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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
"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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Those tax breaks are temporary, plus adding debt drives up interest rates.
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.
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.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
That's really all this is about.
Donald Trump has to be the pettiest motherfucker on the planet.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.
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.
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"
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
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.....
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
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
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
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.
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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!