Joey Bear.

kateoplis:

by Bill Moyers & Michael Winship

They spread money like manure on the campaign trails of key members of Congress. They unleash hordes of lobbyists on Capitol Hill, cozy up to columnists and editorial writers, spend millions on lawyers who relentlessly pick at the law, trying to rewrite or water down the regulations required for enforcement. Before you know it, what once was an attempt at genuine reform creeps back toward business as usual.

It’s happening right now with the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act — passed two years ago in the wake of our disastrous financial meltdown. Just last week, for example, both parties in the House overwhelmingly approved two bills that already would change Dodd-Frank’s rules on derivatives — those convoluted trading deals recently described by the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as “the largest dark pool in our financial markets.”

Especially vulnerable is a key provision of Dodd-Frank known as the Volcker Rule, so named by President Obama after the former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. It’s an attempt to keep the banks in which you deposit your money from gambling your savings on the bank’s own, sometime risky investments. […]

A thick wallet helps, of course — lobbyists for the financial sector spent nearly half a billion dollars last year. And the congressional newspaper The Hill reports, “Members of Congress pressuring regulators to go easy on the ‘Volcker Rule’ received roughly four times as much on average in contributions from the financial industry than lawmakers pushing for a stronger rule since the 2010 election cycle, according to Public Citizen, a left-leaning group advocating for strict implementation.

“When it is all added up, opponents of a tough Volcker Rule received over 35 times as much from the financial industry — $66.7 million — than advocates for a strong stance, who received $1.9 million.” […]

All of which demonstrates, as per Bloomberg News, “that four years after Wall Street helped cause the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and prompted a $700 billion taxpayer bailout, its lobby is regaining its power to blunt or deflect efforts to rein in the banks.”

kateoplis:

“America has what is arguably the world’s most complex tax code. The federal code plus IRS rulings is now 70,000 pages long. The code itself is 16,000 pages. The statist French, for example, have a tax code of only 1,909 pages - only 12% as long as ours. And then there are countries like Russia, the Czech Republic, Estonia that have innovated and moved to a flat tax, with considerable success.

You have to understand, complexity equals corruption.

When John McCain was still a raging reformer, he used to point out that the tax code was the foundation for the corruption of American politics. Special interests pay politicians vast amounts of cash for their campaigns and in return they get favorable exemptions, credits or loopholes in the tax code.

In other countries this sort of bribery takes place underneath bridges and with cash in brown envelopes. In America it is institutionalized and legal but it is the same thing: Cash to politicians in return for favorable treatment from the government.

The U.S. tax system is not simply corrupt, it is corrupt in a deceptive manner that has degraded the entire system of American government. Congress is able to funnel vast sums of money in perpetuity to its favored funders through the tax code without anyone realizing it. For those who despair at the role of money in politics, the simplest way to get the corruption out of Washington is to remove the prize that members of Congress give away - preferential tax treatment. A flatter tax code with almost no exemptions does that.

The simplest fix to our tax code would be to lower the income tax dramatically, lower the corporate tax, and instead raise revenues through a national sales tax, or a value-added tax (VAT).

The U.S. is the only rich country in the world without a national sales tax. Germany has one at 19%, Britain at 20%, Korea at 10%.

What’s the appeal of a consumption tax?

First, it is efficient. Most studies, including one by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), suggest that the federal government loses several hundred billion dollars a year to tax fraud. This is much tougher to pull off with a consumption tax. Second, it provides the government with a more stable form of revenue than income taxes. Income taxes fluctuate greatly between boom and bust years. Third, American’s consume too much, often using credit and leverage to do so. A consumption tax would moderate this behavior. Government will always get less of a behavior it taxes and more of what it subsidies. […]

But the best thing about tax reform is that it kills corruption. So if you ask me what kind of tax code I am in favor of, I am in favor of almost any new tax code that fulfils one requirement: It should fit on two pages.”

wilwheaton:

After the October 25th raid on Frank Ogawa Plaza / Oscar Grant Park, and before the November 2nd General Strike, a campaign by all the powers that be in Oakland had started to discredit anyone and anything associated with Occupy Oakland. And so, to no one’s particular surprise, in the emails poured over by KTVU reporters was found a note that might as well have caused the spontaneous combustion of the chief’s pants

When Jordan received an update that crime was actually down 19 percent in the last week of October, he wrote an email to one of Mayor Jean Quan’s advisers. “Not sure how you want to share this good news,” he wrote. “It may be counter to our statement that the Occupy movement is negatively impacting crime in Oakland.”

Emphasis mine.

This is why I never take any public statement from any police force at face value. I want to believe public officials, but there’s just too much consistent evidence that they lie about everything.

(via inothernews)

lessig:

In Republic, Lost and in the New York Times, I have described a version of small dollar funded elections that I have called “The Grant and Franklin Project.” Here’s a brief statement of the plan.

Assumption: Every voter pays at least $50 to the Federal Treasury in the form of taxes of…

lessig:

The Amendment that Publius proposed has some thought behind it, not all of which is apparent on the surface. Here are some notes, tied to each paragraph.

For the purpose of securing the independence of the legislative and executive branches, Congress shall:

Preambles haven’t had much…