Trump v Clinton: who do you support?

[fohat]

Democrats have a long list of idiotic policies as well.

Name 3 without consulting Google.

[Redmaus]

Hillary, Bernie, Obama

I did not consult google

[chzel]

I think fohat meant 3 policies.

[Redmaus]

Oh. Affirmative action, current welfare system, Bernie's tax plan

[Blaise170]

What is wrong with Bernie's tax plan? It doesn't even affect anyone below the $250,000 bracket.

[Redmaus]

It goes too far for the rich. I don't care how much you make being taxed at >50% of your income is ludicrous.

[ohaimark]

This is sort of a radical idea that I don't fully endorse, but I think the real problem with money involves inheritance. Inheritance is an outmoded concept that has fostered inequality since the dawn of civilization.

Why should one receive a massive portion of a country's economy simply because of genetics? Your child didn't earn that, no matter how much you love said child. And, while you may be trying to earn an inheritance for your child, you're essentially growing inequality. I don't mind at all if you want to get your kid the best education, clothes, and car while you're their legal guardian. Hell, even paying for college is cool. But after that I think that people should rise on their own merit. That's the American ideal anyways.

I'd be interested in setting an inheritance cap of some sort. That begs the question... "What do we do with the rest of the assets?" The best solution I've been able to come up with is a "mandatory donation" or "mandatory investment." All of your former assets would be liquidated. Family companies would go public sector. You'd be forced to leave your wealth to a charity or company of your choice. And, should your child produce income from thin air, the IRS could step in and audit.

There are still all sorts of issues with that, including the fact that our society would hate it, but I think there is some merit to the idea.

[fohat]

the real problem with money involves inheritance

The underlying is the question of whether money is a "resource" like as water that must be circulated and used to actually benefit the human race, or whether is is socially and morally acceptable to simply hoard it and thus take it out of circulation where it has no benefit at all.

Like damming a river upstream and leaving the farms downstream to wither and die, just because you can.

[ohaimark]

The thing is... Most rich folks' money isn't sitting stagnant in banks. It's tied up in stocks, businesses, and other assets that get taxed less than lump sums in banks. They can also try to outrun inflation if it's not liquid.

I definitely think that taxing dividends like normal income is a good idea, though. Right now the tax code is heinous.

[seebart]

I know nothing about US tax laws but I do know that large international corporations are moving their profits around globally to evade tax and they're damn good at it too. I saw an estimated figure of corporate tax "savings" somewhere online recently and it was an insanely large sum.

[Redmaus]

Oh yeah the rich use stuff like Swiss banks and other types of global investments all the time.

This is a problem that will be very hard to tackle. I don't know where the US government would even start.

[ohaimark]

We'd need globalized finance reporting, which is unlikely to effectively happen... Especially when it costs less to hide wealth than it does to pay taxes.

In any case, agreed. Corporations, because they are legally considered people (which is bizarre), ought to pay the same taxes that regular people do.

Part of the problem is that neither the corporations nor the stockholders who hold their dividends get taxed properly. The tax code would be significantly better if we closed some simple loopholes that are exploited ruthlessly.

[seebart]

Yeah this situation is the same here in Germany, corporations evade all the taxes they possilby can. If you add up all those tax losses those are huge sums.

[fohat]

Corporations, because they are legally considered people (which is bizarre)

Corporate personhood is an egregious notion that has become deeply ingrained in US law in the past century and a half.

Until after WW2, 2/3 of US taxes were paid by corporations and 1/3 by individuals. Today that has more than reversed.

Isn't this just peachy:

http://www.cheatsheet.com/business/high ... ?a=viewall

[Redmaus]

Corporate personhood is an egregious notion that has become deeply ingrained in US law in the past century and a half.

Until after WW2, 2/3 of US taxes were paid by corporations and 1/3 by individuals. Today that has more than reversed.

Why did they change it? Corporations should definitely pay more tax in my opinion. Especially with crap like bailouts happening.

[seebart]

It got worse Redmaus! They're making more profits and paying less taxes, at least the very successful like Apple for example.

[fohat]

Why did they change it?

Because corporations bought politicians. These days, corporations write bills and politicians pass them into laws.

The financial industry, alone, spends over $1M per day per member of Congress every day that Congress is in session, on lobbying.

If you really want to understand what is actually happening in the past couple of decades in the financial industry, you need to read Elizabeth Warren's book, "A Fighting Chance"

[Redmaus]

Oh yeah, I know about the 2008 stock crisis, and only one banker got jailed. The rest of them profited for fraud.

EDIT:

@fohat, I might read that book once I get the chance. Hillary would be the embodiment of lobbying to me. If she is elected corporations will love the system even more.

[vivalarevolución]

[…] the worst I see from Bernie is higher taxes and expenditures […]

I don't see why higher taxes should be considered per se bad.
People who do not want to pay taxes should not use what taxes are used for, and that's nearly every aspect in modern life.
For example, they should be excluded from using roads, police or street lighting, and they should also be consistent with themselves and refuse to benefit from the law-making processes on which the whole functioning of a country rests, including of course stock market regulations.
And it is only natural that the rich should pay a higher percentage of their income than the poor. After all, while nobody can seriously contend that someone earning $1,000,000 works thousand times as much as someone earning $1000, paying 10% taxes from a $1000 income means you have $900 left while with a 50% taxation of a $1,000,000 income you still have $500,000 (which is still more than 555 times more than the $1000 earner retains).

So if that is "the worst" you see from Bernie, I think that's not that bad.

My hesitance towards higher taxes is related to the belief that a government cannot tax their way into prosperity and the successes of socialist states in Europe are more difficult to duplicate here. I also understand the reasons for progressive taxation rates, but I think the more we tinker with the taxation rates to create "fairness" or encourage investment, the more complex we make the tax system and the more paperwork we require, the more people we need to fill out the paperwork, and the more government staff we need to process that paperwork, and the more it costs everyone. I don't think taxing high earners into oblivion is a solution.

In addition, the tax code is so complex that to gain full advantage of all the loopholes, we have to hire someone to understand the tax code for us. And the only people that can hire someone are the people and companies that also have enough money to write the tax code completely in their favor. At the very least, could we have a tax code that does not require me to hire people to fully understand the tax code and hire more people to write the tax code in a way that benefits me?

Also, while I'm legislating, could we at least have flat payroll taxes, rather the regressive rates we currently have with increasing income? That would take some pressure off the funding for Social Security and Medicare and prevent us from screwing over our elderly.

The "head up the ass" comment was out of line and I apologize. And, frankly, I consider you to be one of the more rational and intelligent people in this discussion, which leaves me all the more flummoxed when you equate Democratic and Republican support for "the system".

As to "the system" both Democratic candidates have pledged to overturn Citizens United while pretty much all Republicans (with the partial exception of Trump) both locally and nationally game the system for all it is worth.

The differences between the sides of the current political debate could hardly be more harsh and stark. Aside from the "clown-genius" Trump, the viable alternative is a climate-denier who stated, in public, with a straight face, that "Net neutrality is Obamacare for the internet." Are we living in Bizarro World?

Honestly, I find the "no difference" comments almost as phantasmagorical as the rhetoric coming out of the mouths of Republicans.

When I talk about "the system", I am referring to the electoral and political system that does not allow for robust candidates and discussion. Our elections are boiled down to a two-party, us vs. them, polarizing discussion and debates that often fail to acknowledge the wide spectrum of beliefs represented and advocated by the population. Two parties are too constrained to capture everything in a country of 315 million. Too often we are led to fight amongst ourselves rather than realize that we should be questioning the power structure rather than fighting about two candidates or amongst ourselves.

And the parties do not seem to have any interest in improving ballot access, alternate voting systems, allowing third parties into debates, acknowledging the legitimate views of third parties, eliminating the electoral college, and various other issues I can't think of right now. The two parties are most interested in holding onto the power they have and doing whatever they have to do in order to win, rather than fostering a robust discussion. They intentionally limit the discussion to limit awareness of certain issues.

On a policy level, I definitely lean towards the Democratic side of things, because I do not support in the quasi-theocratic, anti-science, climate change denying, anger-driven, white-centric, anti-feminist, anti-LGBT, voter suppression, overly strict drug laws, anti-firearm reform, lets-rail-against-the-government-but-use-the-government-to-tell-you-how-to-live tendencies. I would say war mongering and blame shifting, but the Democrats do not shy from those tendencies, either (among other issues I can't think of right now).

We living in a bizarro world, indeed. I feel like we are living in a combination of Idiocracy and Fahrenheit 451.

[vivalarevolución]

On another note, the results from mini-Super Tuesday are in. Who's excited for Trump vs. Clinton?!

The only hope for the anti-Trump seems to be a brokered convention.

[fohat]

The only hope for the anti-Trump seems to be a brokered convention.

This is what I am hoping for. If Trump he is frozen out, he will go ballistic and mount a 3rd-party bid.

You will get your wish for something besides a rigid 2-party system!

[Redmaus]

It would be amazing if Trump won via third party.

[recon8659]

What is wrong with Bernie's tax plan? It doesn't even affect anyone below the $250,000 bracket.

High taxes are a great way to drive away the wealthy business owners who employ the people that get less than 250k

[vivalarevolución]

The only hope for the anti-Trump seems to be a brokered convention.

This is what I am hoping for. If Trump he is frozen out, he will go ballistic and mount a 3rd-party bid.

You will get your wish for something besides a rigid 2-party system!

I suppose. The introduction of a viable third party candidate into our two party and winner take all voting systems just sorta screws over one party rather than solves anything, for better or worse.

High drama would be someone like Bernie going independent, as well as Trump. That would be even more fun.

[fohat]

The introduction of a viable third party candidate into our two party and winner take all voting systems just sorta screws over one party

That is absolutely true. And as long as it is the Republican Party being screwed, I am delighted.
They have earned it and they richly deserve it.

I have, in my younger years abstained from voting, and voted for third party candidates, even though I knew that it was transcendently stupid and wasteful. Somehow I thought that I was "making a statement" but I was really proving (to no one but myself) what a fool I was.

Choosing the lesser of 2 evils is ALWAYS a valid action, while flushing a precious vote down the toilet is not.

The last time that a 3rd-party candidate won electoral votes was Wallace in 1968, and he took several dozen of them.
Nixon won anyway. That was the bizarre death throes of the "Southern Democrats"

[vivalarevolución]

The introduction of a viable third party candidate into our two party and winner take all voting systems just sorta screws over one party

That is absolutely true. And as long as it is the Republican Party being screwed, I am delighted.
They have earned it and they richly deserve it.

I have abstained from voting, and voted for third party candidates, in my younger years, even though I knew that it was transcendentally stupid and wasteful. Somehow I thought that I was "making a statement" but I was really proving (to no one but myself) what a fool I was.

Choosing the lesser of 2 evils is ALWAYS a valid action, while flushing a precious vote down the toilet is not.

The last time that a 3rd-party candidate won electoral votes was Wallace in 1968, and he took several dozen of them.
Nixon won anyway. That was the bizarre death throes of the "Southern Democrats"

When it comes down to the day in November, I'm not too worried about it. I most likely will be voting in Indiana, where Barack Obama in 2008 was the only Democrat to win the state since 1964. And he won by less than 1%. 2012 went back to business as usual. I can vote for my neighbor's dog, and I will be 99.9% sure the Republican candidate will win this state and I won't have to worry that my vote helped put a Republican candidate in the White House.

In the meantime, I will continue ranting about the utterly undemocratic setup of our current electoral and political system. What is foolish and stupid, in my view, is knowing that you are getting screwed and not doing much about it (although if I lived in a place like North Korea, I probably would think twice about that statement).

[bhtooefr]

It goes too far for the rich. I don't care how much you make being taxed at >50% of your income is ludicrous.

It's worth noting that in the history of this country, there was once a 90% tax bracket. (This doesn't mean a 90% income tax, merely a point at which additional income was taxed at 90%. And, Bernie's not calling for anything close to a 90% tax bracket.)

There were no riots in the streets, there was no mass exodus of wealth. Instead, there was a massive investment in infrastructure, which then enabled further wealth generation.

[seebart]

Humans of New York

An Open Letter to Donald Trump:

Mr. Trump,
I try my hardest not to be political. I’ve refused to interview several of your fellow candidates. I didn’t want to risk any personal goodwill by appearing to take sides in a contentious election. I thought: ‘Maybe the timing is not right.’ But I realize now that there is no correct time to oppose violence and prejudice. The time is always now. Because along with millions of Americans, I’ve come to realize that opposing you is no longer a political decision. It is a moral one.
I’ve watched you retweet racist images. I’ve watched you retweet racist lies. I’ve watched you take 48 hours to disavow white supremacy. I’ve watched you joyfully encourage violence, and promise to ‘pay the legal fees’ of those who commit violence on your behalf. I’ve watched you advocate the use of torture and the murder of terrorists’ families. I’ve watched you gleefully tell stories of executing Muslims with bullets dipped in pig blood. I’ve watched you compare refugees to ‘snakes,’ and claim that ‘Islam hates us.’
I am a journalist, Mr. Trump. And over the last two years I have conducted extensive interviews with hundreds of Muslims, chosen at random, on the streets of Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan. I’ve also interviewed hundreds of Syrian and Iraqi refugees across seven different countries. And I can confirm— the hateful one is you.
Those of us who have been paying attention will not allow you to rebrand yourself. You are not a ‘unifier.’ You are not ‘presidential.’ You are not a ‘victim’ of the very anger that you’ve joyfully enflamed for months. You are a man who has encouraged prejudice and violence in the pursuit of personal power. And though your words will no doubt change over the next few months, you will always remain who you are.

Sincerely,

Brandon Stanton

[fohat]

Sincerely,
Brandon Stanton

Always refreshing to hear from someone else from Marietta, Georgia, who is not an insane Republican, like most of our neighbors.

[chuckdee]

Sincerely,
Brandon Stanton

Always refreshing to hear from someone else from Marietta, Georgia, who is not an insane Republican, like most of our neighbors.

It's those kinds of pejoratives that cast my statements earlier. Why is that necessary?