The White House Is Temporarily Shutting Down Its Petition Website (gizmodo.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: We The People, the petition section of the White House's website, is shutting down for a promised January relaunch. First launched in 2011 under then-President Obama, We The People pledged to provide a White House response to any petition which garnered 100,000 or more signatures within 30 days. The 200+ petitions that have received an official response have largely been unremarkable, leading to revelations like the White House's official beer recipe or condemnations (in word only) of groups like the Westboro Baptist Church. In short, the site has functioned as a PR tool for fostering good will -- one that the Trump administration has reportedly considered killing since April and now appears to be sluggishly getting around to putting in the ground.

"To improve this site's performance, the platform is currently down for maintenance and will return in late January," the site now reads. "All existing petitions and associated signatures have been preserved and will be available when the site is relaunched. Following the site's relaunch, petitions that have reached the required number of signatures will begin receiving responses." Further reading: The New York Times

Comments

How likely is it going to be to be back?

[JoshuaZ]

Considering that the Trump administration has responded to exactly zero petitions (the Obama admin at least responded to petitions even if the responses were sometimes dismissive), and given everything else this administration has done, I'm not sure how likely it should be that the system will be back when they say it will.

Re: How likely is it going to be to be back?

[Anonymous Coward]

The petitions were always bullshit. Cherry picked the easy ones for quick responses, the mildly tough ones were basically âoeno commentâ, and they outright ignored the real tough ones.

Just get rid of it, Iâ(TM)d rather nothing than a farce.

Re:How likely is it going to be to be back?

[chispito]

Considering that the Trump administration has responded to exactly zero petitions (the Obama admin at least responded to petitions even if the responses were sometimes dismissive), and given everything else this administration has done, I'm not sure how likely it should be that the system will be back when they say it will.

So you miss being patronized, rather than outright ignored?

Re:How likely is it going to be to be back?

[green1]

Sadly, in politics these days there are 3 options:
- Be stinking rich
- Be patronized
- Be ignored

So for those of us who don't fall in the first category (most people), your choice is really between the last 2....

Re:How likely is it going to be to be back?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm perfectly happy with #3. In fact there are few things I want more in life than for other people to not 'help me' for my own good. And no I don't live in a cabin in the wilderness, I just want to go about my business with my family and people I care about and live.

Re:How likely is it going to be to be back?

[JoshuaZ]

Let's see. They responded to a pro-marijuana legalization petition http://blog.norml.org/2011/10/29/white-house-response-to-normls-we-the-people-marijuana-legalization-petition/, and to this one related to the Westboro Baptist Church https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/03/white-house-westboro-baptist-church_n_3540814.html. If you want to argue that their responses were generally dismissive or lacking content, then sure, but I already acknolwedged that in my initial post.

Re:How likely is it going to be to be back?

[green1]

I don't think you grasp how #3 works. It doesn't mean they won't do anything that affects your life. It means they won't accept your input on it. Simply going about your business and continuing to do what you want only applies to people in category #1.

Re:How likely is it going to be to be back?

[JoshuaZ]

Again, see 'dismissive" which was acknowledged in the very first comment. I'm not sure what additional point you are trying to make here.

Re:How likely is it going to be to be back?

[haruchai]

"How likely is it going to be to be back?"

I have faith it'll be back before he releases his tax returns.

Re:How likely is it going to be to be back?

[interkin3tic]

I won't miss people making false dichotomies about it, so I guess that's a plus...

Re:How likely is it going to be to be back?

[rtb61]

There is a fourth. They are in power due to their egos, bloody massive egos so there is a range of things you can do to poke the shit out of their egos, especially considering how massive and vulnerable they are. Simply routinely, regularly take the piss out of them, mock them and mock the corrupt efforts. Don't just tell them you are going vote against them, that is really lame, tell them you will actually actively going to political campaign against them and you want to see them unemployed and tell them who you will be campaigning for (can't win elections, then they are worth nothing to the corporations and they wont pay them any more). Pay attention to the primaries, that is where you can have the most fun, limited numbers of people voting and you can have a huge impact, stack the elections will representatives of the workers and drive out the corporate stooges.

Grind on the fuckers and then grind on them some and keep on grinding. Don't go nuts, you are not alone and a few hours a week shared between millions and you can make every corrupt politicians life a political hell, make them wish they had never chosen that corrupt path. Don't forget to have fun doing it, fuck em, your might succeed, you might fail but you will have fun doing it, a whole lot of fun. Who knows who you might be able to get to complain about demons attacking them, fucking hilarious.

Now don't take it to seriously because if you do, you will tend to fuck it all up and possibly end with a custodial sentence, enjoy the grind, enjoy putting political fear into the lives of corrupt politicians, enjoy grinding on the corporations that fund them and enjoy trying to defund those corporations by attacking their profits in what every 'bendy' way you can, remember bend the law, do not break it and have fun. I'll bet you find it to be a lot more fun than you think it will be, think of it like a computer strategy game, how to fuck with the corrupt, how to deflate their egos, how to make them panic and make really stupid decisions, how to trip them up, how to flip their marketing campaigns, how to turn their positives into negatives, how to expose their corruption, how to fuck with their plots and schemes so they blow up in their faces, so many fun ways to program the AI that is the internet, to make life a digital political hell for them.

Stop ignoring the primaries, you can have by far the greatest impact with the least amount of effort and fuck em and fuck em hard but have fun, don't forget to have fun and don't take it too seriously you win some you lose some but every time they lose it is a total catastrophe for them. Just look how Clinton freaked out (the government on it's side, main stream media on it's side, the corporations on it's side and the pathetic cow still lost big, apparently trolled right out of winning the election).

Re:How likely is it going to be to be back?

[aquacrayfish]

Reading an entire sentence is diffic.... oh look, a kitty!

They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[Anonymous Coward]

The Senate is voting this evening on a tax reform bill designed to screw over the poor and middle class. Republicans are busy increasing the debt and harming most Americans, so they can help their wealthy donors. The White House seems more interested in burying their heads in the sand.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[rwven]

Before assuming you'll be screwed over by the tax plan, I suggest using the nytimes' calculator to see what your tax changes will be. As it stands, virtually no poor or middle class citizens will see a tax increase. https://www.nytimes.com/intera... (I myself will see a few thousand dollar decrease in taxes)

I'm sure there are some instances where a handful of people will see increased taxes, but don't believe every front page post you see on reddit. There's no incoming middle class decimation along with this bill, and waving your arms and screaming about it won't make your statement any more true.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[rwven]

Only the ones who trash talk the trump administration. >:]

Re: They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[Anonymous Coward]

Those tax breaks are temporary, plus adding debt drives up interest rates.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[Anonymous Coward]

What about all the money being put on the US credit card? That will eventually have to be paid back.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[crunchygranola]

Before assuming you'll be screwed over by the tax plan, I suggest using the nytimes' calculator to see what your tax changes will be. As it stands, virtually no poor or middle class citizens will see a tax increase. https://www.nytimes.com/intera... (I myself will see a few thousand dollar decrease in taxes)

As has been very widely reported the tax bill is front loaded with expiring sweeteners for the Middle Class that expire after some years, while the tax cuts for corporations and the rich do not ever expire.

This is more than a bit like "introductory interest rates" on loans or credit cards that jump up after a period of time.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[Rick Schumann]

This sort of 'tax reform plan' has been tried before (Reagan era), and it never produces the economic growth it claims it'll produce -- and 'trickle down economics' is bullshit, the wealthy and corporations will keep their extra cash, and to hell with everyone else.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[psycho12345]

The problem is that the pain comes later. You will see tax reduction in 2019, but it will shrink each year, and within 5-7 years, it will be gone or raise your taxes. It will raise everyone's taxes in 10 years.

Of course, these "temporary" tax cuts will become some campaign rallying cry in 5-7 years, and will be made permanent (see Bush and Obama doing the same for their predecessors "temporary" cuts).

Meanwhile, the tax cuts for the wealthy are permanent from the get go.

So end result? National debt will continue to rise, even faster. Now we just need a good war, and we've repeated the first 3 years of Bush.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[FuegoFuerte]

Case in point, Musk, who clearly kept his cash by funding Tesla, and SpaceX, and Boring Company, and whatever other businesses he's funded/invested in/etc... those nasty rich people like Musk sure do like to hoard their money, creating all those nasty jobs and everything... we wouldn't want more of that, no sirree.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point, but 2% yearly growth in the economy will generate enough revenue to pay down all debt.
For the record, we are at 4% since last November (and with this tax plan, 6-8% is doable). If the infrastructure plan of Trump goes through, we might be at 10%

From my personal experience, I can tell you that the US tax system is one of the worst in the world. Everything else is great, except for a) dumb taxes (particularly as applied to sales overseas) and b) too much regulation overall. (but to be fair, I am just a random Anon on Slashdot, unwilling to give you any personal details). When Germany has a better business tax system, something is very wrong indeed.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[Brett Buck]

The Reagan-era tax cuts took the economy from completely moribund 'stagflation' to the greatest peacetime economic boon in history in the space of a few years.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, we all know "statistics" is merely the plural of "anecdote".

We've been here before - under RWR, under GWB. Both times, we were promised that tax cuts for upper incomes would trickle down and improve middle class incomes too. Both times, it didn't happen. How many times do we have to go through the same old shit?

Now we have Trump trumpeting his "Trump bump", based on the NYSE capitalization. Well guess what, over the same time period both Germany and Japan have outperformed the US on stock market capitalization. Which means that the US is actually underperforming against world economic benchmarks right now. (Which won't surprise any sane economist, that's what happens when you turn against trade.)

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[Sarten-X]

Good point, but 2% yearly growth in the economy will generate enough revenue to pay down all debt.

2% is adorable. That's not enough to cover interest and inflation, let alone pay down any debt, which has been growing at 5% for the last 4 years.

For the record, we are at 4% since last November (and with this tax plan, 6-8% is doable).

Despite Trump's claims of shockingly-high GDP, we're just over 3% this year, which is only a little above average. Since we've had a strong stable economy for the last five years, this is unsurprising. Yes, 6-8% is doable, but it was last done in 1984, accompanied by a notable tax increase and a big increase in debt, as well.

If the infrastructure plan of Trump goes through, we might be at 10%

That's also an entertaining estimate, since the White House hasn't actually released any details of this great plan.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[rwven]

That's selective reasoning. GWB nearly doubled the national debt and Obama turned around and doubled it again. Continuing the trend is bad, of course, but acting like this is anything other than normal at this stage is just willful ignorance.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[pslytely psycho]

Followed by eleven tax increases to control the deficit when revenues and growth did not meet expectations.
(Yes, some of them were closures of gigantic tax loopholes, and broadening of the tax base, but it still amounted to the largest peacetime tax increase in history.)
And R's never cut budgets unless it is a program that assists the poor. That precious bomb budget only ever gets expanded.....

Re: They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[LynnwoodRooster]

The CBO scoring of the plan assumed a 1.9% GDP growth rate. Historically, the US GDP growth is closer to 3.6% annually, and if you use that as your baseline - there is an elimination of the deficit and a surplus after 4 years. So using the wonderful Bush/Obama baseline, we add debt; using the baseline of all other Presidents, we turn a surplus. Personally, I believe 1.9% is NOT the new normal; witness this year with 3%+ every single quarter. A baseline more like the historical 3.6% average should have been used.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[omnichad]

Social spending is a net negative to poor people because of the obscene waste/overhead that takes money out of the economy and wastes it on administration.

                Liberals care so much about poor people, they create as many as possible.

Walmart is the one benefiting from social spending. They specifically use it as a way to underpay their employees but not lose them. And they need to pay a much bigger share of the pot that goes to this if they can't be made to pay better wages.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[omnichad]

And the rich ended up shouldering even more of the Federal tax load, moving from 18% in 1981 to 28% of all Federal income taxes.

This needs to be adjusted for the fact that the rich were getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Where do you think rich people money comes from? Tax cuts don't mean more jobs - it just means bigger net profits.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[pslytely psycho]

Never been Poor have you? I have.
They can work, and work well.
Yes, too much is wasted on administration. True with any government spending as well.
I still prefer my money spent on society than the next great pie in the sky weapons system.
Plus all I heard for eight years was DEFICIT and the unemployment numbers are 20% not 5%..
Now, its silence on the deficit, and those employment numbers are now true.
D's suck, but R's are downright sociopaths.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[Brett Buck]

How would that help? Drive up their costs, which raises the cost to the consumer (you don't think they are going to raise wages and keep the prices the same, do you?) - the same people who shop there.

          All that taxing the evil corporations does is take even MORE money out of the economy and raise prices. Sounds like you learned economics from Paul Krugman.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[cyn1c77]

Before assuming you'll be screwed over by the tax plan, I suggest using the nytimes' calculator to see what your tax changes will be. As it stands, virtually no poor or middle class citizens will see a tax increase. https://www.nytimes.com/intera... (I myself will see a few thousand dollar decrease in taxes)

As has been very widely reported the tax bill is front loaded with expiring sweeteners for the Middle Class that expire after some years, while the tax cuts for corporations and the rich do not ever expire.

This is more than a bit like "introductory interest rates" on loans or credit cards that jump up after a period of time.

You don't understand. This tax plan is intended to help the middle class.

It will make them try harder to be richer, so that their tax cuts will never expire.

The Republicans are all about you helping yourself!

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[Duds]

Which is a level of evil you can actually admire, because they can say with a straight face "everyone" benefits and then do their usual screaming of fake news at anything that points out what you just did.

Even better, without ramming through another bill, it starts to get really bad for normal people somewhere around just after the next election when it's likely someone else's problem.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[omnichad]

They keep their prices nearly as high as their competition who seem to be able to pay employees and offer full time positions. It's pure profit.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[LynnwoodRooster]

Ahh, the pie cannot grow! I guess that's why the GDP went from $3.2 trillion in 1981 to $5.2 trillion in 1988. That's a 62.5% growth. The GINI ratio went from 0.406 to 0.426; under President Clinton it went from 0.433 to 0.466 - a much bigger jump. Money comes from creating wealth; if it didn't, we'd still have a sub-$1 trillion GDP.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[omnichad]

The size of the GDP is really only the size of the wallets of the rich. This is the cause of the increasing class disparity. There is no trickle-down.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[omnichad]

Money comes from creating wealth; if it didn't, we'd still have a sub-$1 trillion GDP.

Inflation is not wealth. Put those all in 1980 USD and see how it stacks up.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[LynnwoodRooster]

A dollar in 1981 was was worth $1.34 in 1988. So that's a 34% increase. Of course, the GDP grew by 62% - more than inflation. Hey, the pie DID grow!

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[omnichad]

pie = population. Population growth has actually slowed. This is the same reason why Social Security is going to end up insolvent. You can't rest the economy on the pyramid scheme of forever-growth.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[LynnwoodRooster]

US population went from 229 million in 1981 to 244 million in 1988.That is a ~7% growth. Add that to inflation, and you're at 41%. Yet the GDP grew by 62%. How can that happen, unless GDP and wealth is more than just inflation and people, that it is not a static thing?

In fact, if increases in the US Federal budget was held at just inflation plus population growth, we would grow out of the deficit in a matter of a few years, and out of debt in a few decades. The GDP tends to grow faster - typically by a factor of 2. Hauser's Law would basically ensure we'd have revenue growth faster than inflation plus population, which means decreasing deficits and ultimately surpluses.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[Sarten-X]

Firstly, I think you might be confusing growth rates with absolute amounts

No, I'm not. The GDP has grown at 1-4% per year, while national debt has grown by 4-15% year-on-year.

To explain my point: the GDP is much bigger than the National Debt, which is a small fraction of the overall GDP.

Not quite. The national debt is at around $20 trillion dollars, while the US GDP is around $18 trillion per year.

Therefore, the GDP could grow at a much smaller rate compared to the debt, and still completely wipe it out.

Even if the entirety of the GDP growth (which is not actually cash, mind you, but let's pretend it was) was devoted to paying off the debt, we still wouldn't match the debt growth.

An analogy would be Bill Gates donating 1% of his yearly expenses to completely covering 200% of yours. Makes sense?

A better analogy would be someone living paycheck-to-paycheck forgetting about rent when deciding to go to a fancy restaurant for dinner.

As long as we catch up to the debt soon before compounding kicks in, we will be fine.

The opportunity for that passed when the recession hit in 2008. Prior to that, the debt hovered at around 60% of annual GDP.

Second: Yes, Obama is 80% responsible for the current growth rate. He's also responsible for saving the economy in 2009.

I'm not so inclined to credit "Obama" with those as I am to credit the army of economists and legislators that actually enacted recovery efforts. I happened to be working in the financial sector at the time, and saw firsthand the effects of the policy changes and incentive programs. There was hardly any mention of the President, but quite a lot of attention on his nominee, Ben Bernanke.

Doesn't negate Trump contribution: cancelling parasitic regulations, dumb TPP and Paris accords, and just inspiring investment overall.

None of which has had any meaningful effect, leading to investment activity almost exactly the same as 2014-2015. Nice use of the Trump spice, though: "parasitic", "dumb", and "inspiring" convey that wonderful emotion without requiring any actual facts.

If the stock market believes there will be grown, everybody will invest, and there indeed will be growth.

That's consumer confidence, which has been climbing steadily since 2009. We're not quite up to late-1990s levels, but confidence generally rises during periods of stability, and falls shortly after instability when the money to invest suddenly isn't available.

Finally, my opinion about Infrastructure and 10% growth is my finger-in-the-ass estimate

Yeah, I noticed.

yet guided by decades of experience. I saw what computing did in the 80s: in my field, productivity increased by about 4 orders of magnitude in a decade.

So where's my jetpack?

"Productivity" actually has little to do with economic growth. As productivity goes up, costs come down, but that leaves more cash to spend in other ways. Your field's costs dropped and revenues went up, but then you turn around and spend that revenue on a vacation, or home improvements, or security investments. It all works out to about the same.

Given that out major infrastructure (to me: power, airports, pipelines) is from the 70s-80s and is completely obsolete, I certainly see a lot of potential.

Most of that infrastructure was also designed to last 50 years, and plans to replace it have been underway for the last decade. Despite the alarmism, there's still no detail as to what infrastructure Trump wants to renovate, apart from the few specific cases he's called out in public tirades.

I'd focus on power, drones (flying cars, really), healthcare, RND/universities, and fiber.

T

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[omnichad]

US population went from 229 million in 1981 to 244 million in 1988.That is a ~7% growth. Add that to inflation, and you're at 41%. Yet the GDP grew by 62%. How can that happen,

Not a lot of 7 year olds holding down jobs. Birth rates declined most heavily during the Clinton era, and all of those babies have come of age.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[LynnwoodRooster]

And? How did that affect the fact that the GDP grew - in real and absolute terms - during the Reagan years? And it grew faster than inflation and population combined. The size of the GDP is not fixed. We accumulate wealth because we produce more than we consume. That's why the GDP is outpacing inflation and population growth - well, other than the last 8 moribund years...

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[omnichad]

Population growth doesn't have a carry-on impact until those people enter the workforce - did you intentionally misread or just dense?

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[LynnwoodRooster]

So all that means is that GDP growth even in the case of declining population further shows the pie as a whole can grow. Which was my point all along! You've ended up making my own case for me.

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[Holi]

And this time the CEOs have admitted as much.

“If the tax reform bill goes through, do you plan to increase investment — your companies’ investment — capital investment,” and requests a show of hands. Only a few hands go up, leaving Cohn to ask sheepishly, “Why aren’t the other hands up?”

Re:They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[omnichad]

Here's how much you didn't read:
1) The population is growing, not declining. The growth rate is declining. That doesn't mean it won't go negative at some point.
2) The effect of the change in population growth takes a minimum of 18 years to bear out.
3) The really big drop started in the 90's. That generation are just now getting settled into their careers while boomers are retiring.
4) We're in unprecedented territory. The last time population growth slowed this much we were in the great depression. And war was the only thing that turned that around.

Re: They don't want to get tax reform petitions

[david_thornley]

If we've been running a deficit for a long time (with the arguable exception of the end of Clinton's term), and the historical growth rate is X, then why would cutting taxes eliminate the deficit if the growth rate is X? Bear in mind that historically cutting taxes lowers revenues, and raising them increases revenues, despite whatever ideological nonsense people say.

Sorry Peasants.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're not a member of the Donor Class ® then the Republicans don't give a shit about you.

Re:Barry Soetoro Never Checked It

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama never once took one of these things seriously, and whenever they got enough "signatures" for a guaranteed response, it was some boilerplate slap in the face.
 
But that was never brought up during his campaign because Slashdot was not purchased to push Obama-bashing propaganda.

Nothing of value was lost.

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiotic Obama PR gimmick designed to encourage slacktivism and thereby dampen the practical impact of any actual public dissent/movements.

Obsolete in the Trump era since you can just bitch at him on twitter if you ever feel the need to vent some impotent rage.

It was kind of stupid anyway

[jfdavis668]

Most of the petitions were for things that would never happen anyway.

Going offline to stop petitions

[mysidia]

Need to (1) Get network neutrality repeal completed and tax changes finalized, and (2) Then you can start petitioning again, BUT not on either of those two topics which will now have been "settled" by the time the site comes back up.

Re: Barry Soetoro Never Checked It

[Anonymous Coward]

At least obama acknowledged they existed. Compared to trump putting his fingers in his ears and screaming "la la la I can't hear you la la la".

Big difference bro. Also, what does obama have to do with trump? Why are you comparing trump to obama? I thought trump was for the people and was going to be a representative of the people.

We get it, the only way to make trump look good is to try and prop him up next to obama. Nice try tho, you elected a turd, deal with it.

YOU CANNOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER

[PopeRatzo]

First launched in 2011 under then-President Obama,

That's really all this is about.

Donald Trump has to be the pettiest motherfucker on the planet.

Re: YOU CANNOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER

[PopeRatzo]

The thing costs millions per year to maintain and all Obama did with it was âoesorry we canâ(TM)t do thatâ to pretty much any petition.

Trump has spent almost $100 million in 11 months just to go golfing at his own golf courses. Don't pretend you care about what things cost when your party is passing a law that will add $1.7trillion to the debt.

Re: YOU CANNOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER

[Sarten-X]

Even Trump's claim is that it's just "more than $1m". One single million. For comparison, that's the low estimate for the cost of security for Melania Trump staying in New York City for a single week, or three days if it's the President himself visiting the Big Apple. It's also well under the cost for a single trip for the President to go golfing as his own Mar-a-Lago resort.

Somehow, I don't think cost was the driving factor in this decision.

Re: YOU CANNOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER

[LynnwoodRooster]

The CBO scoring assumes we'll maintain the wonderful 1.6% growth we had with President Obama. Rescoring with the historical average (and what we've seen this year) of 3.5%, and the tax bill creates a surplus in 4 years. Bad talking points for the Left, though, so they stick with the Debbie Downer approach.

Re: YOU CANNOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER

[PopeRatzo]

The CBO scoring assumes we'll maintain the wonderful 1.6% growth we had with President Obama.

Even the rosiest "dynamic scoring" of the bill by the Treasury Department has the tax bill increasing growth by 0.03 to 0.09 points per year. That's the Trump Treasury Department. For the tax bill to pay for itself, it would require a 0.8 to 0.9% growth bump. To create your "surplus", it would require even a bigger bump in growth, year over year, for 10 years.

Here's a good rundown from the CRFB, which is the organization headed by one of Ronald Reagan's former economic adivsors:

http://www.crfb.org/papers/can...

the wonderful 1.6% growth we had with President Obama. Rescoring with the historical average (and what we've seen this year) of 3.5%,

First, the economic growth has not hit 3.5% this year. At best, we're seeing 3.2%, with 0.4% increase in personal income. The "1.6%" figure you quote is for 2016. Growth was 2.4% in 2014 and 2.6% in 2015.

Also, let me remind you that in Barack Obama's first 11 months in office, the stock market rose by 29%. In Donald Trump's first 11 months, the increase was 24%. And under Obama, that happened without a $1.7 trillion gift to the wealthiest Americans.

Re: YOU CANNOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER

[LynnwoodRooster]

Change the GDP growth, and the tax receipt growth changes. The "additional" doesn't matter - the baseline will do it on its own. A total GDP growth of 3.5% will result in a surplus after 4 years. That's the point - assuming we just return to historical GDP growth levels, this tax plan gets us out of deficit spending. Assuming a baseline of 1.6% (or even 2%) and adding on your 0.9% bump - that's still well under the historical average and what we are seeing today. A GDP growth of 3.5% will result in a surplus.

As far as President Obama not giving $1.7 trillion to the wealthiest Americans? Quantitative Easing was a $2 trillion giveaway - and the ACA forced everyone to give thousands of dollars to health insurance companies. That's why the GINI ratio reached an all-time high under President Obama - the rich did MUCH better with his policies than pretty much anyone else.

Lastly, about GDP? Per the BEA, current dollar GDP growth was 4.1% in Q2 and 5.5% in Q3.

Re: YOU CANNOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER

[PopeRatzo]

Lastly, about GDP? Per the BEA [bea.gov], current dollar GDP growth was 4.1% in Q2 and 5.5% in Q3.

"Current dollar GDP growth" is not the same as real GDP growth.

Look at your own citation. The table below paragraph eight. It shows real GDP growth as 3.3%.

Re: YOU CANNOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER

[PopeRatzo]

The Republicans have also said the middle class tax cuts will not expire even thought the scoring counts them as expiring.

Republicans can say what they want, but the law they passed has the middle class tax cuts expiring. I don't think anyone wants CBO to score a bill based on Republican promises.

The tax cuts for the rich and corporations do not expire.

$5 says it never actually comes back

[Rick Schumann]

The last thing Trump or his administration wants is transparency or actually having to interface in any meaningful way with the peasantry, er, I mean average citizens. At most I'd expect if it came back in a different form, they'd insist on 'approving' any petitions before actually being posted for people to sign (read as: censorship). Either way this is just another typical dick move from Trump, wanting to erase anything that Obama had anything to do with.

Re:$5 says it never actually comes back

[StormReaver]

Either way this is just another typical dick move from Trump, wanting to erase anything that Obama had anything to do with.

To be fair, the 2020 Democratic president will likely do the same thing to Trump.

Re:$5 says it never actually comes back

[argStyopa]

Please, feel free to name one thing petition.org accomplished of substance, other than to make a bunch of people feel like someone was listening to them.

Re:$5 says it never actually comes back

[dave420]

It provided a very easy method of seeing what was important to the users of the site, and to allow people to share and discuss these issues. Even if nothing ever happened because of the petitions, the record of the petitions and the level of support for each is useful information, surely. I don't know how anyone would be against such information if they think the government should be at all aware of how the people it is supposed to represent think.

Re:$5 says it never actually comes back

[Areyoukiddingme]

At most I'd expect if it came back in a different form, they'd insist on 'approving' any petitions before actually being posted for people to sign (read as: censorship).

You don't seriously believe the site wasn't already censored do you? It was on the Internet. Trolls gonna troll. 4chan never sleeps. That site has been heavily censored since day one. It had to be.

Re:$5 says it never actually comes back

[Rick Schumann]

Yeah, I don't disagree with you, everyone wants to make it smell like them and not the other guy, but with Trump it's like he's obsessive-compulsive about it, or like it's personal or something.

Re:$5 says it never actually comes back

[Rick Schumann]

Oh, but I mean really, really censored, like anything Trump doesn't personally like, doesn't fit his agenda, and so on. In other words: only petitions will be allowed that suit his agenda. Nevermind what the peons want if it doesn't fit that.

Revised website preview:

[Hallux-F-Sinister]

It's just going to be a page with a poorly-rendered ASCII art of an extended middle finger, under which will be text encouraging you to scream your complaints directly at the finger. A future version will feature an upgrade, adding a "record" button, allowing you to record your petition in your own words. After doing so, when you let go of the button, (or stop holding your cursor on it,) a javascript popup will proclaim that your petition has been received.

But it won't be. The button won't actually DO anything but convince people something's being done.

Actually, this is very similar to how the old petition functionality worked, but with greater transparency regarding the office's feelings about public opinion. The new website will be "www.gofuckyourself.gov"

Re:Revised website preview:

[John.Banister]

I don't know. It could be "www.gohelpyourself.gov" with a picture of a child in the 1950s pulling a red wagon full of dirt. The plan will be: first petition for something to happen, then do the work yourself to make it happen. They'll call it "the Kickstarter of self actualized community service projects," and feature profiles of wealthy philanthropists chipping in free materials when the workers go out on weekends to fix the potholes in the road leading to the mill. Slowly, it will evolve into a Twin-Peaks-like parody of itself, until Trump finally realizes that this has happened because some liberal news site points it out. Then, a bunch of content will be taken down and it's character will fundamentally change in a manner that the administration will claim is "not at all Stalin-esque," in response to repeated media inquiries asking "doesn't that new look come across like something Stalin would do?"

Re: Barry Soetoro Never Checked It

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's better to pretend it matters when it really doesn't, than to indicate directly it doesn't matter...

Ask me how I know you're a liberal, and incidentally should not trust anything you say.

Just shut it off and keep it off

[vix86]

The Obama administration rarely ever addressed the petitions that were on there, and this administration isn't nearly as "We the people" focused, its more focused on what they know is best.

If it comes back, we'll end up stuck with the occasional news cycle and indignation by the left about how the administration has failed to listen to the public about a petition. There are plenty of other things we can waste new cycles on that the administration is doing instead of some internet petition.

Re: Barry Soetoro Never Checked It

[arglebargle_xiv]

Also, it's an Obama initiative, of course Trump is going to kill it. If Obama had set up a facility that cured cancer, Trump would shut it down just because it came from Obama.

It seems ... oddly rational

[Artagel]

After it was revealed that the FCC comments were largely fake, the White House decides to try to get its petitions website in order. That is a rational response. It must be the Russians behind it. It could not be Trump.

Re:It seems ... oddly rational

[Scarred Intellect]

Ok, let's say that you're the White House and you want to update something. Do they have technology from the 60s? There's no reason for downtime. When Google wants to update their website, they don't shut down for a month, they do it in the background and then update in an instant.

That's a fair point, but you seem to have overlooked one quite large point: Google is competent.

Re: Barry Soetoro Never Checked It

[mukinrestak]

There's also the national concealed carry reciprocity. That was a petition along with repealing the NFA.

Nice work if you can get it...

[bigtiny]

Must be interesting to work for the government. Can you imagine on your job if you wanted to tell your customers "hey, the site will be down for 2-3 weeks for maintenance. Check back with us then...." Really?!?!?

Re:Barry Soetoro Never Checked It

[jcr]

No shit. I remember when the petition to end DEA persecution of medical marijuana patients was the top item, and some reporter asked him about it. Motherfucker just snickered about it, despite it being one of his bullshit campaign promises. Thanks for nothing, asshole.

-jcr

Shouldn't that say ""temporarily"" in quotes?

[Maxo-Texas]

They'll bring the petition site back up two days after Mr. Trump voluntarily reveals his tax returns.

He's LYING to all of us.

He's probably a damn manchurian candidate and the republicans are doing everything they can to help him weaken america to russia's benefit.

I remember when Republicans were opposed to pilling on debt and getting into bed with the russians.

Re:Barry Soetoro Never Checked It

[haruchai]

Obama did grant Bill Maher an interview because of a petition after ducking the show for his entire presidency

Was it ever of any use?

[HiThere]

It seemed to me that if people objected to a plan of theirs they ignored the objections. They only paid attention if it was already something they wanted to do. So it was never really useful, but with Trump in office it had absolutely zero utility.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

How long is temporary?

[pikester]

How long is temporary? For humans, it is (at most) 100 years. Temporary for a dam is 700 years. In the universal scale, it is too scary to think of.

Re: Barry Soetoro Never Checked It

[MightyYar]

Exactly the same thing as the Democratic party does.

Re: Barry Soetoro Never Checked It

[JackieBrown]

For pete's sake.... We are clearly talking about USA politics. Obama is left for anyone not left. I guess someone who is left and doesn't know they are left, might see him as centered as they see themselves.

It's probably temporary

[JohnFen]

It's probably "temporary" in exactly the same sense as copyright terms are "limited".