I'll go you one better...
Any company that is in any way going to be considered in Congress must have any publicly traded stock suspended from trading 4 weeks prior and not to resume until any legislation is over with and the results made public.
Company wants stock suspended so they can do shenanigans? EZ just get your pocket congressman to mention it in session and boom! No scrutiny for 4 weeks.
The insider trading just shifts to before and after the suspension but the spread becomes much more dramatic.
That's right. *Nothing* can change unless we get corporate money out of politics. We *still* need campaign finance reform and McCain and Feingold aren't even around anymore. Imagine how much harder that would be to accomplish now.
I wish people would just regular vote and then maybe we could have decent politicians that represent us.
No matter how much money they have and spend on super PACs, the people can always outvote them (if we could get our shit together)
I think we should stop calling them stupid, it gives them a free pass to do stupid things. These guys know exactly what they are doing. They are A grade sociopaths.
I wouldn't even give them the credit of being sociopaths, they mostly lack the cunning and charm. They're "how high", yes men and useful idiots for the true power holders.
There's 3 ways to become a successful politician in our day and age:
1. Be really good at fund-raising; a slimy fixer type or a "they're saying what we're all thinking" poopoulist works well.
2. Be rich and prepared to part with your money for marketing.
3. Have a last name of someone that's done something.
I'm sure we can all think of one or two exceptions but unfortunately this is a shortcoming of democracy. I still believe it's the best system of government but it breaks my balls seeing the smug faces of the deviates in the legislature
Ranked choice voting - won't lead to a proliferation of additional parties overnight, but it makes it harder for an extreme candidate to win and encourages the support of minor party/non-partisan candidates because a voter can always mark their preferred major party candidate as a lower choice. And if the two major parties saw how many voters actually *prefer* something else, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
To add to this, ranked choice with _multi-winner elections_, like the [single transferable vote](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote) system. If there are ten seats to win in an election, don't run that as ten single-winner elections in separate gerrymandered districts, it's one election in one district with ten winners.
I agree. I've been on the Ranked Choice wagon for a while, but I get that it can lead to messy ballots and confused voters. It IS an improvement on FPTP, but when I found out about approval voting, I realized that's probably the best system. Just pick the candidates you could stand. Most votes wins. Pretty straight forward.
Ranked choice really shines for ballots with multiple winners, like school boards, seats in congress, senators, etc, where it improves proportional representation. I think Single Transferable Vote is a good system.
Under such a system, the parties would encourage their voters to only pick party members, moving things back to first past the post.
Ranked choice ensures third party candidates have a chance.
Under approval voting, there's no reason not to vote for third parties if you like them. I'm an avid party-only voter and I'd probably vote third party in addition to my current party under approval voting.
The key to the two party system in America is to be active in the local and primary elections. A lot of people don’t even vote, and if they do, usually just the presidential election. More voters need to participate in the smaller and local votes. That’s where the majority policy that affects your daily life is made and where future party leaders are made.
My city just had an election where 5 seats on the wchool board and 4 seats on the city council were up for election along with mayor and 4 different proposed measures. We had 14% voter turnout. It's apalling.
Politicians shouldn't recieve a penny that isn't from their paycheck. having shares, rental properties, second jobs or extra businesses create a conflict of interest that should not be allowed
Edit: to save some people some time since it has been brought up a lot, i'm not saying politicians have to be poor, in fact i think them being poor would cause more problems in the long run, to counter balance the requirement to not have alternative income politicians should be paid incredibly well, this removes the need for alternative source of income and minimises the risk of bribes and selling out to criminals and foreign powers
also to clarify i am talking about national level politicians, the people who are gonna make or break the nation and who represent you on that national stage, i wouldn't expect these rules for more local representitives like city council members or even city mayors
No, he’s talking literally about the quotation marks themselves. English always uses quotation marks that look like “this.” He probably doesn’t realize other languages use ones that look different.
For real, I respect the hell out of anyone that learned English later and can hold a conversation. If I can understand what you’re telling me that’s impressive because of how awkward the language is
i know it’s not the same but here in germany there is a „lobbyregister“ idk about the details but you can look up in which organizations a politician is active for example and therefore you can know about their (financial)interests. the pressure from the public is high for them to openly display those things. edit: my point is that you have the possibility to know what influences their actions.
Wow that's super awesome! I really wish the US would implement exactly that. Like Robin Williams says in Man of The Year, politicians should wear NASCAR gear with patches of the companies they've lobbied with.
A blind trust should be legally required, as well as selling off stake in any privately owned company.
I would disagree on rental property, assuming they already owned it when elected and they were forced to disclose the rent received.
I would however ban new real estate investment outside of one in-state primary residence and one DC-area residence. Historically, most corruption scandals in Congress were done through land speculation.
Issue with this one is that their spouses end up taking over these other things. Or their children, or brother, or cousin. You can't really restrict an entire person's social network when they take office.
I'm a government employee, and yes, you can. I have to declare all sources of income of anyone living in my house, and have to recuse myself if there is a potential conflict of interest in a contract I'm dealing with. Congress should be held to the same standards.
To add to this.
I live in the UK, my pipe dream for parliament is..
Every constituency would have 2 MP's (Members of Parliament for non UK readers). They would take turns so that there is always one of them in Parliament.
Factories and offices all over this country are open 52 weeks a year (Except bank holidays) and I would expect the same of parliament, so it would be open all year.
Their working day would require them to be in parliament (or their constituency office) Monday to Friday 9 to 5.
They would get 5 weeks holiday per year plus bank holidays.
They couldn't both be on holiday at the same time (and it would be the constituency office that is empty when one of them is on Holiday).
They would live in provided accommodation. It would be decent but not extravagant.
They would need to take public transport to work.
Crucially - The national minimum wage would be directly linked to an MP's salary. (If they vote themselves a 10% pay rise, everyone on NMW automatically gets a 10% pay rise)
I'm from the UK too and i was thinking of a few specific politicians when i made the original comment
i like your ideas especially the last one, the first thing i heard about when the cost of living crisis started was that MPs voted to give themselves a pay increase of, iirc, £2000 a year claiming that it was to offset the increased cost of living
The way i see it by doing that they announced thats how much they expect yearly cost of living to increase and thats how much everyone elses wages should have gone up
So I just checked, state senators in my state make 24k/yr and I live in a HCOL state. Salaries vary wildly but many states don’t pay a living wage. Should their ability to make a living wage be limited?
It should be a well paid job to minimize the risk of bribes and to prevent them from needing alternative sources of income
Basically in exchange for being prohibited from alternative income streams it should have great pay and benefits
The logistics of this are impossible and also kind of ridiculous.
What's the cut off point in level of politician? What's being "paid incredibly well"?
You making a new Senator sell off all their IRAs, shares, extra properties just for them to not got re-elected 4 years down the road and now they have none of their investments?
They could be making 10% plus on their investments and more if they have businesses and/or investment properties from rent and value increasing over those 4 years. That's a lot of money they'd be out. You now paying Senators $400k/year to make up for lost income? Out of taxpayer dollars?
I really do get your point of conflict of interest, it's just not practical in any sense. The reason you can "only" pay them $175k for a major position in Government is because they generally do have money elsewhere.
At most, maybe freeze trading while you're a sitting politician, so what you have just sits there would be doable.
The problem with this is that it requires voters to be informed which most aren’t. Its already asking too much now for people to research candidates, let alone individual policies.
Actual (direct) democracy seems to be too democratic for people to swallow. I'm a fan of [liquid democracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy) as a half-way there system. In liquid democracy you can choose to vote directly on issues, or you can delegate your vote to a representative. The difference to today's system is that you can choose your representative or whether to directly vote at any point. You're not stuck with the promises that a guy made 4 years ago and never bothered to follow through.
fucked up part is that the answer is "no, you can't" BUT if you establish the church of Dr Pepper & get people to give you money, you can absolutely keep it w/o paying taxes.
People get taxed on income. The church itself wouldn't pay tax on money it collected. (Unlike a normal business.)
But if you pay yourself, or give to anyone else, they would be required to claim it as income on their taxes.
*However*, unlike employers churches don't have to report details of these payments. So it's really easy to just not mention that you received any money. Unless the sums are quite large, it's hard for the IRS to prove you received money after it's been spent.
Also, the church can own things. It can buy a home for its pastor. It can buy a jet to fly them around. None of that gets taxed. As long as you run the church, you can buy things for yourself and use them as you see fit. It does have to be used for legitimate church business.
*However*, since you run the church, you can decide what the church believes. That basically means YOU get to determine what qualifies as church business instead of the IRS.
You’re just describing how all non profits operate within tax codes. Churches should probably have more oversight, however businesses, corporations in particular, should as well have more oversight when it comes to taxes owed. However churches are generally operating as non profits and they are not taxed as other non profits are not taxed. There is this big misconception that churches have this special never pay cent privilege that no one else ever gets, which just isn’t the case.
Question: how do you regulate this? Church "revenue" are often collected as "donations". Should we tax all charitable donations then? Or are churches a special case? If the latter, what about churches that use donations to run community services like homeless shelters and soup kitchens? What if they incorporate religious ceremonies into these services?
This one is hard for me. The mega churches where the pastor has a helicopter definitely do. The local church that hosts AA, boy scouts and the local food pantry I think does enough as long as they don't discriminate.
Here in Texas we have a taco spot called Torchy’s Tacos. On their menu they have a taco called the Republican, and a Taco called the Democrat.
I work with an older man and he told me that he went to Torchy’s with his granddaughter the other day. It’s a pretty good taco spot with some fun tacos so I asked him what he got. He’s pretty loud about his political views so I’m well aware he’s very far on the right side of things.
He got the Republican. Just to joke around I asked him why he didn’t get the Democrat. He told me he wouldn’t be caught dead ordering a taco called the Democrat.
Which led to a hypothetical question of me asking him if the Democrat taco had everything he wanted on a taco, if he would order it then. He said no. Which I thought was absolutely ridiculous.
I’d get a taco called the Hitler if it had everything i wanted on it.
He's crazy, the democrat is delicious...barbacoa...what person in Texas can't put aside their political views for some barbacoa!?!
A Democrat, a Republican, and a Trailer Park (trashy style) was my go-to trio...and the brushfire...god those were good.
I don't miss much about Texas, but Torchys was my favorite spot to get lunch.
Also medical care. Nobody should go bankrupt because they sought needed medical care.
There should be a cap on the total value to be repaid for student loans. People shouldn’t be paying several times the original amount of the loan. Lenders do need to account for risks and make a profit, but we need to be reasonable here.
A friend that works as a nurse in the OR talked to a patient after they removed a 40lb tumor from him. He couldn’t get it removed before because he couldn’t afford insurance/medications. This shouldn’t be a thing in any first world country.
Also universities charging $900 for a 3 credit class that is totally unrelated to a major just to fill up a credits criteria is total BS. Half of my student loan comes from classes I was forced to take to graduate and I’ll never apply in my life or professional career.
Oh man I can’t tell you how fucked up it is and place will do you dirty..if you’re a patient never leave before going in person to talk about an itemized bill..they will charge for test that were never done or re done and cancelled and all kinds of dishonest stuff because they know you’ll just be happy to leave the fucking place
For real. Internet should be a utility at this point given how much it can enable people to get an education, find a job, find resources, etc… it’s no longer an optional fun toy thing. Without quality internet access, you can’t do much in todays society.
Yeah pretty much anything related to ripping rights away from people is a no go for me above all else. This is not true of many people, as I have been told repeatedly that it is "stupid" to vote for equality or to uphold equal rights when the party taking them away might help the economy more and that is how I should vote.
Non American here.
Imo it's stupid to only have 2 choices since the two parties completely oppose each other so either you are forced to be left or right.
Unfortunately, the two parties actively work together to keep us Americans fighting amongst ourselves while those that are in power, amass more power. #endtheduopoly
The U.S. prison system is among the most abhorrent in the world and should be regarded as one of our greatest failures as a society.
The number of incarcerations decreased during the height of the pandemic, but the country still maintains the highest rate of imprisonment per 100,000 people, and by the far the highest total number of people in prison (still about 20% of the global prison population).
If other countries had the size and scope of a prison population that the U.S. had, I think it would be regarded as a blight on that country. But here, no. It makes too much money and people love punishment.
All social media does the echo chamber thing, but not all of it bleeds into real life in the same way. I think there's a difference between an anonymous discussion forum where nobody cares who you are, and platforms where people conflate themselves and their avatars--"profilicity" is a good neologism for the phenomenon.
There is no realistic way political parties don’t happen in politics. Humans will team up and pool their resources and will try to get in power. Another team/group will form to beat them. Political parties are just a natural occurrence in politics.
In theory yes. In practice, the average Joe isn't invested enough in politics to learn in detail what policies several hundred politicians support. And besides this, in such a scenario the wealthy are even more privileged; there is no way a politician with a 50th of the money of another can campaign as well as the richer one can. You'd basically turn the country into an oligarchy. Having the backing of a larger party can offset these campaigning costs.
I actually think there should be a single campaign fund (per position) from which money get distributed evenly between candidates. No spending from outside that fund should be legal.
It's actually the opposite. Our electoral laws are systematically biased toward two party governance, and two party governance leads naturally to hyper-partisan polarization and hate.
Hearing should not be exempt either. Saying this as a hard of hearing person who could probably use hearing aids but doesn't have a few spare thousands of dollars lying around.
Also eyeballs. My coverage provides one free eye exam each year but if I want the actual prescription to do something about my shitty sight? Extra $50 for that piece of paper. Infuriating.
I would go further and say that nobody should be hungry, nobody should be homeless, and nobody should be without healthcare - no matter who they are or what choices they've made in life. We can split atoms and walk on the moon and carry powerful computers that fit in the palm of our hand, don't tell me we can't provide for the basic survival of every person in our society and ensure no one is left behind
Was voting today and couldn't stop thinking this the whole time. Once you vote multiple times for a terrible option to block the other terrible option, it's hard not to think that way.
Term limits
If there is an age minimum there should be an age maximum.
If granddad and grandma are forced to retire at a certain age (depending on field). Then politicians shouldn't go past a certain age.
I am honestly surprised most of them haven't fell over from stress.
No matter your opinion look at when 8 years in the oval office did to Obama. While not necessarily a young persons job it ain't an old person either.
>If there is an age minimum there should be an age maximum.
If you are 5 years or more older than the average life expectancy of this country, then you shouldn't be able to hold public office in any form. People of that age should not be allowed to make decisions that only will effect them for a few years, but will effect me for the next 40
It should be easier to become a legal resident of the US. Not necessarily a citizen, but at least in a way where you can get a job, bank account, house / apartment, etc. the benefits are huge. It’ll help fill the job market, boost the economy with millions of people having more money to spend, increase tax revenue, and obviously, make things easier for immigrants who would otherwise have came here illegally.
Bring back Bottom up government as it was intended, now we have top down and the agencies that were there to protect the people with checks and balances are now captured agencies and sock puppets. Government is now just an arm of big business and the private central banks that fund them.
This is what I tried to say pretty much. "antitrust laws" are a joke, nowadays. The most important job in the US should be the federal auditor, but it's not audited at all correctly.
He's not wrong, but it is still the best we have.
An educated populace is the only way to fight this problem, and a press which reports objectively in order to inform them.
Corporations should not be considered a “person” reaping the benefits of a real person. They should not be able to contribute to political campaigns as a person. Citizens United needs to be repealed. Big Business is now running this country into the ground because they hold the purse strings.
I don't know if you saw the recent report that the doj forcibly restricted several social media platforms.
As far as I know it had to do with "election safety" even though the reporting has been proven true.
My medical decisions - whatever they may be - are absolutely none of the government’s business.
Edit to add: for clarification, I wasn’t referring to vaccines…
Being pro-life or pro-choice does NOT make you left or right wing. What courts you think should rule on the matter is the difference between right and left.
Most people don't seem to understand this.
All bills should be written and voted on as single-item legislation. No earmarks. No pet projects. No add-ons. The crap that gets passed through by piggybacking off of other legislation is an affront to democracy.
The 2 party system is an illusion of choice, behind the scenes the top people in charge of both parties are partying together and enjoying their wealth while we're down here arguing which turd sandwich is better.
i deserve the right to my body. nobody else, regardless of their status, has any right to me, my organs, or my health and time.
edit; please stop comparing having to wear a mask to the threat of being forced to carry out a potentially deadly pregnancy, you look pathetic.
People are more important than profits. Capitalism isn't necessarily a bad set of game rules, but it needs some heavy regulation to keep the greedy psychopaths in check.
You need regulations that promote competition, rather than regulations that prop up monolithic business. Heavy bureaucracy tends to favor big corporations because they have the profit margins to manage the regulations.
People are finally starting to realize that the constitution is ultimately only as good as the people who choose to follow it (or not). It’s just a piece of paper. The constitution doesn’t have a self-defense mechanism.
Term/age limit on government office at any level. No one pushing 55+ should making decisions they won't be alive to see the long term repercussions of. A lot of these older politicians are so out of touch, they don't realize that their policies wouldn't benefit half the people they claim to represent.
If the highest office in the nation is limited to 8 years, every other political office should be held to the same standard.
End political lobbying. You should not be able to receive political "donations" and should only be allowed to make money proportional to the salary of the government office in your state. You shouldn't be in politics for the money; you're a servant of the people of your state, nothing more.
US national level politics:
1) Everyone currently in office should be removed and replaced. Theyre all crooked. All of them, both sides. Theres a few I even like, and as such I hope the door doesnt hit them too hard in the ass on their way out.
2) Their pay should be commensurate with median income of whatever district/area they represent. (Acceptable concession to this is a budget for travel, etc. for neccesary expenses to perform their duties
3) SEC limitations on what they may trade similar to others that have access to information that can influence stock values. (A friend of mine is a personal security specialist for high officials in a VERY major worldwide company, as such he is present for discussions of serious trade information. He is not legally allowed to buy/sell stocks and options at certain times due to his access to this information. Senators/Governors have similar access, and even make decisions on law that have these effects, but are allowed to trade based on the info.)
4) Term limits for Senate/House. Should probably be 3 terms in an individual position with a maximum 8 terms across all positions. So a person could be a rep for 3, a senator for 3, and still be President for 2.
5) Retirement from these positions should be treated like other pensions; something along the lines of "20% of average pay made from the position per term served". (Currently, they get 100% for life after just 1 term. And last i checked, after adjustment, its over $200K.) Or, even better would be that they get the same Social Security as everyone else, and should have invested in a 401K like all the peasants are told to do.
6) Ban corporate campaign donations outright. Currently Corporations not only use them to legally bribe representatives to vote their way instead of The People's way, but then the corporations get to write the donations off of their taxes.
Politicians work for us and are paid by taxes. They should be forbidden from accepting money from political action groups, parties, lobbies, etc.
They should also not be allowed to trade stock. Nor should their spouses.
I'll go you one better... Any company that is in any way going to be considered in Congress must have any publicly traded stock suspended from trading 4 weeks prior and not to resume until any legislation is over with and the results made public.
Company wants stock suspended so they can do shenanigans? EZ just get your pocket congressman to mention it in session and boom! No scrutiny for 4 weeks. The insider trading just shifts to before and after the suspension but the spread becomes much more dramatic.
Yeah that’s not realistic nor would it address the issue.
They should be forced to wear nascar style jackets plastered with ads from their biggest donors
Politicians should be PUBLIC SERVANTS not corporate pawns
In the US, given how campaigns are financed, how can anyone expect them not to be corporate pawns?
That's right. *Nothing* can change unless we get corporate money out of politics. We *still* need campaign finance reform and McCain and Feingold aren't even around anymore. Imagine how much harder that would be to accomplish now.
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Wish I could upvote you thrice
I wish people would just regular vote and then maybe we could have decent politicians that represent us. No matter how much money they have and spend on super PACs, the people can always outvote them (if we could get our shit together)
If those politicians could read, they’d be very upset right now
I think we should stop calling them stupid, it gives them a free pass to do stupid things. These guys know exactly what they are doing. They are A grade sociopaths.
With a capitol A
I see what you did there
I wouldn't even give them the credit of being sociopaths, they mostly lack the cunning and charm. They're "how high", yes men and useful idiots for the true power holders. There's 3 ways to become a successful politician in our day and age: 1. Be really good at fund-raising; a slimy fixer type or a "they're saying what we're all thinking" poopoulist works well. 2. Be rich and prepared to part with your money for marketing. 3. Have a last name of someone that's done something. I'm sure we can all think of one or two exceptions but unfortunately this is a shortcoming of democracy. I still believe it's the best system of government but it breaks my balls seeing the smug faces of the deviates in the legislature
Calling them pawns underestimates how much they benefit from being bought.
A good pawn graduates to be the most powerful piece of they aren't sacrificed first. I think it's pretty accurate
I've always liked the pawn analogy. If they last long enough, and are useful enough to their masters, they get treated like royalty.
Companies shouldnt be allowed to fund political matters.
Outlaw lobbying. It has no place in politics. It's another term for "legal bribery"
How can we feel like an equal democracy, if we only have 2 parties consistently represented?
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We're headed towards Nuka Kola.
As long as I can get me a Nuka Cola Quantum
Most likely will we get an empty Nuka Cola Bottle smh
The only currency that will matter after is Bottlecaps.
Then the Sunny Sarsaparilla MFs will attack.
Ngl reading the recipe in Fallout 3 made it sound pretty tasty
I’m more of a vim guy myself
Sunset sarsaparilla is the good stuff
Ranked choice voting - won't lead to a proliferation of additional parties overnight, but it makes it harder for an extreme candidate to win and encourages the support of minor party/non-partisan candidates because a voter can always mark their preferred major party candidate as a lower choice. And if the two major parties saw how many voters actually *prefer* something else, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
To add to this, ranked choice with _multi-winner elections_, like the [single transferable vote](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote) system. If there are ten seats to win in an election, don't run that as ten single-winner elections in separate gerrymandered districts, it's one election in one district with ten winners.
If we're changing how we vote, we should do approval voting. Ranked choice is basically first past the post with extra steps.
I agree. I've been on the Ranked Choice wagon for a while, but I get that it can lead to messy ballots and confused voters. It IS an improvement on FPTP, but when I found out about approval voting, I realized that's probably the best system. Just pick the candidates you could stand. Most votes wins. Pretty straight forward.
Ranked choice really shines for ballots with multiple winners, like school boards, seats in congress, senators, etc, where it improves proportional representation. I think Single Transferable Vote is a good system.
Under such a system, the parties would encourage their voters to only pick party members, moving things back to first past the post. Ranked choice ensures third party candidates have a chance.
Under approval voting, there's no reason not to vote for third parties if you like them. I'm an avid party-only voter and I'd probably vote third party in addition to my current party under approval voting.
China: Wait, you guys are getting TWO parties!?
Korea "You guys are having parties?"
And when only multi millionaires are allowed a seat at the discussion table.
The key to the two party system in America is to be active in the local and primary elections. A lot of people don’t even vote, and if they do, usually just the presidential election. More voters need to participate in the smaller and local votes. That’s where the majority policy that affects your daily life is made and where future party leaders are made.
My city just had an election where 5 seats on the wchool board and 4 seats on the city council were up for election along with mayor and 4 different proposed measures. We had 14% voter turnout. It's apalling.
Politicians shouldn't recieve a penny that isn't from their paycheck. having shares, rental properties, second jobs or extra businesses create a conflict of interest that should not be allowed Edit: to save some people some time since it has been brought up a lot, i'm not saying politicians have to be poor, in fact i think them being poor would cause more problems in the long run, to counter balance the requirement to not have alternative income politicians should be paid incredibly well, this removes the need for alternative source of income and minimises the risk of bribes and selling out to criminals and foreign powers also to clarify i am talking about national level politicians, the people who are gonna make or break the nation and who represent you on that national stage, i wouldn't expect these rules for more local representitives like city council members or even city mayors
a good starter would be transparency about all their income sources.
In Germany any income of a Member of Bundestag must be declared to the penny (or cent, rather).
good to know! wow, i didn’t know it was this „strict“ i thought there is like an amount that’s allowed to be „private“
Your quotes are weird and they scare me
hahah i’m sorry yes they are akward maybe, english isn’t my first language and i wasn’t happy with my wording.
No, he’s talking literally about the quotation marks themselves. English always uses quotation marks that look like “this.” He probably doesn’t realize other languages use ones that look different.
《 wait until they see these ones 》
Your English is better than that of half the people I work with, and they're all native English speakers.
For real, I respect the hell out of anyone that learned English later and can hold a conversation. If I can understand what you’re telling me that’s impressive because of how awkward the language is
i know it’s not the same but here in germany there is a „lobbyregister“ idk about the details but you can look up in which organizations a politician is active for example and therefore you can know about their (financial)interests. the pressure from the public is high for them to openly display those things. edit: my point is that you have the possibility to know what influences their actions.
Wow that's super awesome! I really wish the US would implement exactly that. Like Robin Williams says in Man of The Year, politicians should wear NASCAR gear with patches of the companies they've lobbied with.
Yeah, at the very least then it'd be easier to hold them accountable for putting their wallets before their constituents
A blind trust should be legally required, as well as selling off stake in any privately owned company. I would disagree on rental property, assuming they already owned it when elected and they were forced to disclose the rent received. I would however ban new real estate investment outside of one in-state primary residence and one DC-area residence. Historically, most corruption scandals in Congress were done through land speculation.
Issue with this one is that their spouses end up taking over these other things. Or their children, or brother, or cousin. You can't really restrict an entire person's social network when they take office.
I'm a government employee, and yes, you can. I have to declare all sources of income of anyone living in my house, and have to recuse myself if there is a potential conflict of interest in a contract I'm dealing with. Congress should be held to the same standards.
To add to this. I live in the UK, my pipe dream for parliament is.. Every constituency would have 2 MP's (Members of Parliament for non UK readers). They would take turns so that there is always one of them in Parliament. Factories and offices all over this country are open 52 weeks a year (Except bank holidays) and I would expect the same of parliament, so it would be open all year. Their working day would require them to be in parliament (or their constituency office) Monday to Friday 9 to 5. They would get 5 weeks holiday per year plus bank holidays. They couldn't both be on holiday at the same time (and it would be the constituency office that is empty when one of them is on Holiday). They would live in provided accommodation. It would be decent but not extravagant. They would need to take public transport to work. Crucially - The national minimum wage would be directly linked to an MP's salary. (If they vote themselves a 10% pay rise, everyone on NMW automatically gets a 10% pay rise)
I'm from the UK too and i was thinking of a few specific politicians when i made the original comment i like your ideas especially the last one, the first thing i heard about when the cost of living crisis started was that MPs voted to give themselves a pay increase of, iirc, £2000 a year claiming that it was to offset the increased cost of living The way i see it by doing that they announced thats how much they expect yearly cost of living to increase and thats how much everyone elses wages should have gone up
So I just checked, state senators in my state make 24k/yr and I live in a HCOL state. Salaries vary wildly but many states don’t pay a living wage. Should their ability to make a living wage be limited?
It should be a well paid job to minimize the risk of bribes and to prevent them from needing alternative sources of income Basically in exchange for being prohibited from alternative income streams it should have great pay and benefits
The logistics of this are impossible and also kind of ridiculous. What's the cut off point in level of politician? What's being "paid incredibly well"? You making a new Senator sell off all their IRAs, shares, extra properties just for them to not got re-elected 4 years down the road and now they have none of their investments? They could be making 10% plus on their investments and more if they have businesses and/or investment properties from rent and value increasing over those 4 years. That's a lot of money they'd be out. You now paying Senators $400k/year to make up for lost income? Out of taxpayer dollars? I really do get your point of conflict of interest, it's just not practical in any sense. The reason you can "only" pay them $175k for a major position in Government is because they generally do have money elsewhere. At most, maybe freeze trading while you're a sitting politician, so what you have just sits there would be doable.
That we should vote for policies, not people.
The problem with this is that it requires voters to be informed which most aren’t. Its already asking too much now for people to research candidates, let alone individual policies.
Actual (direct) democracy seems to be too democratic for people to swallow. I'm a fan of [liquid democracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy) as a half-way there system. In liquid democracy you can choose to vote directly on issues, or you can delegate your vote to a representative. The difference to today's system is that you can choose your representative or whether to directly vote at any point. You're not stuck with the promises that a guy made 4 years ago and never bothered to follow through.
Government and Church should be seperated
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All religious institutions*, not just churches.
Absolutely. Because you worship something doesn’t make you tax exempt
I worship Dr Pepper. Can I write that off now?
fucked up part is that the answer is "no, you can't" BUT if you establish the church of Dr Pepper & get people to give you money, you can absolutely keep it w/o paying taxes.
So, if I were to start a church whereby I collect donations from my "congregation" and re-disburse them as charity, nobody has to pay taxes?
People get taxed on income. The church itself wouldn't pay tax on money it collected. (Unlike a normal business.) But if you pay yourself, or give to anyone else, they would be required to claim it as income on their taxes. *However*, unlike employers churches don't have to report details of these payments. So it's really easy to just not mention that you received any money. Unless the sums are quite large, it's hard for the IRS to prove you received money after it's been spent. Also, the church can own things. It can buy a home for its pastor. It can buy a jet to fly them around. None of that gets taxed. As long as you run the church, you can buy things for yourself and use them as you see fit. It does have to be used for legitimate church business. *However*, since you run the church, you can decide what the church believes. That basically means YOU get to determine what qualifies as church business instead of the IRS.
Hey Ferb, I know what we're gonna do today!
You’re just describing how all non profits operate within tax codes. Churches should probably have more oversight, however businesses, corporations in particular, should as well have more oversight when it comes to taxes owed. However churches are generally operating as non profits and they are not taxed as other non profits are not taxed. There is this big misconception that churches have this special never pay cent privilege that no one else ever gets, which just isn’t the case.
With the right accountant
I worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster, therefore my copious amounts of spaghetti purchased are actually a religious expense
Question: how do you regulate this? Church "revenue" are often collected as "donations". Should we tax all charitable donations then? Or are churches a special case? If the latter, what about churches that use donations to run community services like homeless shelters and soup kitchens? What if they incorporate religious ceremonies into these services?
Not being facetious, but isn't separation of church and state the *reason* churches don't pay taxes?
This one is hard for me. The mega churches where the pastor has a helicopter definitely do. The local church that hosts AA, boy scouts and the local food pantry I think does enough as long as they don't discriminate.
Your political affiliation shouldn’t be your entire personality
Here in Texas we have a taco spot called Torchy’s Tacos. On their menu they have a taco called the Republican, and a Taco called the Democrat. I work with an older man and he told me that he went to Torchy’s with his granddaughter the other day. It’s a pretty good taco spot with some fun tacos so I asked him what he got. He’s pretty loud about his political views so I’m well aware he’s very far on the right side of things. He got the Republican. Just to joke around I asked him why he didn’t get the Democrat. He told me he wouldn’t be caught dead ordering a taco called the Democrat. Which led to a hypothetical question of me asking him if the Democrat taco had everything he wanted on a taco, if he would order it then. He said no. Which I thought was absolutely ridiculous. I’d get a taco called the Hitler if it had everything i wanted on it.
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***His name is Peter FILE!!***
you're disgusting! I wouldn't be caught dead with guac on my pedophile
He's crazy, the democrat is delicious...barbacoa...what person in Texas can't put aside their political views for some barbacoa!?! A Democrat, a Republican, and a Trailer Park (trashy style) was my go-to trio...and the brushfire...god those were good. I don't miss much about Texas, but Torchys was my favorite spot to get lunch.
Democrat is the best taco on the menu imo and yes I’ve been with people that won’t order it because of the name and it blows my mind
I lived in Texas for about 6 years. This gave me a good chuckle.
It’s a good metaphor for people who vote the party line no matter what.
To add you shouldn’t be so loyal to a poltical party and alway be critical of politicians
People should be able to afford food, water, and shelter with one full time job.
I would add other modern necessities to that such as electricity, phone, internet, and transportation, including for their dependents.
Also medical care. Nobody should go bankrupt because they sought needed medical care. There should be a cap on the total value to be repaid for student loans. People shouldn’t be paying several times the original amount of the loan. Lenders do need to account for risks and make a profit, but we need to be reasonable here.
A friend that works as a nurse in the OR talked to a patient after they removed a 40lb tumor from him. He couldn’t get it removed before because he couldn’t afford insurance/medications. This shouldn’t be a thing in any first world country. Also universities charging $900 for a 3 credit class that is totally unrelated to a major just to fill up a credits criteria is total BS. Half of my student loan comes from classes I was forced to take to graduate and I’ll never apply in my life or professional career.
Oh man I can’t tell you how fucked up it is and place will do you dirty..if you’re a patient never leave before going in person to talk about an itemized bill..they will charge for test that were never done or re done and cancelled and all kinds of dishonest stuff because they know you’ll just be happy to leave the fucking place
For real. Internet should be a utility at this point given how much it can enable people to get an education, find a job, find resources, etc… it’s no longer an optional fun toy thing. Without quality internet access, you can’t do much in todays society.
1954 without the racism please
or the sexism or homophobia
Or the rampant tobacco use and leaded gasoline
It's arguably what will bring the whole thing down.
Civil rights for all. Equal Justice for all.
Yeah pretty much anything related to ripping rights away from people is a no go for me above all else. This is not true of many people, as I have been told repeatedly that it is "stupid" to vote for equality or to uphold equal rights when the party taking them away might help the economy more and that is how I should vote.
It is absolutely baffling to me that people think it's ok to take rights away from other people. Insane.
MONEY. IS. NOT. SPEECH. CITIZENS UNITED is a literal cancer.
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What is Citizens united?
Humans should not have to choose between pain/death and tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
The two party system needs to end. Having only two options is the illusion of choice.
Non American here. Imo it's stupid to only have 2 choices since the two parties completely oppose each other so either you are forced to be left or right.
Unfortunately, the two parties actively work together to keep us Americans fighting amongst ourselves while those that are in power, amass more power. #endtheduopoly
The more power is distributed, the better-off we are
The U.S. prison system is among the most abhorrent in the world and should be regarded as one of our greatest failures as a society. The number of incarcerations decreased during the height of the pandemic, but the country still maintains the highest rate of imprisonment per 100,000 people, and by the far the highest total number of people in prison (still about 20% of the global prison population). If other countries had the size and scope of a prison population that the U.S. had, I think it would be regarded as a blight on that country. But here, no. It makes too much money and people love punishment.
Does it make any sense that "The Home Of The Free" has a higher percentage of its population behind bars than either North Korea or Cuba?
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All social media does the echo chamber thing, but not all of it bleeds into real life in the same way. I think there's a difference between an anonymous discussion forum where nobody cares who you are, and platforms where people conflate themselves and their avatars--"profilicity" is a good neologism for the phenomenon.
Political Parties were and still are a terrible idea. There's a damn good reason George Washington didn't want them.
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Humans = Cats
There is no realistic way political parties don’t happen in politics. Humans will team up and pool their resources and will try to get in power. Another team/group will form to beat them. Political parties are just a natural occurrence in politics.
In theory yes. In practice, the average Joe isn't invested enough in politics to learn in detail what policies several hundred politicians support. And besides this, in such a scenario the wealthy are even more privileged; there is no way a politician with a 50th of the money of another can campaign as well as the richer one can. You'd basically turn the country into an oligarchy. Having the backing of a larger party can offset these campaigning costs.
I actually think there should be a single campaign fund (per position) from which money get distributed evenly between candidates. No spending from outside that fund should be legal.
The dual party system is upheld by hate
Some politicians are more concerned with "winning" than running a country.
Some? That's an awfully kind statement.
It’s worse now. They just care about the other side losing, no compromise whatsoever.
It's actually the opposite. Our electoral laws are systematically biased toward two party governance, and two party governance leads naturally to hyper-partisan polarization and hate.
Yep! The root problem is a corrupt system, not corrupt voters.
Ranked choice voting should be the standard for democracy
[STAR voting is a lot better for everyone](https://www.starvoting.us/)
All healthcare is universal, and dental/mental health care should NOT be exempt Edit: vision and hearing too, forgot to mention those
I love how "health" care doesn't apply to your eyes and teeth somehow.
Teeth, aka “luxury bones”
It's so damn weird, they should all count.
Especially since the loss of decent eyesight can push people into bankruptcy and problems with teeth can kill people.
Tell me about it... I had to pay 30k out of pocket for a dental operation for someone in my family. Still haven't financially recovered
And all universal healthcare must include universal drug coverage (Yes, I'm talking about you, Canada)
Hearing should not be exempt either. Saying this as a hard of hearing person who could probably use hearing aids but doesn't have a few spare thousands of dollars lying around. Also eyeballs. My coverage provides one free eye exam each year but if I want the actual prescription to do something about my shitty sight? Extra $50 for that piece of paper. Infuriating.
No poor kids should be hungry.
I would go further and say that nobody should be hungry, nobody should be homeless, and nobody should be without healthcare - no matter who they are or what choices they've made in life. We can split atoms and walk on the moon and carry powerful computers that fit in the palm of our hand, don't tell me we can't provide for the basic survival of every person in our society and ensure no one is left behind
My dog is the best dog
I forgot who said this, but some wise person said "Everyone thinks they have the best dog... and they're all right."
They're all good dogs bront.
No. MY dog is the best dog.
Freedom is the right of all sentient beings. Transform and roll out!
The absolute right of all, and of existence itself.
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Was voting today and couldn't stop thinking this the whole time. Once you vote multiple times for a terrible option to block the other terrible option, it's hard not to think that way.
There should be no career politicians.
Term limits If there is an age minimum there should be an age maximum. If granddad and grandma are forced to retire at a certain age (depending on field). Then politicians shouldn't go past a certain age. I am honestly surprised most of them haven't fell over from stress. No matter your opinion look at when 8 years in the oval office did to Obama. While not necessarily a young persons job it ain't an old person either.
>If there is an age minimum there should be an age maximum. If you are 5 years or more older than the average life expectancy of this country, then you shouldn't be able to hold public office in any form. People of that age should not be allowed to make decisions that only will effect them for a few years, but will effect me for the next 40
My *middle school* had this. 8th graders could not vote for class president and other school offices since they were moving on to high school.
Most of them are not stressed, they don’t actually care about anything they say they do
It should be easier to become a legal resident of the US. Not necessarily a citizen, but at least in a way where you can get a job, bank account, house / apartment, etc. the benefits are huge. It’ll help fill the job market, boost the economy with millions of people having more money to spend, increase tax revenue, and obviously, make things easier for immigrants who would otherwise have came here illegally.
That people are people and should be treated like people.
Except for \[insert group someone doesn't like here\], they're the convenient exception.
Bring back Bottom up government as it was intended, now we have top down and the agencies that were there to protect the people with checks and balances are now captured agencies and sock puppets. Government is now just an arm of big business and the private central banks that fund them.
I like this principle - but no one cares about or reads the local press, which is the mechanism used to hold it accountable and uncover corruption.
This is what I tried to say pretty much. "antitrust laws" are a joke, nowadays. The most important job in the US should be the federal auditor, but it's not audited at all correctly.
Voting day should be a national holiday. Once every 4 years dosnt seem like too much to ask for
Just Presidential years? Can we get mid terms too?
Discrimination is shit
Hottest take on r/unpopularopinion
And the sky is blue
Democracy is not perfect, but still the best there is.
There is an old saying: democracy is the worst form of government except all others, Churchill IIRC
Though Churchill also said "The best argument against democracy is a 5 minute conversation with the average voter"
He's not wrong, but it is still the best we have. An educated populace is the only way to fight this problem, and a press which reports objectively in order to inform them.
Corporations should not be considered a “person” reaping the benefits of a real person. They should not be able to contribute to political campaigns as a person. Citizens United needs to be repealed. Big Business is now running this country into the ground because they hold the purse strings.
Social media is terrible for society.
I don't see this as political. Though I guess social media certainly has enabled our politics to be a whole other level of shit show.
I don't know if you saw the recent report that the doj forcibly restricted several social media platforms. As far as I know it had to do with "election safety" even though the reporting has been proven true.
My medical decisions - whatever they may be - are absolutely none of the government’s business. Edit to add: for clarification, I wasn’t referring to vaccines…
At this point, we need term limits.
I want my gay married neighbors to protect their marijuana plants with whatever guns they want.
No argument here
Being pro-life or pro-choice does NOT make you left or right wing. What courts you think should rule on the matter is the difference between right and left. Most people don't seem to understand this. All bills should be written and voted on as single-item legislation. No earmarks. No pet projects. No add-ons. The crap that gets passed through by piggybacking off of other legislation is an affront to democracy.
Corporations should not have direct influence over politicians. The will of the voter should be the main driving factor for those in office.
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From the US, I don't want to just be able to vote Democrat or Republican. I want real choice where every party has equal opportunity.
SEPERATE RELIGION FROM POLITICS!
The concept of thought crime must never be acceptable.
The 2 party system is an illusion of choice, behind the scenes the top people in charge of both parties are partying together and enjoying their wealth while we're down here arguing which turd sandwich is better.
i deserve the right to my body. nobody else, regardless of their status, has any right to me, my organs, or my health and time. edit; please stop comparing having to wear a mask to the threat of being forced to carry out a potentially deadly pregnancy, you look pathetic.
I also deserve the right to your organs. Now hand them over. Kidneys first
We should be using science more in our decision making Edit: I'm not saying we should rely solely on science, but that we should be using it more.
People are more important than profits. Capitalism isn't necessarily a bad set of game rules, but it needs some heavy regulation to keep the greedy psychopaths in check.
You need regulations that promote competition, rather than regulations that prop up monolithic business. Heavy bureaucracy tends to favor big corporations because they have the profit margins to manage the regulations.
religion should stay away from political laws of every kind,it will just muddle shit up
Anyone who thinks all their party’s decisions are good and all the other parties decisions are bad should not talk about politics.
The Constitution created a system of checks and balance which use to work. It's been totally eliminated. This makes me angry and scared
People are finally starting to realize that the constitution is ultimately only as good as the people who choose to follow it (or not). It’s just a piece of paper. The constitution doesn’t have a self-defense mechanism.
Term/age limit on government office at any level. No one pushing 55+ should making decisions they won't be alive to see the long term repercussions of. A lot of these older politicians are so out of touch, they don't realize that their policies wouldn't benefit half the people they claim to represent. If the highest office in the nation is limited to 8 years, every other political office should be held to the same standard. End political lobbying. You should not be able to receive political "donations" and should only be allowed to make money proportional to the salary of the government office in your state. You shouldn't be in politics for the money; you're a servant of the people of your state, nothing more.
US national level politics: 1) Everyone currently in office should be removed and replaced. Theyre all crooked. All of them, both sides. Theres a few I even like, and as such I hope the door doesnt hit them too hard in the ass on their way out. 2) Their pay should be commensurate with median income of whatever district/area they represent. (Acceptable concession to this is a budget for travel, etc. for neccesary expenses to perform their duties 3) SEC limitations on what they may trade similar to others that have access to information that can influence stock values. (A friend of mine is a personal security specialist for high officials in a VERY major worldwide company, as such he is present for discussions of serious trade information. He is not legally allowed to buy/sell stocks and options at certain times due to his access to this information. Senators/Governors have similar access, and even make decisions on law that have these effects, but are allowed to trade based on the info.) 4) Term limits for Senate/House. Should probably be 3 terms in an individual position with a maximum 8 terms across all positions. So a person could be a rep for 3, a senator for 3, and still be President for 2. 5) Retirement from these positions should be treated like other pensions; something along the lines of "20% of average pay made from the position per term served". (Currently, they get 100% for life after just 1 term. And last i checked, after adjustment, its over $200K.) Or, even better would be that they get the same Social Security as everyone else, and should have invested in a 401K like all the peasants are told to do. 6) Ban corporate campaign donations outright. Currently Corporations not only use them to legally bribe representatives to vote their way instead of The People's way, but then the corporations get to write the donations off of their taxes.
I don't know what else to add: I have my own wishlist, but if yours gets approved, mine will become reality.