Journal hyc's Journal: Government by the people, for the people
More thoughts on how big business is running America and, by extension, the rest of the world...
I wrote somewhere earlier (must've been a groklaw post) that the root of the Bad Laws that are interfering with our lives today were enacted in the interest of Big Business, and how unbalanced the balance of power really is in our "democracy" today. Because corporations are accorded the rights of human citizens, they have a lot of the privileges that individuals have, but their influence is greatly magnified because they represent such an immense concentration of wealth. An individual corporation has only one voice, but that voice is far louder than any private citizen's single voice.
This legal fiction needs to end; people should not be allowed to hide behind corporate veils to further their political agendas. Corporations should not be allowed to own property, intellectual or otherwise. Corporations should not be able to make political contributions or in any way lobby or attempt to influence politicians.
In exchange for severly curtailing corporate independence, they should get something out of it too. One of the slogans of the American Revolution was "no taxation without representation!" In exchange for removing the corporate voice from American politics, we should abolish all corporate/employment taxes.
A strict interpretation of the US Constitution would show that the federal income tax and a variety of other federal taxes are all unconstitutional. So as a matter of principle, all of them need to be abolished. But let's take it one step at a time...
The US Constitution does grant the federal government the responsibility to regulate interstate commerce. It would make the most sense to impose a federal sales tax, and completely do away with all forms of income tax. A federal sales tax would be completely within the original design and purpose of the Constitution. A flat tax would make everyone's life easier.
Failing that, it would still simplify lives if there was only one kind of income tax. Forget about corporate taxes, and forget about capital gains taxes. Income is income, and it gets taxed based on whose pocket it lands in.
Picking up the original idea - corporations are not people, and have no rights. They cannot own property. With this scheme, they don't hold any assets long-term at all; it's all apportioned to the shareholders immediately. So, there's no need for a corporate tax because the individual shareholders will be taxed instead. Simple.
While corporate contributions to political campaigns (or expenditures on anything not directly related to the operation of their business) would be outlawed, company officers could still, as private citizens, throw their money wherever they wish. But they would be doing it in their own names. No more shell games with holding companies and other garbage to obscure the trail of influence.
Our government is supposed to be free and open, transparent to all. It is high time we eliminated the shadows that power brokers hide behind. We need to take back control, take back our rights that big corporations are so greedily usurping.
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Government by the people, for the people
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