The so-called Heroes Act — allegedly meant to stanch the financial hemorrhaging caused by the lock down intended to curb the spread of the coronavirus and being pushed by House Democrats — has more ornaments than a Christmas tree.
Among other things, if passed, the bill would extend the $600 a week unemployment bonus through the end of the year, paying those thrown out of work by the government-imposed business shutdowns more to stay home than to return to work, incentivizing prolonged joblessness.
It also would bailout state and local governments, even those whose financial problems predated the coronavirus pandemic. It would forgive students, even for those capable of making repayments. It also would bailout the Postal Service.
Perhaps the most egregious aspect, again, is the proposed repeal of the $10,000 cap on IRS deductions for state and local taxes (SALT) that was part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed in December 2017.
According to the Tax Policy Center, three-quarters of any benefit from repealing the SALT deduction cap would go to households making $153,000 or more. The top 1 percent of households, those making $755,000 or more, would receive more than 56 percent of the benefit. The Center calculated repeal would cut federal tax revenues by $620 billion over the coming decade.
More importantly, the SALT cap stops forcing the residents of low-tax states like Nevada from subsidizing high-tax states like New York and California. Prior to the cap Nevadans were able to deduct about 1 percent or less of their adjusted gross income, while those in high-tax states could deduct more than 5 percent.
Calculated on a per capita basis using 2010 tax data, Californians claimed $2,116 in federal income tax deductions, while Nevadans claimed only $166 per person for sales tax deductions.
If the Heroes Act passes, Nevadans would again be paying a disproportionately higher proportion of federal taxes. This has nothing to do with remedying the woes created by the virus panic. It is just another sop to Democratically-controlled, big spending states.
4TH ST8 
So some tax cuts are more equal than others I guess. Rich republicans getting tax cuts, like they did when trump passed his first giveaway for billionaires and giants corporations are good, but tax cuts for Americans earning $150,000 (least ways if we can assume they’re all democrats) are bad.
And I guess the fact that those blue states, which have carried red states on their backs for years, putting FAR more into the federal treasury per capita, than they receive in return, is just how it ought to be, but somehow those same blue state having a tax deduction for their citizens who earn $150,000 is a bridge too far…for a republican.
You guys man.
I mostly agree with Thomas here. Any economic rescue measures need to be carefully and precisely implemented. This is just flinging money into the wind.
The problem with the $10,000 cap isn’t with reducing or eliminating this tax deduction. I believe all deductions should be eliminated. The problem is that Republicans made sure to eliminate only the deduction that would damage Democrats and kept all of the rest. As with blatantly disregarding the intent of the Founding Fathers by refusing to vet an Obama nominee for the Supreme Court and gerrymandering profusely, the Republicans care far less about our country than they do about staying in power. Unfortunately, some voters think that is just fine, much as third world voters often do.
Well you caught us, again, Rin! All of us conservatives want to turn the United States into a Third World country!
Where did we slip up? What tipped you off? I never thought anyone would catch on with our desire to emulate Venezuela.
Please don’t tell everyone else! You got to give us a chance
It’s the Democrats are doing the political manipulations.
Athos, I believe you rail at the “socialism” practiced by almost every other advanced country in the world and advocate things commonly found in 3rd world countries. The following of Conservative policies for the past several decades has seen our standing in the world slide, not into 3rd world status, but clearly into second rate territory – life span and infant mortality for instance. So yes, we’re on our way in the direction of the third world.
Thomas, I believe the Republicans used the filibuster far more than the Democrats ever had, the Democrats never refused to look at a Supreme Court nominee, the Republicans are guilty of far more gerrymandering than the Democrats, the Republicans claimed voter fraud when none could be demonstrated, a Republican unilaterally dismissed charges against Flynn, a Republican cut off Congressionally directed military aid at the same time as covertly asking the Ukraine President to dig up dirt on his political rival, a Republican actively benefited from Russian election interference, communicated with the Russians about it, and denied that it occurred against the unanimous findings of our intelligence community, Republicans moved to ask about citizenship status on census forms for the first time in history, and postmortem computer files proved that the reason was purely to gain political advantage,,,,,the list goes on, but you say it’s the Democrats manipulating the political process. OK, got it.
I agree that the Democrats have their dirty tricks too, but am not blind to them as you appear to be with those of the Republicans.
“but clearly into second rate territory – life span and infant mortality for instance. So yes, we’re on our way in the direction of the third world.” You’ve stated this several times, Rin. The problem with comparing our life span and infant mortality rate to other countries, is that we count all our infant deaths (except for those aborted, but that’s another topic) which drastically affects our life span numbers, and most of the world don’t. Plus, what other nation has the ethnic make up of the US? And just exactly where would you rather live than in the US?
“the Democrats never refused to look at a Supreme Court nominee…” boy, you got that right, Rin. The Democrats sure gave a good look at Brett Kavanaugh, didn’t they? And Clarence Thomas certainly got the Democrat’s “good look”, too, huh? And which party is the genesis of “to Bork”? That was certainly done with care.
So cry me a river if what the Republicans did to Merrick Garland didn’t meet your “Marquess of Queensberry” sensibilities. This conservative is tired of playing Charlie Brown to Democrat’s Lucy.
” a Republican actively benefited from Russian election interference, communicated with the Russians about it, and denied that it occurred against the unanimous findings of our intelligence community,,,” Really, Rin?? Did you lose your copy of the famous Mueller Report? Wow. Just wow. You really have a serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
At some point, no matter how disappointing it is, you have to accept the TRUTH that Hillary lost to Donald Trump. She lost, Rin. It wasn’t inevitable, it wasn’t meant to be, the world will go on. And you may be in for a shock to the system when the TRUTH finally comes to light about your boy, Obama, and his “intelligence community. (How DID he make all that money, again??)
Playing Charlie Brown to the Democrats’ Lucy … I’ll save that one for future plagiarism.
“we count all our infant deaths (except for those aborted, but that’s another topic) which drastically affects our life span numbers, and most of the world don’t.” I see. You’re claiming that countries like Denmark, New Zealand, Japan, Norway, etc. aren’t counting their deaths and we are. Do you have even a tiny shred of evidence for this or were you just in rant mode?
Here we go again. Are claiming that, A) Trump didn’t benefit from Russian election interference, B) they didn’t communicate with the Russians about this, or C) Trump never denied the Russian interference? It has to be at least one of these three. Pick one.
“Infant Mortality: A Deceptive Statistic | National Review” You’ll have to copy and google this headline. (if you’re really interested in where I get my reasoning)
And just stating the facts: “Non-Hispanic Black mothers experience the highest infant mortality rate among all racial and ethnic groups (10.97 infant deaths per 1,000 live births), as well as the highest rates of preterm birth (delivery before 37 weeks of gestation) and low birth weight, both of which are leading causes of infant death.” That might skew the US numbers, don’t ya think?
Our ethnic background is far more diverse than Denmark, New Zealand, Japan or Norway. When I searched for the highest infant mortality rates Mali came in #1 and Africa was over represented on this list. It’s not racist. It’s just the way it is.
As such, Cuba claims better infant mortality rate than the US. I’d still rather have my kids here.
I love multiple choice! A) correct! Trump didn’t benefit from Russian election interference. It was Hillary as a terrible candidate that benefitted Trump in the election
B) Check the Mueller Report. Trump didn’t communicate with the Russians to interfere in the election. I know Chuck Todd, Don Lemon and Anderson Cooper can’t believe it, but there it is!
C)Trump suspected there was a Russian/Hillary connection. (hookers/golden showers/Russia??) Turns out it was Obama’s FBI and DOJ that were spying on the Trump campaign.
Tom, I owe Charles M. Schulz some money, huh? (or his estate)
I see. It’s not racist, but American black people shouldn’t be counted in our statistics because they’re “different” than the rest of us Americans. And the fact that people of their ethnicity also have high infant mortality (couldn’t be related to poverty now, could it?) just confirms it. They’re just not like us, right? Check your sources and see if you can find one saying that white Americans below the poverty line have the same infant mortality rates as those with moderate and high incomes. Do that, and I might actually take your words seriously. Until then, I recommend you engage brain before typing.
I checked out the National Review article. They’re rated right wing, with “mostly factual”reporting, which corresponds to a C plus – not terribly impressive. Then, I saw this: “Therefore the fact that the percentage of preterm births in the U.S. is far higher than that in all other OECD countries — 65 percent higher than in Britain, and more than double the rate in Ireland, Finland, and Greece — further undermines the validity of neonatal-mortality comparisons.” As if that exonerates the U.S. system. All they’ve done is to move the question to, why do Americans have a much higher percentage of preterm births? I’ll just take a stab at it and say that the answer to the one question will be exactly the same as the answer to the other.
It’s obvious that the Review began with a conclusion and then looked for ways to undermine it. Note that they have no explanations of their own; they just don’t like the obvious conclusion. I will agree right away that the causes are multifactorial, but it’s hard to reconcile these truly awful statistics with a supposedly sterling quality medical system, especially since anyone with a brain knows that many people below the poverty line in this country do not receive excellent or even adequate medical care. Lemme see, they get lousy care, and they have more premature births. Whoda thunk?
As for Russia, it’s reasonable to assume that most propaganda has some effect. What kind of patriot would blithely assume that it couldn’t have achieved anything at all without evidence? We all stumble over the truth sooner or later, but most of us pick ourselves up and carry on as if nothing had happened (Churchill).
You misstated yourself when you said that Trump, “didn’t communicate with the Russians to interfere in the election.” Actually, Donald Trump Junior, who is a “Trump”, certainly did. It is your sophomoric assumption that Don Jr. doesn’t tell his dad very much. Quite a stretch. https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/07/politics/donald-trump-jr-full-emails/
If you call subpoening Don Jr.’s Emails a form of “spying”, then I suppose you could stretch a point, but John Gotti could make the same claim. “The only reason they caught me was that they were spying on me. No fair!”
It bothered me that I hadn’t addressed the differences in methodology among the countries. Luckily, someone else has already looked into it:
“The US has higher infant mortality than peer countries. In this paper, we combine micro-data from the US with similar data from four European countries to investigate this US infant mortality disadvantage. The US disadvantage persists after adjusting for potential di erential reporting of births near the threshold of viability. While the importance of birth weight varies across comparison countries, relative to all comparison countries the US has similar neonatal (<1 month) mortality but higher postneonatal (1-12 months) mortality. We document similar patterns across Census divisions within the US. The postneonatal mortality disadvantage is driven by poor birth outcomes among lower socioeconomic status individuals."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4856058/
Now, I realize that most Conservatives are anti science, but I trust a scientist that has examined this much more than some so called journalist shooting off his mouth without bothering to quantitate facts nor to present data not in keeping with his preexisting bias. I also recognize that this scientist only examined 4 other countries. I'm open to new information, but at this time have no reason to believe that the 4 countries examined differ dramatically from others in this area.
BTW, If you look at footnote three, the author states that excluding black people from the data does not alter the underlying facts uncovered.
I also checked the authors. They hail from USC, MIT, and Brown University. Mediabiasfactcheck rates the organization supporting their research as least biased with “high” factual reliability.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/national-bureau-of-economic-research-nber/
Rincon let me give you a pat on the back for doing this good work.
I know and surely you know that this will roll off this guys back like water off a duck because guys on the right just say stuff nowadays without regard to nothing because that’s what their cult leader tells them is what life’s about.
Long past time to realize that most of them are just children and we don’t try to reason with children past a certain point we just tell them what’s what.
“Don’t put your hand on the red burner because I said so.”
They’re beyond reason and when it comes to racism you’re dealing with one of the original racists in Athos here.
From Feb. 18, 2009 – “In a blunt assessment of race relations in the United States, Attorney General Eric Holder Wednesday called the American people “essentially a nation of cowards” in failing to openly discuss the issue of race.” CNN Rinny and Annie illustrate why open discussions don’t happen. The FACTS are infant deaths are HIGHEST in African Nations. Infant Deaths are highest among American Blacks. Scandinavian countries are just now filling up with African immigrants. Your little paper was written in May 2016. It would be interesting to see what the future holds.
I can’t believe I actually skimmed that first reference of yours, Rin. It’s not written for the common man. I did tackle the summary and found this part interesting:
“If policies were able to focus on individuals of lower socioeconomic status – given our estimates that advantaged groups do as well in the US as elsewhere – even higher levels of spending per mother targeted would be justified.” Seems some group (the lower socioeconomic status group) doesn’t spend the money on the kid after the birth ( post neonatal??) the kid dies and our (US) infant mortality rate takes a hit.
Oh, and I love this part: “Identifying particular policies that could be effective in achieving these gains is beyond the scope of this paper and is an area that deserves more research attention.” Who paid for this trope, Rin? I sure hope it wasn’t the American Taxpayer. NO SOLUTIONS, just venom for America!
My wife and I have 3 kids. Our children were planned, welcome, cherished and nurtured. My mother-in-law answered many questions we had, along with my wife’s baby doctor. BTW our obstetrician quit delivering babies because medical malpractice insurance became too much for her to afford. Shame, really. She was a good obstetrician! Maybe if we ship a few thousand John Edward type lawyers to Scandinavia,(along with Alice Chen, Emily Oster, and Heidi Williams) our standings would improve.
Annie, I reject your label of racist. Show me ONE racist statement I’ve made. You can’t but that won’t stop you because leftist have nothing else to argue. You have no interest in Truth. Only hate.
It must really suck to be you, Annie. What a waste of God’s life.
I agree that we need legal reform, but don’t you think it’s possible that our legal system might negatively impact the quality of our health care? After all, you know of one good obstetrician that left practice. Could there not be others?
But if what you say is right, and our medical system is so great, maybe it’s BECAUSE of our legal system holding doctors accountable for sloppiness. Why would you want to fix something you think isn’t broken?
But first, let’s see if I’ve got this right. You’re saying that Africans and black Americans both have high infant mortality rates, so their deaths have nothing to do with the quality of medical in this country? It’s somehow because of their skin color? And our lack of longevity also has nothing to do with our medical system? Oh, and it’s a great idea to have millions without health insurance nor the means to pay for their medical care (with a preponderance of black people in this situation), but you’re SURE that this couldn’t possibly have any effect on death rates? But you can’t present any evidence that Americans receive medical care superior to those of the other 33 OECD countries, right?
Rinny, are you delusional? Do you really thing there is one country, or actually many countries that have better health care than the United States? Our pets get better care than most other countries give their citizens! Right or Wrong?
And I have no idea WHY Africans and Black Americans have a greater infant mortality rate than whites. I have no idea why the same group suffers a higher percent of Sickle cell anemia. But that is just the way it is.
You need some sort of proof. Why? You seem hellbent to reinforce the fact you live in some hell hole! Is your life so miserable living in this country that all you can do is whine?
Oh, I forgot. You live in Illinois, don’t you?
Never mind. Say hello to that fascist governor you’ve got, eh? At least ours in Nevada is just stupid.
Correlation does not equal causation. So let me go back to your original statement:
“Non-Hispanic Black mothers experience the highest infant mortality rate among all racial and ethnic groups (10.97 infant deaths per 1,000 live births), as well as the highest rates of preterm birth (delivery before 37 weeks of gestation) and low birth weight, both of which are leading causes of infant death.” That might skew the US numbers, don’t ya think?”
Answer: I said that US citizens and their babies don’t live as long as those as those in any other advanced nation. Most or all Nonhispanic black mothers counted are US citizens, so they are included in that statement, which stands as true. Skewed or not, our society is failing to maintain its place in the world and today is much closer to third world status in many areas that we were, 50 or 60 years ago. Invoking the differences among races does not change that simple fact. And neither will chanting, “USA, USA”. Ignoring truth is not patriotism.
“Invoking the differences among races …” ???? I point out a fact and you accuse me of ignoring truth.
So what’s your solution, Rinny? Time to try a little socialism? Or maybe you’d like that wonderful governor of yours to be Supreme Leader? JB Pritzker, Grand Ruler of all He sees! Just look at the wonderful job he’s doing in your state!
We’ve been moving closer to third world status over the last 50 years, eh? Or is that just Chicago? Too bad we can’t get the Lightbringer back to fundamentally transform your sh*thole world, Rin. And it’s too bad you live in such squalor.
Makes me grateful as all get out to live in Henderson, Nevada. And before you knock it, you should try chanting “USA, USA!” Denigrating patriotism is not the path to Truth.
Perhaps I misunderstood. You pointed out a fact. What was your purpose in doing so?
Hearing no answer, I am left to assume the obvious.