Burning Thoughts

Change the government structure? Why must something be done? Three reasons.

First, there’s the potential the next president may rule the population as a dictator rather than as person executing the constitution and thereby destroy the balance of power between the branches.

Second, many people have lost faith in their future. One hundred and ten thousand children are homeless across the country. What must they things of their prospects? Twenty-three thousand suicides are committed by people between 10 and 44. Of the more than one hundred thousand deaths by drug overdose, the highest rate occurs between for those between 35 and 44. They saw no hopeful future.

Third, partisan gridlock which forestalls actions on pressing issues such as immigration and gun control. Political parties magnify the power of extremists in their party.

Democratic Representation

The President must be chosen by the majority of the country’s electorate.

Twice already in this century the person moving into the White House had fewer votes that the ‘loser’. The real loser was American democracy since the majority did not get their representation.

The Senate is extremely undemocratic. The twenty-five smallest states with 17% of the country’s population control half the Senate and can block the wishes of 83% of the population.

The best solution is senate races that cover regions of equal populations. Of course, the smaller states will wail, but the arrangement, which bleeds over into the Electoral College, is patently undemocratic.

The House is proportional by population; however, both political parties endeavor to perpetuate their advantages by gerrymandering. The solution is to allocate the total number of representatives to the entire state. The candidates will have the choice to focus their efforts on a particular district or to appeal to the entire state. Each voter votes for one representative. The winners will be the top vote-getters, up to the number of House members the state is allocated.

The Supreme Court, head of the judicial branch, must reflect the changing composition of the country. They are to be appointed to 15-year terms. Any justice is to be automatically recused when a party who has given them a gift has a case before the court.

Limiting Political Party Power

Congressional members are limited to 12 years in the Senate and 12 years in the House. They can combine the terms to a total of 24 years of service.

The Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority leader will have their power limited in controlling their respective agenda. A monthly mandatory secret ballot on pressing issues on the day will allow the majority to force an issue to the floor for debate and voting.

Corporate Political Rights

Corporations are to be taxing at same brackets as the head of household.

Corporations are not citizens. Their interests are not limited to the United States, but can be bent by foreign interests. CEOs are not allowed to use corporate funds to influence the political process. They can use their individual rights as citizens, with the limits prescribed.

Each corporation must go through reincorporation to ensure that society gains for permitting limited liability and for maintenance of a sound economic system where corporations make money. Two incorporation rules will be CEO emoluments are a fixed ratio to a company full-time employee. To give CEOs more, the corporation must raise the average full-time employee’s salary. A second rule is that stock buybacks (excess profits that the corporation has no other use for) must be matched 1-for-1 with employee bonuses.

Stock markets will need to reprice. Remember Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s words. “It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.”

Conflicting Rights

There are two types of conflicts to consider. First is a dispute between two ordinary citizens. They both have access to all the rights and liberties of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. If they disagree, they can take the problem to the courts. Some thorny questions like smoking in public places—the right of the smoker and the right of the non-smoker—have been decided by blanket rules. 

I find the libertarian solution superior. It suggests that dining establishments can declare to allow or ban smoking. People can vote by their feet, which will result in the flourishing of those that people go to. The government would be responsible to see that the establishments abide by their signage.  such declarations could also cover religious beliefs enforced (or not) in an enterprise.

The second of conflicting rights involves a dispute over official actions which can arise between the representative and the public. Official actions have more limited rights than individual personal rights. Why? Because those actions are to be in the public’s service, not private interest. Officials, while in office or afterward, must not be able to use personal rights prerogatives to block investigation into their official actions.

Why Now?

We can make changes when the nation is relatively calm or it will be done during a revolutionary furor. Of course, the broad changes I sketched are too far-reaching for most people, unless they are under great distress.

Because of the pandemic, we got a glimpse of the true worth of low-wage workers. Many were declared essential. Those workers could see their salaries didn’t match the essential nature of their labors. Let’s not forget we saw the necessity of public-wide health was necessary for the economy to function.

Let’s not forget that numerous politicians and business executives took government loans and accepted forgiveness of repayment, now complain about government help for those on the lowest economic rungs.

Let’s end by noting the faulty logic of many who oppose avoid to the poor. “People in bad situations are bad. To help them is to encourage badness.” Aren’t people innocent until proven guilty? If something bad happens to someone you care for, do you not call it bad luck?

We should make things better now rather than wait for the situation to explode!

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Additional Information
Pew Research, Public Opinion on Abortion
CNN Poll on American Attitudes towards Gun Control
Fundamental Attribution Error
Natural Social Groups Who’s in and out
Conflicting Rights Libertarian solution to smoking in public places