THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE MUST GO!

Please remember who actually won the 2016 Presidential election –

Candidate            Party           Popular Votes

Donald J. Trump      Republican      62,980,160

Hillary R. Clinton   Democratic      65,845,063

Gary Johnson         Libertarian      4,488,931

Jill Stein           Green            1,457,050

Trump lost the election to Hillary Clinton by almost 3 Million votes.  When you add the votes for the two major “third party” candidates almost 9 Million more Americans voted against Trump than for him.

The American people did not put Trump in the White House.  The blame for the daily damage Trump does to America and American values and democracy belongs to the Electoral College.

Ironically, one of the reasons the Founding Fathers created the Electoral College was, according to “Why the Electoral College” from HISTORY CENTRAL, because “they feared a tyrant could manipulate public opinion and come to power”.   The article explains that Alexander Hamilton and the other founding fathers “believed that the electors would be able to ensure that only a qualified person becomes President. They believed that with the Electoral College no one would be able to manipulate the citizenry. It would act as check on an electorate that might be duped. Hamilton and the other founders did not trust the population to make the right choice. The founders also believed that the Electoral College had the advantage of being a group that met only once and thus could not be manipulated over time by foreign governments or others.”

The other reason for creating the College was to give extra power to the smaller states, part of compromises made at the Constitutional Convention to appease the small states.

So, one of the main reasons for the existence of the Electoral College is to keep a dangerous demagogue like Trump out of the White House.  It obviously does not work. What it can do is negate the actual “will of the people”, as it clearly did in 2016.

Even Trump himself opposed the Electoral College, at least before it put him in office.  On November 6, 2012, Trump tweeted “The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.”  It turns out to be perhaps the only time he was right – Trump’s Presidency is a disaster for our democracy, and since the Electoral College put him in office it follows that it, too, is a disaster.

The last time the winner of the popular vote lost via the Electoral College was in 2000 - Gore had 543,895 more votes than Dubya.  Before that election, the last time the popular vote winner did not become President was in 1888.

Like Trump, the Electoral College must go!  We must never again allow it to put an incompetent, unqualified and ignorant malignant narcissist in the White House, contrary to the wishes of a substantial majority of the voters.

Tennessee Representative Steve Cohen, a Democrat, introduced a bill in the House to eliminate the Electoral College on the first night of the 116th Congress.  However, actually getting rid of this outdated and unnecessary way of electing a President would take a constitutional amendment, which would require 3/4 of the states to approve it. 

So, while eliminating the Electoral College is essential, it will be very hard to do.  But we must start the process now.  

TAFN

INCOME TAXES – PENNSYLVANIA HAD THE RIGHT IDEA

It is tax time again.  As we organize for and prepare, or have prepared, our federal income tax returns we often think about the need for tax reform.

If we really want to simplify the current complicated and convoluted federal Tax Code, we should look at a tax system based, with some modifications, on the Pennsylvania state income tax.

The Pennsylvania state income tax is truly unique.  The tax returns of most states with an income tax follow the federal return and, for the most part, federal tax law – starting with federal AGI or taxable income and making state adjustments to this number.  PA had to be different.  Its state tax system was created from scratch, with very little similarity to federal tax law.

PA taxes gross income at a flat rate.  There are no exemptions for dependents and no filing status differences.  The only deductions allowed are unreimbursed employee business expenses, deducted directly against wages, and contributions to a Medical Savings Account, Health Savings Account, Section 529 qualified Tuition Program account, and Pennsylvania ABLE account.  Retirement income – distributions from IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, Social Security and Railroad Retirement, and other pension or retirement plans – is not taxed, and contributions to retirement accounts are not deductible or considered “pre-tax”.   Net gambling winnings, after directly deducting losses to the extent of winnings, are taxed.

Losses in one category are not allowed to reduce income in other categories.  Capital losses can reduce capital gains, but a net capital loss or a rental loss cannot be deducted from wages or interest and dividend income, as can be done, within some limitations, on the federal return.

The only credits allowed that are not related to a business activity are a special refundable “Tax Forgiveness” credit, sort of like the Earned Income Credit (unlike the EIC, based on earned income, eligibility for Tax Forgiveness is based on eligibility income, which differs from state taxable income, that includes a variety of sources) and a credit for taxes paid to another jurisdiction (like the federal Foreign Tax Credit).

I would make three modifications to the PA system for the federal return –

(1) Make the equivalent of PA’s “Tax Forgiveness” credit nonrefundable, and adjust “eligibility income” to include otherwise non-taxable retirement income, including Social Security and Railroad Retirement benefits.  

(2) Allow losses in one or more categories to be deducted against income from other categories to create a “net” total taxable income.

(3) In calculating the net earnings from self-employment activities like sole proprietorships and partnerships I would allow direct additional deduction on the Schedule C and Schedule K-1 for self-employed health insurance premiums (also allowed for sub-S owner-employees) to make the federal treatment of these activities similar to the treatment for a “C” corporation.

Like the PA state return the new federal return would allow a deduction for certain unreimbursed business expenses of employees directly against wages.  Also like PA, all pension and retirement account distributions would be exempt from tax (except for a transitional amount) and net gambling winnings, after a direct deduction of losses, would be the amount included in total income.  Gross wages would be taxed, with nothing treated as “pre-tax”.

The “transitional” amount of pension and retirement account distributions that would be taxed would be the remaining amount of applicable employee contributions that were treated as “pre-tax” or deductible on a prior Form 1040.  Going forward all pension and retirement accounts would be “ROTH-like” – no deduction or pre-tax treatment going in and no tax coming out.

There would be no “adjustments to income” other than the current self-employment tax deduction (the self-employed health insurance deduction would already be applied directly on Schedules C or E) and perhaps contributions to the same non-retirement savings accounts allowed on the PA return, no itemized deductions, and no tax credits, except for perhaps the Foreign Tax Credit.  The tax rate, currently 3.07% on the PA state return, would be perhaps 12% or more of the net total federal taxable income.

It would be an almost pure “flat tax”.

TAFN

UNIVERSAL MEDICARE AND HOWARD SCHULTZ

While I agree that it should be discussed, I disagree with the proposal for a “universal Medicare” program in the US – doing away with private health insurance companies and replacing it with government insurance – or basically socialized medicine.  While it may be an eventual solution in the future, it is not something that can, or should, be immediately implemented.

I actually like much of the basic premise of Obamacare, but with some tweaks – having the government provide direct point of purchase credits to reduce monthly health insurance premium payments for individuals who cannot afford it, and requiring insurance companies to cover “pre-existing” conditions.

My tweaks – 

Health insurance coverage should NOT be mandatory, employers should NOT be required to provide it, and those who do not have or provide what is considered “adequate” coverage should NOT be penalized.  And individuals should NOT be required to purchase the insurance through a government marketplace to be eligible for the advance premium credit.

I agree that insurance companies can be arbitrary in deciding on covered items, and perhaps there could be legislature to address this, similar to the mandatory coverage of “pre-existing” conditions.

I agree with Howard Shultz that the average mainstream Democrat does NOT support the kind of socialized medicine being proposed by several candidates.  

Sadly, while -

(1) in my opinion at first glance Schultz may perhaps be a perfect candidate for my political beliefs - an economically conservative, socially liberal "centralist" businessman (an actual self-made smart and savvy businessman who actually built a truly iconic business from scratch, coming from poverty),

(2) I agree that a too far-left Democratic Party platform may hurt chances for a Democratic victory, and

(3) I see the need for and in the past have supported 3rd Party candidates,

the 2020 election is not necessarily the right election for an independent candidacy.

The 2020 Presidential election may be the most important election in my lifetime. If deplorable, despicable, dangerous demagogue Donald T Rump lasts in office until 2020 – and hopefully he will not - he MUST not be re-elected. The most important issue of the 2020 election is putting an end to our national nightmare by defeating Trump – the future of America and the world depends on it.

While moderate Republicans could and probably would support Schultz, I fear that he would take more votes away from the Democratic candidate and potentially increase the chances of Trump being re-elected.

If he ran as a Democratic or a Republican candidate, I would seriously consider supporting him after reviewing his yet undisclosed platform and proposals. Otherwise so far, I am leaning toward Michael Bloomberg as a Democratic candidate.  But it is still early, and I expect there will be many more Democrats throwing their hats into the ring.  I also truly hope there will be Republicans challenging moron Trump in the primaries.

TAFN