Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[crashcourse]

why would you pay me if bama makes it further

Apuesto que Kstate and por correro don peppin fumar

[Dr. Strangelove]

Trump proposing to tear up NAFTA and impose a 20% tariff on Mexican imports if they won't pay for his wall

On a totally unrelated note, Mexico is the 2nd largest foreign market for American-made goods.

[UMStan White]

Geezer is as delusional as Trump.

[hack]

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-trump-immigration-ban-conflict-of-interest/

So the ban excludes Egypt, roughly a quarter of the Arab world's population; Turkey, known leaky sieve for ISIS; and Saudi Arabia, which is known to be goddamn Saudi Arabia for chrissakes. Shudder.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Rumors are that Trump has an executive order going round for review that would unilaterally lift all sanctions on Russia (meaning we ask for nothing in return)

[Dr. Strangelove]

Good KGB joke and demonstrates torture getting results

[Wild Hoss]

Trump proposing to tear up NAFTA and impose a 20% tariff on Mexican imports if they won't pay for his wall

On a totally unrelated note, Mexico is the 2nd largest foreign market for American-made goods.

Kansas exported $1.8B in goods to Mexico in 2015, and imported $1B. I'd be interested to hear what your average Trump-supporting wheat farmer thinks about throwing up 20% tariffs on those numbers.

[CGVT]

http://www.npr.org/2017/01/26/511861462/trumps-suggested-import-tax-would-mean-americans-pay-for-that-wall

SCOTT HORSLEY

Updated at 6:45 p.m. ET

The Trump administration is considering alternative ways to pay for the border wall, backtracking on the president's oft-repeated promise that Mexico would foot the bill.

A White House spokesman said one idea taking shape is to apply a 20 percent tax on imports from Mexico, as well as other countries with which the U.S. has a trade deficit. That would effectively saddle U.S. consumers with a significant portion of the wall's cost, estimated at $15 billion or more.


Mexico's President Cancels Planned D.C. Trip To Meet With Trump
THE TWO-WAY
Mexico's President Cancels Planned D.C. Trip To Meet With Trump
Mexico's refusal has already created friction between the countries. Mexican President Enrique Pe?a Nieto abruptly canceled a planned meeting with Trump next week, a decision that the U.S. president tried to explain as mutual.

Mexico is one of America's top trading partners, with more than $500 billion worth of goods flowing across the Southern border each year. Spicer argued that adding a 20 percent surcharge to imports from Mexico would quickly cover the cost of the wall.

"This is the beginning of this plan to make sure it's done right," Spicer told reporters traveling aboard Air Force One. "It clearly provides the funding and it does so in a way that ensures that the American taxpayer is wholly respected."

Follow
Lindsey Graham ✔ @LindseyGrahamSC
Border security yes, tariffs no. Mexico is 3rd largest trading partner. Any tariff we can levy they can levy. Huge barrier to econ growth /1
3:38 PM - 26 Jan 2017
4,442 4,442 Retweets 7,677 7,677 likes
Follow
Lindsey Graham ✔ @LindseyGrahamSC
Simply put, any policy proposal which drives up costs of Corona, tequila, or margaritas is a big-time bad idea. Mucho Sad. (2)
3:41 PM - 26 Jan 2017
22,440 22,440 Retweets 31,910 31,910 likes
The suggestion drew a swift rebuke from at least one Republican senator, South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, who said it would be a bad idea to do anything that raises the price of Corona, tequila or margaritas. (Graham's family used to own a bar.)

House Speaker Paul Ryan's office contended the White House and Congress were on the "same page."

"We have been and continue to be on the same page about tax reform that supports American jobs and American goods," Ryan aide AshLee Strong told NPR's Susan Davis.

That's because Ryan has proposed a "border adjustment" tax that would affect the "corporate tax rates applied to goods and services consumed in the U.S. but not applied to goods and services exported," a Republican Capitol Hill source added.

The plan would allow corporations to subtract export sales when calculating their tax bill, but companies would not be allowed to deduct the cost of imports. Under the current tax code, export sales are taxed, and import costs are deductible.

If Trump is embracing Ryan's plan, it would be a reversal. Just 10 days ago, he told the Wall Street Journal that a "border adjustment tax" was "too complicated."

Follow
JohnCornyn ✔ @JohnCornyn
Many unanswered questions about proposed "border adjustment" tax
3:25 PM - 26 Jan 2017
124 124 Retweets 171 171 likes
"Anytime I hear border adjustment, I don't love it," Trump said. "Because usually it means we're going to get adjusted into a bad deal. That's what happens."

Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn said the plan raises questions.

GOP '200 Day' Agenda Calls For Spending, Tax Cuts. But What About The Deficit?
POLITICS
GOP '200 Day' Agenda Calls for Spending, Tax Cuts. But What About the Deficit?
Spicer brushed aside suggestions that much of the cost would be passed on to American consumers who purchase Mexican-made goods. He argued that cost would be outweighed by the reduction in illicit border crossings.

"What it's going to do is lift up the wages of American workers," Spicer said. "Right now we've got an influx of cheap labor. It's going to put the American consumer back, net-net, to make sure that American workers get lifted up as well."

Back in Washington, after the original comments, Spicer said, "I don't think our job right now is to roll something out and/or be prescriptive; it's to show that there are ways the wall can be paid for. Full stop."

He added that he was trying to address "questions about how the president could pay for the wall."

He said, "The idea is to show that generating revenue for the wall is not as difficult as some might have suggested." But "there's nothing to roll out, so the idea of asking for details on something, we're not there yet."

Spicer also suggested that building the border wall would produce savings elsewhere in the federal budget.

"I think we're going to save additional money that we would have had to spend on tracking down illegal immigrants and on immigration," Spicer said. "So it's actually a huge win for the American taxpayer and for American security when you look at the kind of plan that's coming to fruition right now."

Trump actually wants to increase spending on immigration enforcement. In addition to the wall, he has ordered the hiring of 15,000 new Border Patrol and immigration officers and the construction of new detention facilities.

[entropy]

Dumb idea on the tariffs.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SeattleLionsFan]

But the deficit! And you know you can't raise taxes.

And I believed The Big Cheeto when he told me to believe him that Mexico would pay for it.

[Wild Hoss]

But the deficit! And you know you can't raise taxes.

And I believed The Big Cheeto when he told me to believe him that Mexico would pay for it.

Did you ask if they were going to pay for it with our money? No? Well, your bigly lack of excellence in questions not Chester's fault.

[Mainevent]

"What it's going to do is lift up the wages of American workers," Spicer said. "Right now we've got an influx of cheap labor. It's going to put the American consumer back, net-net, to make sure that American workers get lifted up as well."

They do realize that "cheap labor" is mostly doing a lot of the menial/labor jobs that American workers aren't going to want to do, right? Wages will go up, sure, but it's not like there is going to a sudden surplus of well-paying jobs. And the cost to go from that cheap labor to more costly labor will a) cause prices to go up and b) likely put many small businesses that rely on that cheap labor out of business.

[entropy]

Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

Higher Minimum wage advocates should be liking this..

[entropy]

so trump wants to ban immigration from certain ME countries... the ones that do not have his hotels or properties.

[hack]

Right -- pretty interesting exceptions. Egypt, which has 25% of all Arabs, Saudi, and Turkey, a known leaky sieve for ISIS. I don't like the conflicts of interest and I don't like the zenophobia, but marrying those two into a single policy is a real accomplishment, of sorts. Sank lower than imaginable.