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To: Poet who wrote (5266)	3/28/2002 7:32:00 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21057

And following that logic, do those who pay the most taxes get the biggest votes? Now THERE'S an idea! :-) Bill Gates = 50 billion votes. Oh well. I'll sleep through election day.

To: Poet who wrote (5266)	3/29/2002 7:36:28 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 21057

And following that logic, do those who pay the most taxes get the biggest votes? No, one vote each. A bit of background on the origins of this notion. I came of age--that is, I started paying taxes--at the time of the Great Society. In those days, tax rates were much higher than they are now. Confiscatory at the highest levels, IMO. It seemed to me that we had taken a huge step from the functions of the federal government as enumerated in the Constitution and had shifted into a framework where the main function of government was to redistribute the wealth. If the functions of government are in a new paradigm, then it makes sense to reevaluate other aspects of government to see if any adjustments were needed to support that new paradigm. If the main function of government is to redistribute the wealth, then it can be argued that those whose wealth is being distributed are the onces who should decide on that distribution by voting. We have backed off from that kind of thinking to some extent. Taxes are lower and there is resistance to additional wealth redistribution. I would prefer we back off further, but it seems like farm subsidies and welfare will be with us for the foreseeable future. I don't know just where the tipping point is where we abandon the founding fathers and shift into wealth-redistribution mode. In theory, we could set a point, say a twenty percent maximum tax rate, as the fulcrum. Under that, it's one vote per citizen. Over that, it's one vote per taxpayer. Karen