You can make 3 permanent changes to the way your country is run--which 3?

In My Humble Opinion
61

I want to comment on some of the proposals above. First place abolishing does not mean that voters in Wyoming don’t count. They would count exactly as much as voters in California. Suppose the EC didn’t exist and someone proposed that people in WY should get 25 votes for each vote of a Californian. Would anyone think that would fair? Yet that’s what the EC does. Anyone in WY who didn’t like it could move to CA. Anyway, those four states still would not determine the election. TX and CA would largely cancel each other out.

Term limits are likely to have unintended consequences. Legislators will never get experience and all bills will likely be written by lobbyists (I know, I know, they already are; this would only exacerbate the problem). Also it would mean that no one could be a career politician. Yes, that sounds good, but what do you think the result would be? Who could afford to interrupt their career to serve 8 years in congress and then face having to restart their lives again. Of course, one-term congressmen face this, but they can hope for better. Only an independently wealthy person would likely do this. Or someone with not much foresight. Is that what you want congress to consist of? Even worse are proposals to limit the pay of congressmen. Then only the very rich would even try.

62

As an addendum to my list (probably replacing my judge thing, which isn’t too well thought it any way), an amendment that makes it clear that corporations are not, in fact, people my friend. That could solve a lot of things (include Citizen’s United to some extent), and, as a bonus for the originalists among us, gets us back to what I understand to be the Founding Fathers mistrust of corporations (which if true was prescient).

63

Well, I guess I’ll go ahead, too.

I’ve always thought the essential problem with political office is that the people who want to do it are bottom-feeding scum, and the people who would do a good job of it are aware of how corrupting and unrewarding it is, so don’t even try. So this is a great chance to fix that!

  1. The US map is divided geographically into the appropriate number of population areas (divided into 50 areas for senators and 435 areas for congress) using a computer algorithm that minimizes the area’s perimeters. This ensures federal representation happens at the “neighbors and similar people” level rather than the divisive and essentially pointless state level. (eliminates gerrymandering and changes along with geographical population shifts naturally)

  2. All current senators, congress critters, Presidents, and cabinet officials are kicked out of office and them + registered lobbyists are forbidden from serving in any future political office, because we’re going to be choosing with a new system.

To have a shot at being a politician going forward, you will have to be a superforecaster.

To read more about why they’re qualitatively and quantifiably better when it comes to making complex decisions correctly, you can read more here, or read the excellent book Superforecasting by Tetlock and Gardner.

The pool of superforecasters can run for office using modest publicly-funded election funds, and communicate their platform and goals to the populace, and be elected accordingly within the areas defined in 1 for Congress / Senate, or from anywhere as President. Cabinet officials may be chosen by the President from the pool of superforecasters only.

Anyone elected/appointed makes $1M a year for each year they serve. This will greatly stimulate interest in becoming a Superforecaster and ensure the pool gets large enough to have meaningful elections.
3. There are strict bans on lobbying, donations, and industry quid-pro-quos, with monitoring of pre/post political-career finances and jobs, and there is a branch of the IRS created specifically to police the before/after state of all elected official’s finances. There are serious penalties (forfeiture of all assets, life imprisonment, etc) for those who are caught. (eliminates janitors-become-senators suddenly being VP’s at Northrop Grumman after their terms for nebulous reasons).

And there we’ve eliminated gerrymandering, lobbying, campaign finance corruption, PAC’s, endless and mostly pointless political robocalling and ads, and the self-selection bias of petty tyrants who enter politics for power and prestige and personal enrichment, AND seriously improved the decision-making power and quality of those in office.

64

I want a nerdy algorithm that ties corporate compensation to benefits and pay rises for front line workers and is used to determine corporate tax rates.

Changing all positions to part time, decreasing benefits, stagnant wages during high profit times for front line workers, as execs get multi million dollar bonuses should come with a HUGE tax disincentive.

(Ditto corporate donations, political or otherwise, no tax deduction unless you’re treating your employees fairly to some preset minimums.)

65

  1. The abolishment of the Electoral College.

  2. A one term limit on all representatives and senators.

  3. Strict limits on Executive Orders which, at this point, have gotten so out of control that they have made the President of the United States a virtual dictator.

66

  1. House members elected by proportional representation, or some type of hybrid system - e.g. up to 3 seats per district, which means the top 3 candidates are elected. This insures delegations from each state will be less lopsided, and have more minority representation.

  2. Public financing for elections. That means no fund-raisers. No political donations. Politicians won’t have to waste time soliciting donations.

  3. Mandatory voting for all citizens above 18.

67

The people who are calling for the elimination of the EC seem to forget that we are a union of states, not a single all-encomassing country.

68

I think that’s a concept that has outlived its usefulness. Time to move on to something better.

69

  1. A national healthcare service. It should be a military service, with conscription to fill manpower needs. (If you want other people to contribute tax money to the project, then you should be willing to contribute time and labor to the project.) Medical records are kept by the FBI. (Why not? Your privacy is as safe with one set of bureaucrats, as it would be with any other.)

  2. A unicameral legislature. Each district gets 10 legislators. They serve 10-year terms, staggered so that 1 is up for re-election on any given year. After you serve one 10-year term, you have to sit out for 5 years.

  3. Constitutional amendments legalizing abortion and gay marriage. No more emanations of penumbras.

70

1] Nationalize health care and Big Oil …
2] Create a pathway which allows 3/4’s the States to amend the Constitution … without Congress needing to initiate the process …
3] Much higher funding levels for grants to restore historic buildings … like my house …

Er … maybe 3] should be Single-Subject legislation … we have that in Oregon and it works sorta okay … hell of a lot better than what goes on in Washington DC …

71

The EC was created as a compromise to let slave states feel like they weren’t going to be overpowered by non-slave states, and to ensure that populist demagogues manifestly unfit for office wouldn’t actually attain the presidency.

Guess how good a job it’s been doing on BOTH of those fronts!

It was also created at a time when most people lived in rural areas - in 1790, 94.9% of the population lived in “rural” areas. In 1990, it was 24.8%, and in 2010, it was 19.3%.

  1. Demographics and living patterns have vastly changed, yet we are still slave to a system chained to the demographics and living patterns of 200+ years ago.

  2. Slave states vs non-slave states hasn’t been an issue for 150 years.

  3. And as to making sure unfit clowns don’t get into office, I think that ship has sailed, caught on fire, run aground at the oil refinery, and blown flaming tar over everyone in the country at this point.

The only reason we still have it is simply because one party benefits from the gerrymander of land + people having a much weightier vote than solely people. Oh, and our politicians no longer govern, nor do they allow governance from others at all. But it’s mostly the first one.

72

We’ve had a few threads on that. The evidence is very weak for your position.

73

Except for the fact that the former slave states still want to return to being slave states, and are currently running your country.

74

I don’t understand - surely 3rd party/independent candidates would now have equal access to a public election purse, rather than the current entrenched historical financial advantage the Big 2 have? So it should open up things.

Of course, you likely want to set up some sort of minimal support filter to keep out the absolute nutjobs, but set it really, really low, like 0.01% of the constituency for all elections. So local dog catcher needs to prove one other person’s support to get on the ballot and access the fund pool, Presidential candidates need 3257000 registered supporters.

75

UHC? Sorry, as a Brit I’m not familiar with that term.

I assume that the above means that you are happy to accept Queen Elizabeth II and her heirs and successors as Head of State? :slight_smile:

76

We will dominate Parliament and name the Duchess of Sussex as the One True Heiress to the throne. She’ll have the most popular reality show of all time.

77

Universal Health Care - think of the NHS.

78

For those suggesting term limits, I’d like to present a contrary view. Working for my state’s Department of Transportation, we often provide legislators with various facts and figures to help them make budgetary decisions. That’s all well and good. But pre-term limits (my state has them), there would be a handful of legislators who had gotten themselves fairly savvy with our issues, and other legislators gained expertise in other issues. As a whole, the body of the state house actually knew a lot of things. They made decisions based on their years of experience in dealing with these issues. Enter term limits. Now nobody in the legislature has the time to acquire expertise in any issue. What data they receive, they don’t fully understand. Decisions are being made more from the gut than by analysis. I can see how uninformed they are about transportation issues, I can only imagine how they are similarly uninformed about education, health care, crime, etc… Term limits lead to uninformed lawmakers.

79

Canada’s in good shape. We don’t need to change it that much at the Constitutional level. Our major problem is the plight of the First Nations and I’ve no idea how to fix that.

The abolition of interprovincial trade barriers absolutely would make a significant economic difference, though.

80

We should make them whole. Honour EVERY treaty.

I realize we can’t give them Vancouver Island etc, but we have enough virgin crown land available to make things right. Just sitting there.

And they should be given 100% ownership, they can exploit, protect, develop, borrow. Full ownership. Y’know, like we all enjoy.

It doesn’t make up for residential schools, but it’s the right first step, I think.

(Close Dept Indian Affairs and give them proportional transfer payments like provinces!)