Legislative term limits

I don't think I ever really mentioned in detail what I envisioned for federal term limits.

Time to fix that.

Edit 7-26-2015 : since I forgot it then, I'm adding the way to bring the legislative branch back to the representative democracy out Forefathers likely envisioned..
    first off, our forefathers I don't think ever envisioned a time where being an elected official was a lifetime career choice. and a lucrative one at that.

I hold to the belief that, if your a federally elected official, you have up to 3 levels responsibility to the people.

1) at the Representative level, you are primarily beholden to the district that elects you first. then to the state you represent. Then finally, to the country as a whole.
2) at the Senator level, because your elected in a statewide vote, you just merge the elected district and state and national levels
3) at the executive level, due to the national vote of the election, speaks for itself. and has, thanks to the 22nd amendment, strict term limits


The 22nd amendment is actually a good starting point for our discussion about federal legislative term limits. it does need some tweaking based on the different term sizes the upper and lower chamber of Congress work.

I have a couple of variations I'd like to throw out there

1) 6 terms in the House, 3 in the Senate (which given the 1/2 term provision in the 22nd, would give Representatives 12 to 13 years, Senators 18 to 21 years)
2) the same 6 terms for the house, but cut the Senate to 2 terms.

Either way, once you've accomplished one, you can go do the other if possible.. but there are no repeats on either.. once you hit your limits on both, that's it. I have no issue with anyone who manages to get to the term limits offering their services to whomever replaces them for a year in a paid advisory role (to show them the ropes per se).

Another thing I want to tackle is the lifetime perks of being a federally elected official I want to call for the elimination of the congressional/presidential salary for life perk once out of office for ANY federally elected office (which has the potential to save a boatload of money.. also gives elected officials an incentive to plan for their own retirements. Because if you think about it, as it stands now why should they?). I also have no issue with the post service Secret Service details for former presidents.

while we're at it (this is the edit mentioned above), how about we fix the severe representative imbalance currently afflicting our legislative branch. Using the House as the guide, the ratio of citizens to federally elected officials is something like 735k to 1, far and away the largest such ratio in the world. If we, in conjunction with applying my idea above and lower the ratio to something slight more sane. i would prefer something along the lines of most of the rest of the world (under 100k to 1) but that would make Congress simply TOO unwieldy. cutting it to 250k to 1 would only roughly triple the size of the House, and say add a third senator per state for balancing purposes.  

dealing with taxes, revised

OK, I've had a few months thinking about this. and I've made a few minor changes to my idea about constitutional tax reform.. below are the updates.

5-16-14 a few more tweaks

Constitutional Tax Code Rewrite

30%- tax rate on adjusted incomes over $1million

20%- tax rate on adjusted incomes of $250,001 to $1 million, corporate tax rate on US based revenue, and tax rate on dividends (currently known as the Capital Gains tax)

10%- tax rate for adjusted incomes under $250,000

2% - sales tax on goods until deficit erased, then disappears only to be seen again the year after a deficit returns
0% - tax on savings account interest (the only place money should make money and NOT get taxed)

For the purpose of determining income, the sale of stock is considered income (to be determined by the price the stock is sold at being subtracted by the price it was purchased at, if purchased) Update 5-16-14: I've had a while to think on this.. and perhaps there should be benefits to holding onto stocks for long periods of time, while also treating day trading like the crapshoot it is. The new idea is a tiered approach to capital gains taxes.. I'd prefer to have it be a 10% reduction every year (down to 0 after 10 years of ownership), but you could probably talk me into doing 20% a year (so its 0% in 5 years). but the caveat that the stock has to have been purchased has to remain


Exemption/deductions
Corporate - $20k per documented full time American worker, $10k for documented part time American worker
Personal - $10k per household member ($5k if a family member is over 18, lives in the home, and filing their own return), $2.5k per standard calendar quarter (Jan-Mar, Apr-Jun, Jul-Sep, Oct-Dec) for foster children (example: foster child lives in home from March to August. Deduction for this child would be 7.5k).
Everyone (both personal and Corporate - 25% of total charitable contributions, to be deducted AFTER tax calculated

This would be

·         Fair

·         Transparent

·         Expand the tax base enough while not overburdening the working poor/middle classes

·         Gives multi-national corporations a reason to re-invest in America on top of the rate cut(which would lower the unemployment rate, and create taxpayers at the same time)

·         Create a return every individual tax payer can use without the need for accountants/tax professional/etc.

·         Streamline the IRS, saving even more money

·         Effectively kills every loophole possible (I’m sure there are still a few in a plan like this, but nowhere near the shelters that exist today)

For the purposes of adjustment, the amendment would allow every 10 years for adjustments on the upper limits of each of the individual income brackets, and every 20 for the personal/corporate deductions and charitable deduction tax credit

how is it..

I want to be perfectly honest here.. how can the legislative branch attempt to GOVERN (what we actually ELECTED them to do by the way), when it apparently can't get out of its own effing way?

*gets on his soapbox, megaphone pointed in Senator Rand Paul's general direction with the volume turned to 200 or so*

Senator Paul, 

I understand that you've been reading a lot of your dad's plans. and they had to have sounded really good for you to co-opt them for yourself (eliminating 4 entire cabinet departments, and privatizing a 5th). Lets ignore the other uber radical right wing craziness in your budget and focus on TWO things. 

17% flat tax? as well as yet another GOP plan that eliminates the capital gains tax entirely? This is trickle down economics on half a dozen types of steroids. Great, 30 plus years of it has proven to make America wealthier overall, but the shift in how that wealth is distributed is now insanely top heavy it defies description. but lets look a little deeper into the numbers and their consequences shall we?

Just for the sake of argument, let's assume your budget somehow becomes law. Whats the first thing you think corporate America is going to do? Switch as much of the executive compensation as they can possibly get away with into stock options.  

Let me ask you this Senator.. If you are a senior executive at any kind of company that has stock options as compensation, why would you want to take a salary, when they can just sell a thousand or so shares you get as compensation a month and continue to life the high life (and never pay Uncle Sam a penny because there are no capital gains taxes)? 

On the opposite end of the spectrum however, the average family of 5 making forty grand a year combined now has a guaranteed tax bill if $6800. That's 7 thousand they AREN'T spending making the economy grow by spending money. Or have you forgotten your economics 101 classes? if the people you are looking for as consumers do not have extra money to spend, they cannot buy your goods. If they cant buy your goods, you can't make money. If you can't make money, you trim the payroll, making a bad situation worse. and its a downward spiral. All so that you can give the 'job creators' a tax break. OK, I lied, I'm going to hit on a few more points in your budget here. You've also decimated the social safety net the working poor (of which there will be many more of under your plan) need to survive by turning the social saftey net programs the working poor depend on into block grants for the states to give out, which will eventually lead to the so called 'death panels' many of the far right claim the ACA is going to do.

What state are you representing again Senator? How will your budget positively benefit the people YOU represent in the long run?

Saving the Post Office in 10 minutes or less

This is going to be a relatively short post because when it all boils down to it, its a really simple solution.

To make things clear, I can understand why the bill that was passed by Congress (designed to 'save' the postal service) was actually passed. I really do. And asking the USPS to pre-fund the retirement account is actually a good idea. The BIG, REALLY HUGE issue with it is the time frames used. Let me ask you a question.

How many businesses do you know that would be able to remain profitable when they have been mandated to pre-fund 75 years of retirement benefits in 5 years? The Big Oil companies and Apple are the only ones that come to mind for me, and even then that's a bit of a stretch.

Now on the other hand, if you were to ask the USPS to pre-fund say 10 years of benefits in those same 5 years (and set the language up in the bill so it would be up for renewal every 10 years), would the Post Office be in the mess its in now? Probably not. I suspect it would be at least breaking even or remaining a profitable entity.

true healthcare reform

One thing both parties want to control is the out of control increases in healthcare spending in America. yet as usual, they have completely different ways they want to accomplish it. We have the best hospitals, doctors and most of the best technology for treatment on the planet. yet, the costs to access those hospitals, doctors and treatments are out of reach of the vast majority of Americans. And because of the American tendency to want to sue someone for looking at them funny, Americans are the most over tested, over-medicated country  to protect doctors from malpractice lawsuits. Throw in the for profit nature nearly the entirety of the US healthcare system, and its a disaster waiting to happen

The Democrats want to reform the system by attempting to provide insurance to every american, and by people being able to stay healthy, lower costs for everyone. The GOP would prefer to keep the pre-ACA status quo. Or to create a cross state competition system to give customers 'more choice'. Here's the problem with that. Each state has its own rules regarding what is considered proper coverage. Which is why each major health insurance company has the better part of 50+ side businesses (one for each state they do business in). telling consumers they can cross state lines to buy coverage doesn't mean they will get the proper coverages. If that happens, you'll basically see each state but MA trying to undercut each other to attract people from out of state. But I suspect what will end up happening is that any savings consumers may see in premiums gets wiped out and then some by the increases in overall out of pocket expenses.

The solution to that is adding a national standard for what is considered proper coverage in the ACA (and yes, I would consider women's issues like birth control and such part of basic coverage, but will address that in a bit). By doing that, at least from what I can see (and if you have read the first 2 posts, you can see I very much take a common sense approach to just about everything), you would have a blue cross/blue shield of america (instead of one for each state bc/bs does business in). that alone could save billions upon billions in administrative overhead.

A compete overhaul of the malpractice system needs to be done as well. Doctors are only human, they do occasionally make mistakes. and only gross incompetence (removing the wrong organ in surgery, etc) should really be punished with a malpractice suit. Second opinions should be part of whats considered basic coverage by the way. so if you go to your normal doctor and they say 'cancer' after a series of tests, you have the right to see any doctor of your choice (if they are willing to see you) to verify that diagnosis. the patient would have to foot any travel expenses to get said second opinion of course.

OK, women's health issues. Birth control, access to it, etc. in my eyes should at least have to be offered as part of whats considered basic coverage. My views on abortion and birth control have been discussed already in my opening post. But because they are female specific health issues, they have to be addressed in any standard of coverage discussion. if you choose not to take them, so be it. but they HAVE to be offered, and the price has to be reasonable. you cant make adding reproductive issues to a coverage plan so expensive that no one will take them. And you cant give employers the 'moral exception' excuse to not provide them

In closing on this issue.. Between a single standard for whats considered basic coverage and true malpractice reform, I suspect you could very easily get healthcare costs for everyone under control. Unfortunately, my brain is very much mush right now, and I know I've totally overlooked the 3rd head of the healthcare 3 headed monster, medications. so maybe I add on with a reply to this post when I'm thinking straight. but there's a common sense approach to every problem. And more often than not, the common sense approach is what I start with.

dealing with taxes

I was going to post this in a yahoo forum, but makes more sense to put it here, then link to it in the post. but it also dovetails nicely into my opening post and how tax reform is very high on my list of things that have to get done


Scrap the tax code (both business and personal, as well as the traditional dividend, capital gains) altogether. replace it with something simpler.  3 personal tax rates (10% for adjusted incomes under 100k, 20% to 1/2 million, 30% over that), 1 business rate (between 20-25%), and a dividend rate of 15%. The capital gains tax is gone. because in my eyes, playing the stock market for gain is as much income as earning a salary, gambling, or other forms of income. the formula for figuring out that income is as simple as other basic math, subtract the price you paid for stock from the amount made from selling it. if you didn't pay for it (as it was awarded as executive compensation or stock splits for example) well them's the breaks isn't it.

Have a total of 2 deductions available on both ends. The deduction I envision both the personal and the business tax rates would share would be a 25% POST tax calculation deduction for non-tithing based (i.e, your church requires a 10% donation of your income to be considered a member of the church in good standing) charitable contributions. Anything made over 10%  however is.

as to my pre-tax deductions. On the personal end, I would have a 10k per family member (with 2 allowable changes to that. One is a 1/2 deduction allowable for a child over 18 still living at home, but filing their own return. The second would be for foster parents, who can see a lot of turnover in children coming into and out of their home , they would see a deduction of $2500 per 3 months up to the full 10k per foster child). The business version would be the same 10k deduction for every documented American worker (With between 20-40% of workers salaries being tax deductible, lets see how quickly you see more 'made in america' labels on goods)

The one other thing I would have in it is that you don't get more than was taken from your check in terms of refunds. if you had $1200 in federal taxes deducted from your check, that's the most you get back. We cannot expect the federal government to live within its means if we cannot.

One thing I think my changes would do is make it so that just about anyone can do their own taxes. and can be done on a 1-3 page form tops

I also envision it as a constitutional amendment, to protect it from the changing winds in Washington.

Would it increase the tax base? Quite possibly. But it also closes pretty much every loophole in the current tax system (making it much harder for large corporations to report billions in profits, then get an eight figure refund from the IRS), and looks to be reasonably fair to everyone. I would like to have someone with a better grasp on the concepts run the numbers on a bigger scale to see if this is as beneficial as I think it could be

Starting off

I am, by today's political standards, what might be considered a statistical anomaly. Fiscally conservative, yet also economically fair (I want to see the budget balanced so that my children and grandchildren are not burdened by the silliness of my parents and my generation. But don't want to overly burden all Americans with silly increases in taxes and draconian cuts), yet socially progressive (kind of speaks for itself, but i'll elaborate in a lot more detail in a little bit).

I used to just in passing look at the nations political climate and say 'oh well, what can I do about it' and go about my life. But over the last few years, I've found myself wanting something more. Now, I watch MSNBC, Current, the political shows on the weekends on all the networks, and at least attempt to watch Fox News (before I have to change the channel to keep from throwing large heavy objects at the TV) as much as I can. and here's what I see.

1) Compromise, where has it gone? This is a country of over three hundred MILLION citizens, governed at the federal level by a total of five hundred thirty seven elected officials (535 in the legislative branch, 2 in the executive). Which in and of itself is the highest citizen to federally elected official in the world unless I am mistaken. To effectively GOVERN a nation of this size, compromise isn't a nice thing to have every once in a while. it should be a REQUIREMENT. 

2) You can't have it both ways. Many of the more extreme right call for a return to govern by the Constitution. yet have no problem abandoning the document when it suits their needs. Here's where my socially progressive side comes out by the way. You see them pushing for complete bans on abortion (including cases of rape, incest or the mother's well being), most forms of birth control, and infertility treatments by giving fertilized eggs full rights as citizens, yet do not want to give long term illegal aliens a viable path to citizenship. You see state and federal level 'definition of marriage' amendments, effectively denying fundamental rights to Americans whose only 'crime' is that they are gay. You see limiting of choices in health care plans and exemptions to existing ones based on 'religiously moral' grounds. I was raised as a Roman Catholic, so I'm well aware of how my church fells on those issues. I just don't happen to agree with them. You want to set 'standards' for educating our children, yet treat the teachers who provide that education as 'evil money seeking monsters'.  

Let's start with abortion/birth control. Until a fetus is clearly viable outside the womb (so probably at least 6 months), ANY choices in regards to that pregnancy are the woman's. Pregnancies caused by rape or incest are under that umbrella as well. When the mothers well being is at stake, she should come first. Birth control is another easy one if you stop and think about it logically. Look at the statistics regarding teen pregnancy and unwed mothers in this country. the highest rates of both are in the deep south, where sex ed for the most part boils down to 'don't have sex until your married' (Seems to really work well doesn't it?). Yes, abstinence should be taught in sex ed in school. But other forms of birth control should also be taught and be easily available 'if asked for'.

Onto another favorite target of social conservatives, gay marriage. And here, I'll get right to the point. Every state amendment in which the 'legal definition' of marriage (for the purposes of taxes, health benefits, next of kin, etc.) is one man and one woman is blatantly in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. Gay/lesbian Americans are due the same rights to 'life, liberty, and property' as hetero-sexual Americans. End of discussion.

Using the examples above to allow employers to use 'moral' grounds to deny/make changes to employees' health care benefits (because that, along with truly reforming the tax code and federal term limits, are something I feel VERY strongly about and each deserves separate posts of their own). But to lay the groundwork for that post, I feel that one thing the federal government 'should' be allowed to do is set unified standards for what is considered 'basic care' which the states cannot deviate from.

After taxes, term limits, and health care.. My favorite thing to criticize politicians is education.  I'm all for holding our teachers and students to a higher standard. But you have do it right. Testing works, but doing a single, all-encompassing, all-powerful test to determine the fate of schools, their funding, and teachers jobs makes ZERO sense. Why not start and end the school year with a test. Use the results from the first test to identify where students are weak and strong, and then customize their class schedules to help them improve on the weak areas and challenge them in their strengths. Then judge schools and teachers by the results of the SECOND test. Invest in getting GREAT teachers in classrooms. Pay them properly.


Edit: just noticed I had mixed up the 4th and 14th amendments