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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.
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.
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