AT&T is not tech but Alphabet is?

I often wonder what HN means by technology and engineering. It seems to mean websites and the backend to support it. Sure it’s “complicated” and multi layered but so is “finnegan’s wake”

For me technology means micro-fabrication bridges, substations and OSes. AT&T has delivered more “tech” than any other company ever!

Google’s innovations? Repackaging existing solutions and funding, yet to be launched, Moon shots.

EDIT it goes without saying that AT&T is a shadow of its former self.

I definitely find come Annie's that are selling th ngs to customers regardless of the customers country to be techies.

This is wrong for a number of reasons...

The GOP just rammed through a huge tax cut/deficit ballooning bill because their financial overlords threatened to shut off the money spigot if they didn't deliver something of benefit to them.

Key votes were won not by "jobs" but by offering cash, either by expanding/reducing the cut to certain programs and financial kickbacks (Corker kickback).

The jobs promised often never arrive or stay if they do, but the checks always clear. This is the case as seen in examples as varied as the 2004 American Jobs Creation Act (which did no such thing) or "small government fiscal conservative" Curt Schilling bilking tens of millions of dollars out of Rhode Island taxpayers to prop up his failing video game company (38 studios) before it bottomed out.

Lobbying is not about "winning" but about access and connections. An entertaining explanation of this is offered up in "Turkmeniscam" by Ken Silverstein.

AT&T is a tech company, one that predates Alphabet by a century or so and is looking to operate across more of the US (this is where connections matter). Alphabet may not have a reason to get Martha Blackburn in their pocket, but you can bet AT&T does (and did).

Thanks for this perspective. I've always wondered why the US tech giants, seemingly flush with more cash than most don't have more influence over policy.

Remember that US tech giants are giant companies, and therefor often benefit from the things that are put in place to benefit tech giants. Netflix may have stated publicly that they wanted net neutrality, but they can afford "access fees" and fast lanes. A startup trying to oust netflix by being more nimble or some other innovation cannot

>but they can afford "access fees" and fast lanes.

Yes. They just pass it on to their users. When Comcast started charging then to remove the bottleneck a few years ago, it was followed by a price increase. Netflix is not even waiting this time. Streaming prices go up again in early January.

To be fair, Netflix has increased prices about once a year for the past few years, and all price increases were announced 6+ months ahead of time. This price increase doesn't have anything to do with net neutrality, it has to do with funding their increasingly debt-fueled content production.

It's also possible that they were betting on net neutrality dying as well

There naive about politics which has caught out MS before over the anti trust issues and employment rights.

ATT as an ex PTT knows how the political game is played like all big telcos do, ever wonder why British telecom has development centres in Scotland Wales England and NI ?

It's also why all the mega tech companies are looking to diversify their employee concentrations. Amazon is desperate to start expanding outside of Seattle. Google and Facebook have set up several other US campuses. Companies like Oracle and Microsoft already have several locations around the US. I would expect those efforts to go into overdrive in the next decade.

Why would Alphabet lobby against a corporate tax cut? I don't think they did. This has nothing to do with the right wing cause-celebre of painting Google as an evil liberal company.

I believe the commenter is merely stating that if a workforce is located in a voting district there is more political sway than if a bulk of the workforce, although technologically savvy and effectual, does not live in districts where congresspeople are listening. The "power of your constituents" (and where they reside)

I think this analysis is right, but it ignores the blue side of the bargain -- unless you mean the Dems care less about unionised workers than the Repubs. Are SV companies able to influence the Dems by some other means, or is it that the blue-team influences them.

In this particular case they only cared about not giving Trump a win. This will move the economy forward which is something as a party the cannot afford.

My problem is they always put party before their own voters. They did it during the election and they are doing it now. I know that many are trying to portray the cuts as mostly going to the rich but looking at percentages it isn't. Even more so they are clawing back deductions that only favored high income earners, like deducting state and city taxes. Deductions the middle and lower class never got to take advantage of, plus DOUBLING the standard deduction which favors those under 100k immensely

What about the additional $1.4T being added to the deficit to pay for them? Is that moving the economy forward? I'm all for a lower tax burden, but like politicians of both parties they're much happier handing out the benefits than paying for them.

Not to stir up controversy, governments have to figure out a different way to make money than taxing people. It is about time somebody figured this out. In a world run by fiat currencies, what does deficit even mean? Just print more money using leverage. Who’s gonna check?

You have the arrow backwards:

Governments create demand for money by collecting taxes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory

That's why the economy (the measure of the velocity of money) grows when taxes are raised.

Modern Monetary Theory is based on collecting taxes. I am talking about a new theory that is not based on taxes at all but instead, it is based on Government making money by selling govt. land, investing social security money in high growth funds, etc.

Are you proposing having honest accounting, and assuming that nobody will look? Or are you proposing having dishonest accounting, and assuming that nobody will be able to look deep enough to prove it?

People actually do seriously read the federal budget statements...

Printing money would be de facto tax-by-inflation.

Not if that money never enters the circulation. Just use it to keep deficit down, it doesn't need to actually get all the way down to consumers.

Is this after ignoring the deliberate corruption in making the individual tax cuts temporary vs permanent tax cuts for businesses plus the individual mandate repeal resulting in skyrocketing premiums?

Didn't Obama propose bringing Corp taxes down to 28% (vs 35 now and 22% after passage?). So it isn't only Reps who recognized our corp taxes were out if sync with other nations corp tax rates.

Yes, BUT that was meant to be combined with the closing of multiple loopholes that would prevent companies from paying far less than what they're supposed to. In comparison the Republican bill leaves them open and even has a few of its own.

That's why Obama had such a tough time actually getting something done. Well, that and another obvious factor.

Obama is the benchmark for how to get elected.

ACA was kinda a big deal.

Of all the criticisms one could make, you parroted least reality-based.

I'm not here to argue about the whether or not Obama was a good president, but your second point is incorrect. The ACA was formulated in an almost entirely bipartisan way, taking influence from many Republican plans. It was a bandage on the bleeding wound of Healthcare and one that was desperately needed.

I would say it was particularly effective, considering my family personally benefited from the removal of pre-existing condition denial. That said, it was obvious more needed to be done and gutting the ACA just means ripping open the wound once more and hoping we don't bleed out.

“The ACA was formulated in an almost entirely bipartisan way,“

While the idea for health exchanges initiated with repub policy people, the implementation is really different. So I don’t think it’s accurate to say the ACA was bipartisan. That’s why not a single republican voted for it, https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/111-2010/h165.

I suppose you could say that this bill is bipartisan because a democrat came up with the idea of lowering corporate tax rates. While true at face, the implementation is super different. Thus the zero democrat votes.

Interestingly, the ACA kind of set precedent for shoving stuff through with only a single party. If the ACA hadn’t been so super partisan, it would have been a lot harder to pass this bill.

There's an important distinction to be made between what happened with the ACA and what happened with the current tax bill. It was bipartisan because republicans at all stages were given the opportunity to engage, plus a lot of the basic foundations of the ACA were praised by conservative economists and it was directly based off of Romney's healthcare plan. At no point were republicans shut out or their opportunity to amend the bill taken away. Many republicans even supported the individual mandate before the ACA came along!

With the republican tax bill, democrats were outright denied any opportunities to work with republicans. They were shut out of the entire process, all of their amendments were denied and there was no opportunity for bipartisan legislation because the GOP viewed it as 'my way or the highway'. Similarly, republicans simply backed away from any and all debate or attempt to amend the ACA because they refused to work with democrats.

This is the important distinction between what happened with the ACA and with the recent tax bill. Many republicans immediately turned face against what they had previously supported. Which is also a reflection of the modern-day GOP and reflected in how disastrous their attempt at governing has been.

I don't think that's corruption, I think that's just politics. It will be easy to get agreement to extend the individual cuts before they expire. It would be much harder to get agreement to extend the corporate cuts.

If you want to cut both then you basically have to do it this way.

I think it is the Republican party showing its priorities :) Tax cuts for the reach are more important than anything else.

Hopefully we get a repeal of the corporate cuts, with even an increase to compensate for the years it was cut.

Corporate taxes are bad.

1) Their inherent complexity leads to a lot of wasted work and other distortions away from an efficient allocation of resources.

2) Corporate taxes charge the same rate to rich shareholders as poor shareholders: not progressive.

Cutting them is good.

There is also the fact that the renewal vote happens on an election cycle. If the republicans hold the house, the tax cuts will be renewed. If the democrats take control, they will be forced to expire the cuts since they are planning to campaign heavily on the tax bills as bad for the public. This means that if the GOP loses control, the following year taxes will go up on most voters and help reinforce the GOP narrative of the Democrats as the party of taxation.

The corporate cuts are permanent. Only the individual ones expire

Yes, I am aware. And my comment explained the political reasons behind that decision.

> In this particular case they only cared about not giving Trump a win.

No, that was the GOP's strategy against Obama over the last 8 years... I don't know how you mixed that up.

That doesn't mean the other party isn't using the same tactic now that the shoe is on the other foot.

But they're not, so you're suggesting it or for no reason. In fact, the GOP is still trying to undo everything Obama did just because Obama touched it.

They're clawing back deductions that helped high income earners because they also helped fund local schools & infrastructure that benefits everyone. They had no problem letting rich people give away 5M more tax-free in estate transfers, for instance.

if I where an M&P grade in ATT (which all there tech professionals will be) I would be royally pissed off about this.

BTW if google did recognise unions they could also do this :-)

Isn't it votes, and your saying jobs are more powerful inducer of those things?

I agree with your broader point, but Google is not helpless here, even though AT&T employs about three times as many people. Google employs 74,000 people in CA, NY, MI, PA, GA, TX, CO, MA, WA, VA, and DC. Five of those are red or swing states.

The 74,000 figure isn't very meaningful, because most of it is in California.

Show me how many they employ in eg TX, VA, PA, GA. I'm willing to bet it's not more than a couple thousand. If it were 15k-20k across six or seven red states, that would matter politically.

Google's VA presence is in Loudon and Fairfax counties. Those are Democrat-leaning counties driving Virginia's status as a swing state. There are 88 companies with 500+ employees in Fairfax, and 220 companies with 100+ employees in Loudon. Google doesn't make either list.