…because it would drive me insane.
OK, noticeably insane.
OK, OK, OK, no more avoidanceevasion: More noticeably insane.
- In no particular order, Our Dear Leader's 2017 federal tax "burden" was less than:
- The average (mean) car insurance premium in 2020 in any of the three "states" of his "residence" (New York, DC, and Florida)
- The sales tax I paid on my last car purchase (a used car in 2005)
- At about the time he filed the return, a made-in-China iPhone Xs — not even the top of the line — to use on that (anti)social media network for which he's notorious
- Forty minutes of a BigLaw partner's time… and, on average, it would have been more for a bankruptcy
specialistcounsel - Without a doubt, the accountants' fees for preparing the tax return
There's a good reason for the Emoluments Clause and, more generally, divestiture requirements. This is one of them.
But he's smart for paying less tax, right? <SARCASM> Some of the "smartest" guys around — Madoff, Milken, et al. (How do we know they're smart? They said so themselves — they're all stable geniuses!) — were so smart they ended up taking vacations at Club Fed. One can hope… </SARCASM>
I'm shocked — shocked, I say — to find abrogation of tax responsibilities in a real-property "developer." Or trust-fund kid.
- This nation is in the grip of a tyrant. Well, yes, that one, certainly (see, for example, the preceding sausage). This tyranny is due to not the will of the majority, but of the combination of the will of slightly fewer than 807,000 2014 voters in Kentucky (whose actual choices were restricted not by their preferences, but by partisan establishments) and internal rules of the Senate that give Senator Turtle even more control over the Senate's agenda than an English Prime Minister has. (Really: Compare the rules… and the presence/absence of Question Time.)
Admittedly, things aren't a lot better in the House. The control of someone who frequently represents a non-majority of voters, based almost entirely upon tribal allegiance, is not acceptable. (At that, it's slightly better in most years than parliamentary systems.)
If either party has a commitment to the Constitution, they will radically change the rules of both chambers of Congress to prevent this crap. And I don't refer just to the Supreme Court nomination (on which I'm going to refrain from further comment for now) and other foofery in the Senate, but the so-called Hastert Rule in the House (named for a convicted felon) that strangles even consideration… such as the current post-CARES deadlock. The Constitution vests absolute authority of a department in only a single person only for the executive branch; we just don't need Mini-me in the Senate or House. Hell, even the Chief Justice and President don't have as much authority over subordinates as the Senate Majority Leader and Speaker of the House have to control the substance of what those chambers actually do!
- Banned books don't really hurt. It's far too late for me, though: I was reading subversive stuff by sixth grade. Interesting, though, that none of the banned books listed have anything to do with racial or sectarian discrimination, isn't it?
- Or we could go a little closer to the edge and consider pre-Statute-of-Anne writers' rights and current distribution of pay for streaming music (the irony of the source is fully intended… this is not new information, it's just not behind a paywell or distributed across multiple sources). Can you say "class warfare and establishment (Establishment) entitlement"? See? I knew you could.
Damn. I didn't do a very good job of avoidingevading politics here, did I?