Dark Money.

       I'm just reading an editorial in the New York times about so called 'Dark Money' in politics. Remember the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United? Well in their decision the Court expressed their hope that "public disclosure would deter corruption." A noble concept, but hardly a deterrent. Especially when current members of Congress depend so heavily on that funding.
       An amendment to a spending bill will block the Securities and Exchange Commission from requiring disclosure, another amendment would stop the IRS from reining in the "Social welfare" organizations by requiring disclosure. In the Senate, between 2010 and 2014, $226 million in dark money was raised, most of it going to majority Republicans. $226 million. Even if it was evenly divided among the 100 Senators, that's $2,260,000 per Senator. And nobody, except the Senators, know who gave that money. Wouldn't you like to know who owns your Senators?
       Now, I understand the desire of these politicians to keep those donations quiet. After all, nobody in political life wants the public to think they're beholding to anyone other than the voters, but if you get well over $2 million from somebody, don't you think you'd want to help that donor any way you can? And if nobody else knows about it, doesn't that make it easier to just vote in favor of that donor? I mean, nobody can complain. Nobody knows you're doing it.
       The thing is, the only ones who can easily change the way things are done is Congress and Congress is where all this Dark Money is going, to both parties, but mostly to the majority party. And since everybody in Congress is getting a piece of the pie, who's gonna vote to change that? There are only two other choices that I can see. A constitutional amendment, which would be extremely difficult, or the Supreme court would have to hand down a decision requiring it. Of course that would require that a case be brought against it.
      

It's Campaign Time Again

       Well! Finally! At last the time has come. We're blessed with the decision to run for the presidency by THE Donald Trump. I don't know if you realize what that truly means. What it means is that there is an opening for me to take another stab at running. My Super Pack, P.I.M.P is still intact. And yes, that's right, it still means Politician In My Pocket. I found my platform in the cellar and it's still usable, with a little work and replacing one plank that has some water damage.
       My slogan will be "I'm just as good, or bad, as the rest of them." The main difference between me and the rest of the presidential hopefuls is that I'm new at this and therefore don't know about all the dirty tricks and lies like the others. It's not so much that they lie a lot, and some are so rich they won't need to embezzle anything, not that I'm rich, but I just can't figure out how to do it and get away with it. I'd be too scared to try.
       Many contenders feel that if something is good for them, it must be good for everybody. But when I say that, it's probably true, unlike my esteemed opponents. Now as to building walls and getting Mexico to pay for them, well I just don't know. If they're gonna pay for it, they might just demand to design them too. Could be too many doorways.
And speaking of walls, shouldn't we build a wall around Texas? I'll bet the rest of the country would gladly donate the necessary funds to built it even higher. Maybe while we're at it, we could start spending money based on where it comes from. Like most mid-western and southern states contribute less, they should get less. I think that's my missing plank. Remember, a vote for me is a vote for me.

That's Right. $10,860,000.

       What if a wealthy couple were tragically killed in an automobile accident? If their estate totals $10,860,001, their heirs will have to pay a 40% estate tax on just $1, for a total tax of $0.40. That's because the current tax excludes $10,860,000 for couples or $5,430,000 for single persons. Now isn't that a horribly punishing state of affairs? Ya know what's an even more punishing affair? Some members of Congress are trying to eliminate the estate tax altogether.
       What's so unfair about the estate tax that some folks think it must be eliminated? The claim seems to be that the taxes on this income have already been paid, by the ones who died. To tax it again would be double taxation. Come on, the tax wasn't paid by the heirs, but by their parents. And in many cases, if you checked their tax returns, they probably didn't pay anything at all on that money. And anyway, everybody pays tax on their income and then pays taxes on that money again in sales taxes and a whole host of other taxes.
       The thing is, America needs more funding, not less. And with the degree of economic inequality in this country, why would we feel the need to create more inequality? Nobody really believes in the trickle down theory anymore, well, except for a few politicians and the very wealthy one tenth of one percent of the population.
        If anything. we need to increase the tax by lowering the amount from $10,860,000 to maybe $5,000,000. and increase the tax from 40% to 50%. It's time for these one percenters to start paying some taxes. After WWII the tax on the highest earners was upwards of 90%. Nobody cried in their beer of manhattans and moved out. They just worked harder.