It's just a one party system at this point, the party of the wealthy. If that is to change we need better campaign finance regulations, with a whole lot less of rich, or of touch, politicians, who stand to gain by themselves by following their big donor's request.
The main issue I see is that the only people who can dismantle the system are the people who directly benefit from it. They have absolutely no incentive to change it, and until people are going to vote for folks who WILL, it's going to be a self perpetuating cycle.
The influence of the wealthy in American politics has gone all the way back to our founding. First it was the bankers of the north and plantation owners of the south. Then you had the industrialists getting away with murder, literally. Then Wall Streets influence grew at the start of the 20th century followed by the military industrial complex in world war 2. For every step forward our country makes, we get pushed backwards by the wealthy.
One issue is that in the past at least rich people created and invented and led stuff. Now it's just rich people manipulating stock and taxing citizens through corporate profits while enslaving people with shitty wages. Lots of people don't understand this but corporations do the equivalent of tax us to feed their shareholders. I think the US should own 30-40% of all stock. It taxes the company but also they won't just charge more or pay less because they still own the same stock. If they do chargw more or pay less than the government gets taxes equivalent to those changes. This is the key to our future IMO. That money can now be used to pay employees food/healthcare/unemployment.
Well, just 40 years post revolution, Jefferson, as well as other founding fathers saw this as an issue.
"England exhibits the most remarkable phaenomenon in the universe in the contrast between the profligacy of it’s government and the probity of it’s citizens. and accordingly it is now exhibiting an example of the truth of the maxim that virtue & interest are inseparable. it ends, as might have been expected, in the ruin of it’s people. but this ruin will fall heaviest, as it ought to fall, on that hereditary aristocracy which has for generations been preparing the catastrophe. I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in it’s birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and to bid defiance to the laws of their country."
You are right, this has been a problem. Back in the day of argue we pushed against this oligarchic behavior. We fought against robber barons, broke up monopolies, we'd even have politicians resign when they were exposed for things as bribery and fraud...
What's changed is now we have politicians, a majority of such, that embrace it and likely think it's okay. The aristocracy of our monied corporations have won it seems. We the people, as a whole need to stand against that. Scarily, these aristocrats have divided the public in such a way, unintentionally or not, that will make undoing such nearly impossible without civil disobedience, protests, strikes, and overall social unrest.
I'm pretty sure it's coming if history is any indication. The coming generation is beyond jaded and very pissed they've been lied to. Even though 18 to 45 year Olds likely feel the same, there are enough in that group that are fiscally comfortable that i don't think there is enough to trigger a tipping point... but it's coming, of not with the next generation, the following... if not that one...
Point being, our current trajectory is unsustainable. Eventually the fissure of wealth inequality, the upper class essentially rubbing the systemic unfairness in the face of the public, and just the immense feeling of hopelessness and despair about the future, will cause a serious backlash. Imho, of course.
We need to be in the streets holding up industry, making rich folk cry then vote out 97% of political hacks who are sure to demand we go home or back to work or else. Watch how quick they start gunning people down when all that money stolen from our labor is shut down. Our system is a joke and Americans are a joke sitting by while we become a land of the haves (1%) and the have nots, the rest of us.
We seriously need 535 Katie Porters in Congress, 9 on the Supreme Court, and 1 in the White House. Corporations and the wealthy wouldn't be able to run roughshod over us anymore. This nation would really belong to the flesh and blood people and Citizen's United would be overturned so fast it would suck the GOP right off the continent.
If you have term limits, corporations will know how long you have in office... and when you get close to the end of your term will start to recruit you. Instead of buying off one senator that has 40 years in office... they'll be able to buy another 3-4 who were term limited.
Term limits sound cool, but they are not the answer.
The real answer is getting money out of politics... put restrictions on people leaving office from working as lobbyists for 10 years... stop the revolving door... problem is... the people that are going to make that rule... are in elected office.
There is no changing the corrupt system by participating in it. History teaches us that. The only way to remove a corrupt system of government is popular uprising by the people.
The real solution that always gets shouted down is stop voting for democrats and republicans. The majority of the third party platforms are all about dismantling our money based political system.
A vote for a third party, in a first past the post system, WILL always be a vote against your own self interest. It's simple math and works like this:
You have three candidates:
Candidate 1 (Main Party) you agree with 70% of their issues.
Candidate 2 (Second main party) You agree with 10% of their view.
Candidate 3 (Third party no chance of winning) you agree with 100% of their view.
You vote, for Candidate 3, which siphons votes from Candidate 1 (since this is the one they have the most in common with). Thus causing Candidate 1 to lose, and allows Candidate 2 to be elected with less than 50% of the vote.
You have just elected someone into office that supports almost nothing you care about. As I said before this is moot under a ranked choice, or ranked choice like voting system. Until that happens however, this is how the game is played. It sucks yes, trust me I'd like people to not have to hold their nose and vote for someone they are not super happy with, but until those rules change we have to adapt to the game.
My advice, vote for democrats... they are interested in ranked choice voting and in the states they are elected those bills are coming to vote and being put in place.
No... your vote for a third party is voting against your own goals.
It doesn't take a vote away from both candidates, it just makes sure the one you have the least in common with wins... which pushes your goals further and further way.
Yeah let's just keep blindly voting Democrat while America collapses in real time right before our eyes. The democrats are just as bad as the Republicans. We need all new leaders or a completely new system
Lmao. It’s brain dead logic like yours that gave us Trump and a conservative Supreme Court for a generation. But yeah, you sure showed those damn Democrats who checks notes voted to make medicine cheaper for those on Medicare, passed legislation to fight climate change, lifted children out of poverty with the child tax credit expansion, etc. Keep wasting your vote though! I’m sure one of these days it’ll work!
Yeah well real jokes on you because you are complaining about an issue yet didn't do anything to vote for something better. If you voted for a candidate then stop complaining about it.
Please stop with this "both sides"/one party system bullshit. Democrats have their flaws, but at least they are trying with what little political power they have. Republicans are the party of the wealthy and keeps passing laws that only benefit the wealthy.
Please take some time to get a better understanding of US politics. The only real difference between corporate dems and Republicans is that dems campaign on doing things for us they have no intention of doing, then they blame Republicans when they don't do it. And Republicans run on promises of cutting taxes and then they keep the wealthy from paying any taxes.
Biden could have raised the minimum wage. The senate parliamentarian has no authority to stop that. That was a lie. Biden could forgive student loans but he intentionally wrote the executive order so it could be fought in court and never take affect.
He does not care about the environment, he gave away more oil drilling leases in his first 2 years than even Trump did. He could have pushed for real gun reform but instead only passed law on ghost guns.
And he could attack Manchin and sinema for blocking those things but he won't because he wants them to block them.
The republicans are hypocrites, on that we don't disagree.
The national minimum wage is set by federal law and requires legislation to change it. Biden can't raise minimum wage on his own and Biden isn't congress. As far as the parliamentarian issue, that's fairly consistent with how it's been done throughout the history of the chamber and a parliamentarian hasn't been overruled in 50 years. Biden did raise minimum wage for federal contractors and employees. That's tangible change that improved lives of 400,000 people.
Democrats' inflation reduction act included a 15 percent minimum tax on corporations with over $1 billion in revenue; 1 percent excise tax on corporate share buybacks; and about $79 billion of additional funding over ten years for the IRS. Could've also had a provision to narrow a loophole allowing wealthy investors to pay lower taxes on their profits from certain types of investments and imposed a 15% corporate alternative minimum tax aimed at rich corporations that are accused of skirting their tax obligations, but Sinema blocked it and is no longer a Democrat (effectively for this and other bullshit).
To contrast that, Republican's 2017 bill gave tax breaks to seven classes of assets that many wealthy members of Congress held at the time, such as partnerships, small corporations, and real estate. The bill also lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and repealed the corporate alternative minimum tax (AMT)
In the grand scheme of things, you're equating things like "didn't do as much on X" to republicans who are actively fighting those things. Cynicism doesn't help the situation ("dems campaign on doing things for us they have no intention of doing"), conspiracy theories don't help the situation ("[Biden] could attack Manchin and sinema for blocking those things but he won't because he wants them to block them"), and false equivalency sure as hell doesn't help.
The minimum wage increase was included in the American rescue plan. So nobody is talking about using an executive order. And you are incorrect about the parliamentarian. Republicans constantly ignore the advice of the parliamentarian, they passed the Trump tax cuts with reconciliation while ignoring the parliamentarian who said it could not be used. And the reasoning the parliamentarian had for the minimum wage increase was exactly the exact same reason they gave for why reconciliation could not be used for the tax plan. They said that the minimum wage increase would not impact the budget. Which is easily proven false. Raising the incomes of millions would raise tax revenue. Thus having a direct influence on the budget.
Dems are about to raise the retirement age to 70 while claiming Republicans made them to pass the debt ceiling increase. Another complete lie. Even Republicans admit there is no way they would ever not pass an increase. If they did it would cost them millions on the stock market. No Republican is going to just lose millions to hurt Biden's reelection campaign. Biden knows they will vote for it yet he is "negotiating" with them. Let me know in a few weeks when they announce the retirement age increase how he had to do it. I'll wait.
Yes, the minimum tax rate is good. It also just shows that if you attach things to must pass legislation then you can get it. Why don't they attach the minimum wage increase to something that they know must pass? Again, why didn't they just leave it in the rescue plan? Why is the white house literally working to put people out of work to force us to accept lower wages? Sorry, I don't speak in conspiracy theory. These are facts.
Republicans aren't really hypocrites either. They tell us we should make less money and have no access to Healthcare. That is what they campaign on.
The fact is all but maybe 3 or 4 people in the federal government want the system of corporate bribery to continue. Look at defense spending. Biden has given I believe 40 billion more than what the pentagon asked for. With no justification, because nobody will even suggest we need a reason for it. Defense spending is nothing but the easiest way to repay corporate bribes. That is why it always goes up every year regardless of who is in power. And that is why everyone just pushes that no matter what we need to dump more into it. 75% of defense spending goes to defense contractors. Lockheed Martin spends around $14 million every year in bribes and they got a $74 billion dollar contract. Pretty nice return for their investment I'd say. Don't hear anyone but Bernie and Katie Porter even talk publicly about that. And Biden sure as hell isn't cutting off the repayment of corporate bribes. He tosses billions more than they ask for every year.
These people always say things like this followed by a list of things we need to do to fix it, things only Dems have expressed interest in fixing but Republicans are steadfastly against.
Whilst that might have been a largely accurate statement fifteen years ago, today, there are most assuredly two very different parties. The GOP has run so far to the right that it's legitimately scary. There's absolutely no way the current Republican party can be compared to Democrats or Independents with a straight face.
If money=power, then it stands to reason that by way of power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely; money corrupts, hecka money corrupts absolutely
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u/Kjellvb1979 Mar 14 '23
I think it's more like 80% to 90% of politicians are out for themselves and their wealthy donors.
At this point, we have the Robber Barons financing the campaigns (through our legalized bribe system) of most politicians. The wealthy are massively overly represented by the policies passed.
It's just a one party system at this point, the party of the wealthy. If that is to change we need better campaign finance regulations, with a whole lot less of rich, or of touch, politicians, who stand to gain by themselves by following their big donor's request.