Comment by rezonant | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rezonant | Hacker News Reader

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So that would be this Finance committee right?

> The Senate Finance Committee roster for the 118th Congress includes 14 Democrats and 13 Republicans, with three new GOP members recently appointed.

> https://tax.thomsonreuters.com/news/senate-finance-finalizes...

Hardly an unbeatable majority for Democrats on this committee. Especially since research and development is one of the main reasons taxation on higher income classes is effective: The idea is you'll be taxed if you want to take it as profit, but if you advance the state of the art, innovate, or create new technology then you can deduct that. The high tax rates of the US post WWII up to Reagan worked so well because of this combination: It was incentivized for businesses to reinvest their profits into R&D, since they'd hopefully be able to scale their profits if the R&D was successful.

I think it's not as clear cut as "the Democrats" or "the Republicans" here-- especially since there would probably be a requirement that the shortfall be made up in some other way in order to balance the effects on revenue.

> I think it's not as clear cut as "the Democrats" or "the Republicans" here-- especially since there would probably be a requirement that the shortfall be made up in some other way in order to balance the effects on revenue

For the 10th time in this thread, the repealing bill DID NOT need to be revenue neutral since it had Republican support, all it needed was 60 votes in the Senate. Reconciliation only applies if a yearly budget bill can get at least 51 votes but not 60.

Sorry, I feel like I am taking crazy pills. I stated the same in another comment and was downvoted. I know HN is liberal biased but it's becoming unusable if you as much dare to criticize democrats.

No need to repeat yourself. Why are you getting so worked up? I think we'd all like to understand what the hold up was on these bills, but let's base that in supported facts, not partisanship.

As stated above, it was 14 to 13 by party lines in this committee, and that's a negligible difference.

Two bills were passed with zero Republican votes in 2021 and 2022 by Democrats, the repeal could've been included in either if democrats wanted.

> As stated above, it was 14 to 13 by party lines in this committee, and that's a negligible difference

There were only 27 members in the committee. So all the Democrats on the committee voted against the repeal and all the republicans voted for the repeal.

How is that a negligible difference? That's a massive maximum difference between the parties, in fact it was impossible to have a higher difference.

Do you have the voting records of this bill in committee? Of course there were 27 members, that's the sum of the Democrats and Republicans. That does not mean that they voted on party lines in committee.

> it's becoming unusable if you as much dare to criticize democrats.

Is this situation right now really "unusable"? Aren't you overreacting just a tad? People might disagree with you, I'd hope you'd be able to have a conversation without getting upset.

> Is this situation right now really "unusable"?

Quite literally unusable because I got blocked by HN from commenting for more than two hours coz of all the politically motivated downvotes. If you have the right politics, keep commenting!

> I'd hope you'd be able to have a conversation

See above, literally not able to have one because I dared to criticize Democrats for their actions and inactions that led to tech job losses for over two years.

> People might disagree with you

I'm open to arguments but looks like people disagree with the facts that I am bringing forward, so they're downvoting to suppress them to lower visibility and to discourage me from participating on here.

It's like on Reddit when you state a plain fact 'Musk founded SpaceX' in reply to a highly upvoted comment that said 'Musk bought all this companies' and get heavily downvoted and even permanently banned in large subs by highly biased moderators.

This place is turning into yet another BlueSky or Reddit where facts don't matter and only a one sided political narrative is pushed at all times. Don't think it's worth engaging. I don't want to be in a place where my comments are deemed so terrible that I get max downvoted and then unable to comment for several hours.

Ironically, such controlling behavior and shutting down of facts, criticism of one side and conversation is leading more and more people to vote for the other side. I am now ashamed of being a lifelong liberal and won't vote democrat till people change this obnoxious partisan behavior on platforms like this one.

So your opinions are unpopular and people are tired of responding to the same points over and over again?

Hacker News is far from a bastion of left wingers, many people have complained about liberal and progressive ideas being downvoted as well. Above all, this platform isn't made for political debate, and it is not encouraged. If it makes you feel better, not a single one of my posts in all this has much or any upvotes. If you are looking for political validation, this ain't the place for it.

> people are tired of responding to the same points over and over again

For example, not a single person has addressed the fact that that the Democrats platform is to raise taxes on corporations, which this change accomplished during their watch. So I have to keep bringing it up. People are downvoting facts that they don't like, for political reasons and to reduce visibility.

Anyway you're right, this is not worth my time or effort. There is no open exchange of facts or ideas, it's just party line downvoting to suppress them. It's best not to engage at all, just like all the others with alternate viewpoints that stopped engaging on here. That's what the downvoters want anyway, they win. The only way I can possibly make a difference to combat this behavior is changing how I vote at the ballot box.

I actually addressed that in an edit to a parent post:

> [Deductions on] research and development is one of the main reasons taxation on higher income classes is effective: The idea is you'll be taxed if you want to take it as profit, but if you advance the state of the art, innovate, or create new technology then you can deduct that. The high tax rates of the US post WWII up to Reagan worked so well because of this combination: It was incentivized for businesses to reinvest their profits into R&D, since they'd hopefully be able to scale their profits if the R&D was successful.

Not sure how it addresses the fact that Democrats want higher taxes on corporations regardless of what you stated, hence they didn't act to stop this on their watch. You're just arguing that Democrats were wrong to let the R&D exception expire, which I already agree with.

Even after this recent change by Republicans, increasing corporate taxes(say after the 2028 elections if Democrats are elected) means there is less money leftover to spend on R&D.

> increasing corporate taxes(say after the 2028 elections if Democrats are elected) means there is less money leftover to spend on R&D.

You misunderstand how tax exemptions work.

When you make money, you need to pay taxes on that money. However, if you spend that money in certain ways, the tax code lets you take that amount of money and _deduct_ it from your overall taxable income. Thus, you pay taxes on _less_ of the money you earned. Imagine the tax rate was 100%, but you could deduct 100% of R&E expenses, and you spent 100% of your income on R&E. You would pay zero dollars in taxes.

> Imagine the tax rate was 100%, but you could deduct 100% of R&E expenses, and you spent 100% of your income on R&E. You would pay zero dollars in taxes.

No. The Democrats added a new minimum corporate tax last time they were in power. As I have to keep repeating, their policies and actions are all about taxing companies more which why they didn't repeal the R&D exemption removal. They consider it a tax loophole that companies abuse to pay less taxes.

Kamala's proposal was to increase the minimum corporate further.

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