Pizzuto

Here is how this will work, and please note that each round both parties will act Round 1: Each choice will impact affinity ratings, in a blanket way, for each player in the DNC and GOP. GOP- President will narrow their SCOTUS choice down the 3 individuals. They will then take their nominee to 5 Senators of their choice to determine their commitment to ensuring consent. DNC- Will choose general strategy from a list of choices only they will see at first, but that will be posted upon giving me their choice. Each choice has a point value associated with it. Admin- Will give a momentum update regarding public will and popularity. Round 2: Each choice will impact affinity ratings, in a blanket way, for each player in the DNC and GOP. GOP- President will select one individual to nominate and choose their general strategy from a list of choices only they will see at first, but that will be posted upon giving me their choice. Each choice has a point value associated with it. DNC- Will choose their Senate procedural strategy from a list of choices only they will see at first, but that will be posted upon giving me their choice. Each choice has a point value associated with it. They will also consult 5 Senators of their choice to determine their commitment to voting to confirm, or not. Admin- Will give a momentum update regarding public will and popularity based on Round 1 choices. Round 3: Each choice will impact affinity ratings, in a blanket way, for each player in the DNC and GOP. GOP- Will choose pressure strategy to ensure passage from a list of choices only they will see at first, but that will be posted upon giving me their choice. Each choice has a point value associated with it. DNC- Will choose pressure strategy to ensure passage from a list of choices only they will see at first, but that will be posted upon giving me their choice. Each choice has a point value associated with it. Admin- Will give a momentum update regarding public will and popularity based on Round 2 choices. Round 4: Each choice will impact affinity ratings, in a blanket way, for each player in the DNC and GOP. GOP- Will choose question strategy to be used during hearings from a list of choices only they will see at first, but that will be posted upon giving me their choice. Each choice has a point value associated with it. DNC- Will choose question strategy to be used during hearings from a list of choices only they will see at first, but that will be posted upon giving me their choice. Each choice has a point value associated with it. Admin- Will give a momentum update regarding public will and popularity based on Round 3 choices. Round 5: Each choice will impact affinity ratings, in a blanket way, for each player in the DNC and GOP. GOP- Will decide on one last pressure strategy with, GOP Senators, to ensure consent, from a list of choices only they will see at first, but that will be posted upon giving me their choice. Each choice has a point value associated with it. DNC- Will decide on one last pressure strategy with, DNC Senators, to ensure consent, from a list of choices only they will see at first, but that will be posted upon giving me their choice. Each choice has a point value associated with it Admin- Will tally Senate votes and alert the players about confirmation. Any left over points will be given to the party to apply to affinity ratings So what exactly is happening here: -The GOP is deciding how controversial their nominee is going to be, and what tactics they want to use to get this person over the finish line. This will impact how many points they probably have to spend to get their nominee over the hump, and it will determine how the public views their process for filling the vacancy. The less controversial the choice, the more points will probably be left over to add to their affinity rating. In other words, if you go along to get along, people will see you as being able to govern and your affinity rating will be higher due to left over points.....but watch out for your base! -The DNC is deciding exactly how much they want to invest in either stopping this nominee, or letting this nominee pass. If they invest in stopping the nominee their base may be happy, but if the nominee is uncontroversial, it will not only use up tons of points, but could brand you as obstructionist. How will that play to the moderates?

Ok team, so the issue with the CBO report was that the source data I was using strangely had 2 different sets of numbers that varied wildly. I've decided to essentially combine the disparate numbers into something holistic while also using some common sense and secret sauce. The cost will stay the same, and this cost is YEARLY. But for the impact on GDP, rather than break it down by short and long term, and rather than put a %, I will instead put it as a dollar amount added to GDP for ease of use. Dynamic CBO Score for Working Class Tax Relief Act:  Section 2. Revenue lost per year: $127.44Bil  Positive impact on GDP: Year 1: $43.26Bil Year 2: $78.77Bil Year 3: $99.28Bil Year 4: $108.61Bil Year 5: $120.58Bil Year 6: $167.09Bil Year 7: $201.33Bil Year 8: $239.88Bil The gist here is that this section will be a net loser in the short term, but as that money sloshes around the private sector we do see some decent growth. Ill note that we could see numbers that come in much higher or lower than these numbers depending on what the economy overall does. That's how I'll sim and make some sense of the wild discrepancy in numbers I saw.

Dynamic CBO Score for Working Class Tax Relief Act: Section 2. Revenue lost: $127.44Bil Impact on short term GDP: 0% Impact on long term GDP: +.008% (in other words GDP will rise 8/100ths of a % because of this piece of legislation)

LilMac chooses NSA and Dep. Sec DHS. Sandra Leon at DHS; expert with gizmos some question her loyalty to LilMac. Wei-Tzu Lin at NSA; superduper smart, but also questions about whether he can fix years of broken beurocracy left over from Obama. GOP insiders fear he won't be strong enough to purge the Obamaites. We'll see. #teamset #LilMac

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On occasion the admins will honor CBO scoring requests and give general feedback on bills that are passing or about the pass Congress. Sometimes these "scores" will be very specific in nature, and sometimes they will give broad brush strokes related to the potential ramifications of particular legislation. The admins do NOT have the resources to score every single piece of legislation, so please don't bombard us with requests. It may be good policy to let your party leadership make your request for you so they can pre-screen what is being asked to see if it really is of particular party value. Anyhow, results of requests will be posted here.

In general, for those that pay attention, corporate taxes are a pretty polarizing issue in America. Typically, Republicans are very supportive of low rates as an engine to economic success; typically Democrats see it as a tool to spread out prosperity and to take money from those who can afford it. Historically, Independents have evolved from the Dem. point of view, towards the Republican point of view- we know this because corp. tax rates have steadily fallen since the early 1900's, and that only happens if the decrease becomes a non-issue to a majority of Americans. This debate had the makings of a true philosophical argument between Rep. Vinick and Rep. Swanner. Leaving aside the "Trinkle-Trickle-Triangle" misstatements, the potential debate never happened in a true sense and it was a missed opportunity for both sides. Mr. Vinick could have absolutely mentioned how destabilizing it is to have such a top down economy, and while Mr. Swanner did mention the Reagan cuts, he didn't really make the philosophical case that I think could have moved the zeitgiest. Other party members chimed in, but not in a particularly bold or thoughtful way. That isn't to say it was meaningless, but at the end of the day what the folks back home want to know is: Why are YOU voting the way you're voting, and how is going to help YOUR district? Some of that is a practical argument, sure, and some of that is to reveal the philosophical underpinnings of what drives you in office. On that score, the folks-back-home didn't see as much of that as they hoped. Neither side won or lost this particular debate, but the general feeling is that the current trajectory towards smaller corp. taxes will continue.

Please see Bruce's note above about fluxuations in some character numbers this week. So one thing I'm going to try to accomplish this round is giving some targeted feedback with regard to how debate went on particular bills and Amendments. It's going to work like this: I'm going to read debate in Congress on particular bills. I'm going to try to come at the debate from the lens of both highly partisan and independent minded citizens and media. And once debate is over I'm going to try to give feedback on which side (or which member), was particularly convincing in the debate. Most of the time it's going to break down along party lines: "Democrats did a fantastic job providing the argument as to why this form of gun control is effective.", sometimes it's going to break down ideologically, "The populist fire breathing attacking corporate CEO salaries was unconvincing because it never addressed X", and sometimes I'll single out particular members of Congress, "Representative Pizzuto really led the charge on getting rid of Obamacare and laid out a pretty devastating case as to why it needs to happen." This will have a VERY small impact on general popular opinion. This will have a VERY small impact on how the Senate might view a particular issue. This will have a VERY small impact on, say, the popularity polls for a particular Representative. And before you ask, no, you can not ask me to comment on particular debates. I will choose them on my own without any player involvement because sometimes the zeitgiest picks up on things in a way that feels like it has little rhyme or reason (even if we all know better!).

Congress is open and the Speaker can gavel us in whenever they're ready.

Most definitely. Public polling support overall has risen 2% for current abortion laws since 2016. However, opposition against is solidifying, that is to say, fewer people are on the fence about it and the people against are REALLY against. Their main argument is that making it easy to have abortions means there are less Jews in Israel, which makes for concerns that eventually Arabs will outnumber Israelis in Israel, which they believe will be the death knell for a stable and "jewish" state. These are arguments are seen as highly alarmist as only 22% of Israel is made up of Arab citizens. Still, the fear persists.

Nothing of note at this time. They are helping marginally against isis when possible. There are still low level border disruptions as you might expect, but no, terrorists have not embedded with civillians who marched enough masse on the border, and no the Israeli army has not fired on any of them.

Yeah that's my problem. I've worked in the mental health field for 11 years and I can tell you that I'd probably trust 20%of the clinicians I've met to be able to honestly/accurately assess something this specific with this large of a ramification. Not because anyone is overly stupid, but simply because of the nature of what is being ask. The human mind is very complicated. Additionally, in many states a huge population of people get their mental health from either government agencies, or private entities who contract with government agencies. In a world where most government agencies are run by progressives, I absolutely fear that agenda driven clinicians would make terrible assessments to further their political agenda. Additionally, I'm not even sure we could keep guns out of their hands even if we WANTED to. So my solution is a heavily armed population that can defend themselves.