Why is Bernie Sanders rated F by the NRA?

[ericoak]

The super rich people acquired a controlling interest in a company when it was in it's infancy and is now worth billions.

 

[kcbrown]

I think we are too far down the rabbit hole for tariffs. that would cost the current corporations far more than reducing the tax rate to a low level. The current government needs to generate revenue to pay its debt, and its proper functions. right now people and the income taxes are covering the majority of that. that is you and me. people who do not get to deduct our "expenses". i need to buy a car to get to my job, still pay tax on that income. a business needs a car to get to its job, they write it off their income.

all i am asking for is equal treatment under the law. Its not like i am suggesting companies pay an income tax on ALL revenue, such as individuals are subject to.

In principle, I completely agree. But the effects I described exist whether you like it or not, and whether it's fair or not. We have to be as fair as possible when dealing with reality, but we nevertheless must deal with reality regardless.

I'm not suggesting that we reduce/eliminate corporate taxes without doing the same for individual taxes. I'm suggesting we eliminate both altogether and go back to tariffs. While I'm sure that tariffs will prove disadvantageous to corporations as they are right now, they will do so only because those corporations insist on making things using non-US labor. I can't fault them for that decision: US labor is more expensive, but as I mentioned, one of the reasons for that is the fact that US labor is taxed. Realistically, when you add up all the taxes US individuals have to pay, the end result is that US labor is something like twice as expensive as it otherwise would be.

Now, it may be that cutting the cost of US labor in half wouldn't be enough, but that's only because the competition lives in squalor or are slaves. But in any case, US labor is less competitive because it is taxed heavily, and US corporations are likewise less competitive because they are taxed as well.

Tariffs are the only means I know of to provide revenue for the government at the expense of someone else, rather than at our own expense.


Lest you think I'm against the free market or something, I'm not. I'd rather that nobody have to pay taxes at all. But if I have to choose between us and the other guys when deciding who should shoulder the burden of government, I vote for putting it on the other guys.


The problem isn't what the desirable result should look like, it's how to get from here to there. It may be impossible to do that (indeed, I expect it is), but you can't know until you try. You can either choose to stay with the brokenness that we have today and see it get worse over time, or you can try to reach something better. I choose the latter. Unfortunately, I don't think many others choose the latter, either because they like where we are and where we're headed, or because they're afraid to risk making things worse despite the fact that "worse" is where we're already headed.

We got where we are through relatively slow change, a slow but steady tightening of the noose around our collective necks. We can back out of that the same way.

We've thus far been approaching the problem of taxation as a problem of how to pay for government expenditures. We've got that backwards. What we should be doing is approaching the problem of government as a problem of how to spend no more than we're taking in. Raising taxes is easy, and that's what we've been doing all this time. And it's killing us. It's time to do something different. It's time to take the harder road.

 

[jrumann59]

Here is an experiment I like address that shows that the upper 10% don't pay their fair share. Because of this, the middle class foots the bill. This works in my county (St. Mary's) but would be curious how it works in others.

Go to realtor.com and search for houses in your area. Sort by cost from highest to lowest. Take the first 5 houses. Then go look at the SDAT data. You'll find that the asking price versus the tax appraised value does not match. Sometimes asking is twice that of appraised. Then go check yours.

Could it be really expensive houses just do not move as fast in any market. Most assessments are based on selling prices and records of similar types of properties and structures. If I have 5 million to throw around first I am going to a more tax friendly county, secondly I am buying something that is hard to group with others.

 

[Not_an_outlaw]

Could it be really expensive houses just do not move as fast in any market. Most assessments are based on selling prices and records of similar types of properties and structures. If I have 5 million to throw around first I am going to a more tax friendly county, secondly I am buying something that is hard to group with others.

I don't know the answer, but it just seems strange to me that the tax values are significantly less as a percentage when you get up to high end homes. There is, of course, the asking versus selling issue, but I think the gap remains.

 

[jrumann59]

I don't know the answer, but it just seems strange to me that the tax values are significantly less as a percentage when you get up to high end homes. There is, of course, the asking versus selling issue, but I think the gap remains.

its more a volume thing, in transient areas houses will sell often in its life and those sale numbers affect the tax. More expensive houses do not turn around as often and prices do not fluctuate as much so the values will be pretty static for long periods.


Is it me or is Bernie going to be the DNC Ross Perot.

 

[Dogabutila]

Bernies job this election is to make Hilary look a viable option to non-female centrists (or, closer to centrist).

They couldn't run Warren because that would split the vote in the primaries and maybe let somebody else get it.

 

[EL1227]

Why is Bernie Sanders rated F by the NRA ?

Because he's nuttier than a fruitcake and the NRA would be the first to require that mentally ill persons not be allowed near a gun, let alone voting on whether I should have one.

NYT.com ... of all places.
Bernie Sanders’s Revolutionary Roots Were Nurtured in ’60s Vermont

Not only that he's a product of the 60's hippie movement <full disclosure, I am too ... but I 'matured'>, he's certifiable ... or at least was, but a suit, gray hair, and being elected as a Senator from Vermont has leant some respectability to his otherwise left-leaning outlook on anything and everything. Apparently Vermonter's like their granola-politicians as he's the longest serving 'independent' <n.e. socialist> in Congress.

“Freelance journalist” has always been on the list of things he did before he began running for statewide office, futilely, as a Liberty Union Party candidate in the 1970s. But the description is a bit of a stretch. A look through his journalistic output, such as it was, reveals that he had perhaps a dozen articles published — interviews, essays, state-of-the-nation diatribes — most in The Freeman [a place for like-minded leftists to opine in outraged tones about the issues of the day].

Mr. Sanders contributed [articles in The Freeman] only sporadically. He interviewed a “labor agitator” and an old-time farmer, and he wrote some articles about health, including one in which he cited studies claiming that cancer could be caused by psychological factors such as unresolved hostility toward one’s mother, a tendency to bury aggression beneath a “facade of pleasantness” and having too few orgasms.

AFA guns and the NRA rating ... It's a 'D', not an 'F' ...
A 'D' rating is given to those they consider to have a mixed record. They consider the 'D' to mean that no matter what the politician says publicly they can't be counted on to vote the right way on issues important to the NRA.

Bernie Sanders on Gun Control
OnTheIssues inaccurately noted his 'F' rating ...

Voted YES on banning high-capacity magazines of over 10 bullets.
Voted NO on decreasing gun waiting period from 3 days to 1.

Politico.com -
Bernie Sanders’ awkward history with guns in America
The renewed debate about gun violence could resurface Sanders’ erratic record on gun control.

The NRA didn’t campaign for Sanders in 1990, and Jeff Weaver, the campaign manager for his presidential bid and a longtime adviser, noted that Sanders supported an assault weapons ban and never embraced a pro-gun message.

And even when voting for significant gun control measures, Sanders has tempered his support. In 2013, he voted for universal background checks and an assault weapons ban

And there's THIS from Reason. com -
Martin O'Malley Attacks Bernie Sanders on Guns

Sanders himself has noted he received a D from the National Rifle Association, and says that describing him as anti-gun control is inaccurate. Nevertheless, he won his first Congressional race in 1990 against a Republican, Peter Smith, who had defeated him in 1988 but voted for an assault weapons ban in the meantime, earning the ire of the NRA, which spent money in Vermont to help defeat him.

Vermont, one of the most liberal states in the union, nevertheless has among the laxest gun laws on the books. It may be too much nuance for a liberal base that's become worryingly historically illiterate, but opposition to gun control comports with liberal values when those values are imbued with a healthy distrust of central authority, including government. There's, unsurprisingly, a racial component to this too—much of the contemporary gun control infrastructure was created in the 1960s as a response to fear of armed black people.

He might not be as 'progressive' as O'Malley, but he certainly is no friend of 2A.

 

[Kharn]

He votes against us when it's close, and with us when it's a landslide?

 

[gamer_jim]

I heard an interview with him on NPR a few weeks ago. I don't have the quotes handy but he said something like "people in rural Vermont have different gun needs than people in urban areas. There fore the laws need to be different." Basically he was echoing what Dr. Carson had said last year before he changed his stance.

 

[joppaj]

On guns and only on guns, Bernie is probably better than Shrillery or MoM. Webb would be better than any of the three. Lincoln Chafee is running largely on the idea of putting the US on the metric system, so 9mm should be fine but .40, .45 and .357 are all in trouble.

 

[EL1227]

I heard an interview with him on NPR a few weeks ago. I don't have the quotes handy but he said something like "people in rural Vermont have different gun needs than people in urban areas. There fore the laws need to be different." Basically he was echoing what Dr. Carson had said last year before he changed his stance.

Carson has 'evolved', probably because he has an open and questioning mind. However, Sanders 'we're different' explanation doesn't jive too well with 2A, does it ?

If there was EVER a rationalization of 2A and 14A, Sanders stance on rural vs. urban gun ownership is a GLARING example of why 'equal protection under the law' should be used to justify constitutional carry.

 

[EL1227]

On guns and only on guns, Bernie is probably better than Shrillery or MoM. Webb would be better than any of the three. Lincoln Chafee is running largely on the idea of putting the US on the metric system, so 9mm should be fine but .40, .45 and .357 are all in trouble.

.223 vs 5.56 ... we're good-to-go

 

[joppaj]

.223 vs 5.56 ... we're good-to-go

Right. 7.62x51, good. .308, bad.

 

[DC-W]

10mm for all!!!

 

[gamer_jim]

10mm for all!!!

I didn't WANT a 10mm but the government made me get one.

 

[JWLaRue]

Read this article from CNN and then decide if he's to be trusted with anything, let alone 2A:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/05/politics/bernie-sanders-gun-control/index.html

In particular his 'middle ground' approach wanting to ban semi-automatic firearms.....

-Jeff

 

[rbird7282]

He's still a Socialist. Guns are fine with him until he decides you should no longer have them. That's how socialists work.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[EL1227]

Read this article from CNN and then decide if he's to be trusted with anything, let alone 2A:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/05/politics/bernie-sanders-gun-control/index.html

In particular his 'middle ground' approach wanting to ban semi-automatic firearms.....

-Jeff

WashingtonExaminer.com -
Sanders: The majority of gun owners are responsible and obey the law

How about ALL gun owners are responsible and obey the law. Others just 'possess' a gun, whether illegally or by happenstance ... and they are the ones he should worry about.

Sanders suggested that he could broker a "serious debate and action on guns," but that it won't happen if "we have extreme positions on both sides."

"I come form a state that has virtually no gun control but the people of my state understand that guns in Vermont aren't the same thing as guns in Chicago," he said.

Typical leftist 'divide and conquer' position. I imagine that law abiding and responsible gun owners in Chicago might take exception to his characterization, as would minority gun owners nationwide ... considering his state's history regarding gun control.

From my Reason.com posting above.

Vermont, one of the most liberal states in the union, nevertheless has among the laxest gun laws on the books. It may be too much nuance for a liberal base that's become worryingly historically illiterate, but opposition to gun control comports with liberal values when those values are imbued with a healthy distrust of central authority, including government. There's, unsurprisingly, a racial component to this too—much of the contemporary gun control infrastructure was created in the 1960s as a response to fear of armed black people.

Besides, I'd speculate that 'guns in Vermont' are largely used for hunting.

 

[BeoBill]

He's still a Socialist. Guns are fine with him until he decides you should no longer have them. That's how socialists work.

Yup. And I believe the reason he keeps being elected is all those Boston-employed commuters who no longer live in Taxachusetts who keep the good times rolling (for them only).

 

[Jimbob2.0]

Better than Hildog...........at least he seems to believe what he preaches. However delusional.