Trump's Tax Returns

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I think you are arguing the side of the Democrats, since the law gives the right to Congress to see these returns, and it is the President who is going to challenge the law, that is, disobey it, or claim some privilege that was taken away in 1924 from the presidency, and for this very reason.
 
Yemen was brought up earlier.

There are numerous articles on what happened there under the Obama admin. I did post an Atlantic article but I’m removing the link because there was a four letter word in the article.

And congress voted for us to get out of arming the Saudis, their reasoning was aiding one side the way we do is tantamount or close to being in a war. I guess it is. I’m not knowledgeable on this situation at the moment except for the basics but these matters are more troubling than “tax returns”, there are serious matters at stake rather than be partisan on issues all the time.

And the Atlantic isn’t exactly a conservative news outlet. Obama stayed supplying the Saudis, now, Trump does. Perhaps they have inside info that we need to do this.

Anyway, I haven’t heard much per war over there for a few days, maybe things are getting better now. I don’t know.
 
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I have tremendous respect for anyone who can figure out how not to pay taxes. We need to starve the government beast.
 
RuthAnne said:
I have tremendous respect for anyone who can figure out how not to pay taxes. We need to starve the government beast.
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You can always not pay workers that you’ve hired to do a job for you and stock that money oversees, set up phony charities that give you tax havens, or claim losses after you’ve bled the cow dry…Who said we had to give Caesar anything in the first place.
 
pnewton said:
I think you are arguing the side of the Democrats, since the law gives the right to Congress to see these returns, and it is the President who is going to challenge the law, that is, disobey it, or claim some privilege that was taken away in 1924 from the presidency, and for this very reason.
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I’m not a legal scholar, and you might be right. But I’m also aware there is such a thing as “malice” in the law; that is, a purpose other than the ostensible purpose of performing an otherwise lawful act. It’s entirely possible to change a lawful act to an unlawful act if the purpose is improper. How far that goes, I couldn’t say.
 
Obama gave Saudi Arabia’s deadliest enemy, Iran, billions of dollars that can be used for arms and to pay soldiers. Probably Trump needs to allow the Saudis to counter it.
 
pnewton said:
since the law gives the right to Congress to see these returns,
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If Congress has the “right” then I doubt it would be an issue. As I understand it, select members of Congress are authorized to request tax records from the IRS for specific reasons. I don’t think Congress has carte blanche “rights” to see the tax returns of private citizens , which President Trump was in the years being discussed.
 
Victoria33 said:
The South and North leaders meet, I think there is a scheduled meeting with Japan’s leader and Kim as well as the possibility of some integration between North and South. Things are moving. Yes, we have to be pragmatic and say we probably won’t have total denuclearization but a great cooling of tensions may still work out.
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We have been here before. The fact remains that the Kim dynasty is fundamentally unreliable. They aren’t even that loyal to China, who is their chief benefactor and protector. A deal made today will, if expediency requires it, be rejected by Pyongyang tomorrow. So long as China, no matter how unwilling on occasion, still extends its protective arms around the regime, I’d take any positive movement as suspect.
 
niceatheist said:
They just fired off some missiles willy nilly. While I think Trump did the right thing in trying to find some accommodation with Pyongyang, I had no more confidence in that regimes desire to abide by any kind of deal, implied or written, now, then it had when Albright went their in the 1990s. It’s an unreliable regime, opaque to the extreme.
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I too don’t trust them, however these missiles are provocative but do not violate prior agreements. These are short range missiles not intended (capable?) of carrying nuclear payload.
 
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RuthAnne said:
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JonNC:
Wilson was far worse.
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But Wilson’s actions didn’t result in over 600,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of lives destroyed.
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This is like blaming America for the deaths of German and Japanese solders in WWII.
I don’t take a back seat to anyone about limits on constitutional power, but blaming Lincoln seems unreasonable.
 
He illegally declared and executed that war. I think it’s fair to hold him responsible.
 
I take a bit of a different view. I believe Kim is totally China’s puppet. When trade talks aren’t going well, he gets more threatening. When they seem to be going well, he settles down.

If I had to guess, I would guess Trump knows that. But I’m also guessing ;Trump won’t give away the store with China just to get Kim to temporarily settle down. And it would be temporary, until the next time China wants some concession. If we knew the truth, Kim is probably guarded by a “Praetorian Guard” of Chinese to keep him in line as well as safe from his own countrymen.

Personally, I don’t care if prices at Walmart double for lack of Chinese goods. Kim actually has only one trick…obtaining nuclear arms. He isn’t going to go to war with the U.S. because our nukes would land uncomfortably close to China. Having a proxy isn’t all roses. The U.S. could, if the wind is right, blanket north China with radiation without landing a single rocket on China itself. China will never allow Kim to start a nuclear war.
 
You might not have a problem with prices doubling at Walmart, but I suspect a lot of Americans would. People are all very gung ho for trade wars, until those wars start hitting them in the pocket book. And since consumer spending is a pretty big part of the economy, anything that substantially decreases that spending is going to have an economic and political impact.

Trade wars are not a one way street, and China is not without its own ammunition.
 
I understand. But probably prices wouldn’t double anyway, because it really seems a big part of the saving from slave labor is actually consumed by the American wholesalers and retailers and isn’t really passed on to the consumer.

And if the replacement quality was superior, possibly people wouldn’t need the lower prices. You have probably heard the saying “I’m not rich enough to shop at Walmart”. That’s hyperbolic, of course, but there is some truth to it.
 
Ridgerunner said:
I understand. But probably prices wouldn’t double anyway, because it really seems a big part of the saving from slave labor is actually consumed by the American wholesalers and retailers and isn’t really passed on to the consumer.

And if the replacement quality was superior, possibly people wouldn’t need the lower prices. You have probably heard the saying “I’m not rich enough to shop at Walmart”. That’s hyperbolic, of course, but there is some truth to it.
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Well, it’s true that Walmart and distributors would probably eat some of the increase, but then that costs those companies money. Any way you look at it, until another supply chain can be found, it’s disruptive. As I said, trade wars aren’t a one way street. Tit for tat tariffs often have their own effects. With elections coming up next year, China could start targeting vulnerable states and districts, seeking to damage Republican re-election prospects.

Not that I’m not in favor of nailing China when necessary. It’s steel dumping has done an enormous amount of damage to a number of North American and European steel producers, and even Obama, who everyone thought was some sort of soft touch, went after China for steel dumping.
 
I’m not sure China has all that much ammunition when it comes to trade. China is like any mercantilist power. It buys commodities and sells finished goods. That’s great for their industry, terrible for their trading partners.

There has been a hulabaloo about soybeans when China stopped buying ours. Soybean prices are not very good this year. But that’s really because there was a surplus last year to my understanding. Besides, soybeans are fungible, China won’t stop using them, and they’re always relatively expensive because world demand is greater than world supply most of the time.

It’s interesting. China actually doesn’t have a lot of arable land. That’s why they don’t raise much beef, but a lot of poultry and swine. Both of those are “confinement” animals, and both eat soybean meal. China basically destroyed north China with poor agricultural management, trying to squeeze autarky out of a land not suited for it.

But back to topic, (this one anyway) if trade between the U.S. and China stopped completely, there would be a little pain for America, but a tremendous amount for China. China will still have to buy a lot of commodities whether it gets a lot of American dollars or not.
 
MikeInVA said:
As I understand it, select members of Congress are authorized to request tax records from the IRS for specific reasons. I don’t think Congress has carte blanche “rights” to see the tax returns of private citizens
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Thank you for the clarification. That is correct. It is not Congress as a whole that the law authorizes to see the returns. It is only the House Ways and Means Committee. But the law does state that the Treasury Department shall supply them upon request by that committee, hence the constitutional kerfuffle (“crisis” is too sensational.) It will be interesting to see if the judges appointed for there non-activist stance will become activist in order to side with the president that appointed them.
 
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