Fifty Years of Tax Cuts for Rich Didn’t Trickle Down, Study Says

sounds pretty much like Lanz's America.

because tyranny by minority is always preferable to that of majority?
that seems purely undemocratic to me...

Well yeah. That's pretty much what a "pure" democracy would be, isn't it? Everybody votes on everything? Otherwise you have some version of a representative democracy, like what the US has now.

It’s... odd how ‘Starving the Beast’ always ends up helping the rich get richer while removing ladders for the poor to get out of poverty.

Every year, the IRS, starved of funds after years of budget cuts, loses hundreds more agents to retirement. And every year, the news gets better for the rich — especially those prone to go bold on their taxes. According to data released by the IRS last week, millionaires in 2018 were about 80% less likely to be audited than they were in 2011.

But poor taxpayers continue to bear the brunt of the IRS’ remaining force. As we reported last year, Americans who receive the earned income tax credit, one of the country’s largest anti-poverty programs, are audited at a higher rate than all but the richest taxpayers. The new data shows that the trend has only grown stronger.

https://www.propublica.org/article/...s-at-about-the-same-rate-as-the-top-1-percent

Funny that. Sure it is just a coincidence. Need to save money. Run it like a business.

Oh wait, by shifting the focus to poor people the IRS is actually taking in less money?!!?!

According to the inspector general for the IRS, the reduction results in at least $3 billion in lost revenue each year.

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-irs-was-gutted

Oh.

Huh.

Uh....

JOB CREATORS!

SOCIALISM!

LIBERTY!

And who here has argued for Pure Democracy?

Oh it was just a straw man you created to avoid actually discussing the topic?

Shocking.

Totally not what we’ve come to expect from you.

Nova and IIRC you yourself have both argued for direct election of the President. One man one vote, as they say. In other words, direct democracy.

Which has... what? to do with your straw man about ‘Pure Democracy’?

Seriously? Come on Anc, I know you're not that dumb. Direct elections would be an aspect of direct democracy. Everyone votes on everything.

Not really participating in this thread, but given the weather in @Lanzman's neighborhood these past few days, I found this relevant:

You are jumping all over the place with your definitions, even contradicting yourself.

As you said earlier electing a President, even directly, is a form of representative democracy.

Which as you said earlier is opposed to ‘pure democracy’.

So aside from you and your straw man who here is talking about pure democracy?

Huh, so by that definition congressional districts and the US Senate are direct democracies?

"some version" of representative democracy seems correct.
at least in that it isn't fully representative or democratic.

Nah, south of DC where I live it was mostly a rain event. Snowplows were standing by and they did put down some salt and stuff, but mostly it was just wet and a little icy.

Not sure how much more clear I can be. Everyone votes on everything would include elections, yes? Even in the Greek city-states where democracy was first formalized, they still had guys who framed issues to be voted on. Someone has to be the drafter of the legislation being voted on, the recorder of the votes, and stuff like that. Unless your idea of pure democracy is a wikipedia-based government . . .

the size of government should be dictated by what it needs to do to maximize the potential of the society in which it exists. There's no such thing as an arbitrarily correct size. In our current situation, given 40 years of right wing efforts to weaken and impose artificial austerity on government(collectively, not just in DC), it is clearly implicit that government (collectively) isn't the right size because it fails in too many ways on too large a scale. One can debate what level of government is or is not sufficient to the assigned responsabilities - at least depending on the given task, it's not like having Randian government in Mississippi or Kansas has any real effect on whether or not the State Department is equal to it's responsibilities. But the clear evidence to anyone not blinded by their philosophical biases is that 21st century American governance - and frankly it's more like the last 40-50 years, not just 20 - has failed to keep up it's responsibilities on several fronts.

And that is a direct derivative of the mentality behind the expression "Government is not the solution to our problems, government IS the problem." When the Republicans became a party of Goldwaters instead of Eisenhowers, this is the outcome of that shift.

Ah but does it have the funding and resources to fulfill basic responsibilities like maintaining roads and bridges and dams, fully fund an equal educational opportunity to every youth, keep people - even veterans - from being homeless and hungry and so forth and so on.

My case is not "is government currently doing things we'd be better off if they didn't?" Any operation that complex will inevitably have specific over-reaches to be reeled in. Rather my case is "is the government sufficiently financed and structured to reliably accomplish the tasks that we assign to it because only a government CAN properly do them?"

As it stands, the answer to THAT question is "fuck no"

Ask Norman.

He will coordinate.

You cannot possibly believe that "the chief executive is chosen by popular vote" is exactly the same as "everybody votes on absolutely everything."

We have 50 states whose systems of government demonstrate otherwise.

^ It's called a strawman: show the absurdity of some obviously absurd proposition, pretend it is the same as what you are trying to disprove, and then claim to have made your case.

It's a very common tactic.

fun fact:
our neo con provincial government has the power to dictate the size of city councils, so they did.
cut Toronto's down by half... now anyone wanting to run has to reach about 100 000 people in their ward.
How does a local independent finance that? Or should holding municipal office be restricted to the wealthiest?

We weren't criticising representative democracy.

We were criticising over reliance on the Constitution to deal with unforeseeable problems when they arise.

Would they?

Why doesnt that happen in practise elsewhere?

I'm the first to swerve any thought of governance by referendum, after all just look where it's left us with Brexit, but the idea your Constitution has done less damage is debatable to say the least.

There has to be more flexibility than this, you literally have people making speeches and demonstrating about how their right to assemble trumps other's right to life, as the death toll rolls in the direction of a half million.