Governance Reforms

Governance reforms I'd like to see in the US (elsewhere too?)

1. Require each member of both houses of congress to read a bill before it is voted on it. This will result in shortened concise pieces of legislation, since the members will at least need to pretend to have read it.

2. Require legislation to be posted online in downloadable format at least 7 days before a vote. This will give the media, interest groups, etc a chance to read it and find all of the hidden items and publicly comment before legislation is passed.

3. Require that all items in the bill be germane to the topic. For example the current Hurricane Sandy bill is loaded with such things as $150 million for fisheries in Alaska.

4. Require that members of both houses of congress be required to live by the same laws they impose on the rest of us. Currently they exempt themselves from multiple laws including many on workers rights.

5. Require that congress spend 3 months a year working on repealing existing legislation. Lets face it, a lot of laws are outdated and no longer necessary. Others seemed like good ideas but didn't work in practice. Given the massive amount of laws passed over the years congress should have no trouble spending a quarter of their time repealing old laws rather than creating new ones.

6. Term limit the senate to 2 six year terms and the house to 6 2 year terms. I.e. you are allowed 12 years in the senate and 12 years in the house. The incumbents stack the deck so much that turnover is non-existant.

7. Pay for performance. 50% of pay to be base salary the other 50% to be performance based with performance being determined by growth in GDP and National debt reduction.

8. Presidential appointments required to be voted upon within 120 days.


None of it will happen as congress would never vote for it but it would be nice....

Better than term limits, don't allow successive terms, in for the term out for the following term before you can run again, gets new blood in place and bye-bye seniority. Committee assignments by drawing lots, members can trade one with the other for committees they are most interested in. Committee chooses chairman.

Perhaps a third body, a college of Tribunes selected from the tax rolls one year terms, ten so every five years each state gets one chosen. Any tribune can veto any bill, and said bill cannot be reintroduced for the term of the Tribune. Any nutter tribune can be impeached with a majority of the congress and 66% majority vote in the senate, a new tribune selected to fill the remaining term from the state of the previous tribune.

Poker

biochem wrote:Governance reforms I'd like to see in the US (elsewhere too?)

1. Require each member of both houses of congress to read a bill before it is voted on it. This will result in shortened concise pieces of legislation, since the members will at least need to pretend to have read it.

2. Require legislation to be posted online in downloadable format at least 7 days before a vote. This will give the media, interest groups, etc a chance to read it and find all of the hidden items and publicly comment before legislation is passed.

3. Require that all items in the bill be germane to the topic. For example the current Hurricane Sandy bill is loaded with such things as $150 million for fisheries in Alaska.

4. Require that members of both houses of congress be required to live by the same laws they impose on the rest of us. Currently they exempt themselves from multiple laws including many on workers rights.

5. Require that congress spend 3 months a year working on repealing existing legislation. Lets face it, a lot of laws are outdated and no longer necessary. Others seemed like good ideas but didn't work in practice. Given the massive amount of laws passed over the years congress should have no trouble spending a quarter of their time repealing old laws rather than creating new ones.

6. Term limit the senate to 2 six year terms and the house to 6 2 year terms. I.e. you are allowed 12 years in the senate and 12 years in the house. The incumbents stack the deck so much that turnover is non-existant.

7. Pay for performance. 50% of pay to be base salary the other 50% to be performance based with performance being determined by growth in GDP and National debt reduction.

8. Presidential appointments required to be voted upon within 120 days.


None of it will happen as congress would never vote for it but it would be nice....

I like most of your ideas. There are some additions I would make.

To item 1. I would add that all votes must show how each member voted on the bill. Not hard to do with computers in their current state.

To item 2. I would make it 14 days minimum.

Items 3, 4, & 5. Excellant suggestions.

Item 6. An 8 year limit seems better to me.

Item 7. OK

Item 8. I think 30 or 60 days would be better.

Excellent ideas overall. I'd quibble about the automatic bonus for debt reduction as there are some occasions when running a deficit is the prudent course, just not always as the US has done since Clinton.
I like Pokermind's Tribune proposal except I think that a prerequisite for them is that they should not want it & be drafted. In Australia our appointed (nonelected) State Governors have a similar role but generally want it for the pomp and pay.

Daryl wrote:Excellent ideas overall. I'd quibble about the automatic bonus for debt reduction as there are some occasions when running a deficit is the prudent course, just not always as the US has done since Clinton.
I like Pokermind's Tribune proposal except I think that a prerequisite for them is that they should not want it & be drafted. In Australia our appointed (nonelected) State Governors have a similar role but generally want it for the pomp and pay.

Although, do you really want someone who's doing his utmost to get out of the job in such a position?

I'd also revert the filibuster to its old form - you want to hold up legislation, get on the floor and start talking; as I understand the current rules, you don't even have to be present.

There was another good idea in the paper this morning, this one for local governments.

- Require ballot measures to put new debt obligations into context by stating how much debt the local government is already carrying, what the payments are, and how the new debt would change that. Most often they simply present debt measures as we need a new school or senior center or road repairs or to finance unusually generous pension plans etc. Requiring them to give more info on the costs associated with the proposal will allow voters to make a more informed decision as to the impact before excessive debt burdens force the government into bankruptcy. (In the US, local governments with excessive debt can and do file for bankruptcy.)

biochem wrote:There was another good idea in the paper this morning, this one for local governments.

- Require ballot measures to put new debt obligations into context by stating how much debt the local government is already carrying, what the payments are, and how the new debt would change that. Most often they simply present debt measures as we need a new school or senior center or road repairs or to finance unusually generous pension plans etc. Requiring them to give more info on the costs associated with the proposal will allow voters to make a more informed decision as to the impact before excessive debt burdens force the government into bankruptcy. (In the US, local governments with excessive debt can and do file for bankruptcy.)

that debt thing would be useful, especially if as the debt increase, they are required to release new numbers. one local council near me who have 2 holiday towns by good beaches and the remainder of their population (~80%) being farmers, right before the housing bubble popped, decided to put in a new sewage system for one of the towns, to accomodate the supposed 120% growth due to happen in the next 5 years. once building started, the cost started growing to 300% of the original cost, and right before completion, the housing bubble popped, leaving the council with a system with less then 40% usage, and a debt equivalent to 10 years rates, just on the sewage plant. local rates there have gone up 80% already in the last 2 years, and apparently still need to go up, just so the interest on the new loan can be covered. the entire council got fired, but the debts still there for those people.....

The newspaper this morning has a poll in which 70% of the respondents were in favor of the sequester (Across the board spending cuts. A trick put in place by the politicians to pretend they were actually doing something about the insane spending before the election, but in actuality giving them an excuse to kick the can down the road. It is set up as an automatic trigger March 2nd unless the politicians come up with their own budget cuts). The sad news is that the people were expressing support not because they like the idea of across the board cuts, but because they feel it is the only way to get the politicians to stop spending like drunken sailors. Maybe we should send them to AA. "Hi I'm Senator X and I'm a spendaholic."

Unfortunetely, politicians think they have the God given right to spend all the money they can think of things to spend it on.

I know this seems like a bit of a segue, but quite a bit of that sequester is aimed nearly directly at the Department of Defense. Now, arguably, the DoD could use a bit of reform in how the money gets used in specific, but for a large part, the DoD (as a whole) is probably the most responsible with their budget.
Now, I'm all for forcing the armed forces to spend their money a bit more responsibly, but the sequester is basically causing them to shrink manpower through Date of Seperation rollbacks and Retirement Time in Service waivers, as well as a larger number of discharges.
Y'know, instead of examining how they abuse the budgets they're given. There are plenty of abuses that are committed almost solely because they want an actual budget in the next year, and if you don't spend it, you lose it.
Which means that because they might need it, they spend it. But because they don't have the money or the inclination to revamp the system the Armed Forces use for their budgets, we're going to be losing a large number of personnel, and brass in all the services are warning politicians about decreased readiness. The Navy is probably exaggerating a bit, but the rest of them are probably dead serious.