Since the premise is that "America can be fixed" let's start with the most important issue that is facing our country: unity. We are a divided country with more and higher shrill rantings from both sides of the "isle" to coin a phrase. The country is about evenly divided on issues such as the Iraq war, taxes, abortion, God in public life, gay marriage, etc.
Now the founding fathers never imagined that the constitution would be such a divisive document, and for the most part they were correct. The divisiveness comes from the fact that most citizens do not feel that they have control over their government, and therefore, can not effect changes. The founding fathers tried to limit the federal government by 2 means: strict delineation of powers -- that being only 3 listed in the constitution, and second, by severely limiting the revenues that the federal government could collect and fund its operations.
Now, as the enlightened public we are today, the US citizenry has allowed both these controls to be slowly altered through the slow passage of time. First, we did not object to the institution of the federal bureaucracy whereby Congress passed on their legislative control to the bureaucracy's rule making control: Department of Education, OSHA, FEMA, FCC, FAA, etc (to name just a few). With the growth of the federal bureaucracy, the public lost control of their government's involvement into their lives and businesses, and this is clearly in violation of the 10th amendment. Secondly, with the passage of the now extremely important 16th amendment (establishment of an income tax), the people allowed the growing federal government to tax their citizenry's incomes without direct control of the amount or disposition of funds collected.
These 2 very important changes that the founding fathers' never envisioned has finally grown to the point where they are the crux of apex that now divides our country. Let me see if I can explain my point: since people don't feel they can effect control of their government since they can't control the revenue of the government since controlling a public entity is only effectively controlled by controlling its purse strings. This point the founding fathers knew very well.
Thus, we have become divided in that we try to force laws that will ultimately try to enforce our views or beliefs on the rest of the US citizenry when this is clearly not conducive to unity. Therefore, let me suggest the quickest way around this problem:
1. Give control of the purse strings (on a macro-level) back to the citizenry by imposition of 2 changes: a) forced balancing of the federal budget, b) giving the citizenry the right to allocate 75% of the taxes to particular federal operations: social programs, defense, education, etc. The remaining 25% of the taxes goes into a general fund.
2. Effect term limits on Congress and Judges to reduce the desire to become "career politicos": Congressional limits like Presidential limits should be 12 years in the House, and 12 years in the Senate with the House seats changed from 2 to 4 years terms to reduced time spent campaigning.
3. Complete and open transparency of public campaign financing: no limits on how much anyone person can give to any candidate or incumbent, but such funding must be openly and timely listed on the politician's web site so that anyone can determines clearly and easily where the politician derived his/her funding. In addition, all legislation favoring such donors must be clearly marked for public information.
These changes will begin the process of return the control of the government to the people, and will most likely reduce the feeling that "I am funding via my taxes" operations that are against my beliefs since each citizen will be able to fund only those operations in which they believe. The federal government will have to operate within those wishes of the governed.
This is a good place to begin this discussion of "fixing America". Please feel free to offer your comments, suggestions, opinions in a civil manner. As a systems engineer, I am interested in only solving problems, not the politics that have come to destroy the unity this country once was known for around the world.
America has problems, but not such that we can not solve them if we are willing to do the hard work and have the civil discussions.
Tomorrow, I will offer a civil solution to the very difficult issue of abortion or pro-choice/pro-life as it has become to be known.
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3 comments:
Hi! Awesome blog. It's nice to know I can let you know what I think whenever I want...and vice versa ;).
I do like your ideas in general. Unfortunately I think it would take *literally* a revolution to enact them (especially the taxes thing). I do get nervous about your "75% personal allocation" idea because I don't know if that would pragmatically work any more efficiently than the monster we have now. Imagine the scenario: In 2001 everyone decides to give a huge majority of their tax to defense, and the defense department makes plans on an expectation of future revenue. However, the media picks up a story about food poisoning that they will not let go of, so in 2002 everyone gives their money to regulative agencies. Defense is left to scramble, with potentially a lot of half-finished projects wasted.
I know you've already thought about this, so I'd like to hear your solution?
When I was in college I studied Germany's proportional representation parliamentary system. As you probably know, any party which receives 5% or more of the vote gets seats in parliament in proportion to the general vote. Decisions (when there is no majority) must be made by coalition. In this way, more people feel like they have a voice in government that actually represents their position. What do you think of a system like that? Again, it would take a revolution (and a whole new constitution) to institute something like that, but it seems to work pretty well for them. I like the idea of more accurate representation in government.
Finally, people do often declare how "broken" America is and how much it needs to be fixed, but in order to fix it I see it getting a lot more broken first. The reason I don't think dramatic change is realistic is because people don't want to go down that terribly messy route.
But that certainly doesn't mean we shouldn't try!
Hi, Eliza-May!
Yes, you are correct about having thought about your hypothetical. First, the government already runs in the manner in which you suggested a control on tax revenue might produce. Projects are scrapped in their 2nd, 3rd years (wasting initial funding) all the time.
Secondly, statistics has shown over and over that given a sufficiently large enough sampling/population, the chances of 0 funding from year to year based on personal belief changes is almost non-existent just like voting habits based on geography, race, gender and religion don't vary much from year to year.
Finally, this would not be much in the way of revolution, but more in the terms of evolution. Since money has become the manner in which a representative democracy is truly controlled, I believe that the power should be invested in those over the which the government has the power to govern: "government of the people, by the people..."
Finally, the problem with the proportional parliamentary systems of Europe is that it produces a much weaker and much more unstable government as is indicated by the fact the only 3rd world governments use this form of political process. That should tell you something about its effectiveness.
See, to a systems engineer, the results from a process speak volumes about the value or efficacy the process itself.
Good to "read you", EM. Thanks for commenting.
I agree that my funding example is indeed extreme, and probably no single part of the government would get 0% of the revenue. But I'm not convinced that large populations are as stable as you think they are (and for which you seem to have evidence). Polls showing approval ratings for presidents illustrate my point. Bush II, the most extreme example, went from 92% after 9/11/01 to 19% about a month ago *. I think this example is analogous to the tax example, because it is not so much based on "personal belief" as it is on how much you agree with what the government is doing. It is not changing one's religion, it is simply re-prioritizing.
Proportional representation isn't really the topic of this blog, but I wanted to respond to your last comment. I haven't found the PR system to be unbalanced, and it is used in many industrialized countries, including Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland. A variation is used in the U.K. (Italy uses PR as well, but stability is definitely not their strong point :)!) Also, the European Union has developed proportional representation rules in the election of its parliament. Naturally it has its disadvantages, as any system does, but what is "instability" to one country is "flexibility" to another. With built-in checks and balances, such a parliament can be both more cohesive and more collaborative than a fundamentally adversarial system such as ours.
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