Wow that’s awful

It is hands down a glorious and wonderful morning out here in the Valley of the Sun! Beautiful Blue skies, calm winds and a temp of 66F...absolute perfection! It will be another BN day as my temp will prob not get out of the 80's today but at Sky Harbor it should approach 91-92F (Normal highs dipped to 99F yesterday). We will usher in the Autumnal Equinox tomorrow with slightly BN temps on SUN but next week we heat back into the low 100's.

Imagine if there was almost a fight on the floor of the House of Representatives? Well, here in Canada, it came close to a brawl on Thursday. Long standing parliamentary tradition is a bock of time called question period. It’s where our esteemed elected representatives throw creative, theatrical insults at each other wrapped in a question. You can find YouTube videos of some colourful exchanges. On Thursday the leader of the New Democratic Party (they’re anything but new or democratic) snapped and appeared to challenge the leader of the Conservative Party to a fight. https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7328688

The above response illustrates the difference between campaign promises and reality. Most of it is just talk and it won't happen.

End taxes on tips Trump called for ending taxes on tips at a rally in Las Vegas in June, which makes sense because Nevada is a potential swing state with a lot of service workers who live on tips. Vice President Kamala Harris followed suit in August with a more detailed plan that may be refined even further. The Center for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that Trump’s plan would cost $250 billion over the next decade, while Harris’ might cost $100 to $200 billion. Advocates say it’s hard for the IRS to collect taxes on tips anyway, but critics worry it would encourage more businesses to switch to a tipping model. Likelihood: Decent. The idea has quickly gained bipartisan steam, although the details of the final plan will be key to its success. End taxes on Social Security Trump floated the idea of ending taxes on Social Security benefits in an all-caps message on Truth Social in July and a “Fox & Friends” interview. Democrats suggested the idea first, though their proposals are more detailed and are part of broader reforms that would pay for the change by hiking the payroll tax on the wealthy. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that Trump’s proposal — which so far does not include any offsets to pay for it — would cost $1.6 to $1.8 trillion over the next decade. Likelihood: Low, unless Democrats win both chambers of Congress at some point and decide to pursue it. End taxes on overtime Trump pitched exempting overtime pay from taxes at a rally in Tucson, Arizona, earlier this month. It’s unclear whether he meant just income tax or also payroll taxes, which fund Medicare and Social Security, or if there would be any guardrails to prevent, say, high-priced lawyers from reclassifying themselves as hourly workers so they can get a huge tax break. Were Trump to follow through (and he’d need Congress to do it), the conservative Tax Foundation estimates a cost somewhere between $227 billion and $1.1 trillion over the next decade. Likelihood: Low. There doesn’t seem to be much enthusiasm for this idea on Capitol Hill. Make IVF free for patients In an interview with NBC News in August, Trump said that he’d have either the federal government or insurance companies pay the full cost of in-vitro fertilization. He floated the proposal, for which he offered no other details, as Republicans have taken heat for an Alabama Supreme Court decision earlier this year that briefly halted IVF services in the state. Still, Senate Republicans have twice blocked a Democratic bill to provide a nationwide right to IVF, so Trump would have to convince his own party to put anything in place. NBC News estimated that a single year of IVF treatments would cost $7.8 billion. Likelihood: Extremely low. Republicans are not going to embrace an insurance mandate or federal spending for a procedure that’s unpopular with anti-abortion advocates. Cut car insurance rates Trump said in a post on X earlier this week that he would cut car insurance rates in half. He offered no details on how this would work, as car insurance rates are regulated by state insurance commissioners based on actuarial data and expectations for the future. Insurance industry experts say there’s very little Trump could actually do as president to cut insurance rates, other than maybe working to make roads safer or limiting compensation in crash-related lawsuits, and those would make only a marginal difference. Likelihood: Nearly impossible. Trump has no authority to set rates, Republicans will balk at price controls and insurance companies will push back hard.