So if those 20 states raised their taxes they would rise from whatever bottom you are trying to make relevant? They don't have schools and transportation and available services in those states? Are the average citizens in those states suffering from a low quality of life? Is the cost of living as high in those states as it is in the high taxed states? Is the income inequality as prevalent in those 20 states as it is in the high tax states?

There are many, many, factors and statistics that go into the quality of life in a given state. Until you can gather the totality of all those factors and statistics, and also determine the overall personal preferences and values of the citizens, pointing out one factor in which a state is at the so-called "bottom" has very little, if any, value.

not sure how your retirement works mine is based on. base pay last 3 years tax break does nothing to increase my retirement pay compared to a pay raise ... and not all states tax pension to start with

again your anti anything Government arguments are endless

and I said you fail to see context (nothing about it didn't happen)
.... once again your having a hard time about the details

fyi for those who forget history

https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/18/new...ges/index.html


Shocking the decline of the private sector pay is because of private companies

but lets blame public sector unions

I'm pretty sure you are the one having the problem with the details. I think I'm the only one that actually supplied, you know, details.

Is the fact that Trump wanted to freeze the pay increases because of a need to reign in Government spending less noble than Obama doing it because of the recession? Is that the context that maybe you are missing? Or is the context just a hatred for the man that drives your every thought?

Public sector unions have nothing to do with private sector salaries.

Public sector unions have a lot to do with state taxes and debt. The marriage of public unions and democrats is working out awesome in CT and IL.

YES. BECAUSE SHUT UP.

The FIRST SENTENCE of your article says it was a big deal that last year, Walmart raised minimum wage and announced bonuses. But you and all the other liberals constantly said it was meaningless. So who is forgetting history?

Let's settle this once and for all. Were all those bonuses and wage hikes that stemmed from the tax cut, meaningful or not? Because you guys keep flip-flopping on that question, depending on which Maoist point you're trying to make at the time.

As for low wages at Walmart and other huge retailers...WDMSO, do you like low prices and getting good deals? If I had a department store and paid everyone a minimum of $50,000 a year, which forced me to charge $7.50 for a gallon of milk, would you shop at my store? Or would you go to Walmart?

You can't have low prices with razor thin profit margins, combined with across-the-board lucrative pay for all positions. That's not reality.

Public sector unions don't need to care about mathematical or marketplace reality, because they take what they need through force of law, I cannot decide not to pay my taxes. Private sector companies have it much, much harder. They have to make people CHOOSE to fork over their money, they have to make people want to do it. In order to make people want to give you their money, you have to have competitive prices. Your expenses cannot exceed your revenue.

That's what you fail to grasp. Public sector unions can confiscate whatever they want from the citizenry, we don't have the choice not to pay taxes. In the private sector, companies must (1) incentivize customers to voluntarily hand over their money, AND (2) expenses cannot exceed revenue. SO expenses need to be contained, or the company goes out of business. In the public sector, when expenses exceed revenue, you just raise taxes.

Big, big difference. I have worked in the public sector (I was a teacher for a very brief time), and now I'm in the private sector. Have you ever had a meaningful job in the private sector? Ever?

You literally have no idea what you are saying.

The Trump tax cut deals with FEDERAL income tax rates, not state income tax rates. If you were drawing on your pension, the federal tax cut would almost certainly have given you a bump in your take-home portion of your pension.

A federal tax cut will not increase your gross pension payment, because that is determined based on your contract. A federal tax cut will increase your net pension payment, and net is what matters.

If your gross pension is, say, $40,000 a year, and your federal tax rate decreases, then you have more money from each pension check How can you deny this?

My net pay increased by $200 a month after the tax cuts took effect, and my gross pay did not change. The increase was because of reduced federal withholding.

You are being completely irrational.

I think WDMSO is saying that his pension payments are calculated on a percentage of his base pay from his last 3 years of employment. So he's correct in saying that a raise has more of an effect on his pension, over the years, than a tax break does.

butba raise if $1 has less benefit than a tax cut of $1. bevause the raise is then taxed.

but you’re probably correct in what he meant.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I guess if the tax cut is a static percent for many years, but pay raises are an annually applied percentage, and pay increases not given for a certain year(s) end up lowering your overall pay over, say, a ten year span as they are not compounded over the years.

I'm not an accountant, but I did stay at a holiday Inn Express last night :hee:

Just what would you suggest for this complicated algorithm that would define livability?

The only raises I've had in my Detroit pension were based on cost of living adjustments. In Michigan, pensions acquired after a certain date, don't remember which, are taxed. The Federal government taxes my Social Security. Public sector pay raises (which represent most pensions), as far as I know, are taxable at the federal, state and municipal levels.

I don't have any anti-government arguments. I have specifically said, many times, that government has a role. It is only when government overreaches, beyond its prescribed and necessary role in our country that I am against it.

But you have this endless inability to understand that simple concept. For you, any criticism of government, valid or not, is this ignorant, all encompassing, meme: "anti-government."

I suggested a few, but there are as many algorithms as there are people. Searching for a universal definition of livability doesn't interest me. What I consider livable would be too simple, too basic, in most ways, for many others.

In general, in political conversations, bringing up a particular statistic usually involves promoting or siding with some agenda.

Jan.4 AP headline:
US employers added 312,000 jobs in December

Full article:
https://www.twincities.com/2019/01/0...s-in-december/

Who knows how it will all shake out for the rest of "Trump's" economy. But to keep knocking his tax cut and tariff war and economic and regulatory policies as foolish, dumb, failures is obviously premature. And saying that the job and wage successes are merely an Obama carryover after two years is a stretch beyond reason. If I remember correctly wdmso claimed something to the effect that it would take two years before we could attribute success (or failure) to Trump's policies.

For me, I don't think presidential or political policies in general that try to "do" something are the main reason for US economic success. I believe more that federal government "undoing" overburdening tax and regulatory policies is more effective.

I'm not being "anti-government." I'm for government staying out of the way of what should be our constitutionally based inherent right to a free and open market. One of the federal government's few and important duties is to protect that freedom, not to regulate it.

Should there be any regulation of the market? For sure. But that should not be done by unelected bureaucratic agencies. It should begin with an actually free market's inherent tendency to self regulate. And it should be fortified by the direct and elected will of the people. And that should be "regulated" as constitutional by a Supreme Court guided by interpreting the actual text of the Constitution, not by Judge's personal opinion of what is right and just.

Interesting: CNN / Yahoo and others reporting that the refunds (cough Federal interest free borrowing of your money for a year) of taxes are about the same or slightly higher.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/irs-n...170638232.html

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opini...mn/3026996002/

Now, can we go back to the Debt? The actual National Emergency?

You got that right boss, borrow and spend until the credit runs out, then file for bankruptcy; it's the American way. The problem is who bails out the US government? Trump probably has some good financial ties to Russia and Jarad of course can work his Saudi buddies for a bailout package.

How much do you blame on Trump?

Another liberal myth debunked, and I wonder if CNN and MSNBC issued a correction.

It really doesn't matter if refunds decrease, if withholdings decreased by a larger amount, you paid less.

Not all of it, some he blames on Bush.

The debt, as you have said, is critical. But Obama ran up the debt, and I don't know anyone who got anything from it. At least in this case, regular people are benefitting, as opposed to powerful congresspeople whose spouses own the companies that got hugeamounts of federal spending. I mean that's happening here too, but at least many of us got something.

Doing my taxes now. I'm getting almost twice as much refund than last year, and my monthly take home pay has comfortably increased. And I'm barely, if that, in the lower end of the "middle class," whatever that is.

2 totally different economies. The Obama debt was bc we were trying to recover from the Bush recession (largest since the great depression). Trump is running up a huge deficit with low unemployment and booming economy.

The Repub. howled and complained about that debt but now are sitting on their hands afraid to say anything.

"The Obama debt was bc we were trying to recover from the Bush recession "

Some of the debt was related to recession recovery, some was also because of the wars he inherited. Some of it was also because pof liberal pet projects like Obamacare (which did some great things but was expensive) and the "stimulus", which cost 750B of borrowed money, and I have no idea where any of it went, where were those shovel ready projects?

By the way, on the "Bush" recession, which party controlled both houses of Congress when it happened?

Kidding. But that recession was not Bush's fault. It was partly the GOPs fault for saying banks could also be investment houses, and partly Clintons fault for signing that (was that the repeal of Glass Segal?). Also the fault of fraud on Wall Street with fishy things like collateralized debt obligations which almost no one understands, that wasn't the fault of either party. And lastly, not something democrats like to point out, large numbers of people being stupid and buying way more house than they could ever afford. Plenty of blame all around...both parties, banks, Wall Street, and us. Not sure what Bush did.

Liar!!

Lots of blame to go around and Trump and the GOP own their fair share.
They certainly are willing to add to the problem, without much talk about that problem. The fing wall is more of a problem to them and it certainly isn't anywhere near the magnitude of the deficit IMHO; not even in the same ballpark.

I'm retired so I can't comment on income, since I have none, but at a risk level of 3, I still have a long way to go to regain all the money I lost out of my retirement accounts. So the tax cut did zip for me, the stock market dive eat away a lot of my savings and even though I'm gaining some of those losses back; not even close to where I topped out before the correction started.

The S&P500 is less than 5% off it's all-time high. If you lost a lot more than that and you're retired, (1) I am sorry and hope you get it all back and then some, but (2) that's more your advisor's fault and not so much Trumps.

The only thing that I know is that I was doing a lot better in the stock market when I left for the gym than when I got back.