Down To The Wire 2012 >>POLITICS<<

Conventional wisdom but not based on facts. The highest growth period for business and productivity was during period of highest taxes in the US. You can research this, cuz you will just whine and bitch if I post a link.You say that can't be true. It is look at the figures.How can that be?It is smart tax policy. It is using tax policy to stimulate growth and investment.If corporations and individuals know they are going to be hit with a huge marginal tax rate they do things to lower the income.For example, XYZ is going to get hit with a 70% tax rate for profits over 100 million. It is going to show profits of $150 million. So what does a smart company do? It spends 50 million on business expansion. Why give government 70% when they can reinvest it in themselves?Instead of paying the CEO an extra 10 million a smart tax policy incentivizes the company to give the money to people lower down the totem pole or make capital investments.You say that wont work. History has shown you wrong already.Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.

Was meant to be a rhetorical question. Sorry did not come across that way.
You still have given no evidence for your premise. All you have is assumptions and conventional wisdom. Their taxes are at historical lows. How much more taxes are they to be relieved of? Who do we pass the burden on to? Lowering taxes on small businesses does not stimulate growth. Business expenses are completely removed form their income. The tax is on the business owners income. If they spend more investing in their business or paying their employees more they will show less income, therefore pay less in taxes. Ignorance of how the tax system works allows the right to manipulate the electorate with crap like this. Small business is actually doing quite well in this economy. Not fantastic but better than the average person. Also, we now get into a discussion of what constitutes a small business. None of the talk of raising taxes is going to affect the VAST MAJORITY of small business owners. But they are the only ones affected by any tax changes being contemplated, so your point is moot. Also, the argument about not paying taxes on money reinvested into the company is the same no matter the size of the company.You really need to learn about US taxation policies and marginal tax rates if you want to have an intelligent argument about the subject.

Amazing how evidence does not support you. Provide some evidence for this argument and I might consider it.Income taxes are assessed after operating costs. Lower taxes are not going to give them more operating income. Spending more on operations will reduce their income taxes. reducing income taxes just puts more money into the owners pocket. It does not stimulate the business.It is counter intuitive, but by reducing income tax you reduce the incentive to reinvest in and grow the business.

"Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner."James BovardThe US is not a Democracy. It most closely resembles a Federal Republic.

Basic one line difference is that in a pure democracy is majority rules. No exceptions. In a republic there is a constitution(or charter) that limits the majority and provides for individual and minority rights. In a pure democracy individual and minority rights are not considered.James Madison is probably the founder most responsible for advocating against "Tyranny of the Majority".The Federal part is that by splitting up the country into states would prevent a national majority form infringing the rights of a minority, because they would not necessarily be a majority in all states.

Well if all you have is a semantical argument then why are we arguing. You are arguing to argue, nothing more. Phat asked a question, I answered it with a technically precise answer.Yes a Federal Republic is a form of democracy. But Phat wanted to know why that was different than a Democracy. The key is I am the one that originally stated the US was more of a Federal Republic than a Democracy so shouldn't what I meant by Democracy matter than what you mean?You win ok. Lets move on.

Not on a national level too unwieldy and chaotic. Townhall democracy is practiced in places in New England. Not sure of other places.I know links are discouraged but maybe these will help us.

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The United States is, indeed, a republic, not a democracy. Accurately defined, a democracy is a form of government in which the people decide policy matters directly--through town hall meetings or by voting on ballot initiatives and referendums. A republic, on the other hand, is a system in which the people choose representatives who, in turn, make policy decisions on their behalf. The Framers of the Constitution were altogether fearful of pure democracy. Everything they read and studied taught them that pure democracies "have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths" (Federalist No. 10).

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By popular usage, however, the word "democracy" come to mean a form of government in which the government derives its power from the people and is accountable to them for the use of that power. In this sense the United States might accurately be called a democracy. However, there are examples of "pure democracy" at work in the United States today that would probably trouble the Framers of the Constitution if they were still alive to see them. Many states allow for policy questions to be decided directly by the people by voting on ballot initiatives or referendums. (Initiatives originate with, or are initiated by, the people while referendums originate with, or are referred to the people by, a state's legislative body.) That the Constitution does not provide for national ballot initiatives or referendums is indicative of the Framers' opposition to such mechanisms. They were not confident that the people had the time, wisdom or level-headedness to make complex decisions, such as those that are often presented on ballots on election day.

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Is the United States a democracy?

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The difference between democracy and republic is a fundamental one. "Democracy," strictly defined, refers to the method of government wherein the members of the group vote directly on all matters of legislation. "Republic" comes from the Latin 'res publica', and refers only to the nature of the government, 'a thing of the people' (that is, not a monarchy), without actually making claims as to how the leaders are selected.

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In recent times, the term "republic" has been bandied about by just about every country, with a popular vote or no, on the claim that the government and the people were subject to the same law. Covers just about everybody except for hereditary monarchies, as I say, including the People's Republic of China, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the Republic of Texas, as well as the more "republican" Dominician Republic, Kyrgyz Republic, and Banana Republic. Because of that, modern-day nations with elected governments have often prefixed their "republics" with other adjectives, and although "democratic republic" does not literally mean "representative democracy" (i.e., in which the people elect representatives, and the reps make the laws), that's what it's been used for over the last few decades or so.

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True democracy can also be called "town hall" or "referendum" government. Some small towns use the town hall as their exclusive system of law-making, and most state and local governments in the U.S. use referenda in placing bond issues and similar decisions directly on the voting ballot.

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Direct involvement of the people is a nice concept, but for matters of day-to-day government, a strictly democratic system is impractical. Even now that it's somewhat feasible via electronic communication to survey each and every voter on each and every matter of administering the laws, would you really want this on a national, state, or even local level? Voting is rightly looked on as a civic obligation, but if you were asked to do it every morning when you woke up, you'd probably get pretty sick of it. That's why on a large scale we elect legislators to work for us, and they are charged with making legislative decisions on our behalf. In other words, our republic is governed by a representative democracy.

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Is the U.S. a democracy or a republic? What's the difference?In actuality our government has become more democratic in last 200 years. Most founding fathers were afraid of Democracy. Rule by the masses was very scary for the elites of the time. For example, Senators were not direct elected until the last century.As I have looked at this question in depth I guess you have forced me to relook at terminology and how I state it. Here is how I would state it now. The USSR was a Federal Republic too, so the distinction of representative democracy is actually more important than I had considered in the past.Thank you for pushing me on this. I would not have relooked at my ideas if you had not.

The important thing to remember about this Democracy was that "the people" were defined as adult males.

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Only adult male Athenian citizens who had completed their military training as ephebes had the right to vote in Athens. The percentage of the population (of males) that actually participated in the government was about 20%. This excluded a majority of the population, namely slaves, freed slaves, children, women and metics.[clarification needed] The women had limited rights and privileges and were not really considered citizens. They had restricted movement in public and were very segregated from the men.

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