- Joined
- Mar 27, 2014
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- 63,796
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- Location
- Tennessee
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- Political Leaning
- Undisclosed
I think if you have to pay more taxes you should be able to use your wealth to advocate for a politician or a law. I find that part of free speech. If everyone is limited to the same level of advocacy, they should be subject to the same amount of tax
Shocker, rich guy thinks rich guys should have more say in government than the poor!
And of course the rich have always had and will always have an opportunity to use their wealth to advocate for laws or candidates. Hiring lobbyists is just one easy way to push an agenda, a promise of jobs for those in government who play ball (see this one nearly every time a high profile person leaves government), and political contributions even under limits will be vastly higher for the wealthy than for the poor. I seem to recall they're now able to bundle single checks of up to $350k or so per person, even with limits.
But the key 'error' as I see it is Kennedy's insane conclusion that, “We now conclude that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.”
I guess it depends on who is looking and what the definition of "corruption" is, whether there is an "appearance" of our outright corruption when a person donates $500k, $1m, $10m, who knows to a candidate through only theoretically "independent" orgs. Obviously donors with that kind of money aren't idiots and THINK they're buying results, and every study on the subject shows they do get policies they want in place, but we're supposed to pretend that there is no link between a huge outlay in support of a candidate and what that candidate does when elected. I can't imagine anyone being that naive.