Corporations are NOT people, my friend!

An answer to Mitt Romney's famous campain remark in 2012.   This site is a listing of common sense changes in the law that would make America a better place for the new century. 

1. Repeal the 1800's supreme court decision that made corporations people.  To prevent taxation without representation, corporations would no longer be taxed in conjunction with the change.

Replaced with: increased taxes on the beneficiaries of corporate profits - the shareholders for capital gains and dividends.  Corporate retained cash is limited.

Result:  A corporation, a non-living entity, is no longer "a person".  As a person a corportion woth billions currently winds up with an outsized influence in Washington.  Indeed the government winds up being run by the big corporations via lobbiest cash and campaign contributions.  Having the elected representatives represent individual people, and not businesses, gets representation "by and for the people" back on track.  Limiting retained corporate cash prevents accumulation of 100+ billion dollars as so many corporations have done recently.

A logical case could be made that a large corporation should have outsized representation given that it employes tens of thousands of voters/citizens.  Outsized representation would still be the case via the owner(s) of the business and their considerable personal assets via dividends and capital gains from the corporation.  These few individuals still have the opportunity for outsized influence, but at least it is coming from individuals and not a non-living coporation.  And that is the entire goal.

2. Eliminate "circumstantial evidence" in trial law. 

Replaced with: All evidence has to  be hard evidence, such as DNA left, videos, eyewitnesses.  In conjunction with the change greatly increase the severity of sentences since the convictions are much less likely to be in error - see proposal below for three sentence types.

Result: elimination of the possibility of prosecutorial misconduct.   All too often prosecutions attempt to put the person who is easiest to convict in jail, often with circumstantial evidence, rather than the person most likely to be guilty.   Eliminates any incentive to prosecute poor people with ineffective public defender counsel over wealthy people who can put up a years-long legal fight with top attornies.  We have all seen the flood of reversed convictions over the past few years due to DNA evidence being dredged up.  The change would likely greatly drop conviction rates, since those convicted are much more likely to be guilty.  Therefore the increased sentence lengths.  The change gets the legal system back to the goal of "guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt".  Americans have always believed it is better for a guilty person to go free than lock up someone who has any realistic chance of being innocent.  Right now that is not the case at all, but with the change it would be.

3. Require congresspeople to list their 0.1% and greater sponsors via lobbying, campaign contributions, or free services rendered, similar to race car drivers wearing patches of corporate sponsers on their jersey.

Result:  the American public should know if a certain Congressperson is the Congressperson from an oil company, a certain industry group,  etc. to properly counter-bias whatever positions the congressperson is taking. Until such time as lobbying is dissallowed and all campaign contributions come from individuals of $2,000 or less, the change lets the mass public see who is hawing an outsized influence on their various congresspeople.

4. Mandatory retirement age for the Supreme Court justices.

Result: Would you want your 82 year old Grandparent making the most important decisions that affect your life?  This one is just common sense.  Businesses recognize cognitive decline for everyday individual citizens with mandatory retirement ages.  There is no logical basis whatsoever in having people well into their cognitive declining years making the most complex and far reaching decisions that affect our society.  Allowing justices to stay until they die in office is pure insanity for our country.

Mandatory retirement would also do for the court what it does for business - bring in fresh ideas.  Americans have all seen how the Supreme court gets "loaded" one way or the other (conservative or liberal) by the chance series of appointments.  Mandatory retirement age would keep the pot stirred, but not at too fast of a rate.

5. Split Florida and California into 3 states and split Texas into 4 states.

Result: The founding fathers of America never intended for certain states to become so population-heavy as to gain outsized representation in the US House of Representatives.  The goal was always to split states if that came to pass.  The western states were intialy given large boundaries due to sparse population.  But now we have Texas and California.  During each election cycle Texas, California, and Florida have an outsized effect on results due to population density.

As someone who has lived in both California and Texas I can say the citizens already view Northern California as essentially a different state from Southern California, and Northern Texas different from West Texas.  The utility providers are different. The climate and geography is very different due to the huge distance gap.  California would be split into Northern (with San Francisco), Sourthern (with Los Angeles and San Diego) and Central with the farming areas and dessert.  Florida would be similar with Northern, Central, and Sourthern (with Miami).  In the case of Texas the divisions would be Northern (with Dallas), West Texas (with El PAso and Midland), South Central (Austin and San Antonio to the Mexican border) and Eastern (with Houston).

The change would right-size the huge population centers into state-sized chucks equivalent to the east coast states.  The change would bring much better representation to the people in the new states due to a much lower ratio of citizens to elected representatives and the smaller, more cohesive, geographic area.  Areas of concern to a certain region, such a drought in Southern California, would affect the entire new state.

There are many opportunties for similar splits with other western states based on geography and population: eastern (Spokane) and western (Seattle) Washington state: northern and southern Utah which already operate as two different states; eastern and western Colorado.  Back east further splits are possible such as the New York City area from upstate New York.

6. Eliminate the Electoral College and Use the Direct Vote numbers to elect the United States President.

Result: Eliminate any future chance of Bush vs. Gore happening, where Gore wins the actual vote but Bush wins the electoral, with the Surpreme court having to decide.  The founding fathers set up the electoral college due to the weeks it took for vote totals to travel to be tallied, along with a basic distrust of the people's decision ability.  The electoral college allowed "more educated" (that the general populus) people make the final vote for president, regardless of the popular vote.  That in turn led to Bush vs. Gore.  In the current age of instant communications this old system makes zero sense anymore and instead opens up the door to corruption or, in the case of the supreme court in Bush vs. Gore, policitical leanings by a few individuals to affect the entire popular vote.

7. All newly created laws must pass by a 2/3 majority rather than 51%.

Result: 51% is NOT a majority!  This one is pure common sense.  Forcing half the population to do something the other half belies is right makes little sense.  In the case of a law, something that everyone is expected to abide by or face consequences, enactment should be by a TRUE majority of 2/3 or 3/4 to signal that an actual majority of Americans favor the law and an actual minority of Americans will be forced to follow the new law they do not believe in.

A 2/3 majority will also have the effect of greatly reducing the number of new laws since a 2/3 majority will not be present for many of the weaker proposals.  And that is the whole point - a law should not be enacted with weak support or it weakens the very fabric of respect for the law.  The change would move laws back to being truly by a majority of Americans.

8. No Robin Hood taxation.  Limit general fund and only tax those who directly benefit from the services.

Examples:  Example 1: the cost of streetlighting for a subdivision is supported by taxes on just that subdivision, not from the general fund. Example 2: The cost of road resurfacing or water main replacement for a subdivision is added to the taxes for just that subdivision.  Example 3: road resurfacing on a major artery would be paid for by taxes on people within 2 miles of that road.

Result: MUCH fairer taxation.  The people who actually use services and projects are the ones paying for them.  It makes no sense for streetlighting and other services for any given housing subdivision to be paid from the general fund, from tax payers all over the city.  The change would also encourage private sector solutions.  Homeowners associations and bid out for things like streetlighting and may be able to get a better price in the private sector.

9.  Public transportation has to pay for itself.  Public busses should be 100% supported by rider's tickets. 

Result:  If a given route is not break even from tickets, that is the free market's way of saying that bus route does not have enough demand to exist.  Currently public transportation is a huge sink hole for tax dollars.  City busses are primarily used by transients to fan out over a city to beg for money at traffic intersections.  This was never the intent of public transportation.  People will be encouraged to find work withing walking or biking distance to home.  City services can be accessed by low income using computers available at local schools.

Once again the change encourages participation by the private sector.  For routes that can break even, private bus companies may become interested.

10. Close public libraries all together, or reduce their size and scope to public access internet terminals available at local schools (school libraries)

Result.  More common sense.  Libraries no longer have a justifiable function in the age of the internet.  More tax dollars down the toilet.  Prior to the internet libraries did serve a useful function to make information avialable to the public.  Now every bit of that is available online.  Even encyclopedia Britanica recently announced no more print versions.

Opening up local elementary and secondary school libraries to the public, if not open already. makes public access internet terminals available in an even closer location than public libraries and are a better fit with the greatly reduced library traffic now.  If a certain book is not yet available over the ineternet, those school libraries can arrange interlibrary loans.  Public school libraries are already bought and paid for by separate school taxes.  Continuing to support public libraries in the internet age is pure insanity and waste of taxpayer money.

11. Don't levy school taxes on families with no children.  Instead levy increased school taxes on families with multiple children.  This is related to #8, no Robin Hood taxation.

Result: More common sense.  People without kids should not be forced to pay into local public schools.  People with multiple kids should pay multiple school taxes.  That is one of the costs of having multiple children, like increased clothes costs, increased food costs, etc.   The net result is the same in school revenue.  The change is where it comes from - families with kids who are using those school funds.  As item #8 says, only limited general fund taxation.  People are taxed only who benefit directly from those taxes.

12. Require people who build buildings on land (houses, corporate, industrial) to contribute yearly to a demolition fund for that site, so that when the company goes bankrupt, or the building has aged to blight, there is already money in an account to demoslish the structure and return the land back to bare earth.

Result: No more blighted areas of old houses and old industrial buildings!  Right now all of this is done retroactively.  Anyone purchasing land with old buildings on it has to pay money to have them demolished, which often keeps anyone from buying the site in the first place.  This is how entire sections of a city age to the point where the buildings are vacant an falling apart.  But if there were already money set aside for each property, from the day it was built, to demolish it then people would be eager to buy the old properties and renovate them.  Yet another common sense thing.

13. No more municipal bonds.  All new public service spending has to come from existing tax streams, or new taxes.

Discussion: Right now nearly all major municipal projects are paid for in arrears by first issuing a bond through and election, then taxes have to be raised later to pay off the bond (a loan to the city).  Average non-financial people don't realize that bonds are loans that the city has to pay back, and hence will require higher taxes down the road.  All they hear is the "new road", "new school", etc. the bond is being raised for.  By requiring that all spending come directly from current taxes it now become obvious to everyone where the money for that new school or new road is coming from.  And if taxes have to be raised, they now have to be raised immediate.

Result: No more munical bankrupticies!  With all city spend put back on a cash basis there is no debt accumulating.  Elected officials also can't get away with pointing bond money at a favorite pet project, contractor, etc. without intense scrutiny by the votors.

14. A balanced budget amendment and elimination of the federal and state government's ability to borrow money.

Discussion: More common sense.  Elected officials should never be given the right to borrow money in the name of the taxpayers, or they will do so constantly and to the maximum amount.  It is just human nature.  The US has been in debt since the time of its founding.  Money for the revolutionary war was borrow from foreign countries and the US has maintained a debt ever since.  A balanced budget amendment would force the goverment to immediately cut spending - and services - in all departments (Accross the board spending cut) - by 50%, 70%, whatever it takes.  Once the budget is balanced fed taxes are then cut by 50% or whatever the spending cut was.  Any new federal goverment projects and spending are on a cash basis and have to come out of current taxes.  The elected officials then have to make their case for increased taxes if they want to fund something big, like a war or billion dollar military equipment.

Result:  No more crushing 10 trillion dollar federal debts.  It is clear to everyone that the elected officials will spend all that they can if allowed to do so.  Don't allow them to do so anymore.  Cash basis only.