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Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 3, 2011, 10:17 p.m. EST by steampoweredmedia (0) from Gainesville, FL
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Re-examine Santa Clara County vs. Union Pacific Railroad. This case established corporate personhood, in essence, and has been used as a singular precedent time and again when corporations run roughshod over individuals. Your sign about Texas executions makes for a good meme, but here's the real meat: corporations get to enjoy personhood when it suits them, and can abandon it when it suits them. Corporations are often not punished in any meaningful when they break the law. After all, you can't send a corporation to jail.
Demand a substantive, progressive tax structure. Corporations benefit most from our tax-funded infrastructure, and should return that benefit in the form of revenue sharing. And don't be swayed by all this discussion of "job creators" and poor folks who "don't pay taxes."

When politicians discuss the working poor who "don't pay taxes," and hold up "job creators" as our most precious resource, correct them thusly: people who get money back--more than they paid in, even--are still paying taxes. Money is taken from their paychecks and held by the federal government. Even if the money is returned, it still gets to work on the government's behalf for up to 12 months. That money, then, is working for the government's benefit and federal officials should be thankful for it. "Job creators" is a misnomer. How many business owners are creating jobs? How many businesses currently take advantage of corporate loopholes to pay contract workers rather than pay full taxes on employees? The number of actual "job creators" in the United States is minuscule in relation to the number of business owners. And most businesses filing under individual names don't make enough to be considered in the top 1% of all earners. So how about effective tax rates comparable to Brazil? How about Turkey? Surely our wealthiest can spare a percentage similar to people in those bedraggled countries.

Break the link between politicians and private money. This one's a bit tougher, but must occur for any substantive change. Elections must be publicly funded and can officially start no sooner than eight months from election day. Politicians' jobs are legislative, not commercial. As a nation we suffer when congressmen begin each legislative cycle focused on how they'll win their seat again.

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[-] 1 points by wallwillie (39) from Hunter, NY 13 years ago

Corporate Free Speech There needs to be better corporate representation. Money is speech. Every individual, even individual stockholders, "ownership," has a right to free speech. Free speech means no one can force or prevent an individual's speech. Ownership has the right to direct the corporation's speech and political contributions. Majority control of contributions may violate an individual's free speech. Corporate management can speech for the corporation, but ownership needs to authorize that speech. No speech or money spent on political contributions may be made without ownership authorization and such contributions must be taken from the individual's dividends. No dividends means there is no allowance for contributions. Corporate management must poll the ownership to determine the amount and placement of all individual stockholder directed contributions. The assignment of all corporate contributions must be made public so that ownership can verify the correct placement of their contributions. Management can not make contributions on the behalf of nonresponsive ownership and thus can only make contributions for which they have been directly authorized.

Money is speech. Corporations are people, because people get the money. Free speech means people are not forced to pay for someone else's speech. Corporations may not force to pay or deny dividends, to a person who does not approve of money spent on speech. Corporations may only spend money on speech that is taken, by approval, from the people who get the money. Every person who gets money, from the corporation, must approve the money spent on speech, in order to protect the right to free speech. Since the money spent on speech is identifiable with a person then that money is subject to caps associated with that person and must be reported. Also, tax consequences flow, to each person, for tax exempt contributions. If the corporation feels that the cost of polling and reporting the money spent on speech is prohibitive, then the corporation is prohibited from spending on speech. Corporations spend money on product ads and any political placement in a product ad must have unanimous consent of ownership.