"I don't think your good faith discussion thread got very far."
That was 5 posts into the thread. Before any conservative posted anything.
"Probably your failure to engage any substantive points."
Bullshit. I started in total good faith. Look where the bad faith posts come from.
"Again, the first place to start on this topic is "why should we want our government to be privately funded."
No its not because privately funding one wing of a building isn't privately funding the g'ment. Over-exaggerate much?
"How many government assets (other than a few monuments) have been funded with private donations? By my count, none. In the modern history of the United States."
I guess someone should call every state supported university in the country to tell them you can't accept private donations for building rennovations because some hermit loon on a political message board is worried it might go over budget and then the donors will hold the g'ment hostage trying to extort it. Private donations have been used to fund projects in White House on numerous occassions. Most recently in the Rose garden. Building a ballroom doesn't equal a high speed rail system.
"Maybe it would be better to tax those big donors and then use the money when they can't control it any more. Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever wondered why you carry water for the George Soroses and Warren Buffets of the world?"
There it is. The Liberal Holy Doctrine. Many of these donors are corporations. What happens when you keep taxing them? Same for people. Are you not aware of the wealth migration out of high tax states? How many times do you need see it keep happening before you realize your approach is so idiotic? The money donated is no different than making campaign contributions. The entire point is to gain favor and influence. If they don't donate it for the ballroom it will just get cycled into the political process another way. You saying it isn't the same doesn't make you right, but it sure does make you naive.
1. Do you understand how idiotic *you* look calling me an idiot? You know, I'm going to start a conservative poster account just to show y'all how to do it.
2. State supported universities are not the government. Next?
3. So your answer to private funding is "nope, never was done before except by Trump." Cool.
4. So you're an expert on optimal tax policy now? What you wrote about taxes is what economists call a "fallacy of composition." It's a freshman level economics mistake. If you never took economics, or forgot everything, that's fine. You're not an economist. But again, your habit of insulting people who know far, far more than you is such a weird look. If I'm idiotic, then what does that make you?
5. The money donated to a ballroom IS different than campaign contributions. This is not a difficult question. Let's start with the word. Campaign contributions are contributions to political campaigns. They are not payments into a slush fund of a sitting president. So in order to get the corruption, the candidate has to win. The big moneyed interests have to duke it out with other big money interests. They have to hope that their ideas aren't so toxic that no candidate can embrace them. Like, say, a gargantuan ballroom. You will see zero republicans running this fall on the "I support the ballroom agenda." And the candidate has to keep winning.
Campaign contributions are the equivalent to Coach K yelling at the refs all the time. It gets him favorable calls. Private funding of the government is like paying the ref $100K to make one team win. It isn't even in the same ballpark.
True, campaign contributions raise issues with corruption, which is historically why Republicans have always been the ones to kill campaign finance reform. But it is a different beast entirely.
They raise corruption concerns (again, Dems are the ones trying to restrict money in politics)
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