T-Dawg
Self-appointed Lunatic
Well, during Thanksgiving I met a rather nice stranger from my family who was very keen on politics. He never expressed what party he supported, but he seems to be Libertarian. He's written a letter to his senator or congressman or something expressing his discontent with their positive votes on the healthcare bill (they both voted yes). I'm not sure if his issue is with the way they voted, or the fact that they voted against the population they were representing (I think it was Arkansas, and about 57% or something like that of the people there opposed the bill). He also pointed out how our founding fathers once said that it was the People's duty to overthrow the government if it gets to be tyrannical (he expressed this to his representative and stated that he would try to settle the problem with the voting booth before overthrowing the government, or something like that 
).
I also remember him stating that both the republicans and the democrats will lead us to socialism, although the democrats may do it slightly faster (I think he have gotten socialism mixed up with fascism). We both agreed on how a lot of the policies the government's been implementing in recent years were fascist, that is, the merging of corporation and government, which of course was bad. The healthcare bill, from what we know of it, is a perfect example - the government requires that everyone buy insurance... except that the problem is, there's NO PUBLIC OPTION. Obama is literally implementing a government healthcare system run by the private sector, and mandating that we buy from them. Our terminology on the situation differed (he said that the government was taking over the private sector; I explained that it was actually the private sector taking over the government), but we agreed on most of it.
So the interesting part is where he explains how to fix our economy... here's a summary of the system:
- Low/no income taxes
Yeah, it's that simple. O_O
The idea is that we lower income taxes for everyone. The corporations will use the money to create new jobs (generating more profit for them), and the people will be able to buy more things, giving the government revenue from sales tax, and creating profits from the companies they buy from. Of course, for this to work, according to him, you would need to have an incredibly small government.
The problem with this system is that it places the burden of taxation on the consumer (which is usually the worker), and it trusts that the corporations will seek long term profit and create jobs instead of looking for short term profit and hoarding up their cash and creating bubbles (which American corporations have consistently done). There could be a law that required corportions to spend a certain amount of their income on workers, but it won't be simple - for example, if the law simply said that companies must spend, at least, say, 10% of their profits on creating new jobs, they may just hire a "worker" who's "job" is to take the money and "donate" it back to the corporation.
The setup seems designed to funnel money into the upper class - the upper class is taxed little, and pays some sales tax as they buy goods, funneling money into other upper class folks; the working class is taxed little, and pays some income tax as they buy goods, which funnels more money into the upper class. In the situation America is in right now, with big-name companies dominating the market (ie, Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Coca-cola...), this might put us dangerously close to a monopoly as the big companies take up more and more of the jobs.
Any thoughts?
).I also remember him stating that both the republicans and the democrats will lead us to socialism, although the democrats may do it slightly faster (I think he have gotten socialism mixed up with fascism). We both agreed on how a lot of the policies the government's been implementing in recent years were fascist, that is, the merging of corporation and government, which of course was bad. The healthcare bill, from what we know of it, is a perfect example - the government requires that everyone buy insurance... except that the problem is, there's NO PUBLIC OPTION. Obama is literally implementing a government healthcare system run by the private sector, and mandating that we buy from them. Our terminology on the situation differed (he said that the government was taking over the private sector; I explained that it was actually the private sector taking over the government), but we agreed on most of it.
So the interesting part is where he explains how to fix our economy... here's a summary of the system:
- Low/no income taxes
Yeah, it's that simple. O_O
The idea is that we lower income taxes for everyone. The corporations will use the money to create new jobs (generating more profit for them), and the people will be able to buy more things, giving the government revenue from sales tax, and creating profits from the companies they buy from. Of course, for this to work, according to him, you would need to have an incredibly small government.
The problem with this system is that it places the burden of taxation on the consumer (which is usually the worker), and it trusts that the corporations will seek long term profit and create jobs instead of looking for short term profit and hoarding up their cash and creating bubbles (which American corporations have consistently done). There could be a law that required corportions to spend a certain amount of their income on workers, but it won't be simple - for example, if the law simply said that companies must spend, at least, say, 10% of their profits on creating new jobs, they may just hire a "worker" who's "job" is to take the money and "donate" it back to the corporation.
The setup seems designed to funnel money into the upper class - the upper class is taxed little, and pays some sales tax as they buy goods, funneling money into other upper class folks; the working class is taxed little, and pays some income tax as they buy goods, which funnels more money into the upper class. In the situation America is in right now, with big-name companies dominating the market (ie, Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Coca-cola...), this might put us dangerously close to a monopoly as the big companies take up more and more of the jobs.
Any thoughts?
