Amazon Spends $350K On Seattle Mayor's Race (jeffreifman.com) 62
reifman writes: Until this summer, Amazon had never contributed more than $15,000 to a city political campaign in Seattle, but this year's different. The company is a lead funder in the Seattle Chamber of Commerce's PAC which dropped $525,000 Monday on Jenny Durkan's PAC, the centrist business candidate. Her opponent Cary Moon is an advocate for affordable housing, which complicates Amazon's growth, and city-owned community broadband. Comcast and Century Link joined Amazon contributing $25,000 and $82,500 respectively to the Chamber's PAC. Amazon's $350,000 contribution represents .00014 of its CY 2016 net profit.
Units matter! (Score:5, Interesting)
Amazon's $350,000 contribution represents .00014 of its CY 2016 net profit.
Re:Units matter! (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I'm not certain what you're asking, but I think 14 1/hundred thousandths of $2.5 billion is $350K.
What's truly interesting to me, is the idea this is even surprising news.
A truly shocking story would be, "Half a trillion dollar company still refuses to influence local politics to its benefit."
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Amazon's $350,000 contribution represents .00014 of its CY 2016 net profit.
There are no units. It's a ratio.
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Correct. Although its more usual to state it as a percentage (it would be .014%), a bare number is still correct.
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Super PACs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Super PACs (Score:1)
Corps are people, money is speech, voting R or D is useful.
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Unfortunately that runs afoul of that pesky concept of "no taxation without representation." If you believe in that (as most red-blooded Americans do), then the fact that we tax corporations means they should have some form of representation in government. Since they can't vote, all that's left for them is to spend money on elections. And it also leads to the
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Unfortunately that runs afoul of that pesky concept of "no taxation without representation."
It also runs afoul of the "Congress shall make no law" clause in the pesky 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution.
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What, you think "no taxation without representation" is in the Constitution? It was a a fucking slogan. The group of wine snobs that were the "Founding Fathers" were just looking for ways to get out of paying their own taxes. They weren't looking to establish some legal precedent.
If "no taxation without representation" was part of the Constitution, then we wouldn't charge any taxes to the millions of Americans th
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the millions of Americans that are denied their voting rights in red states every single election.
You'd have done better to mention Puerto Rico.
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Unfortunately that runs afoul of that pesky concept of "no taxation without representation." If you believe in that (as most red-blooded Americans do), then the fact that we tax corporations means they should have some form of representation in government.
The companies are represented via their owners. Giving them a separate voice just means the owners are over-represented.
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IMHO the solution is pretty simply. Eliminate corporate taxes - they just get passed on to people anyway
Actually, corporate income tax in 2016 drew $299.6 Billion out of $2,656 Billion from income taxes plus FICA. If my Universal Benefit had been in place, the tax rate would have changed from 35% to 34.6%; and the proportion going to the general corporate income tax would be $168 Billion. It's an ineffective revenue source; I only tax it for my Universal Benefit because that's a dividend off the entire economy--it's supposed to capture as near to a fixed share of all income as possible.
So negotiating wit
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Considering people's mouths are more or less the same size, no one should be allowed to contribute more money than anyone else.
It takes more money to be a successful challenger than to be reelected as an incumbent. So limits on spending tend to mean less turnover.
election limits: spending vs contribution (Score:1)
Considering people's mouths are more or less the same size, no one should be allowed to contribute more money than anyone else.
It takes more money to be a successful challenger than to be reelected as an incumbent. So limits on spending tend to mean less turnover.
There's a difference between limits on total spending, and putting limits on what any one person can donate (either in total, or per candidate).
Amazon at the grass roots political level (Score:2)
Re:Amazon at the grass roots political level (Score:5, Funny)
Amazon's political team: "You think those Russian bots were good at influencing elections? Those are amateur hour, man... wait until you see ours! It's not an election, it's an Alexa-ion!'
If you're on the side of Comcast (Score:3)
You're on the wrong side.
Naughty naughty Amazon.
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You act like Amazon is any better than Comcast. How cute.
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I don't recall saying Amazon is any better; just that Comcast is shit...
I called 'em naughty that's gotta be worth something.
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After reading your post, I'm tempted to move to New Hampshire (sounds like a state for Hobbits though) just so I can vote against you.
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Okay, let me try instead. I'm running for House of Representatives in Maryland's 7th District, and I'm fairly-certain I can win that seat with under $50k--not that it'll be easy, but it's viable. If I can get $25/month commitments out of 100 people, I can probably fund out of my own pocket the rest of the way there; everything else is lifting the hardship off my personal finances and raising my chances of success.
My major platforms include an end to identity theft [slashdot.org]; a restructuring of welfare around a U [johnmoserforcongress.com]
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But when you're raising money for an election, the real question is why do you think you can win? If you can't win, none of your policy matters. If you can't win, your donors are throwing away their money.
You are running against an incumbent who has been in politics longer than you've been alive. He won his last election with 74% of the vote and won his last primary with 92% of the vote. If I had to choose between giving $100 t
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Plans can't win an unwinnable battle, so let's talk about the battlefield first.
Elijah Cummings won his last primary against a guy whose campaign was a vertical cell phone video [youtube.com] where he rants about Elijah Cummings "has not fixed the issue" and that he's going to "go to Congress and get the money". He got 8.9% of the vote.
It's 25,000 votes to win. That's not a whole hell of a lot of bulk effort. It does mean getting most of the reliable voters (there are only 33,000 registered Democrats who voted in
If money is speech (Score:4, Insightful)
If money is speech, corporations have a lot more of it than you do.
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If money is speech, corporations have a lot more of it than you do.
So do unions.
So do political parties.
And government has way more than any of them. And government can take their money too.
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If money is speech, corporations have a lot more of it than you do.
It is not so much that they have more but that their money and interests are concentrated. The same applies to wealthy people.
A corporation has a great interest in pushing for legislation which taxes the population a small amount and delivers it to the corporation, otherwise known as rent seeking. In many industries, the payoff from this is greater than any other investment a company could make including research and development or capital investment. But the individuals in the population being fleeced h
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They gave to the chamber of commerce which gave to a pac
Wrong. They donated directly to the CASE PAC.
If you want to fix it cap the election cycle to say 6 weeks, ban private donations and fund the campaigns from public funds.
Who gets public funds? Anyone running? Including Nazis? If Nazis are excluded, then who else is denied funding? If funding is based on poll results or performance in previous elections, then public funding will just protect incumbents.
Many countries have public funding schemes and none of them seem to work particularly well, nor lead to better government.
Better deals ... (Score:4, Funny)
Excellent catch --- outstanding post! (Score:2)
Because Durkan, as a former US Attorney, led a three-year investigation of Washington Mutual in the aftermath of the global economic meltdown, and couldn't find a single action worthy of prosecution, while a 2010 congressional investigation found plenty!
And the latest FBI stats indicate Seattle leads the nation in property crime (has for quite some time, if we are talking realit
And here's a mighty big ($92.2 billion) reason . . (Score:2)