The Koch Brothers Want A New Constitution — And They’re Closer Than You Think

Where a government is controlled, influenced, or manipulated primarily by private citizens that are the top wealth hoarders that's called Fascism. And Fascism doesn't care about red or blue, liberal or conservative, me or you. Fascist like to stay behind the curtain (quietly pulling the strings) and avoiding any other accountability or responsibility. They just want to be the puppet masters (not the puppets). Our Constitution wasn't ever intended to be pro-Fascist but it is extremely vulnerable to the Fascist threat.

Take the First Amendment for example, on the surface it's a great example of the protection freedom for private citizens (but it has no teeth). So while all the decision making is going on inside a private locked building behind closed doors with government officials sitting shoulder to shoulder next to CEOs of major corporations (under high security that you paid for), you're aloud to yell and scream outside the building until you're blue in the face all you want (kind of), but you are not allowed to interrupt the meeting or be a disruption to the common welfare of society. Plus you are expected to submit to being ignored "peacefully." They however are under no obligation to respond in kind. At any time that they decide it's time for you to disperse they don't have to be "peaceful" in their enforcement of making you comply. So you end up being gassed, beaten, shot, arrested, detained, fined (as they continue doing business as usual) despite your 1st Amendment Right.

Now some of those meeting (that you have no say in) specifically have to do with things that discussions on new policies to further water down all of your other Constitutional rights (that's why those meeting aren't open to the public). They only care about protecting their own personal interests, everyone else in society is considered second class citizens, and they don't care what race you are, what religion you are, or what political affiliation you are. You don't even popup on their radar if your bank account isn't big enough.

 

They've been doing that since it's first signing.

 

Okay here's my question; lets say they add such an Amendment, what happens afterwards if a Congress fails to pass a budget down the road after this mandate compels them to do so?

 

How is lobbying anything other than bribery?

 

You are literally arguing that the ONLY way to manage a nation, is DEEP deficit spending. Meanwhile many nations do NOT do that. China is NOT running deficits, they are creating additional tax revenue by earning interest. Do you even bank, bro?

 

Grass-root fund raising by private US citizens that gain nothing personally in return for their private donations isn't even in the same ball-park of corporate lobby groups constantly in the ear of politicians discussing legal changes that directly benefit them while waiving bright, shinny, objects in their other hand at the sometime. Lobbies aren't restricted to just campaign funding. They are offering up memberships and special favors to elected public officials that are completely separate tools needed by those offices while expressing interests that individuals in those office can do for that lobbies personal interests. Lobbyist aren't gambling like grass-root campaign fund raisers are, they are getting what they want up-front.

If a cop pulls someone over for a traffic violation and that person offers to tip that officer (for the fine work they're doing) its assumed to be a bribe even if no favor was mentioned because that officer already knows that the individual is already been found to be in violation of something that that officer can directly ignore or do something about. Nobody wants to be held accountable for being in violation of anything.

 

So how many business people are eager to pay down the national debt when it means that they will have to fork over more of their money in higher taxes?

 

I agree with some of this. I would make the point that, when I was young, the DNC and the GOP fought viciously over what cuts were needed. Now only one side believes in balancing the budget at all. The hard core Marxists have obviously been gaining steam in the DNC, as evidenced by The Bern's presidential run. He would have won the primary if corrupt forces had not stood against him. I see this election as the last reasonable presidential run, for a Democrat. I expect going forward from here, it will be nothing but Socialism and Violence. What a combo!

 

Do you know what a deficit is? It's the amount of money that they government borrows to make up the difference that taxes fail to bring in to run government operations. The amount that's borrowed is added to the national debt. But even if there was no deficit the national debt wouldn't necessarily be reduced unless the government redeems the outstanding treasury notes. In order to do that tax rates would have to be increased across the board to very high levels.

 

The COS movement has managed to get 11 states to date, per memory. That's 23 short of the necessary 34. It is not a constitutional convention but a Convention of States supported by Article V of the Constitution. The movement is growing but it does not have the necessary momentum yet, IMO.

It would help if people understood the Article and how states can actually amend the Constitution.

 

Sure the tax rates on the 1% could jump to 80% but the tax rates on everyone else should also increase proportionally.

 

So government spending has nothing to do with the deficit, it is the lack of tax revenue that causes the deficit ?

 

OK, reduce government spending. One of our destroyers just got damaged in Japan. Toss it into the junk yard instead of repairing it. And stop dropping all of those bombs in the Middle East. They cost money. Congress is spending a lot of money on silly investigations. Stop them right now. Every little bit helps.

 

I would honestly KILL to have it work like that.

Some actual responsibility

 

I will simply raise my prices

I promise you, anything you try to push on to myself and other business owners, we will pass on. Even higher taxes, this I promise you

 

Or we could ease up on entitlements, which is what will happen thankfully

 

Not sure about a completely new constitution, but many amendments definitely need to be discussed.

 

Not necessarily.

Progressive taxation does not require increasing taxes on lower incomes in order to increase taxes on higher incomes.

 

Yup!

Under Clinton there was a surplus which means that there was more income than spending and thus the national debt was shrinking.

Then Bush/Cheney's fiscal malfeasance taxcuts gave that money, and much more, to the wealthy 1% and caused the massive increases in the deficits and the national debt.

Proving forever that the Republicans are not the party of fiscal responsibility. Instead they are the party of Borrow and Spend like drunken sailors on shore leave.

 

Nobody "wants" to ever pay for anything. But the budget is not just some fictional thing, those numbers have a meaning and a value. Its true that the government exists is a different bubble from the rest of us in-which they can simply default without fear that the service will be interrupted (at least that is the general consensus). But what we're talking about is living off limitless credit, and there is no such thing as limitless credit that is never honored. Why should tax-payers pay their taxes if the Government isn't paying its bills? When the debt isn't getting paid that means that the overall value of the dollar is shrinking, so the USD is worth less and less everyday. That means that even though we can just print more money it would also have less value.

We didn't get so deep into debt just because we didn't pay the bill. We got here because we operate here by sending more money out of the US than we bring in and we've been doing it since WWII. I'm not just talking about the ratio of Exports to imports, or outsourcing and guest worker programs. I'm talking about constantly warring for our allies unprofitably, I'm talking about foreign aid, I'm talking about bank deregulation, I'm talking about bad trade agreements, I'm talking about all the central Americans that work in the US and send money to their families that live in other countries, I'm talking about the tax-havens, I'm talking about our exploding prison industry. The medical industry, the education industry, the auto industry, and all of these blood-sucking lawyers that what to get into politics. The people taking all the money, are hiding all the money outside the reach of the IRS and expecting the people that they exploited (to gain their wealth) to foot the bill for them on paycheck to paycheck incomes and they are able to pull this off because they send lobbyist to Congress to say its okay. So if you're earning less than six-figures a year so some other cheap bastard can earn 7, 8, or 9 figures a year (that refuses to pay their taxes) then of course expecting you to pay that overwhelming balance is impossible, and so too is thinking that printing more money is the solution. If you're earning five-figures a year (or less) you should be exempt from paying any taxes.

We are a nation living beyond our means an constantly bragging about how wealthy the US is while we're $20 trillion in debt. How long to you think this fantasy is going to continue?

 

They continue with the previous budget, zeroed to the previous year's revenue.

 

Bush was absolutely the worst until Obama, but Obama doubled Bush. Clearly we cannot have Trump double Obama. Quite frankly, we ought to reset taxes and federal spending to the median point of the Clinton Administration as the starting point and adjust from there.

 

Its a better combo than watching Fascism push us into Communism. No matter what course we take violence is going to be experienced along the road because violence always erupts during abrupt change and its impossible to not have abrupt change.

 

As logical as that statement seems its impractical, because we'd have no flexibility for the unforeseen and it would also do nothing to reduce the current debt (which would mean our dollar would steadily be shrinking in value). Our population (alone) is steadily climbing regardless of any spending cuts and our dollar has been consistently shrinking. What we need to do is completely revisit our expenditures before even talking about which cuts to make. And the way we need to do this is by putting US interests before foreign interests.

 

People don't seem to understand this. The cost of business just goes up so prices go up. Doesn't matter if it's small business or corporations.

We're already printing money and devaluing the dollar to stay afloat.

It's difficult for me to even believe people can be that stupid. I always feel they are mouthing words to a base rather than making a pitch they really believe. But I get reminded daily how normal people can be collectively stupid.

The system is broken to the point I don't think it is salvageable. I have no idea what to do.