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Comment by pcurve | Hacker News Reader

Makes my blood boil reading this, especially how poor republicans who have the most to gain through tax reform are consistently voting against their interest.

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It makes my blood boil (ok, not really boil) that this is such a frequent talking point. People vote from a complicated set of principles and interests of which immediate economics is just one member.

If you can't figure out why poor republicans don't vote in their own interest, perhaps it's your understanding of their interests that's flawed. Maybe they're not stupid; consider that maybe you don't know anything about their interests and motivations.

In short: if people keep doing something that you don't understand, maybe it's time to take a step back and admit that you don't understand it (instead of surmising that they must be idiots).

But poor republicans have often a religious obligation to vote republican.

So do you vote democrat to get more money and fail your religious obligtation? Or do you vote repblican to fulfill your religious obligation at the cost of some rich guys getting richer?

Not all people vote through an economic lens. Many othet lenses exist. Religion is just one of them. You could replace religion with gun rights. Or states rights. Same story.

I would guess for most people, no one party matches all their wants. So they need to prioritize.

This is why our two-party political system needs to change. It's proven inadequate to reflect the people in a nuanced enough way.

It's the same as the old cable company model. Slicing the list of available concerns up just perfectly enough that you can't get what you want without a bunch of shit you don't.

But it's almost worse.

In the cable system, if I want channel 1 from package A, and channel 2 form package B.. I can get mad they aren't in the same package.. but I can ultimately just buy the super package and for $200 a month get all channels.

How do I do that in politics? Get one view from party A and one view form party B? I can't. I have to pick my priorities and only get one. or maybe guess which party has more things I like.

The problem is a strong multiparty system can get fringe elements in power.

We also, need to rank candidates: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ranking-candidate...

At this point, the fringes are the only groups that have any interest in changing this aspect of the tax system

So great, let's make a system of government where fringe groups can get more things done.

Your fringe group wants to reform the tax code. Awesome. Another wants to build a wall with Mexico. Another wants to ban immigration by non-whites. Another wants to take away voting for women. Another wants to legalize the right to carry AK-47s in public.

How do you get your "fringe" change through, but not other crazy changes through?

By making either making the establishment embrace what are currently fringe ideas, or replacing the establishment entirely

In Parliament, the fringe groups are usually still in the minority, so they can only pass whatever the non-fringe groups vote for. That may lead to some concessions, but not "take away voting for women" level of crazy.

These fringe groups know their growth comes from mainstream voters trying to push some change, so if they push for crazy ideas, they'll lose those voters and the non-fringe groups can force new elections to "steal" them back.

My Western European country is currently being governed by a centrist party with support by two "far left" parties, including our national Communist party, and the demands they make are for a somewhat higher minimum wage, not an imposition of Marxism-Leninism.

> The problem is a strong multiparty system can get fringe elements in power.

But as demonstrated, a two-party system can (will?) eventually lead to polarization, causing one of the only two options in the system to become a fringe element, and unfortunately the only option the people have now are the democrats or a party of right-wing extremists who are anti-woman, anti-poor, anti-education, anti-science, and white supremacists, all while lying about anything they can to make people afraid of anything that will drive them to vote Republican.

In other words, a multi-party system might end up with fringe elements, but we've proven that the two-party system can not only do that but effectively force a huge number of people to vote for that fringe element.

I don't have time to go into the length I want, but this comment is a perfect example of the myopia that polarizes peoples opinions. Both parties are equally part of the problem, and the people on both sides who fail to see that are also, including comments like yours.

Please, don't try and turn this into a whataboutism and argue how much worse one party is, that's the trite and cliche response we always here that never addresses root causal issues.

Rant about your comment aside, after long deliberation this is why I support the unparty movement, the people could get enough third party people in to take away the majority from both parties. Congress (and the rest of gov) needs to be reminded they work for the people. Right now, both parties work for themselves and those that corrupt/black mail/threaten them.

> Both parties are equally part of the problem, and the people on both sides who fail to see that are also, including comments like yours.

Be careful not to cause useless agurments. Both sides are at fault, of course, and it should be obvious that one side is currently more extreme than the other, just like the post above said. Such partisanship is a failure of the two-party political system that amplifies an us-vs-them mentality that people naturally get when under stress.

> this is why I support the unparty movement

I assume the unparty movement is a movement to completely remove parties, which wouldn't work in my opinion. It ignores the human tendency to form groups, and makes negotiations difficult if you don't have at least some centralization of power or method of organization. A multiparty system is a better balance IMO because it maintains natural human hierarchies while easing the adaptation of the government to changing demographics with different needs.

Neither party is a "fringe element" by definition. Half the people in the country can't be a "fringe".

This sounds like perhaps the top fix, to get my personal view better represented.

But then I see how coalition governments work in other places. I am not sure that is overall better? Better in some ways, but I think it has a lot of downsides also.

What are the biggest downsides, as you see it?

The tiny minority has tons of power.

Think of a three party system with 45 / 45 / 10 of the votes.

The 10% party gets to see which of the big party will support their measures. The party that gives in can now have a combined 55% of the vote, and can then railroad through all the laws of both the 45% and the 10% party, totally ignoring the wishes of the other 45% party.

So effectively, a tiny 10% party now has more political say than a party that represents 45% of the population!

But the 45% party and the 10% party form a coalition because their platforms are more closely aligned to one another than either is with that of the second 45% party, right?

Isn't that exactly what we have in our current 2-party system, with factions forming coalitions against the other groups that they most disagree with?

Might the only difference be that, on one side of the Atlantic, the individual factions have explicit names while the coalitions go unlabeled, and on the other side of the Atlantic we explicitly name the coalitions while the factions they comprise go (mostly) unlabeled?

That's not true. Actual poor people pay very little, if any, income tax. As the article pointed out, this is most damaging to the upper-middle class.

They would benefit from a funded government. Schools and other public services cost money.

Schools in the US are funded at the local county/township/municipal level, typically by property taxes or sales taxes, though it varies from state to state. Nothing really to do with income taxes, apart from the occasional grant.

I get that it is not the majority of funding. I don't know if it is a solid source, but http://www.data-first.org/data/how-much-money-does-our-schoo... has it at about 10%. 10% is not nothing.

And, quite frankly, the places that need the most help probably don't have a lot of options at the local level.

No. No. No. It is really hard to take someones money and claim you can do better with it than they can, especially if that: #1 you do not share their views #2 you have no obligation to spend the money on what you stole it for #3 you have a proven track record for inefficiency

Want to help me out? let me keep my damn money, let me decide what is right for me. you got an agenda? spend your own money toward it.

its also worth noting that almost all school funding does not come from these taxes. if you are so concerned about funding public services, demand Apple pay their taxes. they got 250 billion of the tax evaded stuff.

Using rhetoric like "stole it for" doesn't help your cause. Pretty much period.

I'm interested in debating some of these points. (Honestly more interested in seeing others debate it.) However, if you are going to get emotional on points, realize that you are betraying that you likely haven't researched the points.

As an example, the claim that "almost all school funding" does not come from these taxes is not as true as "almost none of these taxes go to school funding." More, this belies the idea that you would be willing to have these taxes exist, if they went to schools. I am guessing this was not your intent. Though, I am also guessing you use this rhetoric to your advantage.

you are the one pushing rhetoric, and taking my money is not a point for debate.

I experienced this first hand with Philadelphia's soda tax (to fund universal preschool), which has been a spectacular yet tragic failure thus far.

at least with the tax, it was 'said' to have been appropriated for it, but capitals gains simply do not go for schooling children. those are funded mostly local, please play your 'ALL'/'NONE' lawyer ball somewhere else.

Are you actually interested in debating? If so, I am still interested in seeing that happen.

Pulling nominally related stories up, and then referring to them as a "spectacular yet tragic failure" without citations does little to make me believe you. What makes it a spectacular failure? What makes it a tragic failure? Quickly scanning headlines, it looks like it isn't raising as much as some predictions, but 40 million is not nothing. Nor is a marked reduction in sugary soda consumption. I'd be curious to know if any health benefits can be seen in the city.

And again with the rhetoric. Telling me to take my "lawyer ball" elsewhere is showing that you don't intend on having conversation. So, are you?

Claiming it's better to abolish public spending due to inefficiencies is like claiming we should disband all police force due to the terrible incidents that occur against civilians. Should we have everyone fend for themselves because they know what's better? No. People like to screw each other up and prefer to avoid problems that don't concern them.

We should fix the inefficiencies. Individuals have little over-arching notion or interest in what's best for a nation beyond their community or past their lifetimes.

Our government is more funded than any other government on the face of the planet. It's that they're unbelievably terrible at prioritizing and budgeting.

Cites?

I mean, at heart this is easy to agree with. We all want to think that there is waste. And there probably is a ton of it. The problem I have is the cost of fighting some waste is more expensive than it is worth. I realize this is about charity, but https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_way_we_think_abou... is one of the few TED talks I actually still like. I'd be very interested in seeing rebuttals.

There is also the argument that corruption follows money. And that is certainly true. Doesn't do a lot to help the many people in underfunded locations of our nation.

Better funded per capita? Scaled by GDP? By square mile? You can't just throw a claim out there and provide no details

This is a condescending attitude. People vote against their interest all the time. The HN crowd is generally in the top 10% of income and they vote for Democrats who will raise their taxes.

If you look at it reductively, yes. The other way you can look at it is that you're paying more in taxes, and in doing so funding the improvement of externalities.

You're the wrong way around on this. The poor pay very little income taxes. It's the upper middle class getting screwed to the benefit of the oligarchs.

Of course, the poor are getting screwed, I just don't think one of the ways they are getting screwed is income tax policy.

Even though they're not paying a lot tax, they are getting screwed because if tax burden is shifted from upper middle to rich, the former would spend more of freed up money than latter on more variety of productive goods and services, which would benefit the poor more.

If a politician promises to take ALL of the rich people's money and give it to me, would I be voting "against my own interests" if I thought that was a stupid idea which would result in more problems for myself and others? Adjust "ALL" to some other high percentage and it's the same idea.

It's not like Democrats have any desire to do anything about this either. The people who benefit from this are paying off both parties.

Vote. Run for office. Become active in politics. That is the only way these problems get fixed.

EDIT: Start small. All politics are local. Run for city council, or some other form of local government. Work towards change. Network. Expand your reach as you become comfortable in your role. My contact info is in my profile if you want a step by step guide.

Don't you need a lot of money to run a successful campaign. And we all know what that means. Which means, selling your soul to local corp.

The amount of capital you need increases somewhere between linearly and exponentially as you move closer towards federal office, which is why I suggested starting with local politics (which costs almost nothing to participate in; selling your soul is not required).

You can run a local office campaign for under $1000.

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