Tag Archives: Politics
Fair is Fair
I heard someone ask the other ” What was fair?”. They were referring to the ‘tax cuts’ and the idea of letting the high income folks move back to the pre-Bush rates while the lower income folks stayed at the Bush rates. Was this ‘Fair’?
In my view, letting higher income earners pay taxes at a higher rate commensurate with the higher income is more than fair. One of the primary reasons these people have such a high income is because the government has built an infrastructure that provides for them. We have regulatory agencies that provide a a safe and stable commercial environment. We have troops stationed around the world, fighting in foreign countries, trying to maintain a safe and stable political environment. Our government manages to maintain a safe and stable personal environment for most of its citizens, allowing them to direct their energies to personal growth and achievement rather than to day-to-day survival (I said most.) This all requires an infrastructure paid for by our taxes.
Over the past few years, the national infrastructure has become suspect. Debts and deficits have risen because no one seems to think they should pay for all this infrastructure, and so, the infrastructure is weakening.
What is fair is that the folks whom benefit the most from this infrastructure pay the most for it. And it isn’t like anyone who makes more than another should take home less than someone who makes less. Additional taxes are applied to the the monies earned over and above the threshold level. Someone making $1,000,001 pretax is still taking home more after tax than someone making $1,000,000 pretax. Until the infrastructure is repaired, those that have reaped the benefits of the past should continue to make it right for the future.
The ones trampled by the infrastructure shouldn’t be expected to pay for it. Effectively, they can’t pay for it. The infrastructure should provide the all of society the opportunity to grow and prosper and it doesn’t always catch everyone equally. I am sure that most people would rather make $1,000,000 a year and pay some taxes than make $10,000 a year and not have to pay taxes.
So let the ones who profit from our society pay for it. Not only is this fair; it is equitable.
Cheap-Labor Conservatives
I read Paul Krugman’s column on our future prosperity, and then found that Avedon had also read and commented on it along with some links to other commentors. One of the best I saw was about cheap-labor conservatives.
Work cheap or starve, a motto to live by.
These cheap-labor conservatives should read the mission statement for the United States sometime. It’s right there in the first paragraph of the Constitution – after “We the People of the United States, in Order to”.
- form a more perfect Union,
- establish Justice,
- insure domestic Tranquility,
- provide for the common defence,
- promote the general Welfare, and
- secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity
and ends “do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
About the only mission they seem to care for is to provide for the common defence, because there is money to be made there.
Back to Representation
Every time I write a bit on Congress, I go back to thinking about Representation. I am rethinking my original idea on making it 1 representative for every 100,000 citizens. The Constitution sets a lower limit of 30,000 per representative but it doesn’t set an upper limit. Evidently, 100 years ago Congress fixed the House of Representatives at 435 because they ran out of room in their chamber. This leads to one representative for over 700,000 citizens, on average, with Montana having one representative for over 950,000, today.
While 1/100K is a reasonable number – I think it give the citizens of each district a better chance to meet and know their representative and to share their views with them – I am willing to work with other numbers. 210,000 is about as high as I would like to go. Close to what the level was when congress fixed the number of Representatives. People still have an opportunity to know their rep. Montana would have 5 representatives (OK there is a down side to most ideas). We would be closer to a representative democracy, closer than the country has been in a hundred years.
Of course, if We the People don’t do our job, nothing much will change in Washington.
Term Limits
I would like to suggest that we just restrict anyone from serving more than 6 consecutive years in Congress and they must sit out one congress (2 years) before returning.
I know that one of the biggest complaints against term limits is the loss of experience and knowledge that is gained by time in the job, but if the Congressmen return after the next general election, then they are bringing back their experience and knowledge and it can grow if they can continue to beat all the young challengers that crop up during their hiatus.
A health care option
I guess I would have to put myself in the single payer camp on health care. I would like to see an expanded Medicare system be the primary basic health care insurer/provider. Everyone will get a Medicare account at birth and keep it until they die, and beyond. We will pay for it with a payroll tax such that Medicare and FICA will be 15% of a pay-check. That should provide enough income to both systems to grow flourish as the baby boomers hit their retirement age.
A condition for this payroll tax is that the monies go into the Medicare and FICA trust funds and not into the general fund. As away to ameliorate the impact on household incomes, I would also suggest that every household get a deduction equal to the median household income. (I believe that is somewhere about $50K today). No other deductions, just one flat deduction and then tax everyone above the average household income what is needed to balance the rest of the budget.
Reform we can live with
The Supreme Court recently reversed a long-standing tradition that corporations couldn’t directly fund political advertising. I believe the core argument for the reversal is that the restrictions impinged on the corporation’s right to free speech, as though a corporation is a person.
Alarmists are warning that corporations will flood the airwaves with political commercials in the days before an election to promote their bought and paid-for candidate, or to denounce the candidate they couldn’t buy. That may be, but what is the price of Free Speech, enshrined in our holy founding documents? 10 billion dollars? 100 billion dollars? We shall soon find out.
I would like to suggest a political finance reform.
Only registered voters are allowed to donate to political campaigns or to fund political advertising. I would allow unrestricted amounts to be donated, with the caveat that all donations must be made publicly available within 24 hours with a means to uniquely identify the donor. Using the name and address and precinct where they are registered should be sufficient. And publicly available means something like an election board website, generally available to the general public and not hidden away in some hard-to-access site that only policy wogs are likely to know about. I want to know who is trying to buy my representative; you can tell a lot about a candidate by who is paying to support them.
This includes contributions to PACs. As a collective they are allowed to accept contributions from registered voters and to use those contributions for a common goal. They also have to disclose the source of their contributions – same list. And any other political entity, like: Party, Committee to elect or re-elect, etc.
PS. For any corporations that I hold shares in- I do not approve of the use of corporate funds for political advertising.
Or what about…
“Representative Democracy? We don’ need no stinkin’ Representative Democracy.”
and
“Well, I don’t care who is in charge as long as I don’t have to pay for anything, but I get everything”
Some Tea Party Slogans
I have a couple of slogans for people to show off at their next Tea Party:
What part of “Me the People” do you not understand?
and
Down with Representative Democracy!
Catchy, huh? I have another one that I need to represent graphically, so that will have to wait.
How to replace a Senator
Much has been made recently of Governors replacing Senators who have been asked to serve the new administration. And Feingold has proposed an amendment that would require a special election to fill a vacant Senate seat as soon as possible. (read the rest of the article I linked to at 538. It talks about what methods the various states use today)
Why not go back to the original Senatorial appointment method and let the state legislature fill the vacant seat and let the citizens elect a replacement in the next general election. This reduces the chance for ‘pay to play’ corruption, allows the new Senator to be a consensus choice of the people’s representatives, and saves some taxpayer money by eliminating the need for a special election.
Of course this might make horse-trading Senate replacements more difficult since it can’t be guaranteed that the replacement will be of the party or persuasion you might want.