Foreign Policy Shifts?

[Brett327]

2. Figuring out what cultural and educational influences created a leader like Elon Musk.

Presumably so we can prevent someone like him from ever happening again. Amen, brother!

 

[Faded Float Coat]

I agree, 100%.

Maybe we could start here:

1. A public education system that actually focuses on reading, writing, and STEM subjects, not padding the retirement portfolios of people like Randy Weingarden.

2. Figuring out what cultural and educational influences created a leader like Elon Musk.

3. Term limits for all members of the House and Senate.

4. A complete and total focus on the nuclear family.

5. Reminding people, every, single, day about the horrors of communism, facism, and socialism.

6. Mandating 2 years of community service for every citizen between the ages of 18 and 25. Military, EMS, Public Health, LE, Public Education.

7. Providing special tax incentives for people that choose to follow a career in #6 above.

8. Allow people to live, tax free in their homes once their mortgage is paid off.

9. Stop borrowing against the the SS trust fund. Maybe provide an alternative to families that have the means to fund their own retirement.

10. Make the tax code clean and easy to comprehend.

1. Yes
2. Worth studying, if for no other reason than to capture the ingenuity while avoiding the lunacy
3. Or, a serious and universally applied standard of ethics
4. Sorry for the widow(er), or the woman whose deadbeat dude left her with his kid. Can I suppose you're opposed to no-fault divorce?
5. Okay
6. If you include the forest service, national parks service, peace corps, american red cross, boys and girls clubs, etc.
7. Something that looks like a GI Bill, but with limits (post 9/11 GI Bill, specifically the transferability is very generous).*
8. Sign a waiver opting out of fire, police, and EMS service....
9. You've got both chambers of Congress and the White House - that legislation should be coming along any day now, right?
10. Yes

 

[robav8r]

1. Yes
2. Worth studying, if for no other reason than to capture the ingenuity while avoiding the lunacy
3. Or, a serious and universally applied standard of ethics
4. Sorry for the widow(er), or the woman whose deadbeat dude left her with his kid. Can I suppose you're opposed to no-fault divorce?
5. Okay
6. If you include the forest service, national parks service, peace corps, american red cross, boys and girls clubs, etc.
7. Something that looks like a GI Bill, but with limits (post 9/11 GI Bill, specifically the transferability is very generous).*
8. Sign a waiver opting out of fire, police, and EMS service....
9. You've got both chambers of Congress and the White House - that legislation should be coming along any day now, right?
10. Yes

At least, in some respect, you’re being somewhat intellectually honest. Thank you

 

[Spekkio]

At least, in some respect, you’re being somewhat intellectually honest. Thank you

I was being intellectually honest.

There is no means for an English mechanic to immigrate to the U.S. other than waiting for the lottery - which is normally a 1-2 year wait to find out if you were accepted and another 1-2 years to get your resident visa - or breaking the law.

The lottery was canceled this year because we couldn't figure out how to charge the $1 fee.

We exploit educated / skilled immigrants when it's convenient. And everyone else comes here illegaly... which we also exploit. I love me some strawberries.

 

[Brett327]

8. Sign a waiver opting out of fire, police, and EMS service....

Also...

Schools
Roads, traffic lights, streetlights
Public parks and recreation
Municipal drinking water
Sewer and wastewater treatment
County jails and state prisons

Nobody is giving up all that. It's a monumentally stupid idea promoted by the "fuck you, I got mine" Boomer and Gen-X crowd that don't understand how anything works.

 

[number9]

I was being intellectually honest.

There is no means for an English mechanic to immigrate to the U.S. other than waiting for the lottery - which is normally a 1-2 year wait to find out if you were accepted and another 1-2 years to get your resident visa - or breaking the law.

The lottery was canceled this year because we couldn't figure out how to charge the $1 fee.

Huh? The Diversity Visa lottery was canceled because President Trump hates it.

 

[ChuckMK23]

Let's start with 25 years of failed tax policy. @robav8r it's not that the tax code itself is flawed so much as the Republican farse that tax cuts have achieved beneficial results for tax-payers.

The Federal Government requires more revenue. Period. Significant tax increases truly need to be the order of the day.

 

[Spekkio]

Let's start with 25 years of failed tax policy. @robav8r it's not that the tax code itself is flawed so much as the Republican farse that tax cuts have achieved beneficial results for tax-payers.

The Federal Government requires more revenue. Period. Significant tax increases truly need to be the order of the day.

The federal deficit is $1.78 trillion.

If you rolled our tax code back to the Carter administration, you still would not pay for the deficit.

The elephant in the room is the Affordable Care Act, which accounts for over half of that deficit via corporate welfare tax credits. We are in a 16 year game of chicken where the GOP wants to bankrupt the government to force the Democrats to amend / repeal the ACA and Democrats want to 'tax the rich' but lost office before the TCJA expired. The ARRA under Obama plus ARP and IRA under Biden also dramatically increased mandatory spending.

Where I really hate the Democrats' dishonesty here is that they continuously pass tax code with strings-attached credits to fund their priorities, most of which only large business owners qualify for. Then they point at the GOP and shout "tax cuts for the rich" as their plea to make marginal income tax rates more progressive to make up for the difference. The end result is they squeeze America's professional class of workers (which includes military officers) and small business owners so that we can fund projects like going all-electric vehicles by 2037.

No one goes to a cardiologist and thinks to themselves "this mothafucka needs to pay his fair share." But apparently it was the end of the world in 2017 that he could no longer use the $60,000 a year he pays in taxes and interest on his $2 million primary residence as a tax deduction. Unlimited SALT deductions were so "popular" that it killed the build back better bill with Biden's own party.