Welcome to America
In many countries it is legal to promise a tax rebate when you are in office. Many cons (oops, I mean conservatives) use this as voting bait for people with no critical thinking skills, and then turn around and give their corporate masters and billionaires huge tax cuts that make those same voters loose critical services that makw them pay out of pocket.
In other words, “Heres $200 to vote for me so i can make your life way more expensive on a yearly basis through medical care, less regulation, less infrastructure repair”.
This is the same grift, but more blatant and obviously something that would never get fulfilled, which is why the number is so big. Bigger numbers make critical thinking fail harder, especially when times are economically tough. It tends to get cons reelected even when they are not doing well in polls, speaking from the Canadian experience in this.
There will never be a payout of 5 k ,from taco, all lies
But the far right pretending to be socialists and for the workers is a long tradition dating back to at least 1920.
Yes it is illegal for you to do that, as it would be for Trump. But no, Trumps proposed 5k checks to all adult citizens, as I understand it, is legal. I’m pretty disappointed in the other answers. A few relevant points.
- Remember the model for sending checks to folks: CARES. Both Biden and Trump have previously done this.
- Congress can legally amend and pass laws. Note that the law that makes bribing for votes illegal is not in the constitution, so it requires only the usual legal action to amend it.
- I note that the policy Trump proposed isn’t discriminatory on who you vote for; your hypothetical does. (I suspect this is irrelevant for the legality, but certainly helps the optics.)
Also if you have sex with a minor is illegal but if you are the President then it’s OK.
That’s the secret to Conservative power in America.
Step 1: Make everything illegal
Step 2: Accept bribes to overlook crimes of allies
Step 3: Punish the shit out of your opponents.
Congrats! America is now Russia, with better food and shittier fascists.
Everything is legal when everyone let you write the rules.
Or ignore the rules that someone else wrote to prevent you from doing the thing.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
It is a very unfortunate situation, one that definitely affects 70 billion people. But please solve your own problems on your own. So far I’ve filtered out
/Trump/iand still about 30% of the posts are about him.There’s just one country who’s political problems are spammed all over. They should find their own communities.
Surely the best response the Democrats could say is “if we win the midterms we’ll use Trumps financial plans to give you all 5k”… Trump can hardly then criticise it, it takes away the advantage of the bribe and if they win the midterms they can then declare “it was all bollocks there is no trillion dollars left lieing around to hand out”
It’s very different. One is “I will give YOU money if you vote for me” and the other is “I will give EVERYONE money if I win”. The main difference is that one is not discriminating against who people voted for. The first is buying votes, the second is a campaign similar to “I will retroactively lower taxes for this year if I win”, which I don’t think anyone would see as problematic but it’s exactly the same outcome as the one you’re finding problem with, i.e. give people money.
It’s a stupid campaign because anyone with half a brain understand that he’s not going to do it and that that money would have to come from someplace else, but it’s still a campaign promise similar to any other promise politicians make to ask you to vote for them.
Laws protect the rich and bind the poor. The law is operating exactly as intended.
I hate the orange turd but your comparison is not 100% right. He’d gift 5000$ to everyone, not just who voted for him. I think that’s still illegal tho
It’s not illegal. He gave out those COVID dividend checks and it was the most popular thing he’s ever done. It’s just a gross incentive for votes. The government needs that money for governance activities. It’s like ripping the bathtub out of someone’s house and gifting it to them “for free!”
I mean it’s probably not typically allowed under any normal laws and regulations, but they can always find a loop hole to do something like that in a legalish manner (like under a state of emergency, or with an executive order SCOTUS upholds, or hijacking a program meant for something else).
I hate the orange turd and your observation is about 100% wrong. He will not pay anyone. He will keep the money himself.
I didn’t mean he’d give a dime to anybody given the fact that he’s a pathological liar but he didn’t say “I will give 5000$ to those who vote for me” but “I will give 5000$ to everyone”. And since I’m not a lawyer I don’t know if that’s illegal to say, as opposed to give “gifts” to only those who vote for a certain party
do you have supreme court immunity?
I mean, There’s also the more direct approach if one wants to give out bribes in return for votes… Remember this? Tell me more about how amazing and just the Western Democracy is.
Technically, the equivalent would be you standing outside a polling place with a sign saying “I will give every adult in the area $500 if Candidate X wins”.
Ostensibly, you could just be lying (just like Trump) - and that would probably be covered under your 1st Amendment rights.
It’s stupid, but there is enough of a disconnect between action and reward that it might skirt past.
No, that’s not how that works.
18 U.S.C. § 597 - U.S. Code - Unannotated Title 18. Crimes and Criminal Procedure § 597.
Whoever makes or offers to make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against any candidate; and
Whoever solicits, accepts, or receives any such expenditure in consideration of his vote or the withholding of his vote—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if the violation was willful, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
That seems pretty straightforward. So the law is correct, it’s just useless because the system founded on these laws is broken.
I didn’t realize Ayn Rand’s ghost had a lemmy account.
This isn’t broken at all. Unless you think every form of government social spending should be illegal, then you shouldn’t try to make it a felony for politicians to run for office promising to establish government programs or give people money through acts of Congress. You’re advocating for full on libertarianism.
I think you are confusing paying someone a direct bribe for their vote, with infrastructure spending. When you say it isn’t broken at all, are you saying that an imperfect dystopia based on power and money is the utopian goal that we all seek? I say a lot is working, but a lot is broken. When you say ‘not broken at all’ then I cannot believe you have a good understanding of the societal wherewithal.
You need to work on your reading comprehension.
Well…there is no way I can defend against an argument like that.
It would be pointless. Your reading skills are not developed enough to merit a proper reply.
“I will give you money if you vote for me”
Is different from
“I will give everyone money if I win”
The first is paying someone to vote and is outlawed by the law you cited. The second has a disconnect between the money and the vote. Everyone gets the money, even those that voted for the other guy. Thus it might be legal.
Sounds to me like this has to be tried in court (unless it has not already) for a legal president to be made, and thus decided if it is legal or not. IANAL
Whoever makes or offers to make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against any candidate;
“I will give everyone money if I win” is offering money to people for voting. Voting for the candidate is implied, yes, but offering to pay everyone is still offering money to people for voting.
Oh I’m REALLY playing devil’s advocate on this one
Promising everyone, no exceptions, 5k if you win, is kind of a campaign promise rather than a bribe.
I’m going to shower for 2 hours to get the stench off me now
I should look forward to Trump getting charged with that, then?
But more seriously, there would be countless lawyers happy to argue that a general statement such as “$500 to every adult in the county if John Smith wins” does not technically break that particular law because it’s not explicitly targeted at any one individual recipient, nor is it contingent on them participating in an election whatsoever.
Just as I’m also sure there would be more than one sympathetic Trump-appointed judge to side with the defendant too.
US laws mean nothing if they aren’t actively being followed.
People in this thread forget that the Supreme Court already gave Trump immunity from prosecution.
Though this becomes wishy with politicians/parties. You offering to pay for people’s healthcare costs if they vote for your favourite candidate would probably be illegal, but a candidate promising to institute universal healthcare is just a campaign promise, so this law leaves a very legitimate open question of when something a candidate says stops being a campaign promise and starts being a legally problematic bribe, because ultimately all campaign promises boil down to “vote for me and I will do something good for you/something you like”.
You could very much argue that a candidate promising UBI is effectively not very different from what Trump promised.
What if someone says, “5000 will be on the table if I’m really happy. Candidate x winning will make me really happy”?
