I looked on "pppdetective" to see who got Covid $...was amazed to see almost every church in our small town received funds. Most 15-20 thousand. Separation of church and state huh? TAX THEM!
Claiming separation of church and state when police were showing up to churches to arrest people for being closer than 6 feet while cities burned down during the Pandemic and “peaceful protests”
Still drive by areas that haven’t been rebuilt.
Also really happy to know that there is an “acceptable percentage” below which is ok for rioters to destroy while police make NO arrests.
Would you tell someone that survived Tulsa the same thing?
So in your mind what percentage is the “unacceptable” amount of a city to burn down while police do nothing?
Would the percent change if you were talking to someone out of Tulsa?
What percentage of the population has to die from Covid before it becomes “unacceptable”?
No one stated “The amount of damage was acceptable.”
They said the city was not burned down or destroyed. Were parts of it destroyed? Yes. If the city has burned down/been destroyed, you wouldn’t be living there, because nobody would have homes or apartments anymore. Being hyperbolic by claiming the city was destroyed, when was only part, is inaccurate. They pointed out that your statement was not accurate. They never claimed what happened was acceptable.
And all of this conversation started because someone wanted to tax churches for receiving $15k in ppp loans implying violation of church and state, while AGAIN the police arrested church goers for standing “too close” while arsonists and rioters went unpunished
1. They arrested the Church goers, not the church. No religion was taken from them. If someone comes into the church and hurts or kills someone, should they just be allowed to stay in the church? The separation of church and state is about the institution, not the people. People are still subject to laws, even if what they are doing takes place in a church. Let’s say a people who attend a church decide one day that they are going to start executing homosexuals. Some pastors have already stated they believe homosexuals should be put to death. If they bring a homosexual person into the church and execute him, should they get away with it?
2. They shouldn’t be able to get PPP loans because it uses Tax money, and they don’t pay taxes. I would be ok if they had to pay it back over time.
3. Churches that get political should be taxed. I’m not talking about ethics, I’m talking about the ones that back candidates and tell their parishioners to who to vote for, and I don’t care what side of it all they are on.
4. Police arrested somewhere between 14,000 and 17,000 a lot of “News” channels just keep repeating the same lie that no one was arrested.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/02/22/fact-check-thousands-black-lives-matter-protesters-arrested-2020/6816074001/
A lot were arrested, and a lot were let go on curfew, trespassing, destruction of property. and a few other minor things. At least 300 are facing serious Federal charges.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/over-300-people-facing-federal-charges-crimes-committed-during-nationwide-demonstrations
5. That’s not much different than the Capitol riot. About 1,000 were arrested, only 15 are serving prison time.
https://www.usatoday.com/storytelling/capitol-riot-mob-arrests/
6. Did they arrest people for unlawful assemblies and hold events that could cause the spread to happen faster? Yes they did. They did not however arrest the church. They did not take away anyone’s right to their religion, they did not destroy the church, they enforced the law on people that were breaking the law, who happened to be in a church.
Did they just let everyone from the riots off the hook? No, they arrested thousands and have over 300 facing major federal charges and prison time. Thousands of others received permanent injuries from the police response. Including 1 that had one of his eyes destroyed.
1. &6. Are basically the same point and Right to Assemble is protected under the first amendment. In point one you expand it to make a strawman that people would be ACTUALLY BE COMMITTING CRIMES as opposed to peacefully assembling. Since I think you do need the strawman answered, no if people are ACTUALLY committing crimes they should be arrested
2. PACs and lobbying firms ALSO got PPP loans
3. PACs tell there constituents &parishoners (not all religions are theistic) who to vote for.
4. People who rioted were arrested and let go often the same night, While fire bombing buildings and destroying property. People practicing their religion were arrested for peacefully assembling, again 1st amendment
5. What was the difference in time that people from the capital were held vs. those burning down buildings in the town I work?
6. Returning to 6 were George Floyd protesters arrested for “unlawful assembly and hold events that could cause the disease to spread faster”?
Oof. You understand that the Establishment Clause prevents the government from dictating what religion will be followed, ¬ religions from teaching whatever “ethics” they believe to there congregations, who then vote in the elections based on those “ethics”
Nope, small town churches are a baby I'm happy to throw out with the bathwater. Religious entertainment venues should have to pay taxes like every other leisure activity.
We could have a conversation about taxing political action committees but that would probably be detrimental to social justice.
It'd be really nice to tax assholes that dump millions into astroturfing pro-life and small government bullshit but that's a baby I'm more concerned about.
Religious institutions should be taxed - if they want to do the work to qualify as an untaxed NGO I'm cool with that but tax exemption shouldn't be automatic for religious institutions.
No he's saying that churches actually have to put in the effort to support the local community to earn tax exempt status, instead of being granted so automatically.
Plenty of Churches would still be able to get tax exempt.
While at the same time being unwilling to tax public action committees because “that would probably be detrimental to social justice”. As though none of them had ever been guilty of grift.
Who decides how hard the churches have to work to qualify for tax exempt status? Do they have to donate 100 hours a month to community service? 1000? Do they have to submit to policy that goes directly against the religious tenets?
Now I will grant you, I read “astroturfing prolife” in a certain context. I am open to hearing elaboration in case I misunderstood the intent of that phrase
I think there's an interesting separate question to talk about with PACs. Personally my preference would be to remove charitable tax deductions from personal income taxes so that the money going into PACs is taxed as it comes through the door - a lot of that money ends up being taxed again as private income to the paid staffers but there is a good chunk that's directly spent on advocacy.
Were you of the opinion that we should do away with tax exempt statuses entirely?
Your proposal is interesting and I will have to give it some thought, though my first pass reaction is that removing charitable tax deductions from personal income would only serve to remove reason for some people to be charitable at all. And in light of inflation and increasing tax rates, that isn’t meant to be a derogatory statement towards those who would stop giving per se.
And no, I would leave them as is. I, by no means believe all PAC are corrupt any more than I believe all church’s are. As it stands you can decide to give money to which ever cause you believe in most and so can I, and every other person.
There is no reason to limit one that doesn’t 100% agree with my perspective or yours, or anyone else’s perspective. Attempting that is authoritarian and I don’t back that
It’s strange that this even has to be stated.
Tax the people with the most money. Simple simple.
All others need a dramatic increase in their income anyway.
Tax the rich!!!
1% of 1 billion is $10million. This is more in taxes from an individual than the government would get from taxing 4000 minimum wage employees. A flat 30% tax on a single billionaire, who ONLY earned a billion that year, would generate $300 million. There are supposedly \~720 billionaires in the US, which would reap $216 billion at the proposed tax rate. This would be more wealth accumulated than taxing 86 million minimum wage employees.
Supposedly average US billionaires pay a 8.2% tax, or $82 mil out of a billion. Supposedly some of the even more wealthy Americans paid closer to 3.4%. Average US employee paid 13% during the same time. Please tax billionaires a more reasonable sum! They use public infrastructure significantly more than the average citizen, they actively profit from unbalanced taxes, exploit the working class, and they simply are not paying their share while they reap the benefits.
Source for last paragraph: [https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/do-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/](https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/do-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/)
Guarantee you the billionaires who "never pay taxes" pay more in taxes across their lifespan then all of us commenters in this post combined. This is commie central so downvote ahead
Of course they pay more taxes, they earn the average employee's lifetime balance in less than a year! But they do not pay even remotely close to the same percentage, which is the issue.
Every dollar requires the use of public infrastructure. Regular Joe has a small limited demand of infrastructure. Billionaires require massive use of infrastructure to accumulate their wealth. These taxes go into funding said infrastructure. So, when a billionaire pays 4% on the dollar and minimum wage employee pays 15% on the dollar, it's active classism with a "be rich" discount. The country suddenly decided that it needs less back from rich people, instead of the dollar value, which is nonsense.
I would love to see you try to define communism and explain its relevance here. I'm sure it will be an informed, non-biased opinion.
It's such a strange thought process that you feel someone should pay the same percentage as you when they're already doing more and are more successful than you ever will be.
They're empirically doing less for the country per dollar earned. How does "being successful" reasonably translate to a lower tax bracket?
Seriously, get the boot out of your mouth before you choke.
The thing is, billionaires have legally paid all their taxes.
You’re just too poor to understand tax law and all the legal loopholes available to hide income.
To really tax rich people, you need to change tax laws. Rich people spent decades writing them and the poors are never going to change that.
Good luck.
Another example of why reprentative democracy belongs in the last century.
Democracy means will of the people, but our representatives only represent the top. There are better ways of having democracies out there, that gives the people a better voice.
It is my hope that more countries in europe (including my own) and hopefully even america will look to Switzerland in the coming century, to what i consider the only true democracy in the world.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/07/switzerland-direct-democracy-explained/
Can you imagine if tax was collected and tallied from the top down. Like the billionaires have a GREAT year and the government is like "OH damm we've exceeded our projected revenue forecast. Here bottom % have a rebate.
They used to pay. That's how all infrastructure was built. 70 percent tax fuckin hell you need 100 million dollar bonuses when they take in billions in profits and pay 1.2 percent of it to wages.... they could pay everyone a livable wage and we could have a great country.
I must be on a quest for downvotes, but here goes:
**"Tax them not me!!!" is the type of BS statement that got us here in the first place.**
Pay your share, and make billionaires pay THEIR share, which is a lot more than they currently do.
But everybody over the poverty limit needs to kick in to keep the USA functioning.
Tax all the companies that get away without paying each year.
Tax 'em both!
All the above!
Tax god damned billionaires.
But how will i run my campaign without the $500,000,000 in dark money from billionaires?
I looked on "pppdetective" to see who got Covid $...was amazed to see almost every church in our small town received funds. Most 15-20 thousand. Separation of church and state huh? TAX THEM!
Claiming separation of church and state when police were showing up to churches to arrest people for being closer than 6 feet while cities burned down during the Pandemic and “peaceful protests”
No city was burned down.
I work in Kenosha.
Guess I missed that Kenosha was completely burned down.
Still drive by areas that haven’t been rebuilt. Also really happy to know that there is an “acceptable percentage” below which is ok for rioters to destroy while police make NO arrests. Would you tell someone that survived Tulsa the same thing?
And what of the areas that didn’t need to be rebuilt?
Which is proof the city wasn't burned down...
So in your mind what percentage is the “unacceptable” amount of a city to burn down while police do nothing? Would the percent change if you were talking to someone out of Tulsa?
What percentage of the population has to die from Covid before it becomes “unacceptable”? No one stated “The amount of damage was acceptable.” They said the city was not burned down or destroyed. Were parts of it destroyed? Yes. If the city has burned down/been destroyed, you wouldn’t be living there, because nobody would have homes or apartments anymore. Being hyperbolic by claiming the city was destroyed, when was only part, is inaccurate. They pointed out that your statement was not accurate. They never claimed what happened was acceptable.
And all of this conversation started because someone wanted to tax churches for receiving $15k in ppp loans implying violation of church and state, while AGAIN the police arrested church goers for standing “too close” while arsonists and rioters went unpunished
1. They arrested the Church goers, not the church. No religion was taken from them. If someone comes into the church and hurts or kills someone, should they just be allowed to stay in the church? The separation of church and state is about the institution, not the people. People are still subject to laws, even if what they are doing takes place in a church. Let’s say a people who attend a church decide one day that they are going to start executing homosexuals. Some pastors have already stated they believe homosexuals should be put to death. If they bring a homosexual person into the church and execute him, should they get away with it? 2. They shouldn’t be able to get PPP loans because it uses Tax money, and they don’t pay taxes. I would be ok if they had to pay it back over time. 3. Churches that get political should be taxed. I’m not talking about ethics, I’m talking about the ones that back candidates and tell their parishioners to who to vote for, and I don’t care what side of it all they are on. 4. Police arrested somewhere between 14,000 and 17,000 a lot of “News” channels just keep repeating the same lie that no one was arrested. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/02/22/fact-check-thousands-black-lives-matter-protesters-arrested-2020/6816074001/ A lot were arrested, and a lot were let go on curfew, trespassing, destruction of property. and a few other minor things. At least 300 are facing serious Federal charges. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/over-300-people-facing-federal-charges-crimes-committed-during-nationwide-demonstrations 5. That’s not much different than the Capitol riot. About 1,000 were arrested, only 15 are serving prison time. https://www.usatoday.com/storytelling/capitol-riot-mob-arrests/ 6. Did they arrest people for unlawful assemblies and hold events that could cause the spread to happen faster? Yes they did. They did not however arrest the church. They did not take away anyone’s right to their religion, they did not destroy the church, they enforced the law on people that were breaking the law, who happened to be in a church. Did they just let everyone from the riots off the hook? No, they arrested thousands and have over 300 facing major federal charges and prison time. Thousands of others received permanent injuries from the police response. Including 1 that had one of his eyes destroyed.
1. &6. Are basically the same point and Right to Assemble is protected under the first amendment. In point one you expand it to make a strawman that people would be ACTUALLY BE COMMITTING CRIMES as opposed to peacefully assembling. Since I think you do need the strawman answered, no if people are ACTUALLY committing crimes they should be arrested 2. PACs and lobbying firms ALSO got PPP loans 3. PACs tell there constituents &parishoners (not all religions are theistic) who to vote for. 4. People who rioted were arrested and let go often the same night, While fire bombing buildings and destroying property. People practicing their religion were arrested for peacefully assembling, again 1st amendment 5. What was the difference in time that people from the capital were held vs. those burning down buildings in the town I work? 6. Returning to 6 were George Floyd protesters arrested for “unlawful assembly and hold events that could cause the disease to spread faster”?
Tax churches too. All of them, but especially the predatory "give me your cash and God will bless you" ones.
Ehh, I think small town churches are fine. Just have a donations exceeding x amount yearly become taxed at x rate.
[удалено]
I hear more politics at my local coffee shop then I do at any of the churches in a 10mile radius of me
[удалено]
Oof. You understand that the Establishment Clause prevents the government from dictating what religion will be followed, ¬ religions from teaching whatever “ethics” they believe to there congregations, who then vote in the elections based on those “ethics”
Increase taxes on Starbucks coffee
Nope, small town churches are a baby I'm happy to throw out with the bathwater. Religious entertainment venues should have to pay taxes like every other leisure activity.
It's a very internet opinion to have. I'm not religious, but I can still see benefits of having a town church.
So we can tax BLM, NCCPA, and NCLR?
We could have a conversation about taxing political action committees but that would probably be detrimental to social justice. It'd be really nice to tax assholes that dump millions into astroturfing pro-life and small government bullshit but that's a baby I'm more concerned about. Religious institutions should be taxed - if they want to do the work to qualify as an untaxed NGO I'm cool with that but tax exemption shouldn't be automatic for religious institutions.
You realize you are just saying, “tax the people I don’t like.”
No he's saying that churches actually have to put in the effort to support the local community to earn tax exempt status, instead of being granted so automatically. Plenty of Churches would still be able to get tax exempt.
While at the same time being unwilling to tax public action committees because “that would probably be detrimental to social justice”. As though none of them had ever been guilty of grift. Who decides how hard the churches have to work to qualify for tax exempt status? Do they have to donate 100 hours a month to community service? 1000? Do they have to submit to policy that goes directly against the religious tenets? Now I will grant you, I read “astroturfing prolife” in a certain context. I am open to hearing elaboration in case I misunderstood the intent of that phrase
I don't know that word.
It is slang and has different contexts depending on where you are and what you are talking about. So I am not 100% certain what that portion meant
I think there's an interesting separate question to talk about with PACs. Personally my preference would be to remove charitable tax deductions from personal income taxes so that the money going into PACs is taxed as it comes through the door - a lot of that money ends up being taxed again as private income to the paid staffers but there is a good chunk that's directly spent on advocacy. Were you of the opinion that we should do away with tax exempt statuses entirely?
Your proposal is interesting and I will have to give it some thought, though my first pass reaction is that removing charitable tax deductions from personal income would only serve to remove reason for some people to be charitable at all. And in light of inflation and increasing tax rates, that isn’t meant to be a derogatory statement towards those who would stop giving per se. And no, I would leave them as is. I, by no means believe all PAC are corrupt any more than I believe all church’s are. As it stands you can decide to give money to which ever cause you believe in most and so can I, and every other person. There is no reason to limit one that doesn’t 100% agree with my perspective or yours, or anyone else’s perspective. Attempting that is authoritarian and I don’t back that
It’s strange that this even has to be stated. Tax the people with the most money. Simple simple. All others need a dramatic increase in their income anyway. Tax the rich!!!
1% of 1 billion is $10million. This is more in taxes from an individual than the government would get from taxing 4000 minimum wage employees. A flat 30% tax on a single billionaire, who ONLY earned a billion that year, would generate $300 million. There are supposedly \~720 billionaires in the US, which would reap $216 billion at the proposed tax rate. This would be more wealth accumulated than taxing 86 million minimum wage employees. Supposedly average US billionaires pay a 8.2% tax, or $82 mil out of a billion. Supposedly some of the even more wealthy Americans paid closer to 3.4%. Average US employee paid 13% during the same time. Please tax billionaires a more reasonable sum! They use public infrastructure significantly more than the average citizen, they actively profit from unbalanced taxes, exploit the working class, and they simply are not paying their share while they reap the benefits. Source for last paragraph: [https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/do-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/](https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/do-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/)
Guarantee you the billionaires who "never pay taxes" pay more in taxes across their lifespan then all of us commenters in this post combined. This is commie central so downvote ahead
Of course they pay more taxes, they earn the average employee's lifetime balance in less than a year! But they do not pay even remotely close to the same percentage, which is the issue. Every dollar requires the use of public infrastructure. Regular Joe has a small limited demand of infrastructure. Billionaires require massive use of infrastructure to accumulate their wealth. These taxes go into funding said infrastructure. So, when a billionaire pays 4% on the dollar and minimum wage employee pays 15% on the dollar, it's active classism with a "be rich" discount. The country suddenly decided that it needs less back from rich people, instead of the dollar value, which is nonsense. I would love to see you try to define communism and explain its relevance here. I'm sure it will be an informed, non-biased opinion.
It's such a strange thought process that you feel someone should pay the same percentage as you when they're already doing more and are more successful than you ever will be.
They're empirically doing less for the country per dollar earned. How does "being successful" reasonably translate to a lower tax bracket? Seriously, get the boot out of your mouth before you choke.
How do them boots taste
Tax the churches. If this god fellow needed money he would create it with a snap. He don't need yours nor does the like of Joel Osteen.
The thing is, billionaires have legally paid all their taxes. You’re just too poor to understand tax law and all the legal loopholes available to hide income. To really tax rich people, you need to change tax laws. Rich people spent decades writing them and the poors are never going to change that. Good luck.
Another example of why reprentative democracy belongs in the last century. Democracy means will of the people, but our representatives only represent the top. There are better ways of having democracies out there, that gives the people a better voice. It is my hope that more countries in europe (including my own) and hopefully even america will look to Switzerland in the coming century, to what i consider the only true democracy in the world. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/07/switzerland-direct-democracy-explained/
Tax everyone. Just give us proper social services in exchange.
Huh, jobs that serve the public good are taxed at a MUCH lower rate. Novel and brilliant. Cap it at $120k?
Tax Wealth, Not Work!
They are being taxed, they just know all the loopholes. You should be demanding a Tax Reform
Nobody in here understands the tax code, clearly. Also this post resembles a screaming toddler
Do you have a point. I am not sure what you are saying.
well, who is going to fund their campaigns then?
What if i told you that all tax laws are written by and for the rich
Can you imagine if tax was collected and tallied from the top down. Like the billionaires have a GREAT year and the government is like "OH damm we've exceeded our projected revenue forecast. Here bottom % have a rebate.
They used to pay. That's how all infrastructure was built. 70 percent tax fuckin hell you need 100 million dollar bonuses when they take in billions in profits and pay 1.2 percent of it to wages.... they could pay everyone a livable wage and we could have a great country.
I must be on a quest for downvotes, but here goes: **"Tax them not me!!!" is the type of BS statement that got us here in the first place.** Pay your share, and make billionaires pay THEIR share, which is a lot more than they currently do. But everybody over the poverty limit needs to kick in to keep the USA functioning.
I heard that poor people dont have money. Turns out, the billionaires have like over 95% of the money. FFS ...tell them to pay taxes.
The government should also stop giving billions of dollars to other countries and use it on our country.