Someday, I will go about writing down my actual personal anti-philosophy, why I think that taking politics seriously and trying to live a non-contradictory life is not only futile, but foolish and anti-human. But that will have to wait for when I’m in the mood to speak with sincerity. For now, you get this. This is a series of partially-baked ideas about how to make the United States a better country and to help it remain a single country. Fantasies about how to split the country into decent humans and filthy statists will happen in part II. Mainly though, this is here to give all of you Glibs that give me opinions a chance to share their half-baked opinions on how to improve the country (I know you all have them) without having go go through the arduous initiation ritual of becoming a Featured Contributor (seriously, get circumcised before you send your first article to submit@glibertarians.com. SP’s rusty can lids aren’t nearly as sharp as she claims.) I suppose you foreigners can chime in too about how America sucks and your “all dressed” flavor totally isn’t just barbecue flavor.
People are the problem. As Douglas Adams wisely noted, anyone who wants power must be kept away from it. While that’s not completely possible, it should be more possible to ensure that power blocs are broken up and different factions with competing interests could be set up to keep each other in check. Basically, in order to keep the country from actually, legitimately going into civil war, we have to avoid a situation in which a significant chunk of the population becomes an unbreakably subservient caste to those in power. This is already happening e.g. NYC v. NYS but the right to move out of NY acts as a safety valve.
Idea 0: Federalism. it’s a thing. Do it.
Idea 1: End Sovereign Immunity. ‘Nuff said.
Idea 2: Crimes shall be limited to only those actions which deprive someone of life liberty or property via force or fraud.
Idea 3: End federal funding of private organizations. The major target here are the political parties. Political parties are not supposed to be parts of the U.S. government.
Idea 4: Keep the Electoral College.
Idea 5: While the 17th Amendment was a terrible idea, repealing it at this point would be even worse. The most likely scenario upon repeal (IMO) would be that each state would continue to directly elect their senators in the name of democracy, but it is also possible that the states could do something awful like set up senatorial districts.
Idea 6: Voting changes, as follows (mix and match):
Idea 6a – Instant runoff voting. Not as good as being able to legally kick in the teeth of anyone who says “you’re wasting your vote!” but it’s probably as good as we can get for now.
Idea 6b – Including a binding “none of the above” option. When included with 6a, this could make for some hie-larious results.
Idea 7: Aleatocracy. The Senate represents “The States,” the House represents “The People.” But as anyone who is even vaguely educated about sampling knows, electing from a pool of self-selected candidates can not ever be representative of the population. Therefore, members of the House of Representatives should be selected at random from the population*. The brilliance of this is that the house can never be “too” white, straight, Christian, whatever, but will always be representative of the population that it is supposed to… represent. We’d see the first ambidextrous Zoroastrian vegisexual furry in congress. There would be some guy who would vote “yes” by crushing a beer can on his head and “no” by farting. To make serving their term less onerous, we could give them a “secure” laptop (or maybe just a BlackBerry) so they could vote from home. Those who want the pomp can take their salaries and fly to DC.
Now, it’s great to not have an entrenched, self-perpetuated political caste, but how do you keep power from just shifting one step away? That is, if the legislature is changing at random, how do we keep laws from being made purely by lobbyists, or the civil service caste from becoming the only thing that matters? I don’t know, how does Texas do it? I’m not too concerned about lobbyists. Lobbying only works if the effort is worth the return. And without any long-term relationships being formable, it becomes much more expensive to lobby Representatives (though I would expect all that money to just slide over to the Senate). The permanent bureaucracy is more problematic, and I don’t really have an answer to that. Maybe bring back the spoils system? You guys can come up with one, I’m sure.
*Technically, you could make the claim that the pool that representatives are drawn from should be the entire country, not state-by-state. However, drawing by state will help break up power blocs and ensure that low-population states have any of their citizens represented at all
I can think of several ways to bust the permanent bureaucracy. Not public sector unions. No pensions. 401ks and benefits in line with a sampling of Fortune 500 companies. Length of service limits for Administrative jobs. Massively streamlined rules for hiring and firing public employees.
All we have to do is get the legislators to vote against their own interests.
Not if the alternative is a public lynching.
Well, until we actually decide to hold them accountable though, they are going to keep crooking..
I’m witcha, Drake.
Another change that I have thought of, that may not even require Congressional action:
Disperse the agencies throughout the country, so that DC is no longer the Imperial Capital. Put the current DC staff of each agency in a different city, with only a small liaison office in DC. The EPA goes to, say, Houston. CMS goes to, say, Kansas City, etc. That will help get the bureaucrats out of the narcissistic DC bubble, and will also require agency lobbyists and misc. parasitic NGOs to leave DC.
Downsides, politically: Dropping a big agency into a city will instantly create a new constituency for supporting the agency (and maybe the administrative state as a whole), kind of like how having army bases all over the country creates an overwhelming constituency for never closing a base. Also, dropping a bunch of hard-care statists into a city could turn the city into another Team Blue bastion.
Since most (all?) major cities are already Blue bastions, no real change… but that’s in Part II.
Mixed feelings about that. Agree with your downsides – like a cancer metastasizing throughout a victim’s body.
Hey, this is a government. Pick your poison – an inbred, self-regarding, wealthy Imperial Capitol, or a country with pockets of federal bureaucrats all over it.
Your crackpot ideas seem fairly similar to my crackpot ideas. So, well done.
Indeed. Similar thoughts on the futility of repealing 17A and problem of term limits.
The solution to lobbyists, the civil service, and most of the above is to strip much of the power from government that it’s accumulated for itself. Unfortunately, everyone involved has a vested interest in seeing that continue, and expand. Even if you could turn back the clock, all those forces that brought forth ever larger government would do the same again.
“The solution to lobbyists, the civil service, and most of the above is to strip much of the power from government that it’s accumulated for itself.”
SO MUCH THIS.
The solution is to keep government out of everything unless there is no alternative. The Constitution made that very obvious I thought.
It did, but when you have judges that can say growing corn on your own farm for your own use equals interstate commerce, I don’t know how you can hold it back.
The Constitution made that very obvious I thought.
When you strip away all of the paper that makes for fun conversation, you have a might makes right paradigm. The federal sovereign has exactly as much power as neighboring national sovereigns, subsidiary sovereigns (states), and subjects (citizens) give it. There is no outside power with sufficient might to directly bully the us Gov into taking a position. The states asserted their power in the 19th century and were subsequently neutered, and the populace has been unwilling to flex its muscle since watching the states have their balls removed.
The only thing arresting the pace of totalitarian creep is the fear of waking a very well armed citizenry who would be itching to hang the elites from lampposts as first.
THEM NO CRACKPOT IDEAS. STEVE SMITH THINK HARD ON SAME THINGS FOR CASCADIA. BY THINK HARD, MEAN…
STEVE SMITH PROMINENT FOREST LAWYER! FREE CASCADIA!
Adahn and Drakes ideas would fix a lot, let’s get back to Congress voting for wars while we are at it
I was at a bar playing Jenga last night. It struck me as an apt analogy for government. You weaken the structure every to make it ever taller. The taller it gets the less structurally sound it becomes. There is no shoring it up. Your options are to leave it how it is or keep building until it eventually topples. Our leaders are intent on keeping the game going.
This might fit better for a game reference.
It’s a good game too.
I bet it is the “How to” manual for most socialist shit.
All good ideas, but all are ideas that will quickly be bypassed or otherwise softened immediately upon implementation. Why? Because the incentive to accumulate power is still there. You can raise the barriers to entry as high as you want on paper, but rule of law is only as effective as the people who enforce it allow it to be. All it takes is one populist movement claiming that your rules are outdated, and your rule of law becomes rule of man again.
The only way to curb abuses is to kill the incentive to accumulate power via fedgov. That’s an incentive that cant easily be counterbalanced with barriers to entry or other disincentives. It’s also very hard to reduce or kill that incentive. As long as fedgov is the sovereign, no amount of legislation will prevent power seekers from eventually maximizing the reach of their institution.
That’s why I favor aleatocracy. By making it literally impossible to deliberately gain entrance to a particular rule-making body people have no (or little) incentive to accumulate power because they won’t be able to exercise it. Furthermore, it’s the only way possible to (occasionally) get people into government who want to kill it for real.
people have no (or little) incentive to accumulate power
Just because there’s a revolving door of actual representatives doesn’t mean that there’s little incentive to accumulate power. The coercive power of the sovereign us still there, and can still be accumulated. It just requires a different method of recruitment of representatives than is currently used.
Correct, that’s why lobbyist bux will flow from the HOB to the SOB.
Obviously, some people who get the golden ticket to representativedom will be prone to use their limited time there to gain as much self-enrichment as they can. But at least by expanding the pool beyond the powerhungry there is a chance that there will be some monkeywrenchers included. And, we can hope that randomly-selected self-enrichers might be at odds with other randomly-selected ones.
The thing that troubles me is the possibility that the media would have an even greater effect since they are the ones establishing “common sense,” which might neuter any “burn it all down”-ers.
I would not vote for future gains. Future blowjobs from supermodels may be different.
Obviously, some people who get the golden ticket to representativedom will be prone to use their limited time there to gain as much self-enrichment as they can. But at least by expanding the pool beyond the powerhungry there is a chance that there will be some monkeywrenchers included. And, we can hope that randomly-selected self-enrichers might be at odds with other randomly-selected ones.
You have a much more optimistic view of humanity than I do.
I think that “i know you’re making decent money now, but think about when your term is over. I know a guy who will pay you 3x as much as you currently make to do the same job, well except that you wouldn’t actually have to show up. Just vote the way we tell you, and it’s all yours” is a pretty damn alluring proposition to your average $52k a year middle class schlub.
That’s exactly how it works now, anyway.
Professor Reynolds excise tax on earning by office holders (and bureaucrats?) after they leave office would be useful here. Can’t recall the details, but essentially most of their earnings above what they make while in office are remitted to the government.
Yeah, there’d still be organizations like the red and blue party. Those organizations would be lobbied to draft legislation and to “persuade” the random congress folks to present and vote for it.
All good ideas, but all are ideas that will quickly be bypassed or otherwise softened immediately upon implementation.
True. There are no permanent solutions. Periodic rollbacks is the best we can hope for. If the expansion is, really, just retaking ground they’ve lost, that’s still a win.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
If men were angels no government would be necessary.
A Republic, if you can keep it.
Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Utopia literally means no place.
It has all been said before and will be said again and again. It is not a matter of finding the perfect system and getting libertopia; it is a never-ending war between factions each wanting control, and the only ways to even delay someone from getting that control are for either a balance of terror between factions, which is always temporary to prevail or for a vigilant, intelligent, virtuous populace to fight back, which always fails in the long run because comfortable security is tempting .
You get through life doing the best you can, grab the happiness you can grab and pick your battles as best you can.
That’s the real problem. Most normal people have no desire to be a politician or bureaucrat and just want to be left alone. So we live our normal lives until we realize that these insane power-hungry sociopaths have turned our “leave us alone” government into a horrible tyranny.
Most people want to be left alone, but they sure as hell don’t want to leave everyone else alone.
Everybody I know wants to be left alone
Some people I don’t know they won’t leave me alone
The Gang and the Government are no different
That makes me… 1%
Someday, I will go about writing down my actual personal anti-philosophy, why I think that taking politics seriously and trying to live a non-contradictory life is not only futile, but foolish and anti-human. – I don’t get this bit… oh well
All living things are the result of inconsistency, inhomogenity, and impurity. And they require the same to maintain their existence. Yet there is a long-standing belief that somehow philosophy should be perfect in its consistency and applicability.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcfLZSL7YGw
that is not helping much to many terms to define
Yet there is a long-standing belief that somehow philosophy should be perfect in its consistency and applicability. – there is?
I’m not a professional philosopher, but I am not familiar with any philosophers who even tolerate self-inconsistency.
Well (and this goes way back), I believe there are philosophers who recognize that complete consistency is actually completely impossible, or at least that every system of thought is based, ultimately, on a priori assumptions that are inherently and inescapably unprovable.
The last thing you want is a government, and rulers, trying to implement with perfect consistency any philosophy. That’s when the piles of bodies start getting really big.
I think it’s important to differentiate between internal consistency and consistency in application.
“Murder is wrong” can be 100% internally consistent as a philosophical principle. However, without getting into the weeds for every single possible permutation of choice and chance in the real world, you cant define murder perfectly.
In the sense that fuzzy lines will always exist around the edges of principles, I agree that you cant have perfect consistency. In the sense that “the rules are made to be broken” or even more morally relativistic rejection of principle wholecloth, I vehemently disagree.
In the sense that “the rules are made to be broken” or even more morally relativistic rejection of principle wholecloth, I vehemently disagree.
#metoo
So much this. It’s hard to be the hero of the story unless you can believe that your evil actions serve “a greater good.” You can only get industrial-scale horrors with an organization.
It has nothing to do with relativism, but more that I’m not convinced that “principles” and “living a good life” aren’t entirely separate magesteria.
I’m not clear how you could really say what a good life is, without reference to some principles. Unless, of course, you are a narcissistic sociopath and your idea of a good life is pure hedonism no matter what suffering your pleasure inflicts on others.
That’s just the problem isn’t it? Principles that can’t be universalizable can’t really be called “principles” can they? At that point you’re just talking about “opinions.”
That’s just the problem isn’t it? Principles that can’t be universalizable can’t really be called “principles” can they?
People disagreeing with certain principles doesn’t necessarily mean that those principles aren’t universal.
Narcissistic sociopaths no more make principle non-universal than flat earthers make the earth flat.
True, but in your analogy, the Earth has a definite and knowable shape. Neither of these things is yet proven true about principles, which is why I said universalizable instead of universal.
If you believe that universal principles actually exist, it makes much more sense to me to believe in a supreme Deity.
If you believe that universal principles actually exist, it makes much more sense to me to believe in a supreme Deity.
*nods head approvingly*
*too lazy to troll through the archive to find the article where I stated my opinion that the only self-consistent moral frameworks are moral absolutism and nihilism*
Saying principles have to be universal means they should, by their own terms, apply universally, not that they have to be accepted universally.
And this is where we roll back into “The last thing you want is a government, and rulers, trying to implement with perfect consistency any philosophy. That’s when the piles of bodies start getting really big.” We know that this sort of application on a large scale leads to grief. It is my suspicion that scaling down the process to the individual level lowers the damage, but does not eliminate it.
My ideal reform? Any new law must be put to a plebiscite after a period of three years on the books. If the vote fails, the law is revoked and everyone who politician who voted for it initially loses their citizenship and is deported within a period of six months. Their spawn, too. After a period of ten years, the children can return. The office-holders, never.
I would also require any laws passed to apply to the people passing it without any of the loopholes they might put into it for special interests. Does anyone think we would have gotten Obamacare if those lawmakers were told they would be getting that as their healthcare option? Yeah.
Personally, put me in charge of writing a new Constitution and it would have some items such as:
1) At the time of the Census, the number of representatives would increase every 10 years based on the increase in population. Say, the population grew 5%? Increase the size of the House by 1%.
2) Any law struck down is struck down in whole. No severing, if you write a bad law, the whole thing is bad. Kill it with fire. This should help keep laws relatively simple.
3) Senators must come from a member of the State’s legislative body. This may help to make the Senate a bit more in line with the body of the states.
4) Qualified immunity is gone.
5) Incorporate all the amendments.
6) Sunset provision for laws, with 2 up above, this should prevent any omnibus bills to keep everything.
7) No cabinet, no secret service protection
8) Any former holder of an office who attempts to use the title of the office shall be fined the annual salary of the office for each infraction.
3 = only professional politicians need apply…
Mainly though, this is here to give all of you Glibs that give me opinions a chance to share their half-baked opinions on how to improve the country – rape Dragnea with a rusty chainsaw? Oh wait you mean your country
seriously, get circumcised – you Americans and your circumcisions
I suppose you foreigners can chime in too about how America sucks – donkey cock
Idea 0: Federalism. it’s a thing. Do it. – lol good luck with that
Idea 1: End Sovereign Immunity. ‘Nuff said. – lol good luck with that
Idea 2: Crimes shall be limited to only those actions which deprive someone of life liberty or property via force or fraud. – lol good luck with that
Idea 3: End federal funding of private organizations. The major target here are the political parties. Political parties are not supposed to be parts of the U.S. government. – lol good luck with that
Honestly I kinda like Aleatocracy
– lol good luck with that
Another idea I’ve suggested before – do away with a centralized capital entirely. Telecommunications and computing power are such that there’s no reason for anyone to need to be in D.C. Individual government departments and agencies can be placed at remote locations just as easily as having them all meet in the capital.
You monster! What will become of K Street?
I’m thinking we keep it roughly in line with its current function and turn it into a redlight district.
That would destroy the lucrative real estate market around D.C.
Think of the agents!
On a serious note, I’d be all for it. The richest counties in the US being centered there is an abomination.
In fact, require that any agency headquarters cannot be located within 50 miles of a city with above median population. You want to be a bureaucrat? Congrats, you have to move to BFE.
I’d also like to add Heinlein’s rule from “Mistress”; IE the Senate passes all laws and requires a 3/4’s majority to do so. The house may overturn any Senate law that passes with a 50%+1 vote.
In addition to the requirement of ‘None of the Above’ as a require option, anyone who is a registered voter who doesn’t vote has their vote counted as if it were cast for ‘None of the Above’.
Oh! Oh! Also, taxes have to be paid in person. If not, then and only then, may a revenue agent attempt to collect them by going to the person’s domicile.
However, shooting a tax collector would be a misdemeanor payable by a fine not to be assessed at over $500. If you are a citizen who neither holds office nor is employed by the gov’t. Further, tax collector’s doing their job are not allowed to use self-defense. And lastly, if collecting taxes from another bureaucrat or office holder, the tax collector gets to keep 25% of what they collect.
We should also lock congress in a room and have them fill out their tax returns on their own.
THUNDERDOME!
I second the Chamber of nullification. Good governance should be something of a discovery process. This would be a part of it.
Now that I think about it with the Elected Senate from state Senators and the Buckley method for the HOR (whores), flip around who is the nullifiers and who is the passers. This would help with the issue of keeping Senators from being able to gather much power. If you’re only ability is to vote a law void…
Here is how these Senators would go about getting their power
And that’s when they decided to make voting mandatory.
I always love the Mistress bicameral house. “If you can’t get the support of 75% of the people, why should it be illegal? And if you can’t keep the support of half the people, why should it stay illegal?”
If we are going to add Heinlein rules from “Mistress”, how about any function of the government must be funded entirely by the representatives who voted for it.
I remember one of those old Martin Gross government waste books, which did much to shape my political beliefs, advocated exactly that, splitting up government agencies across the country.
Telecommunications and computing power
Good point.
No government agency shall be allowed the use of computers for government work. Every piece of government business will be done on paper, with an exception to the no-computer rule that documents will be archived electronically and for public access.
I’ll let them have desk phones, but smartphones are just little computers, so those would be out.
List the responsibilities of the Federal government. Might have to increase this list from our current one for pollution that crosses state lines or communicable diseases and things of that nature.
include language killing the spending power for items not on this list.
So crazy it might just work for awhile.
– 1 “stream of commerce” “dormant commerce clause” “FYTW”
You know who else wrote a document that enumerated the powers of the federal government and included a provision for killing the spending power when the government overstepped?
Stalin?
Nothing will change until you alter the DNA that made us the most dominant, aggressive species on the earth in the first place.
I think the UK is working on that…
I think China are further ahead
+2 HIV resistant twins
Looks at People of Walmart
An hour, and no Canuckistani has risen to defend the honor of all-dressed chips?
I haz a small, furry, naked-tail sad.
I’ve met at least one person from Canada who didn’t know what all-dressed chips were. They’ve recently become available here on the North Coast.
That reminds me of my first Whataburger experience. I’m a Minnesoda boy. I was unfamiliar with the ways of Texans. So when the smoking hot cashier asked me if I wanted to “go all the way”, I was understandably flustered.
.
.
.
And aroused
What honor?
I’m not one of those but mmmmm – I buy them whenever I see them because you never know if you’ll ever see them again.
I’m not Canadian, but I buy them whenever I see them.
Dammit, this was supposed to be a reply to Not Adahn.
I swear I didn’t copy your comment 🙂
I’m always confused why publicly funded voting is used to determine the candidates for a political party.
You don’t expect them to pay for their selection process with their own money, do you? It also entrenches them as the only options. Whichever court allowed that to happen should have all been hanged.
Despite becoming woke, DemSoc has to go STEVE SMITH…
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-adviser-allegedly-forced-subordinate-to-kiss-him-report_us_5c375c7fe4b0c469d76ba828
No one needs
23any form of consent.No means yes.
Benny Hill to woman: When you say no, do you really mean yes?
Woman: No.
Unrelated link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M8_DZvF2FI
THAT IT? STEVE SMITH NO LIKE AMATEURS. PAY VISIT TO SOCIALIST. BY PAY VISIT, MEAN RAPE.
Quote from an article on the shutdown:
Oh well. ??♂️
That’s probably mostly Medicaid matching funds, which are a huge line item in every state’s budget. Unless CMS is shut down, that money will keep rolling in.
Repeal the 19th Amendment.
Repeal the 16th Amendment.
Repeal 11, and everything after 13. Keep the Bill of Rights and maybe the 12th (although a replay of Adams/Jefferson or Burr/Jefferson would make me laugh)
My vision for America is to build walls around all the major metropolitan areas and then charge them to traverse the free lands in between.
I’m down only if you can ensure that this would be playing everywhere at all times.
Which always reminds me of TOS commenter Snark Plisken
That’s a good idea regardless of the wall situation.
NO CHEATING!!! Part 2 hasn’t been published yet!
Prohibit the government from issuing any debt, with two exceptions:
(1) For capital projects.
(2) To address a national emergency, such as a war or natural disaster.
The proceeds of the debt can only be used for these purposes. All operations of the government in a given year must be paid for out of tax revenue collected that year. Make people pay the true cost of government, rather than laying it off on their offspring, and I think you would see a big change in our politics and the size of government.
And, of course, no more tax withholding, with all taxes due at the end of October. I might allow people to make quarterly payments.
Hear! Hear!
Oh, and prohibit the federal government from paying for anything except goods and services provided to the federal government itself. Welfare, transfer payments, etc. can all be done at the state level. Let’s see what the 50 laboratories of democracy do.
I’d love to see this as an amendment.
Shouldn’t need it. The Constitution limits federal spending “to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States”.
Before the word was bastardized, what we currently call “welfare” was known as “charity”, and it was understood that the federal government had no authority to spend money on charity. Charity/welfare and transfer payments are not for the “general Welfare of the United States”, as they cannot exist except to benefit some at the expense of others.
Thanks for the clarification. Some form of modern translation/update would be useful.
As a fellow lawyer you surely realize that there is no combination of words that is immune to the power of ‘interpretation.’ The clause you quote was understood by the drafters to be a limitation on spending, and yet it has been twisted (sorry interpreted) to an expansion, ditto the power to regulate commerce. Perhaps we need to follow Henry VI and kill all the lawyers, but then some other group would inherit the power of semantic interpretation.
Sure, I know that. Consider, though, that demands that the feds pay for various “charitable” enterprises began almost immediately, and were largely resisted for generations, I would say that the Spending Clause worked a lot better than having no Spending Clause at all.
Words have to be backed up by culture, or culture will twist them to do what the culture wants. A culture of self-sufficiency and suspicion of government activity has been replaced, and no words will prevent that culture from getting what it demands. Good and hard.
Sockdologer is a great read and should be mandatory for kids.
They’ve already thought of that. That’s why there’s the war on poverty, war on drugs, etc.
Goes without saying, “wars” are armed conflicts with other sovereign nations. In R C Dean’s America, words will once again have meaning.
Declaration of war by congress or nobody gets paid.
Sure. And require a target ROI within 3 years. if the project doesn’t provide that return, everyone who voted for it is required to cough up enough to make the short fall, and if you can’t pay your share of it, you go to jail.
It’s all about incentives.
Why cant they just save up for #1?
You want a new Supreme Court Building*. Instead of building now and paying off over 30 years, save up for 30 years, then build.
*I chose it because when they built the current one, they went under budget and returned money to the Treasury.
One of the things you don’t want is a government with “savings” – big piles of money sitting around with nothing much to do. It will either be diverted to other purposes, or will be “invested” in an orgy of cronyism.
But look at the Social Security trust fund…
And it’s gone.
/South Park
No quarterly payments. Tax day then voting day. No more people voting themselves other people’s lucre. Write a check, then vote. Make paying taxes maximally painful.
I dont get to make partial payments on property taxes. I have to write a check to the parishes after the notice goes out and before the 1st of January. When I go to the sheriff’s office to do that you cant believe the sugar dripping off of them. That is the way it should be.
A few days ago someone suggested I do such and such to make my taxes lower. My response: Louisiana has the lowest property taxes in the country. I like that. If I start trying to cut them even further the parishes will really suffer for money and we will end up with taxes being raised. I will pay what they want now and even kick in a little extra now and then to keep them where they are. Not everyone can afford to do that and if taxes go up a lot of people will lose their land. That is unacceptable.
I would also add that you must be a federal taxpayer to vote for federal offices.
Tax reform might also include a hard minimum tax rate that would apply to everyone subject to federal taxes; as in, no matter what your deductions, etc., you will pay, say, 5% of gross earnings. This nonsense where a lot of people don’t pay any federal taxes has to stop.
Within a year, financial institutions offer income tax escrow accounts, followed by employers offering it as a benefit. And we’re back to the same place.
Alright, then, nobody can pay taxes on behalf of anyone else. You can set up a way to save the money you will have to pay in taxes, but it well never not be your money, and you will have to write the check.
“Here’s your preprinted check to Uncle Sam. Just sign at the bottom and hand it over”.
It’s a nice idea, but if the current withholding system insulates people from feeling the pain of taxation, something similar will crop up. Make it a pain in the ass, and people will turn their ire towards the method not the taxes.
If you know you’re going to pay it, it’s not really your money, just like I can’t take the mortgage payment and blow it in Vegas.
One thing I would like to see is ending the underwithholding penalty and make April 15 (or whatever tax day you want) the date for the full amount as opposed to the current system where you must pay as you go.
And election day can be April 16th. And you don’t get to vote unless you’ve paid in.
just like I can’t take the mortgage payment and blow it in Vegas.
Sure you can. In fact, I bet someone does this every day.
Here’s your preprinted check to Uncle Sam. Just sign at the bottom and hand it over
I guess if you wanted to you could set up a savings account that you could only use for that purpose, and have the company holding the account do your taxes for you and submit payment with your authorization. How many people would do that, I don’t know. Its really not too different, I suppose, than your mortgage escrows. Perhaps the only thing that might make people feel some pain is to prohibit employers from withholding anything from your paycheck to pay taxes, even if its to deposit it in an escrow account like that. That way, you would at least see the full amount of your pay, and have to fund the account yourself.
15% in-person cash-in-hand discount.
No different than a christmas club. Nothing wrong with putting a little money into an interest-bearing account on a regular basis to pay a big bill that comes annually.
No omnibus bills. Single-issue bills only, and only germane amendments permitted.
Instead of the line-item veto, we should have the word-item vote. Whichever house of Congress is voting on the bill votes workd by word, and only the words that have the required number of votes make it into the final bill sent on to the next chamber or the president. If it becomes an unintelligible mess, then it’s an easy veto.
I seem to recall that in Wisconsin, the line-item veto basically allowed the governor to delete individual words and maybe even numbers, at least from spending bills. He had the ability to do some pretty serious re-writes of bills. I don’t recall if they had to go back to the legislature after he edited them, or if they were official once he signed his edited version.
I’d like congressional representatives to actually represent the people. Right now I’m one of 500,000 people in my (overwhelmingly blue) district. Increasing the number of representatives from 435 to, say, 4350 would drop that ratio to 1:50,000. One more order of magnitude would give us 43,500 reps and only 5000 people trying to grab his ear. I might have a better chance of doing so.
I might have a better chance of doing so.
But the utility of doing so would also be reduced by two orders of magnitude.
Imagine the sweet, sweet gridlock of 43k different voices.
Two voices directing 43, 475 votes and 5 independent types. The larger the body the more power will accrete to those running the show, controlling the floor, and appointing the committees.
but your “representative” would be self-selected from that subset of the population who wants to rule you, and thinks they have a right to do so.
I have a fix for the 17th Amendment that combines 5 and 7: 2 Senators per state randomly chosen from the most numerous representative body in the state.
So you want to become a Senator? Get elected to your state House first, then get a lucky draw.
And if the state House follows the Federal House and chooses its members by a random draw, that creates even more amusing Senators.
STEVE SMITH FORM PERFECT UNION.
AND BY PERFECT UNION, MEAN GOVERNMENT OF, BY, AND FOR THE PEOPLE, WHICH EXISTS ONLY TO PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE.
THAT NOT WHAT STEVE SMITH HAVE IN MIND
STEVE SMITH ALWAYS FORM PERFECT UNION….
We should have a list of milestones for the government shutdown which tells us how various departments lose more funding as the shutdown goes on.
Art of the Deal?
https://slate.com/culture/2019/01/trevor-noah-trump-wall-state-of-emergency.html
Maybe I’m in a cynical mood today but all political systems, no matter how cleverly designed, will be corrupted, thwarted, and distorted beyond recognition.
I’m sure if you took a random sampling of the Founding Fathers and dropped them into the heart of DC, they would be aghast to see what their country has become. Not to knock America, there are still many great things about it, but these days I feel like we like on the ghostly remains of their ideas.
So yes, some fixes can be done around the edges; fixes that would greatly enhance freedom and our lives, but it’s the nature of (some of) humanity to be greedy, envious, and/or lazy. The changes in culture I’ve seen since the 1970s to now are fascinating, going in directions I would have never have guessed. Some of it good; a lot of it bad.
Maybe I’m in a cynical mood today but all political systems, no matter how cleverly designed, will be corrupted, thwarted, and distorted beyond recognition.
You do the best you can while you are here. Future generations will have to fend for themselves, no matter what you do.
True that – and history is a guide that is forgotten (over and over and over).
I think what is truly needed is a frontier. Hmmm… since we have states that will be going bankrupt, maybe make them provinces that are exempt from all federal laws and regulations.
Really, it’s astonishing we’re doing as well as we are.
ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONES.
1) COMPLETE OBEDIENCE TO ZARDOZ AND THE TABERNACLE.
2) GATHER GRAIN FOR THE ETERNALS IN THE VORTEX.
3) KILL THE BRUTALS WHO MULTIPLY AND PLAGUE THE EARTH.
4) GO FORTH AND KILL!
ZARDOZ HAS SPOKEN.
PLAGUE THE EART.
Suddenly, I was hearing that in Will Smith’s voice.
That would be “EARF”.
Don’t you be telling me what voices I hear in my head.
EART is more Schwarzenegger than Smith.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh-QWKGbm2Q
Works for me.
What’s an ‘EART’?
emergency airborne response team
IT WHAT YOU DO AFTER STEVE SMITH PAY VISIT. BY PAY VISIT…
Right you are, guvna!
WE’RE DOOOOOOMED!
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/doomsday-scenario-here-s-what-happens-if-shutdown-drags-n955946
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!
“Wow, that sounds bad. I’m gonna need more ammo.”
So a bunch of jackholes that leech off the rest of us have to root hog or die? The other items are all disasters caused by bureaucrats forbidding people to live their lives without a permit, and if the bureaucrats are all gone maybe folks will all die because no permits are being issued, or maybe people will go about their business, recognize that the permits add nothing, and oh by the way the enforcers are all laid off, so who needs a permit.
I, for one, haven’t noticed a change in my life – at all – because of the shutdown. ‘magine that.
I seem to have gotten taller and better looking.
This is cool! Go Trump!
That’s just because you’re hallucinating due to the spoiled food you’ve been eating since there’s no government inspectors making sure you’re kept safe.
Whatever works.
*admires self in mirror*
I’ve been forced to work remotely all week, and likely next week, too. Also, no meetings since we can’t enter the office. It’s also been great evidence of how terribly mismanaged our network, including our VPN, is by the contractors the EPA hires to do in an over-complicated and dysfunctional fashion what any commercial hosting provider does competently and efficiently at 1/50th of the cost.
Damn.
Why do you hate the children of the EPA’s network contractors, NB?
They even found a way to continue withholding from my paycheck.
And taxes are still due when they are due. Don’t you forget!
Under Obama, the national debt rose more than under all previous presidents combined. Maybe for Trump we could have the most time under partial government shutdown than all previous presidents combined.
UNDER STEVE SMITH ADMINISTRATION, MORE THAN DEBT RISE…
I think this story is the perfect example of your Idea 2
Fuckheads should have to pay back every dime.
It appears my weekend is going to take a turn for the strange. A friend of the girlfriend has several Germans coming into town, and they have heard that American beer is good. I have been drafted to take them to some of the local breweries, so they can try them out. The biggest problem is that Great Lakes Brewing is closed for repairs and remodels. Great Lakes would have been nice for being the oldest brewery in Cleveland, having a nice range of styles, and being within walking distance of half a dozen other breweries (all of which have a different focus).
My brother’s ex is German. I once hosted a bunch of her friends and stocked up on good local beer. What did they drink? The fucking budweiser left over from a neighborhood block party.
If I wanted to be a dick, I could take them to the Hofbräuhaus. The real question is going to be how far out of their comfort zone do they want to go, crazy fruited sours and NE IPA’s? Or just well made traditional beers?
Well, I wasn’t blown away with the beers I had in Germany (or England, for that matter). Take them outside their comfort zone. Your knowledge and experience will be a treat for them.
Way back when I first got into homebrewing, I made a chocolate stout.
A former coworker of mine was friends with some Bavarians who were visiting America. He introduced me to them at a party he was throwing. I had brought my chocolate stout with me to the party. My former coworker and I convinced the Bavarians to try my chocolate stout.
“Chocolate in beer? That is crazy!”
They tried it.
They liked it but they still thought chocolate in beer was crazy.
So…. don’t get too wild and crazy, and don’t be surprised if they like the beer but still call Americans did with it crazy.
Just don’t mention the war.
I should check and see if Saucy still has Separate Czechs on tap. Although I did get yelled at when I was there with the girlfriend and ordered it.