It’s probably best to start with the Greek Philosopher Heraclitus. He was one of the first to point out that everything is defined by its opposite. There can be no “cold” if there isn’t a hot, no good if there is no evil, etc. Therefore, one may define a Far Left as a non Far Right. Some examples:

If the Far Right believes the US should intervene militarily whenever we wish, anywhere in the world, at our sole discretion, then the Far Left would believe that the US should not unilaterally intervene militarily in other countries under any circumstances.

If the Far Right believes that all individuals should make their own arrangements for health care without the government involved at all then the Far Left believes the government should completely take over supplying all health care needs to everyone.

If the Far Right believes that a woman has no right to terminate a pregnancy at any time after fertilization for any reason then the Far left believes that a woman has a unilateral right to terminate a pregnancy at any time at her sole discretion.

(A Moderate, who attempts to get the two sides to at least agree that a fetus, that is so sufficiently developed that it has a reasonable chance of surviving outside the womb, if delivered, should be considered an individual and entitled to all the protections of the Constitution, will therefore be attacked by both sides)

Using Heraclitus, defining Far Right and Far Left is easy once you get the hang of it. (Maybe a perfect Moderate can be defined as someone who the Far Right and the Far Left despise equally…”the non Far Right and non Far Left”)

Minimum tax
The Ohioan is right, 5% is too high for poorer people. Maybe the minimum tax should be just 1% of incomes below $10,000 indexing up to 5% when you get to those whose household incomes exceed $30,000. The criteria would then just be that the taxpayer has paid their minimum tax for their income category. We all enjoy the benefits of our great country and everyone should have the opportunity to chip in, even if, at the minimum rate, it’s a small percentage.

According to the bipartisan Tax Policy Center about 46% of households paid no income taxes in 2011. Currently, in the US, the government calculates that about 15% of the households are below the poverty level, (which is about $11,000/year for an individual). Obviously, some below the poverty level do pay income taxes but even if we don’t count any of them, it still leaves almost 1/3 of all potential taxpayers who are not poor, but who pay no taxes. Further, almost 20% of these non payers earn over $30,000/year and this percentage has risen relatively rapidly in the last decade. If all those who are earning over $30,000 and who currently pay no income taxes, had to at least pay a 5% minimum tax, it would add about $20 billion dollars to tax receipts.

The Ohioan shouldn’t be so quick to dis the founding fathers. Considering that we are the developed country that has stayed with the same form of government the longest, the founding fathers did a pretty good job of it. No other major country has the same form of government that it had in the late 1700’s when the USA started. .

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President,…. shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

or you could collect a dollar at the polling booth for every voter and consider them qualified to vote.

How that would get around the poll tax prohibition, I’m not sure. But even if you could, taking 5% of a person’s income just to enable them to vote seems harsh.

I would like to see one new tax, however: a tax on hazardous materials. Companies go through great hoops to reduce their tax burdens. If we replaced standard income taxes with taxes on hazardous materials, maybe that same ingenuity that lets businesses avoid their tax burdens could go towards reducing environmentally damaging production.

Also I’d love to see any”moderate movement” have a civil liberties focus as well, namely working on returning the people to power by overturning Citizens United, for example. Our problems are not just taxes & budgets but the erosion of our representational democracy.

The food thing really bothers me, glad someone onTMV has mentioned this issue. We are losing our net exporter status there, that can’t be good (for numerous reasons).

What is this “far left” you speak of and where are their positions? Every time I see this phrase I ask the same question and get no answer.