- Joined
- 20 Oct 06
- Moves
- 10916
Here's what you have to do. First, be rich. Second, take advantage of all these tax loopholes that allow you to pay far fewer taxes than your non-rich neighbors who will never get rich because they pay too much in taxes. And it's all legal. These are the kinds of ways in which random used car dealers in Florida are becoming billionaires.
Paycheck protection plan: If you're rich and own a business, you got free money from Uncle Sam. $200 billion. Use it to buy a new yacht or whatever.
Cheat on your taxes: The working poor, particularly those claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit, are statistically much more likely to be audited by the IRS than multimillionaires due to shifts in enforcement resources.
The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) Distortion: A system originally built to prevent the top 2% of earners from skipping out on taxes morphed over time into a stealth tax on middle-class families instead.
Executive Perks and Deferrals: Personal income or business profit? Or neither? Use offshore accounts, low interest loans, and deferred compensation to avoid billions in taxes, while enjoying massive tax incentives on luxury perks like corporate jets.
The Social Security Cap: An average middle-class worker and a tycoon making $100 million pay the exact same flat amount into Social Security.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/09/everywhere-millionaires-tax-code/688584/
@wildgrass
This is what happens when money controls the state.
The 18th c. separated church and state. People used to be tortured and executed for thought-crime (heresy). Getting passed that was hard work. People said it couldn't be done. People said it would lead to anarchy and moral dissolution. People died for freedom to think. France needed five republics to get the details right.
The 21st c. must accomplish a similarly difficult and dangerous task: separation of money from politics. People will say it's utopian. People will say it can't be done. People will say it will collapse the economy. People will die for freedom from monetary tyranny. It may require multiple revolutions to get the details right.
@moonbus saidA good start would be the revocation of the SC's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, another bad decision overturning decades of precedent.
@wildgrass
This is what happens when money controls the state.
The 18th c. separated church and state. People used to be tortured and executed for thought-crime (heresy). Getting passed that was hard work. People said it couldn't be done. People said it would lead to anarchy and moral dissolution. People died for freedom to think. France needed five republics to get th ...[text shortened]... die for freedom from monetary tyranny. It may require multiple revolutions to get the details right.
@Suzianne saidReversing the decision would be too little too late.
A good start would be the revocation of the SC's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, another bad decision overturning decades of precedent.
1. I would declare all PACs and the entire Republican Party domestic terrorist organizations; arrest their chief operating personnel, both in Congress and not in Congress; seize their funds.
2. No political party should be able raise any funds at all from private, corporate, or foreign sources. Donations should be made to an independent apolitical body which would disburse funds to candidates, irrespective of party affiliation. All donations to the central body would be transparent, who made the donation, how much, and where that money came from. Foreign-money donations would be refused and the donor sentenced (in absentia, if necessary) to 50 yrs in prison. Donations through devious routes to avoid detection of the source would subject all parties in the chain of transactions to 50 yrs in prison, no pardons, no appeals.
3. Disbursements would be transparent, to whom, for what purpose (not golf trips to Ireland or family holidays to Majorca), and receipts would be mandatory and available for public inspection. Any candidate who acquired any campaign funds, even a penny, from any other source than the central body (including his own personal account at 1st Local Buttville Savings & Loan) would be sentenced to mandatory 50 yrs in prison, no pardons, no appeals.
4. Political candidates' and political officers' finances to be totally transparent. All holdings, all assets, and all transactions should be open to public scrutiny. Failure to disclose, even if there were no otherwise dubious or illegal transactions, to be subject to 50 yrs prison. If dubious or illegal transactions are revealed, then additional prison time, on top of the 50-yr failure-to-disclose sentence. No pardons, no appeals.
5. All political officials' assets to be placed in blind trusts while they are public servants. This would include appointed officials, such as Attorneys General and SC judges, as well as elected officials.
Fixed.
- Joined
- 20 Oct 06
- Moves
- 10916
@moonbus saidThese are all good ideas. Get the money out of politics. One of the most bizarre examples of how crazy it's gotten is the fact that 50% of Lockheed-Martin's profits are from publicly-funded sources, and the same company gives (er,... sends bribes to) millions of dollars to political candidates.
Reversing the decision would be too little too late.
1. I would declare all PACs and the entire Republican Party domestic terrorist organizations; arrest their chief operating personnel, both in Congress and not in Congress; seize their funds.
2. No political party should be able raise any funds at all from private, corporate, or foreign sources. Donations should be mad ...[text shortened]... ppointed officials, such as Attorneys General and SC judges, as well as elected officials.
Fixed.
In essence, the taxpayer is already paying for the bribes that political candidates get to maintain corporate welfare states. Why not just use public dollars to finance campaigns? I think that was John McCain's idea.