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Educational reform. Given my line of work, I’ve seen thousands upon thousands examples of student work in English Language Arts - and several thousand in Science and Health as well - from all regions of the country. (though not all states) I realize that there are many people who believe that schools “teach to the [standardized] tests,” but I don’t believe this to be the case. I can’t believe that the students could be taught to the tests and there still be so many have no friggin’ clue…it hurts my soul too much to believe that. Even though testing of teachers is considered teh evil, I think it’s proving to be necessary. There clearly is a great need for more accountability of what’s taught in classrooms, and I can’t think of another way to achieve it. When I was in college they told us that 50% of teachers would be hitting retirement age by 2010, so now is the time to act and make a fresh start. That figure doesn’t seem to take into account that many teachers won’t be able to afford to retire at age 65, so I think we’ve got a few years yet to work on this, though.
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Social Security Reform. 1. no more borrowing from SOS for other things, ever. 2. raise the maximum pay-in cap a lot, perhaps implementing a flat-rate so everyone paid in the same % no matter how much money they made. Corresponding changes in how much is given to retirees would also have to be made to be fair, or a close facsimile of.
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Outsourcing. I don’t think we should impose fines, however… companies that outsource jobs to other countries should be eligible for zero subsidies. It’s still a free market since they’re free to continue to outsource, but the natural consequence of that will be that many will be forced to charge more for their products without government subsidies. Kind of like how NH chooses to allow drivers to not wear seatbelts or motorcycle helmets at the sacrifice of millions of dollars in federal funding. If they can make a go of a subsidy-free outsourced business, power to them.
New Hampsire does that? Really? That does it, I’m moving!
OK, but won’t it be tough for you to cut back?
My three -[ol][li]A line-item veto for the President []A balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, except in time of war or by super-majority vote[]School vouchers[/ol][/li]
Regards,
Shodan
Artificial sperm, and new research on lubricants will be necessary.
There are ways. See here.
Apart from those, my choice would be campaign-finance reform of the most radical kind: Make it illegal to buy or sell political advertising time. That system works well enough in France: Every candidate is allotted an equal amount of free air time. And yes, it would be constitutional. Argument to that effect here.
I’m curious as to how that would work. There are hundreds of candidates for president, not just R and D. That’s a lot of airtime the networks are losing money on. Is that what you had in mind, or is there a tweak I’m not seeing?
No tweak. Let the networks lose their airtime money. That is the whole point. Doesn’t affect their bottom line, they can always sell the same slots to commercial advertisers. As for “hundreds of candidates,” there are fair ways to limit the publicly-subsidized field to those with a certain provable level of actual voter support.
Because it’s a safety net. Not everyone is as fortunate or able as you.
Doesn’t sound like empathy is really IntelSoldier’s strong suit.
:rolleyes:
Environmentally and economically sound energy policy.
Environmentally and economically sound energy policy.
Environmentally and economically sound energy policy.
Actually, strike that. All I really want is Google ad reform. I’m fucking sick of seeing “Cover Barack’s Face.” I would be happy living in a Nazi dictatorship ruled by alien overlords as long as these goddamn annoying ads were abolished.
So I take it you’re voting for Hilary.
Regards,
Shodan
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Legalize all consensual crimes and let all of the drug-only criminals out of the system - plenty of resources opened up to fix the rest of the problems in the crim/judicial system
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Single payor health insurance - it is competition among health insurers that messes up our system (US) - while, conversely, competition among providers is good. (no more debate :))
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Extremely simplified (just income and rates), progressive income tax with a negative income tax so that all government social services can be replaced by cash to recipients to give to private providers
Four top priorities:
- End the War on Drugs. Abolish the ATF and all other federal agencies (DEA) concerned with drug interdiction. Legalize marijuana, allow users of “hard’ drugs (e.g. heroin, opium, cocaine) to obtain a license; this entitles them to obtain the drugs via prescription from a pharmacy. Suspend sentences of users now in prisons.
- Abolish Federal dept. of Education. It is a wasteful boondoggle that consumes money for no return.
- Set up a national health insurance plan. Basic coverage about $10.00/month, all those who opt out will receive no emergency care.
- Tort Reform: limit damages to those actually experienced; no punitive damages allowed. Limit fees of lawyers, and end class-action lawsuits (or cap instigator’s fees to 3% of actual recovery).
I’m not going to debate this any more, just going to point out the irony that some people would describe IntelSoldier as pro-life and me as not pro-life (because of our opinions on abortion)…
Yep. Though if the article is correct, we lose out on federal funding only because of the refusal to have a seatbelt law, not the lack of helmet law.
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Universal health care.
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Get voters — me included — to elect candidates based on their views and experience, not party affiliation or who has the most TV ads. We won’t need any other election reform if we can do that.
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Eliminate the Designated Hitter in baseball.
Um, wrong. The 100 most populous cities in the US have ~50 million people combined. That’s about 16% of our total population, ad it’s not going to vote in a bloc strong enough to swing an election.
I’d like to see this one, as well as switching to a “loser-pays” model for charging the legal fees. That should cut down on the frivolous lawsuits, like this one. And maybe if there weren’t so many frivolous lawsuits, we could go back to having playgrounds that are actually fun for kids, and less “cover-your-ass-in-case-of-a-lawsuit” nonsense like that.
[Moderator Underoos On]This is a poll, not a debate. Debate politics in Great Debates, or get snarky in The BBQ Pit-just keep it out of this thread. Thank you.[/Moderator Underoos On]