For those who didn't watch the proceedings, <a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DQAYbwpU8AELZa0.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DQAYbwpU8AELZa0.jpg</a> was one of the actual pages of the bill, quite literally handwritten scribbled margin notes.
The law making process is so clearly broken. I see this as a contributing factor to the long gradual decline of the role of the USA in the world. The reemergence of China should be engendering a positive spirit of lifting the game, not a money grabbing exercise.<p>If you can’t make evidence based laws for the people then society will be warped into some dysfunctional dystopian end game.
I think Mitch McConnell will go down as a historically terrible senator. He has an absolutely single-minded focus on winning legislative "victories" without any consideration of the actual merits of what he's corralling votes for or agaisnt.
The Republicans have been so skilled at digital jerrymandering that we have digital technology delivering us a single party state. Only mass voter outrage will be enough to overcome a decade of very effective data driven jerrymandering.
I know it takes 100°C for water to boil, but how much does the US need?<p>Keep in mind, Trump is not the source of the problem, he is one of the (reinforcing) symptoms of a host of underlying systemic societal issues.
One of the problems of US is the fact that protesting is virtually impossible. Unless there are 1,000,000 people in the streets of DC for two weeks, no one will care. Protesting in your city has little impact on the federal level. Also The general lack of public spaces makes it hard. And the fact that the police cracks down pretty hard on things after the first display of some sort of "disobedience". Look at the photos from protests in like France. Shit on fire, people throwing shit, but the police doesn't shoot them.<p>Dystopian police state here we come. Fuck I hope at least there will be a real NeoTokyo in the future.
I'm a temp immigrant in US, who is equally frustrated with the Trump hating democrat supporters, the Hillary-hating Trump supporters and the neutrals.<p>Based on what I know from my own small sample set of data, makes me believe that the the Trump vote base is strong, and considerable in number, and is super happy with this tax overhaul.<p>They see it as "Trump kept his promise", by simplifying the tax code, reducing taxes on his vote base, increasing taxes on the tax bracket that trump voters considered to be something like "free money mongers" and of course, its going to affect the democrat strongholds.<p>What I find funny, is that many Trump haters are still starting a conversation by presuming that majority of the country hates this tax reform (its probably the top 10 most populous cities of US and California). I think people need to go out of democrat stronghold areas and get some real feedback.<p>I'm curious to see how this sweeping tax overhaul works out in the long run
I'm terribly surprised that McCain went along with this legislative process. No one had time to read the bill - or even have the bill itself - when the votes were cast. Just makes no sense.<p>What kind of country behaves that way?
I think the US doesn't have enough accountability for its leaders. These guys just come in, serve the lobbyists and keep renewing their terms. They say one thing and do another.<p>Is there any consequence of this directly to the congress people? Not really, cuz come election time, they'll lie through their teeth to get votes, all the while forgetting that they are the ones who did the damage in the first place.<p>They should either ban lobbying or have penalties for congresspeople who lie to their electorates. As it stands, I can't see that happening.
It's sickening how large corporations make more and more money but pay almost no taxes because (through the money) they have so much influence on politics.
The pendulum swings back and forth. It's not the end of the earth, it's not going to bring utopia.<p>Can we please use Hacker News for technical issues?
This will go down in history as one of the most grotesque things to ever have happened in American politics. And that's saying a lot, there is some stiff competition for sure.
Minor upside: it still has to go through reconciliation and this Congress has proven itself expert in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. But yeah, this is an economic dumpster fire.
I don’t know why anyone is worried about this - the worse the corruption and give away to the 0.01% the bigger the blowback. The end result is the 0.01% are going to pay far more than if they had been reasonable.
I have been watching comments on NYTimes and Fox News and what surprised was not a single person (out of couple of thousands) actually estimated their tax bill and compared.<p>There is one calculator out here (which might not be accurate because of changes): <a href="https://www.calcxml.com/calculators/trump-tax-reform-calculator" rel="nofollow">https://www.calcxml.com/calculators/trump-tax-reform-calcula...</a><p>I used it to arrive at following numbers. If this tax calculator is right then there is indeed ~$10K tax cut for everyone in middle class and above:<p>$750K->$236,950 to $212,060<p>350K->$81,595 to $72,060<p>250K->$47,701 to $38,900<p>150K->$17,778 to $9900<p>50K->$548 to 0<p>On the other hand this NYTimes analysis says that lower and middle class cuts are tiny but people with $1M or more just get huge cut: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/17/us/politics/senate-tax-plan-analysis.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/17/us/politics/s...</a><p>Also, according to above analysis poor people will be taxed more than before after 10 years!<p>So overall at this point I think computing impact remains very hazy given all kind of conflicting information. But one thing for sure, rich people are the major winner here given much higher cuts + no or less death tax. Warren Buffet had said that common strategy they used during Bush era was to give $400 one time check to everyone so they are happy while sneaking in millions of dollars of recurring tax cuts for the rich in form of capital gains.<p>I wish US had Swiss style public referendums where people can demand to vote on legislation and overthrow any legislation they wished.