First Presidential Debate 9/26/16 Thread

[Sy_Noe]

But in fact there are lots of poor people in our country who don’t even get Medicaid because many states refused to expand coverage under Obamacare. There are still a lot of people in our country who have no healthcare at all and rely on going to the emergency room which is not a substitute for regular healthcare. So it’s not just about different levels of care. For many people, it’s the difference between care and no care at all. I don’t know of any other rich countries that have people with no care at all.

Great post. :clapping:

 

[Maximilan_Kolbe]

Regarding taxation, Hillary will raise taxes, and it will hit the middle class, She may not be as foolishly blunt as Walter Mondale, but that’s reality, and anyone who looks at what she proposes will say so honestly. The difference is thought with means (the “elite”) and those with savvy CPAs (myself in this case) will find ways to blunt the impact or find ways around it. As a small business owner, if my taxes go up for the business, I will shunt my income trough the personal tax code. If my personal taxes go up, I’ll take less in personal income and more from company withdrawals, taxed at a different rate, with a lot more deductions to boot. If both take a hit, then my employees will suffer. But do you think that is true for the vast majority of hourly or W-2 Americans? They will simply absorb it, and not have any means to do much about it. That stinks for them, but since a lot of them support her, it is hard to have much pity. We get what we deserve.

 

[Sy_Noe]

So do tell,what is your vision of this country under a liberally stacked SCOTUS and a HC presidency?

I’ll just take the time for a very short list of my vision of this country if there were to be a HC Presidency. Citizens United overturned. Gun owners still being able to own guns under the 2nd amendment to protect themselves and their families and property but without further adding military style assault weapons to our streets and with more background checks. Gays and lesbians retaining their civil rights. Women continuing to be able to follow the dictates of their faiths with regard to their reproductive rights including those who are Catholic but also as well those of other faith communities whose faith is not Catholic. Hopefully a continuation of voter rights. And last on this short list but certainly not least, as Thoroflr has talked about, under a HC Presidency, I could envision a guarantee of adequate regular healthcare for all of God’s children.

 

[Jeanne_S]

I’ll just take the time for a very short list of my vision of this country if there were to be a HC Presidency. Citizens United overturned. Gun owners still being able to own guns under the 2nd amendment to protect themselves and their families and property but hopefully without adding more military style assault weapons to our streets and with more background checks. Gays and lesbians retaining their civil rights. Women continuing to be able to follow the dictates of their faiths with regard to their reproductive rights including those who are Catholic but also as well those of other faith communities whose faith is not Catholic. Hopefully a continuation of voter rights. And last on this short list but certainly not least, as Thoroflr has talked about, under a HC Presidency, I could envision a guarantee of adequate regular healthcare for all of God’s children.

Good luck with the individual right to gun ownership under HC
Re the rest of your list,let me revise that to read,under penalty of law all Christians and those opposed to abortion,gay marriage ,euthanasia,single payer insurance,will be compelled to comply.

 

[Sy_Noe]

Good luck with the individual right to gun ownership under HC

I choose not to own a gun but thanks. We were told the same thing under Obama. But I deleted my post in response to your question of me so I didn’t risk being accused of campaigning.

 

[Thorolfr]

Good luck with the individual right to gun ownership under HC
Re the rest of your list,let me revise that to read,under penalty of law all Christians and those opposed to abortion,gay marriage ,euthanasia,single payer insurance,will be compelled to comply.

Since you’re opposed to “single payer insurance,” will you refuse to accept Medicare when you retire?

 

[Millie123]

Good luck with the individual right to gun ownership under HC
Re the rest of your list,let me revise that to read,under penalty of law all Christians and those opposed to abortion,gay marriage ,euthanasia,single payer insurance,will be compelled to comply.

I dont see how Trump is any better than Clinton regarding gun rights. They both advocate denying gun ownership to people on the no fly list. And Trumps “stop and frisk” proposal will allow the police to profile random people and remove their guns without due process

 

[Thorolfr]

I dont see how Trump is any better than Clinton regarding gun rights. They both advocate denying gun ownership to people on the no fly list. And Trumps “stop and frisk” proposal will allow the police to profile random people and remove their guns without due process

And I’m almost certain that virtually all of the people who would be stopped and frisked would be people of color.

 

[Inisfallen]

Remember Warren Buffett bragging about how his secretary pays more in taxes than he does?

He wasn’t bragging. Far from it. He was bemoaning how un-progressive our tax code is, and advocating a much more progressive taxation system (and I agree with him whole-heartedly – the Eisenhower era was really pretty good in a lot of ways).

See his Op-Ed in the New York Times from way back in 2011: nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html?_r=0

 

[ManOnFire]

You are using the present dysfunction of the tax code as an excuse for not seeking more rationality in taxation. There are measures that can be taken in an aim to make things more rational. Of course Trump doesn’t even think the rich paying practically no taxes is even a problem. At least HRC says the right things on this issue. Whether she would actually take action is an unknown.

I guess you missed the part where Obama made the same promises. Obama could have easily raised income taxes on billionaires in 2008-2009 when he had Democratic majorities in BOTH the Senate AND the House of Representatives, yet the dem congress produced ZERO pieces of legislation to raise their taxes. No republican support needed. People are going to wonder why they are wasting their time voting when the ideal scenario already came true and NO action was taken. Dems needed zero Republican support to raise their taxes, yet they didn’t. Where is the outrage? Another missed opportunity for Trump at the debate. Why expect Hillary’s promises to be any different than Obama’s promises?

People’s jaws will drop if you “remind” them of this truth, but then again too many people wait for the unelected media to tell them what to believe.

 

[Jeanne_S]

Since you’re opposed to “single payer insurance,” will you refuse to accept Medicare when you retire?

Single payer as in what we are seeing with Obamacare,forced to pay for products and services we either don’t need ,want or go against religious and moral beliefs.Re Medicare it too is compulsory ,so that is a moot point

 

[Jeanne_S]

I dont see how Trump is any better than Clinton regarding gun rights. They both advocate denying gun ownership to people on the no fly list. And Trumps “stop and frisk” proposal will allow the police to profile random people and remove their guns without due process

The nose of the camel under the tent,eventually citizens as a whole will be denied the right to bear arms.

 

[Jeanne_S]

And I’m almost certain that virtually all of the people who would be stopped and frisked would be people of color.

Riiiiiiiight!:

 

[Inisfallen]

Riiiiiiiight!:

Well, that’s absolutely how it was in New York City before our (massive) stop-and-frisk program was discontinued.

I posted about this back in 2013:

I’m in a sort of surrogate father position to an African-American teenage boy (his father died many years ago, and he’s been raised by his mother, who is an old friend). He’s a super-smart kid. Tested into one of NYC’s three elite public high schools (they’re Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science and Stuyvesant, and I won’t say which one because I don’t want to give details of someone else’s life in public). He and his family live in a predominantly black neighborhood in Brooklyn.

In his neighborhood, he and his friends (mostly black kids) are frequently stopped and frisked by the police. The police have never found anything illegal on him, or found a reason to suspect that he’s doing anything wrong. Nor will they, knowing him. But it keeps happening. And he’s not oblivious to the fact that it doesn’t happen when he comes to my neighborhood, which is predominantly white and pretty affluent.

It worries me to see how bitter and angry he is about this. He feels that he’s treated differently, and badly, because he’s black. Now, he’s a teenage boy, and teenagers are always going to feel that the world treats them unfairly, so his anger has to be taken with a grain of salt. But could there be something to it? Could it be that the frequent stops and searches, the times he’s had his bookbag dumped out on the sidewalk, the times he’s had his pockets gone through by police officers, the times he’s had unwanted hands on him, and in his pockets, the times he’s been spoken to rudely and in an insulting way by police officers, will have an effect? And is it possible that that effect will not be a good one – that filling kids with anger and resentment is, in the long run, dangerous?

 

[ProVobis]

Regarding taxation, Hillary will raise taxes, and it will hit the middle class,

Not possible until at least 2020, because the Republicans will have control of the House till then. They will no doubt control the Senate after 2018 as well. OTOH, Trump has a better chance of getting his advertised tax cuts and spending programs through Congress, for better or worse. Democrats in Congress are more likely to go for the infrastructure proposals to help him out IMO.

 

[Expatreprocedit]

The problem with climate change ideology is that nobody actually experiences it.

Huh? Here in Denver we are frequently “experiencing” high average monthly temperature records. Anybody who has been here for more than a decade has noticed that the climate has gotten warmer.

 

[ProVobis]

It has to be remembered that the future president has to get their nominees confirmed by the Senate. They can’t appoint them by fiat.

Indeed, and it is likely that all future confirmations to the Supreme Court (as well as the Fed Chair) must pass the 60-vote threshold. I wouldn’t expect an extreme liberal or conservative to be confirmed in the near future.

 

[Expatreprocedit]

I guess you missed the part where Obama made the same promises. Obama could have easily raised income taxes on billionaires in 2008-2009 when he had Democratic majorities in BOTH the Senate AND the House of Representatives, yet the dem congress produced ZERO pieces of legislation to raise their taxes. No republican support needed. People are going to wonder why they are wasting their time voting when the ideal scenario already came true and NO action was taken. Dems needed zero Republican support to raise their taxes, yet they didn’t. Where is the outrage? Another missed opportunity for Trump at the debate. Why expect Hillary’s promises to be any different than Obama’s promises?

Well, which is it, is Obama a “Marxist” as I hear so often, or is he a friend of billionaires? He can hardly be both, just as he can hardly be both a Marxist and a crypto-Muslim, as he is often accused of being. As I said, at least the Dems purport to be for tax reform. With Trump we’re guaranteed an even more regressive tax policy. Easy choice, on that issue.

 

[lmachine]

Single payer as in what we are seeing with Obamacare

Obamacare is not single payer.

 

[lmachine]

USA TODAY’s Editorial Board: Trump is ‘unfit for the presidency’

In the 34-year history of USA TODAY, the Editorial Board has never taken sides in the presidential race. Instead, we’ve expressed opinions about the major issues and haven’t presumed to tell our readers, who have a variety of priorities and values, which choice is best for them. Because every presidential race is different, we revisit our no-endorsement policy every four years. We’ve never seen reason to alter our approach. Until now.

This year, the choice isn’t between two capable major party nominees who happen to have significant ideological differences. This year, one of the candidates — Republican nominee Donald Trump — is, by unanimous consensus of the Editorial Board, unfit for the presidency.

From the day he declared his candidacy 15 months ago through this week’s first presidential debate, Trump has demonstrated repeatedly that he lacks the temperament, knowledge, steadiness and honesty that America needs from its presidents.

Whether through indifference or ignorance, Trump has betrayed fundamental commitments made by all presidents since the end of World War II. These commitments include unwavering support for NATO allies, steadfast opposition to Russian aggression, and the absolute certainty that the United States will make good on its debts. He has expressed troubling admiration for authoritarian leaders and scant regard for constitutional protections.