Biden To Rich Donors: “Nothing Will Fundamentally Change”

[Maleficent 6]

This entire thread/post is inflammatory. He's assuring rich donors that just because raising taxes is in the democrats agenda, there lifestyles won't change...

“When you have income inequality as large as we have in the United States today, it brews and ferments political discord and basic revolution,” he said. Also perhaps hinting at President Donald Trump he continued: “It allows demagogues to step in” and blame what’s wrong in voters’ lives on “the other.”

^^literally from the same Bloomberg article in the OP--just scroll down ppl 

@Marilyn MonHoe

[MasonG 448]

Also for the OP who's trying to make it sound like Biden is more lenient on rich people behind closed doors. He's maintained the same position in public interviews saying that, some rich people are generally patriotic and actually NOT asking for more lenient taxation than other americans, but republicans are insisting on it:

"Q: If your ticket is elected, who will pay more in taxes? Who will pay less?

BIDEN: The middle class will pay less, and people making a million dollars or more will begin to contribute slightly more. Let me give you one concrete example: the continuation of the Bush tax cuts. We're arguing that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy should be allowed to expire. $800 billion of that goes to people making a minimum of a million dollars. They're patriotic Americans; they're not asking for this continued tax cut; they're not suggesting it; but [the Republicans] are insisting on it. 120,000 families, by continuing that tax cut, will get an additional $500 billion in tax relief in the next 10 years, and their income is an average of $8 million. We want to extend permanently the middle-class tax cut. These guys won't allow us to. They're holding hostage the middle-class tax cut to the super wealthy.'

[Marilyn MonHoe 11,011]

10 minutes ago, MasonG said:

That is a policy issue. I was just asking what is it that Biden said that is wrong?

He said nobody's standard of living would change. And that is true. Even if you increase tax rates to 50-60% on rich people, their standard of living wouldn't change, which is EXACTLY what Obama said back in the day, that by taxing rich people more fairly, they aren't being punished, and they won't even notice a change in their living standard.

What would be wrong, is that if Joe Biden said that democrats are actually trying to punish rich people and lower their living standard, because that's the scare-tactics that republicans are using in trying to make it sound so. 

 

It shows that he is woefully out of touch. He is saying that nothing would fundamentally change because he is in favor of incrementalism and marginal increases which will not help. This is the same road that led America to Trump in 2016 and it is the same road that will lead us to Trump in the next election. Now obviously I don’t want to tax the rich into oblivion but we need more than just incremental changes.

People don’t want to hear “Nothing will fundamentally change”. That’s exactly what America wants and it’s clear Joe Biden is not the politician who will deliver.

[MasonG 448]

5 minutes ago, Marilyn MonHoe said:

It shows that he is woefully out of touch. He is saying that nothing would fundamentally change because he is in favor of incrementalism and marginal increases which will not help. This is the same road that led America to Trump in 2016 and it is the same road that will lead us to Trump in the next election. Now obviously I don’t want to tax the rich into oblivion but we need more than just incremental changes.

People don’t want to hear “Nothing will fundamentally change”. That’s exactly what America wants and it’s clear Joe Biden is not the politician who will deliver.

What do you want him to tell people who earn more than 1M$:

"Oh now we will have to impoverish you, and take ALL of your money, so that other people can live better"?

Stop with the B.S. He is not playing on people's emotions. He is stating a fact, and that is even with higher taxation, rich people would maintain a similar living standard, which is why they shouldn't be opposed to it. That's his point.

Did you know that now rich people are being taxed less than their employees?

So yeah enough with the fear-mongering, both on republicans and "progressives" side. Successful people will always make money than average people. And they will always have a better living standard. The only policy issue here is that they MUST be taxed fairly like other americans, rather than being given unfair tax cuts. And that's what Biden is in favor of. He's not going to demonize them just to get the progressive vote, and actually help republicans who are claiming that the democratic party is trying to punish successful and rich people.

 

[Maleficent 6]

4 minutes ago, Marilyn MonHoe said:

People don’t want to hear “Nothing will fundamentally change”.

Obviously these people did...

[Guest]

Good, I don’t feel like we should be taxing rich individuals more, what we need to do is start informing taxes on the million/billion dollar companies. Amazon paid zero taxes the other year yet they’re a billion dollar company. I don’t feel it’s fair to tax those who worked for their money more just because they have it, & yes not everyone worked for it some were born into it but we can’t just group everyone together & punish them. Have you seen how much they already pay in taxes? It’s insane. We need to enforce taxing companies & stop giving them breaks & maybe start taxing people less who don’t reach a standard income of a million dollars.

[Marilyn MonHoe 11,011]

52 minutes ago, MasonG said:

Also for the OP who's trying to make it sound like Biden is more lenient on rich people behind closed doors. He's maintained the same position in public interviews saying that, some rich people are generally patriotic and actually NOT asking for more lenient taxation than other americans, but republicans are insisting on it:

"Q: If your ticket is elected, who will pay more in taxes? Who will pay less?

BIDEN: The middle class will pay less, and people making a million dollars or more will begin to contribute slightly more. Let me give you one concrete example: the continuation of the Bush tax cuts. We're arguing that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy should be allowed to expire. $800 billion of that goes to people making a minimum of a million dollars. They're patriotic Americans; they're not asking for this continued tax cut; they're not suggesting it; but [the Republicans] are insisting on it. 120,000 families, by continuing that tax cut, will get an additional $500 billion in tax relief in the next 10 years, and their income is an average of $8 million. We want to extend permanently the middle-class tax cut. These guys won't allow us to. They're holding hostage the middle-class tax cut to the super wealthy.'

Of course Biden is more lenient on rich people. He will slightly raise their taxes and try to cut Medicare and Medicaid which will effect average Americans. He has a history of trying to do this:

"Biden subsequently led the debt negotiations with then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Sen. Jon Kyl and other Republicans. Biden's “opening bid” was cutting $4 trillion in spending over ten years, with a 3 to 1 proportion of cuts to revenue. Biden later proposed $2 trillion in cuts to general spending, federal retirement funds, Medicare and Medicaid, and, at Cantor's urging, food stamps.

At one point, Biden suddenly called for $200 billion more in cuts that had never been discussed, which, according to Woodward, led then-Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen—also involved in the negotiations—to believe Biden had gone over to the Cantor-Kyl side. Biden again crossed Van Hollen when he offered to take revenue-raising out of the “trigger”—a combination of revenue raising and spending cuts meant to be equally unpalatable to both parties, which would automatically kick in if a deal failed to be reached.

Later in the negotiations, Biden dangled the possibility of Medicare cuts in return for more revenue—meaning higher taxes. Soon after, he suggested Democrats might be comfortable raising the eligibility age for entitlements, imposing means testing and changing the consumer price index calculation, known as CPI. (Means testing is often seen a Trojan horse for chipping away at these programs, because their universality is one of the reasons they've remained virtually untouchable for almost a century. It’s also been criticized for imposing an unnecessary and discouraging layer of bureaucracy.)

At one point, Biden reportedly called the Medicare provider tax a “scam.” “For a moment, Biden sounded like a Republican,” Woodward notes. Biden’s team was forced to remind him that such a move would force states to cut services to the poor, to which he replied, “We're going to do lots of hard things,” and so “we might as well do this.”

http://inthesetimes.com/article/21856/joe-biden-cut-medicare-social-security-retirement-age

 

43 minutes ago, MasonG said:

What do you want him to tell people who earn more than 1M$:

"Oh now we will have to impoverish you, and take ALL of your money, so that other people can live better"?

Stop with the B.S. He is not playing on people's emotions. He is stating a fact, and that is even with higher taxation, rich people would maintain a similar living standard, which is why they shouldn't be opposed to it. That's his point.

Did you know that now rich people are being taxed less than their employees?

So yeah enough with the fear-mongering, both on republicans and "progressives" side. Successful people will always make money than average people. And they will always have a better living standard. The only policy issue here is that they MUST be taxed fairly like other americans, rather than being given unfair tax cuts. And that's what Biden is in favor of. He's not going to demonize them just to get the progressive vote, and actually help republicans who are claiming that the democratic party is trying to punish successful and rich people.

 

You are the one who needs to stop with the B.S., I literally said that I don't want to tax the rich into oblivion. Of course they will maintain a similar living standard, he is only going to barely raise their taxes. Do you seriously think that a politician that takes money from the wealthy will tax them fairly? Ridiculous. That is one of the reasons why Trump won, these politicians obviously side with the rich and powerful and do almost nothing for the average American. There is a reason why the biggest voting block in America are independents. That is a fact:

"Last year, 42% of Americans, on average, identified as political independents, erasing the decline to 39% seen in the 2016 presidential election year. Independent identification is just one percentage point below the high of 43% in 2014. Twenty-nine percent of Americans identify themselves as Democrats and 27% as Republicans."

https://news.gallup.com/poll/225056/americans-identification-independents-back-2017.aspx

 

And there you go again with the fear-mongering about Progressives. All you ever do is misinterpret them and refer to them as the "Far-Left" that helps Republicans and Trump. The only Liberals that help Republicans are ones like you and Biden who tow the line with them and favor compromise instead of any kind of real change.

 

 

 

 

[Marilyn MonHoe 11,011]

58 minutes ago, Maleficent said:

Obviously these people did...

Obviously those people did but the average American does not. And you have a lot of gall to call my thread inflammatory after what you said about immigrants in that other thread. The hypocrisy is too much.

[Marilyn MonHoe 11,011]

57 minutes ago, lovedillon said:

Good, I don’t feel like we should be taxing rich individuals more, what we need to do is start informing taxes on the million/billion dollar companies. Amazon paid zero taxes the other year yet they’re a billion dollar company. I don’t feel it’s fair to tax those who worked for their money more just because they have it, & yes not everyone worked for it some were born into it but we can’t just group everyone together & punish them. Have you seen how much they already pay in taxes? It’s insane. We need to enforce taxing companies & stop giving them breaks & maybe start taxing people less who don’t reach a standard income of a million dollars.

Paying taxes is not a punishment, it is part of being in a civilized society. Tax reform is something that is sorely needed in America. If you make the most money then by definition you will be paying the most in taxes but in our case it isn't enough. The richest 1% pay an effective federal income tax rate of 24.7%. That is a little more than the 19.3% rate paid by someone making an average of $75,000. And 1 out of 5 millionaires pays a lower rate than someone making $50,000 to $100,000. How is that fair?

Although I do agree that companies like Amazon should be made to pay their fair share as well it certainly does not  and should not stop there.

[MasonG 448]

1 hour ago, Marilyn MonHoe said:

Of course Biden is more lenient on rich people. He will slightly raise their taxes and try to cut Medicare and Medicaid which will effect average Americans. He has a history of trying to do this:

"Biden subsequently led the debt negotiations with then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Sen. Jon Kyl and other Republicans. Biden's “opening bid” was cutting $4 trillion in spending over ten years, with a 3 to 1 proportion of cuts to revenue. Biden later proposed $2 trillion in cuts to general spending, federal retirement funds, Medicare and Medicaid, and, at Cantor's urging, food stamps.

At one point, Biden suddenly called for $200 billion more in cuts that had never been discussed, which, according to Woodward, led then-Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen—also involved in the negotiations—to believe Biden had gone over to the Cantor-Kyl side. Biden again crossed Van Hollen when he offered to take revenue-raising out of the “trigger”—a combination of revenue raising and spending cuts meant to be equally unpalatable to both parties, which would automatically kick in if a deal failed to be reached.

Later in the negotiations, Biden dangled the possibility of Medicare cuts in return for more revenue—meaning higher taxes. Soon after, he suggested Democrats might be comfortable raising the eligibility age for entitlements, imposing means testing and changing the consumer price index calculation, known as CPI. (Means testing is often seen a Trojan horse for chipping away at these programs, because their universality is one of the reasons they've remained virtually untouchable for almost a century. It’s also been criticized for imposing an unnecessary and discouraging layer of bureaucracy.)

At one point, Biden reportedly called the Medicare provider tax a “scam.” “For a moment, Biden sounded like a Republican,” Woodward notes. Biden’s team was forced to remind him that such a move would force states to cut services to the poor, to which he replied, “We're going to do lots of hard things,” and so “we might as well do this.”

http://inthesetimes.com/article/21856/joe-biden-cut-medicare-social-security-retirement-age

 

You are the one who needs to stop with the B.S., I literally said that I don't want to tax the rich into oblivion. Of course they will maintain a similar living standard, he is only going to barely raise their taxes. Do you seriously think that a politician that takes money from the wealthy will tax them fairly? Ridiculous. That is one of the reasons why Trump won, these politicians obviously side with the rich and powerful and do almost nothing for the average American. There is a reason why the biggest voting block in America are independents. That is a fact:

"Last year, 42% of Americans, on average, identified as political independents, erasing the decline to 39% seen in the 2016 presidential election year. Independent identification is just one percentage point below the high of 43% in 2014. Twenty-nine percent of Americans identify themselves as Democrats and 27% as Republicans."

https://news.gallup.com/poll/225056/americans-identification-independents-back-2017.aspx

 

And there you go again with the fear-mongering about Progressives. All you ever do is misinterpret them and refer to them as the "Far-Left" that helps Republicans and Trump. The only Liberals that help Republicans are ones like you and Biden who tow the line with them and favor compromise instead of any kind of real change.

 

 

 

 

First of all,

you are quoting from a book. We don't know how accurate this Woodward's account of how negotations went is. He wasn't there.He is a journalist.

Second of all, if you are trying to reduce deficit, reducing benefits spending is necessary. You know why? It makes up 2/3 of government spending. So I don't understand how you can possibly reduce government spending without touching 2/3 of government spending? Make it make sense.

Stop with the emotional argument "omg he tried to negotiate with republicans! how dare he! and he wanted to reduce government spending among other things."

You see "progressives " are as bad as republicans. All you care about is ideology. You don't want to get anything done. You see the other side as enemy. All you care about is fighting in Washington D.C. 

Yes if his sin, was trying to negotiate and compromise with republicans to get something done for the people so be it.

He had a house and a senate overwhelmingly controlled by republicans. What the **** do you expect him to do? "Hey republicans I come here to you to increase social spending"? Of course they'd shut down the government and americans would be without salaries.

Obviously you know nothing about governance and compromise. 

[Marilyn MonHoe 11,011]

10 minutes ago, MasonG said:

First of all,

you are quoting from a book. We don't know how accurate this Woodward's account of how negotations went is. He wasn't there.He is a journalist.

Second of all, if you are trying to reduce deficit, reducing benefits spending is necessary. You know why? It makes up 2/3 of government spending. So I don't understand how you can possibly reduce government spending without touching 2/3 of government spending? Make it make sense.

Stop with the emotional argument "omg he tried to negotiate with republicans! how dare he! and he wanted to reduce government spending among other things."

You see "progressives " are as bad as republicans. All you care about is ideology. You don't want to get anything done. You see the other side as enemy. All you care about is fighting in Washington D.C. 

Yes if his sin, was trying to negotiate and compromise with republicans to get something done for the people so be it.

He had a house and a senate overwhelmingly controlled by republicans. What the **** do you expect him to do? "Hey republicans I come here to you to increase social spending"? Of course they'd shut down the government and americans would be without salaries.

Obviously you know nothing about governance and compromise. 

Yes an American Pulitzer prize winning journalist whose book was compiled after months of investigating with plenty of reputable sources. If you are going to try and put the validity of the books information into question you will have to do better than that.

Yeah we certainly can't reduce our military budget, cut subsidies for oil companies, get rid of loopholes for corporations, cap tax deductions for the wealthiest Americans... we just have to cut the benefits to poor Americans. Neo-Liberals will never learn.

Where is the emotional argument? Compromising with Republicans is what is keeping us in shambles. The old days of negotiation and compromise is over. It's about time Democrats actually fight Republicans and stand for the working class for once. It's too bad you lack the spine to do it.

How about holding Republican's feet to the fire and show how they work against the poor? Show their electorate that they are being used and hold them accountable? Why are you so afraid to stand up to Republicans?

Obviously you don't know why Trump was even elected in the first place and refuse to see that a Neo-Liberal Centrist like Biden will only make it that much more likely that Trump will be re-elected.

[MasonG 448]

3 minutes ago, Marilyn MonHoe said:

Yeah we certainly can't reduce our military budget, cut subsidies for oil companies, get rid of loopholes for corporations, cap tax deductions for the wealthiest Americans... we just have to cut the benefits to poor Americans. Neo-Liberals will never learn.

Good luck achieving that in a senate that has a republican super majority and a republican controlled-house.

Again as I mentioned previously. You know nothing about governance and compromise.

This would be newsworthy if democrats controlled Congress. But they didn't so it isn't. As a president you need to pass a budget. And Obama after losing the majority caved in on many issues. He didn't have a choice.

If Americans are upset about it, they can vote and give them the majority in Congress to get things done.

[PartySick 172,395]

3 hours ago, MasonG said:

Is he wrong in what he said?

There's no reason to "demonize" rich people. Y'all stanning somebody who's worth 300M$ here. Does it make her less patriotic than any of you?

What we need to do, is to make sure they pay their fair share of taxes. And many of them are in support of that.

There are many rich people who are actually helping tremendously like Elon Musk for example who is pushing aggressively for more advanced technology to support clean air initiatives like electronic cars.

Isn't that the "progressive" cause? Or does "progressive" nowadays mean repeating some cheap talking points that demonize rich people wherever they stand on the issues?

It's not rich people that we hate. We're pissed at a system that allows people to hoard billions of dollars while lower class kids have to eat pb&j sandwiches because they have a "lunch debt".

We're pissed that a CEO can collect $16 million in salary+benefits a year but they'll have their ground level workers being paid $7.50 an hour.

It's not about people being well off, it's about a few people being allowed to own over half the wealth in this country while millions starve.

Sh*t, in my company I had to piss and moan,complain, and threaten to quit just to make over $10 an hour in a management position. Workers had to do the same to get benefits extended to part time workers and get more hours allotted to us. Meanwhile, our CEO pays himself 8 million in salary alone with millions more in "benefits".

Any system that allows that sh*t needs to go.

[PartySick 172,395]

12 minutes ago, Marilyn MonHoe said:

Compromising with Republicans is what is keeping us in shambles. The old days of negotiation and compromise is over. It's about time Democrats actually fight Republicans and stand for the working class for once. It's too bad you lack the spine to do it.

How about holding Republican's feet to the fire and show how they work against the poor? Show their electorate that they are being used and hold them accountable? Why are you so afraid to stand up to Republicans?

A-fu*king-men

I used to be all "oh, here's an olive branch, let's work together as left and right to find a solution that works for both of us" but I refuse to compromise with people who are ok with stripping gays of their rights, trans* of their validity, women of their body autonomy, PoC of their protections, the sick of their healthcare, the hungry of their food, children of their education, immigrants of their freedoms and/or lives, our planet of its environment, etc etc. The list goes on.

F*ck the GOP. I wish their constituents would wake tf up and see that they're often the first victims of predatory Republican legislation.

[Marilyn MonHoe 11,011]

7 hours ago, MasonG said:

Good luck achieving that in a senate that has a republican super majority and a republican controlled-house.

Again as I mentioned previously. You know nothing about governance and compromise.

This would be newsworthy if democrats controlled Congress. But they didn't so it isn't. As a president you need to pass a budget. And Obama after losing the majority caved in on many issues. He didn't have a choice.

If Americans are upset about it, they can vote and give them the majority in Congress to get things done.

The Republicans don’t control the House, Democrats do. And I don’t know anything about governance? 

Obama caved because he was a corporatist hack that was beholden to his donors like Citi Group and Goldman Sachs. Do you seriously think that a politician would ever fight against their donors? Wake up.

Americans are very upset about our current system. That is why they elected someone who they thought wasn’t a typical politician, couldn’t be corrupted and cared about the working class. Too bad they were swindled and lied to.

The only way that Democrats are going to have a super majority again is if they run with Progressive ideals. In case you haven’t noticed America is largely a Progressive country where Democrats and Republicans largely agree on certain issues like taxing the rich, legalizing marijuana and Medicare for All.

Again you still don’t get why Trump won last time and you are setting yourself up for failure if you think Hillary 2.0 is going to win. Hillary lost last time, why do you think Biden would do any better? You aren’t paying attention and you don’t know what you’re talking about. Did you ever learn if public busing was related to segregation yet? We’re still waiting