't want to be accused of media bias, so surely the thing to do is frame every single issue as a balanced debate, even when one side is playing the game in bad faith.
  
  And at the end of the day, treating two unequal things as if they are equal is itself a form of bias.  But its a bias that people don't usually throw tantrums over, so its safe. >
  
  Based on my countless hours of watching Fox News I can safely say it's a combination of all the DOJ witch hunts on Trump and laptop repair bills for Hunter Biden. >
  
  And wokeness. And CRT and electric stoves and Xboxes and M&Ms. But mostly the wokeness. >
  
  Are Xboxes "woke" or whatever the fuck, now? >
  
  Wow. >
  
  Republicans aren't going to tell American the real cause of anything. Republicans are never going to tell the truth, but they're also really bad at concealing that truth. They are a grift enterprise, full stop. The modern Republican party exists to funnel wealth upward, to exacerbate the worst exploitative tendencies of capitalism. And as a natural end product of that naked greed, they have embraced full-on nationalism/fascism, and play to the worst instincts of the worst people, all in service to greed. So yeah, anyone who doesn't know that by this point has really not been paying attention. >
  
  Democrats aren’t going to tell Americans, either, but they are at least more middle of the road about it and live in SOME kind of reality.  They are left if the center/center and not this progressive, leftist conspiracy FOX News peddles.  The GOP and their ultra rich 1% donors exploit the denial their constituents exist in.  They know they’re tired and upset because their lives and the world didn’t turn out threat they thought it would and they need to blame someone and have an outlet for their misery.  This why they flock to FOX News… misery loves company and those who will have a pity party with them. >
  
  
  Democrats aren’t going to tell Americans, either, but they are at least more middle of the road about it and live in SOME kind of reality
  
  I mean, there are some shitty Dems too (both sides), but you can see Dems cannibalize one another, whereas republicans just double down and defend each other. >
  
  The people who get trillions in government subsidies pay extremely low effective tax rates because the system is built to make everything they do tax deductible. 
  The US is built for corporations, not for Americans. >
  
  It has not always been this way. The top tax bracket rate was over 90% in the 40s and 50s. 
  The enormous shift we've seen has happened since then, got a rapid increase with Reagan, and then a turbo boost in 2010 with the Citizens United ruling. >
  
  Republicans wanted to “make america great again” but were either too dumb to recognize or not willing to admit that the middle class boomed in the 50’s because of such a high rate >
  
  That isn't really what they mean when they say "great America". They mean white, and male, and conservative, and Christian. Also, none of them were alive during the time they idolize, and they're yearning for something that never existed. >
  
  I know that’s what they mean. I was trying to give the most charitable interpretation possible-in which they are still wrong and bat shit crazy >
  
  Clinton gave us a surplus and Bush fucked that up. Ever since then Republicans have been worse for the debt. Democrats tend to spend on investments to the country that give a good return. Republicans jand out money to their wealthy donors which bring little back or negative returns.
  Republicans are a disaster for our debt. Look how much they fucked it up when they had total control. >
  
  They were worse for debt before Dubya. Reagan blew it up doing his shit. >
  
  Fun fact, Reagan also ballooned the budget and deficit of California during his stint as governor. He ran on eliminating wasteful government programs and cutting spending, and ended his term with the highest increase in both budget and deficit in California's history up to that point. All he ended up doing was defunding the CSU/UC systems (bad move that hurt the state) and shutting down state mental health facilities (really bad move that hurt the state).
  It's safe to say, Reagan did nothing good for anyone ever. Being that's a universal statement, I'd be interested if there was anything good that came from that man's existence, but I'm doubtful. >
  
  Faux middle class economic explosion, as with other GOP presidents after him.
  Pattern has been the same for 50 years- stock market booms, companies go on a manic spree, credit expands drastically, people feel rich...then it all implodes disastrously 4 to 8 years later.