Koya
Footballguy
I have been wanting to start a thread along these lines for a while now, but never could quite figure out the best way to get a productive and informative conversation going. Well, I haven't quite figured that out, but may never so here goes...
With all the ideological driven party politics, exacerbated by being tied to various interests, there so often seems to be "no real hope" for responsible GOVERNANCE from our elected officials in D.C.
In addition, we are focused too much on making our current system of law and government work to address new issues, with the 250+ years of legal webbing built upon itself, creating a convoluted maze that does not really address the underlying issues at hand.
So, two thoughts:
1. The 25% rule. Speaking with a local congressional rep, he mentioned how 25% of the issues we face can be solved with true bi-partisan agreement. However, we focus not on those points, but the divisive issues.
2. Starting anew, rather than fixing an inherently flawed set of legal precedence. I read somewhere that one of the reasons tech companies slow down in their growth is that eventually they have a solid product / platform, and then go ahead and change, tweak and evolve overtime. However, it usually takes magnitudes greater time, effort and resources to change something that exists to revolutionize what that product can do as opposed to just starting over. Hence, a new, young company starting from scratch often holds advantage over an established leader looking to "evolve" their existing product / platform.
So, WTF does this mean?
1. What is the 25% that we, here, can generally agree upon (I contend, especially in light of point #2, it will be far greater). Be it that there should be SOME taxation for gov't services (and then you get to the deviled details of what those should be and how to execute on those laws) or that freedom of speech is an essential right.
2. Now, let's take those issues with some broad agreement and not discuss how to make our current entanglement of laws, but rather how we would solve this problem with a clear slate.
I'd suggest that we look at our nation as a business, for this exercise. We have so much GDP each year... a business needs to determine how to then reinvest some portion of those "earnings" to ensure the machine keeps running (i.e. people are not hungry and dying in the streets, that we are secure from other nation's etc) while investing to "grow" the business into the future.
So, if we have "X" GDP every year, what MUST we pay for? What SHOULD we pay for? What is both "morally compelling" and/or a smart business move for our nation to invest in? Instead of being tied into existing obligations, if we really started fresh, how might things pan out?
To begin, what is the general GDP of our country and what are the big buckets that a gov't should invest in?
- National Security
- Local Policing / Security
- Infrastructure to allow for commerce
We can then get to more difficult issues, i.e. education. Should gov't pay for it, either out of some moral reason or because in the aggregate, providing some gov't sponsored education will result in more GDP than ignoring it and dealing with whatever happens as a result.
Sorry for the length, but hard to get these thoughts on the screen otherwise. Curious what areas of agreement we can find, and, if we had no set rules, how we may divvy up the GDP pie to determine where the gov't should spend, to begin with.
With all the ideological driven party politics, exacerbated by being tied to various interests, there so often seems to be "no real hope" for responsible GOVERNANCE from our elected officials in D.C.
In addition, we are focused too much on making our current system of law and government work to address new issues, with the 250+ years of legal webbing built upon itself, creating a convoluted maze that does not really address the underlying issues at hand.
So, two thoughts:
1. The 25% rule. Speaking with a local congressional rep, he mentioned how 25% of the issues we face can be solved with true bi-partisan agreement. However, we focus not on those points, but the divisive issues.
2. Starting anew, rather than fixing an inherently flawed set of legal precedence. I read somewhere that one of the reasons tech companies slow down in their growth is that eventually they have a solid product / platform, and then go ahead and change, tweak and evolve overtime. However, it usually takes magnitudes greater time, effort and resources to change something that exists to revolutionize what that product can do as opposed to just starting over. Hence, a new, young company starting from scratch often holds advantage over an established leader looking to "evolve" their existing product / platform.
So, WTF does this mean?
1. What is the 25% that we, here, can generally agree upon (I contend, especially in light of point #2, it will be far greater). Be it that there should be SOME taxation for gov't services (and then you get to the deviled details of what those should be and how to execute on those laws) or that freedom of speech is an essential right.
2. Now, let's take those issues with some broad agreement and not discuss how to make our current entanglement of laws, but rather how we would solve this problem with a clear slate.
I'd suggest that we look at our nation as a business, for this exercise. We have so much GDP each year... a business needs to determine how to then reinvest some portion of those "earnings" to ensure the machine keeps running (i.e. people are not hungry and dying in the streets, that we are secure from other nation's etc) while investing to "grow" the business into the future.
So, if we have "X" GDP every year, what MUST we pay for? What SHOULD we pay for? What is both "morally compelling" and/or a smart business move for our nation to invest in? Instead of being tied into existing obligations, if we really started fresh, how might things pan out?
To begin, what is the general GDP of our country and what are the big buckets that a gov't should invest in?
- National Security
- Local Policing / Security
- Infrastructure to allow for commerce
We can then get to more difficult issues, i.e. education. Should gov't pay for it, either out of some moral reason or because in the aggregate, providing some gov't sponsored education will result in more GDP than ignoring it and dealing with whatever happens as a result.
Sorry for the length, but hard to get these thoughts on the screen otherwise. Curious what areas of agreement we can find, and, if we had no set rules, how we may divvy up the GDP pie to determine where the gov't should spend, to begin with.