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Pay to Play the U.S. Way
Thu Anon Coward writes "There's an article on CNN.com that finally shows proof that corporations actually demand access to politicians for contributing $$$. And that political parties promise access based on how much the corporations "donate". Microsoft donated money on the condition that they be seated next to "Sen. (Paul) Coverdell or leadership, Commerce Committee or Judiciary Committee," according to a GOP memo. The memo added Microsoft did not want to sit with Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a major critic." How can we fight this? Write letters to the companies saying we won't buy their products because of their undue influence? You think the politicians will actually listen if we write them instead?" The campaign finance debate is probably the most important political issue in the U.S. right now. You should pay attention, even if you hate politics.
Can I donate money to my local politician to guarantee that I get a seat at a DMCA meeting next to Ellen Feiss? If she's not available, how about Natalie Portman at an MPAA meeting?
a friend of mine just started a new political party, The Patriot Party of Canada, and the biggest thing going for it is that it does not accept donations from corporations or special interest groups. Only time will tell whether he can succeed with it or not, but it shows that many people are getting the message. The response so far has not been negative, either.
Are there not limits set that a single person can donate to any single canidate? It was always my understanding that corperations were treated as if they were their own person. If there are indeed limts to contributions that an individual can make to any party/canidate/measure/whatnot, why should a corperate entity be allowed to make huge contributions (read:bribes) while individual citizens are limited in their ability to contribute?
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
I can only come to one conclusion: The ballot is definitely stronger than the bullet, but in today's United States of America, the Dollar is stronger than the ballot.
Not a damn thing, since so few of us even vote. The few who bothered to vote in november elected the buddies of legalized bribery by a landslide. Mitch McConell,(R, KY) legalized bribery's best friend in Washington won by a nearly 70 to 30 margin. We have an oligarchy, not a democracy, because people stay home.
How ya like dat?
Personally I find it hilarious that America can still claim to be a democracy, the "Land Of The Free". Only the richest people can get political influence. Surely there should be a cap on how much politicians can spend, and how much can be donated to them? I know its not perfect over here in the UK but its better. American hypocrisy continues...
By the way this isn't a flamebait, just political opinion
Everything sucks except musicandstuff
Unfortunately, this sort of thing is not new. Remember that before their company self-destructed, Enron executives had repeatedly met with Dick Cheney while the Bush administration's energy policy was being drafted. Details of those meetings still haven't been disclosed, and Cheney refuses to do so, using the defence that forcing politicians to disclose the details of such meetings would stifle politicians from doing their job.
What he actually means by this, of course, is that if politicians aren't allowed to keep their backroom deals with corporations secret, then they won't be able to have secret backroom deals with corporations anymore. Having to behave like honest politicians is clearly unacceptable to the likes of Cheney and Bush.
Suddenly, campaigning gets cheap! No more competition by who can afford the most attack ads during the 6pm news slot.
Then again, Swiss democracy is 500 years older than American democracy. I suppose it could take a while for the U.S., and Canada for that matter, to catch up... *sigh*... (I'm Canadian, but lived in Switzerland for 6 years).
We have a similar thing here in the U.S. The Green Party. Many people would argue that they are a "special interest" group. I would argue that any group can be labeled a "special Interest" the question is really what special interests are on my side?
Just as there is seperation between church and state, there should be seperation of business and state.
Even our President has interests in oil companies at home and abroad. I'm not saying Bush is doing anything wrong, but the potential for abuse is huge.
Politians are supposed to be public servants, yet we have Senators like Kerry (who is BTW running for President in 2004) who have upwards of 600 million in the bank and god only knows how much much in stocks in these companies. They care more about big business than they do us. That's not servicing the public, thats ripping the public off.
All politians are guilty of it too. You can't point at the Dems or the Republicans for this. Both are doing it.
Busines, big or small, needs to stay the hell out of politics and work on their business model for a change. Stop trying to pass legislation when your business model starts to fail (RIAA MPAA). Stop passing laws that benefit businesses to the detriment of the people. Just flat out stop the fucking insanity!!
Politicians wonder why people don't trust them. This is exactly why.
The major political parties thrive on this sort of dishonest practice. There should be NO donations to political parties at all. All election campaigns should be funded from tax-payers money. The people want democracy and the only way to get it is to pay for it. This will not sit well with the major political parties because they know that winning an election at the moment is simply a matter of marketing. The most money and the best marketing means winning the election. That has to stop. No more 'donations' from Israel, Microsoft or the deforestation companies. Write to (or go and see as I am doing on the 16th) your local member and tell them why you are removing support from them, and who is willing to change the system (here in Australia we have the Socialist Alliance and the Green parties who are on the ball on this issue). And write to the companies that make donations and tell them why you don't buy their products - because doing so corrupts you government. This is the only way short of a violent revolution that we can effect change. Do it now or lose the option and watch your country become a police state protecting the interests of those with the most money.
I'm not saying "pay for access" is right, but on the other hand, who should politicians listen to? Someone who controls an industry and affects millions of people (like Microsoft) or Joe L33t who has no perspective beyond his own limited world?
It's kind of like when you advertise a job and get hundreds of resumes back that look basically the same. Personally, anyone who has misspelled words goes straight into the trash can to thin the herd. That may sound unfair to people who send resumes, but you have to use SOME method of thinning since you can't interview hundreds of people.
Politicians need some sort of method to thin the herd of people who give advice. I really think that's at the root of this, rather than simplistic corruption that many make this out to be. They have to choose SOMEBODY to talk to, so they might as well choose people who have been good to them in the past. In other words, it's loyalty at work, not bribery.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Please take not of who has the most lopsided and largest donations. Notice the movie studios at #1 and #3? Care about fair use at all?
I'm certainly not trying to make the Repubs out to be the good guys, but the Dems aren't going to save you from big money influence.
Real election reform
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
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Hey Mr. Slashdot,
I think the aggression against Microsoft here is a tad misplaced. First, they are but one example of the corporate power-bidding going on, and you seem to ignore the rest out of personal bias.
Second, the larger issue here is clearly the political side of things, where parties/candidates who's job it is to represent their constituents (NOT corporations) are prostituting themselves directly now to corporations (who have nothing in their legal "job description" about buying power and influence).
Thanks for your time.
Read jack phelps dot net
Buying a politician: $1.5 million
Dark Grey Suit with bad tie: $1295
Per plate dinner: $500
Being able to sit next to the guy who keeps my company out of the boiler and slip him a "special" christmas perk:
Priceless!
I'm sorry that you believe your employer shapes your beliefs for you. My employer does NOT represent me, nor should they ever say they do.
Smaller companies often do not have the money, because of larger companies, to buy themselves politicians. Microsoft may support thousands of people, but this country contains MILLIONS of people and there's no reason a company that supports only thousands should have enough sway to negatively affect the MILLIONS it doesn't support.
The richest man in the Senate right now is Kerry, a democrat, who BTW is running for President in 2004. He has his fingers in more big company tills than half the of the Senate combined. Likewise for Clinton and Daschle.
No one is doing it more than anyone else, and to presume so is detrimental to our progress.
The occasional individual candidate here in the States has made similar virtuous pledges to deny themselves corporate fundings. It's almost always a sure road to anonymity. If voters have never heard of you or your party, they won't vote for you.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
many private lobbying organizations do this. That is how YOU get YOUR voice heard. Both sides of the aisle do this, from NRA to AARP to the Sierra club. I don't think what they do is wrong any more than it is for a corporation. So there are ways for you joe public to get your voice heard.
Instead, I have to read this thread full of knee jerk us/republican/bush/cheney bashing that gets modded up as insightful. Think a little before you bitch. Corporations do this, but guess what, you can too. I know bush doesnt have time to have dinner at my place to discuss my views on the environment, but if I were to join the Sierra club it would help, no? Okay, go ahead and mod me down now cause I didn't slam bush...
Because we can't all come together on the vi vs. Emacs debate, let alone campaign finance reform.
Simple. Stop voting for the people who accept donations from people you do not want influence from in the government. Narrows down your voting choices alot, but remember. No vote is thrown away. Every vote is a message. If everyone votes the same way, then their message is the one heard. So, if you vote for the person who is not as bad in your opinion and might actually win, and so does everyone else, then the cycle continues. But when EVERYONE begins to vote their conscience, and doesn't just vote for the major candidates then things might begin to change.
Derek Greene
Oh, BS. There's no reason to believe that Microsoft really "represents" the interests of the people it employs. It represents the interest of the top management, or -- if you are really magnaminous -- of the shareholders. Each of those Microsoft employees and investors has exactly the same right to vote (and to donate time, energy, or money) as I do -- but they have no greater right just because they work for Microsoft or own its stock.
It'd be nice if we'd all remember that corporations are not people -- not even the oft-misquoted Taney decisions say that they are -- and they have fewer rights than the individual. Or at least, they do under the theory of government to which we allegedly subscribe.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Now, I know that's not going to happen so what I personally advocate is no limits but *FULL* disclosure of who gave the funds.
You don't want a pure democracy. That's the equivalent of mob rule, where the majority rules and the minority and dissenting opinion is effectively squelched. The founders of the US of A went through great lengths to protect the minority opinion and, if I remember correctly, it wasn't until Woodrow Wilson that the nation was referred to as a democracy.
A republic on the other hand, insists that the law rules regardless of what the majority wants. This is not popular a lot of times. For example, the majority of people in the USA want to give up freedoms for security, but the Constitution is effectively slowing down, if not preventing, the complete elimination of our freedoms in favor of security. The times that you do see the Constitution being ignored, you're seeing a great example of true democracy in action.
This feels a bit impolite, I'm not American so perhaps I shouldn't mix in these discussions, but whatever :).
I think it should be like this: you are allowed to put money into campaigns if you are allowed to vote. Otherwise, the election is none of your business. Corporations are not allowed to vote.
Of course, corporations will then give money to individuals, who can give it to campaigns, etc. Outlaw that too.
Then, you get the problem that rich citizens will have more influence than poor citizens. That isn't right, they are equal, one isn't better than the other. So put a low cap on the allowed contributions (I believe that is already in place, though it could be lower).
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
Although it is a nice idea. To let *foreign* countries have a say in what the U.S. does in the future, instead of the other way round :)
As sad as this is, it is not a new thing. I recently have been reading Greg Palast's book The Best Democracy Money can Buy. A fascinating reading.
Greg Palast is an investigative reporter that researches and goes deep into various issues (he broke the news on the Florida ballot cleaning in 2000). The book covers a number of interesting topics from Enron and its alliances to the government and how they got preferential treatment and how they used this in the US and abroad to their advantage.
A few months ago, someone told me `Remember: all governments lie', which I figured, seems pretty acurrate, but not much to debate over dinner in that topic. I think there is a tacit agreement that governments lie.
The shocking news came from reading Daniel Ellsberg's Secrets book in which he details how five consecutive adminisrtrations lied to congress, and lie to the american people about what they were doing in Vietnam. An interesting interview with Daniel Ellsberg in Salon (here) gives a quick overview of the book. For those who do not know, Daniel took some secret documents from the government in the 70's and got them published by the New York Times. The documents exposed the lies from the five administrations. Although the government tried to stop the publication of the documents (known from then on as "The Pentagon Papers", google found this which gives you some context, as well as the history around the event).
So anyways, the short story is that democracy needs to be revamped with new technology. Hundreds of years ago it was perfectly possible to elect a leader/representative, trust him to do what he promised on behalf of the voters and revisit the issue on an upcoming election.
But today's leader's loyalty is not to the voters, but to those who allow them to get the votes, people with enough funds to drive the agenda in any direction they please. Greg Palast's book points out that the current administration unlike previous administrations no longer has to deal with external lobbysts, the lobby now has got offices right in the White House (he goes on detail about the Enron's hand-picked policy makers and those who reverted Clinton's decisions regarding Enron's involvement in California).
With the technology available today, democracy could be referendum-based, through electronic voting on key issues.
Miguel.
... Is the day democracy died. Corporation aren't people. You may want to take them into account *as a side effect* of taking care of people, as in , taking care of the economy, but they should never take stake before people. Remmember. The governement is here for the *whole* not for special interrest. That is the theory. The practice is that people are "forgotten" and corporation rules. And I thougth that Gibson's neuromancer was too far away, or all this cyberpunk roman where corporation rules...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
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I'm sorry, you do not count as much as an entity representing thousands of people.
You make the fatal assumption that those in charge of the business cares about its employees as much as their own interests.
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Aren't corporations supposed to, in law, have the rights of an individual? Shouldn't they be subject to that limit the same as an individual?
Absolutely not. That would render individual limits pointless as anyone could start up 10,000 corporations and donate $25K with each.
Here's a reform proposal guaranteed to piss off anyone with a vested interest in the current system:
1) Only registered voters in a particular region can contribute to candidates, campaigns or parties in that region (country, district, state, nation).
2) There are no limits to contributions, but they must be from registered voters.
3) Corporations and unions are not registered voters, and cannot contribute to any candidate or party. Only individual human beings can register to vote.
4) Corporations and unions may not direct or command any employee, member or executive to contribute to any political organization or campaign.
5) Registered voters may join an association of other registered voters for the purpose of pooling funds.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Aside from the overwhelming constitutional problem, to ban advertising would be to forbid the candidate from speaking to the polity except through official state channels. Actually, that last idea scares the hell out of me. We do have some limitations on fundraising, much more so with McCain-Feingold, but the proposed level of state-enforced structure is disturbing to me, and most Americans.
:)
The other point I'd raise is: Do we want to be Switzerland? On the serious side, Switzerland failed to ask itself hard questions about its involvement in WWII, a war that it is of questionable honor to sit out, and far more questionable to remain neutral and even profit through laundering Nazi gold.
On the lighter side it the old joke: What has 500 years of Swiss peace brought us? The cuckoo clock.
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Of course this would lead to full employment. In the stone age we had full employment, too. (Unconditional) full employment is not good per se. We have only partial employment because our economy is so efficient that we do not NEED full employment to sustain the extremely high living standard. The Green now want to reduce efficiency to old levels to reach full employment again. I think this is the wrong way. The correct way is to look either for mechanisms to distribute the work more equally over the population (i.e. encourage part-time work or opening up new fields of economy with need for manpower) or to assist the few people that have no work (i.e. welfare).
I think the first option is the better one, because welfare has some drawbacks: it's expensive above a certain unemployment level and to have no work at all has also severe psychological consequences for the affected people and their families. That does not mean that welfare should be eliminated completely - it should just be a last hope for difficult cases.
I have yet to understand how it is that a two-party system can be touted as a model democracy? Being a Canadian it is unfathomable for me that every person in a country as large as the U.S. could either be a Democrat or Republican. Granted you have the Green Party, some Independents, and the "miscellaneous" parties in the U.S. but both are treated as fringe elements with only the Democratic party and GOP considered mainstream.
I think it's the two party system that is the fundamental problem. We saw it during the last election where Ralph Nader wasn't allowed in the debates for no other reason other than that it would have showed a different/fresh point of view that did NOT conform to either the Democratic/Republican agenda. Both parties are so well bought out by industry that neither one could afford to allow Nader to speak. The sooner people realize that both the Democrats and Republicans share a mutual agenda that is formed and funded by the same set of corporations, foreign governments, and interest groups the sooner they will understand that the two-party system is only a pretext for a ONE-party system.
The fact is that it's a lot easier to pay off two political camps on a regular basis than it is three, four, or more. The two party system is a way to ensure the illusion of diversity while making sure bribery is as easy as (American) pie. Paying off the Democratic party to put aside its convictions on a Republican bill/resolution (or vice versa) is a lot easier than paying off several parties at once.
Given the current state of politics in the U.S. there is very little hope for campaign finance reform laws that will outlaw the shameless "donations" both parties so heavily rely on. Asking the gremlins in congress/senate to ratify such laws would be like you asking your employer to stop giving you such large bonuses to help the company- it ain't never gonna happen.
The challenge is to have more political parties that do NOT toe the line. There is strength in numbers and the more we have the less merry "donaters" will be.
Actually, according to the World Bank's Corruption Index, Canada scores a 9.2, making it the 5th least corrupt country in the world; compare to the US's 7.5, making it the 16th least.
"As you recall in our conversation some weeks ago, you agreed to upgrade your Team 100 membership to the Regent program ($250,000) when the merger was approved," Republican Party fund-raiser Mel Sembler wrote in 2000 to the chief of the now-bankrupt Global Crossing telecommunications company, which had already given $100,000.
"Thankfully this has now been approved, so I am taking the liberty of enclosing an invoice for the additional upgrade," Sembler added in one of dozens of fund-raising memos the political parties turned over to a court hearing the first legal challenge of the nation's new campaign finance law.
Many people (myself included) believe in capitalism because they believe that economics has proven it to be an efficient system. Economics assumes a level playing field. When that field is unleveled, capitalism is not efficient (or, if you prefer, it is not capitalism).
If one accepts free market economics, it is reasonable to believe that it is in the public interest to pursue wealth. If, however, it is practical to use acquired wealth to unlevel the playing field and as a result acquire more wealth than was expended, this belief is not reasonable.
The US chose capitalism because it is believed, under the tenets of free market economics, to be efficient and in the public interest. If that prerequisite assumption is invalid, then the conclusion is invalid. If the US ceases to target efficient economic growth, then it will decline relative to its potential.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
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adding light to an interesting proposal (Copying parent text), by AC:
that directly addresses this issue. The author, Dr. Cushman, has advanced in
Fascism n. A philosophy or system of government that advocates or exercises
a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with an ideology of belligerent nationalism.
New College Edition of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Copyright 1969, Houghton Mifflen.
There is an essay that is currently being hosted at: http://brutusworks.com/politics/bribe_bazaar.htm
his thinking since the essay was written and is now trying to set up a web site
(BreakTheLink.org) that can be used to coordinate the efforts of volunteers
willing to fight. This is how: For fascism to thrive, there has to be a monetary
link between corporations and politicians. Breaking this link is the key to
recovering our Republic. There are two paths that can be taken to fight political
bribery. First, there are 24 states (and the District of Columbia) that have
provisions for direct citizen democracy in their constitutions. A citizen initiative
something like the following pursued in these states would be very useful (language
for Florida):
We The Citizens of Florida hold that those elected to represent and govern
the entire body politic within Florida cannot accept bribes from individuals
or organizations with special interests from within said body politic without
accruing the taint of dishonor and the burden of bias; and further, that the
offering of bribes to elected representatives in order to influence the specific
ends of said individuals or organizations, or the accepting of said bribes by
said elected representatives constitutes Treason to the remaining constituents
of said body politic and shall be punished as such under the felony laws of
the State of Florida. For the purposes of this Amendment, the following expressions
shall have the indicated definitions and may be used in the singular or plural.
Bribe means: Anything given or serving to persuade or induce. Bribery
means: the act or practice of giving or accepting a bribe. For the purposes
of this Amendment a bribe does not include information or media necessary to
transmit information as long as said media has a monetary value less than $100.
Treason means: the betrayal of a trust or confidence; a breach of
faith; treachery. For the purposes of this Amendment, a charge of bribery shall
be construed in two parts: the first part shall be a question of the fact of
a transfer of money or other value from an individual or special interest group
to a public official. All parties shall be presumed innocent of said charge
of monetary or other value transfer until proven guilty beyond a reasonable
doubt. The second part of a bribery charge concerns the fact of whether a proven
transfer of money or other value is influencing and thus an act of Bribery and
Treason. the burden of proof for a public official or individual or special
interest group accused of bribery shall lie with the accused to prove beyond
a reasonable doubt that money or value accepted is not influencing.
It needs work, I know, but you get the idea. The second possible approach is described in the essay referenced above.
One thing's for sure. There's free speech, and then there's the modern mass media. TV and radio, and the new economies of broadcast that come with them, didn't exist until long after the Constitution began to yellow. You can stick your head in the sand and pretend that we should leave the mass media as uncontrolled as regular speech, but then you'll get an awful mess as a result... like we have!
Not only that, but there is a startlingly common hypocrisy by those who claim that "Dan Heskett" on a street corner, the local paper, the local radio station, and the TV networks, should all receive equal treatment in our society. Everyone knows that what goes on TV has immense effects. Yet there's this smarmy doublethink surrounding it. You have ideologues who claim the sanctity of the current political system vis a vis TV under the umbrella of the venerable Fourth Estate, but who can within minutes (and without considering it strange) rabidly campaign to censor "harmful" and "dangerous" images like a stray nipple or a proscribed word. But I'm sure you believe nudity, cursing, and graphic violence on TV is fine, because, after all, this is America.
And it's easy for us to not examine that thoroughly because it's scary to most people that, yes, really, what we see on TV affects our beliefs, behaviors, and decisions, often in the most literal and pedantic way. In fact, directly. Massively. The whole advertising industry is a 12-figure testimony to this fact. TV and radio have supplanted the community culture that came before them, and replaced it with a uniform source, and that has big consequences. And unlike newspapers, I cannot start a TV station if I'm unhappy with the local coverage. In fact, I think as an exercise, before you start going on about the sacredness of your press and its speech, you should go figure out what it takes to start your own radio station.
Or what the penalties are for "unauthorized" broadcasts.
It turns out, "we" take threats to the current broadcaster's hegemony with the most deadly seriousness. Perhaps because... "unregulated" broadcasting is... in the words of the FCC: dangerous.
This is one reason why the Internet is such a positive invention. But I digress.
New systems, new playing field, new rules. Right now the rules are that you have to pay astronomical sums to the broadcast trust for a few seconds of airtime. They can refuse your business, or not. If one of the broadcast trust members wants to devote an entire channel to Republican propaganda and call it "Fox News", hey, it's good to be the king.
You can hypothesize bad new rules - straw men of censorship and totalitarianism that you hold up when your fundamentalist take on the First Amendment is questioned, but you can't abdicate responsibility for thinking of a better way to have a mass-media embued democracy. In other words, rather than hiding your head in the sand, or crying about the wrong way to do things, consider what good alternatives there are to having political control go to those with the best ties, financial and otherwise, to the media.
The Swiss simply said, if I understand it correctly from another poster here, no political ads allowed on TV and radio. If they didn't, let's consider it hypothetically anyway. You don't quite know how to level the modern playing field, so you just go back to the system the Framers understood - one where all political speech is far more equal, because anyone can afford newsprint, and practically anyone can become their own publisher. Censorship, as another responder pointed out, can take many forms. You are invoking the specter of Soviet Russia where the real danger is more that of the Highway Patroll. You just can't drive faster that 65 MPH, sir. No, no one can. Not even if they're His Majesty Rupert Murdoch the First.
Dan Heskett can curse on the street. In New York, "Danette Heskett" can even walk around on the street topless. Yet we think that broadcasting curses and nipples is so dangerous that the thought of it ending up on NBC where a parent might somehow momentarily lapse in their parental supervision and allow their child to see it sends us into conniptions. And yet we can simultaneously believe that laissez fair is a good idea for political speech in the media.
Astounding, isn't it?
One of the few "conservative" beliefs I harbor is a faith in the right to self-defense. I believe that if we truly grant that ordinary men and women can bear the responsibility to vote, or to raise children without supervision, we have no choice but to assume they are up to the trivial (and millenia old) right of owning and carrying a weapon. Yet, just as with driver's licenses, we acknowledge that for the general safety of all, some basic prudence is in order, and we do some paperwork, and we have some simple ground rules.
In advocating "free speech" as your only guiding principle when discussing politics and the mass media, you are like a pro-weapon extremist who believes that nuclear weapons should be unregulated.
Actually, writing as you are, today, in America, you're like a pro-weapon extremist making a speach on how regulating nuclear weapons is wrong from inside a gigantic, smoking, eerily luminescent blast crater.
Still, from one admirer of the Constitution to another, I hope you will take my arguments in the spirit of good faith and respect with which they are intended.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
That was before the dark time, before the Supreme Court decided that bribery was protected by the first amendment.
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So how are they going to pay for services (the Mounties, locks & canals, etc.)? With a wink and a smile?
If money wins elections, why aren't Steve Forbes and Ross Perot building their presidential libraries now?
Because their goofiness outweighs their monetary advantage over the poorer millionaires.
For now, the ballot box is still secret. We can still use it. We still do. We are not all fools. Thank God, and may god truly bless America. Please? God? Are you listening?
BEEP. We're sorry, but the number you have dialed has been disconnected. No further information is available for 1-800-DEAR-GOD.
...huge import tariffs. ...they plan on taxing the hell out of property owners. ...and unofficially, don't worry; computer technology is considered as necessary as a phone. ;)
Not huge, but a little less USA-influenced.
Yes, to an extent, but it involves a complete income tax system revamp. It also, more importantly, means that you can reduce your taxation when you're only paying for necessities, as opposed to the luxuries for which people who can afford taxes would be willing to pay.
This would reduce welfare strain, for example.