I disagree that Richard Spencer is the highest-profile Nazi on Twitter.

Also, shouldn't the Stranger purge its Nazi commenters, too? Some of the even announce their Nazi pride in their monikers.

Republicans only exist for short-term gains. Personal profit for legislators covers the need for this tax bill even if they all lose their seats and both houses of congress turn over. Meantime they will keep packing the courts so that a Dem congress has a harder time getting stuff done.

@2: Really? Can you name any of nazi-esque monikers you've seen?

@5: I reget to admit that I'm afraid that you actually might be right about that.

@6: "proud alt-right white guy".

@5 Yup, recently had a chat with a fellow asking me why I don't support lower income taxes. Told him I'm all for lower taxes once we shrink the defense budget and pay off the debt. His response was that the 2 largest fed programs were social security and medicare. He didn't seem to know that neither of those programs were funded by income tax and cutting them would have no impact on the budget deficit or the debt.

@6 isn't there someone with 'kek' in his name?

"kek" is not a nazi word

The republicans also set the tax cuts to expire in 10 years. This could be a forward thinking strategy on their part.

After Trump's second term, it's possible they expect a democrat would be elected president. The tax cuts would expire in the middle of that democrat's term. Democrats would be stuck between letting the cuts expire to curb the out of control debt and thereby enraging short-sighted taxpayers, or allowing the cuts to continue, making the debt increase further and giving the republicans the ammo they want in forcing cuts to medicare and social security.

Of course, if another republican is elected after Trump's second term, they'll just cut medicare and social security exactly as they've planned all along.

The republicans want to do all the damage but make their opponents look like the vandals. Given the non-existent attention span of most Americans, it's a viable strategy that's worked for them in the past.

I doubt the republicans are thinking that long ahead (the rest of America certainly doesn't) but it's possible.

Coates is soft. I agreed with the case for reparations piece he wrote, but grow a backbone to match your convictions or just move over and let someone who can handle dissent and adversity take the helm.

Oh right. He just did.

@13:

It's my understanding that cut-off only applies to most of the tax "breaks" being sopped out to the plebes - tax breaks for corporations and the 1% will be permanent.

Is it normal to start a new train run without positive control? Sounds exactly like when you'd need it most, when the people aren't familiar with the run.

@15,
They'll TRY to gut medicare but it won't be as easy as passing this tax thing.
They can fool the rubes on the tax bill because most of them WILL see a temporary reduction, that and lies about the future of it will be fine too since its obvious republican voters believe whatever Dear Leader tells them to believe. When their taxes increase 10 years from now they'll simply blame whoever is in power at the moment. Happens every time.
Medicare though, is a different beast. Many republican voters are on it and they'll notice immediately if it's tampered with and they'll blame those in office right now.
That's why I think repubs will wait until this tax bill has annihilated the economy before they get serious about gutting Medicare and blaming everything on the dems.

@17, I know they're permanent for corporations, can't recall if they're permanent for the 1%

@16:

According to the IRS, the earliest employees would see any noticeable difference in their take-home pay would be February, so you might want to hold off on the victory dance for a month or so.

And the big changes will actually show up when you file your Calendar Year 2018 return - hope you don't itemize, because that's going to be a YUGE surprise when you find out all the things you used to deduct don't appear anywhere on the new forms: State and local sales tax deduction - gone. Student loan interest deduction - gone. Itemized medical expense deduction - gone. Casualty & theft loss deduction - gone. Employee business expense deduction - gone. Moving expense deduction - gone. But, by then most people will have completely forgotten how the GOP rammed this gawd-awful bill down our throats, and by the time they suddenly realize they've lost all these itemized deductions it'll be after the elections and the venal SOB's who handed us this "shit-on-a-shit-sandwich-with-a-side-of-shit-sauce" will have already been elected to another 2 - 6 year term. And we'll cycle through that once or twice until the so-called "middle-class tax cuts" sunset in 2025 and rates go back up to what they are now - except that all those pesky itemized deductions won't be reinstated accordingly.

@21

I'm sure @16 is a bazillionaire, so he will be able to tell you how much he's benefiting.

I used a tax calculator built off of the current publicly available plan, and my household is paying about $2,700 less if the current tax plan goes through.

According to the New York Times, roughly three quarters of Americans will have their tax burden cut in some way.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017…

So the question for most becomes how much extra income will have to go towards government benefits that will assumingly be cut, and how that all balances out.

Chinese trains can travel up to 400kph. France's Lyons-Paris line has reached >570kph, yet we are unable to go 80mph? Why? I know they have bullet trains and high speed tracks, and we don't, so it's no comparable, but the point is, why don't we move our train system out of the early 20C?

Sigh, if we get the House and Senatand the WH back, can they get rid of this Baron Robbers' Tax travesty? Anyone know?

*not comparable

*Senate and WH

@26: because it costs money, and the rails are privately owned, and the US congress is trying to contain "runaway government spending" (see @25, LOL x infinity), and anyway fuck trains, only highways count. just ask the construction industry, the concrete industry, the car manufacturers, the oil & gas industry, etc.

@27: no, it won't be overturned, even when many of the cuts expire in 2027.

Dems play by the rules - like Regular Order, committee hearings, voting on amendments by the opposition. Obama could have let Bush's tax cuts expire, but made a deal with the GOP to preserve them and keep the lights on. "Bipartisanship".

I presume the next Dem govt (if there ever is one after what's coming in 2020) will be Eagle Scouts about it as well.

I always assumed Ken Mehlman spoke entirely in satire, like the titular character of the Colbert Report. I'm not so sure anymore.

There's so much Poe's Law going on that I just can't tell anymore.

@25: You're conflating percentages of population with percentages of tax revenue. Since wealth is disproportionately held by a small minority of the population, your statistics are meaningless.

Example: If Bill Gates and nine middle-class people populate some made-up country, then 10% of the population will probably be paying 90% of the taxes.

Dan's been stepping up of late, and it's cool.

@16 Dumbfuck in Shoreline: Fuck yourself, eat my shit, get HORRIBLY SICK, and when you lose your healthcare due to a pre-existing condition of corporate GOP greed and stupidity, die already.

You mean youth pastors continue to pad their resumes for the Republican Senate campaigns.

Ta Nehisi Coates has a lot of black critics, especially from various black liberation scenes and on the black left. It goes a little deeper than some of his articles. The scene he grew up in (that his parents were a part of and that he wrote a book about) also had a lot of criticism from other black radicals and black leftists. I don't know enough about any of that to speak intelligently about it, but it's not some new or random thing that someone like West would criticize him. I've skimmed several very critical articles on Coates from various black radicals and leftists over the years. Again, I don't understand it enough to know what's going on- it's not my scene. But it's not new, and Coates does seem to frustrate a lot of black activists while receiving adoration from a lot of white middle brow sorts (New Yorker, NPR). That might be unfair and I'm full of shit, but there's a context for this as Dan suggests with his "not for the first time". Regardless, the linked to article in the stranger (outside of the context of the Coates-West dispute) seems to intentionally misunderstand some larger conversations on the left as well as genuinely misunderstanding several economic terms, so I'd take that account of the Coates-West dispute with a grain of salt.

In any case, wtf a Nazi like Spencer has to say is irrelevant. Yes he should be off Twitter, and yes if he's agreeing/disagreeing with West or Coates about something, that has nothing to do with either of them.