We are seeing that today across our country with the protests in multiple cities, mostly peaceful, some not quite, some stupidly violent in the destruction of personal and government property.
Calls for overhauling police department practices are valid and must be listened to, but de-funding them is not the answer. Civilian review, constant overhaul of police functions and processes are clearly necessary. So is the proper recruitment of the right people in the first place, and their on-going training in dealing with all of the public, the law-abiding, and the other-wise.
This "little rebellion" we are experiencing this year has not quite been overwhelmed by the accompanying deadly virus. The rebellion could advance even more if Congress, traditionally a do-nothing body, would listen to the people who put them there, and act appropriately with good faith and Common Sense and a belief in their constituents.
Personally, I am still awaiting congressional action on these fronts. There has been no action, nor active work, on any of these for decades:
Eliminating the penny from production and circulation. Hugely expensive to keep that penny in production.
Eliminating subsidies, some of which are over 100 years old. These include the initial oil industry subsidy to help get them off the ground. Today the major oil companies have been reporting $30B in QUARTERLY profits, and remain subsidized by taxpayers. The virus has had its impact on the industry's profits, but the subsidies remain in place to the tune of about $11B annually from taxpayers.
The agriculture subsidy is a five year bill that in FY2018 totalled $867B, a slight rise from the FY2014 total of $489B. It is an extremely complicated piece of legislation but still encourages people NOT to grow crops, among other requirements/assistance. Agricultural subsidies were originally created to help farmers ravaged by the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. It has mushroomed out of control.
Obamacare is budgeted to spend $1.039 trillion on subsidies for these middle-class working families between 2015 and 2024. It only expects to spend $792 billion on expanded Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program for the poor.
Amtrak receives somewhere between $1-2B annually in subsidies, because the Transportation Dept. has no clue how to run a railroad system, and shouldn't be expected to. An organization that is crying out for privatization continues to lumber along with deadly accidents, a heels-dug-in approach to automatic safety mechanism improvements, and just continues to bleed massive amounts of citizen tax dollars with no end in sight. Meanwhile, routes are cut along with service. It's a joke, and a disaster.
Perhaps the biggest hindrance to revolutionary progress, are the Rules of the House, and the Rules of the Senate, in which these two less than august bodies, are allowed for some reason to regulate themselves, set their own operating rules, while flaunting any approach to Common Sense and progress.
I believe we need to change the presidential term to one six year term, non-renewable.
No presidential family member may run for the office for 30 years, and no former president may run for any other federal, state, or local political office.
Upon announcing candidacy for president, each person shall simultaneiously provide seven years' tax and medical health records for review and public presentation. We have the right to know if our leaders are honest, healthy and sane.
Our FF created reasonably good but not perfect founding documents. It is more than reasonable for us to update these documents from time to time. Indeed, the 27 amendments implemented over 244 years, are proof of just how good a job the beginners did, in setting up this volatile experiment in self-rule.
My recommendations for national change include these:
- Campaigns are wastefully expensive. Let city and county office campaigns be limited to 30 days and a reasonable dollar amount that won't prevent people from running for office. The advent of technology allows candidates to reach more people than ever.
- Let state office campaigns be limited to 90 days, for the same reasons.
- Let national office campaigns (House, Senate, Presidency) be limited to six months and a dollar cap. The news this morning reported a simple advertising buy from Mr. Biden's campaign totalled $280m. This is ridiculous, with all the other needs in our country right now.
- Supreme Court justics must step down at age75, no exemptions. They cannot be appointed if they are within nine years of that age.
- No lifetime jobs in federal government, anywhere. Another anachronism.
- Representatives' terms should be four years. Right now with a two-year term, such people spend the first year figuring how govt works, and the second year getting re-elected. The folks they're supposedly representing on various issues, are simply brushed aside. Not much can nor has even been accomplished in a two year term. It is an anacronistic hold-over from 1780s.
- Senators and Representatives should be limited to three terms, lifetime. No relative may hold the same office for 30 years. It is simply ridiculous how many decades some people stay in office, with the same tired ideas and old approaches to issues. Government political office holding was never designed nor intended to be a lifetime career, and it is wrong that we keep re-electing the same folks repeatedly. It shows our non-caring attitudes towards politics in general, to easily mark the same name on a ballot year after year, not bothering to learn about the candidate and where he and she stands on issues.
- Presidents shall be limited to the issuance of two Executive Orders per year, aside from responding to Acts of God national emergencies. Our Founding Fathers designed the three branches of government to be used regularly, not to be ignored whenever a president felt like it. All such EOs must be submitted to the SC for review and approval.
- No president shall maintain any type of social media account until retirement.
- Presidents shall be limited to issuing sentencing pardons one time during their six year term, in the last 90 days, and shall be limited to regular citizens and never include any public office holder at any level.
- A civilian oversight committee be created to review and re-write the operating rules for both the House and the Senate. This installs civilian controls on processes and procedures, such as banning midnight pay raise amendment riders and all other types of riders that have nothing to do with the bill in question; controlling amount and frequency of pay raises for members, and eliminating pork barrel projects. It would also establish a time limit for the processing of all bills submitted by members in both houses. This would lower the extraordinary amount of power the Speakers of both houses have currently, to control what is brought before each house for consideration, debate, adjustment, and either approval or disapproval. This nonsense of legislation lingering in committee for months until it dies a natural death, is stupid.
- The revolution this year has changed the American landscape permanently, I believe, for all of us. No more Confederate Flag displays, Confederate monuments and others of questionable honor removed; a new awareness that the rights guaranteed in our documents never really were properly implemented and were in fact deliberately hindered, blocked, or rendered meaningless. It is a new day for our country, in its constant attempt to attain in actual action the ideals first prescribed in our Founding Documents. Let's keep moving forward.
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