In light of the recent insurrection, where citizens invaded the Halls of Congress, disrupting the primary business of our democracy as it was happening, I would like to propose a law:
As a requirement to graduate from high school, or to enter government service, either in the military or civilian branches, you must be able to pass the same civics test new citizens are required to take.
There are 128 questions. You have to correctly answer 12 of 20. The test is broken down into three sections: American Government, American History, Symbols and Holidays. (The Radical Republicans released the latest version of the test in December, 2020 , and their influence is felt. )
I include the government service folks since many are required to swear to defend the Constitution and it would be useful for them to know what they are swearing to.
Happy New Year! 2020
– the year of Hindsight! I hope it is your best one yet.
2019 wasn’t the
best of years, though we did get a chance to visit Ireland, meet some
cousins, and attend a Worldcon, as well as a brief visit to Iceland
on the way back. Between travel and medical issues I only got to
spend half a year on the golf course. The good news is that,
medically, I am back in the pink for 2020. Physically, I need to
continue the exercising and stretching I began last year with the
Silver Sneakers program down at the gym. That should also help on the
golf course.
As we enter the
election year, I am conflicted. I support Bernie Sanders
wholeheartedly. I believe his Democratic Socialism platform is the
best for the US moving into the 21st century. Our own
Constitution starts with “We the People” and mandates to:
form a more
perfect union,
establish
justice,
insure
domestic tranquility,
provide for
the common defense,
promote the
general welfare,
secure the
blessings of liberty for ourselves and our descendants,
if that’s not
Socialism, I don’t know what would be. But, the man is 78 years
old; I really believe he would not survive first first term. I wish
he had a groomed successor in his 50’s ready to go, but the other
Democrats in the running don’t seem ready to adopt his platform.
This also means his VP pick will be critical and I expect that
“politics” will give us a less than optimal successor. It will be
an interesting year.
I do think it is
time for Congress to take back its constitutional duties and to stop
ceding them to the executive. Especially sending American sailors,
marines and soldiers into combat at the whim of the executive.
Congress opened the door about letting the Executive use military
force without direct Congressional approval and the Executive has
ripped the door off the hinges. Our military actions throughout the
world over the past 70 years have not been the actions of a
democratic republic promoting its ideals to the world.
What we do seem to
be doing is making the world safe for business. Not safe for the
people who patronize the businesses but the businesses themselves.
And to add some confusion to the mix, businesses are becoming
multi-national and and by making the world safer for business we are
making it less safe for ourselves, since if the business is engaging
in practices our country deems unsafe, they will just move to another
country that doesn’t prohibit or limit those practices. The
practices are still unsafe and continue to create a harmful
environment; it is just at a remove from us. And we still protect the
overall business that is engaging in these practices. Realistically,
we need to ban/prohibit these businesses from doing business in our
country if we find them engaging in practices that we prohibit here
because they are harmful.
Business
concentrates money, politics concentrates power, concentrated money
buys concentrated power, concentrated power can intensify
concentrated money. We need to break this cycle. Let’s start by
diffusing the power. Let Representatives have a maximum number of
constituents, say 100,000 per Representative. Triple the size of the
Senate and let the top three vote-getters be seated in each
Senatorial election. Set a restriction that a person cannot hold
successive terms of office. A Congressional incumbent can not run
for the same office, but they can run in the following election when
they are not the incumbent.
Congress should also
incorporate sunset timelines into every bill, say 20-25 years, then
the bill/law expires. Of course Congress may just reaffirm all the
sunsetting bills en mass, so we restrict that so no more than half of
the sunsetting bills can be approved in a bundle. The rest must be
approved on to case-by-case basis.
On the money side:
90% estate
taxes on estates in excess of $5,000,000 should help prevent the
concentration of wealth.
Political
contributions can only come from registered voters or Citizens. Get
businesses out of politics.
All political
contributions are publicly available for review.
90% income
tax on incomes over $5,000,000 should help as well.
Actually, I have a
whole income taxing scheme that I will discuss in a later post.
Once again the discussion of minimum wage is coming to the forefront of political discussion. There is a lot of vocal support for a $15 an hour minimum wage. I think that is a few dollars more per hour than necessary for a national minimum wage.
A minimum wage should be able to provide the wage earner with a basic living wage. The national poverty level for a family of four is in the neighborhood of $24,000 a year. A person working full-time, 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year will work 2,000 hours a year. Using these numbers, $12 an hour is a reasonable minimum wage – nationally.
Now, within some urban areas (Metropolitan Statistical Areas) the effective poverty level for a family of four is much greater than national level and it would be very appropriate to tie the minimum wage to HUD’s Extremely Low Income for a family of four for an area, or to the national poverty level for a family of four, whichever is greater. Such that, in San Francisco, the ELI for a family of 4 is $44,000 so a minimum wage for that area should be $22 an hour. In Seattle, the ELI is $32,100, which would lead to a $16.50 per hour minimum wage. In the Bronx, the ELI is $31,300, which will lead to a $15.65 per hour minimum wage.
We have the facts and figures derived from the various government departments that track this data, such as the Census Bureau, HUD, Social Security, the Fed, HHS, etc. Let’s use this data responsibly and keep on top of the growing economy and the wage gap. And the numbers can change every year as the economy grows and we don’t strand people at an old wage for many years while the politicians pontificate.
I came across this link to SSA income data. I see that the average salary/wage is growing faster than the median salary/wage. So this shows that the majority of the workers continue to get more and more relatively poorer than the “average” worker.
In the upper left of the SSA page is a link to yearly breakdowns of the annual wages. Here is a link the 2017 numbers. It shows the breakdown of the number of earners in each income band, up to 205 people who earned more than $50,000,000. The total of those 205 people was $19,954,445,874.88 for a average of $97,338,760.37 each.
In 2016, only 143 people earned more than $50M with an average of $100.7M each.And in 2015, it was 202 people with an average of $91.4M each. Looks like a lot of volatility at the top.
An interesting page to fiddle with to see where the inequity grows.
Tuesday Feb 7 10:30 AM- 12pm
102 N. Tejon Ste. 930, Colorado Springs, CO
Join us in visiting Senator Gardner’s office to resist Trump! We’ll arrange to speak with a staffer about what ever topic has your blood boiling that day. Last week we had almost 100 people gathered on the sidewalk, and cycling through the office in groups of 10.
While waiting for our turn, we’ll keep the street active with sign waving and Chanting. Bring a drum, a whistle, a small flag to wave, a list of great chants you have been hearing.
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Tuesday, Feb 7 5:30 PM, Stargazer Theatre 10 S. Parkside Drive, Colorado Springs, near Pikes Peak Street.
Announcement meeting for new non-partisan Political Action group, “Together Colorado Springs” (TCOS). Founded by CS Independent creator, John Weiss and several liberal community leaders, the group planned to have a paid staff helping to get progressive and liberal causes toward the top of local agendas.
There will be music, powerful speeches and other entertainment. They are asking $30 per person admission, but also promising that no one will be turned away if they can’t pay that amount.
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Friday, CS Feminists “Are Human Rights Women’s Rights”.
Hosted by the Colorado Springs Feminists 7:00 PM
Private Residence 2727 N. Tejon , Colorado Springs,
Why do we fight for “women’s rights” if they’re encompassed by broader “human rights”? We’ll kick off the second installment of our Discussion Series with this question, and peel back the layers of these terms and their implications. No need to have attended the first installment to attend this one! Optional readings to inform the discussion are below.
Optional readings:
“Women’s Rights are Human Rights” Hillary Clinton, 1995, at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.
“Are Women’s Rights Human Rights?” by Rosie Walters, 2013, available at http://www.e-ir.info/2013/07/20/are-womens-rights-human-rights/
Saturday, February 11, 2017 2:00 PM Seeds Community Cafe
109 E Pikes Peak Avenue, Colorado Springs, CO (edit map)
Co. Springs’ own “First Strike Theatre” will present a lively and funny show feature local actors,
and custom written songs to fit our current political mess. They will do 2 shows, 2:15 and 3:15 . The event is Free. They might ask for donations??
The event is to “Celebrate” the birth day of “Raw Toos”, a non-profit that encourages turning guns into useful items that don’t kill people. There will be two performances, at 2:15 and 3:15 on Saturday, Feb 11 at Seeds Community Cafe at 109 E. Pikes Peaks. Its a small place, so place to arrive early.
If the drumbeat of bad news has been getting you down, come to this show and spend some time laughing about Mary Springer-Forse’s unique way of writing, and singing, about our current mess.
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I have been hearing disturbing rumors that Congress is looking to get rid of my health care plan. I would not appreciate that. I need affordable health care to survive in this world. And by affordable, I mean a plan that provides me health care for less than 20% of my income. (10% would be optimal)
I understand one of your compatriots implemented a pretty good health care plan in Massachusetts a few years ago. Romneycare, I think it was called. Maybe you should try rolling this out on a national level if you aren’t satisfied with the current Affordable Care plan.
I would also remind you of the Preface of the Constitution that you just read and swore to defend; one of the purposes of this country is to promote the general Welfare. I think a federal healthcare insurance plan would go a long way towards that promotion.
And, consider adding dental to the overall plan. I think that good dental health is important to good overall health.
I have some interesting choices to make regarding the Colorado ballot this year.
Amendment 69 is to set up universal health for Colorado residents. While I support the concept, the wording of the amendment is such that there isn’t a lot a flexibility setting things up and tweaking parts to make it workable. So I will have to vote NO this time around. I think it would be better to set up a referendum to order the State legislature to implement a universal health care program so the details could be addressed properly.
Amendment 71 is an amendment to amend the amendment process in Colorado. It currently requires 5% of the number of voters who voted for the Secretary of State in the sate of Colorado to get an amendment on the ballot. This would change that to require at least 2% of the voters in each State legislative district to get an amendment on the ballot. I can see in principle that this helps distribute the amendment process across the state and stops the larger urban areas from dominating the amendment process, but, to require all 35 districts to sign up to get the amendment on the ballot seems too restrictive. I would approve if 2/3 of the districts were on board with an amendment, 100% seems a bit unrealistic.
And there are two propositions to set up party primaries that are open to unaffiliated voters. This doesn’t seem right. Colorado political parties currently use caucuses to select their slates. You have to be a registered member of the party to caucus with them. And the parties are supposed to pay for the caucuses themselves. The primaries are for the parties to select their slates under the auspices of state and county funding. Why do you want to allow people who are not affiliated with the party to be involved with the selection of the party’s candidates? And why should the state be funding the activities of private organizations? Proposition 107 covers the presidential primary. Proposition 108 is for non-presidential primaries and does allow the party to opt-out of the open primary.
Some choices to make. All the other amendments and propositions look good – Minimum Wage hikes, Tobacco taxes, Medical aid-in-dying.
In Colorado we have 22 parties vying for the presidency on the ballot and another 6 that are registered write-ins. So there are a lot of choices. The annoying part of all those parties running for President, though, is that very few to none are putting up candidates for any other offices at the local, state, or federal level. (The Senate race has 7 candidates/1 write-in, and the District 5 Representative race has 3 candidates/1 write-in.) You have to dig deep to find those write-ins.
