NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill

Dec 7, 17 9:46

Post #1 of 48 Views: 2184

Anyone else getting a kick out of blue state liberals crying about the deduction changes in the tax bills?
http://www.bostonglobe.com/...e-comes-gop-tax-bill
https://www.nytimes.com/...x-bill-new-york.html

Boo Fucking Hoo. Oh you can only itemize up to $24K? You can only deduct on the first $500K of your fucking mortgage? Cry me a river...you either make enough money to support it, or your cost of living is being artificially inflated by these deductions. Look at those average SALT deductions in the NYT article...what these assholes need to understand is they ARE the rich! $60K in deductions in NYC, are you kidding me??? Your cost of living is out of whack and a serious correction is in order.

I say that as someone who closed on a $500K+ house 37 days ago and is in a top-5% income household living in MA. People in the suburbs around here have no fucking idea how the rest of the country lives, their bubble of comfortable living and rich neighbrs has deluded them into thinking they're not part of the wealthy they rail against. My taxes will go up, I did a back-of-napkin calculations and my wife and I would pay between $2-3K more depending on the bill...and guess what? We can afford it! I'd rather my sister and her husband, who combined don't make what I do and support three kids, get more of that money (and they will, they're the type that'll make out like bandits with this overhaul).

Ms. Metcalf said she dreaded the prospect of telling her youngest child, Genevieve, a high school senior, that the college of her choice was beyond their means.

Welcome to the struggles of the rest of the country, Ms. Metcalf! You're a history teacher at a CC, sorry but sometimes tough decisions need to be made, you think 90% of the country isn't worried that their kid can't go to the college of their choice? And I laugh at that because she's probably thinking about a college fund they put together so the precious child doesn't pay a dime...again, welcome to the rest of the country's struggles with higher ed. Maybe now these elite liberal communities will notice how fucked up higher ed costs are and the direct link to federal grant/loan money.

The bills aren't perfect and I won't pretend they are, but this is why Mitt Romney wouldn't divulge what deductions he'd eliminate with his tax overhaul plans in 2012. The wealthy liberals in their blue state bubbles don't even seem to understand they're part of 'the rich' they rail against with their Bernie Sanders stickers proudly displayed on their $60K Lexus's.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Brownie28] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 10:12

Post #2 of 48 Views: 2145

Preach it, my Masshole comrade.

I posted this article a year or two ago here in the LR in a health care thread - same mentality from the ones crying, same sense of schadenfreude on my end. I swear the period I lived in Cambridge made me move more to the conservative/libertarian side of the spectrum than the time I spent in north Florida.

"For years, Harvard’s experts on health economics and policy have advised presidents and Congress on how to provide health benefits to the nation at a reasonable cost. But those remedies will now be applied to the Harvard faculty, and the professors are in an uproar. Members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the heart of the 378-year-old university, voted overwhelmingly in November to oppose changes that would require them and thousands of other Harvard employees to pay more for health care. The university says the increases are in part a result of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act, which many Harvard professors championed....

Richard F. Thomas, a Harvard professor of classics and one of the world’s leading authorities on Virgil, called the changes “deplorable, deeply regressive, a sign of the corporatization of the university.” Mary D. Lewis, a professor who specializes in the history of modern France and has led opposition to the benefit changes, said they were tantamount to a pay cut. “Moreover,” she said, “this pay cut will be timed to come at precisely the moment when you are sick, stressed or facing the challenges of being a new parent."

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Brownie28] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 10:14

Post #3 of 48 Views: 2138

Too bad we don't allow national referendums to set our laws. We'd all be on beaches smoking Cuban cigars.

"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Brownie28] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 10:20

Post #4 of 48 Views: 2126

Your meter seems stuck on :"envy". Couple points:

"Maybe now these elite liberal communities will notice how fucked up higher ed costs are"

Do you think that is not the case? Libs are at the vanguard of trying to overhaul college costs. The GOP's education platform pretty much ends with "vouchers". (actually, they now want to tax endowments, not sure of the economic/educational rationale).

Quote:

I'd rather my sister and her husband, who combined don't make what I do and support three kids, get more of that money (and they will, they're the type that'll make out like bandits with this overhaul).

Not really, they may get a small temporary lowering of their bill (having kids will help a bit). The folks who make out like bandits are at the very top, because most of them get a higher percentage tax cut which isn't sunsetted. I would be slightly more supportive, if this bill didn't selectively raise taxes on the upper-middle segment (~90-98 percentile) to pay for the largest tax cuts for the top 1-2%.

Edit to add: The potential loss of the ACA mandate may very well result in healthcare increases that eat up all of their tax gain. Bandits, indeed....

I don't personally care about this bill. I'm sure that I will pay a bit more. BTW, I have advocated for a drop to 500K for the HMD on this forum, as a way to stabilize housing prices. This bill contains a raft of tax shifts that will probably create a bigger sudden drop in real estate, which may very well be really doesn't help the math of this tax proposal. Sudden shifts result in misallocation of resources, which is economically inefficient. This bill has a host of unintended consequences (which are just beginning to be discovered) and is fiscally irresponsible in many levels.

Last edited by: oldandslow: Dec 7, 17 10:32

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Brownie28] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 10:21

Post #5 of 48 Views: 2119

So you must be in favor of the tax bill because it will so help low income households, yes?

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Brownie28] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 10:42

Post #6 of 48 Views: 2077

I largely agree with you. Just a small point to consider though:

A person buying a $2M home in my city will lose $60K in property tax deduction and ~$40K in interest deduction (assuming 20% down). So the price of the home is going to fall, perhaps significantly, simply because of the new tax structure.

Now your thought is probably similar to mine: All that is happening in an artificial subsidy is being removed, of course it hurts. But would the better solution be to have rolled the cut out over time? I think so...

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Brownie28] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 10:51

Post #7 of 48 Views: 2058

I'll still itemize.

The potential loss of the state and local tax deduction is a big hit. But if at least $10k in property taxes can still be deducted, then the I probably break even or come out slightly ahead with the lower tax rates. But it will be close. (It would be a tax increase if the property tax deduction had been completely eliminated.)

But I also know quite a few people who are middle class and who will likely be paying higher taxes. Notwithstanding you wetting your panties over "blue state liberals" whining about increased taxes, in California it's largely GOP strongholds that will be adversely impacted. And it's their representatives who will be on the chopping block. So thank the GOP form making California more blue.

It will be interesting to see how the changes to the mortgage interest deduction and the limitation on the property tax deduction impact housing prices. (And if the tax bill generates the growth that Trump is promising, increased interest rates.) My guess is in the short term there will be a drop in prices, with not much impact in the long term. I don't think it will impact me, as I don't plan on selling or refinancing within the next few years. But if I were planning on selling soon, I'd probably be pissed.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [AlanShearer] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 10:53

Post #8 of 48 Views: 2050

in California it's largely GOP strongholds that will be adversely impacted.

How do you figure?

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [vitus979] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 10:56

Post #9 of 48 Views: 2035

vitus979 wrote:

in California it's largely GOP strongholds that will be adversely impacted.

How do you figure?

He still thinks the rich people are all Republicans?

Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [oldandslow] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 10:58

Post #10 of 48 Views: 2027

Quote:

Libs are at the vanguard of trying to overhaul college costs.

They’re working on making free for the actual students, but the liberal policies on education have only made the cost go through the roof.

It’s just that someone else is paying.

Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Duffy] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 11:04

Post #11 of 48 Views: 2011

Quote:

They’re working on making free for the actual students, but the liberal policies on education have only made the cost go through the roof.

Lots of ideas from various libs, many are debated. You can go ahead and find fault with them, but I'm not hearing solutions from you. At this point, there are only crickets on the GOP side. Brownie's point was not that libs were pushing bad ideas, it was that they were wholly indifferent to the issue (which is false).

Last edited by: oldandslow: Dec 7, 17 11:06

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [vitus979] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 11:10

Post #12 of 48 Views: 1999

vitus979 wrote:

in California it's largely GOP strongholds that will be adversely impacted.

How do you figure?

One, because that's what's been reported. http://www.ocregister.com/...an-dana-rohrabacher/

Two, GOP strongholds in California are also likely to be districts with a higher percentage of upper middle class and wealthier constituents. Places like Orange County (outside of Santa Ana) and San Diego and Sacramento suburbs. Also foothill communities in LA and SB counties. That's why Reps. Issa, Rohrabacher, and McClintock voted against the House bill.

There are also less affluent GOP areas in California, namely the Central Valley and rural areas, that probably aren't as adversely impacted.

Or maybe you could just go with Duffy's insightful answer.

Last edited by: AlanShearer: Dec 7, 17 11:16

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [oldandslow] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 11:19

Post #13 of 48 Views: 1968

oldandslow wrote:

Your meter seems stuck on :"envy". Couple points:

You might have missed where I live among these folks...that said I don't envy their delusion.

Quote:

"Maybe now these elite liberal communities will notice how fucked up higher ed costs are"

Do you think that is not the case? Libs are at the vanguard of trying to overhaul college costs. The GOP's education platform pretty much ends with "vouchers". (actually, they now want to tax endowments, not sure of the economic/educational rationale).

My point is if these upper-middle and upper-class liberals lose deductions that force them to have to take out loans for their kids' higher ed they might understand the pains felt by the rest of the country. In trying to 'help', liberals in government have created this massive bubble sector, toying with the youngest taxpayers who are just starting out, many with $100K or more in debt. Who pushed for these federal grant and loan programs that are a MASSIVE handout to liberal institutions paid for by middle class and lower households? Now you're saying they're at the vanguard of overhauling college costs? That's like saying liberals are at the forefront of overhauling the ACHA...you can't pass a pile of garbage then say 'we're the only ones who care, trying to fix this broken system'.

Quote:

Quote:

I'd rather my sister and her husband, who combined don't make what I do and support three kids, get more of that money (and they will, they're the type that'll make out like bandits with this overhaul).

Not really, they may get a small temporary lowering of their bill (having kids will help a bit). The folks who make out like bandits are at the very top, because most of them get a higher percentage tax cut which isn't sunsetted. I would be slightly more supportive, if this bill didn't selectively raise taxes on the upper-middle segment (~90-98 percentile) to pay for the largest tax cuts for the top 1-2%.

Edit to add: The potential loss of the ACA mandate may very well result in healthcare increases that eat up all of their tax gain. Bandits, indeed....

I don't personally care about this bill. I'm sure that I will pay a bit more. BTW, I have advocated for a drop to 500K for the HMD on this forum, as a way to stabilize housing prices. This bill contains a raft of tax shifts that will probably create a bigger sudden drop in real estate, which may very well be really doesn't help the math of this tax proposal. Sudden shifts result in misallocation of resources, which is economically inefficient. This bill has a host of unintended consequences (which are just beginning to be discovered) and is fiscally irresponsible in many levels.

OK I wasn't clear and it's my own fault. I don't like the proposals and do think the changes for the upper tax brackets are crap. My focus was on the deductions being overhauled/eliminated to help pay for tax cuts, specifically those changes that 'target' blue state liberals who rail against the rich but are, themselves, rich.

Last edited by: Brownie28: Dec 7, 17 11:25

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [AlanShearer] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 11:21

Post #14 of 48 Views: 1962

This, even in the bluest areas, the richest enclaves tend to skew purple. For every movie star that folks fixate on there are 2-3 nameless executives that get ignored.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [oldandslow] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 11:24

Post #15 of 48 Views: 1957

oldandslow wrote:

Quote:

They’re working on making free for the actual students, but the liberal policies on education have only made the cost go through the roof.

Lots of ideas from various libs, many are debated. You can go ahead and find fault with them, but I'm not hearing solutions from you. At this point, there are only crickets on the GOP side. Brownie's point was not that libs were pushing bad ideas, it was that they were wholly indifferent to the issue (which is false).

My larger point on higher ed is that liberals created this situation, and the rich blue-state suburban types don't really have any understanding of how crippling it is for middle class households. They're able to pocket away $150K over 15 years to pay their kids tuition and while they gripe about those costs they don't have the slightest clue what the impact is to the middle class and below, who can't possibly save that money and so the kids are saddled with massive, massive debt out of college.

They 'know' about the issue from what they read in the NYT, WaPo, Boston Globe and the like. But they don't feel the real pain of this bubble they helped create.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [AlanShearer] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 11:25

Post #16 of 48 Views: 1955

I don't think any of that actually addresses the point, though, does it?

Sure, whatever GOP strongholds exist in California might be adversely affected. You made it sound like they're going to be the only ones, though. San Fransisco? LA? Etc etc?

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [vitus979] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 11:26

Post #17 of 48 Views: 1949

vitus979 wrote:

I don't think any of that actually addresses the point, though, does it?

Sure, whatever GOP strongholds exist in California might be adversely affected. You made it sound like they're going to be the only ones, though. San Fransisco? LA? Etc etc?

I think it clarifies my point.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [AlanShearer] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 11:46

Post #18 of 48 Views: 1924

That's fair.

Whatcha think about the charge that the changes were deliberately aimed at blue states?

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [vitus979] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 11:57

Post #19 of 48 Views: 1912

vitus979 wrote:

That's fair.

Whatcha think about the charge that the changes were deliberately aimed at blue states?

I think that’s true in a sense. It exposes more painfully how high the taxes are in these places and it also makes it so the fed isnt subsidizing the cost of these taxes anymore.

My personal taxes will probably go up over all, btw. That being said there needs to pressure on this state (CA) to get it together. Our state leaders are completely out of control.

Completely.

Think about this, we have spent at least $3.5 billion on our “high speed” rail project so far and not one single inch of high speed rail track has been laid down.

Where’s all that money going?

And, seriously, we’re supposedly going to build high speed rail. Rail. Trains.

By the time it gets done (if ever) we will have self driving cars.

And democrats call themselves “progressive”.

Fucking scam.

Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [vitus979] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 12:08

Post #20 of 48 Views: 1895

vitus979 wrote:

That's fair.

Whatcha think about the charge that the changes were deliberately aimed at blue states?

Is there any question that these changes were deliberately aimed at high tax, blue states?

That doesn't mean that there isn't a legitimate policy reason for eliminating a deduction. But in my mind, there's absolutely no doubt that there was a need to partially offset or pay for some of the tax cuts and that these deductions were in large part selected for that purpose because they wouldn't significantly impact the final vote tally.

The original proposal in the House was to eliminate the deductions for both state income and property taxes. The property tax deduction was only partially restored after the House realized the bill might not pass if it lost GOP support in CA, NY, and NJ.

The Senate bill also originally proposed to eliminate both deductions, and my understanding that the GOP didn't care because there weren't any GOP senators from those states.

In other words, this was largely about counting votes, and the deductions were on the chopping block because they wouldn't result in the loss of any significant GOP votes.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Duffy] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 12:18

Post #21 of 48 Views: 1875

I remember during the election there was some discussion about whether California paid it's fair share of federal taxes, whatever that meant. One on hand the argument was the California subsidized the rest of the country, paying more in taxes to the feds than it received back. The counter primarily was that that analysis didn't consider the fact that the federal government was effectively subsidizing California's taxes through the state and local tax deduction and, when that subsidy was included, it was either a wash or that California was actually getting more back than it paid in. I thought the counter argument had some merit.

But will the elimination of the deduction for state and local taxes, and the limitations on the property tax deduction, I'm wondering if there will be a greater push as well as a stronger argument that California will now deserve a larger slice of the pie.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Brownie28] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 12:48

Post #22 of 48 Views: 1834

Quote:

They're able to pocket away $150K over 15 years to pay their kids tuition and while they gripe about those costs they don't have the slightest clue what the impact is to the middle class and below, who can't possibly save that money and so the kids are saddled with massive, massive debt out of college.

Stop, you are wallowing in misplaced blame and anger. One, our present college situation is due to a host of policies placed to address inequities in the face of full opposition to addressing them. The result: half-hearted measures which only slightly diminish inequities. We as a society created it, since we accepted a whole set of policies in lieu of real solutions. I ask you the same question that I asked Duffy. What is your solution??? When you come up with it, your complaints will have a bit more legitimacy. Until then, you are merely blamecasting.

Two, Really, not the "slightest clue?" Virtually everyone I know deals with this issue, or has relatives that are dealing with it. It is appalling, and folks have all sorts of ideas to solve it. They are blocked by our present gridlocked system. In the absence of solutions, we play a game that is undeniably rigged (and rich folks, left and right, play it well....). Your friends/acquaintances must be completely clueless....

Three, read "Dream Hoarders" for a less angry, but stronger case about how the top quintile have had so much "winning."

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [oldandslow] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 13:48

Post #23 of 48 Views: 1794

oldandslow wrote:

Quote:

They're able to pocket away $150K over 15 years to pay their kids tuition and while they gripe about those costs they don't have the slightest clue what the impact is to the middle class and below, who can't possibly save that money and so the kids are saddled with massive, massive debt out of college.

Stop, you are wallowing in misplaced blame and anger. One, our present college situation is due to a host of policies placed to address inequities in the face of full opposition to addressing them.

If you accept that there will be inequities in life then the policies put in place decades ago were a mistake. Community colleges, scholarship programs, local grant money and the like are and were in place to help mitigate inequalities, it's when federal grant and loan programs were put in place that these inequalities grew.

Quote:

The result: half-hearted measures which only slightly diminish inequities. We as a society created it, since we accepted a whole set of policies in lieu of real solutions. I ask you the same question that I asked Duffy. What is your solution???

Now? I don't have the faintest idea if I'm being honest...this system is totally broken and needs to come crashing down, imo. I think on-line programs and a return to the trades might help stem the tide but my god is this a clusterfuck. I think federal loan and grant money needs to be slowed rolled back, and let families make the tough decisions until market pressures return tuition to reasonable levels without the inflation from federal money. It's a shit solution, but until that money is pulled out of the system that system will remain broken.

Quote:

Two, Really, not the "slightest clue?" Virtually everyone I know deals with this issue, or has relatives that are dealing with it. It is appalling, and folks have all sorts of ideas to solve it. They are blocked by our present gridlocked system. In the absence of solutions, we play a game that is undeniably rigged (and rich folks, left and right, play it well....). Your friends/acquaintances must be completely clueless....

Three, read "Dream Hoarders" for a less angry, but stronger case about how the top quintile have had so much "winning."

Re: the bolded, when you say 'deals with this issue' do you mean they're saving for their kids education, or that their kids are getting hammered with $200K in loans? I work in IT, the people I work with are able to save--begrudgingly--for tuition. Maybe not enough to eliminate loans but the people I've talked to, they cover most tuition. My buddies all have young kids but have savings programs in place, who knows what it'll cover but all my friends are making minimum six figures with wives who work, they'll figure it out. My in-laws, living in one of those liberal MA bubble suburbs, put four kids through liberal arts degrees without loans, their friends in town put kids through Princeton, Brown, NYU, Amherst, those are the ones I've heard of. Again, I live in a rich liberal enclave of people who don't know what 'real' is. They're saving and sacrificing, sure, but they have the means to do it and their kids aren't graduating with that massive debt hanging around their necks.

So yes, my friends and acquaintances are generally quite clueless, beyond what they read in the papers. That's my point: it's a giant liberal utopia in the suburbs here of people who have absolutely no fucking clue what struggling is.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [oldandslow] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 14:30

Post #24 of 48 Views: 1768

"Libs are at the vanguard of trying to overhaul college costs."

Havard's Endowment >$1,000,000,000
Yearly tuition increases higher than inflation
Annual taxes paid $0

They are quite the leaders.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Brownie28] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 14:36

Post #25 of 48 Views: 1757

Quote:

If you accept that there will be inequities in life then the policies put in place decades ago were a mistake.

Fallacy of the excluded middle. Inequities-yes, No policies should ever address it. Inequities-No, then any policy is okay.

Quote:

it's when federal grant and loan programs were put in place that these inequalities grew.

Very debatable. You and I don't have access to the parallel universe in which grants and loans didn't exist. Our present wealth/education/opportunity gaps fully explain growing inequality, and have arguably been mitigated in small ways by increased access that grants and loans afforded. It might have come crashing down earlier in that parallel universe, but we can't know.

Quote:

What is your solution???
Now? I don't have the faintest idea if I'm being honest...this system is totally broken and needs to come crashing down, imo.

Thanks, that is an option, and better than merely blaming (which is the LR bread and butter)

Quote:

I think federal loan and grant money needs to be slowed rolled back, and let families make the tough decisions until market pressures return tuition to reasonable levels without the inflation from federal money.

You are right, that is a shit solution. Radically reduce access to all poor and middle-class families, and hope that the small drops in cost suddenly allow better access than now???? Yikes, stick to online teaching ideas....

Quote:

Virtually everyone I know deals with this issue, or has relatives that are dealing with it.
Re: the bolded, when you say 'deals with this issue' do you mean they're saving for their kids education, or that their kids are getting hammered with $200K in loans?

Both. Why? Some folks are really struggling, other aren't. Even if they aren't, most folks have come from somewhere, and have family all over the place. The idea that empathy is completely impossible, unless one experiences it first-hand is simply wrong. You may not accept that, but you seem to be profoundly disdainful of your friends. There are better ways to view the world and your community.

Case in point, my niece is being crushed by student loans. Luckily, after waitressing for two years, she can move out of her parents' house .... because she is ready to move, and she has access to insiders in tech industries (my wife and I). Like I have said for years, the game is rigged. Lots of folks on the left and right know how to play it, even if we know it needs to be changed. This tax plan (which is economically the wrong plan at the wrong time), simply will change the rules of the game slightly.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Brownie28] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 14:51

Post #26 of 48 Views: 1252

The availability of nearly unlimited money I think is by far the reason for skyrocketing tuition. The colleges know the students can pay for it and the students have to because any non trade job that has any real earning potential requires one. Even if it has nothing to do with the job. It’s just a prescan in a resume to not be kicked out of the applicant pool.

If you limit the amount you can take out with student loans, the tuition will have to adjust because schools won’t be able to fill seats.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [oldandslow] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 15:10

Post #27 of 48 Views: 1240

oldandslow wrote:

Fallacy of the excluded middle. Inequities-yes, No policies should ever address it. Inequities-No, then any policy is okay.

Eh my sisters and I were part of that excluded middle. My parents made a little better than what was needed to qualify for grant money at the time but couldn't rub two pennies together so had zero savings for college. Thankfully in the late 90's tuition was just turning into a problem; I worked my ass off in HS so got a number of scholarships for the first few years' and I graduated when interest rates were rock bottom so all told I only had $26K in debt. But tuition went from $18K freshman year to $26K senior year (2002) and now, just fifteen years later, it's $70K. That is sickening.

EDIT: just realized you weren't talking about 'excluded middle' in terms of income class. That said I didn't say there weren't solutions, I pointed out community colleges, scholarship programs and grants. Now it's even more robust with the online options. Throwing federal money into the mix was the absolute LAST thing that should've ever been done, imo.

Quote:

Very debatable. You and I don't have access to the parallel universe in which grants and loans didn't exist. Our present wealth/education/opportunity gaps fully explain growing inequality, and have arguably been mitigated in small ways by increased access that grants and loans afforded. It might have come crashing down earlier in that parallel universe, but we can't know.

http://www.nber.org/chapters/c13711.pdf
https://www.newyorkfed.org/...ff_reports/sr733.pdf

This has been studied. What's most troublesome to me is that there's a clear correlation between increasing student aid money and tuition, something around $0.50-0.60 for every dollar in unsubsidized loan money. But that's doubly harmful to the kids who have to take out the loans: not only are they hit with the bigger sticker price of tuition, every dollar of increased tuition reprsents an increase in the loan they need to take out. You wanna talk about income inequality? How about low-middle and middle-class students leaving school $200K in debt when their poor and rich counterparts are debt-free...

Quote:

You are right, that is a shit solution. Radically reduce access to all poor and middle-class families, and hope that the small drops in cost suddenly allow better access than now???? Yikes, stick to online teaching ideas....

I didn't say radically, in fact I said slowly roll back federal aid money. Yes, it'd suck, but let me ask you: what's YOUR solution? This is an issue on the cost side of the house, nothing but removing the inflationary impact will do anything but mask (or compound) the issue.

Last edited by: Brownie28: Dec 7, 17 15:20

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Brownie28] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 18:01

Post #28 of 48 Views: 1217

I'd happily pay more taxes for the good of my country. But they're raising my taxes to give Trump and Co. a cut? Plus borrow another trillion and give that to the richest. What's the point?

“Read the transcript.”

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Cavechild] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 18:18

Post #29 of 48 Views: 1210

Actually Harvard's endowment is over 37B, that's a lot of brick...

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [oldandslow] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 19:38

Post #30 of 48 Views: 1199

oldandslow wrote:

Quote:

They’re working on making free for the actual students, but the liberal policies on education have only made the cost go through the roof.

Lots of ideas from various libs, many are debated. You can go ahead and find fault with them, but I'm not hearing solutions from you. At this point, there are only crickets on the GOP side. Brownie's point was not that libs were pushing bad ideas, it was that they were wholly indifferent to the issue (which is false).

The GOP is saying that not everyone *needs* or *should* receive a college education. The world needs plumbers, painters, electricians, etc. and trade schools would better serve A LOT of students. BTW plumbers, roofers, and HVAC techs in my neck of the woods are clearing six figures if they're willing to work the hours and I do not live in a high cost area.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Cavechild] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 19:44

Post #31 of 48 Views: 1197

Are you aware that Harvard is free for anyone whose family income is under ~70k and subsidized all the way up to ~300k

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [ajthomas] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 20:47

Post #32 of 48 Views: 1185

Ah that's so nice of them. They overcharge and then give a discount. On top of paying $0 in taxes, they receive over $600 million per year in federal funding. And that's just 1 University. If the Liberal Institutions just paid their fair share, we probably wouldn't have a deficit.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [GreenPlease] [ In reply to ]

Dec 7, 17 23:08

Post #33 of 48 Views: 1169

Quote:

The GOP is saying that not everyone *needs* or *should* receive a college education. The world needs plumbers, painters, electricians, etc. and trade schools would better serve A LOT of students. BTW plumbers, roofers, and HVAC techs in my neck of the woods are clearing six figures if they're willing to work the hours and I do not live in a high cost area.

Fine, and I would agree (to a point). That said, it is undeniable that equality of opportunity is far less today than it was a few decades ago, in that:

Gains in pay scales for jobs which require a college degree have consistently outstripped high school diploma jobs for decades (even with the awesome HVAC/plumbing jobs).
Contrary to popular opinion, there simply aren't enough plumbing jobs. There are a LOT more barristas, cashiers, Uber drivers, maids, laborers, etc.

The GOP can say whatever it wants. Reality has determined that college is a minimum requirement for a host of higher-paying jobs, and access to that is heavily determined by class/wealth. The valuation of that has driven costs upward.

Last edited by: oldandslow: Dec 7, 17 23:31

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Cavechild] [ In reply to ]

Dec 8, 17 5:00

Post #34 of 48 Views: 1152

It was stated that Harvard isn’t doing anything to curb the cost to attend college. That is false. You have now moved the goal posts to say that they aren’t paying their fair share. Okay, I guess.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [oldandslow] [ In reply to ]

Dec 8, 17 5:29

Post #35 of 48 Views: 1145

There are plenty of HVAC/plumbing jobs in the right area. Colorado is making a huge push to have kids and adults know about these jobs. We’re at the point in Colorado that they are so short staffed that workers will just leave jobs because someone else is paying more for a different project.

No one is debating there are higher gains for college degrees if you get into an industry that wants a college degree, the gains are going to be far less however when you go into an industry that doesn’t require a college degree but you are paying back loans which is a good chunk of people right now.

There are a lot of people that will never have access to a high paying job even with a college degree because they don’t have the degree or intelligence to reach that level. But we shove a ton of these people through college still with false hopes and as much money as they want to take in loans causing crazy rise in tuition prices.

Tuition hasn’t increased due to college being more desirable, but due to unlimited funding from student loans. When you can take out 20-30k a year to go to go an instate school there are going to be long term issues.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Grant.Reuter] [ In reply to ]

Dec 8, 17 8:03

Post #36 of 48 Views: 1119

Quote:

Tuition hasn’t increased due to college being more desirable, but due to unlimited funding from student loans.

The rise in tuition is due to several factors. As a counter-example, private elementary/high school tuition has been skyrocketing (no government funding). You can't lay it ALL on the feet of government loans. It has increased due to the simple fact that it IS more desirable, and a better path to higher-paying jobs. That said, it isn't a guarantee, and the value is much less for folks without connections, and the cost much greater for those taking loans.

Opportunity will never be equal, yet there was a time when we chose to guarantee K-12 education as a means of improving it. Times have changed, and a high school diploma is less valuable, with a concomitant reduction of opportunity. Without the willingness to adequately support post-secondary opportunity, we turned to loans, which were always a bad way to go, since folks are terrible at weighting future liability. Trade schools? Sure, lots of community colleges do exactly that, and for-profit colleges made big bucks with terrible outcomes. That said, there just aren't tens of millions of "plumber" jobs out there.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Grant.Reuter] [ In reply to ]

Dec 8, 17 8:12

Post #37 of 48 Views: 1112

Grant.Reuter wrote:

There are plenty of HVAC/plumbing jobs in the right area. Colorado is making a huge push to have kids and adults know about these jobs. We’re at the point in Colorado that they are so short staffed that workers will just leave jobs because someone else is paying more for a different project.

No one is debating there are higher gains for college degrees if you get into an industry that wants a college degree, the gains are going to be far less however when you go into an industry that doesn’t require a college degree but you are paying back loans which is a good chunk of people right now.

There are a lot of people that will never have access to a high paying job even with a college degree because they don’t have the degree or intelligence to reach that level. But we shove a ton of these people through college still with false hopes and as much money as they want to take in loans causing crazy rise in tuition prices.

Tuition hasn’t increased due to college being more desirable, but due to unlimited funding from student loans. When you can take out 20-30k a year to go to go an instate school there are going to be long term issues.

I had a house built here in CO 4+ years ago. Throughout construction I had a number of conversations with different trades supervisors. They all said they cannot hire enough good help. To Grant's point, it's not that there isn't enough available warm bodies, it's those warm bodies are simply unaware of the options available to them, or are simply unwilling to work in the environments necessary for certain trades.

My own kids think a "job" mean siting in front of the computer all day.

--------------------------
The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Duffy] [ In reply to ]

Dec 8, 17 11:26

Post #38 of 48 Views: 1085

Duffy wrote:

vitus979 wrote:

That's fair.

Whatcha think about the charge that the changes were deliberately aimed at blue states?

I think that’s true in a sense. It exposes more painfully how high the taxes are in these places and it also makes it so the fed isnt subsidizing the cost of these taxes anymore.

My personal taxes will probably go up over all, btw. That being said there needs to pressure on this state (CA) to get it together. Our state leaders are completely out of control.

Completely.

Think about this, we have spent at least $3.5 billion on our “high speed” rail project so far and not one single inch of high speed rail track has been laid down.

Where’s all that money going?

And, seriously, we’re supposedly going to build high speed rail. Rail. Trains.

By the time it gets done (if ever) we will have self driving cars.

And democrats call themselves “progressive”.

Fucking scam.

What the hell does the operational design of the car have to do w/ roadway system capacity and how many vehicles are saturating it? Whether the occupant of the car is driving it or not is entirely beside the point of trying to move more people outside of the highway network to lessen traffic gridlock.

$3.5B does seem like an awful lot so I wouldn't attempt to defend that number specifically, only you can't just start laying track down w/o technical studies on siting feasibility, corridor safety, seismic resilience, right-of-way acquisition, etc, etc. No idea the scope and duration so I can't say what a reasonable amount ought to be, only that a shit-ton of unseen prep work has to go into a project of that magnitude so I wouldn't expect it to be cheap.

We've had similar grumbling for a massive freeway bridge replacement project which the state/feds spent something like $300M to study, and then one of the key partners didn't like the answers they were getting and walked away from the table ~ so all the feasibility & design analysis is just sitting on the shelf for the foreseeable future and the existing bridge continues to decay and fall short of all its traffic performance metrics. People will say all that money was wasted (which in a sense is true, but only if you knew in advance the project was never intended to get built) but they haven't a clue what's involved in planning not just the structural design and construction itself but all the logistics around managing the project site before, during, & after. I can only imagine something attempting to link SF-LA would be vastly more.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [OneGoodLeg] [ In reply to ]

Dec 8, 17 11:33

Post #39 of 48 Views: 1079

With self driving cars you could conceivably have bumper to bumper traffic but instead of stop and go 5 mph they all could be bumper to bumper going 80.

Massive efficiency increase of existing highway system.

Also, trains? Really? This 2017 not 1917. We are going to sink billions of dollars over the next decade or so to maybe build something that will be obsolete by the time it’s operational. And nobody is going to use it because flying will be cheaper.

And specific to the CA bullet train, it’s a giant scam. There will be no high speed rail as promised and a lot of politically connected people will get rich off it.

Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Cavechild] [ In reply to ]

Dec 8, 17 11:35

Post #40 of 48 Views: 1079

Cavechild wrote:

Ah that's so nice of them. They overcharge and then give a discount. On top of paying $0 in taxes, they receive over $600 million per year in federal funding. And that's just 1 University. If the Liberal Institutions just paid their fair share, we probably wouldn't have a deficit.

But it's not like the feds are simply paying the schools for groudskeeping and other basic operational costs... Most of it is research grants for national programs like NIH or NSF or specific departments like Energy or Ag which add to our knowledge base and contribute/develop solutions to common problems, or are targeted to specific areas like crime reporting or sexual harassment that get rolled up into larger initiatives to mitigate broader problem areas that span beyond individual campuses.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [OneGoodLeg] [ In reply to ]

Dec 8, 17 11:44

Post #41 of 48 Views: 1074

With $37 Billion in the bank and $0 tax bill why does Harvard need $600 million in taxpayer money? Besides the obvious that the $37,000,000,000 would drop to the precariously level $36,400,000,000. The researches that work there don't get a $0 tax bill. A company researching a cure for cancer doesn't get a $0 tax bill, or a $600 million government gift. Why are liberal institutions so special?

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Duffy] [ In reply to ]

Dec 8, 17 11:49

Post #42 of 48 Views: 1073

Duffy wrote:

With self driving cars you could conceivably have bumper to bumper traffic but instead of stop and go 5 mph they all could be bumper to bumper going 80.

Massive efficiency increase of existing highway system.

Also, trains? Really? This 2017 not 1917. We are going to sink billions of dollars over the next decade or so to maybe build something that will be obsolete by the time it’s operational. And nobody is going to use it because flying will be cheaper.

And specific to the CA bullet train, it’s a giant scam. There will be no high speed rail as promised and a lot of politically connected people will get rich off it.

Huh? Are you fucking high? A marginal gain perhaps due to more predictable and consistent vehicle behaviors at a small scale, but at a regional scale (which a train system is designed for) you can't have an infinite line of cars all going 80 when they're still constrained by traffic lights and surface cross-traffic backing up the off-ramps, and having to accommodate additional vehicles merging from on-ramps. The highway system is just like any other piece of infrastructure or flow network that will only perform as well as the next choke point.

I've no doubt politically connected people are getting fat off whatever train studies, but that's no different than politically connected people getting fat off the current highway & car-dependent system or anything else. That line of reasoning is just as stupid as pointing out how alternative energy systems are subsidized, as if we don't already subsidize the shit out of the petroleum industry. You just favor having the taxpayers contribute to the one that benefits you more.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [mck414] [ In reply to ]

Dec 8, 17 12:14

Post #43 of 48 Views: 1062

mck414 wrote:

Grant.Reuter wrote:

There are plenty of HVAC/plumbing jobs in the right area. Colorado is making a huge push to have kids and adults know about these jobs. We’re at the point in Colorado that they are so short staffed that workers will just leave jobs because someone else is paying more for a different project.

No one is debating there are higher gains for college degrees if you get into an industry that wants a college degree, the gains are going to be far less however when you go into an industry that doesn’t require a college degree but you are paying back loans which is a good chunk of people right now.

There are a lot of people that will never have access to a high paying job even with a college degree because they don’t have the degree or intelligence to reach that level. But we shove a ton of these people through college still with false hopes and as much money as they want to take in loans causing crazy rise in tuition prices.

Tuition hasn’t increased due to college being more desirable, but due to unlimited funding from student loans. When you can take out 20-30k a year to go to go an instate school there are going to be long term issues.

I had a house built here in CO 4+ years ago. Throughout construction I had a number of conversations with different trades supervisors. They all said they cannot hire enough good help. To Grant's point, it's not that there isn't enough available warm bodies, it's those warm bodies are simply unaware of the options available to them, or are simply unwilling to work in the environments necessary for certain trades.

My own kids think a "job" mean siting in front of the computer all day.

I dropped out of University and took one of those trades jobs. Instead of graduating in debt, I earned around $160,000 during my apprenticeship, was paid to go to trade school, and got around $10k in grants and tax credits along the way. Finished my training, started my business and have been growing since.

There are lots of people who have done really well through trades here. The skilled labour shortage is staggering. It boggles my mind that our highschools are stripping shop classes from their curriculum. If a kid starts his apprenticeship out of highschool, he could be 21 and making close to 6 figures with no debt In the right trade. It's not easy work, but, the opportunity is there for the taking if you have a strong work ethic.

Long Chile was a silly place.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Duffy] [ In reply to ]

Dec 8, 17 12:26

Post #44 of 48 Views: 1056

Also, trains? Really? This 2017 not 1917. We are going to sink billions of dollars over the next decade or so to maybe build something that will be obsolete by the time it’s operational. And nobody is going to use it because flying will be cheaper. //

I have to agree whole heartedly with this, the train $$ should just stop and we should take our loss on it. At one time it probably was a good idea, but time and technology have passed it up, or at least will by the time it is built. Besides self driving cars, imagine a smart grid working all the stop lights. Right now they are all set to be at the same time for every direction for just about every time of day. But we know that is not how traffic works, in the mornings some lights need to stay green longer, afternoons others. Just a smart grid working these could alievate a ton of traffic, especially if it were smart cars driving most people around telling it where they are and where they are going.

This stupid bullet train will look like the very first steam engines used at the beginning of that technology. And you can bet the airline industry will not be far behind the self driving cars either, so speed of getting to longer distance places will not be a problem to be solved by bullet trains..

I have a feeling a lot of democrats want to let this thing go, but it has been going on for so long with such a big investment, no one wants to be the one to take the blame for closing it down. Once again kicking it down the road to the next group to deal with..

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [oldandslow] [ In reply to ]

Dec 8, 17 12:48

Post #45 of 48 Views: 1046

oldandslow wrote:

Fine, and I would agree (to a point). That said, it is undeniable that equality of opportunity is far less today than it was a few decades ago, in that:

Gains in pay scales for jobs which require a college degree have consistently outstripped high school diploma jobs for decades (even with the awesome HVAC/plumbing jobs).
Contrary to popular opinion, there simply aren't enough plumbing jobs. There are a LOT more barristas, cashiers, Uber drivers, maids, laborers, etc.

The GOP can say whatever it wants. Reality has determined that college is a minimum requirement for a host of higher-paying jobs, and access to that is heavily determined by class/wealth. The valuation of that has driven costs upward.

https://www.forbes.com/...s-ages/#7bbda8306397

That was four years ago but my guess is the same is true now: there aren't enough people filling these skilled trade professions. We've so ingrained the attitude that you HAVE to go to college, and universities and professional associations have pushed to require higher ed degrees (and even masters degrees) for more and more professions, that almost no one wants to go into the trades now.

One of my friends is a CFP, he said the best off clients of his are the kids in their 20's and 30's working in a trade, they make great money out of the gate without the debt of college kids, plus four extra years of earnings. If you're smart about it you have a nice little nest egg piled up by the time you're 40, when these college kids are finally paying off their loans.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [oldandslow] [ In reply to ]

Dec 8, 17 12:56

Post #46 of 48 Views: 1044

oldandslow wrote:

Quote:

Tuition hasn’t increased due to college being more desirable, but due to unlimited funding from student loans.

The rise in tuition is due to several factors. As a counter-example, private elementary/high school tuition has been skyrocketing (no government funding). You can't lay it ALL on the feet of government loans. It has increased due to the simple fact that it IS more desirable, and a better path to higher-paying jobs. That said, it isn't a guarantee, and the value is much less for folks without connections, and the cost much greater for those taking loans.

I agree that there are multiple factors influencing the price of college. However, when the govt will give student loans to almost anyone it disrupts the market.

Furthermore, many students and parents need to take a step back and look at the big picture. If your child graduates with $200k in student loans and plans on being a teacher they are screwed. There are lower cost alternatives, like doing two years at a community college, but everyone has bought the "college experience" dream hook line and sinker. I have a coworker who's paying through the nose to send his daughter to a wanna be ivy league school in DC where she's majoring in opera. If it makes everyone happy that's fine with me, but when it's all said done don't go complaining about work opportunities and loan prices when you made a poor decision.

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Brownie28] [ In reply to ]

Dec 8, 17 13:40

Post #47 of 48 Views: 1032

Brownie28 wrote:

oldandslow wrote:

Fine, and I would agree (to a point). That said, it is undeniable that equality of opportunity is far less today than it was a few decades ago, in that:

Gains in pay scales for jobs which require a college degree have consistently outstripped high school diploma jobs for decades (even with the awesome HVAC/plumbing jobs).
Contrary to popular opinion, there simply aren't enough plumbing jobs. There are a LOT more barristas, cashiers, Uber drivers, maids, laborers, etc.

The GOP can say whatever it wants. Reality has determined that college is a minimum requirement for a host of higher-paying jobs, and access to that is heavily determined by class/wealth. The valuation of that has driven costs upward.

https://www.forbes.com/...s-ages/#7bbda8306397

That was four years ago but my guess is the same is true now: there aren't enough people filling these skilled trade professions. We've so ingrained the attitude that you HAVE to go to college, and universities and professional associations have pushed to require higher ed degrees (and even masters degrees) for more and more professions, that almost no one wants to go into the trades now.

One of my friends is a CFP, he said the best off clients of his are the kids in their 20's and 30's working in a trade, they make great money out of the gate without the debt of college kids, plus four extra years of earnings. If you're smart about it you have a nice little nest egg piled up by the time you're 40, when these college kids are finally paying off their loans.

Depends on which white collar job you take though. I'd say over half of my industry doesn't need a college degree, and they are paid like it, but they still need it to get the job. Eyeroll emoji

Re: NIMBY makes its way to the tax bill [Perseus] [ In reply to ]

Dec 8, 17 13:41

Post #48 of 48 Views: 1030

Perseus wrote:

oldandslow wrote:

Quote:

Tuition hasn’t increased due to college being more desirable, but due to unlimited funding from student loans.

The rise in tuition is due to several factors. As a counter-example, private elementary/high school tuition has been skyrocketing (no government funding). You can't lay it ALL on the feet of government loans. It has increased due to the simple fact that it IS more desirable, and a better path to higher-paying jobs. That said, it isn't a guarantee, and the value is much less for folks without connections, and the cost much greater for those taking loans.

I agree that there are multiple factors influencing the price of college. However, when the govt will give student loans to almost anyone it disrupts the market.

Furthermore, many students and parents need to take a step back and look at the big picture. If your child graduates with $200k in student loans and plans on being a teacher they are screwed. There are lower cost alternatives, like doing two years at a community college, but everyone has bought the "college experience" dream hook line and sinker. I have a coworker who's paying through the nose to send his daughter to a wanna be ivy league school in DC where she's majoring in opera. If it makes everyone happy that's fine with me, but when it's all said done don't go complaining about work opportunities and loan prices when you made a poor decision.

But they have a good hoops team

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