Progressive Discussion - Wednesday 4-26-17

So, now, the federally protected lands & Nat'l Monuments, which are protected for a good reason, is now under attack by Tweety. All for the sake of strip mining & oil ...what a friggin idiot!

Just got home from taking my mom to the doctor, getting my stitches removed, etc so haven't had time to peruse much news. From the little I've seen even Republicans are very disappointed in Tweety's "so called" tax reform plan. "It's not tax reform," said one senior GOP aide. "Not even close." He also offers, as usual, no real details. That's his norm, however, so I don't know why even Republicans would find that surprising.

As Linda said, the benefits will be for the very rich and the rest of us will either not be any better off or perhaps even worse off. From what I briefly read other than changing from 7 tax brackets to 3, it doesn't list what incomes fall within what bracket. So if you were in the 15% bracket, that no longer would exist so you may be thrown into the 25% bracket. If you were in the 25% bracket, you may now find yourself in the 35%. And even if you are lucky and it turns out you would actually get a tax cut, he provides no details for how that loss of funding is going to be made up. It takes money to run the country. It's got to come from somewhere, and you can bet he's not planning for it to come from the super wealthy.

Just so very tired of all his bluster, bravado, and complete ineptitude!

Cutting out the estate taxes is also going to have an impact on philanthropy. While many wealthy donors are also generous people, the estate tax is an added incentive to make bequests to education, the arts and other beneficiaries rather than have a large portion of your estate go to the government.

Ivanka Trump spent time in Berlin Tuesday talking publicly about the need to support families and the role of female entrepreneurs. The same day, a new report revealed employees of a Chinese factory contracted by G-III Apparel Group, the company that exclusively licenses Trump’s branded clothing line, were working extra-long hours for little pay.
The Washington Post first reported that employees at a G-III-contracted factory in China worked nearly 60 hours per week to make little more than $62 per week, according to an October audit by the watchdog group Fair Labor Association. That’s about half the salary of the average Chinese manufacturing worker, according to Newsweek. 
The FLA cited the factory for two dozen violations of international labor standards after inspecting its operations. .......Huff Post