Greg Snyder
July 15, 2018 ·
Ways our democracy could be improved:
1. Get money out of politics. Reverse Citizens United. Ban lobbying.
2. Get rid of the electoral college.
3. Put a capped, fixed rate on Congressional salaries and benefits. Benefits must match those of the general public they serve. Make it law that Congress must seek approval for any kind of pay raises and they must be based on actual work. Put term limits into place to prevent career politicians from occupying space in Washington DC for decades.
3. Tax the rich and businesses (corporations).
4. End all corporate subsidies. End defense subsidies.
5. Rebuild and adequately fund public education pre K up to grad school.
6. End the cap on taxing social security. Expand Social Security.
7. Medicare for all. Single payer.
8. Immediately convert to smart energy grid using only sustainable green energy sources.
9. Require all housing to convert to solar power.
10. Shut down existing oil and gas pipelines and require the companies that own them to clean up all spill sites with their own money.
11. Restore, repair, replace infrastructure across the board, across the country, water, sewer, roads, airports, railroads.
12. Build a national high speed, state-of-the-art rail system.
13. Make the internet a public utility owned and controlled by regions and metropolitan areas. Each town, city, metropolitan area or region would be responsible for building and maintaining its own system but tied into a whole system with financial assistance matching locally generated funds for initial construction. Broadband should be low or no cost and available to each and every citizen in the country. There should be no community, no matter how small, in the country that does not have access to adequate high speed broadband for every individual American. We should be the most wired country in the world, down to the last American.
14. Immediately remove all McConnell/Trump judges from service. Start to rebuild the judiciary the way it’s supposed to be done. Vet candidates carefully. Place only judges who are deemed qualified and experienced judges to the bench. Lifetime appointments should be able to reviewed and when judges lapse or breach ethical standards or simply do not function objectively and or within normal standards, there needs to be a system of review of their peers that should be put into place to remove judges that should be removed because they can no longer function the way they are supposed to function.
15. The United States Postal Service and the Veterans of this country need to be treated with respect by our elected officials. Restore adequate full funding for the VA and rescind the punitive measures that have been taken against the Post Office. Allow the Post Office to expand its capabilities to include check cashing (with minimal fees and/or interest). Honor promises made to our veterans and give them the benefits that they have put their lives on the line to receive.
16. Rescind all of the regressive measures made by Scott Pruitt while he was at the EPA. Fortify and make permanent the laws that protect Americans from pollution. Make laws that require polluters to clean up their pollution and prevent them from polluting in the first place. Restore the power of the EPA to make environmental law that keeps us safe and protects our health.
17. Adequately fund and restore the National Park System to its previous state. Make the Parks permanent and not something that can be chopped up, sold off, and lost forever.
18. Make the Endangered Species Act a permanent law that cannot be rescinded or rolled back.
19. Restore and make permanent the laws that protect consumers from predatory banking and business practices. Do not allow banking to be a high stakes investor sport. Bring back the full Dodd/Frank legislation. Beef it up where it needs to be beefed up. Bring back the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Bring back the Volker rule. Get rid of obscure but massive financial instruments like credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations or remake them so they no longer can cause volatility.
20. We could start taking care of all Americans and stop being so insecure, selfish and paranoid. We have more than adequate wealth and resources to do this. Americans do not have to live in poverty, without the basics, living in the streets or their RVs. If we look beyond ourselves to the greater good, we can truly become an exceptional nation.
This is a very partial, initial wish list that I have of things we could easily do to vastly improve the quality of life in this country. But, it would take a lot of people who also think it’s possible and desirable and they they would have to make it happen through a lot of hard, focused work to get it done.
What would be on your “wishlist”?
Posted on Leave a comment on A few suggestions
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