billsfan89

The current top rate is 37% on income over 500k. I rounded that down to 30% to adjust for deductions and income falling in other brackets. Even if you rounded that effective total rate (which I am doing for simplicity sake) to 25% just to overestimate deductions that person earning a million would still pay 250k in taxes. On a national sales tax of 25% you would have to hope that person earning one million spends all of their money on taxable goods in a single year to get to that amount and that's not even factoring in payroll taxes. I just see no way that a national sales tax earns more money than the current progressive tax system.

If lowering taxes on wealthy people dramatically in the interest of fairness meant drastically slashing military spending, programs that invest in science, getting rid of social security and medicare (no IRS means no payroll taxes,) destroying regulatory agencies, lowering education investment, lowering infrastructure spending, killing the NASA budget, and mostly eliminating programs that help the poor and working poor you would see people clamoring for a progressive tax system again. You have to be extremely wealthy or a sucker to think that people are that desperate for lower and more fair taxes on the wealthy to destroy all those things. I know this board is very conservative in general and basically adheres to a rather Ron Swanson like ideology. But if you actually looked at what your tax dollars get spent on you find that Americans get a decent deal. 61% of federal spending is on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, all very popular programs. Of the other 39% the largest item is military spending which is about 16% of the federal budget. Which means that the rest of the federal budget including servicing the debt (which is about 6% of federal spending) is only about 23% of the total federal budget. That includes very popular things like National Parks, Science and Educational programs, research grants, NASA, housing programs, food stamps, Infrastructure spending, Environmental protection, other regulatory agencies, and the post office. I get that there is wasted money and bloat in the federal government but to act like there isn't waste in other big private sector agencies would be dishonest. Any large entity has waste and fraud. Overall I think that the American people would rather keep the current progressive tax system than to completely dismantle and the services that the government provides.

How does it not make any sense? If you switched federal income taxes to a national sales tax that doesn't eliminate state and local taxes. Federal dollars vs. Federal dollars is what you have to look at. If you make 1,000,000 in income and are taxed at a federal rate of 30% after deductions and the money that falls into a lower bracket that means you are paying about 300,000$ in taxes right? 30% of 1,000,000 is 300,000 and that's not factoring in payroll taxes. If you went to a national sales tax to replace federal income taxes and the rate was 25% a person earning 1,000,000 spending all of their money on taxable reported goods would still only pay 250,000 in taxes. Where is the math faulty? The debate is what raises more money.

I don't think he is worth the money he is currently on the books for. If he was a good but overpaid player a team with a less dire cap situation could afford to keep him. But teams up against the cap can't afford to pass on massive cap savings to keep a player that isn't worth the money.

They are -7 million in the hole to start, Bortles doesn't save much money, Dareus is not enough, and they don't have any other big cuts that would net 10+ million in cap savings. Why keep an older DT who under performed the last season he played? Its better for the Jags to make the big cuts now and put themselves in a better position in 2020 in my opinion. That stupid Bortles contract really ***** them.

In any tax system there is incentive to cheat, I do agree that a sales tax is much easier to cheat and skim than income which has a two party reporting system in most non-service industries. If you moved to a national sales tax you simply would not raise more money than the current progressive tax system. Rich people do not spend their income at nearly the same rate. Just to keep things simple and flat for sake of argument. Lets say that someone earning 1 million dollars gets taxed at a federal level 30% after deductions plus a payroll tax capped after about 140k. That person is paying 300,000 in taxes plus payroll taxes. Now under a national sales tax with a 25% rate that person could spend all of their money earned and only end up paying 250,000 in taxes. Its more likely that a person earning 7 figures would spend 50% of their earning and save/invest the other 50% thus more than likely paying 125,000 in taxes assuming that every thing they bought was taxed and reported. Unless I am missing something it just doesn't add up.

They probably are going to cut Dareus and Jackson. Unless either takes a massive pay cut. Jacksonville has spent big the past 3 off-seasons in an effort to compete. So their cap situation is rather bad and they can't hold onto decent players on massive contracts. Campbell will probably do a restructure since if he went on the open market he would command good money. The Jags have some solid money committed to few players. Campbell, Dareus, Jackson, Telvin Smith, and Bouye all have 10+ million dollar deals on defense while on offense Bortles and Norwell make good money too. They could also consider trading Campbell too if they got a good return or he simply doesn't want to take a pay cut.

IF Trump is evoking his emergency powers to appropriate funds for a wall its a non-starter as it will get challenged in court and take years to get resolved. So I can't see it going anywhere.

Why waste national productivity when you can just move the game to Saturday? There is a bye week in between, there is no need for it to actually be on a Sunday. You can actually have the game start at 8-9 pm on the East Coast and run late since it isn't a school night or work day the next day.

I say this as someone who has never bought season tickets for any team. But do you have a deadline to renew? If so what's the deadline? If I were buying tickets I would personally wait to see the teams off-season moves before renewing (at least free agency.) But then again I am cheap and hate spending money to see a bad team play.

KB also suffered a massive knee injury his second year and had some more moderate level knee injuries in 2017. I think he lost speed from those injuries which destroyed his effectiveness overall. KB in his rookie year was just fast enough to get a little bit of separation and use his large from to catch passes. But take away even a little bit of his speed due to injury and he had zero speed relative for a NFL WR.

Craftiness is a big part of running that gets overlooked. But that being said I hope Allen slides more in 2019. I think Allen needs to play more carefully in general. Yes he is a bigger guy so his durability might be more than a RGIII or Lamar Jackson type. But Allen's running should only be a complement to his game as opposed to a central part of it. Allen has the passing tools to be a top 5 QB in the league (Granted he has a lot of improvements to make to get there) but if he gets hurt diving for a few yards that's far more detrimental to him.

That's true, training for a 40 time can help shave off a tenth of a second or so. But while I do think that Allen plays faster than his 40 time of 4.75 I don't think he is as fast as some would have you believe. I think he game speed is probably closer to his 40 than to Cam Newton (esp Cam when he first got into the league) or some other faster QB's.

Kiko had a major knee injury since running his 40 after college. So I am not sure just how accurate you can compare Kiko's 40 time from 2013 to Allen's 40 time in 2018 esp factoring in the injury. That being said Allen does look to play faster than his 40 time. I don't know why that's the case.

He is most likely getting cut. The Jags are in cap hell and they have so much money invested on the D-line and there are several big contract players who underperformed. Dareus and Jackson in particular are 10+ million dollar contract players who are coming off of down years. C.Campbell might also get cut despite having a productive season (10.5 sacks) but his cap hit is huge at 16 million with a 15 million dollar savings if cut. Although I suspect that they will try and restructure his deal since he is still rather productive.

I know Whaley was still here in 2017 when Poyer, Hyde, and Haush were added but so was McD who had to have a significant hand in those signings. So while the 2018 free agency crop was a bust its not like McD can't identify some talent. I agree though, they only had 3-4 contracts above 3 million aav last off-season. Hard to judge them off of that.

I think once Pegula took over he inherited a 9-7 team with cap space. Whaley was probably under a big win now end the drought pressure from ownership. Trading for Shady, signing Clay, resigning Dareus and Glenn to massive deals and taking on somewhat volatile players like InCog, Percy Harvin, and others were all massive win now moves. I think overall his moves worked to improve the offense but some injuries and Rex's system then turned around and ruined the defense. Outside of Star those deals aren't major (Star's deal is hard to get out of until 2021.) Murphy's hit in 2019 is 3.5 million and Vonta will have not impact in 2019. Overall the current regime has not taken on many major contracts both in terms of resigning talent and free agent talent.

Its all about context but devoid of catastrophic injuries and other factors I think 9 wins is a must. Playoffs can often be driven by other factors (would you fire a coach that went 10-6 but missed the playoffs?) But I think given the assumed spending on players in free agency and another draft class you have to assume a 3 game improvement is a reasonable standard to have.

Lorax also has been mostly a special teams player for most of his career. Before coming to Buffalo he had logged 16 starts in 11 previous seasons. So I think its fair to think he could have 1-2 more good years left. He was the second best pass rusher on the team and considering he won't come super expensive (I can't see him commanding more than 6 million on a 1-2 year deal) it is worth it in my mind to bring him back.

You need at least an above average defense to win consistently in the playoffs. When the Colts won in 2006 they had a upper mid level defense and an offense that was great but not nearly as great as it had been in past record setting years. In the NFL once you get to the playoffs you will likely face multiple balanced teams that bring good defense and good offenses to the game. If you don't have a balanced team you will perish.

I wouldn't be opposed to signing him and cutting Clay, cutting Clay saves 4.5 million, even if CJ commands 7 million aav I think its worth spending the 2.5 million to upgrade the position. Too many holes to fill on offense with just draft picks.

The issue for the Bills primarily is that there isn't a great market at RT, TE, and WR in free agency. There are good interior O-line players, corners, and pass rushers which is where I think the primary focus of free agency dollars should go towards. Don't overpay just to get the best of a subpar market. Although I think WR might be worth overpaying for to get at least a solid vet since a 2nd round WR might not have a high end impact.

I would really not like Greedy Williams (I think the coaching staff is good at finding good CB's later in the draft as shown by T.Johnson and Levi Wallace, even EJ Gaines was a bit of a find as a throw in player in a trade.) But a young pass rusher with some impact would both fill a need and further lay a foundation for the defense. I think you can find a RT in round 2 and address WR via trade or free agency.

I think an RT is a premium position not that much less valuable than LT in the modern NFL. So if you have an elite RT prospect who might not be great on the left side I think its not a bad pick to secure the RT spot. But I think that the value at RT is not there at pick 9 and unless there is a trade down its probably a D-line player at pick 9.

The more I evaluate the draft the more I think pick 9 will be a D-line player, which while not a drastic need would be a need (I think the pass rush needs a shot in the arm and the D-line needs more younger players, besides Shaq and Phillips all the other D-line players are older players.) I wouldn't mind at all a RT as I think this philsophy that if you draft a RT at 9 its such a reach if they can't be swung back over to the left side is foolish. RT is a premium position in the modern NFL. A lot of the top pass rushers in the NFL rush against the right side. You need 5 top O-line players and they are all becoming harder to find. So while being able to shift over to the left side is a positive trait it isn't a make or break in my opinion.