Oprah for President?

makeorbreak

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Okay, there are examples of laws which are advantageous to all but they are extreme to a certain extent. The seat belt law is advantageous to all drivers but not always accepted by all drivers. Then, again, there are those who can't wear a seat belt because of their weight or height, and don't forget those who won't wear them. Yet, one law that does come to mind would be the law against murder. It plays to everyone's advantage unless you consider the person who wants to commit the murder. The drinking and driving laws help everyone if they are adhered to.

When you think about affirmative action, you remember lots of white men were frozen out of the work place as businesses tried to hire from the other portions of the work force. They tried to up their numbers of non-white, female workers. I'm not saying affirmative action was. bad per se but it set up an unnatural disadvantage against white males. For that reason, it failed to do what it was set up to do.
It was more of an affirmative reaction than a positive action.

If you have a small enough core group with similar needs and interests, you will have a much easier time coming up with one policy for all. Once you add immigration, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, etc., the task of finding a policy for all becomes much more difficult. The Mennonite community, at one time, existed as its own entity with no dissension, everyone accepting the same rules. When that community began to interact with the outside world, their youth started to doubt the old ways. Their long-standing policies and beliefs were now suspected to be outdated.

I believe there is a candidate out there who can deliver what is needed but the sad thing is that they likely won't want to stick their necks out and take the chance that anyone will listen to them. They have already been beaten down by those around them who repeatedly tell them their opinion doesn't matter. All we have left are those who want something for themselves and if they help someone along the way, all the better. But, at least, let that one person have some political experience! No more celebrities!
 
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I'd prefer an independent billionaire over a puppet politician bought for by dozens of interest groups, provided his political ideas aren't contrary to my own.

You're right about affirmative action, of course. That law is intrinsically discriminatory. It shouldn't be the point that person A with a score or skill of X is refused for person B with a score or skill of X just because of his skin colour. I'm not convinced about the law imposing the seat belt on drivers and passengers. Sure, it's the most sane thing to do and not hard to do it, but this is in the same ball park as speed limits, imposed to save lives but in reality a huge source of income for the state by fining people most often on the road to work. Those cameras recording you for driving 5 km/h too fast just because you weren't paying attention or because you were overtaking another car is a real pain in the ass and just another way for government to fill their treasury and pay off interest rates with people's money, on top of the taxes they already pay. Speaking of which, what about tax cuts?
 

makeorbreak

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First, Trump said he wouldn't ask for help from donors and yet he did. Just because Oprah is a billionaire doesn't mean she won't accept money or grant her friends favors in exchange for something. Maybe Ellen would like something the White House can give. Money is not always the great motivator once you get to the top. At least with a politician, they need to try to keep their voters happy to keep the money flowing. It would not upset her to lose a salary which is pocket change.

Tax cuts are another issue. Tax the rich heavy and tax the poor lightly? The other way around? Maybe the best would be a tax rate even across the board. That would give the poor a basic income level and an incentive to work harder to earn more. The rich would invest more and create more jobs, right Donald?

Funny thing. Income tax was a wartime thing but we're not actively involved in a world war. It should have gone away in 1945. Maybe someone just forgot to file the paperwork to do that.Check that in box again please.
 
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Lol, I actually fully agree with your final part. Should be said more often.

With billionaire I mean someone who is less likely to be dominated by donors than the average career politician who can't do anything without them. It's a simple math exercise, really.

With regards to the tax cuts, what do you mean with "even" tax rates? The richest 1% already pays like half of all income taxes, so an even tax rate would benefit the rich, not benefit the poor. But if I interpret an even tax rate as it is most likely intended, for instance 15% income tax for everyone, would that not be beneficial to all?
 

makeorbreak

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It would be if the rich didn't have so many tax loopholes to write off so many phony expenses.
 

UnderAlienControl

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Funny thing. Income tax was a wartime thing but we're not actively involved in a world war. It should have gone away in 1945. Maybe someone just forgot to file the paperwork to do that.Check that in box again please.
Correction. In 1913, the 16th Amendment was ratified, permanently legalizing an income tax. The income tax is used to pay the pernicious usary charged by the Federal Reserve for printing and distributing our own money. And, it needs to go. It's just another Babylonian money scam /<>\. This shows how some rich bastards can have more power than a country with hundreds of millions of people. It's time for this bullsh*t money scam to stop. Audit those crooks yesterday and dissolve it tomorrow. FFS, it's like getting the currency from a pawn shop...

upload_2018-1-16_19-21-58.pngupload_2018-1-16_19-34-51.png


 
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Lurker

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You mean entrepreneurs? Every entrepreneur can play around with expenses to lower taxes, but if we're both against income tax, then this isn't really an issue?

How?
Sorry, I could have phrased that better. It would be disproportionate to the poor.
 
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Still not following. An even 15% income tax would be proportionately the same for everyone, ie. 15%. Can you explain?
 
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Ok, I get it. That's not untrue, but the tax cut for the rich could mean better wages for the poor, no? Unless you assume that rich people are inherently selfish / greedy / evil?
 
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Lower taxes = owners and CEOs have incentive to decrease average employee wages and pay themselves more since it doesn't cost as much taxwise,
higher taxes = more incentive to hide money offshore in order to avoid paying taxes and avoid investing back into the company (higher wages etc)

It's a lose-lose situation in reality.
 
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I agree with your higher taxes explanation, but your lower taxes explanation kind of speculates on the ethics of the entrepreneurs / ceo's / owners, assuming that those people don't want the "minions of their enterprise" to be happy. That doesn't only go against the productivity of the enterprise, but against the entrepreneur's own interest since his high-skilled people would seek employment elsewhere, and high-skilled labour is in high demand.

If anything, lower tax rates would increase incentive to raise wages because it would attract more high-skilled people, which would benefit the company, and because lower tax rates allow for more profit even in spite of wage increase. It would be wise for any entrepreneur to increase both profit and workers' wages if he wants to take his company forward. Increasing his own gains while lowering the wages of his employees could in the long run be detrimental to his business, which I admit, is sometimes what they want.
 

rainerann

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What we need to do is find ways to block monopolization.



This is a modern sort of monopolization and it is not so simple to just create a cap for how much an independent company can grow. This requires some creative thinking on the part of politicians to implement boundaries so that people are not able to work around laws that prevent monopolization.

I don't even have an idea of how you would approach this monster. I just know that this is a subject that media and politicians with questionable loyalties to special interest groups are avoiding. We are distracted with a debate between capitalism and socialism, taxing the rich and taxing the poor, this or that; and all the while, no one is holding anyone accountable for the way monopolies are developing despite being illegal because they have a negative effect on the economy.

It would be a miracle to get a candidate who would bring this up as a solution they intended to pursue if they were elected. If we removed monopolies, removing taxes would be simplified because we could expect money to be distributed without debating whether lower taxes for the poor benefits the rich or vice versa.

In theory, we should have less reason to fear the end of personal income tax or some other drastic change made to our present tax code.
 
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