Election 2016 (Page 25)

I do agree that the criticism against Trump for not paying any taxes is unfair.  Assuming that the deductions are legal, then it is ridiculous to say that he could have chosen not to use the tax laws in place and pay more taxes out of the goodness of his heart.

BUT if he has not been paying taxes for the past 20 years, it is fair game to point out Trump's hypocrisy for his criticism of others who don't pay income taxes (the poor and the wealthy).

Although the deductions may be legal, it doesn't paint a decent picture of the man and wouldn't sit well with me as a middle class voter - he's making millions but not contributing his share to society.

He could use this as an opportunity and promise to close the loopholes that allow the rich to not pay taxes, but I would assume the Republican base would not be too happy with a candidate pledging to increase taxes.

Is this serious? Trump isn't respected by anyone. He's not even respected by his own aides.
Putin would LOVE a Trump presidency because he knows Trump can be manipulated like a puppet on a string.

You comment on gaining respect is very telling; I actually think this is what a lot of the right-wing believe.
It's unfortunate that they don't understand the complexities of international affairs, nor can they comprehend the consequences of stubborn aggression.

The US is clearly still a world power, but other economies are gaining, and the balance of power is shifting. This has nothing to do with US apathy, it's just the nature of a global economy. Trump could potentially damage international relations for decades. Something even Cheney tried but was unable to accomplish.

Also, your comments about "radical Islam sweeping across Europe and coming to the US"...please, follow these steps:
1. Pick up the TV remote
2. Turn off Fox News
3. Emerge from your panic room/bunker
4. Go outside and throw a frisbee or something. The world isn't as scary as you think (and constantly read right-wing articles to reinforce) it is.

PREDICTION: At exactly 11pm EST on Tuesday, November 8th, 2016, Hillary Clinton will be declared the winner of the election.
I really hope Trump just wings his concession speech and cranks the crazy-knob to 11.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/09/donald-trump-unpaid-bills-republican-president-laswuits/85297274/

And that's just the top hit on Google.  If you don't like that news source I can find plenty of others.  Or if you don't like news sources, you can dig up court records.

Those are HIGH numbers of lawsuits, liens, and unpaid contractors.  It's not a "ridiculous claim".  They're on the public record.

You may not have noticed, but Trump is not that kind of guy.  He's more the kind of leader that thinks he knows everything already.  He doesn't ask for advice or data, he asks for loyalty and surrounds himself with 'yes' men.  

As for his taxes.  Yeah- I don't mind that he used the tax law to his advantage.  But if he's going to justify it by saying he knows the tax laws better than anyone, then why hasn't he said what, specifically, he's going to change in the law, that will no longer benefit real estate moguls such as himself?  He hasn't offered any issue or problem with the very favorable laws that govern how to write off real-estate investments.  i.e. that you can buy/build an real estate asset, then write off the depreciation of that asset while it's actually appreciating in value. Theoretically, when you go to sell it, you would have to pay the capital gains (at the low low cap gains rate 15%), but you can also transfer that gain into another asset - and then begin the depreciation fun all over again.  It's tax law that written very favorable for large scale real-estate investors.  So Trump?  do you have an actual opinion on the subject?  I haven't heard one.  Are you professing to take away this benefit?  if not, then what?  

Is Trump really a tax expert? or does he just hire some good ones?

So what's the alternative?  Yes, He's entitled to legally not pay taxes because of the laws but in order to paint a more decent picture of himself he should pay the taxes He does not owe?  Ironically, there's not even a legal way to pay more taxes then you owe.

Congress is supposed to look at the pro's and cons of any tax laws and make a determination of how much to tax and when to allow deductions.  The congress decided long ago that if a business had an operating loss that they could carry that loss ahead against future gains.  It makes perfect sense because we get to do the same things with our stock accounts.   If you have $100k in a stock account and it loses $50k this year but you only had taxable income of say $25k, you could write off all your income this year and carry the $25k over until next year.  It's just the way the tax code works.

I predict you're going to be really freaked out on November 9th.   

In all seriousness Trump is respected by many people and most especially world leaders.  Clinton and Obama are not respected because they are weak and do nothing but down down and apologize.  The middle east is a mess because of US intervention overall, but it's a far bigger mess because of the weakness of Obama and Clinton.  Russia is growing in strength because they know the US will do nothing.  Iran is taking Obama's lunch money (in cash please) and it's friggen embarrassing as a nation. 

You're certainly entitled to believe that Obama and Clinton are strong, but that doesn't make you right.   

How do you judge those numbers as HIGH?  For a single building he likely has 100+ sub contractors and has obviously built many many buildings.  You portray it as though most of his contractors don't get paid, which is a joke.  You'll notice that the obviously biased article doesn't mention what projects the lawsuits were tied to?  Were all 100 of them from one project that went bankrupt?  I don't know the answer, but it's laughable to try and make an argument that he doesn't pay his bills and shows just how desperate the Clinton campaign is getting.

Next thing you know they're going to accuse him of legally taking tax deductions that he was entitled to.  Oh wait...

I was driving home and listening to the debate on the radio and holy smokes was it hard to understand.  I genuinely haven't listened to either of them speak so I was curious how they would do and Kaine came across as extremely rude and arrogant.  It made it really hard to listen to on the radio because I had no visual cues to help my brain make out what either one was saying.

He definitely had his Howard Dean moment. 

Drudge had a hilarious picture of him:

Clinton camp put out a video of trump quotes beside kaine's accusations and pence's denial

https://www.facebook.com/hillaryclinton/videos/1270833806306479/

The problem with the "quotes game" is that Kaine discredited himself by taking most of them "just a little bit further" then what was said.  For example the "all Mexicans are rapists and murderers" line is an out of context smear that's been used for months and completely untrue. 

Even in this video they don't do a very good job of defending the exaggerations on several. 

First accusation "Donald Trump and Mike Pence has said he (Putin) is a great leader".  Then play quotes of Trump and Pence saying Putin has been a strong leader for his country.  There's no denying Putin has been a strong leader for his country, but that's a far cry from saying he's a great leader.

"Donald Trump said he is going to have a deportation force and they want to go house to house, school to school, business to business..." then show a short clip of him saying we'll have a deportation force.  (btw, we already have a deportation force it's called ICE and the Border Patrol).

You get the idea.

I don't think there is a person on the planet who doesn't know Trump said all of those things.  I also don't think it makes one bit of difference at this point.  The only thing that matters is how many Trump voters are actually out there........I don't think anyone knows the answer to that...but I bet it's more then we think.  This election will be all about turnout.......the rest obviously doesn't matter.

Looks like Hillary's back on vacation (er sick) for the next month.

https://hillaryspeeches.com/scheduled-events/

2 things I know of (not official, maybe):

1) overlook some of your allowed deductions.  Hint: they probably won't audit you

2) you can directly give money to the U.S. Treasury for purposes of paying down the national debt.

#2 is technically considered a gift, not taxes though.

I guess you're technically correct on #1, but purely from a political standpoint you know a politician would get attacked on that as well.  Look, he's so dumb he doesn't even take his legal deductions.   

Didn't #2 get recently enacted by Buffett's suggestion?  Now that you mention it I seem to recall that.

I don't remember if Buffett got it implemented, or if he was just suggesting people use it.  I remembered hearing about it when there was an article about this guy who was so tired of his family bickering over his fortune that he left it to the treasury when he died.  Kinda funny