Charlotte and I were at a Veterans Day breakfast a few years ago held at our Town Hall. Many local politicians were there, our mayor, town council members and even a couple state reps too.
It was a very relaxing event held solely to honor the town’s veterans. (Side note, I always hate being “thanked” for my service as if I made some sacrifice on behalf of the country. I went into the Army because I had nowhere else to go. The Army saved me, so it’s me who should be thanking YOU the taxpayer, not the other way around.)
Anyway, so we’re sitting there talking to one of our councilmembers when some old, crusty guy takes a seat next to us. He immediately went into a diatribe about some issue regarding how things should be done differently in the town and why isn’t the town council member doing something, blah, blah, blah.
The town councilman was courteous but somewhat curt saying that this isn’t the forum to talk about this and asked the guy to please see him at his office or better yet appear at the next town council meeting to address all the members.
The crusty guy wasn’t having it and kept monologuing about the issue. Finally, the town councilman said in a very stern voice something along the lines of “look sir, you interrupted my conversation with these people. We are here now to honor our veterans. Stop being rude.” To which the crusty guy finally slivered off to go annoy the next guy he came across.
When the clown left, I asked the councilman, ‘how do you deal with these people? They’d drive my insane.” He responded in a very political way, “it’s just part of the job.” I noticed he didn’t run for reelection next cycle though.
Why do I bring this up? Because politics sucks. Everyone knows how to do it better than you. And I mean EVERYONE. Just ask ’em and they’ll tell ya. And this brings me to the current iteration of Trump’s Big and Beautiful tax bill.
It’s not perfect, far from it as a matter of fact. But it’s good. Yet people will still gripe about this, that or the other. In fact, the funniest thing is watching people who never even voted for Trump saying that the bill doesn’t have a provision he campaigned on in it, to make Social Security tax free. That makes me laugh. I say “you didn’t even vote for the guy and you’re griping about his tax bill not containing more tax cuts?”
You can’t win with these people, so the best thing to do is mock ’em by following Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.
“Use ridicule to infuriate your enemy, which then reacts to your advantage”
In the House version of Trump’s tax bill there is NO provision to make Social Security tax free. All the naysayers will then jump on this and say “Trump lied. Trump isn’t living up to his promises. Orange man bad!” etc. We’ve heard it all before, of course.
Obviously, you can get into the details and say “well this is just the COMMITTEE’s version of the bill, it has yet to be voted on by the full House never mind the Senate.” But that would be stupid. You don’t make friends with salad. You make friends with meat. And the meat of the House version is massive tax savings for Seniors which I go over in this video.
To the naysayers simply ask them if a tax savings of 50% isn’t worth it? They’ll say “What are you talking about? That’s not in the bill?”
“Oh, yes it is because the simple fact is if Trump’s tax bill doesn’t get passed your taxes will rise by 50%. Thus, as logic would dictate, this bill will save you 50% in taxes.” I prove this in the video. So definitely check it out.
Remember when it comes to political debate you never, EVER cede the premise. Again, back to Saul Alinsky:
Make enemies live up to their own book of rules, since they can “no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity”.
If getting more money into the hands of working people is important. which most anti-Trumpers say it is, than we MUST pass Trump’s tax bill because it does exactly that. Yes, I wish it specifically stated in the House Bill about no tax on Social Security. It doesn’t. So move on.
Hopefully, it will be a stand-alone bill the House will propose at one time. How great would that be to have the Democrats on record as having to vote to have people’s Social Security benefits taxed.
Talk about a political win/win.
A. We pass a stand alone bill removing taxes on Social Security benefits or
B. We show the voters it’s the Democrats who want to reduce Social Security.
I don’t think the Republicans are smart enough to do a stand-alone Social Security bill of course. They are the Washington Generals after all, paid to play but to always lose. But man we can dream can’t we.
So, while the no tax on Social Security isn’t in this bill yet, again, this is just the COMMITTEE’s version,it’s still a good bill because it stops a 50% tax hike from coming. If you want to pay 50% more tax, be my guest, there is nothing stopping you from doing that now.
I’d rather not though. So, while the bill isn’t perfect, it’s much better than the alternative of NO bill being passed and thus a tax hike.