We are #1
 

How government helps the 1 percent

A very good opinion piece from WaPo.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...y.html?hpid=z3

If only we could get the 1% to each spend another million or so a year of ciigs and liquor, we might get their contribution up to an even 6%.

Or we might work the income tax rules just a little....

Any questions as to why the Republicans are always for consumption taxes and against income taxes?

I'll be a against state income tax until I move to a state with one.

The fix is commonly referred to as the flat tax. This crap will continue as long as lobbyists have access to politicians, and politicians have access to a tax code that allows them to wield political power.

The fix is a true progressive tax with no loopholes.

It is simply morally wrong to have a minimum wage worker paying the same percentage of his or her income in taxes as a billionaire hedge fund mogul.

Maybe in an ideal world, but this isn't an ideal world. As long as we have a tax code that allows political types to mess with it at the behest of lobbyists, we will continue to have the concerns that are cited in the OP.

That's just a typical right wing cop-out.

We don't need an ideal world. All we need is a good progressive Democrat like FDR in the White House and Democratic majorities in congress like he had in the 1930's.

Concur.

Hmmm, not a fan of Citizens United, eh Mike? :rolleyes:

Nah. There's not a politician or political party alive who won't tweak the tax code for their own electoral benefit. Therein lies the rub.

I'll take Van Hollens proposal versus the tired old Repub mantra of trickle down, wouldn't you?

Then the 90% of us that are being fucked by these tweaks need to make it clear to these politicians that if they want to be re-elected they need to tweak them to our benefit.

Good luck with that. Pols in both parties tweak the tax code with equal fervor for all the wrong reasons. The last several election cycles have confimed for me that the no one inside the beltway gives a rats ass about the voters. Maybe we need term limits first, then we can overhaul the tax code. The "throw the bums out" attitude simply gets the current crop of bums replaced with...new bums, and the old bums become lobbyists or go to work on Wall Street or banking.

See above. The game is DC has changed mightily since the 1930's in case you've missed the last 80 years.

Indeed. Politicians only get serious about tax reform upon or after retirement from the game. For example, Dave Camp (R-Mich), chairman of House Ways and Means, laid out his tax reform plan on the way out the door.

There's a good reason for term limits. Reform proposals will be laid out frequently on their way out.

If not for the presidential term limit Clinton would have been President on 9/11.

If not for Jebbie, Katherine Harris and the Supremes, Al Gore would have been president on 9/11.

Your point?

John

If chickens had lips, they wouldn't have to eat with their peckers.

I don't like term limits.

If you get someone good in there they should be able to stay as long as they and the voters want them to.

The problem is fixed elections, primarily due to gerrymandering and virtually unlimited corporate money due to "Citizens United", both of which are Republican wet dreams.

Well, looks like your DNC pals have adapted.

In the intervening years, Obama and his fellow Democrats embraced big-money politics. Democrats formed super-PACs to defend the presidency, gain seats in the House of Representatives, and preserve their majority in the Senate. Obama is the first president in history to utilize a tax-exempt 501(c)(4) group, which can accept unlimited sums from anonymous donors, to promote his policy agenda.

Too bad they couldn't figure out how to use the money they earned to their advantage in the last election cycle.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...itizens-united

Love this one too.

http://watchdog.org/129000/citizens-...ers-elections/

The loosening of federal rules for political spending has done more to help Democrats than Republicans, according to two recent analyses of campaign contributions.

Those facts run counter to a well-established national media narrative — one often repeated by liberal groups and Democratic lawmakers who bemoan the influence of corporate cash in politics after the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2010 opened the flood gates to unlimited political spending — that says Republicans and their big business allies have been able to unduly influence elections with unfettered spending.

Both sides play the game, but which has benefited the most from unfettered political spending?

When all the numbers were added up, it wasn’t even close in 2013.

An analysis by the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit that tracks political spending, of groups and individuals who wrote checks of more than $10,000 to super PACs and other political committees found big labor outspent big business by a margin of more than 2-to-1 during 2013.

More:

That unions favor Democrats is hardly a surprise, and even though the majority of corporations gave to Republicans, the Sunlight Foundation analysis found the largest single corporate donor was the Mostyn Law Firm, which gave more than $1.1 million to liberal super PACs.

The two largest individual donors during 2013 — billionaire banker Tom Steyer ($11.1 million) and Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City ($8.7 million) — both gave mostly to Democrats, too.

So?

You expect the Dems to unilaterally disarm?

That would be like bringing water ballons to a gunfight.

You don't have to have a point to have a point. In this case though, I'm not surprised by your question.

So...It puts the lie to your statement above that it's a "Republican's wet dream", don't you think?

Not in the least.

The Republicans are the ones that pushed for it and it was the Republicans on the Supreme Court that gave it life.

The Democrats have tried to overturn it and here's what happened.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/181590...t-stopped-them

If you think that vote was about advancing efforts to overturn CU, you're a bigger tool than I thought.

The Pubbies stuck together and killed an effort to ammend the constituion, an ammendment which would have given Congress unprecendeted new powers to regulate speech. Period.

Use your head. Do you really think that members of Congress need a consitutional ammendment to save themselves from themselves?

Right....... speech

https://www.popularresistance.org/wp...ng-dollars.png

What a lame assed excuse that is.

You don't actually expect anyone to buy that crap do you?:rolleyes:

What else might the law regulate? “Do you think the Constitution required Congress to draw the line where it did, limiting this to broadcast and cable and so forth?” Alito said. Could the law limit a corporation from “providing the same thing in a book? Would the Constitution permit the restriction of all those as well?”

Yes, Stewart said: “Those could have been applied to additional media as well.”

The Justices leaned forward. It was one thing for the government to regulate television commercials. That had been done for years. But a book? Could the government regulate the content of a book?

“That’s pretty incredible,” Alito responded. “You think that if a book was published, a campaign biography that was the functional equivalent of express advocacy, that could be banned?”

“I’m not saying it could be banned,” Stewart replied, trying to recover. “I’m saying that Congress could prohibit the use of corporate treasury funds and could require a corporation to publish it using its—” But clearly Stewart was saying that Citizens United, or any company or nonprofit like it, could not publish a partisan book during a Presidential campaign.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...oney-unlimited

Yada, tada, yada.:rolleyes:

Good one whell. You see, if we lean on you enough, and make you try, you can at least find interesting stuff to C&P.

Poor Justice Stewart, now, got suckered by a false equlivalency. Broadcast media ain't books. Books you have to open them and read them; broadcast is pushed. That makes them totally different in effect. If the Supremes said freedom of speech and of the press mean what they meant when the Constitution was written--vibrations in the air from a human throat, and text on paper--I think we'd be better off. Because if it were seen as constitutional to ban all paid political messages on TV and other electronic media, I'd want it done.

Speech is speech. The media used for delivery of speech isn't relevant. Why should it matter if its a guy standing in the middle of town square on a soap box, a book, a newspaper, a tv program, a dvd or a streaming internet video? In fact, to your point, when the consitution was written the type of speech of primary concern to the framers was political speech.

Whether or not you'd "want it done", I'm not in any hurry to turn over to Washington politicos the power to curtail freedom of speech.

Just for context, this was the kind of punishment for unwelcome political speech that was not uncommon at the time when the Constitution was written: torture, imprisonment, death sentences, purges. Its among the many reasons why some folks fled their home countries and came to the "New World". Its still going on today on some parts of the world. I'd rather move away from this kind of control of speech than move toward it with the kind of "fix" that was prescribed with the amendment proposal that was defeated in September.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...e-9983986.html

Incidentally, Stewart was not a Justice. He was a deputy solicitor employed by the Justice Department. He didn't get "suckered". He answered the question truthfully and consistently with arguments that had been offered up to that point during the hearing (per the Toobin article).

You don't have to worry, it won't be done. The number of elected officials who think as I do here is probably...zero. My chief dislike is for political video, btw--electronic text can stay unregulated I suppose.

I remain against torture, over 'treasonous speech' or anything else. though it's not like there's no temptation. My opposition to what is called 'political speech' in the video world stems from the style and content of what we get. Ghads, look at it if you can stand it. It's 99% tricks and lies, 98% tricks and lies used to smear the opponent, and 99.9% pitched at swaying the most stupid and ignorant of the citizens endowed with the sacred democratic franchise. Plus it is aired at a cost of billions, creating the demand for lavish funding that cannot but confer decisive influence upon it's providers.

Ending campaign video would be nothing but good for the healthy functioning of our democracy.

There is plenty of precedent for regulation of broadcast media; cable should be included because it uses airways when transmitted by satellite or wi-fi. Candidates who want to distribute media should be limited to passing out physical disks. That should be liberal enough for anyone.

My miistake--crossed up wires with old Justice Potter Stewart.

Its really not about what speech you or I prefer, get tired of, or think is too much or too little. Nor is it currently within the purview of the gov't to determine what political speech you and I get to utter or when and how we utter it.

But if you wish to push for the regulation of speech over the Internet and let the gov't make the determination about what and when certain types of speech are appropriate, I wonder what the future of this forum would be in that scenario?

I've already said forget regulating text. This is text.

Might have some impact on the promiscuous use of YouTube links, though....

Look, I'm not exactly serious here. I'm just wishing I could wave a magic wand and make all campaign video go away. Because it IS awful, and it's cost is what gives candidates a NEED for all that funding, with the corruption of democracy that comes with that.

Just think of it as 'thinkiing outside the box.'