Throw the bums out

So I take it you don't have the third or fourth option as I listed in my hypothetical ballot?

That would indeed be self-defeating if it were the case. The option to be able to say 'None of Above' and actually get new election or some variation of that would markedly influence people's behavior, and do less of 'voting for lesser of two evils', IMO.
 
Banana said:
So I take it you don't have the third or fourth option as I listed in my hypothetical ballot?

That would indeed be self-defeating if it were the case. The option to be able to say 'None of Above' and actually get new election or some variation of that would markedly influence people's behavior, and do less of 'voting for lesser of two evils', IMO.
Click to expand...

No such luck, take one of the majors (if they bother to run a candidate in your electorate) or pick a no chance independant
 
What i find objectionable about the US/UK electoral systems is that if you have say 3 candidates and two of them are quite close in their views while the third has very different views the third can get elected with just over 33.33 percent which means the majority views are not being represented.
 
Pat Hartman said:
I think we do best with a Republican congress and a Democratic president then vice-versa. Although both of the candidates are pretty scary with their promises to not raise taxes. I wonder who they think will pay for the Iraq war and the Wall St bailout, not to mention the earmarks? But even more scary are the people who believe that you can spend, spend, spend and never pay for anything.
Click to expand...

Actually, Obama has promised to raise taxes, i.e., undo the Bush tax cuts, for those making over 250k per year. The wealthy are the ones who are going to pay for all this nonsense, for ONCE.

McCain on the other hand, has promised not to raise ANYONE's taxes, which makes concerned- he is worse than a tax and spend liberal, he is a BORROW and spend republican. If you are going to support a 3 TRILLION dollar war Mr. McCain, AND an 850 billion dollar bailout plan, it is ridiculous to claim that NOONE's taxes need to be raised.
 
While I agree with your premise that borrow & spend are worse than tax & spend, I wouldn't go as far to say that Obama would be more fiscally conservative. NTUF had Obama as the biggest spend of all candidates, with $200+ billion deficit. McCain isn't any better with his $10 billion deficit (and I have serious doubt whether he'd actually keep it under $10 billion).

Taxes are really moot at this point because either parties know that if they need more money, they just crank up the printing press a notch. IOW, they tax us through inflation.

Finally, I think your ire against wealthy is somehow misplaced. When comparative advantage is considered in full, even the most poorest will benefit from wealthy's wealth. It's when we throw in government privileges, taxes, tariffs, regulations and other nonsense, does the transfer of wealth goes from poor to rich.
 
Banana said:
While I agree with your premise that borrow & spend are worse than tax & spend, I wouldn't go as far to say that Obama would be more fiscally conservative. NTUF had Obama as the biggest spend of all candidates, with $200+ billion deficit. McCain isn't any better with his $10 billion deficit (and I have serious doubt whether he'd actually keep it under $10 billion).

Taxes are really moot at this point because either parties know that if they need more money, they just crank up the printing press a notch. IOW, they tax us through inflation.

Finally, I think your ire against wealthy is somehow misplaced. When comparative advantage is considered in full, even the most poorest will benefit from wealthy's wealth. It's when we throw in government privileges, taxes, tariffs, regulations and other nonsense, does the transfer of wealth goes from poor to rich.
Click to expand...

You wouldn't go "so far" as to say that Obama would be more fiscally conservative than the party that doubled the national deficit, that inherited a budget surplus and handily turned it into a half trillion dollar budget deficit? That got us into a multi-trillion dollar war?

Doesn't seem like very far to go to me.

As far as the wealthy, I have no ire against them. But I deeply believe in progressive taxation, and I have immense ire at the republican party who has sought and continues to seek regressive taxation. The wealthy should be paying their fair share, instead of useing their money and power to influence the government to shift what is rightfully their burden onto the rest of us.
 
In case you haven't noticed, you've turned this topic partisan when my point was simply that *both* candidates' promises to be fiscally conservative is just that- a promise. This is going to go nowhere as people look at this through partisan lens, calling out the sins of the other party while glossing the same sin of their own party.

As for progressive taxation, it sounds all nice in theory, but when you do the math, it always turn up that everyone are poorer for it. Nobody has ever successfully taxed or spent any nation into prosperity. All coercion can do is to reshuffle the wealth (and the bureaucrats take a cut of this). More likely than not, people will want to seek tax shelter or otherwise evade taxation, thus creating activities that wouldn't otherwise make sense in absence of such prohibition. Indeed, consider the Prohibition and how successful it was in creating underground market and raising crime rates. Same applies to taxation, if not in form of a bootlegging mob.
 
Banana said:
In case you haven't noticed, you've turned this topic partisan when my point was simply that *both* candidates' promises to be fiscally conservative is just that- a promise. This is going to go nowhere as people look at this through partisan lens, calling out the sins of the other party while glossing the same sin of their own party.

As for progressive taxation, it sounds all nice in theory, but when you do the math, it always turn up that everyone are poorer for it. Nobody has ever successfully taxed or spent any nation into prosperity. All coercion can do is to reshuffle the wealth (and the bureaucrats take a cut of this). More likely than not, people will want to seek tax shelter or otherwise evade taxation, thus creating activities that wouldn't otherwise make sense in absence of such prohibition. Indeed, consider the Prohibition and how successful it was in creating underground market and raising crime rates. Same applies to taxation, if not in form of a bootlegging mob.
Click to expand...

This will go nowhere, but not because I am partisan. It is because you don't believe in progressive taxation. You say it has never been successful. I think we were doing pretty well at various times in our history when the tax burden was distributed more fairly. Obviously you don't agree.
 
I believe in fair taxation. I just believe I should get to define fair. That is, you guys send the government all your money and the government sends me a large percentage of that. And thank you for your patriotism.

It is really difficult when you say you want "fair". What is fair for one can be considered unfair for others. And do you really want to have someone else define what is fair? Who is in a better position to define fair? The PACs who send large contributions to your candidate or you. You can be assured your candidate (whoever he/she is) is going to listen to the large PACs, not you.

You need to get away from the squishy words used in political rhetoric. You may get what you asked for which could well be results you didn't want. Somebody has to think this stuff out beyond the 5 second rhetoric talking points. It seems that Obama has not done so. Hopefully his supporters will take longer than 5 seconds and do the math.
 
Alisa said:
The wealthy should be paying their fair share
Click to expand...

What do you consider fair? According to Kiplinger:

That top 1% of earners pay 37% of all the federal individual income taxes collected. The bottom 50% of earners pay just 3% of those taxes.
 
pbaldy said:
What do you consider fair? According to Kiplinger:

That top 1% of earners pay 37% of all the federal individual income taxes collected. The bottom 50% of earners pay just 3% of those taxes.
Click to expand...

The key statement in that sentence is "earners." The super rich out of site people aren't technically "earners." They're owners. That statement is extremely misleading in this context.
 
Fair will be defined when John Galt withdraws his 37% and lets the bottom 50% try to cover it.

True fair would be to take the debt and opertional expenses and divide it by the number of working citizens. It doesn't take a 3rd grade education to know that the bills wouldn't be paid. That's why young, single people entering the job market have roomates and the biggest earner in the group gets the master bedroom because their higher contribution pays for the right.

It's unfortunate, but the definition of fair depends on who gets to define it. A particular definition of fair didn't work in Russia.

-dK
 
Indeed.

And I think it's easy to forget that once we introduce rules, everyone will want to game the system. This is how our tax code came to be such a mess- it started out with some groups petitioning for exemption/credits/deductions/whatever- they probably had a great argument for why they should be entitled to such benefits. Once granted, it was inevitable that other groups would want similar benefits and thus argue for their own loopholes. Lather, rinse and repeat.

If rules were never introduced and no taxation were required, there would be no point of gaming the system because there's nothing to game. Furthermore, we would have much more workers who were employed in unproductive bureaucracy now available for more beneficial employment and thus as whole, be richer. But hey I must be insane, right?
 
ewomack said:
The key statement in that sentence is "earners." The super rich out of site people aren't technically "earners." They're owners. That statement is extremely misleading in this context.
Click to expand...

Okay, take the net worth of whatever super rich person you want and divide it by the amount spent daily by the federal government, and tell me how long it will last. I'll give you a hint; it will be measured in days, not weeks, years, or months. So let's not just tax them, let's take everything all the billionaires own. That runs the country for a month or two. Now where are we?

In the immortal words of Ten Years After:

Tax the rich, feed the poor, till there are rich no more.
 
georgedwilkinson said:
Somebody has to think this stuff out beyond the 5 second rhetoric talking points. It seems that Obama has not done so. Hopefully his supporters will take longer than 5 seconds and do the math.
Click to expand...
Where's the evidence that McCain has done the maths?:confused:
 
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