Sinema stands with her fellow Democrats on social spending and climate bill. It’s a done deal.

Two bits of Wisdom for all . . .

#4 - Blatant insults or hostility toward another member will be met with staff intervention. This applies to using our coed forums for name calling, personal attacks, or vulgar slang terms to describe fellow members. If you have legitimate concerns about another member here, share them tactfully in the appropriate private forums or with staff.
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Thank you for helping get this thread back on topic.

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are voting NOT to close a loophole for the rich
after crying for years for the rich to pay their fair share And BTW 60% of American pay no federal tax so is 0 a fair share ?

Thank you for helping get this thread back on topic. Originally Posted by Yssup Rider

Yes, thanks biomed.

Question - Is the topic of this thread the "Inflation Reduction Act"? It seems the OP is unable to clarify.

This message is hidden because lustylad is on your ignore list.

Wow!

So when dim-retards are completely two-faced about raising taxes on the rich (which you keep telling everyone is of utmost importance) you deem it "brilliant politicking"?

I'm flabbergasted! Hard for me to decide who is a bigger phony partisan hypocrite - you or Chucky Schumer?

? Originally Posted by lustylad

Have you read the bill? How about the CHIPS bill? I suppose you have as you seem to be commenting on it!

Now if you don't quit lying about what I've said...I'm pretty sure you're gonna get pointed out.

I've said that income inequality is an important matter.

And you are confusing two different facts.

I do not agree with them taking out the tax.

It is brilliant politicking.

Kinda like Mitch realizing that it was better to let the Dems go after Trump after January 6 instead of Republicans voting to impeach.

I can appreciate good politicking from both sides.

That is a nuanced stance I thought you'd understand without explanation.

Well, at least now, the Democrat members of Congress and Biden will own all of this, ahead of the 2022 elections, instead of the nameless/faceless bureaucrats at the various agencies.

Would somebody kindly quote my post #18 above, so the OP will be forced to stop pretending he didn't read it because he has me on ignore?

Thanks in advance! Originally Posted by lustylad

those for whom there is no reply found in harbored cheap and ignoble philosophies, they ignore

its another take on the word "snick"

those for whom there is no reply found in harbored cheap and ignoble philosophies, they ignore

its another take on the word "snick" Originally Posted by nevergaveitathought

Apparently, you don’t believe in the ignore function as a means of filtering out offensive personal attacks and repetitious spam… yet have no problem insulting others.

Live like you want to live, buddy!

Of course I prefer to discuss this giant victory for President Biden and the US Congress. What comes next is the campaign to discredit the legislation with lies and misinformation, which will resonate with low information voters - like Trump cultists.

The picking and poking has already begun.

So your post above, NGIT, was misdirected.

Instead of ignoring a poster, that poster and YOU now have chosen to hijack the thread.

You should try using the ignore function.

And NOW, IT'S DONE!

Not all the Democrats had hoped for, but a YUGE win for President Biden and a show of unity among the majority party.

The Inflation Reduction Act is now LAW.

Congratulations President Biden!

Of course I prefer to discuss this giant victory for President Biden and the US Congress. What comes next is the campaign to discredit the legislation with lies and misinformation, which will resonate with low information voters - like Trump cultists.

The picking and poking has already begun. Originally Posted by Yssup Rider

Preface: I haven't read up on this bill. If you have you may be able to kick my ass in any argument or change my mind.

The main point of the bill appears to be support of green energy, through subsidies and tax credits.

American manufacturers would get help for manufacturing solar cells and the like. Emphasis on American. I don't like this part of the bill. It reeks of crony capitalism and corporate welfare. Manufacturers should compete on their own two feet.

Solar cells and wind turbines IMHO fall into the same category as toys and textiles. They're not strategic products like high end chips, rare earth minerals, N95 masks and the like, where we need capacity in America or friendly, secure trading partners (e.g. Canada and Mexico.) If the Chinese or the Germans can make them more efficiently then we can then why are we subsidizing American companies.

Then there are the tax credits for purchase of electric vehicles (EV's), made in America. Who are going to be the big beneficiaries? The manufacturers and the upper middle class and the rich, who buy Tesla's and can better use the tax credits. This is welfare, kind of, for better off Americans and corporations. I say kind of because it does actually reduce their taxes instead of handing out money. I'd much prefer closing the loopholes and lowering rates instead, but that's off topic.

And how exactly is climate change legislation like this going to make any difference in actual global warming? The U.S. is responsible for 15% of global carbon emissions, and that percentage will go down a lot with the years, as China, India, and other countries' economies grow. The Inflation Reduction Act's not going to do jack to reduce global warming.

If you want to do something about USA carbon emissions, then the best way IMHO is a REASONABLE carbon tax, at the final point of sale (so we don't discourage exports and our energy security.) We have taxes on cigarettes and alcohol, so maybe that makes sense, although I believe carbon is a much lower health risk than tobacco and alcohol.

I could see putting some money into basic research for geoengineering, solar geoengineering in particular. An example is injecting particles into the upper atmosphere to deflect sunlight. Yeah, you'd have a hell of a time getting this past the public. A lot of people are paranoid about GMO crops and COVID vaccines. A lot would go ballistic over solar geoengineering. And some places -- the northern midwest, Canada, Scandinavia, and northern Russia, probably will benefit from global warming, although Russia's the only one likely to put up a stink out of self interest. You get the USA, Europe, China and India to agree to do something like this and if it works it would be more effective than all the measures to mitigate carbon emission that high income countries are looking at.

I don't know how the legislation would do it, but negotiating drug costs to bring down the cost of Medicare sounds like a really good idea. Apparently the American free market system is not working with prescription drugs, or at least we're paying tons more for them than other countries. I understand the Democrats wanted to extend this to private insurance, so that 180 million Americans would be covered, but the Senate Parliamentarian wouldn't allow that part of the legislation to go into a bill that could be passed just by the 50 Democratic Senators. This is something that should get bipartisan support. They should have come up with a stand-alone bipartisan bill. Unfortunately though, bipartisanship, like with the chips bill and the infrastructure bill, is only possible when there's lots of pork to hand out. Shame on the politicians.

Of course I prefer to discuss this giant victory for President Biden and the US Congress. Originally Posted by Yssup Rider

Yea team! Yea team! Shake your pom-poms, yssup!

How can you regard this as a "giant victory" when you don't even know the title of the legislation you are applauding?

So is it a "giant victory" for Joey or for the country? It's called the "Inflation Reduction Act", right? How much will it actually reduce the rip-roaring inflation Joey has unleashed on us all?

When Joey was sworn in 18 months ago, the US inflation rate was 1.4% (12-month CPI). Now it's over 9%... that means prices are rising 6-1/2 times faster!

Way to go, Joey! Rah-rah, team! Let's all cheer at how fast those consumer prices are sprinting across the goal-line!

How will yet more spending, spending, spending slow down the ever-accelerating upward price spiral, yssup?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Go ahead, dazzle us with your brilliant economic analysis! Surely you have more to offer than just shaking your pom-poms on the sidelines!

‘Inflation Reduction Act’ Is an Insult to Used-Car Salesmen

Democrats hide a power grab behind a purported solution to rising prices—a problem they themselves caused.

By Gerard Baker
Aug. 1, 2022 12:00 pm ET


Just as some claims made in business are so self-evidently fictitious that even the most shameless of hucksters will recoil from articulating them, so some propositions advanced in politics are so dishonest that even the most mendacious politician will avoid association with them.

Then there’s the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

If you’ve ever been convinced by a used-car salesman that the 20-year-old rusting hulk out back with the dodgy chassis and the blue smoke pouring out of the exhaust is a “reliable pre-owned bargain,” you’re going to love the Inflation Reduction Act.

This, you will know, is the new name that has been conferred by Senate Democrats and the White House on the remnants of the old Build Back Better bill, the vastly ambitious tax-and-spending measure that was nearly foisted on an unsuspecting American public last year in the middle of a pandemic.

Like that lemon sitting at the back of the dealer’s lot, it’s been given a little touch-up, a fresh coat of paint, a reduced price tag and a bright new description. The master plan that was going to save the planet from extinction a year ago has been repurposed as a fully functional inflation-fighting weapon, laser-focused on reducing price pressures in the American economy.

I’m being a little unfair to used-car dealers. Surely not even the most opportunistic of charlatans would take his customer for that kind of a fool.

Start with the premise for the principal claim in the bill—namely that the package of $739 billion in tax increases and reduced outlays and a little $433 billion in new spending will produce a “historic” $300-plus billion reduction in the federal deficit over 10 years “to fight inflation.”

True, deficit reduction should, other things being equal, reduce aggregate demand and inflation. We’ll come to the economic wisdom and plausibility of the specific measures shortly, but it is worth noting that, in the very first sentence of their summary, the Democrats hand up a self-indictment of almost everything they’ve been doing in the 18 months since the party took the Senate and the White House.

If a bill that reduces the deficit by $300 billion over 10 years represents “inflation reduction,” what are we to make of a law Congress passed last year that increased the deficit by an estimated $1.7 trillion in less than two years?

If we are in the business of renaming legislative measures with a bill that is going to reduce inflation through deficit reduction, can we now all agree to call the American Rescue Plan of 2021—which added six times as much to the deficit in one-fifth of the time—the Inflation Acceleration Act?

Then take a look at what the Democrats’ new bill actually achieves in deficit reduction.

Because the spending provisions kick in more quickly than the revenue-raising provisions, the bill would actually increase the deficit in its first few years. According to the Penn Wharton Budget Model, it would begin to reduce the deficit only in 2027.

So the Inflation Reduction Act—sold to Americans on the basis that it will reduce the surging inflation the Democrats themselves helped unleash—won’t even have any downward effect on the deficit for five years. I’m skeptical about the average lawmaker’s ability to predict the inflation rate in five years, but if we have to wait until 2027 to get on top of the current cost-of-living crisis, we are in trouble.

As for those tax increases that kick in straightaway, especially the minimum corporate tax rate, not only are they outweighed by the spending increases, but they make no sense at all for an economy that is clearly contracting at an alarming pace.

Democrats claim that some measures, such as enabling Medicare to negotiate drug prices, will tamp down inflation. But that’s largely speculative, and the independent Penn Wharton analysis sees no overall impact on inflation.

Of course it doesn’t. That’s not what the bill was ever intended to do.

Tear off the absurd Inflation Reduction Act label, and behind it, you will see—illuminated by the excited glow of media coverage of the Democrats’ premature victory laps—exactly what it is: another large plank in the Democratic plan to “re-engineer“ the U.S. economy, with another hefty expansion of government, disappointingly enabled in part, by the way, by congressional Republicans, who cleared a path for it by helping pass another bill, subsidizing semiconductor producers.

The left’s increasingly shrill claims of a climate “emergency” have always been a thin veneer to cover their ambitions to take over large swaths of the American economy.

It all amounts to a breathtaking piece of policy-making chutzpah worthy of the most unscrupulous salesman’s patter: Having created the inflationary mess in the first place, Democrats now aim to con the country into believing that they’re cleaning it up, even as they steal a further march in their plan to remake the country.

If anyone thinks that’s what America voted for two years ago, I have a used car to sell them.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/inflati...r-11659363843?

‘Inflation Reduction Act’ Is an Insult to Used-Car Salesmen
Originally Posted by lustylad

Yes, the name is ridiculous. It's not going to have a discernible effect on inflation. It should be called the "Green Pork Bill." However, this is all about the politics, and inflation is at the top of voters' agenda. Besides "green pork" sounds kind of disgusting.

But most voters aren’t stupid, and even the ones that are still buy things. They can call it whatever they want, but people tend to notice that they’ve got nothing left at the end of the month.