Quote Originally Posted by tiltingf6b View Post
to answer your questions I would first ask you a couple of questions as they establish a baseline for understanding - #1) do you own a home ? #2) do you own rental property ? #4) Do you own a business or more specifically do you sign the back of a paycheck or the front of many paychecks?

Once I establish your frame of reference I can take you to several points of interest - If you remove all those deductions, landlords would simply increase the rents to compensate for increases in taxes, damages, turn over expenses etc.. As most people who own commercial or residential rental properties will attest to - it only takes one bad tenant to wipe out a year or more of profits. Many investors are leaving the investment property world because the headaches caused by bad tenants and things like rent control take the profit out of it. Very few people understand how difficult it is to make money renting properties unless you are a lucky flipper / investor and then taxes will hit you hard anyway.

I personally favor a flat tax of some kind. But we could go on and on with all the disparaging cognitive dissonance that exists within our tax code.

I also favor a national identity card (oh my god) and without this card no services could or should be rendered exception - to save life. I am pro-immigration - anti illegal immigrant - but then we do like our cheap produce don't we? We Most folks think the national identity card is communism, but I think it's American to have a card that says "I am American I pay my taxes, I contribute my fair share".
I also favor the legalization of drugs and I would use the money saved by reducing enforcement and incarceration and spend it on education and rehabilitation. Tax the sh*t out of the drugs! Lots of folks would call that a poor tax.
Libertarians have some good points though they miss the need for social safety nets and other all important infrastructure, we are after all supposed to be a compassionate nation.

So many people forget the #1 reason jobs went overseas - Americans wanted more stuff and they wanted it cheaper and cheaper. Stock holders said "gee the only way to do that is reduce labor costs and all the other costs (like environmental compliance) associated with doing business in America. Stock holder told the Boards to DO IT and the boards started shutting down plants to comply. In the short term stocks went up but the long term was the death of the middle class.

(THIS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA) this had to do with GREEDY Americans - get all you can for as little as you can, take the money and run, get yours and go while it lasts. Well guess what - WE GOT WHAT WE DESERVED.
I agree with everything you wrote except the drugs. I live in WA and THC DUIs have doubled. Remove the stigma, increase the temptation, BUT I do understand your point of view. I would like a state to receive federal waivers, then implement a 10-year experiment, before expanding legalized drugs to the rest of the nation.

It's funny, WA took in $200 million in pot revenues, but most of that money went into general coffers vs rehab/education. Remember how the lottery was suppose to be for education? When dealing with govt bureaucracy, it's amazing how many hands reach into that money pot.