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It may not be illegal, but could certainly be immoral. Consider... If I pay for a politician to run for office and they get elected and then I write a bill tha

by oblib 7y ago

It may not be illegal, but could certainly be immoral. Consider... If I pay for a politician to run for office and they get elected and then I write a bill that lowers my taxes for him to push through into law, and then I donate to all (or even just enough of) those in congress to vote for it and it gets passed that may not illegal (right now) but many (me included) would certainly consider it immoral. For example... if that reduction in taxes collected was offset by firing hundreds of workers in, say, the Center for Disease Control, and then we are left unprepared for a serious and deadly viral disease outbreak and 100s of 1000s of citizens die as a result... yeah, that qualifies as immoral for me.

unreal37 7y ago
It would seem the solution would be to remove the ability to "pay for" politicians. The influence of money on politics is the blame here.
- fma 7y ago
  Nah - the problem is the money is coming from the wrong source. Today, corporations are giving enough money to incentivize politicians to work for them. What we need is for citizens to give enough politicians to incentivize them to work for us. That is the premise of Andrew Yang's Democracy dollars. Every American gets $100 to donate to a campaign.
opless 7y ago
Companies are amoral optimising for shareholder value/return. It's not that they don't want to pay tax, it's just better for shareholder value that they don't.
- GaryNumanVevo 7y ago
  If I'm a company whose value is hypothetically tied to the number of people I kill. No hard feelings, companies are amoral. If I kill you, that's just business.
  - mirimir 7y ago
    That sounds extreme, but many businesses weigh profits vs liability. For example, there are old industrial areas pretty much everywhere contaminated by all sorts of toxic waste. There was a furniture refinishing business not far from here, and there's a huge groundwater plume of toxic solvents under me. So no wells for us, here.

by oblib 7y ago

unreal37 7y ago

It would seem the solution would be to remove the ability to "pay for" politicians. The influence of money on politics is the blame here.

fma 7y ago
Nah - the problem is the money is coming from the wrong source. Today, corporations are giving enough money to incentivize politicians to work for them. What we need is for citizens to give enough politicians to incentivize them to work for us. That is the premise of Andrew Yang's Democracy dollars. Every American gets $100 to donate to a campaign.

opless 7y ago

Companies are amoral optimising for shareholder value/return. It's not that they don't want to pay tax, it's just better for shareholder value that they don't.

GaryNumanVevo 7y ago
If I'm a company whose value is hypothetically tied to the number of people I kill. No hard feelings, companies are amoral. If I kill you, that's just business.
- mirimir 7y ago
  That sounds extreme, but many businesses weigh profits vs liability. For example, there are old industrial areas pretty much everywhere contaminated by all sorts of toxic waste. There was a furniture refinishing business not far from here, and there's a huge groundwater plume of toxic solvents under me. So no wells for us, here.