News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Software firms across US facing tax bills that threaten startup survival. Parent comment

Re:Software firms across US facing tax bills that threaten s... by tomrod on Tuesday April 18, 2023 @05:38PM (#35620639)
It wasn't, then or in the 1860s, hence the strong, modern, adaptive federalism we have today that treats states as provinces and makes important things move quickly.

One could squint and say states matter today, but that's just admitting a need for glasses. They are ghosts of what they were, and increasingly need to be retired.

It will be nice when we put to pasture the policy-as-experiments across states for things that are clearly universally demanded: finance, health insurance, women's medical care, education, defense, gun control, decreased corporate control of the food supply, transportation, environmental regulation, and so forth. It's amazing how much the modern GOP has pushed folks towards this, may they continue their business Republican-led shenanigans to unite the country and encourage progress when otherwise we would be slovenly.

Why is this the case? Duplication of fixed costs are expensive.

Let's get rid of these crufty overindulgent home-owners-associations-on-steriods and federalize already.

(paragraphs 1, 4 serious, the rest in jest)

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Software firms across US facing tax bills that threaten s... by lesuorac on Tuesday April 18, 2023 @06:24PM (#35621259)
While paragraph 3 may be in jest, the non-standization meant that some states did allow women to vote long before it was constitutionally mandated. Of course it also meant some people were enslaved long before it was explicitly constitutionally allowed.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Software firms across US facing tax bills that threaten s... by tomrod on Tuesday April 18, 2023 @06:51PM (#35621569)
Something said in jest may yet contain elements of truth! :)
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Software firms across US facing tax bills that threaten s... by lr4444lr on Tuesday April 18, 2023 @09:01PM (#35622821)
Same with gay marriage. Methinks the GP is taking a LOT for granted about federal programs being implemented well and not subject to the same malaise of partisan gridlock that prevents them from coming into existence.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Software firms across US facing tax bills that threaten s... by dsfyu404ed on Tuesday April 18, 2023 @07:58PM (#35622258)
>and increasingly need to be retired.

There's ~150 million people that think the opposite should be done.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Software firms across US facing tax bills that threaten s... by tomrod on Tuesday April 18, 2023 @08:59PM (#35622806)
Phew, just a minority in the US then that doesn't digest a whole comment. I was worried!
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Software firms across US facing tax bills that threaten s... by snovv_crash on Wednesday April 19, 2023 @04:58AM (#35625959)
I think you have it backwards. The states should be given more power, and possibly broken up. There's no accountability once your number of constituents exceeds about 1M people.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Software firms across US facing tax bills that threaten s... by tomrod on Wednesday April 19, 2023 @07:03AM (#35626703)
No, that duplicates fixed administrative costs, requiring more government.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Software firms across US facing tax bills that threaten s... by lesuorac on Wednesday April 19, 2023 @08:56AM (#35627550)
I think you're going the wrong way with this.

The problem is that there are too few representatives and so they can build collations that explicitly exclude your interests while still representing you.

I think it would be much better to have some dual-system to send representatives to congress where you could either Vote or Petition to get a representative. If you Vote its basically the same as currently. But if you Petition you and ~150k other people do not get to Vote but the person you're petitioning for is your representative.

[ Parent | on HN ]