Who is wrong-er?

"Spanfeller is a twat" (theaspiringengineer) 07/08/2018 at 23:44 • Filed to: None

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Money in politics

We’ve seen a lot of money pour into American politics since the landmark Citizens United v. FEC , a ruling that, in a nutshell, described money as a form of free speech, and corporations as people with free speech rights . Although this was an important case, and opened the type of floodgates that would allow Hillary Clinton to spend almost !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! over the course of 20 months,most American politics have always been bankrolled privately (though some states have publicly funded elections) , many politicians feel disgusted by the process, and it provokes a lot of avoidable bias.

Mexico has a completely different system however, and our more strict system will probably result in a ten million dollar fine to our President Elect’s party and a few “leech” parties loosing their right to be registered as parties or of public funding. yes, public funding.

Although private donations can be made, those are very severely controlled, I just wonder if a system alike this would work in the US, surely some wako tea-partiers would go nuts thinking that the feds would give them money for their campaign but in a sense it would stop a lot of bad influences from getting into any candidate’s head. Be it rich bankers or rich coal execs; the limitations could help people get candidates that represent them a bit better.

It’s not to say it’s worked here or that it’s flawless; the reason I referred to the parties loosing their registration as “leeches” is because no one really votes for them, but as long as they have 3% of the vote they get to stay funded publicly, would you imagine if someone gave public money to a crazy person like Gill Stein? It’s what happens here sometimes, this props up some illegitimate candidates, and serves to make the election less democratic as if there are more candidates who can fund their campaign, then the vote will be split in many ways and the winner, in the worst case scenario, might end up with a minority of the total vote, as it happened here for four elections since 1988.

It’s also not very popular: voters hate paying for campaigns for politicians that might not use the funds in the best ways, and politicians have little way of making big bucks on their own, in a sense they’re envious of the US system where taking money from a business isn’t a crime. This is where, in the midst of the Earthquake, politicians and shortsighted SJWs asked that the parties have their funding stripped away and instead attain it privately, it sort of worked, and campaign finance was an important topic during the elections, as two candidates declined public funding whatsoever and had to raise money with all the shortcomings of the very strict system.

DipodomysDeserti > Spanfeller is a twat 07/09/2018 at 00:10

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American politics have always been bankrolled privately

Nyet. At least twelve states already have publicly funded elections

politicians have little way of making big bucks on their own

Right...

Spanfeller is a twat > DipodomysDeserti 07/09/2018 at 00:12

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Believe it or not, it’s actually hard. I will amend the post.

DipodomysDeserti > Spanfeller is a twat 07/09/2018 at 00:21

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I had a friend who ran for local office. Definitely didn’t have a hard time getting people to give him mon ey for doing absolutely nothing. Tell an industry you’ll help them out and they’ll throw money at you.

WRXforScience > Spanfeller is a twat 07/09/2018 at 02:43

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Corporations aren’t people and money isn’t speech.

If money were speech, it would be impossible to be convicted of bribery since your dollars would just be the same as a convincing argument.

If corporations were people, they’d have to become citizens and since they weren’t born in the US they’d have to apply for citizenship or be deported.

I heard a story about an attorney in California who drives around in the carpool lane with articles of incorporation for an LLC., he’s hoping to get a ticket and appeal so that he can prove corporations aren’t people.

Here’s my fixes : overturn citizens united, it was a bad ruling and has had awful consequences (donations should be limited to a set amount per individual, corporation, or entity) .

For the whole corporations deal , an individual must be legally responsible for the actions of a corporation (it should be whoever either makes the most money at a corporation or makes the decisions, but it cannot just be an appointed rube) . That’s the person who gets criminally charged for the crimes of a corporation (civil tort should still come out of the corporation’s bankroll so that you can’t just appoint a scapegoat who files for bankruptcy).

I’d also raise the top tax bracket back to what it was before Reagan (50-70%, we could go as high as 90% like it was in the 1950's). I would tax all income equally (no capital gains, corporate rates , or inheritance rates it’s all just earnings). To be fair, the highest bracket would start somewhere around $ 50 0,000/yr for individuals or $750,000/yr per couple so you don’t start paying high rates until you’ve already brought home half a million. If the US is at war (or deploys troops to any offensive action for more than 90 days), the top two tax brackets shift up by 20%. Nothing would do more to insure peace than making the rich pay for war.

I’d get rid of nearly all tax credits, deductions, and exemptions. Churches and nonprofits would have to pay taxes, but I’d allow them to deduct charitable acts/costs (land, payroll, administration, and infrastructure would all be taxed).

I’d make medical care a guaranteed basic right for all US citizens (I’d like to nationalize medicine but that might be a bridge too far even in my imagination).  

I’d make the immigration process simpler, more efficient, and faster. If you’ve been in the US for 10yrs, haven’t committed any crimes (real ones, no traffic ticket deportations), and have paid taxes (yup, gotta pay to play) you automatically get citizenship if you haven’t already. If you serve in the military, become a policeman, firefighter, teacher, nurse, or doctor (the list could be expanded for occupations of need) for at least 5 years, you become a citizen (again, you gotta pay taxes and not commit any crimes). I would be okay with an annual cap on immigration (it would have to be greater than 1 million people though) as long as it’s based on a first-come first-serve and lottery system with additional spots for need based immigration (asylum seekers could still apply even if the quota has been reached.

We should also reform our prison and education systems.

Oh, and we should pull an Australia and get rid of the all the guns. If a country where nearly all wildlife is deadly can get rid of their guns, so can we. The 2nd am endment was meant for militia (like our volunteer armed forces, elected sheriffs, and national guard). If you don’t have a demonstrable need for a firearm, you shouldn’t have one (I’d allow licensed recreational facilities to keep, store, and facilitate the usage of firearms for target practice and/or hunting as long as they are regulated, licensed, and held responsible for the weapons).

I’d get rid of the electoral college, and mandate that all congressional districts be drawn in a non-partisan manner. I’d also make voting compulsory , with elections held on the weekend or as a national holiday (we could probably get away with one or the other). I’d also set limits about when politicians can campaign (elections would have start and end dates).

I’d also make distinctions and labels to differentiate between news and entertainment. There would have to be a warning or disclaimer for panel shows, editorial programs, and opinion pieces (clear lines between news and entertainment/opinion).

I’d also implement a maximum age for government positions. Anyone over 75 would have to retire and would be ineligible to serve in anything other than an advisory role (cabinet members could be over the limit, but they would be ineligible to be in the line of succession to the Presidency).

I may have gotten a little carried away...

I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker > WRXforScience 07/09/2018 at 09:09

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No, that’s pretty much all reasonable. The only part I personally take issue with is this :

I’d get rid of nearly all tax credits, deductions, and exemptions. Churches and nonprofits would have to pay taxes, but I’d allow them to deduct charitableacts/costs (land, payroll, administration, and infrastructure would all be taxed).

If you do both, you’re taxing the same dollars twice. Either give a deduction for donations to nonprofits or don’t tax the nonprofit- nonprofits, by definition, have no profits to be taxed, and all income effectively comes by way of donations that are already post tax.

Spanfeller is a twat > WRXforScience 07/09/2018 at 10:04

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I wouldn’t tax the church (even though I’m atheist), maybe I’d make the guidelines a little bit stricter.

I wouldn’t up the rates to 90%; but I would up them to 50-60% and get rid of the Alternative Tax Rate
On the war thing, I’d also make the guidelines more strict, and also make the requirement for war 66% of congress and 66% of states. Plus, if you’re going to be so peppy about taxes, why not just nationalize medicine? If you make a medicaid for all system it’s going to be incredibly expensive if you let private hospitals and insurers get their hands in the mess.

WRXforScience > I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker 07/09/2018 at 13:26

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As long as the majority of the funds they take in go back out, they’d be fine. If they had lots of ass ets and/or paid high salaries, then they’d be taxed on those.

Churches are no different from movie theaters, playhouses, or theme parks unless they offer tangible benefit to the community (like home less shelters, food/clothing drives, and other forms of outreach).

Just because their product is “spiritual” doesn’t mean they aren’t a form of entertainment.

Churches don’t get taxed twice, if they did everyone who takes money would be. The grocery store isn’t taxed twice because you had to pay income taxes before you went there. If the churches are worth keeping to the community, their parishioners can pay for them.

Unless your argument is that no one would give money to churches if they couldn’t avoid paying the same amount in personal taxes to the government.

A restaurant that feeds your body has to pay takes, but a church that nourishes the soul doesn’t? Why not? Churches don’t have to prove that they benefit the community to get or keep their tax free status. 

I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker > WRXforScience 07/09/2018 at 14:15

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The highly paid workers at the NPO still pay income tax though.

And if you tax a church, you would have to represent it in government- that’s why churches that function effectively as for- profit entities are legally NPOs- church and state must remain sepa rated. I agree that it’s kind of weird how we do it , but also the tax collected from churches would be negligible after deducting the charitable donations/expenses. There are definitely spiritual enterprises that should not have tax exempt status though.

My original comment was from a slight misreading of what I quoted, actually. Your clarification here cleared it up.

WRXforScience > I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker 07/09/2018 at 17:20

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Churches are represented in government, the only special carve out for churches is that they aren’t supposed to support specific candidates (which they do anyway).

Since they pick candidates anyway (there are upcoming court cases that could remove this restriction), we may as well lift it and start getting some taxes from churches. Property taxes are probably the biggest portion of the de fer red taxes and the majority of what would chang e.

WRXforScience > I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker 07/09/2018 at 17:20

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Churches are represented in government, the only special carve out for churches is that they aren’t supposed to support specific candidates (which they do anyway).

Since they pick candidates anyway (there are upcoming court cases that could remove this restriction), we may as well lift it and start getting some taxes from churches. Property taxes are probably the biggest portion of the de fer red taxes and the majority of what would chang e.

dogrivergrad68 > WRXforScience 07/22/2018 at 02:44

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Australia has more guns in private hands now than they did when they “got rid of them” in 1996.