Government Policy and Budget Discussion Thread (no politics)

[betarhoalphadelta]

won't ever happen, but i'd love to see us get rid of the first past the post voting method and go to an alternative vote.

I would think that the better system might be more of a parliamentary system with proportional representation. 

Right now we elect Congress not by person, but by party, anyway. And with gerrymandered districts, we really don't have a lot of turnover where a district actually flips red to blue or vice versa. 

Do we really think that our local representative is actually looking out for our direct interests rather than following party line? There's no "Mr Smith Goes To Washington" going on as far as I can tell... 

So if we're primarily voting for party rather than "muh reprasentitive" anyway, why not actually vote for party? The parties create their own lists of ranking, and seats are allocated based on national popular vote of PARTY representation and the parties go down their lists and the top whatever number that meet the allocation get seats. You set a lower limit, of course... For any party to get seats, they have to win a certain percentage of the national vote. One seat in Congress is 0.22% of the makeup, so set a limit at say 10x that... If your party gets over 2% of the national vote, you get seats allocated according to your percentage.

You know what this does? It actually allows third parties to do something. Today as a libertarian I'm unrepresented. Libertarians (not the party, but the ideology) are believed to comprise 10-15 percent of the American populace, but we don't get anyone in Congress because we don't command a plurality of ANY individual district. 

With individual representation and first past the post voting our system cannot sustain in a stable configuration with more than two parties. I think with individual representation and ranked choice or other voting systems, we still won't have that become a stable configuration. It's only with getting rid of the direct representation model that I think we'd see third parties actually become viable. 

[Cincydawg]

There is a kind of libertarian called "socialist libertarianism".  Really.  

I make this point to note the concept has many colors and flavors.

[rolltidefan]

i don't vote for party and, imo, that's one of the reasons, maybe the single biggest reason, that we're in this shitshow to begin with. people need to STOP voting for party and vote based on candidates, and we need more than 2 to choose from.

[ELA]

The nationalization of party platforms has made that nearly impossible.  A Democrat running for local office in Georgia, probably has >90% of the same platform as a Washington Democrat gubnatorial candidate.  I love the idea, and I am registered independent, never vote straight party, but so often the platform is identical the whole way down the ticket, it's hard to split.

[betarhoalphadelta]

i don't vote for party and, imo, that's one of the reasons, maybe the single biggest reason, that we're in this shitshow to begin with. people need to STOP voting for party and vote based on candidates, and we need more than 2 to choose from.

You may not vote for party, but whoever gets elected in your state/district probably votes their party line 98% of the time.

[847badgerfan]

2:   Choices for Federal Office in the most powerful country in the world

50: Choices for Miss America, in that same country

[Mdot21]

2:  Choices for Federal Office in the most powerful country in the world

50: Choices for Miss America, in that same country

George Carlin had a great bit about this. Now I’m going on YouTube to find it lol. Thanks for reminding me about it haha.

And also- I’d like to add- both those parties have very little differences and both are bought and owned by corporate America.

[bayareabadger]

2:  Choices for Federal Office in the most powerful country in the world

50: Choices for Miss America, in that same country

I mean, that's a structural difference for the most part. (Also probably more than two choices, but two right at the end)

[MichiFan87]

George Carlin had a great bit about this. Now I’m going on YouTube to find it lol. Thanks for reminding me about it haha.

And also- I’d like to add- both those parties have very little differences and both are bought and owned by corporate America.

That's true in some ways but definitely not on a lot of important issues.

The corporate world has a lot more influence on the republican side than the democratic side, now, too.

[847badgerfan]

That's not correct at all. Sorry.

[betarhoalphadelta]

That's true in some ways but definitely not on a lot of important issues.

The corporate world has a lot more influence on the republican side than the democratic side, now, too.

IMHO this is the area where we want to tread lightly... I don't think we want to make this a Republican vs Democrat debate about which is worse, which is dominated by whatever evil special interests, etc...

That's where we cross the line from policy to politics...

[Cincydawg]

Unions are corporations, and generally the largest donors to politicians and political efforts.  I think they were 19 of the top 20, some casino got on that list.

So, I'd agree corporation are into politics.

Here is an interesting "fact".  On the Supreme Court, the conservative Justices vote with the Liberal Justices 70% of the time.  They vote with folks on their "side" about 85% of the time.  Most decisions are either 9-0 or 5-4, there are relatively few 6-3 and 7-2 and 8-1 decisions.  And of course many of the decisions have no Con/Lib slant to them at all.

[utee94]

I think if you say each "team" is bought and owned by "special interests" which might or might not be "corporations" then it's extremely accurate.

[Mdot21]

That's true in some ways but definitely not on a lot of important issues.

The corporate world has a lot more influence on the republican side than the democratic side, now, too.

That’s just not true my friend.

I remember a certain democrat that won the presidency and his entire first cabinet was basically hand picked by CitiGroup.