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Mostly good stuff. I don’t think I’d merge house and Senate. Some of them need more constraint, like I’d legalize prostitution, but only if it’s regulated like restaurants (health inspectors, workers rights, etc.).
What is your solution the massively disproportionate representation in the senate then? There are currently around 66.7 Californians for every Wyomingite. Do you think Wyomingites deserve 66.7 times the representation in the Senate? And yes, legalization would occur with reasonable regulations which would make sure the industry is safer for all those involved. I tried to keep the list as concise as possible for each issue reformed.
Do you think wyoming deserves to be a state? Every state gets the same representation in the Senate and I think that’s fair. I don’t think it’s fair that the proportional side of the legislature isn’t proportional anymore, though, and fixing that goes a very long way.
States don’t deserve equal representation. American citizens deserve equal representation, they are the ones who create value.
Then what you’re really saying is abolish the concept of states and have a single federal state.
No, states still would elect a number of representatives based on their population. Just no 2 senators per state.
Why even have states? Good way to get rid of jerrymandering would be to get rid of imaginary borders. No states, no senate necessary.
Because state legislatures should continue to exist. If less populated conservative states want to go down a rabbit hole of far right shit then let them. Just don’t give them 2 senators per state to gridlock the states that continue to produce and provide for their population.
Something something…. Redraw state lines every 10 years…
The Senate isn’t intended to be a representative body, it’s just two per state. They aren’t doing things like setting funding/budgets. Congress (the house of representatives) is designed to do that, though that needs some tweaking.
The Senate isn’t intended to be a representative body
Both the house and senate vote to pass bills. The disproportionate population increases have led to less representation of citizens in more populated states.
But the original states didn’t have balanced populations, the founders knew that, but they still set it to be two senators per state. The house is scaled by population.
There are other proposals to solve the Senate’s disproportionate nature, such as apportioning Senate seats by state population. Most proposals I’ve seen for that would leave the Senate with a little more than a hundred seats (with a minimum of 1 seat per state), which would (mostly) solve the problem and make it closer to the house in terms of proportionality. Of course, it all depends on the exact implementation.
What’s the purpose of the senate at that point? Seems redundant, like having two house of representatives.
The point of the Senate is that it’s a more deliberative body, representing larger numbers of people, which serves to moderate the power of the House. Mind you, Congress as a whole was more powerful when the nation was founded; they’ve handed off power to the executive over the years, for better or worse (really, a bit of both). The House was also intended to grow with the population, and if we’d followed the general guidelines for growth the Founders suggested, we’d have a House with more than 600 members. The number of seats was capped ~90 years ago, because Congress didn’t want to fund another renovation of the capitol building to fit more people. Also keep in mind that the States had a more uniform population distribution when the country was founded. You didn’t have California and Nebraska sitting with orders of magnitude of difference between them, so the difference in representation in the Senate was not nearly as significant as it is today.
Wether we need a secondary deliberative body in the legislature or not is a matter of debate and opinion. I can see why you’d want one, but I can also understand why people would think it’s not useful anymore.
There’s no solution needed, since there isn’t a problem to begin with. Individuals (should) have proportional representation in the House, and states have proportional representation in the Senate, which is how it should be.
Do you think Wyomingites deserve 66.7 times the representation in the Senate?
Yes.
There’s no solution needed, since there isn’t a problem to begin with.
This is funny, it’s like an self soothing mantra. I’ll try to repeat this to myself as things get worse.
Beyond what you’ve stated about the disproportionate nature of the Senate, what exact legislative problems are you attributing to the existence of the Senate, and its disproportionate nature? And why do you think a purely proportional body will solve said issues? I’m also curious what you believe the purpose of the Senate, or a bicameral legislature in general, is.
I’m not trying to be accusatory in my probing, I’m simply curious what your exact rationale is ☺️.
The senate exists to maintain an artificial balance and make sure that only the approved things are actually voted on. That is why popular things like marijuana legalization are never voted on.
The senate exists to maintain an artificial balance
What do you mean by “artifical balance”?
and make sure that only the approved things are actually voted on
What do you mean, exactly? Bills are debated as they are presented [See 7.6 and 8.1 of the Senate Manual].
That is why popular things like marijuana legalization are never voted on.
I don’t understand this point. If you want a senator to introduce a bill regarding the legalization of marijuana, then vote in a senator that will present such a bill.
I don’t understand this point.
Yup, you don’t.
then vote in a senator that will present such a bill.
🤡
It is federally legal to prostitution. Just every single state outlaws except nevada.
Interesting, I never really thought about it, but of course that must be true for it to be legal anywhere.
I’m 90-95% on board, which is astounding considering the current options. Now fleshing out the legislation to make this transition possible…
Exactly my thought. This may as well be a list that has one bullet point “* fix America” without a lot more detail on most of these
Would you have commented on a post that just had an image of “* fix America”?
If it had an opossum and a bright background, it’d fit perfectly in 196.
Mandatory voting just adds semi-random votes, skewing the proportion of people who are really voting for their own interests, but rather out of vibes due to obligation. Holiday on voting days and repealing of disenfranchisement measures work much better.
The reason I think mandatory voting in Australia is nice (tiny fine for not doing it, so turn out is like 85-95% every time) is that because everyone obliged, it keeps voter disenfranchisement politically difficult. When you go to vote on election day, you wait 20 mins, tops, usually less, and you can vote ahead of time via mail or in person. It’s always Saturday for this reason too.
I’d argue it’s this easy partially because everyone HAS to do it, so if politicians start making it hard, people are gonna be pissed very quickly, so no one messes with the well-oiled machine.
And there are no stupid “get out to vote campaigns” wasting valuable headspace where instead we could be talking about actually issues.
Australia’s electoral system is far from perfect (single member local electorates which basically guarantees two stronger parties), but mandatory voting is definitely a feature I do not want to be rid of.
it keeps voter disenfranchisement politically difficult
Voter disenfranchisement, and mandatory voting are mutually exclusive concepts. One does not have the right to vote if they are forced to vote. Having a right encompasses the freedom of choice.
It doesn’t “just” do that. It totally reverses the ability for governments to block people from voting. If it’s an obligation then people must be provided a reasonable chance to vote. It makes more people engaged in politics as well instead of “can’t be bothered”
Free education.
No private/charter schools.
Religions are businesses and pay taxes.
Ban religious-justified discrimination.
Religion is private between you and God.
Absolute separation between church and state.
Repeal all religion based laws.
I dont understand why Americans are horny for mandatory voting. Voting is mandatory in Greece, it makes no difference. It is theoretically illegal to not vote but are you going to imprison people for not voting? So it isnt enforced, at all.
No one is voting because it is mandatory. Greece has 60% participation.
I believe Australia has mandatory voting and achieves a ~95% participation of registered voters basically every election, though they do enforce it with either a day in court or a fine.
I do wonder if you fined people, or wasted a day of theirs with court, whether it would have an impact in Greece after a couple of elections?
We swing between 93-95% participation
We alao make voting as easy as possible with voting opening 2-4 weeks in advance of election day, election day is always a weekend and as long as you vote before or on election day it’s counted.
Also democracy sausages
I think such a high turn out makes our politicians a bit more honest with less empty promises since they can’t dissuade anyone from voting.
Right. And for people who try to argue that they shouldn’t be forced to choose between people they like like, or whatever, it’s important to understand that it is only mandatory to get your name ticked off the list. You don’t actually have to submit a valid vote. You can choose to just turn in a blank ballot paper, or write “fuck you” or whatever you like. There are no laws against that.
So the ‘mandatory voting’ just makes it mandatory to put in the small amount of effort required to show up; but doesn’t force you to express an opinion. (Of course, I’d say that you should submit a valid vote. But you don’t have to.)
You can not enforce new social norms like that. People, including voting ones, will revolt. They will call it undemocratic and a cash grab. You are just asking for trouble.
I wouldnt want idiots having to vote then voting because some friend said some madeup thing or it was the last thing they seen on ticktok. If people don’t care and refuse to do the most minimum of looking into politics why should they decide my future
because you could do literally anything else, and it would be more useful. Mandatory voting is the equivalent to asking everyone in the room what they think about every interaction that ever happens. It’s fully redundant.
Make it tied to your UBI check. Now it’s incentivized so enforcement not needed.
Yea I think I’ll add this to the v4. Incentivize rather than punish. Just give people an extra $100 a month in their UBI for voting.
Why only $100 and not the whole UBI allowance?
Why only $100 and not the whole UBI allowance?
Incentivize rather than punish
Then it’s a punishment of $100 if you don’t vote. UBI as a reward for participating in our democracy would be a great step. A punishment would be a fine or jailtime.
I agree many wouldn’t bother, but I still believe it should be every citizen’s duty to vote. It’s literally the bare minimum political involvement people can have.
Yeah except increase taxes on highest income bracket by 65, not 5%.
- internet listed as an essential utility like water, power, and phone services
Yes, that would be included in “Municipalize internet service”.
Oh. Right, lol
How tf Americans don’t have a holiday on voting day 😭
Russia just did three day voting on friday, saturday and sunday to make sure that both 9-5 and 2 over 2 could have a day off to vote. The downside is that it was very expensive as the staff gotta be paid more than thrice the amount, it was very taxing on volunteer observers, and ultimately useless as they’ve made up whatever numbers they wanted using the unverifyable electronic voting in the end.
Are you seriously using Russia as a good example of democracy lmao
No, lmao, but can’t deny Russia has some nice things, even though by having those it is shooting itself in the foot. Like 2012 elections where they’ve basically said “Look, we have the entire election committee in the bag - еhey can draw us whatever results we want. But, let’s try to legitimize those elections in the eyes of the people! Let’s put a camera on every single polling station and let anyone watch them online, so that everyone can see how fair our elections are!”. As you might imagine, during the election, all social medias got completely flooded by recordings of voting fraud… And yes, people instantly noticed that the price for those cameras was like 10x of their market value, with 90% of costs landing straight into government officials pockets…
Because decent state governments have early voting for like a full month before the final Election Day. No single day off needed.
A large portion of the states, if not the majority, do not have decent state governments.
I mean ours in India are decently spread out by disctrict and they’re all holidays in that area.
Ok so…
Mandatory voting
I think this can get messy. It would require a system to prosecute those who don’t vote. That kind of registry can be very easily used for nefarious purposes by politicians or just anyone with access to that information. Also, it would really depend on what degree of mandatory this is. If you get thrown in jail then we are going to see a lot of poor people in prison for no reason. If you get just a fine then we are essentially introducing the inverse of a poll tax. Not voting is a protected form of free speech for a reason and can be interpreted as protest.
Merge house into senate
Last time something like this was posted I got flamed for asking what the point of this one is. The Senate is a representation of the states rights we have in our constitution. It serves as a safeguard against heavily populated areas dictating the laws for much less populated states. I’m all for reform but eliminating the Senate all together seems like a step backwards.
Ban tipping
I think this is another one where the spirit of the idea is right but the execution is wrong. What we need to ban is allowing restaurants to pay tipped positions far below minimum wage, and stop allowing restaurants to take a cut of the tip at all.
The act of tipping itself is a cultural thing that needs to be addressed culturally. If you can’t tip someone for something, complications in the law arise that may disallow giving money to people in general. For example how do you distinguish between tipping a server for a meal and giving the server a dollar as a gift?
We already have a registry of who did or didn’t vote.
That you voted is a matter of public record, as is voter registration information.
Registration data is used for campaign purposes, and voter participation data is mostly used to encourage people to vote.The act of tipping itself is a cultural thing it needs to be addressed culturally. If you can’t tip someone for something, complications in the law arise that may disallow giving money to people in general. For example how do you distinguish between tipping a server for a meal and giving the server a dollar as a gift?
If you are a customer at a food or retail business and opt to give one worker there a cash gift while they are on the clock, how can that not be a tip? Current US laws like FLSA already have a very clear definition of tipped wages which would include anything matching that description.
Even if you want to allow that sort of cash “gift”, eliminating tips for credit card payments should be enough to shift the norms and expectations. Namely, prohibit payment terminals from prompting for a tip as part of the same credit card transaction and prohibit the tip lines on receipts. Majority of Americans don’t pay with cash. If a business says they accept credit card, customers clearly aren’t expected to give a decent tip and by extension the advertised meal prices and wage amounts should reflect what the customer is expected to pay and what the staff should expect to earn independent of customer whims.
I can see the argument for credit card tips not being necessary, especially given that it puts the onus on the restaurant to be honest and distribute that tip correctly instead of just pocketing it (thanks subway).
But if I choose to give a server a dollar, that should be my right as an individual. Micromanaging who I’m allowed to give cash to is a step in the wrong direction.
+1 on the senate, it serves a purpose, if you don’t think it does you clearly don’t understand why it exists lol.
It exists because there was a time when we needed buy in from states, not just people. The Senate was how that was accomplished.
It’s a way of ensuring our democracy isn’t too democratic.You can understand the point of the Senate without thinking that we need to ensure that land is adequately represented in our government.
legislatively it makes sense. it removes a significant portion of say from large states, like texas and california, over small states like wyoming, who have comparatively little say. The trick is that it’s application specific. Unless we’re restructuring the entire government the senate does exist for a pretty explicit purpose.
I think it only makes sense if you think that it matters that Wyoming is fairly represented, and not the people in Wyoming.
I don’t particularly care about the representation of the land, only the people who live on it, where each person should have as much say as any other.The Senate is explicitly antidemocratic, and since I’m a fan of fair representation, I’m not a fan of the Senate.
Well, I suppose you could also make it so states get equal numbers of senators and representatives. That would also be fine, since there’s a slight use for the Senate having a longer election cycle.
Since this whole thread is basically playing and dreaming, I’ll easily agree that you can’t just drop the Senate without at least giving a look at how that impacts the rest of the government organization.
it depends on the legislation. If it’s something that the states are involved in, and it isn’t particularly relevant to the people of the state like most legislation probably is. And in that scenario, it would be beneficial for wyoming to not be overshadowed by.
Also i dont think you understand how senate seats work, they’re literally popular votes. We put them there. That’s at least following the basic principles of democracy. I’m not sure how one would argue against that, unless you have a massive problem with the electoral college, would which would be fair i suppose.
This isn’t a supreme court situation where they’re appointed magically.
What? No, I understand how Senate seats work. It’s not undemocratic because they’re not voted on, it’s undemocratic because they over represent some people over others. Wyoming and California should not be on equal ground because California has 80 times the population.
All issues that impact a state impact the people of the state. States don’t have interests, they’re just collections of people living on a piece of land.Giving votes to land is an artifact of getting the country started.
The problem here though is that the US doesn’t work like the EU does for instance. The EU is the US if it were less federally controlled, and more “formally agreed upon” rather than legislated and codified into law.
While it is true that most issues of the state are related to the people, it’s also true that each state government is independent from the federal government. And they do need some level of individualism, in order to function appropriately, without the ability for larger states to pull a shenanigan that can negatively affect smaller states. It’s not about representation of the land, it’s about equal representation of the individual components of the hierarchical government body.
This is like saying that because America is 75% white people, that they should have 75% control over everything, which by nature, is true to a degree, but this creates a problem where the majority, can overrule anything a minority says. And they have no course of action in response.
A lot of legislation in the government is highly isolated from the average citizen. That’s kind of the whole point of the government, if you truly wanted democracy. Wouldn’t it be prudent to delete both the house and the senate? So that way we truly have democratic rule over the county? Seems like the better option here. Not to mention the fact that the house and senate co-exist in a similar space, and can be utilized to prevent further shenanigans. If we only had the house, it would only take the house in order to push through bullshit legislation that nobody wants. They exist as two separate entities, operating in two independent manners. With a reasonable level of democratic influence over the two.
While technically not democratic, the US doesn’t advertise itself as democratic, merely a democratic republic.
#1. Truly abolish slavery. #2. Change the legal system from punishment to rehabilitation. #3. Congress gets minimum wage. #4. Minimum wage and unemployment must be a livable wage.
Congress gets minimum wage
Only works in a country where politicians can’t enrich themselves through heredity or graft. As it stands, the bulk of a Congressman’s fortune accrues before (family/career) or after (lobbyist/book deals) they take high office.
Unfortunately, there is no perfect system when humans are involved. We’ll either fuck it up or change our minds on what is perfect.
A perfect system would necessarily be mutable. If we couldn’t fuck it up, it wouldn’t be perfect, just rigid and unforgiving.
My only issue with point 3 is wouldn’t that make members of Congress more tempted by bribes and such? Sure, we can out law it and say it’s bad, but as my uncle always told me, it’s only illegal if you get caught.
Yup. Exactly why you can bribe police in some poorer countries. They don’t make enough money to say no.
I agree. Talking in such broad terms leaves a lot of holes. Since we’re talking pie in the sky stuff maybe: have congressional service require divesting oneself of all past and future funds beyond X amount with the understanding that they have to have increased scrutiny in all financial matters- like no privacy. I can think of a lot of problems with this but could it be better than the current system? I don’t see how it couldn’t be a bit of an improvement over them making $174k and yet being hundreds millionaires from stock trading for themselves and family members over years of insider information.
- ranked choice voting - ok I think we can agree here
- Mandatory voting - how? Currently voting is handled state by state, you want to make the federal government take that over? What would the punishment be for not voting? Frankly I disagree with this
- Universal vote by mail - even more how? Again, federal takeover of voting process? How do you ensure no votes are lost especially when someone will be punished for not voting?
- Voting day national holiday - definitely agree.
- Legalize marijuana - this takes a lot more than just saying “marijuana is legal now.” Are previous marijuana related convictions going to be overturned, if so how? Are marijuana sales going to be regulated? If so how?
- Legalize prostitution - similar questions as with marijuana
- Revert citizens United - certainly agree here but that’s a big fuckin how? It was explicitly the supreme court overruling a law passed by Congress. Amend the Constitution to say something explicit?
- Abolish corporate home ownership - very strange stuff here because you start touching on the above, too. Maybe more you’re looking to cancel corporate personhood but that comes with a huge amount of problems too
- Abolish electoral college - sure why not if you’ve solved the voting issues above
- Abolish gerrymandering - this is what made me make this response in the first place. You can’t just say “abolish gerrymandering” without some plan for it. That’s like saying “abolish borders” like it’s meaningful. How? Who decides what districts look like? Will there still be districts? If not how will representation be determined?
- Abolish filibuster - I think the filibuster is fine. If everything else on this list goes through, hopefully we have meaningful ways of ousting useless obstructionist politicians instead
- Merge Senate into house - why? What does this solve?
- Remove house rep cap - FUCKING agreed. The cap is unconstitutional and absurd
- Universal healthcare - lots of hows here too but Obamacare was a good start and I’m down with single payer
- Universal basic income - how much? Does it count toward the 50k below?
- Income up to $50k untaxed - fine. I also think any monetary amount in the legislature should be increased by the CPI automatically every year. Fines, limits, payouts, etc.
- Ban tax prep - hmm ok
- IRS files taxes for citizens - how does this work? Is tax code flattened to make it so citizens have no choices to make? Do things like tax credits for buying solar panels go away?
- Vat for luxury items - who decides what’s luxury?
- Supreme Court 15 year limit - disagree, the whole point of lifetime terms is to prevent getting what’s yours and getting out.
- Increase highest bracket tax - sure why not
- Collateral for loan is realized gain - expand?
- Abolish PACs and lobbying
- Politicians banned from stocks - so they can’t own shares of any companies? Or they just can’t trade while in office? Does this go for any elected official? More than just elected officials?
- Municipalize Internet - at a minimum declare it a utility. What’s the rest of the plan?
- Abortion constitutional right - I’d argue it already is one, though the supreme Court evidently isn’t in agreement. An explicit “bodily autonomy” amendment would be nice. Add a right to privacy to that too, expanding on the 4th.
- Ban tipping - idk if I agree with trying to codify what should be a cultural change, but I’m generally on board with the Idea. There’s a million loopholes to close in any language to this effect
- free financial education - just like… Government funded seminars? Mandated high school courses? What do you take out to fit this in?
100% on the “lots of missing 'how’s” point. You skipped the “ban lobbying” one, which is probably the second biggest “how” after the gerrymandering.
Lobbying is not some official policy or process. Senators don’t have “lobbying hours.” Lobbying is basically just “being at lunches and parties that politicians are at.” Unless you’re proposing Congress not be allowed to go out in public and live as secluded monks, I don’t see how you “abolish” it…
Yeah I just didn’t have it in me and meant to go back for it lol.
We have mandatory voting in Australia. It’s “enforced” by a AU$20 fine. Not really a true punishment, more like a nudge. It’s more of a societal understanding here, you turn up to a polling place as a civil duty. You can donkey vote if you want, you can draw a cock on the ballot form and invalidate it, doesn’t matter. As long as you got your name crossed off, and most importantly had the opportunity to vote, then you’re clear. I wouldn’t have it any other way, it means that there can’t be changes to dissuade people from voting, and politicians don’t resort to wildly populist policies to try and encourage people to come out to vote. Also helps that federal elections always occur on a Saturday, and employers are required to give time off in order to vote.
Those are some good questions.
Politicians banned from stocks - so they can’t own shares of any companies? Or they just can’t trade while in office? Does this go for any elected official? More than just elected officials?
What about only allowing investments in broad index funds? But banning trading specific stocks and options could go a long way too.
“Collateral for loan is realized gain” targets the “Buy Borrow Die” strategy.
Sure but what’s the actual action there? Implementation of a wealth tax? What property counts for that? Is there some other technique he/you are talking about? Taking a loan will now count as income?
Making a loan count as income will mess up legit home purchases. If you went that route it couldn’t be that simple.
A big benefit to the buy borrow die strategy is the step up basis for your children. Realizing the gain will move the basis up and cause a taxable event.
I don’t know all the details, much less if this plan is perfect, but I think that’s the idea.
Maybe removing step up basis is enough, to help reduce generational wealth. IDK
Reverse Harlow V Fitzgerald, that illegally set up Qualified Immunity.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/15/us/politics/qualified-immunity-supreme-court.html
Id also add the corporations cant own single family housing. Huge penalty for multiple houses.
That is covered by “Abolish corporate home ownership”.
Missed that one
End qualified immunity for law enforcement!
Instead of banning tipping, the law should maybe require to include all costs. This should not just apply to stuff served, but anything.
Banning tipping in restaurants implies that servers would need to be paid a fair wage without needing tips to make up for a lack of wages. Menu prices would incorporate those costs. Tipping in restaurants is the most invasive which is why I chose restaurants specifically.
So instead of banning tipping you mean removing minimum wage exceptions for tipping.
Fwiw a lot of restaurants worldwide are starting to include an obnoxious 12+% “service charge” that can be “removed” if you have a complaint. Basically, enforced tipping that wouldn’t be changed by your “ban tipping” plan.
I definitely agree hard with more emphasis on removal of after-the-listed-price fees
Yes, ban minimum wage exceptions and service charges. Also I think taxes should be included on the prices of grocery store items.
