No, that would be a subsidy, if it wasn't applied to all businesses equally. My point was that some people claim a tax cut, usually in the form of a rate cut, is "the same thing as spending." E.g., if a tax cut is expected to reduce revenues by $100 million, they will say it's the same as the government spending $100 million. It's not, for various reasons too off-topic to go into.

You'd have a mod point if I had one right now. You could have added "spending," because I've seen people argue that tax cuts (i.e. taking less of someone's money) is the same thing as more government spending.

I imagine some sort of GMO supertree that grows as fast as bamboo, for carbon sequestration and a cheap building material.

I point to those examples to show that regulation doesn't necessarily make things better, and thus less regulation doesn't necessarily make things worse.

You are missing the point. When legislators decide to regulate buying and selling, the first things bought are legislators. Taxi cartels are prime examples of this.

"Safe, knowledgeable" taxi drivers like this guy or this guy? And that's just two cases I know of in San Francisco.

Very true. I once tried to get a cab from one part of downtown to another, in the middle of a workday. No cab ever showed up. I've heard they don't want to miss out on a more lucrative run to the airport.

Size matters. Desktop PCs are easy to make modular (unless you want an iMac). Laptops are harder, and besides removable batteries, only a few had any modular components (like a DVD drive swappable for an extra battery). Phones are much more space-constrained. Every millimeter counts, and modularity takes up quite a bit of space at that scale, because each part needs to be enclosed, securely attach to the others, etc.

In short, a modular phone is possible, but the trade-offs will be severe, and you'll be able to pick one or two things (e.g. speed, battery life, extra features, small size, etc.) but not all at the same time. And the prices won't be good, because manufacturer(s) will lose economies of scale: it'll be hard to compete with Apple and Samsung making millions and tens of millions of identical units.

Ah, but you are being logical and not ecological. It has been official policy in SF for years to "get people out of their cars" by any means. This includes intentionally removing parking places (more, more), and even preventing new construction from having more than one parking space per unit.

Your point is pretty much self-refuting, because public transit is heavily subsidized, perhaps even more than automobiles are.

We don't come anywhere close to spending "half our budget on wars." The military (plus veterans' benefits) only accounts for about 22% of total federal spending.

I'm sorry, but this is beside the point. If there are going to be 501(c)(4)s, the IRS has to judge them fairly, and they weren't. Maybe you think the AARP, the NRA, the League of Conservation Voters, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the National Wildlife Federation Action Fund, and all the rest should be taxed like for-profit corporations, but under the interpretation of the law that has existed for decades, they aren't. And if you are going to change that, don't change it for one political view, and not for the others.

I am not downplaying the importance of the NSA scandal, but the IRS scandal is, in a way, worse. While the NSA violated the right of masses of Americans, it is (as far as we know) an "equal opportunity" violation of rights. But the IRS scandal is about using the machinery of government for partisan advantage. That is hugely dangerous in a way different, and arguably worse.

Nonsense. What section of the code should they have applied for? 501(3)(c)s have strict limits on participation in politics. 501(c)(5) and 501(c)(6) are even worse fits.

If Obama's campaign organization can become a 501(c)(4) and now serve has a propaganda and lobbying arm for Democrats, including running the Presidential Twitter feed, how is it that groups that want to educate people about the Constitution are somehow too political? Or you seriously going to argue that Organizing For America qualifies, but hundreds of Tea Party groups do not? Give it up, dude. This is a genuine scandal of Nixonian proportions.