Category Archives: Political

Political Opinions and Commentary

Economics, Political

Tax the Rich

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Just doing a little math here. A true “flat tax” might look something like this:
US Population 2010: 309 million people (309000000)
US Federal budget request for 2010: $3.55 trillion ($3550000000000)

3550000000000 / 309000000 = $11,488.67/person/year

That is quite a bit of tax. Although, consider what we pay in taxes across the board in sales, property, gas, income, SS, etc, etc.

I just read some articles that I found interesting.

Tax the Rich!

“1. Poor Americans do pay taxes… including federal payroll taxes. Between gas taxes, sales taxes, utility taxes and other taxes, no one lives tax free in America.”

“[D]uring seven of the eight Bush years, the IRS report on the top 400 taxpayers was labeled a state secret, a policy that the Obama administration overturned almost immediately after his inauguration.”

“Since 1980, when President Reagan won election promising prosperity through tax cuts, the average income of the vast majority—the bottom 90 percent of Americans—has increased a meager $303, or 1 percent. Put another way, for each dollar people in the vast majority made in 1980, in 2008 their income was up to $1.01.”

Tax The Rich? 14 Facts You May Want To Consider

“The ultra-rich simply are not going to be taxed into oblivion. They will do whatever it takes to avoid high tax rates.”

“The truth is that our tax system is completely and totally broken.”

“When you crush small businesses you crush job growth in this country.

“If you wanted to truly ‘tax the rich’, you would need to completely throw out our current tax system and come up with something completely and totally different.

And actually, when you get right down to it, an income tax is not even needed to run our country. Until 1913 the United States did just fine without a federal income tax.”

“[T]he solution is to change the rules of the game so that money and financial power does not become so concentrated in the hands of just a few. Our founding fathers intended for all Americans to be able to start businesses and compete. They never intended for gigantic mega-corporations to dominate everything.”

What are your thoughts on taxes?

Philanthropic, Philosophic, Political

Misplaced Roles

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In response to the idea of withdrawing our troops from the world as mentioned by Ron Paul in a recent blog post of his.

Initially, I was wary about the idea of pulling our troops out. But I am sure that is because I have not understood everything. The problem with forming an opinion on anything that our government is doing is there is such a great lack of understanding by so many average citizens like myself. Now that I have learned a bit more about what is going on, my opinion is that we should indeed bring our troops home.

Some may say, “What about all those poor helpless people over there that we were doing actual good for?” The American people should continue to help around the world, but privately. We do not and should not be using our Armed Forces as our philanthropic arm. We the people should be organizing ourselves and helping through private organizations. And many are doing exactly that.

The roles of our government should be small and focused on our nation. The roles of the people of the United States of America, as private citizens, should be focused on being good neighbors and lending helping hands where ever we can throughout the world.

It seems to be a “simple” matter of mistaken identity. Our government thinks it is the people. It is wrong. WE are the people and we run the nation, or at least we should. We have become complacent and self-centered. We have allowed our elected officials to take away our responsibilities as humans and citizens of Earth as well as our freedoms. It is past time for us to take back what is ours and relieve our bloated bureaucracy of our misplaced roles.

Economics, Philosophic, Political, Religious

Is there a situation where democracy won’t work?

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This important question was asked and answered by Clayton M. Christensen on 16 May 2009 in a commencement speech given at Southern New Hampshire University.

I encourage everyone to read this speech. Here are a couple of quotes from it that caught my attention:

Too often, as a result, we overlook an obvious fact: finding the right answer is impossible unless we have asked the right question.

You just think that because democracy works for you that it will work everywhere. It only works where there is a strong foundation of this particular type of religion.

Those who seek to minimize the role that religions can play on the public stage are … seeking to minimize the very institutions that have given us our civil liberties in the first place.

The full speech can be found here: “The Importance of Asking the Right Questions”

(Thanks to Marie Norris for introducing me to this speech.)

Political

Lawrence Lessig on Corporate Campaign Cash

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Important message for all Americans. We are the people, we are the ones that can and should lead this nation.

In just 18 minutes, Lessig demonstrates, in crystal clear terms, the devastating effect corporate campaign cash is having on our democracy, and in turn, our lives. Lessig makes obvious that until we as a nation take up this fundamental fight – until we strike at the root of the problem – we will continue to see our democracy crumble.

Source: “Lawrence Lessig’s new TED talk” @ Fix Congress First