With this presidential campaign coming to a close, we have heard claim on claim on tax cuts and who got what tax cuts. I was curious on the facts of taxes and who pays what.
I went out to the Congressional Budget Office's website and accessed information on taxes for the last 30 years. Here is what I found.
In 1981 the wealthest 20% of all tax payers paid 63.9% of all the income taxes and the Top 1% paid a whopping 16.3%. That is understandable, we did have a 75% tax rate for the wealthiest and a people loving President and Congress in office.
But then came the greedy Reaganites and the Reagan Tax Cuts, and the percentage when down to 66.9% and 21.2%, Wait that was not down, it was higher percent. That's strange the averages started to rise and rise. In 2001 the rate was a 82.5 % and 34.4%. The richest 1% paid over a third of all income taxes?
Then comes the illigimate George W. Bush and his "for the wealthy" tax cut, and we all know that poor started paying much more of the taxes. And yes, they did! In 2003, after the first tax cut was in affect rates went down to 84.8% and 34.8%. AH, that was up again.
For sure the 2003 tax cut had the rate drop for the wealthy. We all remember Tom Dachle come out and show that the common person got back only enough for a muffler and the rich could afford a Lexus. ....HUH? the Rate when up again. In 2005, the last year available the rates went up to 86.3% and 38.8%.
Now we are on the verge of having a true champion of the people and he has promised that 95% will not have a tax increase. He has also said that he would get rid of this "Bush TaxCut". Is this not raising taxes on the lower classes of wage earners? Go Figure.
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=3089&type=0
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/61xx/doc6133/03-01-EffectiveTaxRates.pdf
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/12-11-HistoricalTaxRates.pdf
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
ACORN and Limiting Fraud
I have been seeing a number of articles in the last few days on Officials in Battleground States raiding ACORN offices and finding thousands and thousands of fraudulent registrations let alone the ones that were already turned in. With such a close election coming up in November this could affect the balance of power in this country. How can we get the most honest elections by not taking away the most freedoms. I have been thinking about this for a while and this is what I have come up with.
Getting Equal Voter Representation and Limiting Fraud
I am going to make three assumption that I think we can all agree on. First, let us agree that we need an equal representation in each vote. Secondly, We are speaking here as to the best way to limit the fraud. Thirdly, To hide Voter Fraud a group can only do small amounts that affect only 2-5% of the overall election.
Option 1: Direct Democracy
If each person is one vote of 200 million possible voters and each person is limited to one vote we would have Equal Representation. But we have voter fraud that gives people more votes then they are allowed and lowering the real voters representation. So with a direct election each vote is affected by any fraud that is done. So this would be the hardest to limit the affect of Fraud on each vote. Remember at only +5 fraudulent votes for a candidate in the 200,000+ precincts would cause 1,000,000+ more votes for that candidate and Al Gore won the popular vote by only 500,000 votes.
Option 2: State Winner Takes All
If we use today's style of elections where each State's Electors are selected by the popular vote of State we get a little different issue. In Illinois we have 8 million possible voters deciding 21 Electorals. This means that voter fraud that happens in this State affects only 21 of the 538 Electorals. Now we need to realize that since Fraud can only affect 2-5%, without being obvious, Fraud must be done in states that are close. This is why you hear about fraud in Missouri, Texas, New Mexico, Nevada and other "Swing States". This is the weakness in the State's winner-take-all Electoral decision. In the large cities of these States it is easy to hide fraud so a Group like ACORN can breakup into multiple States and cause damage in close Presidential races. 2000 Florida and 2004 Ohio both could have been affected by fraud. But these are not the only States that fraud might have affected. Any State that was within 5,000 to 10,000 votes could have easily been affected by voter fraud. So any close national election could easily be affected by fraud in this system.
Option 3: Representative Election
If we made it so each District would elect it's own Elector that is tied to a Presidential Candidate, voter fraud would only affect votes in that District. A Congressional District has approximately 680,000 people or 445,000 possible voters. Since each District had approximately the same population, voter representation would also be retained. one in 445,000 votes would determine one of 438 Electoral and one vote of the States Population would decide two of the final 100 Electorals. This would also make it much harder for Groups like ACORN to perpetuate fraud on a national election. The two Senatorial Electorals would still be determined by the State as a whole and could not be limited as much from fraud, but 19 independent Districts would be. This is better then either of the first two alternatives. To have national fraud, a group would have to have power in many more Districts and can not hide in the large Cities only.
A Representative Election is best way to limit the fraud that happen at every election. For this reason, I believe that each State should change it's electoral election to a District by District election of Electors. This would remove the ability to change election by voter fraud.
Getting Equal Voter Representation and Limiting Fraud
I am going to make three assumption that I think we can all agree on. First, let us agree that we need an equal representation in each vote. Secondly, We are speaking here as to the best way to limit the fraud. Thirdly, To hide Voter Fraud a group can only do small amounts that affect only 2-5% of the overall election.
Option 1: Direct Democracy
If each person is one vote of 200 million possible voters and each person is limited to one vote we would have Equal Representation. But we have voter fraud that gives people more votes then they are allowed and lowering the real voters representation. So with a direct election each vote is affected by any fraud that is done. So this would be the hardest to limit the affect of Fraud on each vote. Remember at only +5 fraudulent votes for a candidate in the 200,000+ precincts would cause 1,000,000+ more votes for that candidate and Al Gore won the popular vote by only 500,000 votes.
Option 2: State Winner Takes All
If we use today's style of elections where each State's Electors are selected by the popular vote of State we get a little different issue. In Illinois we have 8 million possible voters deciding 21 Electorals. This means that voter fraud that happens in this State affects only 21 of the 538 Electorals. Now we need to realize that since Fraud can only affect 2-5%, without being obvious, Fraud must be done in states that are close. This is why you hear about fraud in Missouri, Texas, New Mexico, Nevada and other "Swing States". This is the weakness in the State's winner-take-all Electoral decision. In the large cities of these States it is easy to hide fraud so a Group like ACORN can breakup into multiple States and cause damage in close Presidential races. 2000 Florida and 2004 Ohio both could have been affected by fraud. But these are not the only States that fraud might have affected. Any State that was within 5,000 to 10,000 votes could have easily been affected by voter fraud. So any close national election could easily be affected by fraud in this system.
Option 3: Representative Election
If we made it so each District would elect it's own Elector that is tied to a Presidential Candidate, voter fraud would only affect votes in that District. A Congressional District has approximately 680,000 people or 445,000 possible voters. Since each District had approximately the same population, voter representation would also be retained. one in 445,000 votes would determine one of 438 Electoral and one vote of the States Population would decide two of the final 100 Electorals. This would also make it much harder for Groups like ACORN to perpetuate fraud on a national election. The two Senatorial Electorals would still be determined by the State as a whole and could not be limited as much from fraud, but 19 independent Districts would be. This is better then either of the first two alternatives. To have national fraud, a group would have to have power in many more Districts and can not hide in the large Cities only.
A Representative Election is best way to limit the fraud that happen at every election. For this reason, I believe that each State should change it's electoral election to a District by District election of Electors. This would remove the ability to change election by voter fraud.
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