jeremyparker

Tell me you've never actually engaged in any real criminal activity without telling me you've never actually engaged in any real criminal activity

I'm in the USA and we've been able to file our federal taxes for free online for like a decade, I'm not sure what these people are talking about. What's new here is that this is the IRS's official tool.

Previously we had to use an outside service -- but it was -- and still is -- free for normal people/people with normal taxes (eg I have 3 kids and a mortgage and I use it every year). State taxes are another story -- that's usually about $20. And that probably hasn't changed; state taxes have nothing to do with our IRS.

That's some sociopath shit right there. But tbh white hat is better -- the people that did this are guaranteed steady paychecks for the rest of their lives, with a lot lower stress than getting one big payday and having to look over your shoulder your whole life

If our country and economy is failing at providing for the people we already have we shouldn't be letting in any more.

Wait -- our country is supposed to be providing housing?

I won't lie, I'm super into that. Normalizing rent across hundreds of millions of people would go a long way to stop bloodsucking leeches from buying property, price gouging residents to live there, and calling that a "job"

"The Republican Party is a caucus, representing many different viewpoints. Some of my colleagues wish to worsen the lives of poor people. Others prefer to focus on worsening the lives of minorities. Still others prioritize their personal financial well-being. With this diversity of opinions, it can be hard to find common ground."

Holy shit that's brutal... And also disgusting.

Tfw your main campaign promises are all the things you're not supposed to say out loud

Sales taxes disproportionately impact the poor.

First, any tax that's a fixed percentage will be a higher percentage of a person's income even that income is lower.

Secondly, there's a point in "wealth generation" where you don't spend everything you make. Money that you save isn't taxed by a sales tax -- so, again, the less money you make, the more it impacts you.

Regarding "earmarks" it really depends on what it's for. As a blanket statement, "Earmarks Are Bad" is just a small government taking point -- which itself can be understood as an anti-poor dog whistle, since conservatives call support for society's most vulnerable "wasteful spending" -- but you can often hear "earmarks" in reference to defense spending, which is typically a Democrat talking point.

I think that "earmarks" is actually a really interesting word, since, in a practical sense, it never means anything -- or, more accurately, it always means nothing specific but I'm a vaguely specific way. The word doesn't refer to a specific spend, but it refers to a specific kind of spend -- so it sounds much more specific than it actually is.

If a politician refers to a specific earmark, they run the risk of alienating whoever benefits from it; by being exceptionally vague, they can associate their brand with fiscal responsibility without actually doing anything fiscally responsible.

Money is the only thing he cares about. Keep the fines going up. We can call it the Trumping Point: the amount of money required to make a billionaire understand consequences. Then future fines to other billionaires can just start there.

For real though, imagine the orange apoplexy if he lost all his wealth.

If she's the one that breaks him we will finally have proof of the inmate goodness of the universe

It's not just the trivial things themselves -- it's also the idea that admins will have to police their users for trivial missteps, under threat of defederation, so no one will want to run a server.

Ex-list and inc-list are a lot more intuitive too.