A brainstorm--how to deal with Citizens United v. FEC

[wizstars]

If corporations want to contribute to election campaigns, fine--IF Congress enacts the following: For every dollar a corporation spends on a campaign, it must pay TEN dollars in income taxes. And no deduction of campaign expenditures as "business expenses."

This should pass constitutional muster, since it doesn't restrict them from "speaking". It's not a tax on speech, it's a tax on income derived from speech. It's definitely deficit-reduction positive.

Call your Congressthings today and demand this.

[gkhouston]

1. Snorf. If they want to buy the government, then they can damned well pay for it.

:thumbsup:

[wizstars]

2. exactly.

[lapfog_1]

4. Who is going to make them?

There are going to be so many MORE breaks for corporations enacted into our tax law it's going to make your head spin. If you are a corporation and you are paying more than, say, 3% of profits in taxes in a few years, you would have to have a criminally stupid CFO.

[lapfog_1]

3. I suspect that all such legislation

that attempts to curb the "free speech" (by means of money levied or stockholder permission, etc) will be struck down by the current supreme court.

We need to do one of the following:

a) replace one of the five on the court.

1) We can hope one retires or is otherwise unable to serve.
2) We can try to impeach one of them (probably don't have the votes, but you never know).

b) Constitutional amendment that corporations are NOT people and do NOT have rights.

c) Come up with legislation that prohibits corporations from interfering in political campaigns.


answer a is a long shot. a1 is simply unlikely, a2 is nearly impossible.

answer b is a long process and is unlikely to pass anyway, as republicans see this as their ticket to power in a future where minorities and young people make up the vast majority of the electorate. Old conservative white guys will only be elected if they buy the message machine and "catapult the propaganda", so I don't think we will get enough repuke votes to enact an amendment, and it will take years to get done.

answer c is simply unlikely to pass current court muster.

We have very little time to get this done. I suspect even this 2010 election cycle will be dominated by corporate messaging and lobbyist money. As Bernie Sanders pointed out, the corporations don't even HAVE to elect their candidates this go round, all they have to do is take a meeting with certain Senators and Congress-critters and TELL THEM to vote the way the corporation wants OR face a tsunami of attack ads in the upcoming election.

So we have, at best, 6 months before we kiss this experiment in democracy goodbye. And no clear solution.

Right now, the best we can hope for is legislation that prohibits any corporation campaign spending and some friendly lower court to uphold the new law. It can take time for it to reach the SCOTUS, but then, Roberts (good little Nazi that he is) could reach down and stay the lower court ruling (meaning that until the SCOTUS reverses the decision, as they likely will, our new corporate overlords can do as they please.

We need a new justice to replace one of the five and we need him or her like today. ASAP.

[wizstars]

6. We're not curbing corporate speech, we're...

...taxing income derived from it. Congress has the power to tax income.

[rucky]

5. seems like a logical extension...

if money = speech, then speech becomes an asset. Assets are taxable.