Irrelevant. The complaint was that Democrats are wealthy, not that they are not charitable.
More than ever. Like 15 million or so, almost 12% of US households. Itās almost common at this point. That are millionaires I mean.
I would highly recommend it is modelled on Australiaās federal and state electoral commissions.
Could not agree more. It is the very reason why I have a problem with democrats in general as politicians. They talk about what is fair for the American peopleā¦They sit there with premium government health care, they make money hand over fist. They are largely there because they had the money in the first place to wage an election campaign to beat an equally wealthy opponent.
They continue to grow the divide, the rift as it were, between the people and the ruling class. It sickens me when I hear the faux concern about the plight of the common person, when suits are lined with 100 dollar bills courtesy of his or her favorite lobbyist.
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Thatās an interesting take. Certainly NAFTA in and of itself did not turn mobility positive.
But the data show that mobility, measured by childās income at age 30 compared to parentsā, plummeted most for kids born in 1940 and in 1960 - using 30-year old income this means these cohorts would have been measured in 1970 and 1990, predating NAFTA.
http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/papers/abs_mobility_paper.pdf
Certainly still a drop between the 1960 and 1980 cohorts though, the latter certainly having entered the workforce 8 years into NAFTA.
I remember the last of the factories moving out of Michigan. NAFTAās replacement by Trump and Co is just seen here as worthless, BTW. There should not have been a replacement.
Wow, Iām actually in agreement with you here. 
Nothing wrong with that. There is far too much bashing of āthe other sideā from both right and left and not nearly enough effort to address the issues the American people face.
But remember before there was NAFTAā¦there was GATT. GATT allows NAFTA to be. The General Agreement on Taxes and Tariffs allowed companies to go outside the US. Think NIKEā¦make products for pennies in labor costs and then import them back in, and pay no Tariffs. Then they would turn around and charge 150 bucks for a pair of Jordans. The damaging blow was the Tokyo round of GATT in the early 70s under Nixon.
This drastically reduced the Tariffs we could charge on imports coming into the country while our exports were able to be taxed at higher rates. It was meant to level the trade playing field world wide, but in essence what it did was it took away our huge trade surplus and gashed us world wide. It was the start of the giant sucking sound. Which was later bolstered by the Uraguay Round of GATT in the 80s.
I agree again. Iām just so used to reflexively bashing, I had to re-read your post a few times. 
Seriously, way too much corruption on both sides of the aisle. I believe term limits would fix a lot of problemsā¦
Citizens United has accelerated a system where any politician has to devote a substantial amount of time to grubbing for money, unless they are so rich they can self fund. How can such a system fail to be corrupt and fail to focus on serving donor interest?
Term limits are a good idea but they wonāt deal with the underlying problem of the corrupting influence of unlimited money.
I know the courts have held that donations are āspeechā and thus covered by the 1st Amendment. If that holds, then I think we need to establish a system of anonymous donations. Anyone can give what they want but it all goes through a bi-partisan entity that routes the money to the preferred candidate ā but without identifying the donor.
Donors will still tell candidates, āHey I gave you Xā but the potential for fraud ā making a claim of a donation that did not really happen is so great, I think candidates would be wary.
The other thing I would like is if candidates stopped wearing business attire and dressed like Nascar cars: let them have the patches from all their contributors on their jackets. At least then we would know whom they are representing.
Years ago I read a great book by P.J. OāRourke called Parliament of Whores. It was a real eye-opener. I think it was in that book that I read a great truth, I canāt remember the exact quote but it was something like āNo one can spend a hundred million dollars to get elected and not come out owing something to someone.ā
Thatās the biggest reason I support Trump. Because heās not beholden to anyone for money. He pretty much does what he thinks is best and pisses off both sides. I have been saying Dems should bet on Bloomberg for the same reason. I detest his politics, but he is, IMO the only candidate that can compete with Trump. He would be just as independent in his actions. More so than any other Dem candidate would be. I donāt know why the left isnāt supporting him moreā¦
Where you and I part company is on the judgment of whether Trump is beholden to anyone for money. As I read the statements from Don Jr. over the years, it seems he is deeply beholden to Deutsche Bank and that heir loans to him are being guaranteed by Russian banks. So I donāt believe he is an independent actorā¦ and thatās why he goes to such lengths to keep his finances hidden.
Do you think politicians should be able to trade on their influence to become millionaires?
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Trump raised more money than anyone in history for his inauguration.
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No itās to grow government and to push more money into an already bloated and inefficient education establishment.
It all depends on how one defines fair. Iāll use a different example. Imagine Ben Carson going around saying that a young black man canāt become a doctor. The obvious question then becomes how the heck did he do it?
Who financed his campaign?
Killing citizens united would be much more efficient. With term limits there would just be a quicker turnabout to lobbying,corporate boards etc
