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President Trump's Budget Includes a $2 Trillion Math Error (time.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TIME: President Trump's budget includes a simple accounting error that adds up to a $2 trillion oversight. Under the proposed budget released Tuesday, the Trump Administration's proposed tax cuts would boost economic growth enough to pay for $1.3 trillion in spending by 2027. But the tax cuts are also supposed to be revenue-neutral, meaning that trillion dollars is already supposed to pay for the money lost from the tax cuts. Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers called the oversight an "elementary double count" and "a logical error of the kind that would justify failing a student in an introductory economics course" in an op-ed in the Washington Post.
Like everything else from this administration, it's a lie. We don't have a functioning democracy any more because we don't have an informed public, sadly.
I don't respond to AC's.
Making Arithmetic Great Again!
The dumbing down of America
Hanlon's Razor applies here. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You guys are so picky, c'mon. Math is hard.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If the Bush/Obama tax cuts were fully repealed, it would restore $4T in tax revenues for a decade that could fix the hole in the budget. Those tax cuts never paid for themselves.
Stop BSing yourself. We don't have a functioning democracy?
Like sanctuary cities that think they're above the law?
Like the federal government under Obama not enforcing immigration laws on the books.
These things are dangerous - and I'm a proponent of immigration - but make it legal and on the f**king books.
The Trump administration has done nothing counter to Constitution.
And in case it matters I didn't vote for the orange oompa lumpa.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Disagree. This is malicious; intentional. Trump isn't stupid.
Our budget has the best errors! You will get tired of all the errors!
this is the president you deserve though
story
Where Obamacare did the EXACT same thing. I remember being called a racist when I pointed it out at the time, so I guess its my turn...
You are a racist.
This is all just part of Trump's Alternative Math program.
Partially disagree. It's malicious but that doesn't mean Trump isn't stupid too.
Hanlon's Razor applies here. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Gray's Law also applies [1].
"Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."
At some point the buck stops, and incomp etence is no excuse. Do you not think the buck stops with the POTUS? It doesn't matter if it's on purpose or a mistake - trillions of dollars of error should result in some firings.
[1] http://joshuabrauer.com/2007/0...
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Except this is math. This is trivially falsifiable; if it is not accurate, that can be readily demonstrated.
Can you, or can you not disprove the claim that the budget math is in error?
The Trump administration has done nothing counter to Constitution.
That remains to be seen. There's this thing in the Constitution called the Emoluments clause that restricts members of the government from receiving gifts, emoluments, offices or titles from foreign states without the consent of the United States Congress. Trump maintains, through at least his family members and a paper-thin revocable trust, a LOT of property interests (hotels, resorts, golf courses, vacation homes) that rich foreigners can dump money into in return for a little kind attention from Herr Donald.
He still hasn't released his tax returns either (is he still being audited, not that that means anything), which might show substantial financial obligations to foreign stake-holders (there's a lot of borrowing that goes on in the real-estate business).
Then there's this little matter of involvement of a foreign power in the matter of an election, and obstruction of justice for trying to cover up any link to that foreign power.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
Don't push your liberal math on us! We're like a smart person. Believe me.
I consider a math error of that magnitude better than I dunno.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
... when a democrat is in the white house. Don't act surprised!!!
"It's a simple accounting error -- OR IS IT???
o Make 'simple accounting error'
o Nobody catches it
o GIVE MONIES TO BEST BUDDY PUTIN
o ???
o PROFIT!
..but you've hit the nail on the head. With a mallet made of depleted uranium.
Calm down, people, we don't want a fight here. Let's put aside our differences and try for the possibility of lasting peach on this site.
You're treating a symptom while the disease rages on. The fish rots from the head. Why not cut off the head?
Accounting and Economics were the specialties of the original nerds, see: "technology" is the Solow Residual!"
This math error basically doesn't matter. 1.3 trillion seems like a lot for a mistake, but that's like arguing with the magician who's just accidentally dropped a card out of his sleeve. Does it really matter whether it was a card from the deck or an extra copy of a card? It's still a magic trick. The whole proposal is built on poor estimates and pipe dreams with little or no supporting evidence. Admittedly, it's still a pretty big math error. I wonder if someone forgot to renew the license on the spreadsheet software at the White House and they had to break out the pencils and slide rules?
I disagree. I think Trump is a complete idiot. He can't make a statement over two sentences long that doesn't become a rambling filler-filled pile of nothing that is also impossible to parse. My belief is that he's suffering from dementia, but whatever the cause, the man is a moron. Now Reagan was a moron too, but at least he surrounded himself with some fairly rational individuals, and that's fine, no one expects a President to actually personally run every branch of the Government. But now you have someone probably mid-way through a serious cognitive decline who still believes he's some sort of super-genius.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The Snopes article you link to explains the opposite to what you are claiming.
I’m not sure I’d agree with that. The issues you mentioned are greatly interesting, of course, but they relate either to debatable policy choices or to contentious uncertainties that require more information.
On the other hand, this article is about a high-magnitude flawed calculation: a tangible, rational, non-partisan indicator of competence and trustworthiness (or lack thereof), grounded in arithmetic. Wouldn’t that appeal to nerds everywhere?
...soon you'll be talking real money.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
TRUMP: We're gonna have the biggest math errors! Way better and bigger errors than the democrats!! Nobody makes math errors better than me, believe me. No one's every had more than a trillion dollar math error. They said it couldn't be done. I'm really smart - I went to the Wharton School of Finance. We're gonna have errors more than, more, er, than TWO TRILLION DOLLARS!
From your own link, HUD made lots of errors in both directions totalling $500 billion. The actual effect was $3 million. They should check their work better, but the HUD audit is entirely different.
Why did you link to an article tagged "mostly false"? According to the article:
$3 million dollars off.... $2 trillion dollars off....
One of these numbers is bigger than the other.
You're treating a symptom while the disease rages on. The fish rots from the head. Why not cut off the head?
Anything to do with science is nop priority for this administration, with a young earth creationist, evolution-denier as a VP.
Can't you people leave him alone for a single day? He finished up his orb business, then left the middle east to arrive at Israel, had a great time at the Holocaust museum and randomly decided to confess to outing an Israeli spy in front of Netanyahu - but all you people can do is make fun of his tiny, tiny hands.
You're treating a symptom while the disease rages on. The fish rots from the head. Why not cut off the head?
It's still a mistake.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Video
I was hoping someone would call me out on that comment, and you came through. Not only did that video come out about the same time, but its JIMMY CARTER, yes the former president and former head of the DNC that did it.
I was also called a racist by Jennine Garaflo (sp?), Oprah Winfry, Rosie O'Donnel, Bill Maher, and on and on. But I didn't really care about those people. When a former president calls you a racist and no one disagreed with him, it was obvious to me the DNC would NEVER be my party again.
You're right, math is hard. But way too many people who call themselves conservatives round-off whatever errors they get by claiming the economy will magically, dramatically, improve and wipe out their mistakes. According to TFA:
According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, for Trump's tax cuts to pay for themselves, the economy would have to grow at 4.5 percent over the next 10 years. That's two and a half times the growth rate projected by the Congressional Budget Office.
That's always what these idiots do. Release the mythical tax strangle-hold on America's super-rich, and all the cuts to the safety net and spending for the military will magically be paid off, because the newly freed super-rich will invest their wealth and the whole country will soar like a pig full of hot air.
Conservatives who don't think very hard fall for this sucker-play because, to them, it's never been done, and it's waiting to happen, just begging to happen, and when it happens, it'll just totally work, and it'll be so great. Of course, nobody's holding a gun to the heads of rich people to do right with their tax relief and create jobs jobs jobs in America... they could spend it all overseas (a little more bang for the buck, there), spend it on yachts, spend it on cocaine... there's a lot of ways money can get spent... or not spent at all. Sunny-days, trickle-down budgets work just as well as Daddy's plan to move you into a nice house as soon as he wins his money back at the racetrack.
It's not a math error. It's a scam.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
From his speech in Jerusalem:
"Earlier this week, I spoke at a historic summit in Saudi Arabia. There, I urged our friends in the Muslim world to join us in creating stability, safety and security. I was deeply encouraged by the desire of many leaders to join us in cooperation toward these shared and vital goals. Conflict cannot continue forever – the only question is when nations will decide that they have had enough."
And so your second statement is itself invalidated. The rest of your little rant, if of similar quality, is discredited also.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I feel like this sentiment doesn't apply when malice has been proven repeatedly OR when the stakes are this high.
The GOP has repeatedly demonstrated aggression to a majority of the country. One of the GOP tactics to pacify the majority of people who will be hurt by these policies is to play dumb.
This isn't math, this is semantics. Trump claims the tax cuts are revenue neutral because they will be offset by the growth. This is a different meaning than what people usually mean when they say revenue neutral. Now whether the claim is true is an entirely different matter.
One mistake is a million times larger than the other. A little beyond tomato-tomahto differences.
The petty insults aimed at things no person controls like looks height hair colour is very typical of the left.
I used to call myself left leaning until i saw how the left treated Trump during his campaign not mature and how he played the left media.
Why can't you people behave like adults petty insults just get you laughed at by the rest of the world.
Trump: Biggest budget error - E V A R. So big.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Someone with mod points was so upset by the above post, they crawled through my history and applied down votes to other posts on unrelated topics.
I suppose that means I hit a nerve... or that we're letting Redditors in here now that the site's declined enough in quality to attract them.
...in three, two, one...
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Seriously? You are accusing the left of petty insults, when you idiots have Donald Trump, who was fucking EMBRACED by the right because of his petty insults towards his opponents?
What an impressively evil innovation from the Trump administration. Think of it: the very first administration to double count dollars in an accounting gimmick in order to make its budget look better. Luckily, slashdot and Mr Summers are on the case.
Do you see what happens, Larry? Do you see what happens when you double count tax reform pay-fors?
Like sanctuary cities that think they're above the law?
Actually, the vast majority of sanctuary cities are within the law, even by Trump's standards.
Like the federal government under Obama not enforcing immigration laws on the books.
It is well within the powers of the President to prioritize law enforcement, especially immigration. It's not like deportations dropped suddenly under Obama. Would you rather deport X felons or X/2 felons + X/2 otherwise innocent people? This kind of thing happens all the time at every level of government. District Attorneys don't prosecute every case that comes in front of them, they have to prioritize. Would you claim a cop is "not enforcing the traffic laws" because they choose not to pull over a speeder while on their way to a homicide? Probably not.
The Trump administration has done nothing counter to Constitution.
Well not successfully at least. Federal judges from all over the country found enough of a Constitutional issue in Trump's travel bans to warrant indefinite injunctions until the cases are settled (assuming the Administration still intends to fight them at all).
Keep in mind, the Administration didn't try to justify the bans in court, but instead claimed that they didn't have to provide justification. From the 9th Circuit Ruling (source):
[T]he government has taken the position that the president’s decisions about immigration policy, particularly when motivated by national security concerns, are unreviewable, even if those actions potentially contravene constitutional rights and protections. ... There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
You don't understand. When Republicans/Conservatives/Righties do it, it's noble and bravely challenging rampant over political correctness. When Democrats/Liberals/Lefties do it, it's proof that they're all evil monsters.
Aww, that's sweet that you think he wrote that himself, especially as two days before that Turkish thugs were kicking US citizens on US soil in the face for exercising their Constitutional right to protest.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
and soon you're talking about REAL money...
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Only yeah, they are supposed to be revenue neutral, where did you get the ridiculous idea that we can cut taxes, spend the same amount, and not go bankrupt? Did Reagan tell you that? Reagan had Alzheimer's the whole time he was president, everything he said was gobbledygook.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Yeah, but Trump is both malicious and stupid.
Yes, we don't have an informed public, mostly about the nature of money. People who have money (aka the 1%) want you to believe there is a finite amount of the stuff, and that the most powerful nation in the history of mankind needs to tax money from the people when only it has the sole legal right to create that money in the first place.
ALL money comes from the government originally. So powerful was this myth that until very recently, money always had the likeness of the ruling sovereign on them as it literally was a projection of his power. We see a relic of this today with the Secret Service. Similar services existed in the past to protect kings, and now presidents, and always prosecuted counterfeiters as traitors directly attacking the king.
What is sad is this should be a progressive thing. The only serious progressive economists today are well aware of how money functions.
See this:
http://moslereconomics.com/wp-...
http://neweconomicperspectives...
The same people saying Trump is wrong in this instances are also the idiots who believe banks lend grandma's savings. Banks don't lend money, they create debts, which are counted as assets via double entry bookkeeping. Exactly how Trump is doing it.
It is only a logical error to a fool who believes money grows on trees or is dug up from the ground and there is a fixed supply of it. It's just a number. It's all made up. It is a political construct like all others that keeps us from killing each other like wild animals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
It is not fucking semantics at all. his definition of revenue neutral is EXACTLY the definition everyone is using. however the administration is planning to spend an ADDITIONAL 1.3 trillion and claiming this is covered by the growth. This means the growth has to be way better than revenue neutral otherwise their is a fucking huge hole.
I really think we should give peas a chance.
How many commenters here think Trump had a hands-on role in crafting this budget... as if he sat down, like Kevin Kline and Charles Grodin did in the movie 'Dave', reviewing the federal budget line-by-line looking for waste, and holding him personally responsible for every calculation.
I guess that's a hold-over from the previous administration where every accomplishment was credited to the President personally, and every mistake to an unnamed career bureaucrat.
Ken
It's just a simple, innocent oversight. . .
Someone forgot to carry the 12 zeroes somewhere.
That's one error. You picky, picky math-checkers!
Whirled Peas is the answer.
Accounting... Schmaccounting... if it doesn't work out we'll just declare bankruptcy and start over again. Worked for everything else Trump has touched.
This. Very much this.
The only reason this was so blatantly obvious is that these people are even incompetent at lying.
No, when "republicans/conservatives/righties" get caught cheating on their wives, get outed as gay, or it comes out they are drug addicts they look like hypocritical douche bags.
When "democrats/liberals/lefties" get caught being racist, sexist, homophobic, name callers they look like hypocritical douche bags.
Anytime anyone gets caught blatantly behaving in the opposite manner that they profess to be their "core values", they look like a lying ass. It doesn't matter if they are left, right or center.
Because you cut tax rates while you spend a defined amount. Tax revenue is determined by the tax rates and the amount and size of revenue sources. If the economy grows fast enough, revenue will increase with reduced tax rates.
I didn't say he was illiterate. He does reasonably well with prepared statements.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The IRS looks at his taxes every year. So, unless you're saying that the IRS has not done its job his taxes have been checked.
The IRS does not check tax forms for violations of the Emoluments clause or for politicians being beholden to foreign representatives. Thanks for trying to change the subject.
All this is supposition upon supposition. If true he gets funds from others (pay for play) then he deserves to go to be disgraced, impeached and go to jail.
I, and others, assert that he should be more forthcoming with his financial information so that we don't have to take his word he's not doing that.
Now, that applies to all politicians, including those with charities pressuring others to "contribute."
Thanks for trying to change the subject.
We're pretty positive the Clintons have done that for years. We have NO evidence of that for Trump. (Yet) Nonetheless you call him Herr Donald. Do you go Herr Bill as well? (There's a pun there somewhere.)
He won. Get over it. Thanks for trying to change the subject.
Re the election. GTFOH. There was no hack of an election. This is a tech site, remember?
Which is why terms like "involvement" and "influence" and used and not "hack". Thanks for trying to change the subject.
Wikileaks has been more honest than the NYTs and they've been insisting that it was leak.
To the extent this resembles English, thanks one last time for trying to change the subject.
When it's good news, the right attributes it to Trump. When it's bad news, the right attributes it to someone else.
Stupicious!
Whirled Peas are the answer.
Yes, exactly!
(this message may have been filtered by the Grammar Police).
I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious. --Albert Einstein
I'm aware of how the Laffer curve works, but most reputable economic studies show the top of the curve is at around a 60% top marginal tax rate. Anything lower than that and you are losing revenue. In any case, I am just going by what the budget itself claims. It counts the same two trillion twice, read the articles, it's a basic math error.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Doesn't matter, Trump doesn't write the proposed budget personally. Hopefully he at least reviews the budget, but he's certainly not sitting there with a calculator and green eyeshades.
Conservatives are all over state's rights when it comes to guns, abortion, religion and confederate monuments. Anything else? LAWBREAKERS!!!!
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
like the signs that his wife is being abused (at least emotionally),
Nah she's just a typical rich man's wife who knows what the deal is. Some are in denial about the deal, but she accepts it: Stay home and raise kids in the lap of luxury, look nice at formal events, and look the other way when your husband cheats on you like his life depends on it, sometimes under not-so-consensual circumstances.
Not conducive to a close relationship, I'd imagine.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Right, but you still don't count that revenue twice.
Debt will be called in rescue for this accounting. But that is not a problem, since everybody in the World still wants to purchase US dollars.
Just like during the election, Trump continues to do things in a way that challenges the modern political orthodoxy. It is very clear that most politicians today conduct themselves in a very similar manner to each other, they're all good at "acting like a politician".
Trump continues to act in a way that is markedly not "like a politician". He speaks his mind (agreeing with what's said or not), nominates businessmen to senior posts instead of bureaucrats, speaks more openly with foreign leaders, etc, etc. Mostly, it's just a different way of doing things.
To a good chunk of the country, arguably even a majority now if some have flipped, they can't fathom anything but political orthodoxy and stories like this, and all of late, send them into an apoplectic rage. To me, I don't really care if there's a rounding error - the comment about a first-year economics student makes no sense. We didn't elect an economist, we elected someone who's going to try cutting the budget instead of successive govt's of both stripes growing them. Like all the Trump stories here I see silly focus on the non-important part of the conversation and quick jumps to demonize without understanding the substance. Just like during the election.
Ural nuts.
It's not a filler-filled pile, it's just full of fiber*.
(*) warning, may contain nuts.
Please stop spreading misinformation.
Rumsfeld was complaining that the accounting system they used at the Pentagon was outdated and inadequate to properly track the transactions up to expected accounting standards. No money went missing.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Nothing above the law about sanctuary cities. The federal government can request assistance with immigration enforcement but the local governments are not compelled to cooperate. There is no law that says they must assist the INS on demand.
INS claims (falsely) that they're only focusing on undocumented immigrants if they have committed serious crimes, and in such cases even sanctuary cities cooperate and turn the prisoners over. The case that riled so many against sanctuary cities when an illegal immigrant killed someone in San Francisco, there was no active warrant for the killer and there was no reason to continue detaining him. ICE requested he be detained but there was no legal basis for further detaining. The killer had no history of violent crimes, his deporations were due to drug laws and attempting re-entry to the US.
Now would it have been above the law to detain a person when no charges had been filed, no warrant or evidence presented, but merely because a federal agent asked for this?
Deportations under Obama administration were higher than under any other president, it's really a stretch for some people to call him soft on illegal immigration given the numbers.
Absolutely nothing, because the alleged perpetrator was born in the UK.
Also, don't reference Breitbart as if I'm supposed to take that trash seriously.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
Which is why Flynn is pleading the 5th
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Reagans trickle down b.s. had been dismissed as voodoo garbage years before Reagan and friends pushed it. Of course, when they implemented it, it failed miserably as all reputable economists had stated.
Authorship wasn't presented as a requirement.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I'm going to "Trump" your fucking bullshit.
When the gross negligence of a Democrat causes the death of a young girl who he made NO attempt to save, then he gets to serve in the Senate for Fourty fucking years and when he dies gets lauded as a noble statesman.
Cry me a river about Republican scandals for which they ALWAYS lose their positions.
I didn't say he was illiterate. He does reasonably well with prepared statements.
He is good in SQL?
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
There is a very good chance that President Trump is and has been suffering from dementia since before he ran for office. If you compare his vocabulary and speech patterns from 20 years ago and today, it's remarkable how childlike he has become and how simplistic he has become. His personality is the same but he's hollowing out inside and has been for serveral years.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I saw that one too. Looked very unlike Trump, didn't it?
It's as if the Presidential Trump guy from Twitter actually took over.
https://twitter.com/MatureTrum...
The guy admits never having read a book,
This includes 'Math for Dummies'
Trump has NO idea what's in this budget. Just like all through his campaign, where he talked about having "plans" for health care, the war on isis, on and on.
Health Care: banged together in a few weeks, after the election
War on ISIS (the one that he said that would definitely do the job, but he couldn't tell anybody unless he was elected: Tell the Generals to come up with a plan for defeating ISIS. They have 30 days.
Hell, he demands his info on everything to be boiled down to a single page of bullet points. And if you want him to actually read through the whole page, you have to use his name multiple times in the bullet points.
He was strong-arming Congressmen the way a bad used-car dealer tries to sell you a car: I have no idea what's in the deal, but you have to vote for it now or it's off the table and I'll slash the tires on your current car.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
You seem to be trying to dance around the issue here: you can't cut a budget if you can't do basic economics (hence the comment about failing a first year for such a mistake). This isn't Trump personally who made the error, but the Trump *cabinet*. So yea, it is a pretty dumb mistake to make but I too disagree with pinning it on him. Though, if he is as tough a businessman as he claims to be, I expect heads to roll.
So I don't get why you make this about him and how he acts and what not. This is just a dumb mistake from someone in his staff and they should be rightfully fired. The man himself makes enough mistakes but this one isn't on him, even though he is ultimately responsible
Trump employs incompetent people to do this stuff for him. He thinks he has great judgement and gets the best people, but his personality, policies and selection process ensure that the exact opposite happens.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
At some point the Trump apologists are going to have to stop deflecting to Clinton. Your guy is in office now, he's the one that you have to defend. Clinton lost the election, therefore isn't worthy of your time. What should be worthy is the constant stream of fuckups and potentially treason coming out of the current administration. You're not in a campaign anymore, you're in government.
Trump isn't stupid.
Trump is largely unable to recall what he said as little as 48 hours ago. His briefings get condensed to bullet points because he can't focus for more than a few minutes. Advisors and aides add his name to paragraphs so that he'll pay attention to them (on account of his pathological narcissism).
He is fucking stupid, and that's why the Russians enjoy him so much. Do yourselves a favour and put Pence in charge. He's an unmitigated dickhead, sure, but at least he's not a braindead moron.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
The petty insults aimed at things no person controls like looks height hair colour is very typical of the left.
lol.
I used to call myself left leaning until i saw how the left treated Trump
LOL. Sure you did, buddy. I bet you were a regular Karl fucking Marx.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
There is a very good chance that President Trump is and has been suffering from dementia since before he ran for office. If you compare his vocabulary and speech patterns from 20 years ago and today, it's remarkable how childlike he has become and how simplistic he has become. His personality is the same but he's hollowing out inside and has been for serveral years.
Lucky him, it got him elected.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
At some point the Trump apologists are going to have to stop deflecting to Clinton.
You'd think wouldn't you?
At some point they'll have to explain why they aren't putting Pence (a man with a functioning brain, despite being a hateful prick) in charge.
"But her emails..."
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
My belief is that he's suffering from dementia....
I’ve been aware of Trump since the eighties. He’s always been an idiot. People assume that, just because he has a lot of money that he can’t be an idiot, but his wealth is easily explained without having to resort to intelligence, or even business acumen. I’m sure you’ve experienced this yourself, that some of the smartest people you know are not wealthy. Wealth and intelligence aren’t that heavily correlated.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
And with "Trump" I guess exaggerate and knowingly lie? Because that's what you just did...
"Left" or right - US politics is generally fucked up, US morals is generally fucked up. Just shut up and swallow.
Stop BSing yourself. We don't have a functioning democracy?
Like sanctuary cities that think they're above the law?
Like the federal government under Obama not enforcing immigration laws on the books.
These things are dangerous - and I'm a proponent of immigration - but make it legal and on the f**king books.
The Trump administration has done nothing counter to Constitution.
And in case it matters I didn't vote for the orange oompa lumpa.
Actually, there is a question of constitutionality in holding people for ICE. It’s more probable that so-called sanctuary cities are complying with the Constitution than that the Feds are by asking local governments to hold people in jail beyond when they should normally be released.
Obama not enforcing immigration? Are we talking about the same Obama who deported more illegal immigrants than any other president?
The Trump administration has done nothing counter to the Constitution? Are you aware that the Emoluments Clause is part of the Constitution? I won’t even mention the, as yet, unproven violations.
I’m glad to hear that you had the sense not to vote for this obvious demagogue. I just hope you didn’t fritter it away on a third-party candidate. This was not the election for protest votes.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
Should the primary goal of government be to maximize its revenues?
It's also silly to talk about Laffer curves and marginal rates in the same sentence. A Laffer curve is implicitly about revenues as a function of a single tax rate. Once you have multiple tax rates, you won't get a single peak (local maximum) in the multidimensional surface, and you can't predict where the global maximum will be, much less whether you have achieved it.
Not to mention that Laffer himself repeatedly stated that exploiting the curve to grow revenue is ONLY possible if it's coupled with austerity measures. You can't just cut taxes, you HAVE to cut spending enough to offset it until the growth comes.
The idea is that, at around 60% you could grow revenues over-all by instituting a combination of spending cuts and tax cuts. No republican ever does the spending cuts part - because it's impossible to do the cuts Laffer describes without HUGELY cutting the military budget. Even if you flat out remove EVERYTHING ELSE from the budget it wouldn't be enough without also cutting defense.
Then comes the other factors - generally spending cuts INCREASE deficits and debts because they cost more revenue than they save in expenses (austerity in general is about as sensible as trying to save money on your heating bill by burning your paycheck for warmth). The only time austerity measures can safely be introduced is EXACTLY the opposite of when conservatives tend to push them: during boom times. Cutting spending in a recession is a great way to make the recession worse and the government poorer. You cut spending, if it needs cutting, during boom times when there is enough revenue that you can afford to carry the losses it cause.
So to successfully use the Laffer curve three conditions MUST hold:
1) Marginal tax rates needs to be at the peak of the curve, that's around 60% usually.
2) Spending cuts must match every tax cut
3) It must be during an already-in-progress boom cycle when there's lots of economic growth already happening and you can afford to take a medium term, but severe, shock to the system.
Even then you're likely to trigger a short to medium term recession - you may come out ahead at the end, but make no mistake - getting there is going to be painful. To get the promised holy land you will need to walk barefoot through a field of broken glass.
Republicans however, they don't much care for these facts. They just like to pretend that Laffer said "Tax cuts lead to economic growth which raises revenue" and ignore everything else he said and everything every other economist said so they can keep doing the exact same set of policies they always do - even though they NEVER work, and in fact, consistently produce exactly the outcomes that economists predict: deficits get worse, debts increase, the economy slumps and people suffer.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Trump lied, self-contradicted, slung shit, said various things would be easy without any real explanation. This is not the kind of different we need. We aren't stuck embracing political orthodoxy, we want a minimum level of competency, honesty, and perspective that he clearly lacks. 2 trillion dollars isn't a rounding error... Nice tap dancing though.
And of course, this is why Newt Gingrich can't win re-election after cheating on the fourth spouse in a row... oh wait.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
It depends what's being taxed. If it's income, there isn't much an employee can do about it. Coincidentally, in Belgium the income tax rate goes to 60% pretty fast (over 38k euro bracket, 50% tax + 13% social security = 63% total). Next to that your employer has to pay 30% on your gross income too.
However, capital gains on stocks weren't taxed before here. They put a 33% tax on it. Problem was, you couldn't subtract your losses either. So, one stock climbs, that's 33% on your gains, another stock bombs, sucks to be you since you can't add both up! So you were taxed even if your portfolio lost money.
Result: stock market transaction volume in Belgium dropped so badly, that the taxes they raised from transactions (which was 0,26% or something) dropped by 50 million euro.
So instead of gaining 100 million in taxes (which they projected), they lost 50. They removed the tax after one year.
There's another joke in there somewhere, something about the *fruit* of Trump's loins...
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Compared to Trump - GWB *was* relatively benign.
But only in the sense that pre-metastatic cancer is relatively benign compared to metastatic cancer.
Dick Cheney may have been a child of satan but at least his brain had mastered skills beyond "construct elaborate conspiracy theory" which appears to be the only thing anybody in the current administration is any good at. Seriously, it's as if the whole corrupt lot of them went to Alex Jones university.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Dementia ? Nah, I'd bet the farm on syphilis. Similar symptoms - but his lifestyle makes him a grade-A risk candidate and there are other symptoms (moodswings, paranoia) which are more pronounced with syphilis and clearly shown by Trump and less so with dementia.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
So if I shortchange program X by $9.99M, and give program Y an extra $10M, the only real story is that I went a net $10k over budget, not that I misdirected a thousand times as much?
Like everything else from this administration, it's a lie. We don't have a functioning democracy any more because we don't have an informed public, sadly.
"this administration", name an administration that didn't have this problem. The problem is more systemic and broken than people may realize.
We'll make great pets
Hanlon's Razor applies here. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
That's 'Murica for you! A lot of American behavior can be very adequately explained by stupidity and it's not just reserved for the Republican Party either. Stupidity is not a partisan issue.
We'll make great pets
Disagree. This is malicious; intentional. Trump isn't stupid.
Non-sequitir. Try again.
We'll make great pets
it's neither malice nor stupidity, it's hyperbole.
TRUMP: We're gonna have the biggest math errors! Way better and bigger errors than the democrats!! Nobody makes math errors better than me, believe me. No one's every had more than a trillion dollar math error. They said it couldn't be done. I'm really smart - I went to the Wharton School of Finance. We're gonna have errors more than, more, er, than TWO TRILLION DOLLARS!
The biggest math error of them all is we are going to pay for infinite amounts of social programs and pay for them with exponentially increasing amounts of national debt. That one takes the cake. Except that's not an "error", that was intentional.
We'll make great pets
Reagans trickle down b.s. had been dismissed as voodoo
Trump likes it when she trickles down.
You make a claim without proof. Your claim is based on your fear of what may be, not what has happened.
And, in case it matters I did not vote for Trump. Opposition to Trump doesn't mean I have to swallow BS.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
No. The Federal Government has the authority as regards borders. Federal statutes have been passed and it's the Executive Branch's responsibility to execute them. States and cities do not have the authority to write their own laws regarding this issue.
If you think the Federal government does not have the authority to enforce borders please explain the existence of all these agencies that have been signed into law, and budgets allocated for. And the INS has been around since before WWII.
Obviously it's the purview of the Federal government to make and enforce immigration law.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
... pretty soon you're talking real money.
But come on fellas, this is the US government! I mean, the Pentagon lost $6 trillion down the back of a sofa - did anyone complain about that? The Fed spent over $16 trillion of the taxpayers' money to bail out the banks in 2008, and no one was even charged with wrongdoing.
Basic tax arithmetic: there are (about) 333 million Americans, so $1 billion is (about) $3 apiece - or about $8 per taxpayer. And $1 trillion is (about) $3000 apiece - or $8000 per taxpayer.
"Today, the average household with credit card debt has balances totaling $16,748, and the average household with any kind of debt owes $134,643, including mortgages". https://www.nerdwallet.com/blo...
So why worry about the odd trillion here or there? It's government of the people, by the people, for the people - so you gotta love it!
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Trump is a complete idiot. He can't make a statement over two sentences long...
I really hope he goes to criminal trial. I don't know if he is guilty of anything, but I really want to hear him try to respond to questioning. He speaks so generally and then declines to elaborate on what he means. I would love to hear him pressed on what the crap he is talking about. It would be very entertaining.
I have no idea whether this error was politically motivated or not, and frankly, I do not care. I come here for tech news, not random bashing on ANY politician for some surrogate doing something stupid. If Obama or Trump or any other politician did this, it would not be newsworthy of the technology site, we call Slashdot. I would appreciate if Slashdot could focus on all the technological issues and discoveries in the world and focus less on political jabbing.
As a side note, I'm a software engineer, not an accountant. I am a pretty successful one at that. But at times, I've made really dumb mistakes and spent hours or days tracking down the bug that was "elementary". It happens. In our industry, we don't fire someone over a stupid mistake. Instead, we use it as a learning experience. If they learn from it and move on, good for them.
All this accounting is done by some low level government official. I would not want them fired for this unless it happens repeatedly. Hopefully, the person who made the error uses this as a great learning experience and does better the next time.
Yeah, Sheppard Smith is going to destroy FNC with his MSM approach to anything political. He probably wrote that apology himself. We don't need another MSNBC or CNN, FOX will just fade into oblivion if they try to emulate that super-saturated sector of left-wing propaganda "media". BBC is so refreshing compared to anything the US calls journalism nowadays. Sad.
A snopes.com reference? They ceased to be useful when they tried to apply their craft to politics. Their work nowadays doesn't pass anything resembling diligence or intellectual muster. They'll debunk anything right-leaning unless the proof is absolute. Try reading some of their recent postings. Anything political is garbage from them now.
You make a claim without proof. Your claim is based on your fear of what may be, not what has happened.
And, in case it matters I did not vote for Trump. Opposition to Trump doesn't mean I have to swallow BS.
If you're not a supporter of him then you're doing a good impression of one. Be honest now, is there any proof that you would accept? What would the source have to be?
There is a lot of sources for Trump receiving gift that he shouldn't have got, but none that you want to hear, presumably because it's from the many sources you consider so biased that they would manufacture everything.
Trump wasn't even in town. You're really going to blame him for the actions of the paranoid Turkish regime? Those pukes beating those protesters all had diplomatic immunity. They can be expelled and that's about it. Meanwhile, the Turkish president summoned our US ambassador to complain that we did too much to interfere with their security operations. Lovely stuff.
P.S. Soros is expecting higher quality posts, you better pick up the pace or the pay checks will get thinner or stop altogether.
Sounds like Reagan: in my administration more than half of the students will be above average
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
That is something about Hitler and Stalin that People forget. Both of them were very intelligent and good at what they were doing. The problem is that the stuff they did was totally evil, but there were certainly not stupid
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
Moron, click the link and then be ashamed of your reactionary idiocy.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Clinton who took Millions of dollars from Russia, while securing a deal to sell a larger percentage of Uranium to Putin.
Fascinating. Did that happen? Link please
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
It's a fucking photo mate. Let me guess, snopes crafted the pixels by hand and spread them on the internet to erode faith in your orange hero. Bad, bad people. Sad!
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Partially disagree. It's malicious but that doesn't mean Trump isn't stupid too.
Trump is not stupid. He is an asshole narcissistic bullshit artist. I would add sociopathic but that would be redundant, as he was a CEO.
THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
If they shut the fuck up, how can they later say I told you so?
Absolutely. And that, right there, is the one and only thing Trump does NOT have in common with Hitler. Trump is an incompetent buffoon. Hitler was a competent and shrewd.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Michael, Michael, Michael, if you're going to lie, try to at least make your lie believable. In this case, Clinton didn't personally approve the sale, and the state department was only one of nine U.S. agencies that did approve the sale, only Obama, himself, could have vetoed the sale unilaterally and it also received approval from Canadian regulators.
Why are you telling lies?
Fanatically anti-fanatical
If you read the actual budget, which I'll link to below, you'll see that they never claim to pay for all spending through tax collections. The budget explicitly says otherwise. It also talks about a deficit neutral--not revenue neutral--tax plan, for what that's worth.
So no, it's not a math error. The budget expects to continue the usual deficit spending, albeit at a lower rate than recent past.
The question is whether these reports amount to fake news. They're making critical claims based on false premises, after all.
Check out Table S-1 here:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/sit...
So this wasn't an issue with the ACA and most all Obama's budgets, but it is now? Op Ed from Washington Post is about as creditable as a crack head saying they will pay back any money you can loan them.
Partially disagree. It's malicious but that doesn't mean Trump isn't stupid too.
Trump is not stupid. He is an asshole narcissistic bullshit artist. I would add sociopathic but that would be redundant, as he was a CEO.
It depends on what your definition of stupid is. He comes across as brighter than George W Bush or Ronald Reagan, but then again so do many small shrubberies.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
They've been against individual cities and counties rights within a state for a while.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Absolutely nothing, because the alleged perpetrator was born in the UK.
Clearly, here in the UK we need to go further than a mere travel ban, and actually start deporting anyone with foreign parents. Or grandparents. Or great-grandparents. Or...
But people with Saxon or Viking ancestry are OK because they're blonde haired and blue eyed and just happen to have non-brown skin..
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
BUT HER EMAILS!!!
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Slashdot is an echo chamber for triggered special snowflakes these days.
Yes, I'm getting tired of all the whiny Trump supporters too.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Doesn't matter, Trump doesn't write the proposed budget personally. Hopefully he at least reviews the budget, but he's certainly not sitting there with a calculator and green eyeshades.
And I thought people elected him because he was such a great business man. So why did he not take over his accountants to do those calculations? Or is the problem that he did, that he used the guys who did his tax returns, but he can't bribe everybody looking at the budget like he can with his taxes?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
And what are you going to do about it?!
How about you join the movement to fix this stuff? And, take your country back from the Oligarchy Dictatorship?
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
The primary goal of government is obviously not to maximize its revenues. However, it's useful to know what sorts of effects taxes will have on the economy and how much tax revenue is likely to change. I've seen enough stupid arguments that cutting taxes increases revenue, with "Laffer curve" used much like a holy invocation.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Actually, see here, from https://twitter.com/seanhannit...
Sean HannityVerified account @seanhannity 11 minutes ago A segment from my radio show today, I stand by everything I said & have said on this topic. More at 10pm tonight.
I am not Fox.com or FoxNews.com. I retracted nothing.
Just like he never retracted his Birther claims?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Trump does things that sure look stupid, but they may have other explanations. His obvious lies might be to separate his supporters further from reality so they don't notice him screwing them over, for example. I'm not so sure about the incompetent ways he's done other things.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Were the funds misdirected or was the accounting bad?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
He's the frippin' President. If he made the mistake himself, it's his fault. If he appointed someone else who made the mistake, it's his fault for the appointment. If it's wrong, it's his fault. Harry Truman had it right: the buck stops in the Oval Office.
I'm not saying Presidents can't be allowed to make mistakes. I'm saying that this is ultimately Trump's mistake.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
There are actually two emoluments clauses in effect. You seem to be talking about Article I, Section 9: "And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United Stated] shall, without the Consent of Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State." There's also Article II, Section 1: "The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor decreased during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them."
There's actually nothing against Trump's receiving money from rich foreigners, as long as they aren't doing it as part of a foreign government, but if he's receiving any money from any government in the US for things like security at Trump Tower or Mar-a-Lago, he's violating the Constitution.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You're deplorable.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
"Righties"? ...hmmm. While the term "Leftists" is a shibboleth for people who consume conservative talk-show drivel, and I can appreciate turn-about, I have to put forward the proposal to amend it to "TightyRighties".
There's no doubt that it's genuinely malicious, but Trump itself is simply too stupid to pull it off. The malice is from the entities who own it. And of course, by "it" I mean, "The Asshat in the Oval Office" who really doesn't deserve to even be called a person.
It's not about revenue at all. The goal is a federal government so weak that "we can drown in a bathtub". If that means bankrupting the federal government, so be it.
The tax cut serves two purposes:
- To hasten the process of dismantling the only power capable of holding the wealthiest Americans in check: the US federal government.
- To further consolidate power into the hands of the wealthiest, whom can then live with complete impunity, as was the case a century ago.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Whirled Peas are the answer.
Yes, exactly!
(this message may have been filtered by the Grammar Police).
"Whirled peas" is ambiguous, so either form of the verb is acceptable.
In your reading, it's a bunch of individual peas whirling around, a plurality.
In my reading, it is a fluid that results from having stuck them in a blender, a single portion of a fluid.
We shouldn't let this come between us. I don't need more enemies.
Yes.
1. Show evidence that the election was hacked. It wasn't. Podesta got caught in a phishing attack. We're not even sure that was the source of the emails.
2. There hasn't been any pay-for-play charges. They've been accusations of what "may" happen but zip for charges.
You mention gifts. What gifts?
I had an argument with a lunatic who felt that the secret service renting rooms from a Trump property constituted a gift.
No. Those rooms would have been rented anyway. If Trump moved to a failed property for the express purpose of housing secret service then you would have a point. But the Trump Towers in NYC and Margo a Lago are booked constantly.
Then there was a fool on Slashdot saying that because a Trump owned project was shopping around for investors that this was an example of funneling money to Trump. What!?! WTF type of reasoning is that.
And no I did not vote for the oompa lumpa but that doesn't mean that I should swallow the BS that is being tossed around.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
We shouldn't let this come between us. I don't need more enemies.
Though we're not from the same pod, I couldn't agree more.
I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious. --Albert Einstein
I'm glad to see someone mention this. "Emoluments" has become a bit of a mantra among some, and it's pretty evident that they're overstating the scope of those clauses to claim that Trump is violating the Constitution. As you implied, Trump may be violating the Constitution with some as yet undisclosed dealings, but I've yet to see anything disclosed that clearly, actually violates the Emoluments clauses referenced.
"Is not a sentence" is not a sentence. Well damn.
That's what your mom said when you were born.
Ugh, Trump talks of conspiracy, Cheney outright fabricated one that led to war. Trump would be prevented from going that far down the rabbit hole.
I don't think you quite understand how the IRS works...
not that it has anything to do with if someone outside of USA paid into some business of Trumps - that has quite literally nothing to do with anything.
now the problem
I'm not american so what the fuck do I care but come on... trump is already playing childish semantics defence games insisting there is a difference in him expressing a wish to someone he later fires(for totally different reasons than not complying with his wish) vs. ordering him to do something outright. there really isn't.
now, maybe him dealing with russia ends up being good for usa but whatever, he sure as f has no idea about the rules. also for some reason he seems to think that russia matters at fucking all - like he is stuck in 1980 or something and doesn't really understand how small russias economy is - but he is very much stuck in the '80s.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I'm waiting to find out what the penalty for misappropriation of charity funds used for personal use will be. I can see a tax auditor skimming things and glossing over a lot of stuff, but when there's photos of art showing it wasn't used as reported, the auditors have a lot more to investigate.
Wow. I wish /. would add a "no credibility" option instead of friend and foe.
It's not a semantic game. You and I can discuss an issue and be at odds about it. The FBI director is not a peon and secondly has a legal obligation to notify the Justice Department in writing that an attempt was made to sway his investigation. It's his legal obligation, under penalty of law (disbarment, removal from office) to report said offense. Not only did Comey not send the notice but he declared, under oath, to a Congressional Panel that he was not pressure....
So. What do we get from the above facts?
My conclusion is that there is a lot of BS and no substance.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Misappropriation of charity funds - namely funneling them to private use - is a big f**king deal to the IRS.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
I've seen people concerned that Trump is getting profits from foreigners, which is perfectly Constitutional. There may be other relevant laws that I don't know about.
Is Trump charging domestic governments for anything concerning security at Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago? That would be unconstitutional.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Can we perform an SQL injection on him ?
It doesn't matter if it should or shouldn't be. The point is that if you're on the left side of the Laffer curve, then cutting taxes doesn't increase your revenues. So if you claim that is is (as Republicans always do when they cut taxes), you're lying.
You forgot to mention that the other point is that Democrats always lie about taxes, too. After all, in one breath they claim that rich people and corporations engage in extensive tax avoidance schemes (implying that we are on the right side of the Laffer curve), and in the next breath conclude that we need to raise taxes on the rich and corporations (implying that we are on the left side of the Laffer curve).
After all, if you're going to blatantly lie and say that politicians "always" advance a strawman argument, you should probably be even-handed about it, lest you look like a pathetic partisan hack.
Extensive legal tax avoidance schemes (which are the ones normally talked about) do not imply that we're on the right side of the curve. They would be used regardless of the position on the curve.
Whoosh.
Which Laffer curve were you talking about, anyway? The one for the taxes being avoided, or the one for the lower-tax alternative?
Obligatory: https://twitter.com/trumpdba
- Francis Ocoma
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