Right to vote = minimum of $1.00 federal tax.

WhoWee

I commented on this in Post #25: my bold

"There are three possible categories of persons in this conversation.
1.) People who pay $1.00 or more per year in net federal income taxes.
2.) People who pay $0.00 in federal income taxes and receive $0.00 federal income tax return - don't contribute and don't receive.
3.) People who do not pay $1.00 in federal income taxes but receive assistance from a program they did not contribute to (not Social Security or Medicare or VA-contribution was service to country)."

daveb

Just out of curiousity (because I haven't looked at his returns) did Romney pay any income tax, or was it all Capital Gains tax?

AlephZero

I think this should be taken to its logical conclusion. In the UK, prisoners don't get the vote because the government makes decisions on law and order. By the same logic, sick people shouldn't get the vote because the government funds healthcare. No public sector workers (including the military) should get the vote for the same reason. Nor should anybody receiving a state pension.

The ideal position is clearly a system where the only voters are those who are completely unaffected by the outcome. In other words, the best system would be for the makers of reality TV programmes and talent contests to take over running the elections.... Oh, wait. Maybe Fox News has done that already?

turbo

Wholesale disenfranchisement efforts are already underway in many states where Tea-Party candidates have managed to get voted in. In Maine, the state's AG spearheaded a drive to ban same-day voter registration and early voting. That would have disenfranchised the working poor, who might have a tough time getting time off from one of the two or three jobs that they try to hold down, on election day. It would also disenfranchise many elderly people (especially women) who don't drive, don't own cars, etc. The AG spent who-know-how-many man-hours scouring voting records and he came up with a grand total of one person who may have been ineligible to vote 'way back in 2002. Yep! Voter fraud is rampant!

After Mainers passed a citizen's initiative in the fall rolling back the new laws, the AG said that more steps had to be taken to secure our elections. He didn't get real specific, but it appears he is poised to try to require photo IDs for all voters. Once again, there are many people who don't have cars or drivers licenses, or can't afford to take time off from work to head down to the nearest Department of Motor Vehicles office and cool their heels for hours trying to get a photo ID. Even if the ID was "free", there would be a built-in penalty in the form of transportation costs and lost work-hours.

The AG has already sent threatening letters to out-of-state students warning them not to vote here (their state of residence). Disenfranchising people who might be likely to vote Democratic is a constant theme here in Maine. It's likely to get worse.

Pengwuino

And they are bombarded with federal aid, tax credits, and other government benefits. Have you ever seen some of the taxes poor people "pay"? I've seen people effectively receive a 50% raise based on all the benefits they receive from the government and pay 0 taxes. Millions of students around the country receive benefits from the government in the form of scholarships and state contributions to tuition and students are all typically part of the "poor". This idea that the poor are these downtrodden segments of society that, of only Big Oil and Big Pharma would give a break, would be comfortable, well-off members of society, is non-sense.

I don't consider this applicable to older citizens, though. My beef is with the younger poor.

I think the idea that you must pay taxes to vote is a bit silly, even if one could argue that it is morally just. I find that it's odd that our country was founded on the idea that people who pay taxes should be able to have a say in their government, and now we're to a point where people want to say that people who don't pay taxes should have a say in the government.

Personally I feel that the idea that citizens can even be put in the position to not have to pay a single cent in taxes is ridiculous and part of the reason everything has gotten out of control. I'd be fine if everyone paid even 2-5% in taxes, but when people are walking away with a profit when all the accounting is done with is just stupid.

Last night I was looking at another symptom of our ridiculous system. The University of Phoenix has a something like $12k/year tuition bill. As we all know, this money typically will come from the government (in fact, the employees are suppose to look for ways to get money from teh government for students), especially now that the feds want to take over student lending and we know how that's going to end. These kinds of companies, of course, provide awful educations for the most part, but we've built up a system that says this is okay. We have an entire political party whose main talking point is taking other people's money and giving it away to "improve" your life. It's always about helping you without much consideration for what's good for the country. So we have business like UOP that take advantage and become rich and give students a useless piece of paper. Sheesh.

Jimmy Snyder

If I don't vote, can I have all my income tax money back?

turbo

Me too! I'd have an extra nest-egg to retire on. Let's see...I have paid income taxes and SS for the last 46 years... Give me back my taxes!! Taxation is theft!

Oltz

First it is illegal to not allow your employees the ability to go and vote if they ask for it.

Second you need photo ID to buy alchohol so really I do not know many poor who do not have at least a state ID to buy beer.

Third not registering on the day of elections has nothing to do with the elderly or with transport to polls. They can still file an absentee ballot if they are not healthy enough to make it to the polls and guess what they can register in advance as well just like normal people do.

Voter fraud IS rampant for example back in '04 my wife was in school at WVU 5 miles across the border from PA. Now PA was pretty well D in that election so BUS loads of people came across from PA and voted in WVA because they thought it would "count more" in a state that was more for Bush. I was there sign up day of put down one of the dorms or apartment complex addresses and vote just like that. No ID no passport no ss card who knows how many itmes some of them voted. This is not even immigrants.

This entire conversation is meaningless as the politicians will never surrender their most direct tool of buying votes. It will inevitably result in the collapse of this nation.

turbo

Please back this up with facts from reliable sources. We've already had this canard trotted by the voters by the Tea-Party governor and his AG in Maine, and it is demonstrably false.

AlephZero

If you don't vote early and don't vote often, maybe you can get it back several times over.

IMP

If a "right" depends on whether or not you pay a tax, it is not a right at all...

SixNein

Why $1? Why not 100$? Why not 1000$? Why not 1,000,000$?

WhoWee

Because $1.00 is the difference between contributing to the system or taking from the system - quite symbolic IMO.

Vanadium 50

WhoWee, what problem are you trying to solve?

If it's symbolic, there are easier symbols than changing the Constitution.

If you are trying to avoid a situation where government's primary function is for 51% of the people to figure out how they are going to spend the money of the other 49%, there are certainly alternatives that might have a better chance of success.

As an example I just pulled out of a hat: geography is not the only possible way to partition representatives. You could imagine a House where one third of its members are elected as they are today, although with larger districts, one third are elected by people who are paying into the system (your point) and one third are selected at random by a national lottery (to dilute the power of "established interests", and to get the support of some of the people who don't like the idea of a second category.)

I don't necessarily think this is a good idea, and I am sure it is not the best idea (given that it got all of 30 seconds of thought) but it illustrates that there are several ways to accomplish similar ends.

WhoWee

A little background on this thread is required. I originally posed the OP in Ivan's thread titledPolitical Science 390: Occupy Everywhere . The thread was derailed as this topic was discussed and we were moved to a separate thread.

With that said, the purpose would be to prevent the situation where a majority of voters decide to place the taxburden squarely on the backs of a minority - that is not fair.

JonDE

Well if its so unfair, at least they have the right to switch places. They can always quit their jobs give away all their possessions, become poor and live off the government if they so choose. I doubt many will take it though.

WhoWee