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Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

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Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#811

Post by BurningFrog »

jdc0589 wrote: post #122

> FIFTH, I will lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars’ worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal This is what I have the biggest problem with. The ONLY WAY we are going to continue making progress towards widespread clean renewable energy is if it is financially beneficial for corporations to continue investing in R&D. Sure, there are s…

But these are global problems, and if the US unilaterally refuses to make money off of oil while the rest of the world keeps pumping, the biggest effect will be income and jobs leaving the country.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#812

Post by laughfactory »

adamgravitis wrote: post #786
redler wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not unlike how an opposing party will criticize a bill based on its number of typed pages. The thump of a couple of inches of paper on a podium makes for great and reductive theater. It's likewise naïve to consider the number of regulations to be a direct barometer of the goodness or badness of regulation in general. Next we'll see the refactoring of existing regulations into smaller or larger components to a…

Reducing the number, length and complexity of regulation is a valid goal, and that hasn't changed in thousands of years: "The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government." - Tacitus

I agree. I hope that some version of this process is implemented and that it will change government from how it currently operates: adding layers of regulation upon layers, to a process with iteratively improves regulation--weeding out the out-dated, the irrelevant, the imprecise, the ineffective, and replacing it with improved, timely, precise, relevant, effective regulation. So we end up with a regulatory base which is more comprehendible, manageable, and relevant.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#813

Post by chrischen »

tw04 wrote: post #595

So he's going to lower taxes on the wealthy, drop taxes on businesses, increase spending on military, destroy our national parks to extract oil, and lay off federal employees. This is going to help the middle class and the uneducated who are struggling through... magic. None of the lobbying stuff will ever see the light of day. The term limits won't happen. He's going to repeal the "illegal" Obama executive orders bu…

He is pushing protectionist trade policies (backing out of NAFTA, punishing China for currency manipulation, backing out of TPP, etc) that will probably have the biggest income on low-skill jobs that will help the lower and middle classes at the expense of profits for businesses.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#815

Post by abritinthebay »

adamgravitis wrote: post #786
redler wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not unlike how an opposing party will criticize a bill based on its number of typed pages. The thump of a couple of inches of paper on a podium makes for great and reductive theater. It's likewise naïve to consider the number of regulations to be a direct barometer of the goodness or badness of regulation in general. Next we'll see the refactoring of existing regulations into smaller or larger components to a…

Reducing the number, length and complexity of regulation is a valid goal, and that hasn't changed in thousands of years: "The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government." - Tacitus

While true - that should be a side effect of good policy and process, not some stupid 2-for-1 rule.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#816

Post by joesb »

awesomerobot wrote: post #636
mywittyname wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Mexicans start using bitcoin, amazon gift cards, or something like that. Or we end up with "underground banks" that can effectively transfer money across the border without actually doing so, i.e., you buy a digital good at a physical location in the US, transfer it to a relative in Mexico, who then sells it back to the company at a slight discount for cash (which, as a side-effect, would be a great way to launder…

Basically it's like saying you want to ban illegal drugs from entering the country.

Except drugs are physical while money doesn't have to be.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#817

Post by RealGeek »

tw04 wrote: post #595

So he's going to lower taxes on the wealthy, drop taxes on businesses, increase spending on military, destroy our national parks to extract oil, and lay off federal employees. This is going to help the middle class and the uneducated who are struggling through... magic. None of the lobbying stuff will ever see the light of day. The term limits won't happen. He's going to repeal the "illegal" Obama executive orders bu…

> A middle-class family will get a 35% tax cut.

I did some back-of-the-envelope calculation to figure how our taxes could change for various income levels for married joint filers. This does not factor in any deductions.

Nobody is getting a 35% tax cut. Tax rate for middle-class families will go down by around 1% only, and taxes will go up for low-income families by 2%. Single tax filers will also see an increase in taxes.

The biggest tax cuts will actually go the highest income earners, tax rate will go down by 6.42% for someone who makes $10 million. Maybe that is what Trump calls the middle-class?

Trump's proposed tax brackets vs current brackets

$18,000 Current: $1,800 (10%) Trump: $2,160 (12%) Change: + $360 (2%)

$36,000 Current: $4,472 (12.42%) Trump: $4,320 (12%) Change: - $152 (0.42%)

$75,000 Current: $10,322 (13.76%) Trump: $9,000 (12%) Change: - $1,322 (1.76%)

$120,000 Current: $21,542 (17.95%) Trump: $20,250 (16.87%) Change: - $1,292 (1.08%)

$250,000 Current: $57,913 (23.16%) Trump: $45,750 (18.3%) Change: - $12,163 (4.86%)

$500,000 Current: $143,665 (28.73%) Trump: $11,1750 (22.35%) Change: - $31,915 (6.38%)

$1 million Current: $341,666 (34.16%) Trump: $293,250 (29.32%) Change: - $48,416 (4.84%)

$10 million Current: $3,905,666 (39.05%) Trump: $3,263,250 (32.63%) Change: - $642,416 (6.42%)

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#818

Post by laughfactory »

JosephHatfield wrote: post #766
josho wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump railed against the system that allowed politicians to be bought. It turns out his solution is to term limit congress. Sounds like treating a symptom not the root cause.

I don't see how elections themselves aren't term limits. You want to end someone's reign, vote them out. Am I missing something?

You're missing the incumbent bias. It's well known we prefer the devil we know to the one we don't--even if we objectively have good reason to dislike the incumbent.

Which is to say if, after electing someone to office, we immediately 1) forgot we voted for them, and 2) became completely unaware of their continuing existence and actions in office only then would elections be truly a sufficient substitute for term limits. Otherwise, given the choice, enough votes will be cast to keep the incumbent in office just because he/she is familiar. The thinking seems to go something like: well, that's the name I recognize, and hey, the world hasn't come to an end in the past few years, so... why not. Let's just keep 'em. Versus this other person who might do all kinds of things I can't foresee and may not like.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#819

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

bmmayer1 wrote: post #596
noobermin wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of room to wonder about his trustworthiness given his record as a businessman, but even in this document, he doesn't address campaign finance reform. Congressional term-limits just consolidate power in the moneyed elites--the problems is not just the politicians, it's who corrupted them. If anything, this is a document to passify those moneyed interests who, unlike say Sheldon Adelson, worry about a Tru…

Is campaign finance reform really that big an issue, considering Trump just proved it's possible to win an election without any big money or support from special interests?

> "proved it's possible to win an election without any big money"

But he had big money! :)

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#820

Post by EdiX »

gdulli wrote: post #80
knowaveragejoe wrote: post #43

Some of this sounds great - term limits on congress, a measure to reduce the revolving door effect of government officials going into lobbying. Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It might sound great if you don't think too hard about it. The scariest things for me are the backing out of cli…

> How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It's something that sounds simple and good to someone who not only isn't aware of the details of what it would mean in practice, but also isn't aware of their own inability to understand the details and nuance, or that there are details and nuance. It was a Dunning-Kruger election.

I'm going to introduce a new concept here, the "Dunning-Kruger effect effect": people who talk about the Dunning-Kruger effect usually haven't read or did not understand the Dunning Kruger effect paper and are only putting their ignorance on display [0]. Furthermore they are also ignorant of follow up studies proving that even the original effect was just a statistical artifact [1].

The Dunning-Kruger effect effect is itself an example of Dunning-Kruger effect but given that the Dunning-Kruger effect does not actually exist in general, the Dunning-Kruger effect effect may be the only instance of Dunning-Kruger effect that actually exists.

[0] http://danluu.com/dunning-kruger/ [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11831408

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