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ericvick · 3 years

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Democrats are among the doubters of Biden’s plan to tax the rich

In April 2011, Barack Obama invoked the support of Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor, to try to persuade Congress to impose a minimum 30 per cent tax on Americans earning more than $1m per year. A wall of Republican opposition and scepticism from some moderate Democrats scuttled his effort.

Ten years later, Joe Biden is pursuing his own version of that mission with a plan for even more aggressive tax increases on the well-paid to help fund $1.8tn in spending on healthcare and education spanning a decade.

But tax lobbyists caution that the Democratic US president faces another uphill climb, putting the plan at risk of being watered down as lawmakers wrestle with it in the months to come. One stumbling block is likely to be Democrats from affluent districts including suburbs in New York, New Jersey, California and Illinois, on top of the predictable Republican opposition.

“Democrats have come to be reliant and responsive to a relatively wealthy base of support. So over-reach could expose them to political attacks and economic woes, which can alienate those voters,” said Mac Campbell, a former Democratic congressional aide and senior vice-president at Lincoln Policy Group, a lobbying firm.

The Biden administration’s plan contains a near-doubling of the tax rate on capital gains and dividends for Americans earning more than $1m a year, as well as a rise in the top income tax rate to 39.6 per cent. The moves would hurt rich investors including hedge fund managers and private equity executives.

The White House is counting on a big recent shift in popular opinion to favour higher taxes on the very wealthy, after high-earners fared well in the aftermath of the financial crisis and during the coronavirus pandemic, while low-income households struggled.

But the White House has already received a taste of the resistance: some Democratic legislators have been pushing hard for Biden to overturn a cap on federal deductions for state and local tax payments enacted by former president Donald Trump. The policy has increased costs for households in Democratic strongholds such as New York, New Jersey and California.

“Democrats from states with high taxes and costs of living have been laser-focused on repealing the cap on state and local tax deduction. The president’s team will need to affirmatively address or correct that policy if they want to have any success on raising capital gains taxes on the wealthiest Americans,” said Izzy Klein, a Democratic strategist and co-founder of Klein/Johnson Group, a bipartisan lobbying firm.

Biden certainly faces a better chance of raising taxes on the very wealthy than Obama did in 2011, when the Republicans had gained control of the House of Representatives and blocked many of his economic policies.

But Biden can only count on the slimmest of Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate.

“It’s going to be hard to keep everyone on board,” said one Democratic tax lobbyist. “I think the administration is being very aggressive, which probably serves their interests, but I’m not sure that Congress ultimately will be as aggressive. You’re probably going to see modulation of what ultimately gets done.”

Matt Bennett, the co-founder of Third Way, a centrist Democratic think-tank, said he believed an “intra-Democratic compromise” was almost certain to happen.

“One thing that Biden has done a pretty good job of is making the case that we don’t do a very good job in this country with our public policy of rewarding work, and levelling the playing field between earned and unearned ways of making money,” he added. “That is a pretty compelling, broadly resonant set of arguments.”

Prominent business groups have quickly questioned the capital gains tax proposal, however, which comes on top of Biden’s plan to increase corporate taxes to pay for a separate $2.3tn infrastructure proposal. Suzanne Clark, chief executive of the US Chamber of Commerce, told CNBC that she found the capital gains provision “scary” and signalled that the influential business lobby would campaign against it.

“The idea that we would punish people for investing in the economy right now just seems outrageous. I don’t think that can pass Congress and we’re going to make real sure of that,” she said.

Asked about the White House argument that the tax increase would affect only the richest 0.3 per cent of US households, Clark said that it would have a wider impact on the economy. “The data that concerns us is what it does to investment in public companies [and] what that does to middle class pensions,” she said.

A more muted tone emerged from the Investment Company Institute. The trade association for fund groups said it would analyse the proposal as it was developed, adding: “With tax policy, the devil is always in the details.”

Some investors urged Washington to consider maintaining different tax treatment for capital gains depending on how long securities were held before they were sold.

Colin Moore, global chief investment officer at Columbia Threadneedle Investments, said he expected increased sales of stocks that had recorded strong gains by wealthy investors before any higher capital gains taxes arrived next year. Yet equity markets have climbed further into record territory even as the odds of higher capital gains and corporate tax rates increase.

“You definitely have taxpayers who are looking at a proposed dramatic increase in the capital gains tax rate and saying, ‘If I had a gain I was going to recognise soon, in the next six months or a year, do I want to take a bath on that?’,” said Rohit Kumar, co-head of PwC’s Washington national tax services group.

As the debate begins on Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers are at the very least coalescing around the idea of improved funding for the Internal Revenue Service to better enforce the tax code, which they say could generate as much as $700bn in revenue over 10 years. Joe Manchin, the moderate Democratic senator from West Virginia, told CNN on Sunday that this option “should be explored before we start raising taxes exponentially”.

After Obama hit roadblocks in 2011, he succeeded in boosting the top income tax and capital gains rates after his re-election in 2012. In 2021, hope is growing on the Democratic party’s left flank that Biden may be able to follow through on his plans, even if he has not endorsed their bolder proposal for a wealth tax.

“A fairer tax system is about making our country better and stronger,” Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts, said on Tuesday. “It is about allowing us to make investments in our economy by asking the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share.”

#among #Bidens #Democrats #doubters #plan #rich #Tax

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berserker-official · 7 years

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Livestream 8/3

TODAY WAS ANOTHER BIG STREAM DAY

For Honor team announced Season 3: Grudge & Glory (Starts August 15th)

The second PTS is over, and while they are extremely grateful for all the data, more PTS will be on the way because the game will change and evolve, so keep an eye out.

If you’re on the subreddit, the mods are holding a giveaway for 20 Season 2 winner shirts. All you have to do is make content to help potential new players, like tutorial videos.

An event is going on this weekend. Realistic Elimination from August 4 to August 7. Orders will be available that go with the event.

New Content of the Week: 14 new emotes (The sports emotes that were datamined earlier) and 2 new executions for Centurion and Shinobi.

Highlander and Gladiator Revealed

The Highlander is a hard Viking Hybrid with two different forms or stances, defensive and offensive. I assume that since he wields the claymore, the heaviest weapon in the game so far, he might come with big unblockable swings with a lot of range.

Gladiator is a Knight Assassin (can be either male or female!) and should not be considered a Cent 2.0. Gladiator is supposed to be faster and can have some range and separation attacks. It is also said that Gladiator will have a larger stamina pool and faster stamina regen.

New Maps

Sentinel: A ruined castle that comes with a mounted ballista to shoot players

Viking Village: A small shot of the village shows the possibility of lethal obstacles like a spiked barrel that rolls downhill

PTS stuff that is coming to Season 3:

Chip Damage: Changed to 18% across the board. It only applies to regular block. Non-lethal, but the percentage stacks with equipment stats like the chip damage stat, and is not affected by stats like attack or defense.

Revenge activation is now immune to melee attacks. In revenge, you won’t be interrupted by melee attacks, but your melee attacks won’t knock down opponents. This means Cent players can’t knock you down, but as a Cent you can’t knock players down. Other heroes with melee attacks like Warlord are affected by this as well. Shield boost is up from 50 to 75.

There were changes to the parry system in the PTS that will NOT be in the update when Season 3 comes out.

Reducing melee attack stuns on certain attacks so you don’t get locked in a Cent Gank Hellhole.

Certain attacks that have superior block or armor is gone when out of stamina.

Guard switch problems with reflex guard is fixed. An example is when an assassin class wants to block top but reflex guard has them stuck at a different direction which causes you to get hit.

Warlord crashing charge bug which locks the opponent and forces them to get carried long distances is fixed.

Lawbringer’s Blind Justice attack can now be feinted and can use shove on hit.

Other bug fixes and changes listed, but not shared. When the full patch notes drop I’ll write it all down.

Faction War

New territories will be added

Active Duty achievement bug fixed

New feature: War Banner Before you start matches you can deploy a War Banner onto one of your territories, then any assets you gain will automatically be applied to that territory. This still counts as a manual deployment so now you can help your faction without having to constantly deploy.

Among the For Honor devs, Team Onion is the group working on Project Onion, or the Dedicated Servers. The reason it’s an onion is because this project requires time and layers, as well as a lot of crying. They’re also assisting with the Tournament and Ranked modes, which will be arriving in Season 3 in beta. Console and PC players can now play the Duel Tourney mode. Anti-Run penalty will be implemented in both Tourney Duels and normal Duels.

Rematch flow fix. Usually at the end of the match, if there aren’t enough players the game throws you back into the main menu. Now you will be thrown back into matchmaking. If you’re in a group they will follow.

In duel or brawl you can now choose if you want to play the same opponents in a rematch or to go back into matchmaking for new players.

For PC players, a text chat privacy option will be available. This is similar to Overwatch text chat where you can text your group, your team, or everyone in the match. Based on your settings, if you’re in the group scope, you will not be able to see the anybody else’s chats. So if the other team is extremely toxic but you’re in the group or team scope you won’t see the toxic text.

PvAI rewards are back in duel.

Plea to help nip toxicity in the bud. The devs are trying their best to stop it, but there’s only so much they can do. Help them by reporting toxic players.

New Rep Level cap and Equipment

Rep Level 40 with rewards exclusively for high rep heroes (like the rep locked outfits)

Legendary rarity equipment. 4 new weapons and 2 new sets of armor for every hero except for the Season 3 heroes (since they’re brand new)

When you reach Rep 7 you’ll start getting legendary gear.

To react to the new gear, rarity scaling, loot cost, and drop rates after maps are changed. Now newer heroes will get better gear faster to catch up sooner.

Hero customization UI change

Emote and execution menus now have live recordings of the emotes and executions so you can see them in real time with your hero and effect. This also combats against the datamining leaks since they aren’t videos.

Changes to ledge-heavy duel maps

Overwatch: Trap door hell. Now instead of instantly opening there is a timer on the doors. The timer is not revealed yet in hopes players can either be in better positions or already dead before the trap doors open. The bridge is also getting wider, spawning both players on the two separate bridges so they can meet up in the middle area, where the Dominion point A is located.

Forest: The bridge map is now replaced with the area under the bridge.

Tower Ruins: The top of the tower map is now replaced with the gardens area near the bottom of the tower. In addition the spawn point next to the ledging fountain on one side and the broken fence on the other is being changed. The fence will be fully up so you either have to fight or try to drag someone to the fountain.

Map placement is important, and if players move to a certain spot on a map then it deserves to be looked at. Level editors is also willing to look at feedback for brawl maps (I’m probably going to ask about the Forest and Village maps which are slightly problematic) on the For Honor forums.

Hero Series finals and Caster Competition winners

NA PC: Barace, Bandanaa, Skorbrand, SypherPK, Kiritiv

NA PS4: RavelordServant

NA XB1: Seraph

Brazil PC: btU.LorenSid-

EU PC: S O L i p s, Clutchmeister, SB.Alernakin, ZeBiofuze, Hhhhmmm m1, Hanzax

EU PS4: Jamelfr

EU XB1: Ark6712

Casters: KingRichard15, VividNaz

Next Week we get an in-depth look at the Gladiator and Highlander

#For Honor #For Honor Season 3 #long post #berserker speaks

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