jamius.com

My understanding is that large corporations have fleets of lobbyists (generally a.k.a. lawyers) who protect their special interests by getting massive tax loopholes and rebates attached to legislation in Congress through the back door. The tax code is (by some accounts) how the large majority of the back-room wheeling and dealing is done in Washington. GE paid no taxes last year, hell, they got a rebate! Same with Exxon, and a fairly large percentage of the Fortune 500 companies.
The corporate tax rate could stand to be lowered. I think that is a great bargaining chip to use towards closing corporate tax loopholes. The problem is that in reporting on stuff like this, much of the media somehow conflates "small business" with "Ultra-Mega-Huge Corporations" on a regular basis, so this kind of thing gets little support. Read "It has been said, the proposed changes in legislation would be a burden on small businesses". Subtle, not entirely false, but very misleading. Oh, by the way, I recently heard that Lockheed Martin has qualified for tax incentives as a small business in the last few years!

I agree that both personal and corporate tax laws need to be simplified. The govenment needs to also get out of the business of encourage different things. I am a flat tax kind of person. If you make twice as much money, you benefited twice as much for doing business in the U.S. so you should pay twice the taxes.

The bottom line, though, is that there are numerous problems. A couple that bother me are below.

Politicians buying votes and not accepting responsibility for what they do. There is always the other party to blame.

The government giving people things instead of enabling them. The focus is on keeping the poor poor so that you can buy their vote. Give them enough to get buy, but don't enable them to get ahead.

Politicians creating division between groups to gain votes. We need the rich and they need us. We all need big business and big business needs us.

And the biggest thing that bothers me is politicians flat out lying to the American people. Yes, they support programs because it will get them votes even if they know the program is doomed to failure. The goal is to get elected and that is it. Telling the people what they want to hear overrides telling them the truth.

sjvsworldtour wrote:Politicians buying votes and not accepting responsibility for what they do. There is always the other party to blame.

The government giving people things instead of enabling them. The focus is on keeping the poor poor so that you can buy their vote. Give them enough to get buy, but don't enable them to get ahead.

Politicians creating division between groups to gain votes. We need the rich and they need us. We all need big business and big business needs us.

And the biggest thing that bothers me is politicians flat out lying to the American people. Yes, they support programs because it will get them votes even if they know the program is doomed to failure. The goal is to get elected and that is it. Telling the people what they want to hear overrides telling them the truth.

These couple sentences are exactly why I made the thread. I boil it down to down right lying. If more politicians told the truth, I think things would end up being a lot better.

I am neither democrat nor republican conservative nor liberal, I can't stand politics and I like politicians even less. What we need in this country is a return to common sense. Both parties are completely and totally corrupt. The fix to the 2 party system is to outlaw political parties, institute term limits, and a provision to recall any elected official or appointed bureaucrat at any time and for any reason by a simple majority vote of the people.

The federal government can collect import tarriffs and tax the states, the states can tax the counties and the counties can tax the municipalities. That way the money begins at the lowest level of government where people are more able to change it to suit their needs as opposed to the top down where if you don't do x,y and z that you don't need to do where you live the government don't pay what they owe. It should be the other way around counties should be telling states and states telling the federal government if you don't do what we elect you to do we are not paying you anything. We need a balanced budget amendment that can only be exceeded in a time of declared war, and a constitutional limit on taxes at 10% Tax returns would be easy add up your income and move the decimal point, Done! Easier than figuring a tip at a restaurant.

Sure you can go on strike, thats your right, but your boss should be able to fire your sorry butt for not showing up for work. Especially in the instance that was provided in the first post where children's graduation is being delayed over stupid stuff because the teachers are too greedy to put their students first. Don't like something at work deal with it, wait till you move up in the company and change it, or quit and go somewhere else.

We need to end these wars, fine we go into Afghanistan or Pakistan destroy their ability to attack us, get or kill Bin Laden and those responsible for 9/11, and get out. I would support that. But going into a sovereign nation to change the government there because we don't like it, is an act of war and it is international terrorism. Saddam Hussein was making weapons of mass destruction, so are we, Iraq doen't invade the US and tell us what we can do here and if they did I would be part of an insurgency just like people are in Iraq. Saddam was an evil man and was in violation of UN mandates, no doubt about it but thats not our business, let the UN enforce their mandates and let the people of Iraq choose their government. Why don't we tell the UN to get out of NY, when was the last time they did anything for us? While we are at it we should withdraw from NATO too for the same reason. As for Libya we don't even have a bad excuse for being there.

Um...

You're aware that we did in fact "get" Bin Laden recently?

It seems a bit pretentious to claim you don't lean in either direction, grumpybear. There is no such thing as a perfect moderate. Here: http://www.gotoquiz.com/politics/politi ... -quiz.html. Try that quiz, see where it puts you.

Also, the big thing about corruption is who is to say that even if we get rid of the current politicians and parties, the new people we put there will be less corrupt? Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and all that. Now, in an ideal world we could have unbiased majority votes of the people for major political decisions. But in the real world, people get influenced by those in power. And their inherent biases fog their view.

What we really need is to teach people empathy and common sense. We need to empathize with people. We need to educate ourselves and others, to the best of our ability, without bias. We need to learn to compromise and make personal sacrifices to help others. And we need to learn to be flexible with our opinions. We need to be introspective. And, finally, we need to be accepting of others who aren't. At least, that's my opinion.