SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Donald Trump acquitted by Senate in second impeachment trial:
The Senate has voted to acquit the former president of the United States after the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump concluded Saturday. The vote came after a five-day trial where arguments centered around whether Trump incited the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, and whether it is constitutional to hear the impeachment trial of a former president who is now a private citizen.
Despite a compelling prosecution, an acquittal isn't unexpected. While the Senate is split 50/50, with Vice President Kamala Harris to cast a tie-break vote as president of the Senate when necessary, the impeachment trial required a two-thirds supermajority for conviction.
This meant 17 Republican senators would have had to vote to convict Trump, an unlikely ask from the beginning. This was indicated in a Jan. 25 vote led by Sen. Rand Paul on whether the impeachment trial of a former president was "unconstitutional," during which just five Republicans voted against the motion. The first day of the impeachment trial this week then saw a similar vote, during which six Republicans voted with Democrats to continue the trial.
In the end, the vote was 57-43 to convict Trump, with all 48 Democrats, two independents and seven Republicans finding Trump guilty. The only members of the GOP who voted alongside the Democrat senators were Sens. Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, Ben Sasse, Pat Toomey, Bill Cassidy and Richard Burr.
Also at: CNN, Al Jazera, Time, BBC, The New York Times, The Guardian.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2021, @01:01AM (6 children)
You were basically lied to, about this: "tax cut targeted to the 1%, whose cuts are permanent, and some fallout to the middle class, who's cuts expire"
That's... a misleading way to put it.
OK, the first thing to know is that you can't cut taxes for the lower class, aside from going even more negative. It's related to how Mitt Romney put his foot in his mouth, about the 47%. Lots of people just don't pay taxes.
Second, how do you measure the size of a tax cut? Is it dollars of tax, percentage points of effective tax rate, percentage of effective tax rate (a very different number), or something involving marginal tax rate? If one person's tax bill goes from $1,000,000 to $990,000 and another person's tax bill goes from $10,000 to $8,000 are you going to say that is a cut of 1% and 20%, or will you say $10,000 and $2,000? Clearly it matters. The democrats would prefer that you only look at the second set of numbers, obviously.
A reasonable person, not trying to push a democrat agenda, would say that the middle class got the big tax cut.
Now, what about expiration? Republicans didn't want that, and they offered to make the cuts permanent for the middle class. Democrats refused. (see Ted Cruz's response to Bernie Sanders pretend complaint on Twitter) The expiration was forced because the changes had to be revenue-neutral according to some warped accounting. Anything non-neutral would need to be a different sort of law, originating in the House instead of the Senate. Republicans did what they could, with the assumption that they could make the changes permanent later. It's not a crazy assumption, since it worked for Bush tax cuts.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Sunday February 14 2021, @01:59AM (5 children)
Except this is Republican lie. We need to eat the rich, redistribute wealth, and not allow anyone to own more than, say, two gazzillion dollars. Lower classes pay more taxes than the rich, as a percentage of their income. Not necessarily income tax, but property taxes, which they pay even if they rent, sales taxes, especially in those diabolical states that tax food and medicine. Transportation taxes, even if indirectly, on fuel, and infrastructure. Medical taxes, in the form of health insurance, if they can even afford it. Taxes on pensions and social security income, in the very evil states. So to say that they do not pay taxes, just because they do not pay net on income taxes, is disingenuine, and if I were not charitable, an outright Republican lie. No wonder no one trusts Republicans, anymore.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2021, @02:19AM (1 child)
> We need to eat the rich, redistribute wealth
How well did that work out? [freedomworks.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2021, @05:22AM
Considering that he is a household name and managed to keep his cannibal murders secret at the same time, I'd say very well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2021, @04:07AM
True, but...
The size of the chunk of dollars paid by the lower class is smaller than the size of the chunk of dollars paid by the rich.
It is all in how you measure it. Percent of total income, yes, when you have less total income your percent of total goes up.
But if measured by "dollars paid", the rich pay out more total dollars (even if it is a much smaller percentage of total income).
The problem is one side of the press focuses on one number (percent of total income) while the other side of the press focuses on the other number (total dollars paid), and no one seems to pay attention that they are both talking past the other.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2021, @11:48PM (1 child)
The law was in fact about income tax. Those other taxes have nothing to do with the matter at hand.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday February 15 2021, @12:17AM
So you are admitting that Romney's 47% is a Republican lie? You admit that the wealthy do not pay their fair share, and cheat the social welfare of the community that they are part of? You acknowledge that Trump is a hero of the Republicans for paying no taxes, in addition to inciting armed insurrections? OK. Clarification accepted!