President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Showing a tax return should not be a prerequisite for holding public office. The idea is pretty undemocratic.

Even if they made it one, does that mean that someone who didn't file a tax return can't be an elected official?

 

Define financial entanglements? Because everyone has a financial entanglement of some sort. You work a job for a salary. Someone could argue that is a financial entanglement.

The real problem is that we have morphed into a system in which our government has been allowed to hijack large swaths of the economy. Because that creates an inherent lack of accountability, it means that we have gotten the inevitable. Graft and corruption. If there are limits on the offices themselves that don't allow them to hand out money and favors, the number of possible financial entanglements, as you put it, would be way reduced. At least from the mess we have created. But what someone earned money from before they are in office has no impact on what they may or may not do once they are in office. How many shitty politico types have never had a real and productive job, and therefore have no "financial entanglements" but stay in elected office by handing out favors to various special interests and industry groups in return for money and votes?

I think it is perfectly legitimate for people to decide not to vote for someone like Donald Trump, before demanding that he transparently lay out any potential conflicts of interests. But if he doesn't lay it all out there, and people vote for him anyhow, that means they didn't care enough. People can make those decisions for themselves, and value it how THEY choose to.

 

People can decide for themselves what they want a candidate to disclose before they vote for the person. That is the purpose of a vote in a democracy. As I said, it is perfectly legit for you personally to say, "You know what, if Donald Trump doesn't open the books for his business, I just can't vote for him." If enough people agreed with you, he wouldn't have been elected. That is how a democracy works. People didn't care enough. So he won. That is the way it should be. Adults can decide what they value in a candidate for themselves.

Mandating private things and putting requirements on people to run for office actually can have all kinds of negative consequences. For example, requirements are often used to create barriers -- for getting into a profession, for voting, etc. Given how dirty our political system can be, it's likely those kinds of requirements would be used corruptly to try to limit who can and can't run for office.

When it comes to a democracy, I am totally in favor of keeping it as simple as possible. If people want to know something from you as a candidate, and you won't answer their concerns. ... they don't have to vote for you.