Republican National Convention

[Pack Rat]

Is a gift income.

A question is usually terminated with a question mark.

Tips are "gratuities" in name only. In fact, they are bribes for services rendered. As the old saying goes, "TIPS = To Insure Prompt Service".

No taxes on tips. - Trump

Which is ridiculous. Income is income.

I'm quite willing to posit that income taxes are too high, but giving special exemptions to special groups is nonsense. Reductions should be the same for everyone.

This is a tough one for me, because back when cash was 60-80% of how meals were paid no one was reporting cash tips as income so in some ways in America it's a 'newer' tax, and it is an extremely regressive tax targeting the poorest workers given 99% of restaurants pay minimum wage with no health plan or other benefits. In many states there is a special lower minimum wage specifically for servers which is somehow legal because they are expected to be making tips (which is it's own weird loophole where they don't report their tips and make $2/hour and have a low enough declared income they qualify for foodstamps/free healthcare ect ect). That said even when cash tips weren't being reported it was a sort of 'don't ask don't tell' type of policy where the official gov't stance was that this was taxable income, and I think codifying it as a special category of 'gift' not 'income' you are suddenly going to start seeing mountains of abuse and tip lines on the bill for basically any bill you pay (which has already started to happen, but once you carve out a legal way around taxes people will start to abuse it.
Then theres the issue that tips don't always go to employees, I worked at a restaurant in Whistler 20+ years ago and the owner took 25% off all tip money.

So yeah idk, it will marginally help alot people who are struggling but keeping jobs so thats good, but it's probably going to be so poorly written into law that it's going to become exploited.

I mean, if you're working in a cheap diner you're probably struggling, but if you're working in a nice steakhouse you're bringing home $200 to $300 a night in tips, and if you're a bartender in a trendy dance hall you're probably pulling down $500 to $600.

Now that it's mostly plastic transactions, they are more and more having to be reported, but even 20 years ago they were still mostly cash and got "forgotten" on the tax form.

No taxes on tips. - Trump

Which is ridiculous. Income is income.

I'm quite willing to posit that income taxes are too high, but giving special exemptions to special groups is nonsense. Reductions should be the same for everyone.

Debt is debt. Waiving certain types of debt (student loans) for special groups (the upper middle class) is nonsense.

I don't disagree. On the other hand, the (arguably) deliberate push to crank up the cost of tuition to the point where only the upper middle class can afford it has to be seen as a policy failure. Everyone knows a story of some old-timer who worked his way through college bussing tables at the local pizzeria. That can't happen any more -- a year's wage at a pizzeria wouldn't buy you one credit at a decent school nowadays.

[saxitoxin]

Kamala Harris had her first campaign rally as Presidentress candidate in a high school gym in Wisconsin.



This was Trump's last rally at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

[jusplay4fun]

I think all those at Kamala's rally in the Wisconsin gym were the 1,000 or so polled showing Kamala ahead of Trump.

[saxitoxin]

No taxes on tips. - Trump

Which is ridiculous. Income is income.

I'm quite willing to posit that income taxes are too high, but giving special exemptions to special groups is nonsense. Reductions should be the same for everyone.

Kamabla just announced she'll eliminate taxes on tips.

(Watch Duk now get on board.)

Trump Proposals: Arms to Israel, Immigration crackdown, no taxes on tips, remove Kahn from FTC

Kamabla Proposals: Arms to Israel, Immigration crackdown, no taxes on tips, remove Kahn from FTC

[HitRed]

Trump - no taxes on social security

Kamala - no cash bail

[GaryDenton]

Maybe I should make a separate thread of Saxi lies.
That photo of the Kamala rally is from hours before she spoke.

Click here for the actual rally.

https://x.com/dustyweis/status/1815798135727312975?t=mfgnMOarVK5biRDkAYyKMA&s=19


Even if Kamala supports it I don't think no tax on tips is a good idea. A better idea is to raise the minimum wage, especially the tipped minimum. And make all income subject to FICA tax, instead of the rich only paying it for part of a year.
.

[saxitoxin]

\
Even if Kamala supports it I don't think no tax on tips is a good idea.\

Don't worry, these are all promises as empty as universal student loan forgiveness.

The Biden-Harris Administration instituted the biggest crackdown on tip tax enforcement in history less than 12 months ago and, before today, there was no record of Kamabla saying anything about waiving taxes on tips.

She's just making this stuff up as she goes along. You're safe.

[Dukasaur]

No taxes on tips. - Trump

Which is ridiculous. Income is income.

I'm quite willing to posit that income taxes are too high, but giving special exemptions to special groups is nonsense. Reductions should be the same for everyone.

Kamabla just announced she'll eliminate taxes on tips.

(Watch Duk now get on board.)

Why? Have you ever seen me bend my opinion to the will of some political party?

I will probably agree with Kamela on policy about 50% of the time, which is about as much as any mainstream politician can expect.

Hell, I'm a member of the Green Party, and I probably agree with, at best, about 60% of the Green Party Platform.

In my youth, I was actually on the national executive of the Libertarian Party, and at the time, I probably agreed with maybe, MAYBE 80% of the Libertarian platform. That was probably my closest approach to perihelion.

Trump Proposals: Arms to Israel, Immigration crackdown, no taxes on tips, remove Kahn from FTC

Kamabla Proposals: Arms to Israel, Immigration crackdown, no taxes on tips, remove Kahn from FTC

Yeah, the fight is getting real now, so they're both trying to distance themselves from their more unconventional positions and nuzzle up closer to the mainstream.

This isn't an election about policy. This is about ethics. Kamala is a relatively decent person, and Trump is a pathological liar with a lifetime career of defrauding investors, customers, and employees behind him.

[saxitoxin]

This isn't an election about policy.

This is only about policy. A president could outright embezzle $1 billion from the U.S. Treasury - something that has never happened - and it wouldn't even be a rounding error in the U.S. budget. Fundamentally, it doesn't even matter the incumbent is possibly braindead, may have molested his daughter, and has such a corrupt personality that he raised a son who is addicted to crack and hookers facilitated with the money daddy funneled to him.

Ethics matter when you're electing the mayor of Dubuque. But the U.S. is the most complex machine invented by man. The candidates in a U.S. presidential election are not people, they are avatars for two finalist visions that the collective subconscious has cobbled together over the preceding four years as to how the world should be organized over the next four.

[GaryDenton]

He took a near miss for fascism.

[mookiemcgee]

Fundamentally, it doesn't even matter the incumbent is possibly braindead, may have molested his daughter, and has such a corrupt personality that he raised a son who is addicted to crack and hookers facilitated with the money daddy funneled to him.

It still hilarious to me that some onlooker who stumbled on this post really wouldn't know if you meant Trump or Biden.

[saxitoxin]

[Dukasaur]

This isn't an election about policy.

This is only about policy.

You contradict yourself.

Trump Proposals: Arms to Israel, Immigration crackdown, no taxes on tips, remove Kahn from FTC

Kamabla Proposals: Arms to Israel, Immigration crackdown, no taxes on tips, remove Kahn from FTC

Yes, the Republicans and Democrats may be differentiated by the right-wing extremists and left-wing extremists in their respective parties that dominate the headlines. In the end, policy will be made by those in the centre. If there is a dominant theme that I hear from Americans today, it's that the vast majority of normals are sick of extremism on both the left and the right, and they want to get back to reasonable behaviour by both.

[Pack Rat]

This isn't an election about policy.

This is only about policy.

You contradict yourself.

Trump Proposals: Arms to Israel, Immigration crackdown, no taxes on tips, remove Kahn from FTC

Kamabla Proposals: Arms to Israel, Immigration crackdown, no taxes on tips, remove Kahn from FTC

Yes, the Republicans and Democrats may be differentiated by the right-wing extremists and left-wing extremists in their respective parties that dominate the headlines. In the end, policy will be made by those in the centre. If there is a dominant theme that I hear from Americans today, it's that the vast majority of normals are sick of extremism on both the left and the right, and they want to get back to reasonable behaviour by both.

Yea, hear that b.s. all the time from people who want to please everyone. The extremist are to blame, both right-wing and left-wing, both share in the extremist ideologies....especially those lefties who try to force their pathetic agendas on the poor and working class. Yep, like free Healthcare, including affordable medication, can you believe that crap! Next thing they would expect is raising the minimum wage above the poverty level. But, wait there's more, strengthening environmental laws and protecting Social Security and Medicare. I could go on, but these lefties keep on making me lose sleep at night.

We must stop these lefties, before they turn this country into Venezuela!

[mookiemcgee]

This has me seriously wondering what a no taxes on tits policy looks like... I'm pretty sure I support it but I'd like a peek under the hood before i commit.

[Dukasaur]

This isn't an election about policy.

This is only about policy.

You contradict yourself.

Trump Proposals: Arms to Israel, Immigration crackdown, no taxes on tips, remove Kahn from FTC

Kamabla Proposals: Arms to Israel, Immigration crackdown, no taxes on tips, remove Kahn from FTC

Yes, the Republicans and Democrats may be differentiated by the right-wing extremists and left-wing extremists in their respective parties that dominate the headlines. In the end, policy will be made by those in the centre. If there is a dominant theme that I hear from Americans today, it's that the vast majority of normals are sick of extremism on both the left and the right, and they want to get back to reasonable behaviour by both.

Yea, hear that b.s. all the time from people who want to please everyone. The extremist are to blame, both right-wing and left-wing, both share in the extremist ideologies....especially those lefties who try to force their pathetic agendas on the poor and working class. Yep, like free Healthcare, including affordable medication, can you believe that crap! Next thing they would expect is raising the minimum wage above the poverty level. But, wait there's more, strengthening environmental laws and protecting Social Security and Medicare. I could go on, but these lefties keep on making me lose sleep at night.

I wouldn't consider healthcare, environment, and social security to be positions of leftist extremism. On the contrary, while they may be issues more often prodded from the left, they are precisely the kind of mainstream concerns that a great many people on both the left and the right can agree on.

[Maxleod]

This isn't an election about policy.

This is only about policy.

You contradict yourself.

Trump Proposals: Arms to Israel, Immigration crackdown, no taxes on tips, remove Kahn from FTC

Kamabla Proposals: Arms to Israel, Immigration crackdown, no taxes on tips, remove Kahn from FTC

Yes, the Republicans and Democrats may be differentiated by the right-wing extremists and left-wing extremists in their respective parties that dominate the headlines. In the end, policy will be made by those in the centre. If there is a dominant theme that I hear from Americans today, it's that the vast majority of normals are sick of extremism on both the left and the right, and they want to get back to reasonable behaviour by both.

Yea, hear that b.s. all the time from people who want to please everyone. The extremist are to blame, both right-wing and left-wing, both share in the extremist ideologies....especially those lefties who try to force their pathetic agendas on the poor and working class. Yep, like free Healthcare, including affordable medication, can you believe that crap! Next thing they would expect is raising the minimum wage above the poverty level. But, wait there's more, strengthening environmental laws and protecting Social Security and Medicare. I could go on, but these lefties keep on making me lose sleep at night.

I wouldn't consider healthcare, environment, and social security to be positions of leftist extremism. On the contrary, while they may be issues more often prodded from the left, they are precisely the kind of mainstream concerns that a great many people on both the left and the right can agree on.

[mookiemcgee]

I wouldn't consider healthcare, environment, and social security to be positions of leftist extremism. On the contrary, while they may be issues more often prodded from the left, they are precisely the kind of mainstream concerns that a great many people on both the left and the right can agree on.

Say your not from America without saying your not from America

[saxitoxin]

Social Security is how America funds global genocide.

The Brookings Institution found that investing just 40% of Social Security intake into low-risk, blue chip equities, instead of 0%, would keep the Social Security Trust Fund perpetually solvent instead of on-track to run out in 10 years. While this seems like a no-brainer, the U.S. doesn't do that because - by investing 100% of it in Treasury Bonds - the United States generates needed operating cash for its bloated military and billions of fun money to give to Israel.

And don't get me started on federally-guaranteed mortgages. The U.S. also funds global genocide with them.

The entire American state, as it's currently constituted, is a giant genocide machine.

[KoolBak]

You been hittin the vino, sax?

[saxitoxin]

Fresh off copying Trump's No Tax on Tips policy, Kamala is now pledging to Build the Wall.

How long until she adopts Make America Great Again as her new campaign slogan?

Why is she even bothering to run for President if all her policies are just carbon copies of Trump?

[kentington]

Fundamentally, it doesn't even matter the incumbent is possibly braindead, may have molested his daughter, and has such a corrupt personality that he raised a son who is addicted to crack and hookers facilitated with the money daddy funneled to him.

It still hilarious to me that some onlooker who stumbled on this post really wouldn't know if you meant Trump or Biden.

This is great.

Now you can start doing the same with Trump and Harris on policies.

"I love this candidate. They represent everything I am about. No taxes on tips, build the wall! Amazing, right?"