CardinalBacker

So you understand that if habeas corpus is suspended, NOBODY has rights to due process, right? When habeas corpus is suspended, the executive (or any branch) can throw you in jail for anything, without charges, without a conviction…. Nothing. And you have zero rights until “the invasion” is over. Speak out against the supreme ruler? Imprisoned with no rights. No trial, no bond, no indictment-just imprisoned. A “political prisoner” if you will. The last time it was done was during the civil war when Washington DC was in danger of being overrun during the civil war.

I’d be a little less certain if they weren’t already sending people to gulags in foreign countries without any due process… I’d hate to see how bad it gets if they lost what little restraints that are in place now.

You’re right. The way that the process typically works is that the CAD looks at nuts and bolts. Square footage multiplied by a value per foot and sets your appraised value. They’ll usually make correction if you protest with an actual error, like “that storage building has been gone for two years” or something along those lines… if you have a question of value (like a deteriorated driveway or a partially finished interior), they usually stick by their calculations. You’ll then need to ask for a hearing by the Appraisal Review Board-they’re independent citizens that mediate disputes between the CAD appraisers and the taxpayers. They’ve got more leeway to adjust value than the appraisers that are working exclusively off of ratios and numbers. The only time that I’ve had success arguing value with the CAD was one year when I’d paid for an independent appraisal for a home equity loan in that exact year, and the detailed report from the independent appraiser swayed the county appraiser to adjust the value downward before I went to see the ARB-and I think it happened because they knew I’d prevail at the ARB hearing with my evidence. But we still negotiated a little bit.

You’re not wrong. The CAD is trying to make sure that your appraised value is within 95-105% of its actual market value this year. Sometimes they’re on point and sometimes they’re way off. BUT, if my house has a sale price of $100k, I don’t leave the table with $100k. By the time you back out closing costs, a survey, title policy, buyer concessions and realtor fees, I’d be doing good to leave the take with $87k. I’m annually paying property tax on the fees that were paid once to others. That’s not fair IMO… but I don’t know how to make it any more fair. I don’t disagree with your driveway scenario, but like they said-the value of paving isn’t considered as a part of your CAD appraisal. Two mostly identical houses…Should somebody with a long driveway pay more than somebody with a short one? Same goes with fences… i don’t have one, but neighbor has a bunch of money tied up in a four rail fence and remote controlled entry gate. They just don’t consider those things. There’s good ground and bad ground. Some pastures stay wet half of the year, but others drain immediately-the acreage is taxed the same while we all agree that the actual values would vary greatly. It’s an inexact science that should be explained better, but it’s hard to reason when the typical response is made in anger.

Thanks for asking. I’m opposed to doing away with property taxes for a few reasons- primarily, in regards to “how will we replace this tax revenue?” If you normally pay $3k per year in property taxes, you’d just expect to pick it up elsewhere, through sales tax or an excise (vat) tax. The only problem is that the redistribution of that burden won’t be passed down evenly. Parkdale Mall Will no longer pay property taxes, but WILL pay a higher sales tax on the lightbulbs and toilet paper that they buy. They’re going to pay way less. A guy that owns a dozen rent houses will see his property tax bill shrink dramatically. Will he pass the savings on to his tenants? Of course not. The people renting won’t see any change at all in their cost of living. But the average Joe Homeowner who’s already having trouble making ends meet will surely see an increase in the cost of everything he buys to survive. It’s been proven that increases in sales taxes hurt lower income people worse than wealthy people. A larger percentage of their income will be spent on taxes, while people with multiple properties see their tax liability decrease. Another HUGE problem is that money won’t be collected locally. Your sales tax dollars will be collected by an agency of the state that will then redistribute the funds as they see fit. Good luck getting those hairy-legged women in the Peoples’ Republic of Austin to send anything back our way. How well can rural counties lobby against the Harris, Bexar, Dallas, and Tarrant counties? We’ll all be sucking hind teat, if you know what I mean. The cost of education is high. Right now the average annual spending per student in Texas is almost $10k/year. Assuming you had three kids at home, could you afford to educate them at a cost of $30k per year? I sure couldn’t. Most people who have kids in school simply can’t afford to shoulder the cost of educating them by themselves. That’s how we ended up spreading the cost of their education among all property owners. I’m not saying that property taxes are fair, but it’s the most fair system that we’ve got. And to be frank, the voting public will vote against their own interests when instructed to. I’d be amazed if you didn’t just vote for politicians here in Texas that were in favor of giving tax dollars to rich parents to offset the cost of private education for their spoiled brats. Not necessarily you personally, but Texans as a group just sent their legislators to Austin with a mandate to make vouchers for private school for rich kids a public responsibility, while simultaneously arguing that “taxation is theft.” It’s bananas.

Great question. I think at all points in time the US has been great, with some obvious missteps and problems along the way. Those have been addressed, such as the ending of slavery, civil rights Act of 1964, etc… America of today isn’t exceptional, other than the greed and laziness of its citizens. We’re all entitled to everything, but feel no obligation to contribute anything. We’ve borrowed ourselves into a no-win situation and I’m of the opinion that we’re going to topple eventually. We can blame political parties, but at the end of the day it’s the public who’s to blame. One of the things that MAGA taps into is a longing for the love of country. There are still a lot of people who feel patriotic and love their country. They would like to see America once again be a land of promise, but don’t have the sophistication to see that the current admin is doing nothing about it, other than branding the emotion for political purposes. Cutting taxes won’t work. Raising taxes won’t work, either. The only solution is to cut spending, and that’s something that the politicians that we keep electing will not even talk about because they know that the voting public won’t allow it…. On any issue. What are we doing today that makes us great? All we can do is point at our history and say “look back at what we were.”

Are we back up to where it was when Biden was running things?

This.

I think that’s what’s important to note. It’s important to remember that Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, and Joe Biden all won elections, too. It’s okay to say “yeah, I voted for him, but this isn’t working out like he said it would-it’s a little concerning.” It’s the ones who say “oh, none of this matters… Trump won and this is all his plan. Art of the Deal!” Those are the guys who just don’t have any sense.

Just take a look at what’s happening with cargo coming into our west coast ports. Or not coming in, as it were. It’s the New Golden Age (don’t forget to stock up on toilet paper). If it turns out in a few weeks that we’re dealing with pandemic-like shortages based on Trumps Willy-nilly tariff debacle, he won’t have any place to hide. Neither will his supporters. China is about to put the hurt on the USA. “Nuh uh! They need our money!” Wrong they’ve still got plenty of our money, and especially not when we have to keep sending piles of cash their way, not for consumable goods, but to repay the loans that they’ve already made to us. And if we default it will destroy our economy. How’s that retirement check gonna handle $100 for a loaf of bread? My opinion is that we’re in a bad spot. How soon can we expect trump to announce that somebody… ANYBODY is willing to make a trade deal with us? So far the tariff policies have resulted in exactly zero agreements. They aren’t blinking, so Trump paused them for 90 days. We’re in an exceptionally bad spot.

Good news is that Trump ordered that the pollsters be investigated and hopefully imprisoned. [Hidden Content]

Because Trump put the tariffs on or took them off? And what is your prediction of what will happen in 83 days? Back on or still off, and will a change make your current boast seem even more baseless?

“124.” My grandparents lived through it and had stories. Even in their old age they would save two peas and call it “leftovers.” One point that stuck with me was my grandfather said that people would stop by the house and knock on the door, hat in hand, and ask for permission to go out into your field/garden and see if they could find anything that had been left behind-also that men would offer to work in exchange for food. But if it happened today (the 1980s), people would just kill you and take what they wanted. Then think about how far we’ve declined in terms of decency and work ethic since the ‘80s. It’s scary.

We were so poor my mama cut the pockets out of my pants on Christmas Eve so I’d have something to play with on Christmas morning.

Here’s the thing… the spending cuts are minuscule compared to the overspending. He’s also cutting taxes, not raising them. And unemployment numbers are up, not down-we’re losing jobs, not creating them. What is an American automaker supposed to do? Today there’s a 25% tariff on imports, so I start a five year plan to build a factory over here instead of elsewhere. Then the tariff gets paused for 90 days. Do I build? Do I wait? How can a business owner make future plans when the man at the controls is so erratic? Pretend you own a metal building business. How can you bid a job when you don’t know what your cost of goods sold is good to be, because you don’t know what your pricing for steel will be… should you buy foreign or domestic? Gotta be careful, because the consumer will hire whoever is cheapest without a second thought of where the materials were sourced and you’ll be left with a bunch of overpriced inventory you can’t move. True story… a friend of mine bought some metal sheeting week before last and it was marked up 25% due to “the tariffs.” When he looks at the sheets they’re stamped “made in the USA.” So he asked the guy, “wait… there aren’t any tariffs on this steel” and the guy says, “well, that’s what it’s going to cost us to replenish our stock after we sell this batch.” That, my friends, is inflation brought on by haphazard tariff policy that is 100% paid by the American consumer, not “CHI-NA.”

It’s reality, my man… our debt is becoming our undoing. DOGE claims to have saved 150 billion in waste. That’s a one time savings. Our debt payment for the first six months of this fiscal year was 582 billion. And that’s gonna be due again, and again, and again. And it’s only going to grow as more older debt matures and must be refinanced at today’s higher rates. And since we’re now borrowing 1 out of every three dollars the us spends, we’re screwed.

I’d agree, but we only pay for about 18%…. Borrowing the other 7% for a couple of decades has sunk our ship, I’m afraid.

American exceptionalism is a thing of the past. We are no longer the big kid on the block. How are we supposed to stand up to China when they literally loan us the money that fuels our economy? We haven’t won an armed conflict since WWII. Which ended 80 years ago, btw. It’s time to make tough choices in America.

No, sir… the cost don’t compare. DOGE’s questionable cuts don’t even begin to do anything about the debt. I think the last number I saw was that DOGE had saved 50 billion. That means that this year, after DOGE cuts, wellness need to 1.78 trillion instead of 1.83 trillion. The cuts mean nothing. There are too many people that aren’t contributing. Either because they won’t work, or they don’t pay income taxes (Trump, Musk, and the like). Nobody wants to see the old or sick do without, but our welfare system is simply an easy alternative to having a job. Plus the mountains and mountains of wasteful spending at all levels of government. Here’s the tricky part, though. Even if we borrow those funds to pass out wastefully, it still ends up back in the economy. Those EBT dollars? They still get spent and become part of our gdp. Our entire way of life has been a farce because we as a nation didn’t have the money to do all of those things.

Here’s the problem. We’ve got the second highest deficit recorded ever for the first half of fiscal year 2025. [Hidden Content] The only time our deficit spending for a similar time period was in the first half of fiscal year 2021… the pandemic. The payments made on our debt in this year window were $582 billion, up 10% from a year ago. Our cost to borrow has exploded at the same time our borrowing is exploding, too. We have to cut spending and raise taxes, period. Anything else is not going to work. And I have no idea why Trump is trying to play tough with China on trade when they OWN most of our debt. They sent us consumables and we gave them our treasure. Our greed required us to then borrow “our old money” back from them to survive, and now rates have gone up, as they were always prone to do. People don’t realize how badly we’re hooked at this point. It’s time for Americans to realize that the way things have been (borrowing to cover everyday expenditures on a federal level) wasn’t sustainable.

Well, he sure created it overnight, didn’t he?

Well… things were moving slowly when Trump took over, then he made tax cuts which exploded the debt, but heated up the economy. Then then it all went to hell in 2020… we were in worse shape when he left than when he took office. Biden took over and inflation ramped up, then eased… but the economy was in better shape when Biden left office than when he took office. Trump inherited a steady, but not hot economy this January, then destabilized everything with his haphazard approach to tariffs. There’s not forethought or strategy, he just picks who he’s mad at each morning. Inflation is up, oil prices are crashing, unemployment is headed up, the stock market is down… America and the rest of the world can’t make a rational decision about investing in the future because trump has proven that he doesn’t mind trimming 20% off of the value of our publicly held wealth if it gets him a few “attaboys” from his minions. It’s obvious to everyone but his devoted followers that he doesn’t know what he’s doing and it’s hurting all of us.

Ok… here’s my sarcasm-free perspective. Other countries charge tariffs for goods we export. Americans have preferred that tariffs NOT be charged on good into this country because we like cheap stuff. They send consumables our way and we send treasures back theirs. At the end of the day, we aren’t “paying” their tariffs on our goods. Their citizens cover those costs at the point of purchase. But by the same token, they aren’t going to be laying “our” new tariffs, either. Those costs will be passed on the American consumer by way of higher prices. They idea that we’re somehow “sticking it to China” with a 145% tariff collected on Chinese goods that you and I will pay at the cash register is laughable. I’m all for balancing the trade deficit. But that’s impossible unless Americans are willing to pay more to buy American goods. It sounds good on paper, but there’s a reason business moved their production overseas…. They couldn’t compete because Americans don’t care whether Nikes are made here or in the Philippines… We’ve been preaching “buy American since the 1970s and it hasn’t happened. And it won’t. Personally I’m in favor of a smaller trade deficit and I believe that tariffs are a decent way to try and even things out. But it’s hard to argue with a straight face that Trump’s approach has been anything but disastrous. All he’s proven is that trillions of dollars of wealth can disappear with a few stupid tweets, and it really looks like he doesn’t know what he’s doing-and that makes investors, lenders, businesses very, very bearish.

Biden rebuilt the economy. Trump destroyed it… twice.

Trump invokes tariffs. baddog: “this creates American jobs!” Trump revokes tariffs. baddog: “Art of the Deal!” Trump re-invokes tariffs. baddog: “this creates American jobs!” Trump revokes tariffs again. baddog: “Art of the Deal!” His haphazard approach to tariffs is wrecking faith in the economy. How does a business plan for anything when Trump might do something without notice that send the markets careening up or down. I’m fully expecting him to turn those B2s on Iran by Easter, just to wreak havoc. He can’t help himself.