Poll- Do you care about Trump's taxes?

Rightwing

Billy86 wrote: »

Ah, got you on that first point. There is an aspect of gaming the system there alright, though that's typically to act as a parachute after he has driven a business into the ground (it is also is a reason he has allegedly had to seek loans abroad in places like Russia) and as you point out, it's not necessarily as easy as that when you're the POTUS.

Though the second point not to do with the election - Trump won that fair and square - just to do with the assertion that American's "don't care" about his taxes.

A slight aside, but if they do insist on keeping the EC system I really don't see why it's not weighted at say '1 EC seat per 100,000'. It would bring the total number to 3,189 EC votes, giving each Wyoming and Vermont 6 rather than their current 3, California 550, Texas 300, and so on, leading to a fairer representation of the population while allowing them to keep their antiquated system. Though I have a feeling one particular side of the aisle would kick up absolute blue murder if that were proposed. There's a very noticeable correlation.

http://4.1m.yt/yBHiJwv.png
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Red_and_Blue_States_Map_(Average_Margins_of_Presidential_Victory).svg

This winner takes all seems a crazy situation for sure. If you were a Republican voter, you are just wasting your time going to the polls in say California.

Billy86

Rightwing wrote: »

This winner takes all seems a crazy situation for sure. If you were a Republican voter, you are just wasting your time going to the polls in say California.

True, and likewise for a Democrat in a bunch of red states. Isn't it something like 8-12 states depending on circumstances that only ever matter? Now the rust belt issue did make a bit of a change in this cycle on some traditional blue ones, but it makes you wonder if the other 40-odd states who typically just vote for the letter beside the candidate's name rather than the candidate themselves (you could literally run Hitler(R) against a good Democrat or Stalin(D) against a good Republican candidate and they would get millions and millions of votes by default) are continuously shooting themselves in the foot by basically making their EC votes worthless due to being such a given from the get-go. I can tell tell you who Alabama and Vermont will each vote for in the next 5 election cycles barring something cataclysmic for example, and I'm sure you can tell me too... so why should the Reps bother trying to keep them happy, or the Dems bother trying to get them onside?

BorneTobyWilde

Trump is a special case
Not as if he runs a corner store
His mission as a business man is to avoid costs legally
Obviously he is good at that ,as he's audited regularly
It might not look good on paper so why release it
Just be happy it's legal and move on .
IRS see everything he does, they're happy so everyone else should be too.

Billy86

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

Trump is a special case
Not as if he runs a corner store
His mission as a business man is to avoid costs legally
Obviously he is good at that ,as he's audited regularly
It might not look good on paper so why release it
Just be happy it's legal and move on .
IRS see everything he does, they're happy so everyone else should be too.

The IRS would not have any problem with Trump having money coming in from a Mr. P. Utin's own personal because that's not what they look for. The US public and intelligence community investigating Russia's role in the election and Trump's ties to Russia on the other hand, would have a problem with it.

eire4

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

You numbers need a bit of lowering there. 54% of male college graduates that voted voted for him and the same with the 45% stat on females.
In total only 53% of the American electorate actually voted. So almost half did not vote at all.

Billy86

eire4 wrote: »

You numbers need a bit of lowering there. 54% of male college graduates that voted voted for him and the same with the 45% stat on females.
In total only 53% of the American electorate actually voted. So almost half did not vote at all.

I'm guessing the statistic is in the "of those who voted" sense, though we've already worked out he was being less than genuine as his numbers only pertained to white voters.

eire4

Billy86 wrote: »

Ah, got you on that first point. There is an aspect of gaming the system there alright, though that's typically to act as a parachute after he has driven a business into the ground (it is also is a reason he has allegedly had to seek loans abroad in places like Russia) and as you point out, it's not necessarily as easy as that when you're the POTUS.

Though the second point not to do with the election - Trump won that fair and square - just to do with the assertion that American's "don't care" about his taxes.

A slight aside, but if they do insist on keeping the EC system I really don't see why it's not weighted at say '1 EC seat per 100,000'. It would bring the total number to 3,189 EC votes, giving each Wyoming and Vermont 6 rather than their current 3, California 550, Texas 300, and so on, leading to a fairer representation of the population while allowing them to keep their antiquated system. Though I have a feeling one particular side of the aisle would kick up absolute blue murder if that were proposed. There's a very noticeable correlation.

http://4.1m.yt/yBHiJwv.png
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Red_and_Blue_States_Map_(Average_Margins_of_Presidential_Victory).svg

Certainly the current electoral college system is undemocratic on its face when it can put in office presidents against the wishes of the majority of those who voted. But the arguably even worse fact of the current system in terms of being undemocratic is that as things stand the vote of people in more populated states like California, Illinois or Texas counts less then the vote of a person in a less populated state like Wyoming or the Dakota's. That really is a quite amazing state of affairs for a country that claims it is a democracy.

eire4

Billy86 wrote: »

I'm guessing the statistic is in the "of those who voted" sense, though we've already worked out he was being less than genuine as his numbers only pertained to white voters.

I am guessing your right there on that being out of those who voted yes. But given how in this past election close to have the electorate did not vote it does matter as those stats give a very false impression.

eire4

Manic Moran wrote: »

I don't care.

The IRS seems to care, as they're doing the audits. Given that the US's tax system is stupidly complicated, I can barely do my own taxes, and likely cannot understand the various rules applicable to a multi-million dollar portfolio, I don't know what I'd do with them anyway. If Trump's done something wrong, I presume the IRS will figure it out. If he hasn't done anything wrong, I presume the IRS will not announce anything odd.

Aside from the fact that the popular vote statement is akin to saying that a someone got the highest jump in a long-jump competition, I'd also observe that if one discounts California, the popular vote of the remaining 49 States went for Trump. Goes to show just how disproportionate California is.

Republicans would love your approach there of voter suppression in discounting Californian votes.

Manic Moran

Not suppressing them. I'm making a point about the relevant weight of one single State in the election of the President of the Fifty States. People keep confusing the position with that of a single unified nation's people, which it is absolutely not. One can't rely on a "weight of numbers" approach and discount an alternate angle on that same approach, especially when the latter is actually more relevant to the nature of the country.

FatherTed

Manic Moran wrote: »

Not suppressing them. I'm making a point about the relevant weight of one single State in the election of the President of the Fifty States. People keep confusing the position with that of a single unified nation's people, which it is absolutely not. One can't rely on a "weight of numbers" approach and discount an alternate angle on that same approach, especially when the latter is actually more relevant to the nature of the country.

On the other hand we can say the Majority is being discounted and the minority are more relevant/important.

Manic Moran

eire4 wrote: »

Certainly the current electoral college system is undemocratic on its face when it can put in office presidents against the wishes of the majority of those who voted. But the arguably even worse fact of the current system in terms of being undemocratic is that as things stand the vote of people in more populated states like California, Illinois or Texas counts less then the vote of a person in a less populated state like Wyoming or the Dakota's. That really is a quite amazing state of affairs for a country that claims it is a democracy.

Well, to a point. Firstly, despite the fact that "undemocratic" arguments are only valid when one is attempting to view the US as an entity which it is not, it is worth pointing out that nobody seems to be complaining much about the British system where the party with the most votes has lost twice since WW2. Indeed, it is theoretically possible (although highly unlikely) for the party in the U.K. with the most votes to end up with zero seats in parliament. There is always going to be some level of undemocraticness in a functioning government, the exact philosophy behind the nature of that country indicates quite where that disconnect is.

The second point is a reflection of the first. The relative "weight" of a voter is directly related to the number of people voting, and for whom they voted. If CA's turnout was incredibly low, and one voter only voted, that voter provided 55 EC votes. They are entirely independed plurality systems. Thus, if you run the numbers, despite CA having the reputation of being the most "diluted" weight per voter, you'll find that in practice, it took fewer CA votes for Clinton to give her one EC vote (101635 per EC vote) than it took a slightly smaller state such as New York (142982) or a much smaller state like Maryland (149795).

Manic Moran

FatherTed wrote: »

On the other hand we can say the Majority is being discounted and the minority are more relevant/important.

You can, doesn't make it correct. 37 States voted for Trump for the position of President of the United States, vs 23 and a district for Clinton. Which side had the majority? EC weighting is a compromise between the fifty legally equal states, and the fact that some are bigger than others.

FatherTed

Manic Moran wrote: »

Well, to a point. Firstly, despite the fact that "undemocratic" arguments are only valid when one is attempting to view the US as an entity which it is not, it is worth pointing out that nobody seems to be complaining much about the British system where the party with the most votes has lost twice since WW2. Indeed, it is theoretically possible (although highly unlikely) for the party in the U.K. with the most votes to end up with zero seats in parliament. There is always going to be some level of undemocraticness in a functioning government, the exact philosophy behind the nature of that country indicates quite where that disconnect is.

The second point is a reflection of the first. The relative "weight" of a voter is directly related to the number of people voting, and for whom they voted. If CA's turnout was incredibly low, and one voter only voted, that voter provided 55 EC votes. They are entirely independed plurality systems. Thus, if you run the numbers, despite CA having the reputation of being the most "diluted" weight per voter, you'll find that in practice, it took fewer CA votes for Clinton to give her one EC vote (101635 per EC vote) than it took a slightly smaller state such as New York (142982) or a much smaller state like Maryland (149795).

Where did you get that number? Clinton got 8,753,788 votes in CA(source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_California,_2016 ) so 8,753,788 divided by 55 EC votes is 159159.78. Anyways that is an inaccurate way of calculating how much every EC vote is worth. You need to calculate it on the either the total population or total eligible voters. Otherwise you're disenfranchising the voters of the other candidates and non-voters because they have right to vote too. After all the ECs per state are the 2 senate seats plus the number of House seats. The House is calculated on population not who voted for a winning candidate.

Jimoslimos

Manic Moran wrote: »

Well, to a point. Firstly, despite the fact that "undemocratic" arguments are only valid when one is attempting to view the US as an entity which it is not, it is worth pointing out that nobody seems to be complaining much about the British system where the party with the most votes has lost twice since WW2. Indeed, it is theoretically possible (although highly unlikely) for the party in the U.K. with the most votes to end up with zero seats in parliament.

I have been extremely critical of the British FPTP system in the past. I would even go so far as saying that the most important referendum in the UK's recent history wasn't Brexit but rather the one held in 2011 on electoral reform (which didn't pass).

The only reason Trump's "minority" victory is being discussed is because some posters reckon that winning makes him beyond reproach and gives him carte blanche to do as he sees fit. He isn't simply going to be President of Those Who Voted for Him but (unfortunately) everybody else as well.

Manic Moran

Odd. Politico ( http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president ) and CNN (http://edition.cnn.com/election/results) are both showing 7.3m. I note that Wiki cites Politico as a source and provides a link, but the numbers don't match.

[Edit]I went to California Secretary of State. They're certifying 8.7million. Fair enough[/Edit]

They do have the right to vote, of course, but if they don't win, they may as well have never voted. That's why every State needs to be taken as an isolated case instead of simply tallying up the lot. As was mentioned, a large number of Republicans don't even bothering to show in California as it's pretty much a foregone conclusion. What's the point, if all they're worried about is the Presidential?
At least the House is subdivided into more districts where a Republican can win in California. As opposed to the Senate.

eire4

Manic Moran wrote: »

You can, doesn't make it correct. 37 States voted for Trump for the position of President of the United States, vs 23 and a district for Clinton. Which side had the majority? EC weighting is a compromise between the fifty legally equal states, and the fact that some are bigger than others.

The majority of people who bothered to vot voted for the losing side due to the patently undemocratic nature of the electorate process and that is before we even get started on the fact that even that system is dysfunctional, broken and corrupt which is why almost half of Americans (46%) did not even bother to vote I would contend.

eire4

Manic Moran wrote: »

Not suppressing them. I'm making a point about the relevant weight of one single State in the election of the President of the Fifty States. People keep confusing the position with that of a single unified nation's people, which it is absolutely not. One can't rely on a "weight of numbers" approach and discount an alternate angle on that same approach, especially when the latter is actually more relevant to the nature of the country.

Yes what a disgrace it would be to allow the millions of people who live in California, Illinois or Texas have their vote count the same as the people who live in Montana, Wyoming or Idaho what a terrible idea.

FatherTed

Manic Moran wrote: »

Odd. Politico ( http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president ) and CNN (http://edition.cnn.com/election/results) are both showing 7.3m. I note that Wiki cites Politico as a source and provides a link, but the numbers don't match.

[Edit]I went to California Secretary of State. They're certifying 8.7million. Fair enough[/Edit]

They do have the right to vote, of course, but if they don't win, they may as well have never voted. That's why every State needs to be taken as an isolated case instead of simply tallying up the lot. As was mentioned, a large number of Republicans don't even bothering to show in California as it's pretty much a foregone conclusion. What's the point, if all they're worried about is the Presidential?
At least the House is subdivided into more districts where a Republican can win in California. As opposed to the Senate.

You can say the same about democrats in majorly red states. Or even in blue states, I'm sure a lot of democrats in CA any NY said well my state is going blue anyway so why bother.

All the more reason that the EC is a flawed idea now. If it is based on popular vote, we would get a much bigger turnout. I would guess maybe 10% more.

In any case about the original topic, yes we should see Trump's tax returns. He complains about being audited but that didn't stop Nixon when he was being audit. The IRS commissioner has said the audit does not prevent him from releasing his returned plus he is being audited for years after 2009 so why can he release his returns up to 2008? But it doesn't matter much anyway because the election is over and no matter what is in his tax returns won't change the minds of the trump minority. He said it himself, he could go down 5th ave and shoot someone and nothing would happen to him.

SeamusFX

I think the linked article below concludes Trump is lying (again) when he said the American public did not care that he had not released his tax returns!

"He could not be more wrong. When I asked users on Twitter, the president-elect’s favored megaphone, to retweet if they cared about Mr. Trump’s tax returns, within hours more than 79,000 people responded.

The reason is simple. Without these returns, Americans cannot know whether he is using the presidency to enrich himself and his family. Americans won’t know whether a policy he proposes primarily benefits steelworkers in Pennsylvania or lines his own pocket.

They will also be unable to tell whether Mr. Trump is telling the truth when he claims to have no connections to Russia, contradicting public evidence and statements by his own son. His stated excuse about being under audit doesn’t pass the smell test. Previous presidents and nominees have released their returns under the same circumstances."


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/opinion/why-americans-care-about-trumps-tax-returns.html

Akrasia

Rightwing wrote: »

I don't see any poll here.
And no, I don't care about his taxes, or anyone's for that matter, smart people try to limit their taxes. Why waste your money on big Governments?

I don't care about his taxes either, but the fact that he won't release them is an admission that he has something very shady to hide.

I don't care about his personal finances, but I do want to know what he is hiding

eire4

FatherTed wrote: »

You can say the same about democrats in majorly red states. Or even in blue states, I'm sure a lot of democrats in CA any NY said well my state is going blue anyway so why bother.

All the more reason that the EC is a flawed idea now. If it is based on popular vote, we would get a much bigger turnout. I would guess maybe 10% more.

In any case about the original topic, yes we should see Trump's tax returns. He complains about being audited but that didn't stop Nixon when he was being audit. The IRS commissioner has said the audit does not prevent him from releasing his returned plus he is being audited for years after 2009 so why can he release his returns up to 2008? But it doesn't matter much anyway because the election is over and no matter what is in his tax returns won't change the minds of the trump minority. He said it himself, he could go down 5th ave and shoot someone and nothing would happen to him.

You are correct about that last quote from Trump himself about shooting someone on 5th avenue. But that would only apply to his hardcore supporters. Let us not forget almost half the electorate did not vote at all at 46% and of those who did vote he still finished second in votes cast. So I would venture to say seeing his tax returns is something that is important to a large chunk of Americans.

eire4

Akrasia wrote: »

I don't care about his taxes either, but the fact that he won't release them is an admission that he has something very shady to hide.

I don't care about his personal finances, but I do want to know what he is hiding

I am in complete agreement with you there. The fact that he has refused for so long to release his taxes makes me feel he has something to hide and as such I want to see them to see if indeed that is the case.

Manic Moran

Akrasia wrote: »

I don't care about his taxes either, but the fact that he won't release them is an admission that he has something very shady to hide.

There is a strong enough sentiment of non-co-operation even without anything to hide in the US. This from HuffPo, for example.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-morgan/5-reasons-you-should-neve_b_1292554.html

Who says there has to be anything to hide? There is no legal obligation for him to forfeit his privacy, why should he? Besides, the IRS has likely been paying close attention to him for a few years, by now. So far, they've not found anything untowards.

All the more reason that the EC is a flawed idea now. If it is based on popular vote, we would get a much bigger turnout. I would guess maybe 10% more.

A good reason to change the federal structure of the US is to get a bigger turnout for Presidential elections? I choose to live in California. I may not entirely agree with the politicians which run this place, but if the fact that this place votes Democratic all the time is that much of an anathema to me, I can always move to another part of this country which more closely reflects my opinions on things. However, as long as I live here, what happens in Nevada or Wyoming or New York, and how they select their preferences for President and in what numbers, is their business, not mine.

Billy86

Manic Moran wrote: »

A good reason to change the federal structure of the US is to get a bigger turnout for Presidential elections? I choose to live in California. I may not entirely agree with the politicians which run this place, but if the fact that this place votes Democratic all the time is that much of an anathema to me, I can always move to another part of this country which more closely reflects my opinions on things. However, as long as I live here, what happens in Nevada or Wyoming or New York, and how they select their preferences for President and in what numbers, is their business, not mine.

I don't get what point you're trying to make, how would changing the EC votes to a per-capita basis or making the Presidential election to a popular vote system somehow change how state level politics are ran internally? And how would it have changed any of the states that voted for Trump from still having voted for him, either by way of EC per capita representation, or by a majority of their own popular vote?

Akrasia

Manic Moran wrote: »

There is a strong enough sentiment of non-co-operation even without anything to hide in the US. This from HuffPo, for example.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-morgan/5-reasons-you-should-neve_b_1292554.html





Who says there has to be anything to hide? There is no legal obligation for him to forfeit his privacy, why should he? Besides, the IRS has likely been paying close attention to him for a few years, by now. So far, they've not found anything untowards.

If Trump had used this as a reason for not disclosing his taxes then you might have a point, but he hasn't. He has simply delayed and fudged the issue saying that he would release his taxes at some point in the future and now that the election is over, he's saying that there's no reason to because nobody cares.

Trump didn't take a principled stance, so the only other reason for not releasing this information is that he is hiding something.

It's probably something that is not illegal, or the IRS would have caught him in one of the audits, (and the fact that he's audited so often indicates that the IRS don't trust him) but it's likely to be something that is borderline illegal, or points at a very compromising financial status.

oscarBravo

Manic Moran wrote: »

Who says there has to be anything to hide? There is no legal obligation for him to forfeit his privacy, why should he? Besides, the IRS has likely been paying close attention to him for a few years, by now. So far, they've not found anything untowards.

You've used this approach in a couple of posts now, which suggests that the only thing a person could possibly have to hide in their tax returns is tax evasion.

I think that's about the only thing that people aren't expecting to see from someone who's under close IRS scrutiny. There are other things his tax returns could indicate, such as his level of indebtedness or his business dealings with Russia.

Of course, the only reason those things are interesting is because they would prove that he has lied, which - let's face it - isn't all that interesting, because we already know the man lies with pretty much every breath he takes.

Amerika

After the way the media has treated him and continues to do so as another time time old tradition of ‘respect for the office even if you disagree with the occupant’ has also been thrown out the window... at this point I don’t think he’ll ever release his tax returns while President. As with every sitting president his returns will be routinely audited as long as he is in office. The New Rudeness of the media will come back to haunt them as the days of letting the press filter his message and shape the conversation seem to be over. There are reports that the Trump administration may even eject reporters from their home in the West Wing to some other area.

eire4

Freedom of the Press and not respecting the first amendment and its protections on freedom of speach and freedom of the press are among the things I expect to see infringed continually under Trumps regime. It's what authoritarian demagogues like Trump do.

Of course the restrictions on the first amendment and freedom of the press in the US have been going underway for a while especially since Bush and certainly continued by Obama seeing the US fall to 46th in the world in terms of press freedom. I expect that authoritarian trend with regard to freedom of speach and freedom of the press to continue if not accelerate under Trump's regime.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/the-united-states-just-finished-46th-in-a-press-freedom-contest/283798/


As an aside I find it interesting that Republicans who bleat on incessantly about protecting the second amendment seem so quiet when it comes to the first amendment.

Amerika

eire4 wrote: »

Freedom of the Press and not respecting the first amendment and its protections on freedom of speach and freedom of the press are among the things I expect to see infringed continually under Trumps regime. It's what authoritarian demagogues like Trump do.

Of course the restrictions on the first amendment and freedom of the press in the US have been going underway for a while especially since Bush and certainly continued by Obama seeing the US fall to 46th in the world in terms of press freedom. I expect that authoritarian trend with regard to freedom of speach and freedom of the press to continue if not accelerate under Trump's regime.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/the-united-states-just-finished-46th-in-a-press-freedom-contest/283798/


As an aside I find it interesting that Republicans who bleat on incessantly about protecting the second amendment seem so quiet when it comes to the first amendment.

Oh, fear not. As long as Trump doesn't do anything really evil... like unleashing the IRS on his enemies, or acquire journalists' phone records, or persecute political opponents, or ignore Freedom Of Information Act requests, I think the First Amendment will survive. Perhaps if our MSM turns course form the lie machines they've become, they will start to again earn some of our respect.