When I first won, folks said we were too naive, inexperienced, and uninformed to be effective.
Yet in our first weeks, we elevated #GreenNewDeal to national urgency, secured 30 cosponsors on a Select Committee, and helped stop a bad tax rule.
I’d say we’re off to a good start. https://t.co/rVWsoph2Ff
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 11, 2018
Yeah, take that all you nay sayers and people who questioned what a 29 year old bartender turned Congresswoman is capable of doing.
She helped overturn a bad tax rule for the incoming Congress.
What tax rule you might ask. Well, this one.
We are pleased to announce that the Rules Package for the 116th Congress will not include the 3/5 supermajority tax provision promoted by House Republicans in recent years. https://t.co/4Be05Awv5j
— Progressive Caucus (@USProgressives) December 11, 2018
Under the Republicans it took a 3/5 super majority to pass a bill that raised taxes.
Under the incoming Democrats, it will only take a simple majority to raise taxes.
And the Democrats have a simple majority.
This is what makes AOC all tingly in her loins, that the Democrats are making it a rule that they can pass a tax hike on the American people with a simple majority along entirely partisan lines.
This is why Democrats, with Pelosi at the lead, have spent the last two years calling the Trump tax cuts “crumbs” and telling the American people that the tax cuts are worthless and we should resent them.
They just can’t wait to take that money away from us.
I have never seen a more accurate political cartoon:
I for one am pissed as fuck about this. I was enjoying my tax cut, and was especially looking forward to my tax return because I was supposed to be able to get credit for both of my kids, which I was unable to before because of my income level.
I guess when you spent the last few years serving drinks in Brooklyn, you know how to spend that $4,500 of my money better than I do and I’m just going to have to re balance my budget without it.
I want to run for office campaigning on two Constitutional Amendments.
First: It should take a 2/3 majority of the House and Senate to pass a tax increase and only a simple majority to pass a tax cut or repeal a tax.
Second: Only people who have paid a net positive income tax, or are a member or dependent of the United States military, in the two years prior to an election get to vote. You need to submit your tax returns or military or dependent documentation to the board of elections every two years to register to vote in a federal election. If you don’t have any skin in the game, no franchise for you.
Yeah, I want to restrict the vote. So what. A bunch of unemployed or part time barista progressive grievance studies majors with Hammer and Sickle tattoos on their fingers in Brooklyn and San Francisco shouldn’t have the right to elect a Congressperson to take my money from me because I had the testicular fortitude to get a useful degree and high paying job.
Nothing makes a Progressive happier than taking your property at gun point.
Making it easier to tax the shit out of Americans has to have made AOC orgasmic.
I’d say the same thing about Pelosi but the idea of that old bag having an orgasm… *vomits*
On your second proposed amendment, I would add “or paid property tax directly” (not as a pass through to a landlord).
It only applies to federal elections which is why I want people to pay federal income tax to vote. Property taxes are state or local and states can do what they want.
That said, I have lived in rental housing and would be pissed if I didn’t get to vote because I lived in a rental. Whenever I moved to a new city, I rented before buying so I could figure out where the best place to live was before I committed to a house.
If you want to weed out welfare mooches from voting, pass a law that prevents anybody receiving a housing subsidy from voting in local elections. I’d favor that.
On 2/3rd etc, I like Heinlein’s version (in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress): 2/3rd to pass any law, 1/3rd to repeat any law. No reason to limit it to tax laws only.
The Heinlein Amendment it is.
I have always liked the principle of needing to earn the franchise from Starship Troopers, but I disagreed that it requires actual federal service. The US is not a military junta.
There are many people who cannot serve for one reason or another and I don’t want to reward just being a cog in a useless federal bureaucracy. Skin in the game should include paying taxes. Essentially only shareholders get to vote.
*sigh*
In Starship Troopers, service was not solely military. If the only thing you’re qualified for is “counting the hairs on a caterpillar”, then you could do that for your service and have a vote that counts the same as Juan Rico’s.
The book focused on the military because Heinlein was using it to discuss why men fight, and what is worth fighting for.
I am aware of that. However, what in our current federal system, other than the Military, Coast Guard, or Merchant Marine would equate as service.
Federal enforcement is too specialized for people to do a four year enlistment. The same goes for the Corps of Engineers. Maybe a paramilitary border patrol, but that is it.
I would not count being a member of a federal red tape bureaucracy to be the same as service, since you are not putting your butt on the line for anything. You shouldn’t earn your franchise for pulling four years at the DMV.
Like I said, I like the principle but there isn’t a direct equivalent in today to a full gamut of federal services. Hence, I’ll reduce it to paying a federal income tax.
Well obviously it won’t work because you are trying to apply a system that doesn’t exist to work within the confines of one that already does. Add to that the fact that said existing system is notiorously inefficient and change restitant and how could you expect any other result.
This is a view into the future
What is the main difference between Republicans and Democrats?
Marketing.
Yep. Marketing. AOC says “…and helped stop a bad tax rule.” and everyone reading agrees because… no one likes a bad tax rule. She sells to those that read little more than headlines, and assume they know what is going on.
And, it is working.
Just saw this…
“Californians are already struggling to deal with higher gas taxes, passed last year and upheld by a referendum last month in which the state’s Democrats allegedly manipulated the title of the ballot initiative to confuse voters. The measure, which would have repealed the new gas tax, the state told voters that Proposition 6 “Eliminates Certain Road Repair and Transportation Funding” rather than “Repeals Gas Tax.””
(source: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/12/12/state-of-california-wants-to-tax-text-messages-cpuc/?)
See… Marketing. It works…
Originally in the US, only White male property owners could vote. Yet, that situation evolved to this situation. Why do you think a rewind to that setup would play out differently than it did in real life?
1) That was not the case. Land ownership was not required in many states. Southern state did that to eliminate the votes of free blacks. Women could vote in Pennsylvania since independence.
2) My restriction has nothing to do with race and everything to do with having skin in the game. I feel the same way about young white liberal kids, in college or right out of it, who has never held a full time job or paid taxes Why should anyone who doesn’t pay taxes get to vote for a politician who promises to raise taxes on the people who do pay? That seems remarkably unfair.
3) I’d allow spouses who don’t work to vote if they are married and file jointly and the combined tax return shows a positive net income tax paid.
4) Why do you assume black people can’t pay an income tax?
3) I’d allow spouses who don’t work to vote if they are married and file jointly and the combined tax return shows a positive net income tax paid.
My lovely wife and i are both on disability. We do have part time jobs, but we end up paying ZERO taxes. What do we do? Not vote?
I did serve in the Marines,
I was going to say, “Except for retired military” or something along those lines.
“If you keep hearing dog whistles… you may just be a dog.”
Actually, if we are proposing amendments, etc… why not go back to Iceland under the Vikings?
Every two (three?) years the parliamentary body would meet for the Thing. there, the law speaker would have to recite every law of the land, and if he did not say one, and it was not corrected by a member of the body, that law was stricken from the books. (Or so the story goes).
What I would not give to see one of the Congresscritters attempt to actually recite a single law, forget the entire body of US Code.
What I would not give to see one of the Congresscritters attempt to actually obey a single law, forget the entire body of US Code.
Man that would be great! We could grind Congress to a halt for decades!
Matt: FEATURE, not bug. And, just read in specified cadence (such as no faster than 30 words per minute). And no business to be transacted until the reading is complete.
The longer I consider this, the more I like it!
You got it, that is the intended feature!