[nobodyandproud]

> Corporations do not pay corporate tax, their customers and employees do. Why should we burden our productive populous with tax on their income, tax on their workplace before they even get paid, inflation due to government spending, etc?

I can answer this one: Corporations come with a veil, to shield risk takers from financial liability and ruin.

That’s normally good, as we want to encourage business.

But the corporate veil was never intended as free pass to break or subvert the law; nor to undermine national interests.

It’s both the corporate veil and the sheer size of some multi-state and multinational companies: It takes considerable resources to police.

A single multinational has the resources to undermine any state, with lawyers to delay; and lobbyists to influence legislators against their constituents interests. This undermines government credibility and rule of law.

Look at the broadband fiber fiasco: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/11/verizon-wiring-u...

Or the garbage tier right to repair law, written up by the NY lobbyists: https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/29/23530733/right-to-repair...

You say corporations are very productive, but these hidden costs are being born by everyone including the consumer.

This why limited-liability businesses are expected to pay more: It takes a lot of money to provide necessary oversight.

[newzisgud]

Most of the problems you call out here would be addressed by actually enforcing anti-trust laws, which is something we need to get way better at on both sides of the political isle.

[nobodyandproud]

And how do you expect enforcement of anti-trust laws to happen without headcount and money?

The Chicago school Republicans were responsible for dismantling and starving the institutions meant to enforce these laws; then every Republican did their part to help install judges hostile to said laws. This has been going on for 40 or more years.

The MAGA conservatives are actively allied with these pro-monopoly conservatives, willfully blind, and instead just blame “the other side”.

I agree bi-partisan work is needed here, but pretending this will happen when one party is actively undermining the effort is bad-faith smoke-and-mirrors.

Unless, of course, we take the dictatorship route and ignore rule-of-law and checks-and-balances… (for the record, which I’m very much opposed to).

[newzisgud]

I'm not aware of any efforts to reduce law enforcement in the DOGE effort or within this administration. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I agree that republicans, probably more than democrats, like to hide behind "free market" to protect their donors from anti-trust, but it's certainly a both-sides problem. I do believe MAGA conservatives are less aligned with traditional republicans / neocons than most believe, as evidenced by the fractures within the GOP over the past three election cycles. But overall I do think you and I are on the same page.