Home ยป Discussion Forum

Public Policy Ideas

Fri, 12/03/2010 - 9:24am | thechampaignlife

I posted this as a reply to the GOP NAZI thread but I suspect it got overlooked due to the inflammatory headline and length of that post so I'm bumping it here.  This is in regard to unemployment insurance benefits being allowed to expire and fiixng the political process in general.

So here's the solution:

1. House of Representatives members are chosen at random like jury duty and serve one weekend a month plus two weeks a year at minimum wage (no travel expenses - they can telecommute).
2. Poverty threshold calculated as the minimum average cost of all required living expenses if it's not already.
3. Minimum wage calculated as the annual poverty threshold of a 3 person household divided by 40 hours per week then divided by 52 weeks per year (currently about $8.80/hr vs $7.25/hr which is the current federal minimum wage).
4. Guaranteed available federal jobs provided at minimum wage with free healthcare for public works projects.
5. Constitutional amendment requiring revenues to exceed expenses at the end of each fiscal year as long as federal net worth (assets minus liabilities) is negative. Punishment is 30 days in jail for reps and senators.
6. Federal subsidies for newspapers.
7. Establish online FOIA repository where all federal documents are posted within 30 days of their creation. Sensitive docs posted with redactions and date redactions can be removed.
8. Flat rate sales tax with flat amount refund established to replace all other general purpose taxes (income, capital appreciation, estate, etc).
9. Eliminate any taxes that might apply to businesses from worker co-ops, halve them for customer co-ops, and double them for corporations.

What do you think?

Forums (1):Discussion Forum

Comments

News-Gazette.com embraces discussion of both community and world issues. We welcome you to contribute your ideas, opinions and comments, but we ask that you avoid personal attacks, vulgarity and hate speech. We reserve the right to remove any comment at our discretion, and we will block repeat offenders' accounts. To post comments, you must first be a registered user, and your username will appear with any comment you post. Happy posting.

Login or register to post comments

thechampaignlife wrote on January 15, 2011 at 11:01 am

I've got a new one in light

I've got a new one in light of the state's recent tax increase. If we're going to stick with an income tax, mirror it to property taxes where you are assessed one year and pay taxes the next. So your 2009 income would get reported when you file your taxes on 4/15/10. The expenses incurred by the state for 7/1/09-6/30/10 would be used to calculate the rate to tax everyone's income to cover those expenses that weren't recovered by another tax source. That way every expense is guaranteed to be repaid by the next year and no deficits accrue. Your 2010 withholding would be based on the 2009 rate and you'd pay or get back any difference when you file on 4/15/11.

The rate may fluctuate more often and could increase even more than it did just recently did but we'd reign spending in much more quickly as we see the immediate impact of said spending rather than deferring payments and borrowing while spending goes unchecked and massive deficits occur.