10 Elements to Better Governance

Government.  Those of you that know me know that I fall under the category of mostly libertarian.  What does that mean?  It means that I'm not a fan of strong federal government and a big fan of individual rights and responsibility.  Now this is all fine and well.  I don't do much with my political beliefs, in fact about all I do is vote.  So I started to think.  What would make government better and better serve the people?  Well...

10. Who doesn't like to party?! - The 2 party system (You know, the Red Republicans and the Blue Democrats) seems to be really counter productive.  Every 4 years, the nation engages in the world's largest team sport called the national election.  You get 2 teams, we'll call them parties.  Each party then proceeds to play a game of miniscule examination of candidates. This game is silly because we have to assume that any individual is going to be human and therefore always susceptible to bad press.  At the same time, the citizenry plays an equally silly game where they point at the faults and even more laughable, sit and claim that they are 'undecided'  right up to the last minute.  In the end, after all the votes have been counted and new leadership has been installed the same things happen in government.  Excuses for what promises won't be fulfilled, and more money spent in an effort to expand government oversight into everything.  Many other countries have multiple parties that run for election.  What this gives them is a more diverse selection of political philosophies instead of 2 philosophies that have become so intermingled in practice that it doesn't really matter who you vote for.  What it takes away is a clear majority.  Usually an election with many parties ends with a plurality instead of a clear majority.  At this point, that's a price I'm willing to pay.

9. Easy Information - I've always said that the weight of communication is 80% on the side of the person that wants to convey an idea.  It's not only important to have the forum for communication, but to also have the expertise to use that communication.  That being said, the other 20% is every bit as important.  The receivers of that information need to be able to listen and understand the information.  The difference between the sender and the receiver of a given message has been increased by a few things.  First, those that communicate have changed the nature of the communication from one of earnest ideas to that of semi-honest sound bites.  Human nature is such that these small sound bites are easier to digest and therefore have a greater impact.  Unfortunately this poisons most that listen because that is all they will hear.  All of the truth of a candidate could be exposed in a non biased form on the internet and yet most people will not even try to look much less overcome their own bias in order to see who they actually agree with the most.  While this is very important unfortunately I find that there is no good answer.  This is a case of trying to force the horse to drink.

8. Independent Currency - Currently, every currency is dictated by it's country of origin.  The exception to this is the Euro which is a currency based on several governments that all agree in principal to the economic direction and trade agreements of the group.  I have mentioned Bitcoin in the past and I believe that it is an important example of how future currency should be executed.  The important part of independent currency is that government can not simply print more money when they want to spend more.  Governments in charge of their own currency that decide to print more, devalue the money in citizen's savings as well as build a culture of financial irresponsibility.  This is a much more complicated question than what I have presented, but I would like you to read the rest of this blog so I will stop here.  I discuss Bitcoin more in a separate blog post.

7. Single Timezone Voting - We have idiotic rules about each state trying to be the FIRST state to vote and when they will vote.  This was probably important when communication was largely transmitted by birds and horses.  Now we have the power to execute all votes at the same time.  Lets just allow the vote to occur for the same time frame across the country and end at the same time UTC.  I understand that in some places that will be really late and in other places that will be really early, but that's ok because it won't allow the NEWS to start reporting returns until EVERYONE is done voting.  Poor Hawaii...poor poor Hawaii.

6. Automatic legal sundown - This is more about the laws that govern our land.  It seems we make more and more and depend on the legacy of those judicial decisions to determine the legal standing of a current ruling.  This is all fine and well, except technology in many cases has outstripped our legal systems ability to keep up with the rulings.  Lawyers make a lot of money in researching ancient legal precedent to continue our legal system.  If we determine that laws must have an automatic expiration date, we would force legislators to both  keep an idea of what laws are still worthwhile and what laws are better left dead.  Laws that are allowed to exist unchecked give us eventual legal mutations that are hard to comprehend.

5. Vote alteration -  Allow the electorate to change their mind over time.  This will require internet voting.  NO! you say.  The Internet is too insecure!  There is too much potential for voter fraud!  This is an OUTRAGE!.  To this I say, poppycock and falderal.   The voting system should be engineered through an open source project that will allow for public oversight.  Then voting can be executed any time during the year that campaigning is allowed.  The question of voting booths are as simple as internet access, and votes can be changed right up to the deadline outlined in number 7.  Those of you that think the internet is too insecure and too easily hacked have been watching too much CSI.  If the internet is SO horrible at security, why do we trust our financial commerce with it?  What about regular voter fraud?  You know, like where dead people vote?  Allowing us to change our vote over time allows us to vote ahead of time and not worry about losing out.  We save money on the whole absentee voter nonsense.  We have a chance to think about what we are voting for and pay attention to our second thoughts.

4. Powerful Local Government - This is more about moving the overbearing power of the Fed back to the states.  Yes yes, Shay's rebellion and all that are important, I'm not saying that we remove federal power all together.  But I AM saying that federal power has LONG overstepped it's bounds.  The more powerful local government is, the more each states decisions tend to stand out.  If you live in a state you don't agree with, you could move to one that does things a different way.  At this point every state more or less tastes the same and there is very little diversity in governance.

3. Complete Transparency - All of this talk about spying on the US citizens is running in the wrong direction. Individual citizens don't have much power as it is.  Being afraid of citizens seems to be the characteristic of an entity that realizes that it has too much power and is afraid that it will lose it.  Since we talk about the powers that the NSA/CIA/FBI has, lets bring those powers to bear on our elected officials.  Every elected official would agree to give up ALL privacy.  Everything they say and do is available for scrutiny by the public.  We certainly have the means to look at all of their emails and cell phone transmissions.  All elected officials would be required to carry two enabled smart phones and every conversation they have should be recorded.  This would solve the problem of PACs as well as bad corporate influence.  I suspect that once you do this, you eliminate the need for term limits because everyone would agree that if a politician is doing what the public wants and still wants to serve...let em!

2. 16th Amendment needs to go - The ability for a government to take your money and force you to work on their behalf is not patriotic, it's slavery.  The IRS has already been seen to be at least a little corrupt in practice if not in concept.  The latest revelations not withstanding the IRS has been a sharp toothed Pit Bull on the leash of government for a long time.  This corruption goes back to Nixon and likely beyond.  Really, the TSA and the HSA could also take a hike as they are VERY expensive for what we are getting.

1.  No Electoral College - What in the WORLD is this here for?  Like time zones for the vote this was a good idea when you couldn't really count all the votes up and get everything together.  The electoral college gives disproportionate power to states with low populations.  This allows the President to be elected based on the state instead of popular consensus.  This is probably wrong these days.  If we put into place my other ideas, the Electoral College is an anachronism and needs to be buried.




If the IRS/CIA/NSA/FBI/HSA stops me from publishing this blog and I become mysteriously missing...Tell my story.

Top ten reasons to move Income Tax to VAT

It's our favorite time of year again. April 15th is just around the corner and it's time for you to pay Uncle Sam for all of those good things that you are benefiting from. It's important to remember that the Government never wants less money, only more. There are a few reasons for this.

For you Republicans. Well it's obvious. At nearly a billion dollars a day, this war isn't gonna pay for itself. After all, we might need to lean over into Iran . We have banks to bail out as well as large corporations. There are an awful lot of palms to grease.

For you Democrats. Well there are an awful lot of poor people that need to feel like they are sticking it to the man. Surely there must be another way to buy the votes of the downtrodden. Oh yeah, and there are an awful lot of palms to grease.

As it is, it doesn't matter which side of the isle you are from, you will be supporting a party that wants our money.

Here's the problem. the Federal Income tax was instituted because the government just couldn't spend enough money and had to figure out a way to get more from it's people. Here's the problem. It was unconstitutional. Well that little fact wasn't going to stand in their way. in 1913 the 16th amendment was passed allowing for the taxation of everyone based on personal income. Well that opened the pandora's box that we have now in the form of our beloved 1099 form to be filed with numerous schedules to the IRS so that we can pay for our very efficient government.

The new solution. This solution is actually not new at all. It's quite old. they call it the VAT tax or Value Added Tax which would make calling it a VAT tax redundant. Basically a national sales tax that would replace the current income tax. And here are my top 10 reasons to move to a VAT tax

10. No more smug co-worker that already has THEIR taxes done. Some propeller heads have their taxes done the second the forms come out. Well GOOOOOOOOOOD for you.













9. No more filling out forms and schedules. Not only do you have to fill out forms and submit them to Uncle Sam, but you have to keep them around as well. 7 years you gotta act as a warehouse for the IRS. Sure it doesn't take up MUCH space, but who really does it 100% anyway? If I were audited for 2006, I can guarantee you i don't know quite where i put it.














8. No more working for free. What? work for free? nobody is asking me to do that are they? Well, the average wage earner takes 24 hours to do all of their taxes (this includes the receipt saving as well as the justification and the cheating). Lets assume that you make 15 dollars an hour (minimum wage is another discussion). that's 360 dollars worth of time that the IRS made you work for free. Grrrrrrr.





7. It's easy. this is really a corollary to number 9. If there are no forms to fill out etc, then it MUST be easier. After all, they will just take it out of your purchases.

















6. No more stupid TaxCut/TurboTax/HRBlock. So now in order to make it easier for the IRS to have my money, I'll shuck out 35 smacks to TurboTax to make sure that everything is being done right. yippee. at least the cost of the software is tax deductable.




5. Taxes should not be a tool for social reform. Telling the top 5% of wage earners that paying 60% of the tax burden isn't fair and they should be paying more is a lot like your mom and dad telling you you need to spend your Saturday mowing the lawn and edging only to be told later that now you need to do the garden and maybe grout some tile while your little brother watches the nth rerun of Our Gang on Saturday afternoon TV. Sure we need to help the poor. Of course the only way to pay for the poor is to bill the people that are richer than the poor, but the VAT works on everyone that buys stuff. I'm sure we can come up with a method to keep the very poor from paying on necessities. After all, we have food stamps on a visa these days.

4. Not as expensive. There is already systems in place to deal with taxes on most state levels. If we include a VAT, there will just be a few more numbers but not much more trouble for business. The savings in that we don't need to print and send out 200 million tax booklets and forms every year would be staggering. Not to mention all the jobs we don't have to pay for at the IRS. (of course this is probably a hollow victory since the VAT would increase the amount of audits etc on business, but I can't believe that auditing 100 thousand businesses isn't easier than auditing 300 million people.)

3. Frenchie pays too. Actually all foreigners will pay. This seems only fair since our government allows foreign lobbyists in the national government. Seems like they should pay since they are using our congressmen to give their countries aid. We have to pay their sales taxes when we vacation over there, it seems only fair.















2. No double taxation. Supposedly we are not supposed to be taxed twice on our income. It happens all the time though. We pay our state and fed taxes and THEN we pay gas taxes as well as local sales taxes. we are paying those taxes on already taxed income. That's supposed to be against the law.









1. NO IRS. Wow, you mean I don't have to live in fear of my property being taken from me and my wages being garnisheed because I couldn't come up with a payment for the IRS? They can freeze all my assets and I have to prove I'm innocent?! What kind of country is this? The one thing people in America fear more than their dentist is an IRS Audit.












P.S. If you want to do it like Richy Rich does. Just move to the Bahama's or Bermuda. They got no Income taxes at all. Mmmmmm...livin the good life.