It would certainly require a Constitutional Amendment and over centuries of our extending the franchise, but would you favor it?
No. If you're able to be called to serve your country, able to fight and die for your country, you should have a voice in who gets to send you off to war. And the legal drinking age should be 18 for servicemen and women for the same reason - if you're old enough to die for your country, you're old enough to have a drink.
then all the laws would favor vets and homeowners because the criminals in DC cannot resist pandering
I have a lot of love and appreciation for anyone that wears or has worn a uniform of our country - and that includes the PHS and NOAA personnel. Four things -- A person need not be a homeowner to vote. Anyone who is old enough to join the uniformed services of our country should be able to vote for who gets to send them off to war - regardless if they own a home or not. Anyone who is old enough to join the uniformed services and serve the country is old enough to drink alcoholic beverages. A non-resident of this country who volunteers to serve in the uniformed services of this country should be given automatic citizenship after five years of service - criminal convictions excepted. Everyone who has served, or is serving, in the uniformed services should have Veteran's Day off with pay. Anyone who hasn't shouldn't.
To vote is broad. Not too many years ago, only homeonwers could vote on school bond issues which would be paid for totally by property taxes. Then liberals decided everyone should vote whether they pay or not.
How do renters not pay school property taxes? Landlord's factor that cost into the rent they charge. You can bet that when school taxes go up so do rents.
How do people getting subsidized housing pay? How do people sponging off others who do pay have a right to vote on how money will be spent? I realize you think everyone who agrees with you should vote whether they're alive or not, U.S. citizens or not, or taxpayers or not. Oh, and I forgot about the liberal bastions with rent control where, when taxes go up, rents do not go up. But, I did appreciate your permission to bet that when taxes go up, rents go up. It is the goal of liberals to require us to have permission for everything.
Jail cells are considered home to many, so should they have the right to vote? I believe a simple history test with say 10 questions should be given to where the participant would need to answer at least 7 of them correctly in order to vote. Anyone that lists their political affilation as being Socialist or Communist should also not be allowed to vote in our country where they are considered to be the enemy. I wouldn't go as far to say that only homeowners get to vote, but I would suggest that anyone receiving welfare should not be allowed to vote. Also, no voting for anyone who has more than 3/4 of their body covered in hideous tattos, unless they have paperwork proving that they're not aliens from another planet. I'd also be skeptical of allowing people to vote who wear nose rings and have purple hair.
Don't put words in my mouth. What I said stands, any landlord that did not include property taxes in their calculations used to determine the rent they need to charge, would be a very poor businessman indeed. Any landlord that did not recalculate the rent based on a rise in taxes and include those new taxes into the rent would be an idiot. So yes, since the tenant is in fact the one actually paying the property taxes as a portion of their rent, so long as they are qualified voters (Citizen's, over 18, etc) they should have the right to vote. As to your rant about rent control which you assume I support (which I do not), you are wrong. In NYC, currently the largest jurisdiction with vestiges of rent control, the formula used to calculate the base minimum rent in a rent controlled building includes property taxes. By law the rent must reflect the cost of maintaining the building, taxes and a profit margin for the landlord. It is also a system that is coming to an end. The fact is that to qualify for rent control the same person has to have occupied the apartment since July 1, 1971, and if that person vacates the apartment, the unit is removed from the rent controlled lists. No apartment unit that has been rented newly rented sine that date is under rent control. If it's a duplex or single family home, it has to have been continuously occupied by the same tenant since 1953 when such units were taken out of rent control.
A nice distraction but you made, let's see, no relevant point. The owner of the property pays the taxes. Whether he gets the money to pay the taxes from a tenant, a pension, or stands on the corner begging is irrelevant. I realize that some are desperate to get dead people, foreign nationals, and deadbeats all voting but I'll stand by my position that in elections involving paying for specific expenditures, the people who pay should be the ones voting.
So maybe voting should be limited to: -People who's total federal income tax burden is over $1,000 (not counting Social Security or Medicare taxes - Income tax only) -People who own property and pay property taxes -Veterans Thus only those who contribute get a say in the operation of the country.
Although any male COULD be called up to serve, females are excluded, as are people with any number of disabilities or family situations. Since none of them would ever be drafted, they should be excluded from any veteran's rights consideration. Besides, although many people can serve, less than 1% actually will. Why should the other 99% get the same consideration because they MIGHT someday do what the 1% ACTUALLY DOES?
But almost everybody contributes in some way. A person who lives in government-subsidized housing still has to buy things, and as a result they pay sales taxes - money that goes into the general revenue fund of whatever municipality they live in. If they own an automobile, they pay fuel tax - money that is supposedly used to repair and construct roadways. A person has to be almost homeless and destitute to completely avoid paying any form of government taxation.
Cool, if they pay local taxes, let them vote in local elections. If they pay federal taxes, let them vote in federal elections. -On a side note, the person in your first example probably contributes far less than he takes in. If he is in subsidized housing, he is likely on food stamps and/or other aid programs. Odds are the tiny amount of tax he pays on expenses - if he even lives in an area with a sales tax - is far less than his total benefit package.
Oh absolutely! The value of government provided housing, government food assistance, government medical programs, and government provided welfare doesn't begin to compare to what little they pay in local and state taxes.
And those paying the rent are paying. How do you not understand that? It's very simple. In the case of renter's the landlord is simply acting as a tax collector for the State in the same way that a merchant does when they collect a sales tax (which fortunately my state does not have). Your argument holds no water.
I disagree. The property owner pays a tax to the state regardless of whether or not an apartment is rented. The property owner then includes the tax as a part of the rent charged the tenant. If the tenant was paying a portion of the property tax, the tenant would be able to claim the taxes paid as a deduction on their income tax returns - but they can't because they don't directly pay the tax. The tenants are paying a tax but they're paying it indirectly, much the way they are making the interest payments to the bank on the loan used to build the apartment complex.
Ironic, cause I was thinking of changing my name to Libertylover. Kinda has a nice proud American tone to it...doncha think?
