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Northern Ireland25403 Posts
Basically anything that is actually interesting in either heading off future problems, or redressing obvious existing ones will almost always be dismissed out of hand as being crazy talk by most, way way before the stage of actually demonstrating/countering the practicality of what’s being proposed.
I’m sure it’s not necessarily his idea, or at least not uniquely his but I thought John Rawl’s proposal that all citizens get an influx of a certain lump sum of money when they hit adulthood was one such interesting idea.
Capitalism has a problem right now, well if you’re someone like me anyway, namely that more and more people don’t actually have much capital or assets at all. The losers of capitalism if they were optimistic still felt they could climb up the ladder if they got lucky, the bootstraps idea is pretty prevalent.
I think that’s going to get harder to maintain for the generation that doesn’t not only not have it better than their parents, but has it actively worse in certain areas too. It breaks a trajectory of general upward movement on that particular measure that’s been a constant for quite a while now.
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Alaska’s dividend is not the same as UBI. It’s too small.
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United States42718 Posts
On April 09 2019 07:43 Dromar wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2019 07:22 KwarK wrote:
VAT doesn’t tax profits, it taxes consumption. It’s a regressive tax. Poor people buy petrol, food, clothes. Rich people buy the means of production. What y’all want is called stamp duty or a higher tax on LTCG. I'm pretty sure you are educated about tax laws, so maybe you can enlighten me. I understand that a VAT taxes consumption. Poor people buy gas, food, clothes, but is it not possible that those things could be exempt from the VAT? (pretty sure the answer is yes, just like we already have exemptions on sales tax for necessities). I hear "it's a regressive tax" quite a bit. Does that have any real meaning, or is it mostly just used to paint VAT in a bad light? The notion that, theoretically, without seeing how it's implemented, it could tax poor people is what "regressive tax" means, right? And when rich people buy the means of production, is that subject to a VAT? Again, I'm sure you're more educated on this than I am, but isn't VAT a tax on spending? Like, when <entity> spends money on any non-exempt good or service, they pay tax on it? Is there any reason to believe buying the means of production would be exempt from VAT? In regards to stamp duty or higher tax on long term capital gain, I'm not super familiar with them, but what I actually want, to be honest, is UBI. Because there are way too many people who have no bargaining power at their work, no job security, and no future. I consider myself lucky with the position I'm in, but honestly I'm not much better off than they are. Of course UBI costs money. And while a part of me feels like the government could/should be able to do this, the reality is the only way it's happening is if we bring in new money that isn't essentially "pre-allocated." In terms of taxation, what I want is a tax that gets more value from wealthy people and/or corporations. Our current tax code seems to fail, or at least have significant flaws, in that area. But many businesses spend money in order to operate, and I'm pretty sure that spending would be subject to VAT. The fact is big businesses make more money than ever before while contributing less and less to communities and overall society. This is largely due to technology. And with AI and automation around the corner, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of human workers are going to be phased out with no backup plan and no prospects. This is in the next 5 to 15 years. Much of the technology is already here, it's just a matter of time until it's cheaper than equivalent employee wages. edit: I'll just pre-empt the inevitable response that businesses just pass their VAT costs on to consumers. I'm aware that (most, but not all, of the time) this is what will happen. But it doesn't change the fact that, for example, a UBI of $1000/month supported by VAT is money and (some degree of) financial security for Americans who spend less than $120k /yr on non-exempt goods and services. And that's the vast majority of Americans. Meanwhile wealthier people or entities that spend more than $120k /yr on non-exempt goods and services are, effectively, paying more taxes. That is exactly what I want. So this seems pretty good and not at all "retarded" to me. But again, I don't know everything. I'd love to know if I'm misunderstanding something.
So basically we have two ways of thinking about tax. We can either tax the profits (the surplus after all necessary costs involved in generating the wealth have been paid) or we can tax the consumption (the necessary costs). Profits is considered to be better because it scales. If no wealth is generated (costs equal to or greater than proceeds) then it wouldn't make sense to tax people because they've not earned anything. Whereas if vast profits are generated that are completely disproportionate to the consumed goods it wouldn't make sense to apply the same tax, based on the consumption, regardless of the profit. If you and I lived next door to each other, had similar cars, families, hobbies etc and each had living costs of $40,000/year but I earned $200k and you earned $45k then a 10% VAT would be $4,000/$160,000 for me and $4,000/$5,000 surplus to you. That's what people mean by regressive. The less you earn, the higher the % of surplus you pay. Regressive has a specific meaning, it's not a buzzword, it means specifically this situation. You're paying 80% of your $5,000 in taxes and I'm paying 2.5% of my $160,000.
Stocks, commodities, rental properties, investments and so forth are all exempt from VAT. So when you spend $40,000 of your $45,000 per year on consumables subject to 10% VAT I spend the same $40,000 on consumables and then another $156,000 on investments which are not. That's manifestly unfair to any idiot, the things you buy to make an honest living with your hands such as tools and petrol are taxed whereas the things I buy to live off the sweat of others are not. In the US the things the capitalist class buy (ie investments) have historically been exempt from any kind of stamp duty (VAT for investments), largely because they make the laws and they'd rather not pay VAT if it's all the same to you thanks. So the reason I would believe that it would be excluded from VAT is because we already have VAT (sales taxes) and they're excluded.
Consider Bezos. For Bezos to pay the same percentage in sales taxes as one of his warehouse employees he would have to spend $50,000,000,000 or so on consumables in a given year. It's just not possible. Sales taxes cannot scale adequately. Taxing excess wealth is the only workable approach.
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United States42718 Posts
On April 09 2019 08:31 xDaunt wrote:
Alaska’s dividend is not the same as UBI. It’s too small.
Because the only "socialized proceeds" used are the oil proceeds. Scale up the wealth of the people and scale up the dividend with it. It's simply an example of the theory. Nationalize some mines, maybe charge a pollution tax or a fisheries tax for companies that extract the natural wealth of Alaska.
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United States42718 Posts
On April 09 2019 08:30 Wombat_NI wrote:
Basically anything that is actually interesting in either heading off future problems, or redressing obvious existing ones will almost always be dismissed out of hand as being crazy talk by most, way way before the stage of actually demonstrating/countering the practicality of what’s being proposed.
I’m sure it’s not necessarily his idea, or at least not uniquely his but I thought John Rawl’s proposal that all citizens get an influx of a certain lump sum of money when they hit adulthood was one such interesting idea.
Capitalism has a problem right now, well if you’re someone like me anyway, namely that more and more people don’t actually have much capital or assets at all. The losers of capitalism if they were optimistic still felt they could climb up the ladder if they got lucky, the bootstraps idea is pretty prevalent.
I think that’s going to get harder to maintain for the generation that doesn’t not only not have it better than their parents, but has it actively worse in certain areas too. It breaks a trajectory of general upward movement on that particular measure that’s been a constant for quite a while now.
That was Jefferson's idea. His plan was to nationalize the wealth of the dead and to redistribute it to those reaching the age of majority to prevent the emergence of a new aristocracy who, through their control of wealth and the means of production, would condemn those not born to wealth to a life of wage slavery.
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On April 09 2019 08:37 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2019 07:43 Dromar wrote:On April 09 2019 07:22 KwarK wrote:
VAT doesn’t tax profits, it taxes consumption. It’s a regressive tax. Poor people buy petrol, food, clothes. Rich people buy the means of production. What y’all want is called stamp duty or a higher tax on LTCG. I'm pretty sure you are educated about tax laws, so maybe you can enlighten me. I understand that a VAT taxes consumption. Poor people buy gas, food, clothes, but is it not possible that those things could be exempt from the VAT? (pretty sure the answer is yes, just like we already have exemptions on sales tax for necessities). I hear "it's a regressive tax" quite a bit. Does that have any real meaning, or is it mostly just used to paint VAT in a bad light? The notion that, theoretically, without seeing how it's implemented, it could tax poor people is what "regressive tax" means, right? And when rich people buy the means of production, is that subject to a VAT? Again, I'm sure you're more educated on this than I am, but isn't VAT a tax on spending? Like, when <entity> spends money on any non-exempt good or service, they pay tax on it? Is there any reason to believe buying the means of production would be exempt from VAT? In regards to stamp duty or higher tax on long term capital gain, I'm not super familiar with them, but what I actually want, to be honest, is UBI. Because there are way too many people who have no bargaining power at their work, no job security, and no future. I consider myself lucky with the position I'm in, but honestly I'm not much better off than they are. Of course UBI costs money. And while a part of me feels like the government could/should be able to do this, the reality is the only way it's happening is if we bring in new money that isn't essentially "pre-allocated." In terms of taxation, what I want is a tax that gets more value from wealthy people and/or corporations. Our current tax code seems to fail, or at least have significant flaws, in that area. But many businesses spend money in order to operate, and I'm pretty sure that spending would be subject to VAT. The fact is big businesses make more money than ever before while contributing less and less to communities and overall society. This is largely due to technology. And with AI and automation around the corner, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of human workers are going to be phased out with no backup plan and no prospects. This is in the next 5 to 15 years. Much of the technology is already here, it's just a matter of time until it's cheaper than equivalent employee wages. edit: I'll just pre-empt the inevitable response that businesses just pass their VAT costs on to consumers. I'm aware that (most, but not all, of the time) this is what will happen. But it doesn't change the fact that, for example, a UBI of $1000/month supported by VAT is money and (some degree of) financial security for Americans who spend less than $120k /yr on non-exempt goods and services. And that's the vast majority of Americans. Meanwhile wealthier people or entities that spend more than $120k /yr on non-exempt goods and services are, effectively, paying more taxes. That is exactly what I want. So this seems pretty good and not at all "retarded" to me. But again, I don't know everything. I'd love to know if I'm misunderstanding something. So basically we have two ways of thinking about tax. We can either tax the profits (the surplus after all necessary costs involved in generating the wealth have been paid) or we can tax the consumption (the necessary costs). Profits is considered to be better because it scales. If no wealth is generated (costs equal to or greater than proceeds) then it wouldn't make sense to tax people because they've not earned anything. Whereas if vast profits are generated that are completely disproportionate to the consumed goods it wouldn't make sense to apply the same tax, based on the consumption, regardless of the profit. If you and I lived next door to each other, had similar cars, families, hobbies etc and each had living costs of $40,000/year but I earned $200k and you earned $45k then a 10% VAT would be $4,000/$160,000 for me and $4,000/$5,000 surplus to you. That's what people mean by regressive. The less you earn, the higher the % of surplus you pay. Regressive has a specific meaning, it's not a buzzword, it means specifically this situation. You're paying 80% of your $5,000 in taxes and I'm paying 2.5% of my $160,000. Stocks, commodities, rental properties, investments and so forth are all exempt from VAT. So when you spend $40,000 of your $45,000 per year on consumables subject to 10% VAT I spend the same $40,000 on consumables and then another $156,000 on investments which are not. That's manifestly unfair to any idiot, the things you buy to make an honest living with your hands such as tools and petrol are taxed whereas the things I buy to live off the sweat of others are not. In the US the things the capitalist class buy (ie investments) have historically been exempt from any kind of stamp duty (VAT for investments), largely because they make the laws and they'd rather not pay VAT if it's all the same to you thanks. So the reason I would believe that it would be excluded from VAT is because we already have VAT (sales taxes) and they're excluded. Consider Bezos. For Bezos to pay the same percentage in sales taxes as one of his warehouse employees he would have to spend $50,000,000,000 or so on consumables in a given year. It's just not possible. Sales taxes cannot scale adequately. Taxing excess wealth is the only workable approach.
Ok, thanks for this explanation.
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On April 09 2019 07:03 Dromar wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2019 23:00 byte-Curious wrote:
If you take it a bit further, you'll get to Andrew Yang, who supports UBI and worker owned enterprise. Who also doesn't think it's a good idea to diminish anyone's economic suffering because they're white men, think truckers.
Unfortunately, the 'don't be racist towards whites' stance means the SJW wing of the democrats won't give him a fair shake, though.
That's what progressivism should be about, making sure Americans get a return on the tax dollars they invested into new technologies, and checking destructive corporate greed.
The thing is, most people want what Bernie and Warren want to give them, but a fair portion of them is alienated by left wing identity politics. Which is ironic, because right wing identity politics suited them just fine for decades.
I've been following Andrew Yang very closely, as I think he is by far the best candidate for 2020. I just want to clarify that he is NOT pushing worker owned enterprise in any way. His main platform is a UBI to begin to address the impending loss of jobs due to AI and automation, paid for in part by a value-added tax (VAT) which is essentially a tax that can't be evaded by multi-billion dollar corporations. He's also very down-to-earth, and has solutions and policy rather than platitudes and identity politics. @GH: welcome back. Have you heard of Andrew Yang, and if so, what do you think of his platform?
TY
Wolf in sheep's clothing imo. UBI (as planned by Yang) is a bait and switch to yank social spending and he has some other questionable positions associations iirc. I haven't bothered to learn a whole lot but at least he's got a platform people can read which puts him ahead of most. Bernie get's a slight pass because his supporters know his platform, but I'm not a fan of the whole "project your dreams onto me" campaign style after Obama.
If this was a healthy democracy I'd say the more the merrier, but it's not, so it's mostly distraction in my view but I don't think it'll have much impact other than to get the UBI in the Conversation more which I think generally is a good thing.
EDIT: Also what happened to our MMT person who should be chiming in about now explaining why we don't need a tax for a UBI?
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Northern Ireland25403 Posts
On April 09 2019 08:44 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2019 08:30 Wombat_NI wrote:
Basically anything that is actually interesting in either heading off future problems, or redressing obvious existing ones will almost always be dismissed out of hand as being crazy talk by most, way way before the stage of actually demonstrating/countering the practicality of what’s being proposed.
I’m sure it’s not necessarily his idea, or at least not uniquely his but I thought John Rawl’s proposal that all citizens get an influx of a certain lump sum of money when they hit adulthood was one such interesting idea.
Capitalism has a problem right now, well if you’re someone like me anyway, namely that more and more people don’t actually have much capital or assets at all. The losers of capitalism if they were optimistic still felt they could climb up the ladder if they got lucky, the bootstraps idea is pretty prevalent.
I think that’s going to get harder to maintain for the generation that doesn’t not only not have it better than their parents, but has it actively worse in certain areas too. It breaks a trajectory of general upward movement on that particular measure that’s been a constant for quite a while now.
That was Jefferson's idea. His plan was to nationalize the wealth of the dead and to redistribute it to those reaching the age of majority to prevent the emergence of a new aristocracy who, through their control of wealth and the means of production, would condemn those not born to wealth to a life of wage slavery.
Think that’s pretty reasonable as long as the threshold isn’t too harsh, IMO anyway.
It’s easier by far to turn a ‘small loan of a million dollars’ into much more than to convert fuck all into anything.
Plus it pushes the extremely wealthy to actually do something with it, so there’s that. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the extremes of wealth disparity, but if you’re spending it that’s less irritating to me, it can bring cool things, jobs or at least can recirculate in the economy in some fashion.
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On April 09 2019 08:31 xDaunt wrote:
Alaska’s dividend is not the same as UBI. It’s too small.
I agree with you that Alaska's dividend is too small to really be taken seriously as UBI (it's only around $1,200 per year), although actual UBI does pique my interest.
What do you (or anyone else) think would be a reasonable minimum threshold for a universal dividend to be truly considered UBI? $10,000? $20,000? Whatever the poverty line is?
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United States42718 Posts
The only workable tax system left is one where the tax shifts to those who own the means of production and reap passive income, simply because those are the only people left who have enough money to pay the taxes. The vast majority of people are effectively peasants working on an absentee landowners estate for an amount of grain low enough that no other person would offer to do it for less. The gross amount of grain, before they eat any, is subject to FICA, Federal income taxes (minus an allowance for breakfast), state income taxes, local taxes, and sales taxes. Meanwhile the grain that goes to the absentee landlord, which is the majority of it, is given special tax treatment, exempted from FICA, and taxed at less than half the rate it would be if they’d actually worked for it.
But even if the system weren’t so obviously unfair, the big landowners now have most of the annual harvest. Even if you believe wholeheartedly that they deserve to have so much, if the government needs grain it has to take it from them because they’re the only ones who have any. We either need to redistribute the land or take the grain from the landowners, we can’t take the grain from the peasants because they have none to give.
Breaking up the big estates to create yeomen gentry who farm their own land is a precondition of building a society upon their backs. Or to bring it back to America, you can’t use the middle class as a tax base unless you actually have a middle class. You can’t build a nation on small business owners when everyone buys everything from Amazon. You either break up Amazon or you build on their wealth by redistributing their profits.
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Northern Ireland25403 Posts
On April 09 2019 08:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2019 08:31 xDaunt wrote:
Alaska’s dividend is not the same as UBI. It’s too small. I agree with you that Alaska's dividend is too small to really be taken seriously as UBI (it's only around $1,200 per year), although actual UBI does pique my interest. What do you (or anyone else) think would be a reasonable minimum threshold for a universal dividend to be truly considered UBI? $10,000? $20,000? Whatever the poverty line is?
Tailored to local living costs and other factors. Above the poverty line but not by a crazy amount.
I’ve heard various configurations. Personally I don’t mind the variant that cuts all sorts of other social welfare and puts it into UBI as a flat universal replacement.
However that version has problems if you’re an individual that has really costly healthcare needs in a country that doesn’t have nationalised healthcare in the way the UK does.
It would make my life way easier anyway, but I wouldn’t advocate for it for that reason. UK benefits (welfare for you Yanks) are absolutely terrible for anyone with a chronic, but variable condition. Well outside the general cutbacks which are terrible anyway.
I’m getting there health wise anyway, I was in hospital for basically a year. Apart from being cut off entirely pending an appeal that took quite some time, I’m capped at 15 hours a week, if I go above I’m thrown into ‘fit to work full time’ and lose it all. I’m increasingly frequently fit to work the equivalent of full time hours via overtime and the overtime is there, but I continuously have to worry that I’ll lose the safety net in case health problems reoccur, in which case I’ll be fucked for the long lag time while a reapplication occurs.
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Northern Ireland25403 Posts
On April 09 2019 09:02 KwarK wrote:
The only workable tax system left is one where the tax shifts to those who own the means of production and reap passive income, simply because those are the only people left who have enough money to pay the taxes. The vast majority of people are effectively peasants working on an absentee landowners estate for an amount of grain low enough that no other person would offer to do it for less. The gross amount of grain, before they eat any, is subject to FICA, Federal income taxes (minus an allowance for breakfast), state income taxes, local taxes, and sales taxes. Meanwhile the grain that goes to the absentee landlord, which is the majority of it, is given special tax treatment, exempted from FICA, and taxed at less than half the rate it would be if they’d actually worked for it.
But even if the system weren’t so obviously unfair, the big landowners now have most of the annual harvest. Even if you believe wholeheartedly that they deserve to have so much, if the government needs grain it has to take it from them because they’re the only ones who have any. We either need to redistribute the land or take the grain from the landowners, we can’t take the grain from the peasants because they have none to give.
Breaking up the big estates to create yeomen gentry who farm their own land is a precondition of building a society upon their backs. Or to bring it back to America, you can’t use the middle class as a tax base unless you actually have a middle class. You can’t build a nation on small business owners when everyone buys everything from Amazon.
Pretty much, you see a lot of problems in Ireland because of this.
They nationalised all these bank assets, including property, but the EU pushed hard to balance the books so this property was sold at knockdown prices to all sorts of vulture funds, amidst a time where housing and rental prices were already squeezing the middle class and below hard.
Unlike other sectors there’s no real innovation going on, just ever-increasing prices for something people need to live.
It’s a net negative to other areas as well, you’re not spending money elsewhere. My brother in London maybe earns 10-15% more per hour than I do in Belfast, but his rent is about 400% more.
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On April 09 2019 09:11 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2019 08:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 09 2019 08:31 xDaunt wrote:
Alaska’s dividend is not the same as UBI. It’s too small. I agree with you that Alaska's dividend is too small to really be taken seriously as UBI (it's only around $1,200 per year), although actual UBI does pique my interest. What do you (or anyone else) think would be a reasonable minimum threshold for a universal dividend to be truly considered UBI? $10,000? $20,000? Whatever the poverty line is? Tailored to local living costs and other factors. Above the poverty line but not by a crazy amount. I’ve heard various configurations. Personally I don’t mind the variant that cuts all sorts of other social welfare and puts it into UBI as a flat universal replacement. However that version has problems if you’re an individual that has really costly healthcare needs in a country that doesn’t have nationalised healthcare in the way the UK does. It would make my life way easier anyway, but I wouldn’t advocate for it for that reason. UK benefits (welfare for you Yanks) are absolutely terrible for anyone with a chronic, but variable condition. Well outside the general cutbacks which are terrible anyway. I’m getting there health wise anyway, I was in hospital for basically a year. Apart from being cut off entirely pending an appeal that took quite some time, I’m capped at 15 hours a week, if I go above I’m thrown into ‘fit to work full time’ and lose it all. I’m increasingly frequently fit to work the equivalent of full time hours via overtime and the overtime is there, but I continuously have to worry that I’ll lose the safety net in case health problems reoccur, in which case I’ll be fucked for the long lag time while a reapplication occurs.
Those are good points. I believe that AY's Freedom Dividend requires you to opt out of some other welfare programs if you want to opt in to his UBI system, which is probably worthwhile for most Americans if they're not getting screwed by healthcare costs, but I'm not sure exactly what we'd need to give up.
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On April 09 2019 09:39 JimmiC wrote:
It is odd to me that so many Americans are scared of socialized things I mean they social security, socialized military, socialized police, socialized schools, socialized fire departments, libraries, parks, roads and bridges, post office, FBI, CIA, FEMA, NASA, EPA FDA, FCC, OSHA,, so on. In fact with all these others socialized it is very odd that health care isn't. And UBI doesn't sound that crazy either.
Also for profit prison are fucked up, like they have no incentive to be at all corrective.
Me too. Plenty of labels have taboo connotations attached to them, and connecting any idea to those labels effectively blacklists the idea for a significant percentage of the population, regardless of the label's accuracy or the actual substance of the idea. Socialism is one of those taboo words right now for many older Americans.
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Northern Ireland25403 Posts
I guess because many Americans buy into certain myths that other peoples don’t?
Not to disparage a general culture, there are differing flaws in different places in different areas, but other places seem less wedded to the idea that a person’s relative successes are their own, and conversely a person’s relative failures are there own quite like Americans. (Generalisation, obviously)
‘Why should I pay for x person’ transcends basic pragmatism, especially when it comes to healthcare and is a cultural brick wall that I’ve dented my forehead over the years bashing up against it.
As it is American per capita health spend from the public purse, even before Obamacare was roughly equivalent to Canada and European nationalised healthcare spend. You add the private sector on top and it comes out at basically double.
Hence the bashing my head, because I’ve pointed this out in a simplistic ‘you’re already spending as much as our socialised healthcare already so why not just go the full hog?
Nope. For some reason.
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On April 09 2019 12:39 JimmiC wrote:
I'm confused by the Tax return thing. From everything I read congress has the right to demand it for anyone including the president. And they now have and he is refusing despite saying he would. Does this now do go to court? What are the steps?
Secondly to the people on the right. Why are you ok with this? Is it complete and utter faith in him? If so why consider he is not exactly honest. Or do you think there might be something damning in there and you want to protect him? Or some other reason I have not though of. Because if I was his supporter and thought hevwas awesome Id want him to show them all how clean he is and how well he has done.
There are also court cases that say that requests like that must be for legitimate legislative purposes, they can't ask just because they want to see it. That's what the fight will be about. Considering that the IRS already reviews presidential tax returns, and regularly audits them, combined with the way the Democrats did this (statements making it obvious this is about politics, the fact they bypassed learning anything from the IRS in the first place, asking for tax returns from years before he became president) means this will go on a while. It's similar to many other things, including that National Popular Vote Compact. Sure, one law says one thing in a very open ended way, but there are other Constitutional provisions, laws, and court cases that place boundaries on those powers. Now I don't know enough about this particular issue to say what should happen, but from what I've read it's murky enough that I don't really trust the judges either. I suspect this is another thing that will fade into the background.
As for me, the way I see it is that he was already elected without releasing them. This is obvious dumpster diving by the Democrats looking for dirt. Despite all their clamor about "norms" the way they have behaved themselves makes it quite clear they don't care about those, and is another reason I won't vote for them (as if their policies weren't horrific enough). There is a certain set of moronic nevertrumper who thinks that voting Democrat is the only way to defend the Republic, and every day stuff like this would be egg on their faces, if they had any integrity left.
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On April 09 2019 13:43 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2019 12:39 JimmiC wrote:
I'm confused by the Tax return thing. From everything I read congress has the right to demand it for anyone including the president. And they now have and he is refusing despite saying he would. Does this now do go to court? What are the steps?
Secondly to the people on the right. Why are you ok with this? Is it complete and utter faith in him? If so why consider he is not exactly honest. Or do you think there might be something damning in there and you want to protect him? Or some other reason I have not though of. Because if I was his supporter and thought hevwas awesome Id want him to show them all how clean he is and how well he has done. As for me, the way I see it is that he was already elected without releasing them. This is obvious dumpster diving by the Democrats looking for dirt.
You're right, what business is it of the American people to find out in which ways the POTUS benefits financially from being POTUS? Can't they just trust him?
Personally, I resent the implication that just because Trump has screwed over everyone he's ever worked with, including the American people, he would continue doing so as POTUS.
After all, haven't the founders always feared the office would imbue the POTUS with too much dignity?
![[image loading]](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/144A5/production/_86890138_86889447.jpg)
User was warned for this post.
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On April 09 2019 13:43 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2019 12:39 JimmiC wrote:
I'm confused by the Tax return thing. From everything I read congress has the right to demand it for anyone including the president. And they now have and he is refusing despite saying he would. Does this now do go to court? What are the steps?
Secondly to the people on the right. Why are you ok with this? Is it complete and utter faith in him? If so why consider he is not exactly honest. Or do you think there might be something damning in there and you want to protect him? Or some other reason I have not though of. Because if I was his supporter and thought hevwas awesome Id want him to show them all how clean he is and how well he has done. There are also court cases that say that requests like that must be for legitimate legislative purposes, they can't ask just because they want to see it. That's what the fight will be about. Considering that the IRS already reviews presidential tax returns, and regularly audits them, combined with the way the Democrats did this (statements making it obvious this is about politics, the fact they bypassed learning anything from the IRS in the first place, asking for tax returns from years before he became president) means this will go on a while. It's similar to many other things, including that National Popular Vote Compact. Sure, one law says one thing in a very open ended way, but there are other Constitutional provisions, laws, and court cases that place boundaries on those powers. Now I don't know enough about this particular issue to say what should happen, but from what I've read it's murky enough that I don't really trust the judges either. I suspect this is another thing that will fade into the background. As for me, the way I see it is that he was already elected without releasing them. This is obvious dumpster diving by the Democrats looking for dirt. Despite all their clamor about "norms" the way they have behaved themselves makes it quite clear they don't care about those, and is another reason I won't vote for them (as if their policies weren't horrific enough). There is a certain set of moronic nevertrumper who thinks that voting Democrat is the only way to defend the Republic, and every day stuff like this would be egg on their faces, if they had any integrity left.
Oh, the unintended irony.
Can you explain a clear reason why the President of the United States should not take a step whose only purpose is to strengthen the idea that he has nothing to hide and is above corruption?
Just do that. A clear, simple reason why Trump shouldn't release his tax returns, to prove he has nothing to hide to the American people and is above suspicion. And no 'people would suspect him anyway' isn't a valid reason, because that applies to every previous President who did it anyway.
And are you so against the idea that the President should be held to a higher standard of behaviour than the average congressman? (not that this accepts their misdemeanors, of course)
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