10 ways to change America (for the better)

[mellowtigger]

Brainstorm time. Suppose you were made supreme poobah and could change any law, any government body, without any interference. What would you do to improve America? If you want to join the brainstorm, I suggest no more than 10 entries, keep each entry short, and include a single-word (sound-bite) title for each entry.

I'm including a useless paragraph here, because LiveJournal did a lousy job or formatting my paragraphs around my photo.

1. Elections. All elections throughout the country (national, state, city) will follow rules for instant-runoff.
2. Elections. If electronic voting is used, it will be done on machinery and software that can be publicly reviewed, with data trails that can be publicly verified at any time.
3. Energy. Build a fusion research site, even better than ITER.
4. Energy. Build at least one free factory for Tata to begin manufacturing air-powered cars in America, with one decade free from all taxes.
5. Energy.  Employers must pay (separate from salary) a transportation wage to each employee, based on the distance from their home to their workplace.  This wage is waived for employees who telecommute at least 90% of their time.
6. Space.  Build a base on Mars to house 100 scientists within 10 years.
7. Knowledge.  Establish a maximum 10-year copyright on any material (software, music, movie, book, chemical, medicine.... anything).
8. Medicine.  If a corporation discovers a medicine or procedure of great public benefit, then seize the intellectual property for the public domain, even before the 10-year limit mentioned above.  Pay appropriate remuneration to the discoverer.
9. Accountability.  No government figure may earn more than 4x the national minimum wage.  No private figure may earn more than 10x the national minimum wage.  Any value (money, services, items) received in excess of this amount will be confiscated via taxes.
10. Accountability.  Citizens are permitted access to any method or product that the government uses on its own citizens.  (eavesdropping, wiretapping, data collection, owning weapons)

There's more, I'm sure, but 10 is my limit for today.

Comments

[kauko.livejournal.com]

As for number 5, I think its more environmentally responsible to encourage employees to live within a reasonable distance to their jobs which will reduce the pollution they create on long commutes.
Also think of it this way, if an employees CHOSES to live all the way across town from their workplace is that really the employers' fault, shouldn't that be the employee's responsiblity to accept the consequences of where they've made a choice to live?

[pangolin.livejournal.com]

Due to economic factors, people often have no choice but to live far away from employers, particularly as pertains to the structure of big cities. Downtown Houston, for example, is one giant business park, and all the nearby residential areas are either outrageously expensive or ghettos.

Additionally, people are more likely to change jobs than change where they live, and are at minimum bound to live in a spot for particular periods by leases, nevermind if they are homeowners, and excepting taking a job in another city, you can't just hop up and move every time you get a new job.

Requiring this kind of wage could cause companies to A) intersperse themselves closer to residential areas or B) Allow people to telecommute more.

Plus, once a real alternative for combustion vehicles is created, such distance will have less environmental impact. I do however generally agree that where you live and where you work should be nearby, but the structure of our society is not presently very conducive to that.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

Well, that's simple - require anyone building a skyscraper to put in enough housing to accommodate all the people who'd work in the rest of the building. It would take time - but the idea would eventually reduce commutes.

I can't take credit for the idea... I lifted it from Ernest Callenbach. ;)

[kauko.livejournal.com]

I agree, I thought of that as I wrote my reply, but still wrote it thinking not so much of people who don't have a choice as much as people who do have a choice and still choose to live far away. Either way, perhaps the worst trend of the last century environmentally was people moving out of cities into suburbs, as that inevitably led to the need for people to have long commutes. Personally, I would never want to live far from where ever I would have to be n a daily basis, as I would never want to have to put up with the stress of traffic and the like, not to mention cost in gas, etc.

[mellowtigger]

Yes, the idea is to encourage more development that is not so homogenous. Don't put residential areas 10+ miles away from business areas. Mix 'em up a bit.

I'd hope it would encourage more telecommuting where that is possible. I'd also expect employers to figure this extra cost into their formulas for making decisions on which of the candidates to hire for a position. Is it worth paying extra for a distant person if someone closer has the necessary skills?

I figure there would have to be some sort of allowance for low population density. Some rural areas may simply not have enough clustered areas of housing for finding workers, or where housing too nearby some industrial sites would be detrimental to the workers' health.