billsfan89

I always think that the "Wouldn't you do it" argument is a poor rationale. Listen I get why businesses particularly gigantic corporations (Who have a responsibility to their investors to maximize profits and are competing against other cut throat corps) do they things that they do. But that's a very poor ethical standard to have. If I could avoid my taxes but it would result in schools being dramatically underfunded and societies infrastructure collapsing because no one is paying taxes I think I would have to rethink the consequences of my actions. We have a corrupt government where you could legally bribe politicians through campaign donations, are we really surprised that the people with the most money get represented over the needs of the vast majority.

I don't understand the blanket argument against environmental regulations. In a specific case if a regulation is onerous or doesn't make sense fine make the case to gut it. But to think that rules designed to protect the place where we live from being polluted are inherently bad because some giant corporation can't exploit that land for short-term economic gain is beyond my comprehension.

2.75 for a caliber of player that you probably could have drafted in the mid to late rounds or gotten off the street for cheaper isn't a good use of 10% of your remaining cap space.

I am not a fan of this, The Bills overpaid for a 30-year-old running back coming off of 2 bad seasons. I think they were better off going with a lower cost veteran and nabbing a rookie in round 3 or later.

The money he wants/will likely command (5-6 million in my mind) just won't be worth it for a Bills team that has limited cap space.

I don't know why but teams !@#$ing fall in love with Bradford for some reason. It is possible you are right that he signs a modest 1 year deal with a lot of incentives. But QB's get overpaid and Bradford is the type of QB that teams like (Accurate and can protect the ball.)

I think in the end it will be the right decision to move up big for a QB if internally the team likes a guy. Give me Rosen as he is by far the most complete passer, a QB having a personality isn't an issue for me since I think for once we have a coach that has established a culture that could handle such a QB. Make a big move, that's why you traded down last year and traded Sammy for more draft capital.

Miami has always made very splashy moves. Taking on big contracts and signing big contracts is what they do. It's why they aren't that successful generally speaking, they haven't gotten lucky with a QB and whatever success they sustain on the other parts of the roster is usually done with big free agent signings which are usually older players with at best 1-2 really good years left.

The dead money from Dareus and Wood coming off is huge that's nearly 25 million freed up. Shady and InCog also expire which is another 14ish million coming off the cap. I also think that Tyrod's contract voids its self or his dead money comes off the books. In 2019 Hughes, Clay, and Glenn become much easier to cut as the dead money is a lot less in 2019 than in 2018. So 2019 the Bills could be looking at a massive windfall of cap space and a team with potentially a lot of good young players on affordable contracts.

I think the Bills obviously inflated it with trading Dareus and the Eric Wood extension. I would also think that the Mario cut added a nice chunk to that number. I can't think of what other major cuts or trades would have added so much to the Bills dead cap since 2014.

It is also circumstances. If you are a bad team or a less desirable market you might have to hand out big money to be more competitive. Also it could be a sign of a rebuild, if a team has a lot of older bloated contracts they might have to eat a lot of dead money to get out from under that. I think there are a few factors at play.

Since 2014 the Panthers, Cowboys, Ravens and Chiefs all have winning record. The Saints are just under .500 in that time span. So it isn' like dead cap necessarily means you are a losing team.

More than likely Gaines is gone, although I don't think it is impossible for Gaines to come back if his terms are reasonable. But at this stage of Gaines career, I doubt he takes a discount. So I think he is gone, unless McD views nickel as the base defense and wants 3 good corners. Then if the market for Gaines is more reasonable I think they might make a more competitive offer. That being said cap space is limited and they just committed over 10% of their available cap space to a corner and committing more of that space to another corner might not be appealing. If I were the GM considering how often the team is in nickel I would make a reasonable offer to Gaines he was such a stud when healthy and having 3 stud corners with 2 good safeties is such an advantage for a team that is dependant on their secondary. I also think that Gaines at around 6 million doesn't prevent you from signing a run stuffing DT to plug a hole in the front 7 either. If you miss out on Kirk Cousins Then you clearly have to spend elsewhere on the roster.

Why would Cleveland want a 30 year old running back on the last year of his deal? The Browns need draft picks more and more draft picks. 2 second rounders and a running back who maybe has 1 more really good year left is not a good return on the first overall pick. If the Bills want to get pick 1 they will likely have to give up a package of picks that at least contains both 21 and 22, next years 1st, and a 2nd this year (maybe Tyrod as a throw in if they want him.)

Older and on a sizeable contract, I don't think he fits the mold of what McD wants. But if he were available for a late round pick I think he could be interesting since he is on the last year of his deal and he is coming off a productive season. The Bills are in desperate need of some pass rush help and a one year rental at a low cost isn't the worst idea.

Has the compensation from the Rams been revealed? I think the only thing that has come out so far has been that the Rams aren't giving up pick number 23.

Growing the economy by dumping money to corporations and the top 1% of income earners is a bad way to grow the economy. If we are spending 1.5 trillion on the countries credit card to grow the economy why are we spending that money helping the sectors of the economy that are doing the best they have done in modern history? If the key to growing the economy was corporate profits, corporate cash reserves, the stock market, and the income and percentage of wealth at the top 1% then we should have the best economic growth since the 1920's. The middle class is shrinking, 50% of Americans can't afford a 1,000$ emergency, wages have stagnated, and over 80% of economists say that the biggest issue with the American economy is a lack of consumer demand. If you want to grow the economy in a long-term meaningful way you need to grow the middle class. Corporations and the top 1% of earners have nothing to invest in without consumer demand. America has massive infrastructure needs and building infrastructure could put millions to work and actually help businesses due to the fact that new and sustained infrastructure makes the flow of commerce easier. Why not just have a massive tax cut for the middle class instead of having any for top earners? Will the tax cuts really have the desired impact long term? I don't think they will. Sure there might be some short-term boost given to the economy (dumping massive amounts of money into it on the credit card will juice things up) but a lot of the corporate money will flow outside of the country (40-50% of stocks are owned by international interests) and a lot of the money to top earners will not matriculate throughout the economy as intended. Middle-income earners will not see the majority of the benefits and economic growth will not be sustained because this policy does not address the lack of consumer demand that plagues the economy.

Your response to my serious question about the GOP priorities in terms of which set of tax cuts they decided to keep permanent was to bring up the affordable care act. One has nothing to do with the other in this context. The reason the GOP had to have one set be up for renewal was the Byrd rule. The ACA did not have to follow the Byrd rule because it was passed with 60 votes. I think if a Bill passes with 60 votes, filibuster-proof majority in Congress, and the president does not veto (or a veto gets overridden) then it should be in perpetuity if it is written to be in perpetuity. If it is unconstitutional then it can be overturned by the Supreme Court. If it is a disaster then a new party can be voted in and pass a new law undoing the law or writing a new one. I don't think the civil rights act should be up for renewal every 7-10 years. I like the way the Constitution is set up. The GOP had to due to the Byrd rule make one set of tax cuts expire, they chose to make the middle-class tax cuts expire. That to me show their priorities and the fact that they know the gigantic top rate and corporate tax rates were a **** sandwich so they had to make them hard to return.

First off that 38 billion is a small fraction of the taxes that they avoided by laundering excuse me stashing over 240 billion overseas. Also that article its self-says that they aren't sure if any of these plans are new. I will put the quote at the bottom of this post I have to get going and I don't know why the text is so big. The Dow before the election was nearing 20,000 and rallying well for years. Corporations have been sitting on cash reserves that are at all-time highs adjusted for inflation. Corporate profits are at all-time highs. IF corporations doing better were the key to jumpstarting the middle class then why under those conditions where corporations are doing better than ever is the economy for the middle class not booming? I think that if you are going to jump a tepid economy you should have only done tax cuts to the middle-income brackets and spent money on infrastructure and domestic programs. The engine of the economy is the demand created by the middle class. I fail to see how massive amounts of tax cuts for the top rates and corporations helps the middle class. Why not spend that money directly on the middle class instead of funding dividends and buy back for corporations whose holders are 50% foreign on average. EDIT: The reason that I lump together corporate rates and top rates is that I feel those tax cuts will be high inefficient in jumpstarting the economy. The top end of the economy and corporations are the ones not struggling and doing better than ever. Why would giving them even more money help the middle class? We as a nation have to make certain priorities and I have no idea why any sane person would think the solution to helping the middle class was to cap SALT deductions and hand out massive amounts of money to corporations and the top income brackets. It did not, however, say how much of the plan was new or how much of its $252.3 billion in cash abroad - the largest of any U.S. corporation - it would bring home. In addition to the $38 billion in taxes it must pay, Apple has run up $97 billion in U.S.-issued debt to pay for previous share buybacks and dividends.

Because it was passed with 60 votes and doesn't have to satisfy the Byrd rule, stop deflecting the question, this is about the GOP's choice in satisfying the Byrd rule. Why did they chose to have the middle class rates expire in order to satsify the Byrd rule instead of making the corporate and top rates be the ones that have to be renewed? I think that's a very loaded way to frame it, you are framing it as though this bill was just tax cuts for the middle class and those evil Dems voted against giving working people more money. I think Democrats probably like any sane person thought that adding 1.5 trillion dollars to the deficit isn't a good idea if most of that money is going to the sectors of the economy that are doing the best. Do you really think the issue with the American economy is that the rich and corporations (Which objectively speaking are doing the best they have been in modern American history) don't have enough money? Corporations are sitting on record-setting cash and they aren't reinvesting it like they have in the past because demand from the middle class isn't there. I don't mind tax cuts but looking at the way the GOP structured them it is highway robbery that will not have the effect longer term as high cuts on the middle class and infrastructure and another domestic spending would have.

But why not have the top rates and the Corporate rates be the ones up for renewal? That would have satisfied the Byrd rule.

The Bills are the most attractive to free agents as they have been in their entire history (That's more a knock at Ralph and the drought.) They are coming off a playoff victory (and generally speaking a 4 year stretch where they have been slightly above .500) and they have an ownership that is willing to spend money and no longer following cash to cap. I don't think they are a premier destination but they certainly are a team that isn't unattractive to free agents. I think McD will need to put together 2 more winning seasons before he gets any serious cache around the league like some of the top coaches now.

It's by law that you can't raise the deficit by a certain percentage over a period longer than 8 years. They could have satisfied the requirements of the Congressional rules by having the corporate and top rates be the ones that expire. They had the choice to choose between the two groups and they chose corporations and the top rates. That shows you where their priorities are. But that ignores the progressive tax structure where the people making the laws decide what cuts go to what rates. Objectively speaking the issue with the US economy is the struggling middle class. So why not keep the top rates the same, cut the corporate rates but gut a lot of the corporate deductions so that it is revenue neutral. Then just direct the 1.5 trillion to the middle-income brackets? You could have cut those more if you just left the top rates alone.

The biggest issue with the US economy isn't the fact that the rich don't have enough money or there isn't enough investment capital available. Corporate profits are at an all-time high even adjusted for inflation, the top 1% (the investor class) has their highest share of wealth and income since the great depression, capital gains rates and effective corporate tax rates are also their lowest since the great depression. The biggest issue with the US economy is a lack of consumer demand driven by a lack of wage growth. 50% of Americans can't afford a $1,000 emergency. If you are looking at the American economy and trying to find out what the best solution is I find it hard to believe that it would be that we need to do tax cuts where a significant majority of the benefits goes to the two groups doing the best in the economy. If you are going to spend 1.5 trillion dollars to improve the economy I think it would be best to spend that money on trying to improve the middle class that is the foundation of the consumer base and suffering the most from globalization and automation. Why not just do a bigger tax cut for the middle class combined with a ton of infrastructure spending? Also, you have to seriously question the GOP's priorities that the tax cuts that expire are the ones that are for the middle class.

Cousins will get paid 30 million if not close to 30 million per year with a fantastic guarantee. I would love for the Bills to go after him so that they could secure the QB position and then use the draft to build a team. Maybe they could backload the contract a bit to lower the cap hit this year (Maybe have the cap hit be 20 million this year then 40 million next year when a lot of dead money comes off the books) so that this way they could have a little bit of space to sign a player or two to fill some needs before the draft.