Okay, I'm UTTERLY disgusted that the SCOTUS says corporate "persons" can donate however much. And individuals can donate as many $5,200s as they want
to however many candidates they want. Basically setting the sickening precedent that Money = Speech as a standard.
I've talked before about doing away with lobbying and campaign donation; in my opinion, there should be NO lobbying, and NO donations, not even to
Colbert's SuperPAC (though I did contribute $5 to that)...
Also, term limits, minimum wage, no pension, and selection by picking a pool of candidates like being called for Jury Duty (not necessarily
picked, just called).
Give each candidate 15 minutes of air-time (Public Service Announcements) to be donated by the networks (TV, cable, and radio); no defamation of the
other guy. Three month campaign trail. Period. No travelling. Just state your case, and have a seat. We'll get back to you.
Now - since that is decidedly NOT the system we have in place, and it's unlikely I'll be elected for anything ever, as an unemployed civilian female
with no interest in politics except to hate them, what can I do?
Here is the question of the OP:
When you filed your taxes, and it had the question:
Would you like to contribute $3 to the Presidential Campaign Fund? This will neither change
your taxes nor your income. ...what did you select?
I, as per usual, checked, NO.
I can't imagine how it works in the retarded tax code...but suppose EVERY taxpayer said "Yeah, sure, whatever. No change out of
my pocket, go
ahead." Let's say there are 150,000,000 taxpayers (even without an income I got the choice to donate when we filed Married/Jointly). That's
450,000,000 million dollars.
So - nothing out of our pockets? Well, WHERE IS THAT MONEY COMING FROM? The US Treasury? Is there already a budget? If I say yes, who pays that $3
for my donation?
$450,000,000 should be PLENTY to run a Presidential Campaign season lasting only 3 months, even without the donated PSA slots from broadcast networks.
And it wouldn't be 'deductible'. It actually could work!
Could we then get rid of lobbying altogether? And what if some people said "no" - do they then not get to vote? No, everyone gets to vote, regardless
of how you decided about the $3. ("Beggars" I mumbled to myself as I checked "NO") So - you're not buying the right to vote, and you don't get to
pick the candidate you want to donate to. It's just a general fund from which the candidates draw equal amounts to work with. Say we end up with 3
nominees. Each one gets $150,000,000, 15 minutes of free airtime, and the rest goes to....what?
But most significantly, what did you, the American Taxpayers tell them when you filed your mandatory return? And does anyone know how much they
gather up during tax season? Are there any statistics of how much MORE they milk out of us besides our "taxes" (if we're not rich enough to avoid
them altogether)?
edit on 4/17/2014 by BuzzyWigs because: (no reason given)