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Comment Re:People attacking the IRS here are dumb (Score 1) 253

"Specifically, for every dollar spent on the IRS, government takes in 5-7 dollars."

"Customer service wait times, ie help filling out forms, has already more than doubled due to lack of staffing to answer calls. Nearly 40% of callers give up and hangup before even being helped. There's the issue of tax fraud that they are unable to prevent/investigate because of lack of staffing, meaning some of the refunds they payout are fraudlent."

Have you considered that the apparent 'profitability' of the IRS (the 5-7 dollar return mentioned by you) is due to artificially low expenses, such as customer service?

And if the laws are so complex that the IRS needs exorbitant funding to *properly* serve their customers, perhaps the answer is to improve the 'product', i.e. the tax code?

The government doesn't work like a for-profit business. Pretending it does is dangerous. Pretending the job of the IRS is to maximize revenue collected is also admitting you believe government should collect the maximum tax revenue permitted. Our federal government was initially founded as a limited institution. I am no longer certain it is considered as such by our representatives, courts, and the Executive Branch, and, worse, by many citizens. We will suffer for this.

Comment Re:Can anyone think of (Score 1) 204

You can blame the Democrats for that, more than one way:

Bill Clinton signed this into law.

S.900 passed the Senate with 52 Republican votes and 38 Democrat votes, and the House with 207 Republican votes and 154 Democrat votes.

The Republicans did hold a majority in Congress, 223 Republicans, 211 Democrats, one Independent in the House, 55 Republicans to 45 Democrats (mostly) in the Senate.

Claims that the Republicans passed this would have to ignore the Democrat involvement.

Comment Re: Secret Ballot? (Score 1) 480

âLook at Open Town Meetings as an example. It is one of the most democratic and empowering form of governments in practice and it exists without a secret ballot for most matters. Only for elections of individuals to particular offices or for setting salaries do they usually do a secret ballot.â

Since this is the primary purpose of most elections in the U.S., I'm wondering what the frak you are thinking.

  "But for general changes to the bylaws or voting on the overall budget the voting is quite open and anyone with a pen could record your vote."

Much like many cities operate with councils, of towns with selectmen. Again, wtf?

Coming from Maine, I'm familiar with all this. None of it an argument in favor of electronic anything.

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I'd rather just believe that it's done by little elves running around.

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