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[Aaron Strife]

These are all such slimy statements because they still use the "access to care" line which means nothing if it covers nothing.

these people are sentencing people to die

"Strengthening Medicaid"

Fucking. Shameless.

 

[BoogieWoogie]

I'm proud to live in a country where no one is going to stop me from buying a $50 million yacht.

Ooooo say can you seeeeeee

 

[AntraxSuicide]

Garfield was a very wonkish President, though, even if he wasn't all that elitist (a schoolteacher by profession, i think).

Ironically it was Arthur, a product of the New York GOP machine, who passed the act.

A big part of that is that the guy who killed Garfield did it because he thought he was owed a job because he supported Garfield. Patronage (and psychosis) literally killed a president.

This topic has come up before, but do we need to bring back political pork?

Yes. Without it, there's no fundamental value in congress being made up from different regions of the country. A republican from Mississippi is the same as one from upstate New York and a Democrat from West Virginia doesn't meaningfully vote differently from a Democrat in California.

With pork, you get to go to red areas and tell them "electing a Democrat will get X, Y, and Z literally in this district.

 

[Emerson]

This needs to be shouted from the mountaintops. The stock market primarily benefits the rich.

The stock market benefits everyone but the poor and if you're making a middle class living and not benefiting from the stock market you're making bad financial decisions.

 

[pigeon]

The stock market benefits everyone but the poor and if you're making a middle class living and not benefiting from the stock market you're making bad financial decisions.

If you're making enough money to invest literally any money you're probably not middle class.

 

[Bam Bam Baklava]

If you're making enough money to invest literally any money you're probably not middle class.

What?

 

[pigeon]

Okay let's play a fun game. Everybody can play! In your view, what is the maximum amount of money your family can make a year and still be "middle class?"

 

[kirblar]

Okay let's play a fun game. Everybody can play! In your view, what is the maximum amount of money your family can make a year and still be "middle class?"

Without a specific location this is a silly question.

 

[AntraxSuicide]

Okay let's play a fun game. Everybody can play! In your view, what is the maximum amount of money your family can make a year and still be "middle class?"

I've always used state by state quartiles. Middle 50% is middle class. So at least in Mississippi, up to like 75K I think. Which would make hardcore investing tough. Not sure about other states though.

 

[Blader]

This thread is now making me feel bad for my lack of stocks.

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

after all the talk about Pelosi last night I gotta chuckle at this

Spoiler

Tim Ryan campaigned with the surprisingly successful candidate in SC-5

 

[pigeon]

Without a specific location this is a silly question.

If you think this why aren't you posting more about the failure of labor mobility?

Like, seriously, if labor mobility is so terrible that the economy doesn't and can't effectively balance across states that's kind of a serious problem for the entire concept of a federalized United States, isn't it?

 

[Hyoukokun]

If you're making enough money to invest literally any money you're probably not middle class.

It's hard to get agreement on what constitutes middle class, financially speaking (since cost of living is a huge factor), but the range I've seen batted around is from $42K to $125K. I don't think it's accurate to say that all of those people are unable to invest any money, particularly if we're counting options like 401Ks. There are platforms like Robinhood that make it fairly inexpensive and simple to experiment with investing, too.

 

[kirblar]

If you think this why aren't you posting more about the failure of labor mobility?

Like, seriously, if labor mobility is so terrible that the economy doesn't and can't effectively balance across states that's kind of a serious problem for the entire concept of a federalized United States, isn't it?

When you say "balance" what do you mean, exactly?

Because "Balance" is not the ideal. People being able to flee dying communities to move to successful ones is. The same way people flee Venezuela and go to Quebec.

 

[The Technomancer]

Okay let's play a fun game. Everybody can play! In your view, what is the maximum amount of money your family can make a year and still be "middle class?"

My parents manage about $100k a year and I consider us on the higher end of middle class, but they're also self employed so there's a lot of fuckery around what their actual realized wages are.

 

[gaugebozo]

Everybody who pays into Social Security invests in Treasuries.

Middle class should be decided by purchasing power parity, not set percentages. The middle class is something like from $50,000 - $90,000 for a family of 4, depending on location (I'm cutting out the truly expensive/inexpensive areas. How are you going to define middle class when hundreds of thousands gets you a tiny two bedroom and no car?)

 

[pigeon]

Everybody who pays into Social Security invests in Treasuries.

That's not how Social Security works.

Paying taxes with the expectation of later receiving transfer payments is not an investment in anything except the hope that the government won't fall.

 

[kirblar]

My parents manage about $100k a year and I consider us on the higher end of middle class, but they're also self employed so there's a lot of fuckery around what their actual realized wages are.

Self-employment really puts the stupidity of employer-based healthcare on display.

 

[Roland_Gunner]

Okay let's play a fun game. Everybody can play! In your view, what is the maximum amount of money your family can make a year and still be "middle class?"

It really depends on where you live. A family with two kids in parts of CA can make $200K and still be middle class. My brother and his wife live in the rural south and are upper middle class on well less than half that.

 

[Aaron Strife]

Brown and Harris are bffs?

I know my dream ticket.

 

[AntraxSuicide]

Brown and Harris are bffs?

I know my dream ticket.

Check my post history for the Facebook video where Kamala wins her NBA finals bet against Brown.

 

[Vixdean]

I don't think it's so much about income, but how dependent you are on loans to get by. If you own your primary residence free and clear, no car loans and you're not paying interest on revolving credit card debt, you can't call yourself middle class anymore.

 

[VendettaRed07]

If you think this why aren't you posting more about the failure of labor mobility?

Like, seriously, if labor mobility is so terrible that the economy doesn't and can't effectively balance across states that's kind of a serious problem for the entire concept of a federalized United States, isn't it?

It less to do with states and moreso to do with cities vs rural areas.

Cost of living is overall higher in CT than Georgia but the cost of living in a suburb right near Atlanta isn't all that much different than the suburb where I live.

It's just there are more rural areas there, where there aren't many high paying jobs that brings the overall cost of living down.

There is still a problem between state balance even with that but yeah, our country has had issues with this sort of thing because the concept we implemented was essentially forming a union with a federal government that is as weak as it can reasonably be without it collapsing

 

[Plinko]

The stock market benefits everyone but the poor and if you're making a middle class living and not benefiting from the stock market you're making bad financial decisions.

How much of the stock market is actually owned by the middle class?

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Anyone with a retirement account benefits from the stock market. I would hope people in the middle class would at least be having something withheld into a retirement fund.

 

[pigeon]

I've always used state by state quartiles. Middle 50% is middle class. So at least in Mississippi, up to like 75K I think. Which would make hardcore investing tough. Not sure about other states though.

It's hard to get agreement on what constitutes middle class, financially speaking (since cost of living is a huge factor), but the range I've seen batted around is from $42K to $125K. I don't think it's accurate to say that all of those people are unable to invest any money, particularly if we're counting options like 401Ks. There are platforms like Robinhood that make it fairly inexpensive and simple to experiment with investing, too.

My parents manage about $100k a year and I consider us on the higher end of middle class, but they're also self employed so there's a lot of fuckery around what their actual realized wages are.

It really depends on where you live. A family with two kids in parts of CA can make $200K and still be middle class. My brother and his wife live in the rural south and are upper middle class on well less than half that.

So this is illustrating the point nicely, along with this: https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/

If you make $45k a year you're in the top 60% of Americans. Clearly middle class.

If you make $100k a year you're in the top 28% of Americans. I guess you could call that middle class but I'm not sure I would. It's clearly at the very top end of middle class. I think it is more accurate to put that at the bottom of upper class.

If you make $200k a year you're in the top 7% of Americans. You're definitely not middle class. You're super rich!

One of the primary symptoms of America's class disease is that Americans insist on being "middle class," as somebody pointed out yesterday. It is generally not true. Most Americans are way poorer than we believe, so the middle class is way poorer than we believe too.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

If you think this why aren't you posting more about the failure of labor mobility?

Like, seriously, if labor mobility is so terrible that the economy doesn't and can't effectively balance across states that's kind of a serious problem for the entire concept of a federalized United States, isn't it?

Labor mobility is being hampered by pressure to outlaw privately owned cars.

 

[pigeon]

Labor mobility is being hampered by pressure to outlaw privately owned cars.

As a thought leader in this field I can tell you our lobbying efforts have not borne fruit to this degree.

 

[The Technomancer]

So this is illustrating the point nicely, along with this: https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/

If you make $45k a year you're in the top 60% of Americans. Clearly middle class.

If you make $100k a year you're in the top 28% of Americans. I guess you could call that middle class but I'm not sure I would. It's clearly at the very top end of middle class. I think it is more accurate to put that at the bottom of upper class.

If you make $200k a year you're in the top 7% of Americans. You're definitely not middle class. You're super rich!

One of the primary symptoms of America's class disease is that Americans insist on being "middle class," as somebody pointed out yesterday. It is generally not true. Most Americans are way poorer than we believe, so the middle class is way poorer than we believe too.

This is definitely true. With that said my heuristic for what middle class and upper class mean experientially is around what sorts of things they need to pay attention to. Upper class, to me, is where you don't need to keep track of your utility bills every month because you're comfortable that you'll always be able to pay them. If you're middle class your finances aren't quite reliable enough that you can avoid tracking basic expenses

 

[RastaMentality]

Brown and Harris are bffs?

I know my dream ticket.

https://twitter.com/SenSherrodBrown/status/877219630078717954

i ship the ticket.

 

[AntraxSuicide]

So this is illustrating the point nicely, along with this: https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/

If you make $45k a year you're in the top 60% of Americans. Clearly middle class.

If you make $100k a year you're in the top 28% of Americans. I guess you could call that middle class but I'm not sure I would. It's clearly at the very top end of middle class. I think it is more accurate to put that at the bottom of upper class.

If you make $200k a year you're in the top 7% of Americans. You're definitely not middle class. You're super rich!

One of the primary symptoms of America's class disease is that Americans insist on being "middle class," as somebody pointed out yesterday. It is generally not true. Most Americans are way poorer than we believe, so the middle class is way poorer than we believe too.

I think my rough system jives with your thoughts. Top 25% is my cutoff, and that seems to be your ballpark too.

And yeah, that last paragraph is spot on. I think a big part of it is that we've semantically allowed the middle class to get divided up into lower middle class, middle class, and upper middle class when we don't do that for any other income ranges. That's how you get wealthy people humble bragging that they're only upper middle class, and how you get poor people saying they're just lower middle class. It compounds class issues by hiding who is wealthy and making economic classes below middle class things to be embarrassed by.

 

[pigeon]

This is definitely true. With that said my heuristic for what middle class and upper class mean experientially is around what sorts of things they need to pay attention to. Upper class, to me, is where you don't need to keep track of your utility bills every month because you're comfortable that you'll always be able to pay them. If you're middle class your finances aren't quite reliable enough that you can avoid tracking basic expenses

It's hard for me to see "worrying about electricity being turned off because I'm too poor" as a middle class problem. Don't middle class people have credit cards?

 

[balladofwindfishes]

This is definitely true. With that said my heuristic for what middle class and upper class mean experientially is around what sorts of things they need to pay attention to. Upper class, to me, is where you don't need to keep track of your utility bills every month because you're comfortable that you'll always be able to pay them. If you're middle class your finances aren't quite reliable enough that you can avoid tracking basic expenses

Ehhhh...

I don't really pay attention to my bills much at all, but I'm a bit away from what anyone would consider upper class. Next year when my student loans are paid off, I'm barely even going to think about bills, because it's almost an extra grand in my pocket every month, which is plenty enough to cover even a ridiculous energy bill because I skipped a year... or two... of having my meter read.

But I'm a single guy living well below my means in an extremely low cost of living area, so I'm not a good barometer.

 

[VendettaRed07]

Kamala should have made him wear a Kings jersey. You know, some real punishment.

 

[kirblar]

I assume we've all seen that short opinion article about how the 1% messaging has been really awful when it comes to letting the other top 20-25% skate by, right?

 

[The Technomancer]

It's hard for me to see "worrying about electricity being turned off because I'm too poor" as a middle class problem. Don't middle class people have credit cards?

Maybe its just my parents then, but the degree of attention they had to pay to their financials around even utility bills contrasted with our quite nice house and left me, growing up, with an impression that we weren't quite upper class. Money was still something to worry about

 

[Plinko]

Kamala should have made him wear a Kings jersey. You know, some real punishment.

LOL

 

[gaugebozo]

That's not how Social Security works.

Paying taxes with the expectation of later receiving transfer payments is not an investment in anything except the hope that the government won't fall.

I'm being a little facetious, but is there a potential to profit? Is there risk involved? It actually doesn't sound that far off from options.

 

[Emerson]

If you're making enough money to invest literally any money you're probably not middle class.

This is so fucking untrue it's painful.

401ks are the current backbone of middle class retirement savings.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

I can't seem to think of a single good reason Pelosi should be leader in the house. She can stay, but her, Hoyer need to step aside.

http://steveschale.com/blog/2017/6/20/one-big-lesson-from-ga-06.html

I think DCCC is going for this kind of solid recruitment, maybe they didn't have enough time or people willing to go for it in GA-6.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Okay let's play a fun game. Everybody can play! In your view, what is the maximum amount of money your family can make a year and still be "middle class?"

There is no answer because class is not defined by income.

Spoiler

Although it is indirectly related, so realistically when you have enough spare income to invest in rent-bearing capital in some minimal capacity.

 

[TumblingHippo]

Another cycle of democratic loss, followed by a bunch of straight white men saying that minority and women issues are the REAL reasons why Dems will never win again.

 

[Macho Madness]

I can't seem to think of a single good reason Pelosi should be leader in the house. She can stay, but her, Hoyer need to step aside.

http://steveschale.com/blog/2017/6/20/one-big-lesson-from-ga-06.html

I think DCCC is going for this kind of solid recruitment, maybe they didn't have enough time or people willing to go for it in GA-6.

Well Tim Ryan's stance on Backwards compatibility and cross play would be problems with the crucial gamer voting block.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

If Pelosi wants to step down, hopefully it's after the AHCA stuff. That'd be kind of a bad thing to have going on during such a pivotal moment.

 

[Kevinroc]

GOP Might Buck Senate Rules to Pass Health Care Overhaul

http://www.rollcall.com/news/gop-might-buck-senate-rules-to-advance-health-care-overhaul/

Republicans appear ready to make a small, but significant change to historic Senate procedure in order to advance their legislation to rework the U.S. health insurance system, a move that could have notable impact on the future of the chamber’s operations.

GOP leaders are sending signals that, if necessary, they plan to invoke a seldom-used rule included in the Congressional Budget Act that would allow Senate Budget Chairman Michael B. Enzi to skirt a decision from the chamber’s parliamentarian, a key gate-keeper for the budget maneuver known as reconciliation that Republicans are using to advance their health insurance measure.

Such a decision would have ripple effects far beyond the tenure of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a careful practitioner of the chamber's procedural rules, and open the door for future leaders to more easily advance legislation under a 51-vote threshold.

“It is the Parliamentarian’s office that determines whether or not a reconciliation bill is in compliance with the rules of the Senate. This is not a function of the chairman of the Budget Committee,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, the ranking member on the Budget panel, said in a floor speech this month. “I am extremely concerned that the chairman of the Budget Committee, in an unprecedented manner, appears to have made that determination himself with regard to the Trump-Ryan health care bill.”

The Senate could vote as early as next week on the health measure. Reconciliation permits legislation to pass the Senate with only a simple majority of members supporting it, but the bill must also comply with a set of chamber rules governing the process.

Congress set up this process earlier this year when it passed the fiscal year 2017 budget resolution. That measure included reconciliation instructions that laid out the requirements any bill must meet in to advance under the simple majority threshold.

In this case, that was $1 billion in deficit savings over 10 years from the provisions in the legislation under the jurisdiction of four committees: the House Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce committees and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and Finance committees.

Under ongoing debate with the Senate parliamentarian is whether the House bill would actually achieve the required savings under the HELP Committee. The Senate parliamentarian has yet to make a formal decision on the matter.

Democrats argue that a provision to repeal the 2010 health care law’s cost-sharing subsidies falls within the jurisdiction of the finance panel.

Republicans have yet to formally submit an argument to the parliamentarian outlining why they believe the section that would end those payments should be considered under HELP’s purview, one senior democratic aide said. The GOP is expected to submit that argument on Wednesday, a senior Republican aide said, and the decision by the parliamentarian is expected to come before the Senate votes on the measure.

A spokesman for the Senate Budget Committee did not respond to request for comment.

The jurisdiction in this case is critical. If the parliamentarian was to side with Democrats in her decision, then the House bill as a whole may not comply with the fiscal 2017 reconciliation instructions.

While the Senate is writing its own bill, McConnell must first introduce the House measure on the floor to file a substitute amendment to it with the new language. If the House bill were deemed to be noncompliant, however, then the GOP would need the standard 60 votes instead of 51 to advance it, a likely impossible task given no Democrats are expected to support it.

But Republicans appear ready to invoke a section of the Congressional Budget Act that they say would effectively give the Senate Budget Chairman authority to determine whether the legislation meets the required deficit reduction levels.

“Final decision on the score rests with the majority Senate Budget Committee Chairman, but it has to be within reason, I can’t just pick a number out,” Enzi, a Republican from Wyoming, told Roll Call.

A spokesman for the Budget panel previously told Roll Call that the chairman has “reviewed the House-passed legislation and found that it satisfies the instructions for both the HELP Committee and the Finance Committee.”

And a senior GOP aide said compliance calls have been made repeatedly by Budget chairmen over the years on matters inside and outside the reconciliation process.

Such a move will almost surely fire up Democrats, who during the 2009-2010 debate over the Affordable Care Act had to prove that their own health care legislation complied with the rules governing reconciliation.

 

[whyamihere]

DID I HEAR SAN FRANCISCO VALUES?!?!?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uROhNSsi79E

 

[kirblar]

GOP Might Buck Senate Rules to Pass Health Care Overhaul

http://www.rollcall.com/news/gop-might-buck-senate-rules-to-advance-health-care-overhaul/

translation: Fillibuster's dead in all but name.

 

[VendettaRed07]

DID I HEAR SAN FRANCISCO VALUES?!?!?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uROhNSsi79E

My god.

This has the production value of an ad for a local suburban bowling alley on PBS.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

GOP Might Buck Senate Rules to Pass Health Care Overhaul

http://www.rollcall.com/news/gop-might-buck-senate-rules-to-advance-health-care-overhaul/

So they're killing the filibuster, but won't own up to actually killing the filibuster.

Rules don't apply to the GOP.

 

[benicillin]

GOP Might Buck Senate Rules to Pass Health Care Overhaul

http://www.rollcall.com/news/gop-might-buck-senate-rules-to-advance-health-care-overhaul/

Honestly it's interesting to see how much McConnell is willing to burn down the Senate just to pass their legislation. They'll come to regret it, I'm sure.