I didn't know who she was until I googled her and realized I've often seen her, only as a blonde, not dark haired like the picture I saw when I googled.

the dems are scared...

Oh yeah, the DNC + old school Clinton-era Democratic pundits and strategists + mainstream media....seem very nervous Pappy. 

I’m not sure they objectively analyzed or learned much from the 2016 Democratic  primaries and how that affected the general election. 

Anyway, I think a lot of Democratic voters (and a whole lot of Independents) are fired up and excited about a change agent like Bernie. They don’t seem scared about his front-runner status  and they’re the ones who will be casting votes in the general election.

I don’t believe President Trump really wants to run against Bernie the most.  That seems like spin to me. But, maybe Trump really does think Bernie’s the weakest link. Who knows?

In any case, Carville’s theory is wrong when applied to this college educated woman living in the burbs (who’s voted mostly Republican  in the past). I liked Bernie in 2016 and think he has the best shot at beating Trump in 2020.

(02-22-2020, 07:33 PM)HairOfTheDog Wrote: I’m not a kid Mags and I haven’t believed in Santa Claus for 40+ years.

It is a metaphor, Bernie promises free health care, student loan forgiveness, higher wages, many of the things his base likes and they are 59% between the ages of 18-44. Candidates promise the world but once in the big seat realize it's not all that easy. 
Another thing I notice about Bernie is he was against millionaires and billionaires. Now that he is a millionaire he is only going after billionaires. That and the fact he is a socialist I feel that will be his downfall. We shall see how this test works out though.  I hope he is the nominee.

I wonder how he is going to get out of his own tax plan, if implemented.   I don't even understand his plan.   I've looked up his plan,  and tried to understand it, but the only thing I understood about it is that anyone that makes over 250,000.00/year is going to pay almost half their income in taxes, and and if you make over 2 million, your going to pay half or more.

(02-23-2020, 09:43 AM)Maggot Wrote:

(02-22-2020, 07:33 PM)HairOfTheDog Wrote: I’m not a kid Mags and I haven’t believed in Santa Claus for 40+ years.

It is a metaphor, Bernie promises free health care, student loan forgiveness, higher wages, many of the things his base likes and they are 59% between the ages of 18-44. Candidates promise the world but once in the big seat realize it's not all that easy. 
Another thing I notice about Bernie is he was against millionaires and billionaires. Now that he is a millionaire he is only going after billionaires. That and the fact he is a socialist I feel that will be his downfall. We shall see how this test works out though.  I hope he is the nominee.

I know it was a metaphor Mags, I just don't think it fits...........for the reasons I provided.

I don't consider people in their 20s, 30s and 40s to be kids.  And, according to your 59% statistic........ Sanders' base has expanded to include a high percentage of people older than that broad age range. 

If 41% of his support base is indeed now 45-years-old and up, that's a good sign for Sanders.

Health care access and access to lower and higher education should not be determined by income and wealth, in my opinion. 

And, climate change is a real threat to all human beings that needs to be seriously addressed, not denied in order to protect corporate profits. 

The U.S. should not be doing so poorly in terms of education, infant mortality rates, income equality, health............as compared to other developed countries.

I suspect that most people in the U.S., regardless of age or political affiliation, now agree with those positions which Bernie Sanders has been espousing for many years.  

Of course, providing health care and educational opportunities to all, and more aggressively addressing climate change, won't be 'free'.  To get there (which I agree will be a major challenge, but one worth working towards).........huge tax breaks for the most wealthy individuals and corporations will need to be eliminated or reduced to help pay for those changes. 

I believe everyone's taxes will need to go up, in fact.  However, corporations and individuals will no longer be burdened with health care premiums and medical bills  nor outrageous tuition fees/debt.

Anyway, If Bernie Sanders is to win the Democratic primary and the Presidency, he really needs to do a better job explaining the difference between 'democratic socialism' and 'socialism' to a broader audience.  

They're not the same and Bernie and his surrogates need to work harder to explain the differences and change perceptions, in my opinion.  https://www.businessinsider.com/differen...ist-2018-6

I fully understand that 'socialist' is a dirty word to a lot of people in the U.S., especially older people.  

I can definitely see Trump and company hammering Sanders and congressional Democrats up for re-election this year by applying the 'radical socialist' label and trying to equate it to pure old-school 'socialism' and 'communism' (like Bloomberg did in the Vegas debate).  

Bernie's broken out of the pack in the first three tests in Iowa, NH and Nevada.  But, there's still a long long way to go in the primary.  

It will be interesting to see if he does as well in South Carolina and especially in the 14 Super Tuesday primaries where there's a significant delegate count up for grabs on March 3^rd (Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia).

(Edited to correct Super Tuesday date)

(02-23-2020, 11:34 AM)cannongal Wrote: anyone that makes over 250,000.00/year is going to pay almost half their income in taxes

Plus the global warming tax and the gas, sin taxes that will no doubt be forthcoming. I see a black market growing for many things if he is elected. His monetary dreams are not feasible. I can see him aiming at peoples retirement savings under the guise of poor people don't save money. But I know plenty of people that save that hardly make anything. 

I'm still not worried if he is nominated. The debates will be fun.

The new tax many states are trying to pass is the gas climate initiative another gas tax that they are salivating over.

a visual representation of a Bernie presidency....

  I hope I don't end up in a Sumo's butt!

(02-23-2020, 11:36 AM)HairOfTheDog Wrote: Health care access and access to lower and higher education should not be determined by income and wealth, in my opinion. 

And, climate change is a real threat to all human beings that needs to be seriously addressed, not denied in order to protect corporate profits. 

The U.S. should not be doing so poorly in terms of education, infant mortality rates, income equality, health............as compared to other developed countries.

I suspect that most people in the U.S., regardless of age or political affiliation, now agree with those positions which Bernie Sanders has been espousing for many years.  

Of course, providing health care and educational opportunities to all, and more aggressively addressing climate change, won't be 'free'.  To get there (which I agree will be a major challenge, but one worth working towards).........huge tax breaks for the most wealthy individuals and corporations will need to be eliminated or reduced to help pay for those changes. 

I believe everyone's taxes will need to go up, in fact.  However, corporations and individuals will no longer be burdened with health care premiums and medical bills  nor outrageous tuition fees/debt.

It would be nice,  if he was touting about using money the government already has,  rather than coming up with new ways to tax us.   Bernie's tax plan is not fair, period.

I get that the common folk love the idea of taxing the rich, but the common folk need to realize that  rich is an illusion sometimes.

For example,  a entry level engineer in New Hampshire can expect a starting pay of around $60,000.00.  That same entry level engineer can expect a starting pay of around $85,000.00 in California.   Why?  COLA.   Everyone knows the COLA in California is much higher than most of New Hampshire.   California Has a sales tax, and an income tax.  New Hampshire has neither, yet, according to Bernie's Tax proposal, dude from Cali is going to be in a higher tax bracket and pay more in taxes than the dude from NH.   How is that fair?

Also,  why does this government have so much damn redundancy?   I was reading an article the other day about trump putting infected people on a plane.  The article mentioned no less than 7 different government agencies, all with the word "health" in their name, as being against what trump did.  All well and good right?   Except why do we need a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the CDC, the WHO, national preparedness of health & human services, infectious disease institute, Etc.    The only 2 names I actually recognized were the CDC & WHO.  I didn't know that the others existed until I read the article.   To me,  (and yes I know I'm a narrow minded old bat)  the redundancy in the federal government is ridiculous.  If we got rid of the redundancy, that money could be used for healthcare, instead of new taxes.

(02-24-2020, 06:48 AM)cannongal Wrote: It would be nice,  if he was touting about using money the government already has,  rather than coming up with new ways to tax us.   Bernie's tax plan is not fair, period.

I get that the common folk love the idea of taxing the rich, but the common folk need to realize that  rich is an illusion sometimes.

For example,  a entry level engineer in New Hampshire can expect a starting pay of around $60,000.00.  That same entry level engineer can expect a starting pay of around $85,000.00 in California.   Why?  COLA.   Everyone knows the COLA in California is much higher than most of New Hampshire.   California Has a sales tax, and an income tax.  New Hampshire has neither, yet, according to Bernie's Tax proposal, dude from Cali is going to be in a higher tax bracket and pay more in taxes than the dude from NH.   How is that fair?

Also,  why does this government have so much damn redundancy?   I was reading an article the other day about trump putting infected people on a plane.  The article mentioned no less than 7 different government agencies, all with the word "health" in their name, as being against what trump did.  All well and good right?   Except why do we need a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the CDC, the WHO, national preparedness of health & human services, infectious disease institute, Etc.    The only 2 names I actually recognized were the CDC & WHO.  I didn't know that the others existed until I read the article.   To me,  (and yes I know I'm a narrow minded old bat)  the redundancy in the federal government is ridiculous.  If we got rid of the redundancy, that money could be used for healthcare, instead of new taxes.

I'll try to address all of your questions and points as succinctly as possible, cannongal.

Unfortunately, there's not a surplus of money in the U.S. government to use for new programs.  And, re-allocation of current budget funding would introduce new problems by crippling important current programs and projects.

The U.S. government debt is now $22 trillion.  That's the highest in history.  

No government (or individual or company) that is already in debt can reduce incoming revenue (tax dollars) while increasing expenditures without increasing its base debt and interest debt, of course.  

That is what has happened under the Trump Administration.

Regarding your questions/points pertaining to the unfairness of variations in types of taxes and tax rates from state to state..........of course, it costs more to live in locales with larger populations, those more affected by climate and infrastructure, those with more social programs, etc.

I don't believe Bernie Sanders has any plans to infringe on state governments' sovereignty by interfering in state tax policy/administration. He, like other candidates and past Presidents, oversee federal taxation not state taxation.

Anyway........back to federal programs and funding and Bernie Sanders' plan.

Fiscally responsible politicians make proposals to generate new revenue in order to pay for proposed new/expanded programs.  

If there is an opportunity to cut spending or scrap unnecessary existing programs and inefficiencies, that should always be pursued as well, though it often can't be done in time to cover the cost of necessary new programs.  

Bernie Sanders proposes to create new government revenue to pay for his programs by:

--Increasing the federal income tax rate for those making $250,000 to $500,000 to 40% (+5%), for those making $500,000 to $2,000,000 to 45% (+8%), for those making $2,000,000 to $10,000 to 50% (+13%), and for those making more than $10,000,000 to 52% (+15%).

The 50% tax rate your referenced upthread for income over $250,000 is actually Bernie Sanders' proposal for capital gain taxes -- profit on the sell of investments, real estate, inventory  -- it's separate from income tax.  

(continued)

--Sanders also proposes to revert back to the pre-Trump corporate tax rates and increase them for the highest earning and most profitable corporations, as well as implementing additional tax on those where the CEOs earnings are 50x more than the average employee's earnings.  

--In addition, Sanders seeks to end massive tax breaks for the 0.1 wealthiest Americans, increasing government revenue by $14.5 trillion over 10 years.

He proposes a progressive tax on extreme wealth starting at 1 percent tax on net worth above $32.5 million for couples (equates to $5,000 in additional taxes).

The wealth tax rate would increase to 2% on net worth from $50 to $250 million, 3% from $250 to $500 million, 4% from $500 million to $1 billion, 5% from $1 to $2.5 billion, 6% from $2.5 to $5 billion, 7% from $5 to $10 billion, and 8% on wealth over $10 billion. These brackets are halved for singles.

--Estate tax for the extremely wealthy would also be taxed at a much higher rate.  Currently, the estate tax levies a 40%  tax on the total value of property passed to heirs, and exempts the heirs from taxes on the first $11 million ($22 million for married couples). 

Sanders' aims to raise $315 billion over 10 years by:
-Reducing the exemption to $3.5 million, and taxing the value of estates up to $10 million at a rate of 45%
-Taxing estates valued between $10 million and $50 million at a rate of 50 percent%
-Taxing estates valued between $50 million and $1 billion at 55 percent%
-Taxing estates valued at more than $1 billion at a rate of 77 percent% (same rate as 1942 - 1976).

And, Sanders proposes to enact a pennies transaction tax on speculative Wall Street transactions to fund tuition free college.

Bernie Sanders wants to end decades of a system that enables the extremely wealthy to become wealthier and wealthier while working class Americans get poorer and poorer.  

He plans to reduce defense spending and raise taxes on the most wealthy so the federal government can start redistributing wealth to promote more income equality + aggressive climate change policies + better health and quality of life for all Americans + better and more accessible education for all + universal daycare + reduction in mass incarceration...

If you want more or different information, there's a lot of detailed/sourced data available on Berniesanders.com, Forbes.com, Vox.com...

OK now I get it............Bernie wants to raise taxes.  Who knew? Thanks. 

Wouldn't a 20% flat tax do the same thing? 


Also your tenacity in defending Bernie is quite commendable if ever I needed someone to back me up you would be my choice.