|
|
Post by DSDSquared on Jan 12, 2018 13:03:31 GMT
Honest question, is this country doing better now than when Trump was elected? If you say no, you are fooling yourself. How much of it has to do with Trump remains to be seen, but the economy is booming, the stock market is at record highs, and the unemployment is lower than ever. We got out of some terrible deals that were costing the US billions. ISIS is all but eliminated. We are getting a lot more back in taxes this year. Companies are coming back to the US. 2017 saw the lowest amount of illegal immigrants come to this country since it started being tracked. We finally got out of the dumb Paris Accords. I could go on and on. Trump might be a douche, but people who constantly scream disaster have no idea what they are talking about. Well, some people are getting some money back in taxes this year (possibly, not definitely) but year over year that will change while the top 1% gets massive reductions. That's all great, getting more money is always a good thing.....but what happens to interest rates (which will go up), healthcare costs, skyrocketing state and local taxes (this is a given after reducing federal taxes), infrastructure costs, education costs, expenditures on new technologies...... Plus, in a few years, your increased tax returns will be gone by the wayside unless you're in the top 1% or have your income coming from a pass-through entity, something which the vast majority of Americans don't have. I actually do, so it's helpful for me, but it's not helpful for everyone and slashing taxes this way will undoubtedly have negative effects on housing markets, just as it always has when this type of policy has been implemented. And illegal immigration had been declining for years before Trump, and ISIS has been a shell of its former self for years, and unemployment has been at record lows for a while...... Look, I'm all for eliminating something that you view as bad if you have a viable alternative. Getting out of the Paris accords is fine unto itself if you have something else in mind. But to just remove things and lie about them, and offering nothing else, isn't good governance - it's just spitting out talking points. The United States hadn't spent "billions and billions" of dollars on the Paris Accords as he claimed, that's just a lie; it was obligated to spend $3 billion and to date it had only contributed $1 billion of that. It wasn't an annual obligation either, just one time. But given the US has an annual GDP north of $16 trillion, that contribution is a drop in the bucket. If it's so bad, then propose something else. That's my biggest gripe with the administration and I agree with you a lot of the hoopla is grossly overblown, but it's not baseless as you're suggesting. There are a significant number of policies that need to be implemented fast because funding to keep this country moving as a going concern has to come from somewhere. I even stated in my post that all of this may or may not have to do with Trump. He has done some good things and some things may have happened anyway. That was not my point. My point was that the country is doing better today at least than it was this time a year ago. Yet, most of the media and posters on social media say that this year has been an absolute disaster. It makes no sense. Also, it does not matter if I have an alternative to the Paris Accords. What did they even accomplish? Why even be involved in them. Under the accords, the US was required to do more than most other countries with very little benefit. It was a crap deal and we needed to get out of it. Most people do not realize that the environment has been getting better year after year since the late 90s. All of the regulations and changes HAVE helped. Sure, we need to continue to do good work, but we are already moving in the right direction. The US is involved in so many deals with other countries that only benefit those other countries. Trump, above all else, understands these kinds of things and it is a part of why we are doing better now. |
|
