It doesn’t matter. The fact is that medical care shouldn’t be bankrupting people, and it does every day. People shouldn’t need to be starting gofundme’s to get through health crises. Lots of other countries have figured this out.
Our entire healthcare system is RUINED by the interests of Big Money. Insurance is a scam. Hospitals overcharge insurance. Pricing isn’t transparent to grift people. Drugs are pushed on people to serve a bottom line, not people’s interests. The whole fucking opiod epidemic was nothing more than greed by the ultra-rich.
The FCC is meant to protect the common interest in the airwaves, etc. It has completely sold out to corporate interests, including the concept of Net Neutrality (which feeds into monopolistic practices above).
That’s part of it, but subsidies are generally better utilized by the rich. When you have millionaires and billionaires paying lower tax rates than middle class, that’s a problem.
Agree on healthcare issues you stated. I’ve been billed 3 years later for thousands as my insurance company went out of business (Obamacare one).
FCC- 100% agree on allowing monopolies here. Net Neutrality- I don’t see it at all. I know lots of people that have made millions, hundreds of millions on tech start-ups. Don’t see this as the bigger issue compared to monopolies.
Taxes- I do see some major issues. The biggest are loopholes AND cap gains/dividend taxes being so low.
You and I can disagree on net neutrality, and it’s a small quibble overall, but the impact to consumers on that front has barely begun. It can get SO MUCH WORSE than it is right now. When your internet company starts charging you a “Netflix tax”, trust me, you’ll complain.
No, I mean your internet provider, AT&T for instance, would charge you $10 extra a month for Netflix access. They’d have a “streaming fee” to handle “high load” data requests. Conveniently, you won’t incur this extra fee for using AT&T Now or HBO Max.
This is the core of net neutrality. That you pay for internet data, and that you don’t want your provider to dictate what data you use. You don’t want “Netflix data” to cost more. You don’t want unfair business practices shutting out the small guys.
That is solved with more final mile providers that make it a commodity. I don’t see it because that could have happened with cell ad it didn’t outside of Apples crazy fees on companies using the App Store.
As a geek, it would be extremely easy to avoid those taxes via proxy services or vpns that would cost less than their tax. If they go that route, I would start the next peer to peer service for avoiding the tax which would be free to use.
Let’s go to a flat tax then. We already pay the same tax for gas or a snickers bar in a kwik trip. Everyone pays 21% and no write offs. Any politician who wants more money has to ask everyone.
Ok. What about corporate taxes and other vehicles of avoiding taxes?
For examples:
cash transactions are hard to trace.
Cash advancements from checks are hard to trace.
Corporate taxes on profits, payroll…pay for a ton of government spending. Don’t get me started on their vehicles for avoiding taxes.
Would all cap gains and dividends come in at 21%?
What is interesting about this, the left wants to redistribute the wealth by simply raising taxes on the rich. The right wants to redistribute the costs of government by changing the taxes which should raise taxes on the rich as they likely pay less than the poor. Been working on my 2020 taxes, looks like I’m well over $150k paid in taxes. Yet…I’m no richer than I was in 2019. Heck, now that I have to pay taxes I mostly will be poorer and I’m likely in the 1% group.
The middle IMO would be 15% under $100k, 21% over 100k, all companies have to disclose ownership at time of taxes, all cash advances have to be tied to an SSN…
You want to talk Net Neutrality? This week is the first real case of the Net not being Neutral. Google and Apple removed Parler from their app stores. Now Parler is about get get removed from Amazon hosting. I just tried to sign up for Parler and it isn’t accepting new signups.
All I can say is WOW! It wasn’t the internet tax on Netflix that brought down Net Neutrality. The last time I can remember one service/app getting closed was Napster.
And, for the record, LOTS of apps and services on the internet have been taken down for breaking the law, inciting violence, etc. Now, there may be different details about the Parler situation that are worth discussing, but if you are going to assert that this hasn’t happened since Napster, you’re obviously approaching this from a position of ignorance.
On another note, I find it ironic that many Trump supporters are totally shocked at Parler being yanked, and Facebook and Twitter censoring posts. You know what Trump and many Pubs want to do? Repeal Section 230. That’s the law that makes Twitter not liable for Lin Wood making a post about killing the VP.
So if Trump got his way, all these social media sites would be heavily censoring everyone everywhere. Surprisingly, little outrage from his free speech supporters.
Napster was shut down over IP violations. People were stealing content. That’s a reasonable reason to be shut down.
TikTok was never shut down. It was identified as a threat to national security for particular reasons and was given an opportunity to remain operational on American networks if an American company obtained custodial control of the technology. Oracle stepped up to the plate.
Here is another POV. Google, Apple, and Amazon can all be considered public utilities due to the virtual monopolies they have in their specific spaces(smartphones and cloud hosting). Thus, they don’t get the same rights as a small business that can kick someone out of their store, off their service…
So while we’re on the “private businesses can do what they want” kick…Maybe every restaurant owner should just open up? Why aren’t they allowed to do what they want.
Gab was banned from the Google store in 2017, and dropped by its provider and various payment processors in 2018. In 2019, it’s replacement service Dissenter was dropped from several stores and add-on depots.
No, has nothing to do with Obama. We don’t have to meet in any middle that was pushed to an insane right. Shame that the American white man’s last stand will be forever marred by
Drumphism, but probably fitting. Let’s hope that this spectacle shines enough light on crazy conservatism that we put it to rest, forever.