More About Dave

In my last post about my presidential candidacy, I invited people to ask questions, and Sunny seized that opportunity and asked me a couple of questions. Below are her questions, and my responses. Furthermore, her questions brought to mind a few other items that I will address.

Question 1: What is your stand on drug testing for welfare benefits?

I am personally opposed to drug testing for welfare benefits. In fact, I am personally opposed to a lot of our country's drug laws. I believe that marijuana should be legalized, taxed and regulated in a manner similar to alcohol. This would be a major blow to organized crime, would free up our police force and prisons for bigger issues, and would be a financial boon to our economy through reduced law enforcement and increased tax revenue. Furthermore, there is the slippery slope argument. Should we prohibit welfare recipients from purchasing alcohol and tobacco? After all, they are addictive and mind-altering, despite the fact that they're legal. I understand that people don't want their tax dollars being wasted on drugs. Hell, I even AGREE with this prospect. But this is a question of liberty in my mind.

With all of this said though, I wouldn't consider this one of my bedrock issues. What that means, in plain English, is that I am willing to defer to the will of the people in this instance. If a large majority supports drug testing as a condition of receiving welfare, then I am willing to support it. I know that sounds a bit wishy-washy, but I hope this illustrates that I am open to discussion and compromise.

Question 2: What exactly is your tax reform plan? Is it based on a (percent) of income for everyone, or something else?

A percentage tax is also known as a flat tax. In plain terms, workers are taxed a flat percentage on every dollar they earn. In principle this is a great idea. Everyone pays their fair share, and everything is gravy. But in reality, this doesn't work. Let's take a strictly hypothetical 10% tax rate. Tax on $20,000 is $2000. Tax on $2 Million is $200,000. The problem with a flat tax is that the poor guy is going to suffer a lot more over the loss of $2000 than the rich guy will suffer over over the loss of his $200,000. With this illustration as my base point, I support a graduated tax, which is far more stimulative to the economy. After all, the poor guy is going to spend all of his extra money, which circulates through the economy. The rich dude is going to be as likely to save that money, as opposed to spending it, which doesn't circulate through the economy to the same extent.

My big difference is that I want to extend this philosophy to the business world as well. Business should be taxed in the same manner as the family. Close the loopholes and pay your fair share, based on the amount of money that you made. There would be a few benefits from this approach... Businesses would be encouraged to spin off in to smaller (and leaner) entities. This would effectively eliminate the "too big to fail" connundrum we currently experience, and it would make business more nimble. The closing of existing loopholes would also allow a given business, industry or technology the opportunity to succeed or fail in its own right. The government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers in technology. This would also undermine a lot of the special interest lobbying in Washington.

I do not yet have specific numbers in mind. I DO believe that EVERYONE should pay some sort of tax... even the poorest of the poor. But what are my percentages? I really can't answer that sufficiently because I have not yet done the research (What percentage of Americans and corporations make what amounts of money.) Furthermore, I realize that what I espouse is kind of a pie-in-the sky kind of vision. The fact is, those who have will fight viciously to hold what they have. For this kind of thing to happen, we need to really clean our Congressional house, and get rid of the politicians -- on BOTH sides of the aisle -- who are beholden to special interests.

Okay, I originally planned to write more, but I also expected my answers to be more succinct than they've ended up. With that said, I am going to stop for now.

By the way, this is a Saturday, my day off, so I haven't spent a lot of time proof-reading for grammatical errors. Please forgive me, but my family time is important to me. Besides, I'm more interested in being authentic than being polished.