Here's an interesting thought

US politicians stuff money into the defense budget tagged for specific projects or expenditures. In some cases the Pentagon actively opposes these items, but the pols want them anyway because the projects bring or continue jobs in their state or district. There are plenty of weapons systems the military doesn't want but that Congress buys anyway so they tell the voters about the money they brought home.

Also, in our current political climate, suggesting reductions in the defense budget will get the speaker called 'soft' on defense. Many of the same people who feel more money buys better defense raise hell when others try to make the same connection regarding education.

The military-industrial complex is well entrenched, and drives up the costs of defense. You could easily argue that with all the takeovers that happened in the 90s, there are fewer firms and therefore less competition than before. And the US rarely buys items that aren't invented in the US, even if there is an inexpensive foreign alternative.

In the end that lowers the numbers of troops in boots.

Make the rules if they want to.
But all i can do it sit back and hope it all pans out for you guys in the end..

"The 18.1 percent average for the uber-wealthy is actually up a bit from 16.6 percent in 2007, but its still near a record low. As recently as 1995, the 400 wealthiest had an average tax rate of nearly 30 percent. In 2001, just before the first round of Bush tax cuts arrived, the rate was already down to 23 percent. And the 2003 reduction in the capital gains and dividend tax rates was another big boon for the wealthy, dropping their effective tax rate to 19.5 percent."
It's those people's money your boys and girls in the military are defending. One way or the other, on foreign soil mostly.
I'm not saying that the military doesn't do other things, but that's one of them.

Rich people are always going to have clout. As wrong as that is, i think we've discussed it enough to realize that there's really no way around it other than moving toward the communistic path.

What I don't understand is why the more wealthy people are being charged more by the taxation office. As far as i'm aware, the ATO (Australian Taxation Office) has rates per income bracket; the higher the income, the higher the rates..

But, that being that, I'm sure people find ways around it, like putting all the income onto the businesses and taking a minor percentage as 'salary'.
And I'm sure there are other, more elaborate, ways to beat the system that I couldn't possibly have thought of...

If you can't vote for a candidate, you can't contribute to his / her political campaign.

Corporations, unions, non-profits; anything other than human beings can't register or vote, and should therefore barred from contributing.

If you aren't registered, you can't vote and should therefore barred from contributing.

If you aren't registered in that state / county / district / precinct / country the candidate is running in, he doesn't represent you and you can't vote for him and should therefore barred from contributing.

If you can vote, you can only vote for a single candidate, and therefore you should be barred from contributing to more than one candidate to 'hedge your bets'.

It's that freakin' simple.

[i]-Why can organisations donate to an electoral campaign?[/i]

Like Palmetto said...Chase Bank and Cal-Berkeley and AFL-CIO can't cast a vote. And, taking their monies and spending it on a politician(s) is taking their shareholders/taxpayers/union members' money and spending it without their consent.

When you buy stock in Chase, does that stock purchase agreement state "We're gonna take part of the dividend before we distribute it, and hold it back to fund the candidate we choose for you"?

The allowance of an organization to take money (that otherwise would be in your pocket) and give it to a candidate not of your choosing...is a form of taking away your right to choose who your representation is.

As for what channels does it pass? Well, legally they tell you congress...but, they also get passed by all sorts of special interests so that peoples' political careers don't get railroaded by lack of campaign funds.

P.S. to Palmetto: I'm behind your reform law, as long as you take out "donation"...cause, they would figure out how to legally make it a "contribution" or something to get around "donation". ;)

is...what the wealthy pay from their income during the year vs. what they actually ended up paying out-of-pocket after they file their return and get any refund.

Most wealthy people have tons of write-offs.

If you took the top 400 incomes in the USA and figured out they ended up paying 30 percent in the end, I think you'd find out we should have no national debt.

400 x $270.5M each = $108,200,000,000

30% x $108.2B = $32,460,000,000.

And, that's just individuals. Now, go look at the top 10 US corporations. They grossed some $1,774,645,000,000. If all corporations and companies were really paying 30% of what they took in for their products/services (like normal American people do on their "revenue" i.e.-pay), we'd have no national debt.

Taxes paid per into the system are not what the total out-of-pocket is. Just ask Warren Buffet. He's said it himself. He paid about half the taxes (17.7%) on $46M in 2007 without trying to avoid paying them than his secretary did (about 30%) on $60k.

This is a guy who, in 2007, would have been in the 35% federal tax bracket at $46M of income alone. Yet, he paid about 17.7% overall taxes?

We need to simplify the system and make it equitable for people and companies alike. This is proof.

How can "anyone other than an individual voter" bribe politicians during thei campaign?
You've explained why it _shits you, and how they SHOULDN'T be able to do it...