How Would I Change the US Government

[Dargil]

Here is a place to start:

01 Term Limits House and Senate – two terms and out. Current members with two terms are ineligible to run again.

02 The Seventeenth Amendment, specifying popular election of Senators is overturned. Article I, Section 3, Clause 1: (The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.) is restored, limited by the two terms above.

03 A completed, balanced budget for every fiscal year. No add-ons later, except in time of declared war. Deficit spending is prohibited and the national debt will be reduced to zero dollars within 10 years.

04 Bills before Congress must have a single purpose or action. No unrelated measures can be added.

05 Every bill considered for law must be accompanied by an addendum in clear, sixth-grade English that explains its purpose and intent.

06 The finished version of each bill will be made available to members of Congress at least four days prior to a scheduled vote. Bills over 1,000 pages are an exception and will be available for seven days prior to a vote. Every Representative and Senator must certify he has read the bill or received an accurate summary of it.

07 Each bill, and the law that results from it, will be referred to by the House or Senate bill number and not by a name that utilizes an acronymic definition.

08 Unelected bureaucrats cannot make rules/restrictions/mandates/etc. that impact the liberties, economics or the health of the public. Congress must make any such edicts and they are called 'laws.'

09 Current unelected bureaucrats who have crafted restrictive dictates are classified as politicians and are term-limited to the end of the current year. For example. EPA bureaucrats.

10 The federal voting system known as the Electoral College cannot be replaced or weakened.

11 Presidential Executive Orders may not make or replace laws or obligate funds. That is only the function of Congress.

12 Congress will meet in Washington only in the first and third quarters of the year. Their length of their work days will be determined by work load.

13 Election advertising cannot start until 90 days before an election and must end two days prior to election day.

14 Grants may only be issued to companies whose grant-funded end product fills a government need. Development of entities intended to be marketable by private industry are prohibited from federal grants. Examples: Electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels.

15 All Earmarks are banned from all legislative bills.

16 Any current federal office holder or job holder running for an elected office must resign from their current position before undertaking any campaign effort.

17 The Commerce Clause of the Constitution, (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 ) shall be rectified to conform to the original intent of the founders and the federalist tenets of the Constitution, subject to adjudication by the Supreme Court.

18 Ranked Choice Voting for all federal positions is permanently prohibited. Run-offs shall be scheduled where necessary.

19 Before any member of Congress may vote on banning any item generally available to citizens to purchase or in widespread use, that member must permanently disconnect and disable or dispose of any example of it and certify having done to his or her voters.

20 Prior to taking office, every electee to Congress, and every unelected bureaucrat capable of composing regulations per the foregoing must pass the same test that applicants for U.S. citizenship eligibility must pass.

21 All elected officials and appointed bureaucrats shall be subject to the same Health Care Insurance as are Citizens.

22 Presidents and vice presidents are subject to annual psychological and physical evaluation in order to remain in office or be subject to mandatory removal via the
25th Amendment.

If I had a better imagination, this would be longer.

[monorprise]

Very good for the most part, Althou I would point out:

3: This is good although you need to define war as a temporary period, or congress will simply declare war on things like drugs or poverty that can never be defeated to free themselfs.

5: That is generally the propose of the text of the law itself. If you want them to expand the definition of the law, then perhaps using language not referencing a arbitrary level of agreement would be better.
In common law they try to solve the problem by requiring the court to use past executive and judicial practice as well as the written text to secure at least an reliable understanding of the law. Modern courts of course 2/3rds of that and instead just sometimes follow their own most recent court precedent.
Which is effectively legislative power.

7: What is the point of this? Politicians will always lie and they do officially refer to the bill by its number. Anther option is in uses in several states Like Missouri they do in fact allow the court to nullify an act if its title does not reflect its propose. This unfortunate just creates abusable power by the court.

8: Congress just makes too broad of laws because they have overloaded themselfs with too many responsibilities even they know they have no chance of voting to update as required.

9: I think what your really referring to is banning executives agencies not subject to elected control. The problem here for the current goverment is no human or group of humans could control so much.

10: Thou the electorate cottage represents compromise, perhaps the more ideal way to elect a president is the one intended to happen most of the time when nobody secures a majority, which is by congressional vote. This also allows there to be more than 2 political parties as you no longer need a majority collation, which may not be a good thing in terms of allowing extremist to assume power.

11: Already the law.

12: Why meet in D. C. at all anymore? This is the 21st century they can work remotely, and would they not better represent their constituency by remaining among them?

18: This really needs to be left to the states along with all other election matters. That way we don't have 1 set of politicians making rules for everyone, and instead can compare and contrast different rules by different states to identify shortcomings.

19: The constitution never gave Congress the right to vote to ban any item period. That is a State power. Technically they are not even suppose to ban exports. Once again this is due to the enforceable of that contract given the only parties we are told can enforce it have no natural interest to do so.

21: Health insurance in general creating a tragity of a commons situation is a bad idea so why do we want to require it in any form?

[Anonymous]

Make it mandatory for them to go live in labor camps and homeless shelters in the deep South for 2 years-like a Mormon mission-so they can see how a large swath of this country to AREN'T generational Ivy League trust funders get treated and live. I've spent time time in 46 states and 4 other countries in a WIDE range of circumstances. There's such a MASSIVE disconnect between the chosen few and everyone else... it'll take generations to even hope to begin bridging the gap. There are so many cons and schemes out there designed to "keep people in the place" that hopelessness has pervaded the masses at current time.

[Anonymous]

1. Term limits is a good idea but it would only lead to the party controlling the seat rather than the person elected, the way Obama is having his third term now running things for Biden, who has no idea what's going on (and his fourth term when they put Michelle in office in 2024).

2. The same with the 17th Amendment, it was intended to put the vote in the hands of the people rather than the party, which is what the state legislature is in a more direct form.

3. A balanced budget is a good idea but I don't know if it can be done with all the damage they've created. A better idea might be NO amendments to bills, NO pork whatsoever, especially when it's so completely unrelated to the law they supposedly want to pass.

4. I see you already said that, ok good.

5. Very good. And not written by 2,000 special interests. Written by congressmen and every word read by every congressman.

6. Again, I was ahead of myself. But I think they should have to read every word, otherwise "bill summaries" would become a new cottage industry, similar to getting through law school only using commercial outlines.

7. Very good, even worse is giving deceptive names to referendums so citizens are led to intentionally misunderstand what they're voting on.

8. Yes, the bureaucracy and whole body of administrative law should be eliminated. This is part of what Trump had been doing.

9. #8 would take care of this.

10. Correct.

11. Correct.

12. Very good. And maybe pay them $40,000 a year instead of, what is it, $200,000 now? These are supposed to be ordinary people coming in from their jobs to serve a portion of their time for the benefit of their constituents.

13. Very good. These are great ideas. Like the movie Dave.

14. Very good. Massive corruption here.

15. Yes I said this earlier too. Great minds think alike.

16. Very good.

17. This refers to the inherent limitations on the Commerce Clause and I would really have to think about this to have an opinion. Though I am not in favor of anything that refers back to the Federalist Papers. The Constitution is our controlling law, nothing else, and certainly nothing prior.

18. I am not familiar with this.

19. I don't know what this means.

20. Haha excellent!

21. Yes! No elected official should have better health insurance than any of their constituents.

22. They have this now, yet, Biden lives.

Excellent work. This could have been accomplished in 1776 (and was), but not in today's world. Too many people think like Joy Behar.

[monorprise]

2: The Senate first and foremost was suppose to represents the self-governing capacity of the States. Which is the primary reason that most drives politicians to have an interest in enforcing the limits of the Federal Constitution, at least insofar as where the States might carry out that role themselfs instead.

For this reason the Original Federal Constitution gave the Senate to the people that actually wielded that power in the form of the State legislators, for they would have the greatest interest in protecting it.

Where this constitutional order broke down was first the Senates long 6 year term (a Hamiltonian idea for contraption reasons) made senators less accountable. 2nd blind political rivalry between the states (creating a blind will sacrifice their own freedom just to have their way over the other), made all people including politicians foolish and of course the near total abolition of this interest with the 17th amendment.


PS: It should be pointed out that the self-covering capacity of a state is the key defining factor of why States must be equally represented (because they don't need each-other), and why to be a State you must command a large enough pool of resources and to some much lesser degree people as to be self-reliant. This is the most profound underlining truth of theses united States.

[monorprise]

17: @Dargil I read this line to understand you were referring to the concept of federalism when you said Federalist Not the federalist papers or for that matter Federalist party?

Both of which are only radically pro federalism by our modern extremely centralized and lawless left point of view.

Nonetheless in the interest of such I would point out that any law which is subject only to the 'interpretation' of one man or group of men is no law at all but rather the fiat of said men.

For this reason we have 3 branches of government so that the Legislative, executive, courts, and to the extend of their involvement States all must agree an act is constitutional.

While laws should reflect the meaning agreed to when they were voted on, in true laws are just paper and its people who choose to enforce or not enforce them. Those people must have an interest in doing so, and absent that not doing so as to return us to the natural freedom of the State of nature.
Which at the federal level simply means defaulting more agreeable and local levels of government.

This is why states have retained the right to wage war if invaded.

18: He is somewhat blinded by the effect of said voting system due to the disadvantageous implementation in Alaska, as a result of the unique political circumstances there. Other implementations in other states were far more advantageous.
Regardless as I said before we really don't want the federal government having any power over elections precisely because there is no other states to compare the results with, nor higher level to protect our right to flee said results when they become oppressive.

For theses reasons dangerous powers like voting and local law enforcement needs to be strictly limited to the sand box of the State level.

[Stacey55666]

Great list, but I would allow one term. Joey has been screwing the public his whole life.

Where did the coke come from in the white house? lol We all know where it came from, but it doesn't matter.

[Anonymous]

This looks pretty good. I have one criticism though:

14: money should never be given to buisiness by the state unless it is starting up and need money to begin, that is the only time I would understand that policy. Any other time and you'd enter a "too big to fail" slippery slope.

To add:

23: all federal taxes except for sales tax will be abolished. It will be an incentive for the government to not wreck the economy for more money to waste.

24: The internet applies for 1st and 4th amendment. It should be illegal for any company that censors for any reason other than threats and it should not be up to them to determine whether something is a credible threat without law enforcement or ultimately a judge if they decide it is a credible threat. This is done to help prevent using the excuse to take down political opinions. All of the Bill of Rights, for that matter should ALWAYS be followed by the letter. No virus or weather or any emergency will change that.

25: All laws that discriminate on sex, race or gender, such as affirmative action, will be abolished and any judge who are caught using these factors to determine a sentence are to be held criminally liable. "All are equal but some are more equal than others" is one of the last things the US should be adopting.

26: All crimes must have a victim and a victim should be much more strictly defined. Someone who is currently making a victim out of someone else does not count as a victim if that person is met with a situation where it would otherwise be a crime. As I stated last point, who that person happens to be is not a factor and no one should be punished for defending themselves or someone else.

[Avicenna]

Great list. I would add something preventing lobbyists from writing legislation, as they now do, and preventing members of Congress and the Executive Branch from selling their offices as they now do. Stricter ethics requirements for friends and family members as well. Auditing of finances.

[Surely]

I would add that since the politicians would only serve two terms. Their retirement would be paid to Social Security and they would not have their own retirement with all of the perks!
Be nice if from the time they take the oath of office. They would be liable for their crimes, actions and lies! But that will never happen!

[strateguy632]

from the first, those congress make laws and won't limit themselves.

[Alex-Snow]

Your suggestions are a bit heavy for me. I would like to see limits on the supreme court and I would like the justices to be held accountable for ethics violations.

[monorprise]

@Alex-Snow Althou I too would like to see real limits on the U. S. supreme court, given they have by the other 2 branches and levels of goverment been made supreme over the Constitution and thus everything.

What you call 'ethics' is just an ever changing standard of behavior that gives whatever faction that is in power an easy excuse to punish and remove people that don't go along with them. Thus the bar must be high enough that both factions must offer some level of agreement. Such as already exist in the form of impeachment.

Of you want limits on the U. S. Supreme court there is a simple solution, STOP ENFORCING their disagreeable edicts. Under the Federal Constitution a court has only 1 power to decide innocent or guilt of the party before it.

That means they are entitled to let a guilty man go free, but they are NOT entitled to to just send anyone to jail.

The U. S. Supreme court acquired it's dictatorial power because Congress

1st provided money for Federal LEO's to just enforce whatever the court told them to enforce. Thus effectively nullifying themselfs.

2nd Congress created 330+ million executives in the civil cases to guarantee anyone and everyone would be brought before the court for any reason thus effectively nullifying the executive.

This made the court in practice all 3 branches of the goverment, which meant they could rewrite the constitution on a case by case basis, and thats exactly what they been doing every sense.

[DextroShade]

I would immediately execute most of congress and appoint myself emperor. Under my rule we would prosper and actually solve problems.

[Drewtate]

I would stop insider trading

[exitseven]

@Dargil I will sign off on all of them

[DWornock]

Those are all very good suggestions.

[jimmy2]

Change limits on Congress