"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
In the very article, it's noted that Roskam was the direct recipient of campaign contributions from Intuit and H&R Block. To me, this is plain anti-establishment pandering, and ironic in that the anti-establishment movement was once considered the ___domain of radical leftists. That the people are better off having their taxes calculated by for-profit corporations that directly donate to the individuals who control the government seems counter-intuitive to me.
> In the very article, it's noted that Roskam was the direct recipient of campaign contributions from Intuit and H&R Block.
The contribution from Intuit was $13 600 over 10 years. During that same period there was also $21 200 from individuals who worked for Intuit. If we count all of that as being Intuit, that's a total of $34 800 over 10 years. For H&R Block, it was $2 500.
If $3.7k/year is enough to buy a Congressman's vote, a handful of middle class people in the district should be able to get together and easily afford to counter that. For a group of 10 like minded people, that's only $31/month each.
I think people generally get the causality wrong on the relationship between campaign contributions and the positions or votes of the politician. The politicians don't set their positions based on campaign contributions. It's usually the other way around--the contributors chose where to place their contributions based on the known positions and past votes of the politician. If that is not known, they place contributions based on party, on the assumption that the politician is going to generally go along with the party.
"The politicians don't set their positions based on campaign contributions. It's usually the other way around--the contributors chose where to place their contributions based on the known positions and past votes of the politician."
That's how it should be but often it's the other way around. Don't forget that most laws get written by lobbyists and the politicians are just a front for them.
There are few issues where the people in Congress have their own opinion but there are lots of other issues where a well spoken lobbyist with some cash has a big influence.
I agree that the contributions are really low. That why lobbying has a huge rate of return. You can get billions in tax breaks for a few million in expense.
Your conclusion makes no sense. If you can get “billions in tax breaks for a few million in expense,” then every money manager who isn’t investing in campaign contributions is breaching their fiduciary duties. As a general economic principle, investment opportunities that return 1000x don’t just sit around, they get arbitraged until the rate of return drops to match the risk.
The fact that campaign contributions are so small relative to the amount of money affected by these decisions is powerful evidence that they have extremely attenuated influence on the results.
@tzs’s theory makes much more sense: companies contribute to the candidates that are ideologically predisposed to them in hopes of ensuring they keep their seats.
Campaign donations are the only logical explanation for a government employee, of all people, giving such a retarded statement. Why would it be better for citizens to not know their taxes, while the government clearly does know (or else how could they verify), and then have the citizen go through a confusing-as-fuck, detailed process before finally coming back to the government with their best guess in amount due?
I can see where cases like business expenses may still have to be itemized by the citizen, but for someone with just a W2 (and maybe an IRA) getting an itemized bill from the government would be so much more convenient (as some countries in Europe do) rather than going through all the paperwork associated with taxes. The level of understanding required to correctly file taxes is also a huge burden on all the people who are young, poor, uneducated, or immigrants (which is why even online filing with TurboTax is still not easy). No wonder why there are so many tax preparation offices in the cities from companies like H&R Block ready to suck up all their refunds....
> Campaign donations are the only logical explanation for a government employee, of all people, giving such a retarded statement.
Perhaps the only logical one that fits your worldview. There are many people here who believe that statement, and it is not preposterous that such people would elect someone who agrees with them.
> Why would it be better for citizens to not know their taxes, while the government clearly does know (or else how could they verify), and then have the citizen go through a confusing-as-fuck, detailed process before finally coming back to the government with their best guess in amount due?
The government does not know, or have the ability to easily verify, this information. Why do you think it "clearly" does? The IRS only audits a small fraction of returns, gives itself several years to do so, and invests significant manual labor in each.
I can see where cases like business expenses may still have to be itemized by the citizen, but for someone with just a W2 (and maybe an IRA) getting an itemized bill from the government would be so much more convenient (as some countries in Europe do) rather than going through all the paperwork associated with taxes.
The majority of Americans need to file two returns every year. A significant minority, like me, need to file three. These separate tax authorities do not communicate very well with each other and have different taxation rules. Ly understanding of most, if not all, European systems is that there is a single, central taxation authority. I don't see how you make this pre-filled form work otherwise.
Also worth noting that, for an American "with just a W2 (and maybe an IRA)" the form is short and takes, at most, 20 minutes to complete. In fact, my taxes aren't even complicated enough to warrant tax software. I only buy it because it lets me file my federal and NY returns electronically for free and I find paying $35 worth it to avoid the hassle of certified mail and manually writing everything out.
> The level of understanding required to correctly file taxes is also a huge burden on all the people who are young, poor, uneducated, or immigrants (which is why even online filing with TurboTax is still not easy).
I find the instructions to me more complicated than they need to be. That said, the understanding required to complete forms 1040EZ and 1040A (which is what almost everyone in those groups should be using) is not nearly as great as only believed.
In the very article, it's noted that Roskam was the direct recipient of campaign contributions from Intuit and H&R Block. To me, this is plain anti-establishment pandering, and ironic in that the anti-establishment movement was once considered the ___domain of radical leftists. That the people are better off having their taxes calculated by for-profit corporations that directly donate to the individuals who control the government seems counter-intuitive to me.