If you were President...

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jalanlong
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If you were President...

Post by jalanlong » Wed Dec 01, 2021 2:14 pm

Here is a topic for discussion. If you were President/Dictator for a day and could pass one piece of legislation to significantly change the country for what you believe is the better, what would that legislation be?

I will go first. Mine would be legislation to alert people on how much they are paying in taxes. I got this idea from PJ O.Rourke. Stop paycheck withholding of taxes. People get their gross pay and then write a check to the govt at the end of every month for their taxes. Add to that, at the end of the year, whatever the government overspent for the year, every American would get a bill to pay their pro rata share. I think that would install some quick fiscal discipline into Washington.
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Re: If you were President...

Post by Cortopassi » Wed Dec 01, 2021 3:03 pm

Reform elections overall.
--30 day election cycle
--Equal time and money given to candidates (how? I don't know. Maybe like jury duty. You are randomly selected, and as long as you can pass basic tests, you can run. Get people from all walks of life in there)
--No self funding, donations, PACs, or any money from any other sources at all
--Term limits. 4 years at all levels. Then you retire (with a reasonable pension for your service) or go back to your old job. No revolving door.
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I'll tell you what I'd do man.

Post by Mark Leavy » Wed Dec 01, 2021 3:17 pm

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Dieter
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Re: If you were President...

Post by Dieter » Wed Dec 01, 2021 3:47 pm

Remove electoral college for presidential elections (one person, one. Ote)

House seats proportional representation by total votes in state

(So, Presidency by people, Senate equal by state, house a bit in the middle)

Min voting age 25

Ranked choice voting where applicable

Corporations are not people and only have those rights explicitly given to them by the people

[Edit1: as originally intended, the max Social Security earnings taxed recalculated each year to tax 80% of the income. All income taxed]
Last edited by Dieter on Wed Dec 01, 2021 3:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Mountaineer
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Re: If you were President...

Post by Mountaineer » Wed Dec 01, 2021 3:54 pm

Cortopassi wrote:
Wed Dec 01, 2021 3:03 pm
Reform elections overall.
--30 day election cycle
--Equal time and money given to candidates (how? I don't know. Maybe like jury duty. You are randomly selected, and as long as you can pass basic tests, you can run. Get people from all walks of life in there)
--No self funding, donations, PACs, or any money from any other sources at all
--Term limits. 4 years at all levels. Then you retire (with a reasonable pension for your service) or go back to your old job. No revolving door.
Much the same for me. A lottery system for selection to all federal/state/local offices. Fixed term limits and only one term.

I like janalong's idea about transparancy on taxes too, although that would require too much mental energy on the part of the taxed "who cares, not my problem crowd that is living off the hind teat" to do anything productive about the problem. :)
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
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Dieter
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Re: If you were President...

Post by Dieter » Wed Dec 01, 2021 3:57 pm

jalanlong wrote:
Wed Dec 01, 2021 2:14 pm
Here is a topic for discussion. If you were President/Dictator for a day and could pass one piece of legislation to significantly change the country for what you believe is the better, what would that legislation be?

I will go first. Mine would be legislation to alert people on how much they are paying in taxes. I got this idea from PJ O.Rourke. Stop paycheck withholding of taxes. People get their gross pay and then write a check to the govt at the end of every month for their taxes. Add to that, at the end of the year, whatever the government overspent for the year, every American would get a bill to pay their pro rata share. I think that would install some quick fiscal discipline into Washington.
If do it, include details on where the money is going

And for debt, % from which administration it came]
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Re: If you were President...

Post by jalanlong » Wed Dec 01, 2021 4:36 pm

Dieter wrote:
Wed Dec 01, 2021 3:57 pm
jalanlong wrote:
Wed Dec 01, 2021 2:14 pm
Here is a topic for discussion. If you were President/Dictator for a day and could pass one piece of legislation to significantly change the country for what you believe is the better, what would that legislation be?

I will go first. Mine would be legislation to alert people on how much they are paying in taxes. I got this idea from PJ O.Rourke. Stop paycheck withholding of taxes. People get their gross pay and then write a check to the govt at the end of every month for their taxes. Add to that, at the end of the year, whatever the government overspent for the year, every American would get a bill to pay their pro rata share. I think that would install some quick fiscal discipline into Washington.
If do it, include details on where the money is going

And for debt, % from which administration it came]
I have also seen the suggestion that when you send your taxes in, you can choose to where you want it to go. That is a tough one to implement given that the government does so many things now. But it would be interesting, for example, given how many people complain when something like Public Television is threatened with any budget cuts at all to see how many people in reality would choose to fund it with a check they write directly. But then you can see exactly where the American people want their money to go and what they dont want to fund with their own money.

I have also heard it thrown out that any congressperson in office when there is a budget shortage would not be able to run for reelection. That would give you either a balanced budget or term limits so its a win/win. Of course congresspeople would just play with the numbers to take stuff off the books and make it appear as if the budget was balanced.
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Dieter
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Re: If you were President...

Post by Dieter » Wed Dec 01, 2021 7:08 pm

jalanlong wrote:
Wed Dec 01, 2021 4:36 pm
Dieter wrote:
Wed Dec 01, 2021 3:57 pm
jalanlong wrote:
Wed Dec 01, 2021 2:14 pm
Here is a topic for discussion. If you were President/Dictator for a day and could pass one piece of legislation to significantly change the country for what you believe is the better, what would that legislation be?

I will go first. Mine would be legislation to alert people on how much they are paying in taxes. I got this idea from PJ O.Rourke. Stop paycheck withholding of taxes. People get their gross pay and then write a check to the govt at the end of every month for their taxes. Add to that, at the end of the year, whatever the government overspent for the year, every American would get a bill to pay their pro rata share. I think that would install some quick fiscal discipline into Washington.
If do it, include details on where the money is going

And for debt, % from which administration it came]
I have also seen the suggestion that when you send your taxes in, you can choose to where you want it to go. That is a tough one to implement given that the government does so many things now. But it would be interesting, for example, given how many people complain when something like Public Television is threatened with any budget cuts at all to see how many people in reality would choose to fund it with a check they write directly. But then you can see exactly where the American people want their money to go and what they dont want to fund with their own money.

I have also heard it thrown out that any congressperson in office when there is a budget shortage would not be able to run for reelection. That would give you either a balanced budget or term limits so its a win/win. Of course congresspeople would just play with the numbers to take stuff off the books and make it appear as if the budget was balanced.
There is also the argument that there are times to run deficits, such as during economic downturns.

Oh, do we allocate dept payments based on which party was in the white house at the time the policy for the dept was created?
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Re: If you were President...

Post by boglerdude » Wed Dec 01, 2021 11:11 pm

Raked choice voting
Paper ballots and voter ID
Term limits on congress
No minimum wage
FedBux/UBI that can be spent on plant-based food, education/computers and healthcare
Accelerated expiration of patents
Vacancy/under-use tax on property
Dynamic congestion pricing on roads, funding goes to rail
Ban factory farming
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Re: If you were President...

Post by Kriegsspiel » Fri Dec 03, 2021 5:47 am

Repeal the 1965 Higher Education Act... the 2008 Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act... basically all the government education actions.
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Re: If you were President...

Post by dualstow » Fri Dec 03, 2021 10:54 am

I don’t have a concrete one, but something that would break the stranglehold that lawyers have on the nation.
It can never happen.
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Re: I'll tell you what I'd do man.

Post by Xan » Fri Dec 03, 2021 10:58 am

Mark Leavy wrote:
Wed Dec 01, 2021 3:17 pm
officespace.jpeg
Brilliant
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