Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate Economist and Professor - Columbia University - The New York Times
Stephan: Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, both Nobel Laureates in economics, are the two economists in which I repose the greatest trust. They have the highest accuracy assessment of any economists I know. And this is what Stiglitz has to say about the tax law the Republicans pushed through in 2017. For those of us who are not billionaires, or even millionaires, it is nothing but bad news. Your taxes are going up thanks to Trump and the Congressional Republicans. Think about that when you vote.
Celebrating the 2017 tax act at the White House. Credit: Doug Mills/The New York Times
The Trump administration has a dirty little secret: It’s not just planning to increase taxes on most Americans. The increase has already been signed, sealed and delivered, buried in the pages of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
President Trump and his congressional allies hoodwinked us. The law they passed initiallylowered taxes for most Americans, but it built in automatic, stepped taxincreases every two years that begin in 2021 and that by 2027 would affect nearly everyone but people at the top of the economic hierarchy. All taxpayer income groups with incomes of $75,000 and under — that’s about 65 percent of taxpayers — will face a higher tax rate in 2027 than in 2019.
For most, in fact, it’s a delayed tax increase dressed up as a tax cut. How many times have you heard Trump and his allies mention that? They surmised — correctly, so far — that if they waited to add the tax increases until after the 2020 election, few of […]
Stephan: We talk a great deal about immigration, but very little about emigration; many people don't even know what the word means. But during the Trump era emigration has become an issue, one that I see as a symptom of America's societal illness. People leave the nation of their origin to move permanently to another country usually because they have come to find something about their home country intolerable. Consider this report; it is telling us something to which we should be listening.
Americans Renouncing 2020
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — 2020 is the record year for Americans giving up their citizenship, according to research by the Enrolled Agents and accountants of Bambridge Accountants New York.
6,045 Americans gave up their citizenship in the first nine months of 2020
Showing a 234% increase on the same 9 months to in 2019, where only 1,811 cases were recorded
2,072 Americans gave up their citizenship in 2019 in total
This is the highest year on record; the previous record was 5,411 cases in 2016. Already in 2020, with 3 months still to report, 6,045 is the record number of cases in a year
This is all while the U.S. State Department has stopped Americans being able to book appointments to renounce at many U.S. Embassies since March 2020
Americans must pay a $2,350 government fee to renounce their citizenship, and those based overseas must do so in person at the U.S. Embassy in their country.
There are an estimated 9 million U.S. expats. The trend has been that there has been a steep decline over the last few years of U.S. citizens expatriating – the first six months of 2020 is a huge increase in the […]
Stephan: Mitch McConnell has used his time in office to enrich himself, making himself a multi-millionaire on an annual salary of $174,000, and to destroy the integrity of the American judiciary. As a result, our system of justice, already very poorly rated -- 19th in the world -- is getting worse. He has filled the courts with judges, many considered to be unqualified for the bench by the American Bar Association. They are, in fact, less judges and more alt-right political operatives, and you and I are going to have to live with what the Republican senate has done under McConnell's leadership for a generation.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., arrives back in the Capitol via the Senate subway for the cloture vote on the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett on Sunday, Oct. 25, 2020. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed Friday to continue confirming both U.S. circuit and district court nominees through the lame-duck session and right up to the end of the 116th Congress, which must adjourn Jan. 3.
“We’re going to run through the tape. We go through the end of the year, and so does the president,” McConnell said Friday on the show of conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. “We’re going to fill the 7th Circuit. And I’m hoping we have time to fill the 1st Circuit as well.”
The seat on the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals opened up after the Senate elevated Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court in a truncated nomination process that culminated in her confirmation in the Senate on Monday. The other seat, on the 1st Circuit, opened […]
Stephan: The Republican Party does not like democracy. The party leaders recognize that they are a permanent minority. Less a party than a White Supremacist christofascist cult. The only way they can win is by voter suppression, cheating, and degrading the entire structure of the electoral process. This is not political partisanship, just objectively verifiable facts. And here they are.
Nationwide, nearly 21,000 polling stations have closed since 2016, a VICE News investigation has found. Of the 45 states that have in-person voting, 40 eliminated polling stations — many in response to the coronavirus pandemic. This could mean long drives and long lines for voters on Election Day—and it might keep some people from voting at all.
Almost 21,000 Election Day polling places have been eliminated heading into the 2020 U.S. election, a drastic dip in voting locations driven by a heavy shift to mail voting, coronavirus-related consolidations, cost-cutting measures, and voter suppression.
VICE News obtained data from all 50 states and Washington, D.C., on the number of physical polling locations they will have in place on November 3, and compared their numbers to how many sites they had in 2016 and 2012.
What emerged was a patchwork of cuts large and small across the country. Many states made these cuts as they were expanding mail voting — 23 states made it easier to vote by mail this year because of COVID. But the overall trend is clear: Most states are eliminating polling locations, a trend that could disproportionately impact poor, young and non-white voters.
Of the 45 states that weren’t using mail voting […]
Stephan: Trump's wall is, and should certainly be seen as, a national disgrace; an expression of Trumpian lies, business incompetence, and dishonest finances. Like most things he says he will do it was never built as he claimed it would be, it cost you and me billions more than it was supposed to, and Mexico didn't pay a dime to build even the small part that was constructed. Here are the facts.
A border wall construction site near Donna, Texas, on Dec. 8, 2019. Credit: Veronica G. Cardenas/Reuters
This article is co-published with The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans. Sign up for The Brief weekly to get up to speed on their essential coverage of Texas issues.
On the same day in May 2019, the Army Corps of Engineers awarded a pair of contracts worth $788 million to replace 83 miles of fence along the southwest border.
The projects were slated to be completed in January 2020, the Corps said then. Four months into this year, however, the government increased the value of the contracts by more than $1 billion, without the benefit of competitive bidding designed to keep costs low to taxpayers.
Within a year of the initial award, the value of the two contracts had more than tripled, to over $3 billion, even though the length of the fence the companies were building had only grown by 62%, to 135 miles. The money is coming from military counter-narcotics funding.
