IOWs how about only allowing giant media corporations to own politicians. This is in essence what you're arguing for.
Again, if liberals did not control the media, you would not be for this.
-
Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!
Meet the Pastor Running as a Progressive Republican to Get Big Money Out of Politics
- Thread starter Brent W
- Start date
- Status
IOWs how about only allowing giant media corporations to own politicians. This is in essence what you're arguing for.
Again, if liberals did not control the media, you would not be for this.
I disagree. I think the reason they have influence is because they have access to the living rooms of the vast majority of Americans on a daily basis.
That may be true regarding their ability to influence politicians, but they still have access to our homes and influence us just by what they choose to report and what they choose not to report.
Which makes perfect sense because corporations and businesses technically don't pay tax, but pass tax expenses onto the consumer. If you want high corporate taxes you will be paying for it as a consumer. This is why I love Trump's plan. Currently I'm paying way too much as a consumer, paying for corporate taxes. Or worse, I'm being forced to buy Chinese products because American companies can no longer compete.
I personally would love to see small business owners, plumbers dentists, pay less in tax, and make more money, and charge me less money.
Brent W
Active Member
Possibly so but I think that influence without the backing of huge money will be greatly reduced now thanks to new media such as the internet.
Indeed.
MSNBC Reaches No. 1 for First Time in Weekly Primetime Ratings, Fox News Drops to Third
For the first time in its history, MSNBC ranked number one in both total viewers and the key adults 25-54 demographic during primetime for a full week among the big three cable news networks, according to Nielsen data.
For the week of May 15, MSNBC averaged 2.44 million viewers with 611,000 in the key demo from 8 p.m.-11 p.m., beating out CNN and Fox News in both measures.
MSNBC Reaches No. 1 for First Time in Weekly Primetime Ratings, Fox News Drops to Third[/SIZE]
Brent W
Active Member
This dream you have where corporations take care of consumers who are already buying at current prices due to low unemployment is just that.. a dream. What they will do with those tax breaks is take care of themselves and their shareholders.
You can see this time and time again. The Bush tax cuts did nothing but feed the richest in the country, increase our debt and the corporations paid us back greatly in 2008-2009.
As I said, you have a simplistic view of corporations. You think that doctors, dentists, accountants, lawyers, etc. are going to LOWER their prices if they get a tax cut from 39.6% to 15%? LOL!
exactly, and that's worth billions.
Yes, I do. These are competitive markets. If they don't stay competitive, they'll get left behind. And these are employers, and the country desperately needs them to succeed and create jobs.
Last edited:
Brent W
Active Member
but only if a Republican is in office according to your logic. MSNBC and CNN are killing it right now. Since 90% of the media is, according to you, owned by the liberals, they are really going to hate it when Trump gets himself kicked out in 2020.
Got cha. As S Corp taxpayers will get a huge tax cut as compared to the salaried working man, what do you propose to correct the inequity? Separate the S Corps from the C Corps and tax S Corps at personal rates and C Corps at Corporate rates? Or raise C Corps tax rates to personal rates? Or is there another option I am not seeing.
(I know very little about Corporation Law or Tax Law. My JD proficiency was Constitutional Law - but come to think of it I don't know much about that either. It's been a long, long time, I never practiced, and have not bothered to keep abreast of the many changes of the past couple decades.)
But who are those shareholders? Little old ladies in tennis shoes living off the income from her 401k, which probably contains, somewhere in that investment portfolio, media stocks?
Or me? Or any of the other people here who are retired and living off a lifetime of investments?
We tend to think of the owners of the big corporations as faceless, evil, misers who are the modern equivalent of the robber barons of old. But, in fact, they are us!
S-Corps should continue to be taxed at personal rates. They ought to cut everyone's personal tax rates. That way the S-Corp owner will get a tax cut. S-Corps should be kept separate from C-Corps (by law S-Corps may only have 35 shareholders. I do think they should lower the C-Corp tax rates to 20% or even 15%. I'm also in favor of a one time tax holiday to bring corporations and their money back to the US. C-corp tax rates are based on profit. The rate is 15% on $1-$50,000 profit. $50,001 to $74,999 is 25%. Once you get over $75,000 in profit you're looking at 34% rate; over $100,000 the rate is 39%. I believe the US has the 2nd highest corporate tax rates in the world (Sweden?).
Just leave S-Corp and C-Corp as separate entities and lower S-Corp tax rates as personal tax rates and lower C-Corp tax rates to 15% or 20%.
Brent W
Active Member
To an extent yes. Regardless it has nothing to do with lowers consumer good prices. We also take into account that greed doesn't creep in again and we have yet another financial collapse, wiping out companies, their employees and all their retirements while those responsible get free passes.But who are those shareholders? Little old ladies in tennis shoes living off the income from her 401k, which probably contains, somewhere in that investment portfolio, media stocks?
Or me? Or any of the other people here who are retired and living off a lifetime of investments?
We tend to think of the owners of the big corporations as faceless, evil, misers who are the modern equivalent of the robber barons of old. But, in fact, they are us!
Brent W
Active Member
I am not opposed to any C-Corp tax break but I reject going from 39% to 15% while the middle and lower get little to nothing.
I am not sure that is true. My wife and I live right on the Mexico border. She goes to Mexico for all her dental work. Our dentist is an American who lives just down the street from us but his practice is in Mexico. He pays less for office space. Less for liability insurance, and less in taxes. And he charges only about 1/3 of what a dentist on this side of the border charges.
So, it seems in my experience, lower costs to the provider equates to lower costs to the consumer.
It may not be universal, but I do see a trend there.
You misunderstand what I said and what I meant.
I think there should be a limit of, say, $10,000 to any politician from any individual, pact or corporation including media. The horrible Supreme Court decision in Citizens United took any interest that politicians had in the little man/woman out of their equation.
But who are those shareholders? Little old ladies in tennis shoes living off the income from her 401k, which probably contains, somewhere in that investment portfolio, media stocks?
Or me? Or any of the other people here who are retired and living off a lifetime of investments?
We tend to think of the owners of the big corporations as faceless, evil, misers who are the modern equivalent of the robber barons of old. But, in fact, they are us!
For the most part this is true. But we don't have access to deferred compensation, like high income people do. This allows them to shift income like stock options or bonuses into later years, like retirement, when they know their overall income would be lower, thus they can avoid some taxes. Although I think Trump is in favor of eliminating this.
Brent W
Active Member
I would be willing to bet most of those savings are due to liability insurance, licenses and office space. I could be wrong though. I am also not making a claim that there wouldn't be any decrease but I simply can not believe that most large corporations are going to pass those savings to the consumer.
Well, as long as everyone from both ends of the spectrum already think I am a nut-job radical allow me to opine that I think all personal income taxes should be done away with completely. Prior to ratification of the 16th (income tax) Amendment in February 1913 we had a military, a federal government, and all that was necessary.
Until 1913, most taxes collected by the federal government were either tariff taxes or excise taxes (indirect taxes). This meant that taxes were, for the most part, split evenly across the population and, if you were exporting/importing or using too much of something, you had to pay extra for it. Seems pretty fair, but it also meant that there was not a lot of money for the government to use foolishly.
If we went back to the pre-1913 methodology we would charge import duties at the same rate the nation of origin changed us for similar imports.
Excise and value added taxes could provide for the balance of the federal need. (Need. Not want. Need.)
And the federal government would be disallowed to spend any money on any program or product not able to be done by the States. (In other words enforcing the 10th amendment.)
There. Problem solved.
- Status