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There should be something in there about universal free education
I haven't really seen it mentioned here yet but policy makers and judge rulings should either have additional schooling in the area they are making the policy/ruling on OR have a mandatory specialist/professional input throughout the process. So many of these brain dead policies come from not even know what TF they are talking about.
I want proper understanding from these people before they agree or pass something because "it sounds good" from lobbying
OR have a mandatory specialist/professional input throughout the process
People on the internet don't like to hear this, but that's called Lobbying.
Add winner takes all elections to this list. It always leads to a shitty two party system, exhibit a being the USA. Instead, have elections with 30 parties, each having a little bit of power, that have to work together. It gives people a chance to actually vote for the person they want, it stops the extreme swinging to left and right each time an election is won by the other side.
Add 100% income tax for those with a net worth over a certain amount, say 1 billion or so. If at some point you have souch money that you can impossibly spend it in your life time, you don't need to have it. Need investors? Make non profit investment funds, financed by the government taxes.
Add 100% gains tax for companies that have grown beyond a certain amount of employees. No extremely large company with 80.000 workers is a nice place to work at, they guaranteed fuck over the employees and customers because that's what they do. Simply cap companies on how big they can be.
Extending the previous one: prohibit companies from buying other companies. It always ends up stifling the competition, it pushes companies that wholly exist for being bought, nothing else, it's not healthy.
"Abolish corporate personhood" doesn't go far enough. Abolish corporations. Companies over a certain size should be forced to convert to either a worker-owned co-op or a non-profit organization. Human society needs to evolve past being centered around maximizing shareholder profits.
Term limits on SCOTUS should be 18 years, with one Justice retiring every other year.
Unless the court expands, then the term limits could be shorter
Abolish capitol punishments
Codify body autonomy
Not sure what is called, but ban and back tax/punish people/companies who use those foreign PO boxes and claim that that company owns the IP everything that they use, so they actually made no profit, all to avoid paying taxes. And then because "made no money" they get cash from the governments.
You forgot land value tax. Otherwise it's looking good.
Don't forget to abolish slavery.. wait forgot they call it prison now.
I would add patent law reform, and remove the ability to hold private and public office (ie you can't be a board member of Monsanto and be on the EPA), oh and no campaign donations allowed; everybody gets an equal stipend to campaign, we have the internet you don't need to go shaking babies and kissing hands.
One more.
Now that corporations aren't people, only people can own residential land.
Fully funded public news media with a legal firewall between government interests and that media. Controlled by journalists and representative members of the public. We desperately need to get working interests back into news media, nearly every flavor of our media is currently owned by corporate interests.
Whats a luxury item for purposes of VAT? You’ll be hung up forever on that.
For example cars:
- some consider all cars a luxury we need to step away from
- some see the reality that cars are required for most of us
- where do you draw the line between a “necessary” car and a “luxury” car?
- for the love of god, no special treatment for light trucks
Probably get rid of the supreme Court altogether and have cases that it currently hears be heard by a random selection of federal judges.
Probably also need to get some people smarter and more specialized than me to figure out how to capture the wealth of the wealthy. Like the whole "take out a loan against your assets, use that as money, pay no taxes" thing needs to go.
While we're having fantasies, can we expand the 14th amendment "no insurrection " bit to be more clear?
And if we're feeling spiteful, add a "no one who has held office as a member of the Republican party shall be eligible for any role in government, nor any role that engages with the government such as contractor, advisor, lobbyist." Just gut the whole party.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/STAR_voting
Star voting to avoid some of the potential negative outcomes of RCV
Do not merge the house and Senate. They perform different, but equally important functions, once you remove the house cap and force them to start legislating again.
Remove the illegal revision done by a single person to statute 1983 of the federal code, in 1874. This removes Qualified Immunity, and resets the law back to, "naw fam, no one, not even a Sitting President, Congressman, or SCOTUS Justice is above the law, and no one has any sort of immunity." If you need immunity to do the job, the job shouldn't be done.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/15/us/politics/qualified-immunity-supreme-court.html
It also follows that congresspeople can now be prosecuted for insider trading, and SCOTUS justices can be prosecuted for accepting bribes.
Wealth tax. You forgot that one. Otherwise every billionaire will suddenly make $49,999 in salary.
Ban political donations, all political parties get the same, small campaign budget and allotment of advertising space/airtime funded by the government instead
Wouldn't the ban on tax preparation companies hurt mostly the middle class? The rich can just get full time accountants to handle all their finances, and these accountants will also optimize their taxes as part of the general service they provide.
Most countries don't require the nonsense you go through at all.
The nonsense is there specifically to benefit the tax prep companies. Getting rid of one without the other isn't... Anything anyone is advocating for. You get rid of both, simultaneously, because you have to, and because it's right. How you make it work? Tax the rich, mostly
No tax reform? It’s a great start to make taxes easier for most individuals but we shouldn’t be allowing wealthier people to pay less percentage of taxes. There’s a bewildering array of complexity that doesn’t matter to most individuals but only serves to lower the tax rate if people who can afford to take advantage of it
Lots of good stuff here, and I agree with others to keep the senate. Abolish the filibuster!
Depends on what time-scale. Sweeping changes all in one go would be asking a lot, and none of these are minor changes on their own, either.
Out of these, unfortunately the only one that even has a chance of being realized is "IRS does taxes for everyone", and even that is more like "IRS provides official avenue to not have to pay a tax prep service"
The rest of these won't happen without a revolution, because the people with the power to make these things happen all directly benefit from them.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see even one or two things on this list become reality. Any two would make a ton of difference for a lot of people. But capitalism doesn't like it when you benefit the average Joe, and capitalism always wins here.
I like almost all of this, but I disagree with merging the Senate and House as well as a VAT on luxury items. We already have tax on basically every transaction and the burden is on the consumer, that needs to change. What should happen is that all taxes on food items currently should be removed. I believe the separation of Senate and House, while burdensome and inefficient at times, really does an essential good for American society. We would fare much better if we had term limits and more than two (essentially one) political party.
Edit: I want to continue with strickening the UBI from this list as well in exchange for significanly improving social services to make sure that everyone is guaranteed food, housing, medical, and security. I get that income is important and some people cant work, but inflation is real and that money has to come from somewhere not just the ether. It would be better to create/improve upon existing social safety nets to make sure everyone can contribute to society in some way rather than just giving everyone money for nothing.