I would like to see a Common Sense Party. Its planks would be the kinda stuff that everybody (hopefully, pretty much) can agree on.

Speech does not equal money and money does not equal speech

Campaign funds can only be given to candidates by those persons who vote for the the candidate in question.

Infrastructure will be fixed

Congress will be paid by the hour (if they are not working, in Washington DC then they do not get paid for the time they take off to campaign) - no exceptions, no excuses.

Wars must be approved by congress within 6 months of starting. "war" will be defined as any undertaking which involves our military killing.

Corporations are not persons or people.

We need a tax system which cannot be adjusted by anybody. Taxes are for paying the bills and NOTHING ELSE. There will be no good works, social engineering, or anything else. There will also be no deductions - for anybody. All increases in income should be used to lower taxes, if not, then explanations will be tendered to the voters.

If gov wants to help poor folk they can, they cannot, however, use the tax system to do that. This would also apply to corporations. Our initial system of income taxes was, I think, 7 pages long - now its literally 10's of thousands of pages long and that is insane. In other words politicians would be denied the ability to gain votes by pandering through the tax system.

These are quickies. I suspect there is a lot of stuff, like this, which are simply not important to our existing political parties, or offend those who bribe/contribute to the politicians. Feel free to suggest more planks for the proposed party. There is only one rule, most must agree it makes sense - irregardless of political persuasion.

You started well, but then I dropped off after the "corporations are not persons or people" line.

Yeah, the crowd that was cheering in my head stopped right there, too.

If most of us want our government to fulfill a particular role, and that does not violate the Constitution, then it should fulfill that role. Even if it does violate the Constitution, we have a means to amend the Constitution if enough of us want to do that.

It may take a while to get laws changed, and even longer to get the Constitution changed, but it has worked pretty well so far compared to other systems of government.

If you want "efficient government", then we need to find a strong benevolent dictator like the Sultan of Oman to run everything.

Mitt Romney made the now infamous remark, "Corporations are people too, my friend!" in response to a constituent on the campaign trail.

And he was right. Corporations ARE people simply because people work there.

The part that burns me is the not so subtle transliteration from "corporations are people" to "a corporation is A PERSON".
The difference is huge.

I'll accept that corporations are people.
I just don't want to find myself being crushed under the weight of a herd of gigantic 600 foot tall immortal "corporate PERSONS" as they stomp around with their unlimited money and power (also known as speech these days) in search of their freedom and human rights.

My mere mortal tent is made of flesh, blood, muscle and bone.

Ni-i-i-i-ice, Jeffrey. Strong close. I think a lot of people are feeling that.

The logic behind corporations are persons is pretty simple. A group of people get together and form a corporation, they do not form corporationS. Since people are at the root then they must have created a single entity that represents them. Therefore, a corporation is a PERSON! There is a current petition being circulated (asking for signatures) which goes something like; "Natural born persons ARE persons. Corporations are not natural born, therefore they are not persons. It does, however get even better. I can remember when the Dems were doing financial reform. One of the Dem reformers actually wanted to add, to the reform, that single minor stockholders could no longer vote in corporate votes (he is no longer there. I was also told that he was actually running a stock operations whilst the 'reform' was taking place - forget his name but I think he is now a lobby guy, a rich lobby guy)

Same thing happened with the money=speech and speech=money. If free speech involves the printed word, and the tv, etc. then putting one's money where their mouth is seems just about right to the supremes. I think the problems is in the volume available to those with the big bucks. My own thought is that if one does not vote for the candidate in question then one does not have the right to support that candidate. If there was a rule that said something like; "Politics are local and locals should be the ones to support THEIR candidates". People who do not vote for a given candidate should not have the right to involve themselves in the voting process of strangers. If such a rule existed then, I suspect, it would take a lot of the stuff currently going on and which seems to offend just about everybody, irregardless of political view off the political table.

I can also remember when the Dems tried to pass a law to force them that put up political ads to also put their names on said ads - they failed. The Republicans tried to pass the same thing and they too passed. Obviously, them that didn't want their names on their product kinda bought both parties, in this instance?

Just a thought (and a bit of wishful thinking)

Thanks. You got my inner voices cheering again.

If a corporation is people, or a person, and all of the shareholders are people, wouldn't the awarding of person-rights to the corporation come at the disinfanchisement of those rights by the individual bits of the corporation?

In other words, the shareholders can either have their individual rights, or they can give up their individual rights to the corporation. Double-dippers should have an appendage cut off.

I'll believe that corporations are people when Texas executes one.

So said Robert Reich and Assembly Speaker John Perez, plus somebody already made a sign. Forbes Magazine thinks this is foolishness.

A Common Sense Party implies that participants would be drawn from folks who practice rational and reasonable dialogue as a means to developing common sense policies.

I feel like this forum is more prone to rational and factual dialogue than many, though it is currently liberal-leaning (in the present meaning of liberal).

Does anyone know of a conservative-leaning forum that is similar?

How about this. What happens if a state passes a law that disallows ANY outside money to be involved in ANY state election. If somebody/something decides to ignore that law then the penalty will be a fine plus 20% for enforcement. That penalty, less the 20%, will be given to the forces which the money was spent to defeat.

My reason for suggesting this is that, if a state did pass such a law, you can be rest assured that the supremes would take it on quickly. I can only imagine what would happen if such a law was declared constitutional. I also believe that it would be simply because I also believe that people have the absolute right to make the decisions which affect them without the input of others, friend or foe alike. If such a law was in effect it would solve many of the problems we have today, I think. I also think that if such were to happen then the common sense party would become as people would, once again, be in charge instead of the big money from, at least in my own case, from the big buck folks from the east.

I have written to my own elected suggesting such a law. So far nobody has bothered to reply <G>

Unfortunately, my friend, the majority of the current Supreme Court would find such a law unconstitutional. Western Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Montana[/i] They would be wrong, just as they were in [i]Citizens United, but they hold the majority, so they do as they damned well please. Constitution and logic have no sway.

It is just the subtle (actually, NOT so subtle) difference between "corporations are people" and "a corporation is A PERSON".
The former can be held to be true, and it can be proven, and the people IN that corporation do in fact, have the same rights as any natural person.

The LATTER is where we get into trouble.

Thus, corporations ARE people but A corporation is NOT A PERSON.

Again, sounds like a subtle difference, but the truth is, the difference is HUGE.

Their logic, I suspect, would extend to almost any human organization. Therefore, for instance, the KKK could be a person as well as the Elks, Masons, Unions, etc. Pretty interesting.

On the other hand I am not convinced about keeping groups of people from sticking their noses into what is a private thing (voting) would be unconstitutional. People simply do not have a right to stick their noses into other people's business. This is what the NSA thing is currently all about and, evidently, gov agrees (at least mouthwise). In other words I believe that outsiders have no right to know how somebody voted or even the right to tell them how to vote or even suggest same. The only people who should be involved in voting and the people who vote! Those that do not vote, on the other hand, have opted out of the system and have, basically, given up their rights for representation and its that simple. The old saw that goes something like; "We have the right to vote and certainly the right not to vote" is pure crap. Its also important for people who refuse to vote to at least cast a ballot even though no choices were made. That too, incidentally is tracked.

Yet another plank for the party. This one has to do with government being forced to tell the voters what it is doing. To that end I would suggest daily show, on Public TV, produced by gov, and, every day, spend one hour explaining each and every agency the government has. The show would tell us what the agency does, how much money it spends and how many employees it has. There would also be a link (or address) to send/write comments on said agency along with a voting script so everybody can also vote on said agency (for/against). One day a week gov would respond to said thoughts. The responder, for that agency, has to not only answer questions but tell everybody who he/she is and what they do for said agency. This one is not in stone and would probably change over time. It would, however, give everybody a chance to weigh in on what gov is spending our taxes on. Right now that is a pretty much a mystery. Another, I found, is that evidently gov doesn't even know exactly how many agencies it does have or what they actually do (http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/03/the-government-has-no-idea-how-many-agencies-it-has/) I find this a bit offensive (sorry, couldn't resist).

I am suggesting this one because I think its really important that gov start telling people what is going on and what they are doing. Right now its a mystery and, I believe, tends to just make folks more disgusted.

I would also suggest that the Common Sense Party would not be a party of change so much as a party of fix. Until Our existing gov starts fixing itself (right down to the point of actually knowing, exactly, what its actually doing)I suspect that the current party system of one side expanding, and another shrinking gov, without first understanding what its actually doing, is a waste of time and incredibly silly. In that regard I would also support a new Hoover type commission (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Commission) If Harry Truman (a Democrat) created such, and put the last Republican president in charge of it I think it can be done again?

So, the first is for gov to tell folks what it thinks its doing, and giving folks the ability to weight in. The second thing is to establish just what the Common Sense Party is there for (to fix) and suggest a commission to help in that process.

i am confused .... a corporation is a legal construct which enjoys some attributes of personhood but remains a lifeless piece of paper. The embodiment of the piece of paper would be the owners.

How is each individual entitled to additional "rights" as a result of ownership?

That would be very disruptive, economically: If your income-generating business takes $150000 of expenses to generate $50000 in net profit, but you got taxed on the $200000 income you would go bankrupt. Deductions are there for a reason besides "social goods". Most of the very complex deductions are there to make particular income-generating activity fairly taxed. If you disallow all of those deductions then all sorts of income-generating activities no longer generate income.

Of course a few or those are just stupid tricks that take advantage of some tax loophole and do nothing useful, but the vast majority are not. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater! Fix the loopholes, don't destroy all the tax rules that work.

If you have a tax code, and that tax code can be easily 'adjusted' by the elected then you no longer have a real tax code, designed to pay the bills only. Instead you open the gates to what we have right now a 70,000 page system which is more arcane than any religious document. Right now our tax system rules how the accounting works instead of the accounting doing what it is originally designed to do - help the company/person understand and manage the business. In our system Profit is the money left over after all costs and expenses have been taken out. There are other tax systems, such as the flat tax and the fair tax which works differently. Basically x amount is charged anytime money changes hands. In both cases the elected love to mess with it. I tend to like the flat/fair tax because everybody pays something and its usually based on some kind of sales tax (there are several avenues for this one). If, for instance, something is paid, everytime money changes hands then the question becomes whether just the end users pay or gov gets paid EVERY time money changes hands. The goal, however, is to keep it simple and clean and so I prefer the EVERYTIME approach. I also think that such a system would go a long ways in cutting fat from the system by reducing the number steps between production and use to reduce taxes which is a lot better than what we are doing now. A good example of just how bad our current system is, is when a given company can pay no taxes yet get a tax refund (several of these have been reported this year)

Again, if somebody wants to do good works then they should go ahead and do them but not by using our tax system. Its to pay the bills and NOT for good works, helping friends, punishing others, etc. If we do overhaul the tax system it should be to pay taxes and NOTHING else! I firmly believe that anytime a tax system is adjusted for reasons, other than paying the bills, the result is what we have now. Its a slippery slope that has proven its disastrous consequences.

First taxes. I remain convinced that the taxes cannot be changed or adjusted for anybody. The taxes for business, however, would be on profit, pure net profit, after all expenses and charges.

The common sense party would also try and do something about a congress which is, obviously and publicly, bought and paid for. There are no other excuses for such things as:
Not dealing with guns for the insane and children.
Not getting drug companies under control (only industrialized country not to do that).
Continuing to support ethanol which costs the environment more than just plain gas, is destructive and manages to artificially mess with the price of corn which, in turn, effect the costs of food,

Media, by its own appraisal, saw fit to gift Trump with 2 (TWO) billion dollars of free exposure. I believe that this is how he got where he is today. As far as I am concerned media is responsible for Trump. I think that if media is going to go out of their way to support any given candidate with free exposure then they should also give other leading candidates the same 'favor'. To that end the common sense part would support a law that forced media to grant leading candidates the same free exposure as given to any other candidate for office. Seems fair to me!

I am sure there are many who would disagree with this one. The problem is that media proved, in 2016, that they can create a political candidate with massive, free, support to, I think, the detriment of our entire system. I think controlling media's urge to do this needs regulation and this is the best I can come up with.

The only way to get money out of politics is to elect a Democrat. What!? You say. Citizens United is a gift from the right wing. Until it is overturned, there is no hope of reforming campaign finance, and that can only happen with a more liberal (less right-wing) Justice. But...

Be careful what you wish for. Consider the "free" advertising that Trump got. How does one counter a demagogue?

I would add ethanol to the list of common sense things to fix. Its not good for the environment, its not good for your engine, it has raised the price of corn worldwide, and its costs us a pile of money and makes no sense.

Another addition would be to pass a law to force political advertisers to put their name(s) on their ads.

Citizens united. The decision was based on a 1971 (I think) decision (Buckley v. Valeo). Its also interesting that even the supremes said that the congress had the right to pass legislation to force them that politically advertise to put their real name(s) on it. Both parties have tried to fix this one, when they were in power, both failed.

A reminder. https://www.opensecrets.org/ will tell you who/what is spending the money on who.

Ethanol is not bad in and of itself. It transports well, stores well, and works with a majority of internal combustion engines if they have been designed for it. Given an unlimited energy source like hydrogen fusion, we would have the energy needed to make ethanol from air and water, and the reaction products could go back into the atmosphere as air and water. It's just an easily portable fuel for vehicles of all sorts. You can even make an ethanol fuel cell to run an electric car.

Making it from corn is stupid. Making it from oil is stupid. Using it in engines that have gaskets incompatible with it is stupid. Mixing it with gas is stupid if you then use the E85 in cars with the incompatible gaskets.

Get rid of the stupid, get hydrogen fusion, and ethanol will be useful.

News is not a public service and hasn't been since the early 1980's so the reason WHY Trump GOT all that free airtime is because he generated RATINGS, which translates to news dept profits, which is the ONLY reason news depts exist today.

Jeffery;
You are absolutely right. Still, however, any way you cut it Trump is president because of the free media. The Russians may have been involved but, in the end, MEDIA is the villian in this one! The fix, obviously, is a return to a system of fair play where anytime media gives x amount of free exposure to one candidate they must give the same to all the other candidates as well. We used to have this and, then, things changed (not for the better).

its interesting. Over the years OUR congress has been stripping virtually all of these kinds of things (including healthcare, education, etc) in favor of whatever. My own favorite is to use PBS to have a system of giving the top 5 candidates a prime time hour each, for free, for 2 weeks before an election and ban all other political advertising. I know, that is pure wishful thinking and will not happen. Still, its sometimes nice to do a bit of that. My reasoning on this one not happening is that I am not sure our media could survive without ads from politics and drugs)

But that was my point. The once heavy stone columns of the Fourth Estate have been cheap plastic ever since the press was transformed from a prestigious public service into a profit-seeking ratings driven division of the entertainment industry.
Once Reagan killed off The Fairness Doctrine he laid the hall bare for the entrance of the Grand Troika of Lies:

Rupert, Roger and Justice Powell.

You are right. If I remember correctly the tv news was once thought to be part of their public service for using the airwaves. Then can the net which did not use the airwaves and it all came apart (competition, ratings, get the money stuff). I will repeat, again, the difference between left and right. Liberals believe that people need regulation and, without it, will melt it all down. The conservatives, on the other hand, actually believe that people will always act correctly if just given a chance. I know, its not really logical but there you have it. Right now the right has the bit in their teeth and are doing whatever they can to allow people to do the right thing, act in their own best interest, and be free! If the members of the left can't get over not getting their own personal way, continue to fight over little stuff, put up lousy candidates, have no consistent goals or plans they too are doomed. I believe the left has the chance to be the party of the middle but they gotta take hold of their party and use a lot of common sense. Right now their main thrust seems to be to collect all the money they can. I remember when Hillary was running. My wife was making cold calls for them and some other stuff. She noticed that there were no Hillary signs in town so asked for one to put up and was told that would be 25.00 please. She gave up. If the Dems had more interest in getting money than winning what was the use.

Anyway, perhaps, if the left can actually take back gov (they are the obvious choice of those who actually wants gov to govern (rarely mentioned by the Dems)) perhaps they can actually put some stuff on the books that make sense. Then, again, they have been in charge before and just can't quite actually get together long enough to actually get much important stuff done. They could not, for instance, pass the truth in political advertising forcing them that paid for the ads to put their names on them, seems the unions didn't like that idea.

One last thought. Why in the world, given all the press the ACA (Obomacare) gets one would think that either the media, or one of the sides would mention that the ACA was amended, by the Republicans, with more than 160 amendments. These have been denigrated far and wide (something the Republicans are REALLY good at!) as not having much to do with the ACA. Think about it! 160+ amendments and they made no difference to the bill. I can remember, at the time, when those amendments resulted in, literally, hundreds of pages added to the bill.
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-th...ublicans-who-then-refused-to-vote-for-it
https://www.salon.com/2010/02/23/hcr_amendments/
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...s_is_what_bipartisanship_looks_like.html

Not to mention that ObamaCare is almost exactly RomneyCare, except RomneyCare had bigger fines for not signing up. All of the major provisions are in RomneyCare, and the mandate was invented by The Heritage Foundation.

I think we should also probably figure out why in the world we have military in nearly 150 countries. Please also note that when we goto war we don't come back home real good (bases, for instance, still in Germany and Japan (amongst others). Its odd, for a very long time I believed that we only went to war when we were directly threatened, that we didn't believe in conquest, that we cared about human life, etc. I don't believe that anymore...............

There are good reasons for having robust, forward-deployed U.S. forces around the world, and I'm no hawk (although I spent 30 years in uniform). The world is a very big place and it takes a long time and considerable effort to get substantial assets anywhere. US forces tend to have a very stabilizing influence wherever they are located. US forces in Korea have kept North Korea from invading the south for 70+ years. Ditto China and Taiwan, Russia and Europe.

Germany hosts hospitals that have treated Soldiers (and civilians) with serious injuries in various conflicts, so they could be stabilized before returning home. Most Americans never leave the US so don't have a clue how other countries live. When you've been overseas in poor countries, you appreciate just how good we have it. US bases have been staging grounds for disaster relief the world over. When disaster strikes, US military assets often key to relief efforts.

While I am no fan of military adventurism, we should not have our head in the sand about what our military presence means to people around the world. It's typically the first contact they have with Americans and often why they aspire to come here.

A long but useful read in considering tax policy: The Tax Code We Need - US News & World Report.

If we really want to fix things here are two things we should bring back:
The Draft
If we actually had a draft we would never get into a 16/17 year war. The mothers of America would put a stop to it
People would learn that people from other parts of the country are actually the same
The toughest guys in town would learn that there is ALWAYS somebody tougher

Bring Back Earmarks
Earmarks were really very little of the budget, but, they kept all the congress folk talking to one another so that they could all "bring home the bacon" now, on the other hand, they have no personal reason to speak to the other side because the other side really can't help as earmarks are gone. It was stupid to get rid of them and they should be reinstated.
http://bangordailynews.com/2016/11/...ers-of-congress-to-bring-home-the-bacon/

Makes some assumptions that are not backed up by any evidence. Just for starters, it says our current tax system is broken. But it also says solutions should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. Every "solution" these "tax reformers" have come up with seems way too simple. That DOES lead to a system that is broken. Our tax code is complex because the real economic world is complex. Make the tax code too simple and it really does affect some current economic activities very badly.

I propose we stop calling it "tax reform". It has nothing to do with reform, in the sense that "reform" means "to make something better". Let's just call it "tax destruction" or "The Republican Plan to Give the Rich More Money".

And of course, using reconciliation to pass anything like this is just asking the next Democratic Congress to switch it all back. Coming up with a plan that gets bipartisan support is MUCH harder to change later. Do all these Republican strategists in Congress think Rapture is coming in two years, so they don't have to even think about 5 or 10 years down the line? 99.9% of the existing tax code is fine. We should concentrate on the 0.1% that needs some tweaking, not take a meat cleaver to a system that is almost perfect.

I don't agree with many of the conclusions the author came up with, but I agree with the principle that: "But all tax policy should revolve around four essential values and needs: revenue, efficiency, equity and effectiveness." The framing of the discussion is good, as is the statement "Tax policy is complicated because it needs to achieve multiple goals, some of which conflict, requiring policymakers to make tradeoffs. No tax policy is ideal for all times and circumstances, but successful tax policy optimizes tradeoffs in a way that is acceptable to most taxpayers." The Republican tax "plan" follows none of those principles.

Tax policy is also VERY complicated because there are a myriad of different economic situations, and the current aim is to achieve equity for all of them. This is most of the complexity in the tax code. Leave out all of those special rules (that try for equity) and the rest of the code is so simple you could teach an average 12 year old to write tax returns. Or just let the IRS calculate it for everyone and send them a report each year of the reasons for their tax bill.

Besides equity, the tax code favors people and companies that do things the government wants to encourage. For example, make home mortgage interest deductible to encourage home ownership. Or make companies invest in new equipment to improve our economy in general. We could review all of those things to see if they are all still things the government wants to encourage, I suppose. I bet nothing has changed though.

Republicans all want to make rich people richer, though very few economists think this will improve the economy. Almost all of them think that poor and working class people are much more likely to spend tax dollars you give them, and those dollars will circulate several times around the economy. This could also improve the wealth gap, which is getting very imbalanced. If nothing is done to improve that, you end up with a Third World pest hole where the rich need private armies to protect their families from kidnappers (or cannibals).

Our tax system get complicated, that's true. I would not be, however, if we had a tax system that paid the bills, no more no less. Not only that but no changes allowed without 60+% votes in either house. No social engineering, no more 'helping', etc. Just taxes. I prefer a graduated system but would not be against, for instance, a national sales tax. I suspect most tax systems would work and the problem always seems to be our leaders who just can't leave stuff alone and tend to pander them that pays their campaign bills.

So, if we had a tax system that just paid the bills, did not pick winners and losers, didn't 'help' whoever, was VERY hard to 'adjust', etc. and was considered fair to all. No special deals for individuals or businesses. I think our current tax system started out to be something like 7 pages long and has grown to, I think, something over 20,000 pages long. How about just returning to the basic tax plan? As I say, there are a lot of different plans and most of them would probably work. The problem, obviously, is our elected class who just can't stand messing with stuff they should just leave alone!!!

The current budget, and proposals of the right, would, if passed, would probably cause something very close to revolution. the right, for instance, seems to forget that the top 10%, which controls something like 90% of the wealth, remains just 10% of the population! The current proposals will make them very happy and, probably, create a very dangerous world which would not be exactly good for them, ie. greed is not always a safe road to take. Cutting, for instance, 500 billion from medicare and and other 500 billion out of medicare effectively destroys both programs. Right now much of the right is made up of wishful thinkers wanting to return to the 1950's and on medicare. Can anybody imagine what they are going to do when they find their medicare has been cut in half? This is, obviously, one of long time wishes of the right. Cut all the taxes and programs, make gov smaller, and everybody will be happy? The right has big dreams but they are not exactly rooted in any reality I am familiar with.

This is, incidentally, another reason to have a military draft. Right now we have, for all practical purposes, a national army of mercenaries - NOT citizen soldiers. We need to reconstitute a citizen army, otherwise, our own army can be a organization against the citizens. In other words we are, right now, at the brink of possible disaster that we are supporting with our own taxes!

Would trying to get a handle on global warming qualify as just paying the bills?

Uh...how do you figure that? We have a military made up of patriots who have all volunteered to serve their country. Far better, in my opinion, than one made up of conscripts who mostly don't want to be there.

Tax policy is a very effective tool for social engineering. Tax credits are very effective for shifting tax burdens. I agree that many particular exemptions should go, but the problem is geese - one person's goose is another's gander, and someone's going to get cooked. I've made this proposal several times: don't distinguish income - e.g., capital gains, inheritance, etc. - tax it all the same.

Also, jgw, military service is a far cry from being a mercenary. Don't confuse the tool with its user. A hammer is not the right tool for every job, and it's the poor craftsman that blames his tools. Both apply to the military.

There are lots of tools in Congress...

It relieves the citizens of the enormity and burden of the decision making to engage in military adventurism. There is no political check on the war department as their is no 'skin in the game' of the average voters family.

We have now undergone a shift in class perception, in that too many in the military now seem to see themselves as a separate "warrior class" and too many now believe that we the people serve them, instead of the other way around.
It's approximately a 50/50 split right now I'd estimate.
It's a natural form of elitism and isolationism.
Mandatory conscription tends to even the load and force the people to be aware of the decisions made by the particularly "warrior class" set of top brass in Washington.
Men like General John Kelly, who think nothing of calling General Robert E. Lee an "honorable man", for instance.

Warrior class militaries tend to insulate the people from the consequences of military adventurism, as was already stated above.
I add that the defense industry seeks an established warrior class as a natural grass roots lobby, so mandatory conscription also evens out the privateering tendencies.

Couple of things. First taxes. Using taxes for ANYTHING, other than paying the bills, is a terrible mistake and is, exactly, how we got to a 20,000 page tax code. It is, again, pretty simple. One side wants to 'tweak' the tax system, then the other side wants to 'tweak' the tax system and it just keeps on going. The bush tax reduction, for instance, added no fewer than 200 pages to the code. If you want to do social engineering, etc. do it outside of the tax system. Decide on the tax plan, pass it (normal order), and just let it be. Then EVERYBODY will know, exactly, how it works and what its for. Right now NOBODY knows, exactly, how it works and what its really for. If we are to be a nation of laws then just let it be.

The second needs a little history. I can remember when we did a blanket pay raise for our military. At the time there was a big argument over whether we were creating a mercenary force. I can also remember when, in 1971 they sent tanks into Washington DC to keep the peace. They traveled there not with their guns up but down and ready to go (that one got a lot of attention at the time). They had just returned from Viet Nam and would have opened up on anybody if they got the order. Then there is the ongoing dependence on independent mercenaries as well (https://www.theatlantic.com/interna...nistan-contractor-pentagon-obama/495731/). You may think of our army as a citizen army - it is not. The only part that qualifies for that is our national guard, the rest get paid fairly well and do as they are told and are controlled by the generals (now more than ever given that Trump has given the military free reign to do, pretty much, whatever they want). Anyway, if you are under the impression that our military would never act against American citizens is a nice thought but has little to do with our reality.

You can also look up the "bonus army" when, after WWI, they sent in tanks which actually attacked other veterans. Oh, here is one for the 1971 thing: https://longreads.com/2017/01/20/in...t-march-on-washington-they-shut-it-down/

Basically, OUR military WILL fire on civilians if so ordered!

It goes without saying that the advocacy for an all volunteer army was largely a result of the gates commission. Some of the leading advocated that gave testimony to congress on the benefits of it were Milton Friedman and Allen Greenspan.
Within a decade of the Vietnam war concluding and the country having to do some collective soul searching the military was tanned, rested and ready to have another little adventure with it's new volunteer force in a little country called Grenada.
Today most americans can't tell you how many Iraqis, Afghani's or Syrians have been killed in all this volunteer military adventurism. I can only tell you that the death tolls keep growing with each new one. It has been argued that we have made a mockery of the Nuremberg War crimes trials. The major pretext for the criminality was military aggression of one country towards another country.
We seem to not remember nor care as long as the flat screens are on sale and gas is cheap. Our military has been given a green light go.
Hell, its starting to morph into some kind of judeo-christian fighting force to be revered.

As Einstein said repeatedly, in many different ways, a solution should be as simple as possible, but not simpler. What you are proposing falls into that mistake. Tax code is complicated because economic activities are complicated. If you get rid of all that code, lots of economic activities just don't work any more. In other words, it would tear the hell out of our economy and send us into a deep depression. We would have a fundamentally different system, and lots of very good things would no longer be possible. For example, home ownership.

On the other hand, this is just the kind of thing Trump likes: Some overly simplistic solution and damn the consequences. So we may suffer something like it, God help us.

99% of those rules are there for the purpose of equity, not for special interests. Get rid of them and equity flies out the window.

Interesting. If, for instance, you are in business, and you make a profit then that profit gets taxed X amount. The question is, basically, how is the profit arrived at and that is, basically, where the problems come in. This gets overcome if you have a national sales tax (hides under a number of different titles <G>) Anyway, if you buy something you pay a tax on it. The trick is to make sure one pays a tax on EVERYTHING that is bought, irregardless of where it was bought. The reason this has a lot of appeal is simply because the profit thing no longer is even pertinent. Its been said that if such a tax existed then you could fund gov with a tax between 7% and 28% If you google "national sales tax percentage" will get a lot of hits which goes in this stuff in detail. The trick is consistency. The people who hate this one are those that think this tax is hard on poor people (I don't buy it). There are ways to help the poor without changing a basic sales tax system. The trick is to come up with a basic tax which EVERYBODY pays! If one want to help the poor they can do that with some kind of payment system but not by adjusting the tax law itself which would remain constant and understood.

I am not sure what home ownership has to do with any of this. Right now, when you buy a house, you get taxed. You get taxed on what you buy in any number of ways (fed, county, state, fed - they ALL get a taste). I remember, when in college, a long time ago, being told that the price of a loaf of bread is something like 75% tax charged on production each step of the way.

I just think that a genuine, fair tax system exists and the problem is in the details but, no matter what system is in place, is should be held sacrosanct and any 'fixes', "equity adjustments", "social engineering", and "kindness" should be handled outside of the tax system itself and specific to whatever so everybody knows what is going on. Right now we have a system which makes any set of religious tomes, moral commandments, and the like pale in comparison to our own overly complicated and incredibly corrupt system (currently supported by the accounting priestly class and ruled by holy congress).

Oh, the current solutions of the right are none of the above. Instead it is, basically, a system to increase the number of poor whilst getting rid of any tax supported healthcare (thereby killing off the non-productive, elderly, ill educated poor (I suspect many Trump supporters fall into this category)). Given the disparity of wealth in this nation I suspect that we will probably move onto revolution in the next 50 years or so unless something changes. Its unfortunate when that happens but I won't be here to see it so it's out of my pervue (I know, that's harsh, but true).

If history teaches anything it shows that a gross disparity in wealth always ends poorly and there is absolutely no reason why we will not experience the same disaster as other nations and cultures with huge disparities have experienced in the past. It would seem that, historically, the poor and disenfranchised tend to eventually upset apple carts on a grand scale.

I just came across this so I thought I would add it:
http://reason.com/reasontv/2017/11/01/trump-tax-plan-business-as-usual?utm_medium=email

So, he wants to get rid of state and local tax deductions? Then you would be taxed double on the taxes you pay to the state and local government: You would have to pay taxes on your total income and then pay taxes again on the money you sent to the state, etc.

That's one of the reasons this is so unpopular.

He wants to get rid of the home mortgage interest deduction? But if you buy property to rent out, you get to deduct the mortgage interest as part of your business expenses. Buying a house is probably the single biggest investment people make. Why not let them deduct the investment expense (the mortgage interest). If you outlaw that then people just pair up and buy rental property and rent the houses to each other so they get the deduction. If you decide to not let people deduct mortgage interest on rentals as a business expense, then are you going to deny every business expense? Do that and you destroy the American economy.

What we have here, in my view, is the classic distinction between "simple" and "simplistic". jgw argues for a simple tax system, while p-i-a points to complexities that argue the solution is simplistic.

Life is complex, and economic activity is blindingly complex. As a result, the tax system is correspondingly complex. It contains both the general case and a myriad of special cases. What is "fair" in a general sense can be exceedingly unfair in particular cases, as pondering points out. The tax system has been developed to balance out the joints between general principles and specific cases and, in some instances, manipulated to benefit particular groups. Moreover, as he also points out, people modify their behavior to take advantage of certain rules through "tax avoidance schemes". Two glaring examples are embodied in the last two Republican candidates' fortunes.

Mitt Romney made millions and avoided taxes by structuring business deals to take advantage of lower "capital gains" rates - as do most investors, but on a much smaller scale. Hedge fund managers and other financiers are the worst abusers. Donald Trump took advantage of "carry over" rules that were inserted into the code by real estate speculators (like himself) to avoid taxes for a decade.

The problem, of course, is reaching "fair". Simple, I agree, is good. (Hence my argument for treating all "gain" as "income".) But the devil is in the details - e.g., what is appropriately deductible to offset various kinds of expenses and losses. Should, for example, State taxes be deductible? Should religious institutions get exemptions? Should interest expenses count? In what circumstances? What about children? Child care? Health care expenses? Start up costs? Capital investment?

What about relative "burden"? Should the tax code take into account that a 20% rate on a poverty-level income has a much greater impact than a 20% rate on a millionaire's "quality of life"? How much "inheritance" is reasonable? Should the tax code be "progressive"?

On another front, should taxes be compartmentalized or earmarked? For example, FICA and Medicare are taxed separately from ordinary income taxes. Should they be?

Moreover, the tax code needs to be flexible as circumstances change or as behavior changes to adapt to it - market distortions and loopholes. One man's lifeline is another man's noose and becomes another's loophole. If the code favors screwdrivers over hammers, screwdrivers become fashionable, and hammers get dropped.

Be careful that simple solutions don't become simplistic.

Some elucidation regarding the civil-military divide: NIGER GREEN BERET DEATHS EXPOSE A CLEAR DIVIDE BETWEEN SOLDIERS AND CIVILIANS - Newsweek.

The best example of the civil-military thing that I have seen is in Myanmar/Burma (was renamed Myanmar by the army although the natives tend to still call it Burma after the largest tribe in that country. In that country their 500,000 man army is completely removed from the rest of the country and their bases are isolated communities within the country. They have their own everything, including golf courses. Soldiers, I was told, do not marry outside of the army (this was explained to me by a woman there when I asked why she wasn't married. She replied that between the army and the monks there weren't all that many men left. She also said that the military establishments were so isolated from the rest of the people because they feared the rest of the people would hurt them (I never figured out if she was kidding or not)). However, the fact remains. The army, for instance, by constitutional decree (which the army wrote), gets to assign half of their legislature with whoever they want.

The current Muslim/Buddhist thing over there is a problem because that country is split into 3 distinct communities; the normal people, the military, and the Buddhist religion. In other words nobody really knows who is in charge of what. Its a very strange place............. When we were there (for a month) the Muslims were being attacked by a Nazi-like Buddhist monk and his followers (really!), now it seems that the army has joined up with the monks to slaughter the Muslims. The average citizenry seems to just be keeping their heads down and hope it all works out in the end.

As far as the tax thing is concerned. I am for whatever they can come up with that is seen fair to all with absolutely no favorites. I am also for EVERYBODY in the country paying taxes, not hidden taxes but taxes understood to be going to the government to pay the bills. I would, naturally, expect that the poor would pay very little - but they would pay something. Right now, from what I can tell, half the country pays no taxes for one reason or another. If you are not supporting your capitalist country, with some of your capital/money then you are not supporting your country. I think that should be a rule. To give a damn, about just about anything, you have to have some skin in the game.

My reason for supporting a national sales tax is because that seems to be more fair. I also support taxation by all taxing districts; federal, state, county, city, etc. The devil, of course, is in the details. A perfect system, of course, is unlikely to exist but I also believe that those with the big bucks should contribute more than those with few bucks. Those with billions, for instance, should be taxed accordingly (I can remember the mythic 50's, where many want to return. They tend to forget that them with the big buck paid really big taxes (up to 85% of income)). If they buy more stuff than them without much then they would, by definition, be paying more than those with little. I would also think that paying taxes on EVERY transaction is the best way (and might even get rid of some middlemen who are unnecessary). the trick would be setting the sales taxes. For instance (this will stir up some) everytime a stock is sold there should be some kind of tax on that sale. It could be, for instance, only a penny per trade but it would be something (and I, incidentally, trade a bit now and then and would not think that to be onerous. On the other hand the big boys who do a million computerized trades a day might find it onerous and my response to that one would be "tough s**t"). There is also problems from state and fed in that states are being forced to spend more and more because the fed is supporting less and less. All in all this is a seriously pesky problem and, as far as I can tell, the current Republican solutions are just plain silly. The only good that will come of their efforts is that there is likely to be a BIG change in congress if they continue down their dusty pot holed road to self destruction (this assumes the electorate will actually be capable of acting in their own self interest).

Supporters of the Fair Tax Proposal agree with you. I don't.
While on the surface it might appear to be fair, the biggest problem is that the poor and middle class would bear the brunt of most taxation because they spend a larger percentage of their income on goods and services. Our income doesn't stack up in tax free piles of money we are never going to spend.
The proposal calls for a 23% sales tax on all goods and services to generate the same income for the government that the current tax code provides.

As earlier noted, simple solutions tend to become simplistic when they fail to consider the unintended (but predictable) results of those actions. As Greger points out, sales taxes are, by their very nature, aggressively regressive and terribly inefficient on the scale proposed. As a result they would need to be grossly high to make up for the revenue lost from more efficient methods.

Collection of those taxes, moreover, would require a much more intrusive and, again, inefficient administrative structure to collect it. I agree that a per-transaction tax for commodity/stock trades would ameliorate those conditions, somewhat, but that moderation would have the expected effect of slowing economic activity - offsetting somewhat whatever gains might have been achieved. I like the concept, but the consequences have to be considered.

Going back to the four principles I previously put forth: would such a scheme raise sufficient revenue, be efficient, equitable and effective?

There already is a small tax on each stock sale.

I thought that small tax on stock sales didn't make it. I did a search (probably missed it) but, as far as I can tell there is a kindofa tax based on capital gains. I won't even start on capital gains as that one seems to be a seriously moving target and depends on how stuff is setup at the beginning. Trump, for instance, was able to finesse millions out of that one. The last one that amused was incorporating wills and anything paid to folks in the will becomes a clever tax dodge.

I guess I should add that I agree that there is no really simple way to have a fair and equitable tax. I am not sure that there even is such a thing. I do know some of the 1% and their main quibble over taxes is the the utter belief that gov mis-spends ALL tax dollars. If they could be convinced that the money is being spent wisely I suspect they would not be quite so greedy. The problem is the ability of many to demonize just about anything and everything in an effort to gain some kind of recognition in the world of lies and demonization. The other problem is that there are any numbere of people who buy into this garbage. I have no solution for that one.

I have however, suggested that gov take a prime time hour from pbs, on a daily basis, to explain agencies and gov doings to the American public and call for public input. This sort of thing, I believe, might help in some ways and in other ways, especially when they are wasting money, not help that much except to point out error of ways. Right now, gov is just a huge black hole and gov has made absolutely no effort to explain itself to ANYBODY! I also suspect this lack is what drives the drive to earmark taxes.

Anything up to 5.49 million or so, double if it is from a couple. After that it is taxed at 40%. There are estimates that only about 0.2% of people have to pay. But for a few families (like Trump's) 5 million is nothing and the tax is huge.

Very interesting thing from a few years back: Republicans in Congress were willing to go from 5 million to 3 million exemption if they could get a few percentage points shaved of the amount in excess. If you do the math and figure out who that benefits, it is people with over 100 million dollar estates. It shows very clearly who they work for! People with just 3-5 million dollar estates are bums to them. They were willing to sell them down the river in spite of all their talk about poor ranchers and small business owners.

I have been giving a bit more thought to this stuff. I am not sure that we are not on the edge of complete and utter disaster. I am suggesting this because I am not convinced that we are not only due but it might be fair.

For instance, we live in a Democracy and everybody (at least in theory) votes. Those votes decide our wishes and desires and they count. So, lets think on that one and how things work.

Our elected class has accomplished a number of things.
Drug Companies have managed to get congress to pass a law that our own government is forbidden to negotiate prices
We have now been fighting the same war for 16 years and there is no sense it will ever end as its unwinnable
We (gov) has 'loaned', literally, trillions to students to get educated and charged them approximately double the normal interest rate
Our current government has reduced health care expenditures by close to a trillion dollars
Political advertisers need not tell anybody who they are (congress has consistently been unable to fix this, either side)
Our government actually passed a law so that anybody holding somebody's information is not responsible for that information
Banks can no longer be sued by groups of victims.
We continue with ethanol even thought its not good for engines, it continues to be subsidized, is bad for the environment, and it is responsible for rising food prices - worldwide
Our system of education sucks and our students spend less time being instructed that virtually schooling in the entire rest of the world.
Our healthcare costs over 2 times what the rest of the world pays and is not all that good
We have elected a leader that thinks that Nazis are "good people"
We have a two party political system where both parties are interested, apparently and only, in winning and little else
We have a war on drugs upon which we have spent a trillion dollars, that is ineffectual, doesn't work and solutions that do work (Portugal is an example)
We have a problem with guns. Examination of virtually all other industrialized nations control their guns but not us! We are held in thrall by the NRA which is funded by the gun manufacturers and our government has no power over this organization because that organization threatens our elected class and they knuckle under (little lack of integrity, backbone, honesty and all the rest of it here?)

The above list can be easily added to by just about anybody who is reading this. My point is that its the citizens of this country who have brought this on us. They have been bamboozled by all sorts. I suspect the worst is the simple fact that religions can now preach politics and not get called on it. In the good old days any religion preaching politics lost their tax exception, no more. Its still against the law but politics have overruled the law. I am not sure what the fix is to stop the bamboozle but somebody better figure out one. Huge numbers of voters not only are bamboozled but are stalwart in their right to believe non factual baloney. In other words large numbers of American citizens seeem to actually be proud of the simple fact that they believe flat out lies and, as far as I can tell, people actually think this is a right! So, we have a voting public which seems to be ignorant (and proud of it), deluded (and in denial), or just can't be bothered (close to 50% in that category).

So, basically, we are not, by just about any standard, a citizenry that has no any real honor, integrity, or even the capacity to act in our own best interest. We are, in other words, not a real deserving group. I am not sure what happens to such a population but, as far as I can see, whatever does happen its not gonna be real good unless we change our ways and it doesn't look like that's gonna happen real soon (except, hopefully, how we treat females of the race).

I would also point out that there are places on earth where their leaders and government actually serve the people. The nations of north Europe, for instance. Norway, for instance, is rated the happiest nation on earth. Norway is one of the most heavily taxed countries in the world with a total tax burden of roughly 45% of GDP– almost twice the US. VAT here is a whopping 25%. Personal income tax rates border 55%. Corporate profits tax ranges from 28% to as high as 78%. In spite of that the people of Norway like their government, leaders, etc. We, on the other hand, we distrust our gov, despise our congress, etc. Think about it (kinda depressing).

'
When societies reach this level of dysfunction, they do not reform --- they break --- and out of the disaster something new arises --- not necessarily an improvement on the previous situation.
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Yep................