Ezra Klein asks, “What single piece of legislation would you most like to see enacted?”
Ezra’s answer:
I’ll go with Employee Free Choice Act, a bill restoring the right to organize, which is current de facto absent from the polity. It institutes card check, provides new avenues for mediation, and heavily stiffens penalties for illegal unionbusting. As I think all progressive legislation flows from a vibrant union movement, such a bill looks like the first step towards a restoration of progressive governance from which my other policy priorities could be achieved.
Bradford Plumer agrees with Ezra, and expands the argument a bit.
I’m tempted to agree with Brad and Ezra, because Ezra’s right — without a vital union movement, it’s hard to see how any progressive movement can be sustained in the US. I’d also be tempted to advocate a complete overhaul of the US’s electoral system — starting with the elimination of first-past-the-post elections, but also campaign finance — but I’m not sure that can properly be called a “single piece of legislation,” because it would probably require at least two Constitutional amendments.
However, if I had to choose one and only one, I think that I’d instead endorse directing billions of dollars a year towards non-carbon-based energy – meaning wind power, solar power, and nuclear power. It is plausible that we’re very near a point of no return on global warming – we may have only fifteen years to reverse course. There is no single issue that’s more urgent. And I’m not sure that unions — which, understandably, might not be interested in stopping global warming if it means the loss of some current manufacturing jobs ((I think that in the long run, investments in sustainable technology will create jobs. But unions are more concerned with existing jobs than with potential future jobs.)) — are always going to be in the right place on this issue.
So that’s me. You?
[Crossposted at Creative Destruction. If your comments aren’t being approved here, try there.]
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A Constitutional amendment removing the franchise from all individuals who derive more than 50% of their income from government sources. Teachers, military, retirees, Federal workers, state university professors, cops – no vote for you.
I’d like to see a repeal of all laws restricting the manufacture, distribution and consumption of substances now classified as “drugs”. The side effects of these laws (criminal and police violence, corruption, civil liberties abuses) are so devastating that they dwarf whatever marginal increase in addiction we might (I emphasize might) see after legalization.
Robert, if we’re going that route, I’d amend the Constitution to remove the franchise from white men for a couple of centuries. That would clear up a lot of problems, in my view.
Rex, I agree that the decriminalization of drugs is important, although it wouldn’t get my number one spot.
I also like the “Instant Run-Off” proposal as a structural reform to democracy. Let’s add publically financed campaigns while we’re at it.
At the state level, I’m promoting the the structural reform of providing free food to all legislators and their families at the Capitol cafeteria. (In my state, legislators used to socialize constantly at lobbyist-funded events and junkets. We outlawed this practice, with the unforeseen consequence that legislators stopped socializing altogether. Perhaps coincidentally, partisan nastiness has grown in recent years. I want to bring back some socializing without bringing back the lobbyists.)
But what we really need, arguably – and what you might expect Republicans to promote – are stronger property rights. That is, we should try to get people to bear the cost of their own decisions rather than shifting those costs onto innocent bystanders. That would mean, among other things, taxing the emission of greenhouse gasses enough to compensate people for the harm of global warming. With such a tax, we wouldn’t need government-subsidized research to deal with global climate change; the drive to avoid paying the greenhouse gas tax would be enough to propel innovation.
And if it isn’t, well … who am I to say that the cost of global climate change is greater than the cost of avoiding it? I’m less concerned with preserving the status quo than I am with compensating people who are harmed by the changes.
100% publicly financed campaigns. I don’t believe anything will change significantly without removing the money from political campaigns. Everything electorally related after that is just gravy.
Just to be clear, I’m not talking about decriminalization–I mean full legalization. Heroin, cocaine, marijuana, whatever, should be on the same legal footing as beer, wine and whiskey–unrestricted except for age limits and dangerous activities while under the influence. “Decriminalization” usually means agreeing to leave users alone while continuing to go after dealers–but it’s the laws against trafficking that have the worst side effects. The idea, as far as I’m concerned, is to get the production and sale of drugs into the hands of people who are no more dishonest or violent than Anheuser-Busch.
I’m with Rex Little–end the War on (some) Drugs.
Among all the other things (racial disparities, asset seizures), it’s mostly drug-war powers and precedents (anti-money laundering laws, acceptance of informers and stealth surveillance) that paved the way for the prosecutorial abuses of the War on Terror.
The institution of a Basic Income Guarantee at about $15,000.00 per year, roughly the point where income and happiness become de-linked.
The abolition of poverty. I would need to empirically see what a world without poverty would be like before I knew what should be tackled next, although I am guessing that ending the war on drugs would be a close second.
1. Allow marriage to become a contract that reflects more choice. Allow parties of the contract to write up rules from whose name the couple take or kids take to who is designated tie breaker or dominant member. Not all people like 50/50. This way Fundie Xtians get what they want and others get what they want.
2. Make participation or benifit in any civil Government be allowed only after a proven sacrifice to the greater good. two years Military or CCC type corps under heavy labor and strict discipline. Strictly voluntary but if you don’t participate you don’t get to vote or have any official benifit from civil government. No civil service jobs for non participants & no welfare either.
That’s always my problem with legalisation – I don’t actually want pot in the hands of tobacco companies, I trust gangs more.
I think there’s a lot to be said for workplace legislation that enables better organising, because that right will enable you to fight and win for more rights. In New Zealand the right to strike would make a real difference.
But I think if I was American I’d go for proper socialised medicine, that covered prescription drugs and primary health care as well as hospitalisation, and explicitly covered birth control and abortion.
Which would also be a big boon for labor unions in the USA; if employers didn’t provide health insurance, they’d lose an enormous bargaining card.
2. Make participation or benifit in any civil Government be allowed only after a proven sacrifice to the greater good. two years Military or CCC type corps under heavy labor and strict discipline. Strictly voluntary but if you don’t participate you don’t get to vote or have any official benifit from civil government. No civil service jobs for non participants & no welfare either.
Ah, the Starship Troopers model, only more restrictive. I am not a fan of this, particularly the requirement to serve either Military or “heavy labor and strict discipline.” I get to vote as long as I’m either willing to kill people or willing to serve on a chain gang. I guess we can call this the Starship Troopers/Cool Hand Luke model.
But, honestly, why only Military or “heavy labor and strict discipline?” I can conceive of a myriad of other ways to sacrifice for the greater good.
I’m with Robert. People feeding at the public trough shouldn’t get to vote on the portion sizes.
Alternatively, I’d settle for the Federal government not grossly abusing the Interstate Commerce and General Welfare clauses.
An interesting point of speculation: once things shook out, would legal pot be sold by tobacco companies? Liquor companies? Both? Neither? Don’t forget that smoking isn’t the only way to ingest; Betty Crocker just might get involved.
Jake:
Actually the Heavy Labour reference was to save time and space. It could be anything that was productive but less than thrilling. Anything that would make you want to walk away rather than just do it. Citizenship should not have a pricetag out of reach, but it should have a price tag. And it must be high enough to discourage those who do not take it seriously. And yes everyone should be able to meet the price if you are mentally competent. And yes, there are jobs for people who are blind, deaf and in a wheelchair. Won’t be pleasent but that is the point after all.
I think we should also take away the vote from anyone who pays taxes. Why should the people who have a huge vested interest in being stingy with social spending get to be the ones deciding how much spending there should be? That’s just as selfish as people with a vested interest in greater spending. So the budget will have to be written and passed by some completely disinterested third parties — maybe all the non-federal employees in Puerto Rico, or something.
If you want to take the franchise away from public employees, it should just be the franchise for the entity for whom they are working. So teachers don’t get to vote for the School Board or at the school district level (however that may be set up – where I live now it’s the county but where I grew up it was the township), federal employees don’t get to vote for federal stuff, state employees don’t get to vote for state stuff, etc. I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that because your paycheck comes from Uncle Sam you can’t vote for mayor. And everybody should be able to vote for President.
OTOH, adding restrictions to the franchise makes things unnecessarily complicated. We have enough trouble counting votes as it is. And certain groups have been fighting to exercise their franchise for a very long time, so taking it away because of who pays you is counterproductive, it seems to me. We already have shortages of teachers and nurses – do we want to make it worse by telling them that only private school teachers and private health service nurses get to vote? Or maybe we want to extend the franchise to children, to make up for losing a chunk of eligible voters.
While it looks kinda attractive to put restrictions on the franchise based on income sources or proven ability to give two hoots, I firmly believe in the “one adult person, one vote” system as the only fair way to allow the governed to have a voice. Once you start tinkering with the system in order to keep citizens out (land ownership, slave/free status, gender, gainful employment, national service, whatever), then we have lost out on having a representative form of government. Our current system isn’t perfect, but it’s significantly better than the alternatives proposed here. (Sorry for the passionate incoherence.)
Actually, speaking of voting, I think there should be a rule in Congress that a Congresscritter can’t vote on an issue where the stakesholders on that issue contributed more than 10% of his or her campaign funding. So if our representatives want to vote on anything at all, they have to be very careful about their sources of campaign contributions.
As for legislation I would like to see enacted, there are so many that I hardly know where to start. I think my favorite would be a carbon tax, closely followed by a mercury tax. In my view, carbon taxes should be paid by EVERYBODY. Your car would be subject to an annual tax, based on EPA emissions tests for the make and model; every time you bought a bag of charcoal for your grill, you would have to pay a supplementary tax; the company producing the charcoal would have to pay a supplementary tax. And the money the government gets from the carbon tax would have to go into emissions reduction R&D and subsidy programs to help homeowners buy solar heating systems and things like that. Just a pipedream, I know…
Robert, if we’re going that route, I’d amend the Constitution to remove the franchise from white men for a couple of centuries. That would clear up a lot of problems, in my view.
I presume that this proposal is not entirely serious. But in any case, that would run into a minor problem with the 14th Amendment, I think. And I doubt that it would clear up any problems; my observation in life is that black people and women are just as capable of racially and sexually based discrimination and predjudice as anyone else.
I’ve always been intrigued by the Starship Troopers “no pay/no play” model. I’ve often thought about what the effects would be if something similar were to be put into place in the U.S. I’d open it up to many other kinds of civic service. The military would be one option; so would a new CCC, or the Peace Corps. I imagine that other kinds of service could be found; park/road maintenance, perhaps, or orderly work at not-for-profit hospitals or hospices. Again, people would be free to duck this, but they’d forfeit the right to vote in exchange. People who accept it would be free to choose what service they would render, subject to the staffing needs of the various options, and the legislature would still be free to set different types of down-the-line benefits depending on what service you chose.
My criteria would not be so much the dirtiness of the job, but more the (service to others)/(advantage to one’s own career advancement) ratio. I’m no socialist, but it’s a very Christian idea that we are put here to serve each other, not just ourselves. Perhaps it would help some of the children of our more advantaged families understand what real life is for many people in this country or elsewhere. Perhaps it would get them to appreciate what community and service really are.
Educational benefits in the U.S. should be substantially improved so that any American citizen will have the ability to get a decent education from 1st grade up through the B.S./B.A. level (or equivalent training in the trades). Family income should truly not be a barrier towards getting a useful education.
Some of this will be through funding of K – 12 education. It will have to be coupled with a reasonable and usable method for evaluating teachers and getting rid of substandard ones. Tenure would have to be either substantially modified or eliminated.
Funding of post-high school education would be more in the form of scholarships. Safeguards would have to be put into place to make sure that scam schools or “diploma mills” would not be able to siphon off this money. There would need to be support for day care for people who have children so that they could take advantage of this; while I have no wish to give an incentive to people to have children before they are a) married and b) educated enough to adequately support themselves and their children, completely ignoring people who didn’t figure that out in time creates problems.
You may be surprised to see me propose what would essentially be a massive expenditure of tax money. It’s my belief that giving money to people who choose to be not productive so that they do not suffer the full effects of that choice does not help improve society nearly as much as giving un-productive people the means and opportunity to be productive. I view welfare as an operational expense, whereas education is an investment that will pay off in the long run in an overall increase in productivity and an improved society and stronger country.
Stentor said:
Why should the people who have a huge vested interest in being stingy with social spending get to be the ones deciding how much spending there should be?
Because they are the people whose productive efforts generated that money. The money belongs to them, not the government and not the people the money would be spent on.
One more and then I’ll stop, I promise.
There needs to be a very high priority placed on non-oil based energy sources. That would include wind energy, atomic energy, etc. This is both an environmental issue and a national security issue. The less we depend on buying our energy from regimes and people who are fundamentally opposed to the concepts that our civilization is based on, the more money we’ll have to promote them and the less money they’ll have to oppose them.
Bean:
So you just want to give the franchise away? We can see what kind of mess it has made so far. Voting should be for those who are willing to give something up for it.
You may think it’s a good idea to give the vote too someone who’s only accomplishment is to have enough blood pressure to move but I don’t. The more you pay for something the more you respect it.
I think it is Very clear that the franchise is not respected in this country.
Stentor:
As Ron says, people who pay the bills should have a greater say in how the operation gets run than people who collect the checks. But issues of morality aside, the primary advantage of stripping the franchise from those feeding at the public trough is that it’s likely to lead to reductions in government spending. I’m a liberal, not a democrat.
The original model, as described in the book, did include many other kinds of service, most of which we would think of as “civil service jobs.” The vast majority of people who signed up for Federal Service did not serve a day in the military. But every one of them took the chance of doing so, because while you could express a preference for one type of job or another, the government would assign you to whatever it chose. (The protagonist, Juan Rico, puts down a long list of choices, with “Infantry” at the very bottom. He gets sent to the Infantry.)
Huh?
Ok, so Edison invents a lightbulb. On his way to the patent office a thug attacks him, stealing his wallet, his invention and his patent papers. Public responders carry Edison to the public hospital, saving his life. The police apprehend the thug, return the invention, wallet and papers to Edison. Edison then files the patent and gets rich.
So nothing done by the public responders, the police, the courts that protect Edison’s property rights, the military that defends the boarders, the elected officials that provide for patent law to begin with, the teachers that taught Edison the basics of science – NONE of these people had any role in Edison’s success? They’re all just parasites?
There’s NOTHING productive about maintaining justice and order and the rule of law? The Framers were a bunch of productive businessmen who got together for unproductive hobbies like founding a country? Freeing slaves, defeating Nazis, defending civil rights – all a complete waste of resources? Edison would have been just as productive if he’d been born into contemporary Baghdad?
I have a fondness for libertarianism, but I real distaste for its misapplication.
I’ll see Robert’s bid and raise him: Let’s really bar self-interest from influencing elections. Government policies are more heavily influenced by political contributions than by votes; otherwise we wouldn’t see so many policies designed to benefit rich minorities. (Estate tax reform, anyone?) So if we’re concerned about self-interested people having too much influence on government, let’s bar people who are affected by government policy from being able to contribute to, or participate in, elections.
Unconstitutional? Sure, but no more so than depriving people of the right to vote. Whose with me? Anyone?
The problem with that approach is that it leaves me as king. Which is fine with me, not so great for other people.
The point of disenfranchising the government-dependent is a limited, but broad, one – to bar recipients of largesse from increasing the largesse. That doesn’t mean the government’s spending might not go up – it just means that the people who stand to get a paycheck out of the deal don’t get a say.
In your Edison example, you completely missed the point of the original interlocutor. It isn’t that Edison shouldn’t pay anything for all the public responders that saved his patent and his skin; quite the contrary. It’s that Edison, as a producer in society, should get more of a voice than people who are purely consumers. He should get more of a vote than the people who mugged him.
I’ve always been intrigued by the Starship Troopers “no pay/no play” model.
RonF, I’ve often thought this very thing. Limiting our voting pool to a group that has demonstrated higher-than-average selflessness does sound inviting.
I have two concerns though: 1) the possible perversion of the idea to deny specific groups or classes the opportunity to vote by subtly restricting/not advertising their opportunity to serve and 2) political power slanting sharply toward racially or religiously homogeneous groups, which have the means to promote campaigns of service within their populations.
I agree with your other points of view.
Nobody at all.
There are many of us who feel we would benefit by having the unmotivated and/or unintelligent not getting to decide how our government operates. YMMV.
Amp: What single piece of legislation would you most like to see enacted?
I’ think each election, every party or candidate should receive (and be limited to) a set amount of funding for their campaigns. Perhaps an agency could be established whose purpose was to moderate all political campaigns. We hear their arguments in open forum and in no other way.
Or we could try freedom. Freedom is nice, I hear.
Well, someone is certainly missing the point here. I understand Robert to argue that people who receive benefits from government should not be allowed to vote because a productive person “should get more of a vote than the people who mugged him.” Do you really mean to equate civil servants – the people “who saved his patent and his skin” – with mere consumers and muggers?
MY point is that civil servants ARE productive members of society. Sure, Edison was productive. But Edison would have been much less productive in the absence of civil order and the rule of law. Ergo Edison’s productivity is a manifestation of his own work COMBINED WITH the work of people who maintain civil order and the rule of law.
To be sure, measuring productivity is complicated business. GDP is a fine measure, but would lead us to believe that Edison’s mom was completely unproductive simply because she did not draw a salary. A moment’s reflection should lead you to the conclusion that she was probably extraordinarily productive, but in a manner for which we have no market.
Similarly, civil servants are productive in a manner for which we have no market. A casual glance at the front page should persuade you of the loss of productivity that accompanies war and disorder, but we still have no good method of measuring the increase in productivity that arises from peace and order. This is not a reflection on civil servants; it is a reflection on the difficulty of measuring things.
There will always be those who argue that if something is hard to measure, it doesn’t exist. But I would hardly expect to find Robert among their number.
Is the goal to get some productivity out of people? Or to get people to sacrifice for their country?
I’m not opposed to asking people to do something productive for their country; that’s what taxation is all about. I don’t like making the sacrifice, but I know it’s necessary for the operation of the country.
On the other hand, I’m less enthusiastic about asking people to sacrifice just for the sake of sacrificing. “No, we don’t need any additional help today; we’re making them work on their Sabbath day just to demonstrate that they’re sufficiently motivated and intelligent to vote.” I guess this policy would permit people to demonstrate a kind of loyalty to their country, but unless the sacrifice produces some greater benefit, it just seems like a hazing ritual to me.
Civil servants are of course productive. But as you note, they don’t function in a market. So if, for example, the people managing them are asked “should we double the level of staff in your department”, their answer will generally be “yes” – because more people = more power. If you ask a manager of a market-constrained business whether he should double staff, he will inquire whether you’re also going to double his business to pay for it. Civil servants don’t have to care about that, and so they don’t. And so it is dangerous – for all the value they add to the process – to accept their input in how that process should be organized and funded.
I worked for a couple of years in a university administrative department in a state that was having budget crunches. Let’s put it this way: I heard about 10,000 opinions expressed about how the state should handle the crisis. See if you can guess how many of those opinions contained a variant on the thought “well, times are hard and we might have to tighten our belts here”. (If you guess a number ending in zero, you’re right! If you put any other digits in front of that zero, you’re wrong.)
To put it yet another way, nobody with any sense lets children decide the salad to ice cream ratio of a family dinner, or lets soldiers set the budget for the military, or lets academics set their working hours, or lets business people decide what the tax rate ought to be. That doesn’t mean that we hate or devalue children, soldiers, professors, and business people; it means we’re rational about keeping the ice cream decision out of the hands of the people who are insane about ice cream.
The goal of raising the bar for the franchise is to weed out grown-up children and prevent them from influencing the polity, not to punish or haze anyone. (Although punishment and/or hazing would probably serve just as well at creating that bar, service requirements are more dignified.)
1) no campaign contributions. none. Nada. Zilch. EVERYTHING gets funded by the government–spend it where you want it. Enormous restrictions on campaigns. No junkets from lobbyists. Couple that with higher pay–say, twice what it is now.
In other words, make politics a competitive, but not lucrative, job. And remove all incentive for campaign contributions to buy votes.
2) mandatory term limits in House and Senate–say, 4 House terms and 3 Senate terms.
Sailorman, I run a website. So do you. Are our editorials in favor of, or opposed to, a particular candidate campaign contributions?
As for term limits, what gives you the right to tell people that they can’t vote for a particular candidate?
There are many of us who feel we would benefit by having the unmotivated and/or unintelligent not getting to decide how our government operates.
This is why I oppose both limiting the franchise AND mandating voting. The motivated / unmotivated groups self-select.
I don’t know for sure how many of the above people calling for service as a requirement for voting and / or taking the franchise away from people who recieve money from the government consider themselves libertarians or libertarian-leaning, but I seem to remember some of them doing so, and to the extent any of you do, you have the entire concept backwards. Who the hell is the government to demand that individuals prove their moral worth to it? The government is the one interfering with the natural freedom of individuals by imposing laws on them under threat of force. To the extent the government has ANY right to do this – and yes, I do think it does have some right to do so – the government incures a duty to each individual to *AT LEAST*:
1. Give him or her the same say in how the government is imposing force on everyone that everyone else gets – i.e. an equal vote, and
2. Compensate the individual for the denial of freedom as much as possible and in a manner that allows the individual the greatest freedom in choosing how they wish to be compensated for being denied their natural right to freedom – i.e. cash, a Basic Income Gaurantee.
To say the government does not have to compensate for infringments on liberty and gets to demand service in exchange for not being powerless against those who weild the guns – what the fuck kind of libertarianism is that?
And how come I have not seen any other comments here either endorsing my call for a basic income or advocating some other anti-poverty measure? Am I, a free market cheerleader, the only person on this lefty blog thread who thinks that ending poverty should be a top concern?
I get that. What I don’t get is why you would therefore propose limits on the influence of civil servants on government, but not similar limits on businesses. Each party has a selfish interest in the level of salaries and business tax rates, respectively; why the disparate treatment?
Robert wrote: Or we could try freedom. Freedom is nice, I hear.
Sorry Robert, was that a response to my comment? If so, I thought ensuring all the different candidates in elections have an equal say enhanced freedom overall.
What I don’t get is why you would therefore propose limits on the influence of civil servants on government, but not similar limits on businesses. Each party has a selfish interest in the level of salaries and business tax rates, respectively; why the disparate treatment?
Business people would be subject to the same rule. The rule isn’t “no civil servants”, the rule is “no primary dependents”. If more than half of your income comes from the government, in whatever form, you’re out. That’s a businessman with a fat defense contract, and probably his employees and contractors. Ross Perot is probably out. Bill Gates is in, but there are times in the past when he would have been out, I think. I’m in this year; would have spent the last several years out. It’s perfectly fair. Or at least reasonably fair.
This proposal actually favors the poor and downtrodden. To Bill Gates, whether he can vote or not is completely immaterial to his political power. His ability to pour a gazillion dollars and a thousand brains at any political whim he has, is considerably more germane. To the people at the other end of society’s spectrum, their vote represents a significantly larger fraction of their total political power.
Decnavda, my posting about education is in a way a response to your proposal. I do not favor ending poverty by giving money away. I favor ending poverty by giving everyone the chance to earn the money themselves. Then we get higher productivity and many other benefits. Investing in education is a better use of money than just giving the money to someone with no gain from it. Teaching a man to fish vs. giving him a fish, and all that. But people getting government money should have to work for it in some fashion, in proportion to their capabilities.
For those people who are in a situation where they have to be self-supporting but who for some reason lack education, I would support giving those people enough money to live on iff they demonstrate adequate academic/training progress. Kind of like a scholarship where you have to have a “B” average or better to keep it.
For what is known as the “working poor”, who work full time yet don’t make enough money to support themselves, I’d grant them supplemental funds as long as they go to school part time (or work part time and go to school full time). However, there would not be enough money in this deal to support a family; if you don’t have a good job or a good education, I suggest that you don’t start a family until you do.
Left off a sentence:
That larger fraction does mean that the poorest stand to lose something of more value than what Bill Gates has, but it also means that the value of the increased weight each valid vote carries is distributed mainly to the people whose votes mean the most to them (as a proportion of individual political power).
You still don’t see the disparate treatment? Let’s try this:
Why more than half the income? I see nothing magic about the 50% threshold. Why not establish an absolute threshold: Nobody who derives more than (say) $25K from any government policy can participate in any election. Sound good?
And let’s count tax cuts as a government benefit. After all, why would we expect to see people unduly influenced by receiving a $25K salary but not a $25K tax cut? (After all, the tax cut is more valuable because you don’t pay taxes on it!)
In addition, let’s withhold the right to participate in elections from anyone who receives a benefit of more than $25K from any other government action. Did the Mine Safety Administration decide you don’t have to install a $100K safety device? Did the EPA waive restrictions on building on wetlands for your benefit? Did Congress extend copyright laws for your movies and patent protections for your drugs? That’s cash in pocket for each of these actors, so out they go, right?
I don’t disagree that many people can be influenced by government actions, and may act to promote their self interest over the interests of the nation as a whole. I just think that your policy is designed to catch the flies while letting the wolves run free.
RonF –
Investing in education is a better use of money than just giving the money to someone with no gain from it.
This belief if contradicted by the empirical evidence. Take a look at some of the results of the Negative Income Tax Experiments, discussed in a paper at http://www.usbig.net/papers/086-Levine-et-al-NIT-session.doc. One quote:
The rural experiment in North Carolina and Iowa collected data on educational attainment. In North Carolina there were significant positive influences in grades 2-8 in attendance rates, teacher rating, and directly on test scores. The literature on education shows that it is nearly impossible to raise test scores through direct intervention. [my emphasis] Yet, BIG had large desirable effects for the test scores of children in the worst-off families in the rural South. The New Jersey experiment didn’t collect data on test scores, but there was a very significant effect on school continuation; that is, BIG was an effective anti-drop out program. And again, if you look at programs that are trying to reduce dropouts directly, it’s a pretty dismal scene. In Gary, there were positive test score effects for males in grades 4-6. In Seattle-Denver, there was a positive effect on adults going on in continuing education.
It turns out that when the government just gives the poor money and lets them do as they wish, they succeed better than when the government uses the treat of starvation to run their lives for them. Go figgure.
Um, that should be *THREAT* of starvation…
Much heavier and costlier restrictions on environmental degradation. Which get enforced without exceptions (no farmers or energy suppliers). And based on something aside from that interstate commerce clause so it doesn’t get thrown out by the courts.
I second the education overhaul. But throw in some useful skills as mandatory. Basic financial stuff everyone has to deal with (comparing credit card offers, getting a loan, mortgage, retirement fund…), legal document reading, car and home repair, childcare and development (everyone should have to take home that stupid screaming baby doll), nutrition (why is this less important than imaginary numbers?), basic emergency aid (like the red cross classes)… And while we’re at it, internships starting a hell of a lot earlier in the programs.
And hopefully that cuts down on the urban schools problem so we have less resistance to moving back to/living in higher densities so that mass transit actually works.
Everyone gets to vote. But no elected official should be able to raise/set their own salary. It’s not the same as asking to have a raise, and they’re not working for themselves.
Any election reform that’s end result is you don’t have to be rich to run.
Decnavda,
Thanks for the interesting link and info.
In my heart, I favor a Basic Income. As a matter of practicality, I want to see more numbers – how much it would cost, how it would be paid for, what the effects on the labor market would be, etc. $15,000 for every American would cost approximately ten times as much per year as the US military budget – that’s a lot.
I’m not saying I oppose Basic Income, just that I wonder if it’s viable.
Robert,
I think Nobody.really’s critique is very on target. In addition, one effect of your proposal would be to disenfranchise government employees – who are heavily unionized, as well as disproportionately African American. In other words, likely Democratic voters.
The right to vote is a human right; in a decent society, it is not earned, it is automatic. There are dozens of other ways that you could ask, encourage and/or force citizens to contribute to society; there’s no need to connect those things to the right to vote.
I’m getting the impression that a significant number of conservatives just don’t get or like democracy.
RonF wrote:
The 14th Amendment is no barrier to amending the Constitution.
And there’s no real doubt, if you look at either opinion data or poll data, that white men in the US are significantly to the right of both women and most minorities. So taking away the vote from white men would radically change who gets elected; the political “center” of the country would move significantly to the left.
However, you’re correct; My tongue was indeed in my cheek.
Once you have publicly financed elections, you don’t need any more campaign funding restrictions than we have now. You just need to have the public funding provide dollar for dollar matching funds to spending above the standard public funds. For that to be effective, you would need better and faster public accounting requirements for campaign contributions, but no restrictions on spending.
If seeking campaign contributions meant that your opponents all got one dollar for each dollar you raised, the impetus to seeking campaign contributions would largely dry up.
I also support Decnavda’s $15,000 minimum income (although I’d tolerate a $10,000 minimum income if we could have universal health insurance as well, I suspect the happiness point may split out lower if decent medical care is also guaranteed, and anyway I suspect that there might be some virtue in requiring people to work for the difference between a very high standard of basic needs and the happiness-money de-linking point).
And Robert, re #37: No, currently editorials are not campaign contributions. Banning all monetary campaign contributions still wouldn’t make editorials campaign contributions.
There is also something fantastically mean spirited about people whose number one change in government wish list is denying the franchise to more people. Don’t you all have some aspect of the government you’d like to do away with, rather than doing away with the right of the people to control the government? Don’t you all want to abolish FEMA, or the Department of Education, or something? Wouldn’t that be more productive than depriving people of the right to vote?
And Robert, re #37: No, currently editorials are not campaign contributions. Banning all monetary campaign contributions still wouldn’t make editorials campaign contributions.
Then how will your CFR system keep candidates from waging their wars in the editorial pages and the newsrooms? The DNC will just start a newspaper and flood the zone with copies at appropriate times, and so will my side. It’s a bit like outlawing war by making it impossible to sharpen steel. That doesn’t remove the conflict, it just means people switch to other weapons.
Wouldn’t that be more productive than depriving people of the right to vote?
No. Getting rid of the Department of Education would probably be beneficial overall to our society, but my suggestion is intended to provide a long-term systemic benefit rather than a one-off. I believe that the government we would get from an electorate limited in my fashion is a government that would be considerably more responsible and of considerably higher quality, going forward.
It’s not a democracy now.
By which I mean, we already withhold the franchise from vast swathes of the people. I recognize that you would undo the provisions that ban the insane and the felonious from the vote, but most of us wouldn’t, and are happy with that restriction. So it’s not a question of despoiling a virgin democratic wilderness with the ugly Wal-Mart of my idea; the strip mall is already here.
Robert,
I think that outside expenditure campaigns are probably a far more serious problem for the idea of public financed elections than the possible creation of the DNC house newspaper (or TV network). Anyway, I think expenditures on media that are owned by a candidate (or political party) could legitimately be counted as campaign spending, even though media activity by independent parties is not treated as a contribution (I believe this is the case currently). On the other hand, I’m not sure what the solution is to “issue advocacy” parallel campaigns.
You don’t let the CEO of Global Lettuce Inc. set the salad to ice cream ratio either. AFAIK academics do have quite a bit of freedom to set their own working hours (certainly far more than most jobs). And your proposal is explicitly designed to let business people (or at least “those with a vested interest in a lower tax rate”) decide what the tax rate ought to be.
All this franchise-restriction stuff seems like an awkward hack to me — why not just abolish taxation directly, and let private-sector charity do the rest?
Because taxation in some form is necessary if we are to have a state capable of executing its basic functions, and there is a near consensus in society that the state should be so capable.
Amp: $15,000 for every American would cost approximately ten times as much per year as the US military budget – that’s a lot.
I’m not saying I oppose Basic Income, just that I wonder if it’s viable.
I’m not an economist, but the more people buy, the higher the prices get. If this were done, would the value of that $15,000 remain constant, or would inflation negate the gain?
Decnavda, I’m not talking about raising test scores for kids in schools; I’m talking about getting people the opportunity to take the test in the first place. No American citizen should be restricted from getting an education because of their income. No American citizen should have problems getting an education because their school isn’t safe, or is ill-equipped, or because their classroom contains people who disrupt the class and prevent the teacher from teaching and the students from studying, or because their teacher is not competent but it’s too damn hard to do anything about it.
I’m not big on a country owing it’s citizens things. But I do think that a government program does owe it’s citizens an equal opportunity. The outcome is based on that citizen’s drive and ambition and capabilities, but should not be affected by unequal access to education. Here in Illinois, where the Democrats are now in power in the State Senate (IIRC), the black Senate President is rumored to be starting a drive to decrease the dependence on property tax for funding education and increasing the contribution of income tax to that. This would help put more money into lower-income areas’ educational facilities and processes. My only fear is that the money will not be used effectively; I don’t know how that will be controlled.
If you artifically increase people’s income by giving them my money, then I’d hope that the majority of them will put it to good use. But I’m asking for better efficiency than “the majority”. The fact that a population that gets a basic income grant will tend to increase their educational efforts doesn’t mean that it’s the most efficient way to do it, or that even better results can be had otherwise. Has there been a study done where people were basically given all the money they needed to get into whatever school they could qualify for?
I spent last night talking to someone in my Scout council that went to a public school in Bellwood, Illinois to do a “boy talk”; that means that he went there to tell the boys about the Boy Scout program. There were about 600 2nd to 6th grade black boys there, all in white shirts and black pants (which means school clothes are cheap and no one’s wearing gang colors). Two fully-armed cops were in the auditorium. When the kids file though the hallways, there are traffic cones down the middle and you stay to the right. Seems extreme, but apparently this cuts way down on disruptions and the kids who want to learn have a much better chance to do so. The measures have community support. This school district has had a lot of problems; the current Superintendent is the 3rd in 4 years.
I have often wondered what the effect would be if corporate contributions to political campaigns were made completely illegal.
Union contributions, too.
Individual contributions would be capped at some low number.
All broadcast or otherwise federally licensed radio and television stations would have to set aside “x” amount of time for free political ads, to be allocated among all candidates who are able to gather “y” number of signatures on nominating petitions. Note that while political parties could gather the signatures, no special status for political parties would be given in the law. Paid TV and radio political ads would be made illegal, but print ads would still be able to be paid (newspapers are not Federally licensed, and there are no bandwidth restrictions).
CJ wrote:
If the government just printed more money in order to pay everyone $15,000, that would cause massive inflation. But assuming that the Basic Income was paid by raising taxes in some fashion, that in and of itself wouldn’t change the amount of money in the economy, and so wouldn’t cause inflation.
However, if one result of Basic Income is that people are less motivated to work, that might force employers to raise wages in order to attract workers, which in turn could cause some inflation. It might not be a large amount of inflation, however.
Ya done good, Uncle Miltie.
Ampersand,
If you look through the papers and information at http://www.usbig.net you will see a lot of discussion and answers to the economic viability question, but the real answer is that total cost and savings are almost impossible to predict. I think the best way to answer that concern – and the best way to reach the goal of ending poverty – is to start small and gradually raise the BIG so that you do not go beyond a point of viability. Currently there is a bill in congress to eliminate the standard deduction and personal exemption and replace them with a $2,000 standard refundable credit (SRC) for taxpayers who do not itemize. This would have some cost, but not near as much as a $2000 BIG sounds like it would due to the elimination of the personal exemption and standard deduction and the fact that people would have to chose beween itemizing and taking the credit. The cost could be further lowered by having the SRC count against the EITC, and requiring that the SRC be considered unearned income for purposes of all welfare benefit programs. Although I am a professional welfare benefit advocate, I would support such an amendment for the long-term goal of hoping to convince conservatives to gradually raise the SRC to eventually allow it to replace all welfare programs.
The SRC was introduced into Congress by Congressman Bob Filner (Democrat from San Diego, California) and you can read more about it either on his offical website or here: http://www.usbig.net/newsletters/38mar-apr2006.html#1
Charles S wrote:
…although I’d tolerate a $10,000 minimum income if we could have universal health insurance as well, I suspect the happiness point may split out lower if decent medical care is also guaranteed…
If I only had ONE policy I could magically enact, I would go for the $15K BIG. But if I were putting together a platform, I would have to support Charles S here. I am a free market cheerleader and beleive strongly that the free market should always have the presumptive benefit of the doubt. But everyone needs health insurance, and the empirical evidence of the ecconomic efficiency of universal health care over the U.S. half-private system is overwhelming.