71–80 of 127 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's clear they have significant influence on this matter.
If you could convince legislators that their constituents cared about the issue (in meaningful numbers), the lobbying would be irrelevant. The lobbying just looks like a lot of influence because it is more noticeable than all the not caring.
As an non-american this baffles me. Why is there so much distrust towards the government, police, and military in US ? Isn't the US the oldest democracy ? Society is built on trust - once that doesn't exist then nothing gets done.
No. They're one of the youngest. The English empire had a parliamentary system when the US left, that's where the whole "taxation without representation" thing comes from, they didn't get a representative in the English parliament.
In fact the US governmental system is largely influenced by the English government system (with several changes made due to lack of monarch, and a need to elect 100% of their government as a policy).
PS - Before you argue that "if people are appointed it isn't a democracy!" you may want to think that position though, the two houses and the president are elected, but most other positions remain appointed in the US (e.g. supreme court for just one example).
PPS - I'd also argue that any FPTP system is only "barely" a democratic system since by design a vast majority of people feel they have no one who really represents their interests in either house. Instead of minority voices getting one seat, they get none, see the Nordic countries for how it should work in a democracy.
Of course I would, since they already do . Whatever I submit is checked by them anyway, and it's generally too expensive and painful to challenge them. So…why do I have to pay the Intuit tax every year?
No, they don't. They don't know how much I paid in sales tax, property tax, or mortgage interest. They don't know how much I donated to various charities. They don't know how much I made from cash jobs. They don't know how much my small side business made or lost. There are a whole slew of variables the IRS doesn't know until I tell them, and that they take my word for until and unless I get audited.
Well, there is a reason, and is that tax preparation software and services companies spend lots of money lobbying Congress to keep the existing system since simplified filing would kill much of their business.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you could convince legislators that their constituents cared about the issue (in meaningful numbers), the lobbying would be irrelevant. The lobbying just looks like a lot of influence because it is more noticeable than all the not caring.
You know that people that use lobbying will almost always care more, because their money is on the line? Also they are willing to use that money to prove it?
My point is that legislators are almost universally dedicated to keeping their jobs and will pretty much limit their responses to lobbying to the situations where it won't lower their chances of getting reelected.
As an non-american this baffles me. Why is there so much distrust towards the government, police, and military in US ? Isn't the US the oldest democracy ? Society is built on trust - once that doesn't exist then nothing gets done.
America was built because we rebelled from our government via violent revolution. The Constitution was clearly written by people fearing a new tyrannical government (see 2nd amendment). Whether this attitude should be so pervasive is another discussion, but that's where the seed is from.
Alright quick pet peeve: First off I agree that the constitution was specifically written to make it hard for a dictatorship and or tyrannical government.
But my pet peeve is: You cannot use the 2nd amendment as an example of that. It was written four years later and by almost a completely different set of people.
As an non-american this baffles me. Why is there so much distrust towards the government, police, and military in US ? Isn't the US the oldest democracy ? Society is built on trust - once that doesn't exist then nothing gets done.
I don't quite understand how someone with the username 1971genocide could possibly trust the government. But I guess operation searchlight was a minor thing - after all, official government statistics say only 26,000 people were killed.
The people of Bangladesh fairly elected Sheikh Mujib but for some reason the government didnt want a bengali as the president and that was a good reason to overthrow the government.
If Obama won the election by a decisive victory and someone said "hey! that was joke - we are putting Mitt Romney in power". That would be a good cause to rebel against the government don't you think ?
My concern is that the american people are able to elect their representative and the same time seem to have a deep mistrust towards them. That is what I am brining up.
Having distrust towards your government is healthy - but just like everything, taking that ideology too far can be problematic as things needs to get done. Roads cannot be built if people think the government is up to something nefarious. I remember a paul graham article where he talks about "putting checks in a system" , it reminds of software systems that have validation set up. Do you think any software system can run with having validation every-time you pass an value to a function ? We put validation only in cases where the cost of putting it ( time-efficiency , memory ) is lower than the cost of security.
I hope that analogy makes sense.
People saying "Intuit controls the government" are missing the forest for the trees. The IRS doesn't compute your taxes and send you a bill because then you'll forget you ever had the money in the first place. Lots of people want to make paying taxes painful, so once a year you have to spend hours facing the reality of how much money the government is taking from your paycheck.[1] Intuit just jumped on the bandwagon.…
I don't think the marriage penalty is patriarchal bullshit. It's just recognition that couples have lower combined expenses than two single people and hence have more income available to pay for taxes.
So if you have a couple that makes $50,000 and $100,000, they will deduct/exempt at least $20,000 out of the 28% bracket. Filing alone, the $50,000 earner wouldn't have any income subject to that tax to begin with. That's only $300 for those earning levels, so I guess it should only be a fraction of the difference (and it would not happen for many couples, for example a dual $100,000 couple would deduct/exempt roughly the same bracket single or married).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know that people that use lobbying will almost always care more, because their money is on the line? Also they are willing to use that money to prove it?
Yeah sure. What does that have to do with my comment? My point is that legislators are almost universally dedicated to keeping their jobs and will pretty much limit their responses to lobbying to the situations where it won't lower their chances of getting reelected.
> Then Intuit mobilized against ReadyReturn, hiring lobbyists to oppose the effort in the capital and financing candidates who pledged to overturn it. > “People in other states who had been interested in it started saying, ‘We just don’t want to pick a fight with Intuit.’ ” Excuse me for not understanding US politics, but.. How is this not considered blatant corruption?
As an non-american this baffles me. Why is there so much distrust towards the government, police, and military in US ? Isn't the US the oldest democracy ? Society is built on trust - once that doesn't exist then nothing gets done.
The US individual tax reporting process is an annual reminder to voters of what they pay in taxes, that cannot be easily ignored. I am sure that fiscally conservative politicians see this as an advantage to their cause, though they are unlikely to publicly say so.