Friday, January 31, 2025

75 Fixes

Someone once said (probably) that America has either a whole bunch of problems, or a few big ones. I think both are true – we have four big problems, each of which can be subdivided into a bunch of specific smaller fixes.

The four big problems facing America today are: Greed, Government, Low Quality of Life, and Ignorance.  Acknowledging the potential overlap of all four, let’s get to it. Here are the issues, broken down by category, into 75 specific smaller fixes:

 

Greed

 

1.      Private Equity Reform. Private equity is truly bananas. A company finds another company that is struggling, buys it, and fixes it. Sounds great, except that the companies often aren’t struggling. Craziest of all, the private equity companies often take out loans to buy the struggling company – and then the struggling company has to pay the loan back! It’s corporate sharecropping and should be totally overhauled (so that the private equity firm is responsible for the loan) or maybe just abolished. These private equity firms are often replacing pensions nowadays, and delivering worse returns to retirees than just regular stock market investment, or traditional pensions. The whole system is terrible.

2.       Glass-Steagall. This law said commercial banks and investment banks cannot mix. The bank where you deposit your paycheck isn’t allowed to then gamble it recklessly in risky stocks – at least not without your knowledge and permission. Repealed in the 1990s, this is a common-sense safeguard. It was not, in hindsight, a major factor, but it did exacerbate the 2008 financial crisis.

3.      Drastically Reduce Copyright and Patent Lengths. For copyright, life of the creator is fine – so long as they are alive, the copyright exists. After they are dead (or shortly thereafter) it should enter the public domain. The artist's family can make money anew. For company-owned media, let’s say 50 years, tops. And patents need more nuance, since different fields have different requirements. A biotech firm may spend decades developing a new drug – that would require a longer patent protection to reap investment. But I think Coca-Cola doesn’t need their formula protected anymore.

4.      Redefine ‘Fiduciary Responsibility’. Corporate boardrooms, since around the 1980s, have demanded quarterly profits – constant growth, no matter what. This need to turn a profit is enshrined in the concept of ‘fiduciary responsibility’. It is unsustainable, and leads to putting profits above people, the environment, and everything else. Redefining fiduciary responsibility to be synonymous with ‘sustainable growth’ would curb many of the worst aspects of our American-brand capitalism.

5.      Carbon Tax and Real Pricing. Speaking of sustainability, we need as a nation to start altering our lifestyles. A carbon tax on corporations would help – a majority of the world’s emissions come from a handful of companies. An individual tax, with offset options, is also a good idea, based on individual income levels. There are lots of common-sense options here, including real pricing – making products reflect their environmental costs.

6.      Close ‘Philanthropy’ Tax Loopholes. Billionaires get good press for giving their money to charity – it’s an idea as old as Carnegie and Rockefeller. But it is, on reflection, fairly undemocratic – they tend to give to the things that make them happy, and not what communities or the country needs. Opera houses are nice, but climate change is more pressing. And when they do give this money away, it’s usually so they don’t have to pay taxes on it – robbing the American people once again. Worst, they often give it to themselves: they create some sort of charity, in their name, and so are still controlling the cash. On the other end of the spectrum…

7.      Minimum Wage Tied to Inflation. No one working full time should not be able to earn a living. But since Congress has to authorize minimum wage increases, and political fights ensue, that means it doesn’t get done. A big swath of this country is trying to scrape by on $7.25/hour in 2025. That’s absurd, and a major drain on the economy. 40% of the country can’t afford a surprise $300 expense – that’s not great for an economy based on goods and services. A bill that tied minimum wage to inflation would be far more reasonable – and wouldn’t require political fights and authorizations.

8.      Enshrine Labor Rights. The labor unions of yesteryear were predominantly manufacturing based. Nowadays, in a more service-based economy, unions are catching up. But union-busting is still all too common, and should be unequivocally outlawed. If employees of any sector wish to form a union that should be a right that is legally and federally protected.

9.      Treat MLMs as Ponzi Schemes. MLMs, “multi-level-marketing” grifts, are predatory companies that are Ponzi schemes in all but name. They promise the ability to make your own hours, etc., but the only way to keep on top is to get others to sign up. According to the FTC, most people make less than $1,000 a year – it’s just a blatant scam. But it affects some 20 million Americans.

10.  Reform the Guest Worker Program. Described as “modern slavery” the seasonal worker program in the U.S. depends on non-citizens (almost exclusively from Latin America) coming to the States and working in the fields. They are vital to the economy, but treated terribly. No one wants these jobs in the U.S. – it’s back-breaking labor – and pilot programs of using Americans have failed spectacularly in the past (like getting college kids to work on their break – they ended up unionizing and striking). Changing guest worker wages and benefits, and implementing reforms on how they can cross the border will help.

11.  Stringent Child Labor Laws. Weirdly, there’s been a rollback on child labor in the 21st century, here in America. Roughly a fifth of the states have weakened protections for child labor, such as lowering minimum ages and allowing for more dangerous work. We should obviously bolster stronger protections.

12.  Reform Corporate Welfare and Subsidies. American taxpayers pay companies not only through buying their goods and services, but also though Congressional subsidies to certain industries. Some I understand, are worth propping up because they put people over profits (small family farms, for example). Others are not (enormous factory farms, for example). A UN report in 2021 found that nearly 90% of all farm subsidies were harming the planet - and our pocketbook. Time to break the cycle, and once again reduce corporate power over Congress.

13.  Salary Cap for CEOs. There is no way that the world’s wealthiest people are working thousands of times more productively than the rest of us. A CEO or corporate President’s salary should be tied to some reasonable proportion of their median or lowest-paid workers. Importantly, that “salary” needs to reflect their shares – not just their actual paycheck.

14.  Wealth Tax. A proportional wealth tax, that carefully eliminates all the scuzzy loopholes, like offshore accounts, will vitally boost our nation and help to rebalance the depressing Gilded Age levels of wealth inequality that we’re currently experiencing. Tax reform, in general, to ensure we’re not giving tax cuts to billionaires, would be a good thing.

15.  End Corporate Science. If you want a lab to design an extra-squeezy bottle of detergent, that’s fine. But guardrails need to be in place to prevent corporate junk science – paying people to say lead is fine, or cigarettes are safe, or sugar isn’t addictive, and so on. Much of the trust in science over the last 50 years was eroded by companies putting out bad-faith research.

16.  Scale Back the Military-Industrial Complex. Those sweet, sweet government contracts are plums for many companies, which, as Eisenhower warned, leads to a dangerous codependency between the military and industry. Our national security shouldn’t be beholden to private companies – plenty of terrible projects attest to this.

17.  Ban Crypto. It’s despicable for basically all the reasons: for enriching the already wealthy, for supporting illegal black market and criminal enterprises, and for using up huge amounts of electricity – straining an already overwhelmed electrical grid.

18.  Divest from Oil. Across the whole board. Nobody’s retirement account or investment portfolio should have oil in it. If you really, really want to, I guess you can still buy shares, but it shouldn’t be in any default investment.

19.  Think Tanks Aren’t NGOs. If you’re a political think tank, you don’t get to register as a nonprofit. These have done so much harm in the past forty years, it’s time to make them feel the squeeze. If you want to sit around and play politics all day, you can either join government, or survive by producing goods and services. Billionaires will still be able to cut you checks – don’t worry – but you don’t get all the tax perks.

 

Government

 

20.  Campaign Finance Reform. Moving into the more explicitly political, we waste billions each election cycle on seeing who can raise money better – as if that’s a good measure of competence for our Presidents, mayors, and sheriffs. By mandating that candidates must use a public pool of equally-distributed funds (over a certain popularity threshold, to weed out real cranks), we would save tons of money and improve the nature of debate and our politics. Politicians need, on average, to raise $10,000 a week to get reelected. No wonder nothing gets done: they’re too busy raising cash! It also would lessen corporate power – since they couldn’t give to campaigns. Which brings us to…

21.  Eliminate Lobbying. Minimum sentence of 35 years without parole. Make it unthinkable that companies would try to bribe and influence our politicians. I may be open to non-profits being given a pass, but otherwise no way. If they’re not beholden to companies, then they can act in their constituents interests.

22.  Abolish Third Party Barriers. Getting a third party established is a nightmare – each state has its own rules, barriers, and hurdles. At the very least, they need to be uniform across states for Federal elections. Maybe, then, they could actually get a seat at the table, breaking the two-party monopoly.

23.  Get Rid of PACs. Amend the Constitution to specify that freedom of speech does not include corporations, nor the spending of money on elections. Get rid of political action committees (PACs) and overturn the ghastly BuckleyCitizens United, and McCutcheon decisions of the past twenty-five years. 

24.  D.C. and Puerto Rico Statehood. There are more Puerto Ricans than citizens in 21 other states. There are more Americans living in Puerto Rico and the USVI than Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, and both Dakotas combined. Even D.C., on the smallish side, is bigger than our two smallest states. Full and equal representation is needed.

25.  Make the Legislative Branch Proportional. The random cap at 435 is ludicrous. Instead, we should make the proportion one Representative for every 500,000 people. Wyoming and Vermont are still safe, and California will actually be represented fairly. It would add about a hundred members (including Puerto Rico and D.C.'s now voting members).

26.  Eliminate the Filibuster. The history of this non-Constitutional tactic is steeped in racism, and in the modern form, is a far cry from “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” I could – maybe – see clear to the old-school filibuster where you actually have to stand and not yield. But because of the modern, non-marathon, form, almost nothing gets through the Senate.

27.  No Congressional Trading. Members of Congress cannot have personal investments and play the stock market, when those are areas they need to be impartially regulating and investigating. If I’m on the committee of Health and Human Services, then I can’t have millions invested in biotech. This could significantly change our politics.

28.  Repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. America hasn’t technically been at war with anyone since the 1940s – ever since the Executive took away the reigns of declaring war from Congress, as specified in the Constitution. Congress needs that power back, with clarifications, to avoid loopholes like the “police actions” of Korea and Vietnam. That way, you’d need a united Congress to send our troops into harms way, instead of the whims of a President.

29.  Dereliction of Duty. The Senate and the House cannot choose to not do their jobs. This was made infamous by McConnell refusing to take up the Supreme Court vacancy in 2015. In the 18th century the idea of a “censure” was sufficient – not anymore. Dereliction of duty, refusing to do the Constitutionally required job as a Representative or Senator, should be grounds for either automatic disbarment or the inability to be reelected. Maybe both.

30.  No Gerrymandering. Partisan gerrymanders have been allowed to continue, thanks to the Supreme Court. Congress needs to take action to make it illegal, creating districts by impartial, nonpolitical means. Districts should be competitive.

31.  Abolish Voting Barriers. Remove ID laws which disproportionately keep the poor and POC from voting, add same-day registration, make the day a paid holiday and insist employers give shift workers time off to vote, etc.

32.  Abolish the Electoral College. A Constitutional amendment to get rid of the Electoral College is beyond overdue. Time to get rid of it. The popular vote should have the say-so in the 21st century. At the very, very, least they need to insist on the Nebraska and Maine system being adopted nationwide, where a state's electoral votes can be split among parties, so it's not winner take all. But really, we should just can it.

33.  Presidential Records. Presidential candidates must disclose their health and tax records. Your privacy goes out the window on this one. The American people deserve to know if you’re financially, mentally, and physically fit for office.

34.  Emoluments Clause. Failure to adhere to the emoluments clause or disclose financial ties becomes grounds for impeachment. This may already be the case, but it’s vague. You can’t use the office of the Presidency to enrich yourself.

35.  President Not Above the Law. The insane decision from the Supreme Court to allow the President to be above the law is ghastly. We’ve made the office a get-out-of-jail-free option for crooks. A Constitutional amendment is required, spelling it out.

36.  No Family in Government. I like Bobby Kennedy as much as the next person, but we need, at the very least, a Congressional waiver that attests to their qualifications for the position they hold. Also, anyone unable to get a security clearance after a background check is not allowed access to the building, after a six-month grace period during which no red flags can show up in their record. White House entrance logs need to be public, too.

37.  Civil Service Protections. Loyalty to party – the old ‘spoils’ system of the 1800s – was a bad idea the first time, and, unfortunately, it’s making a comeback. Jobs in the federal bureaucracy need to be based on expertise and merit, not the whims of the White House.

38.  Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. It really did expire in the 1980s, so you’ll need to do it all over again, but it should be done, all the same.

39.  Clarify Separation of Church and State. Christian nationalism is on the rise, and the Supreme Court seems hellbent on allowing tax dollars to fund religious schooling. This should be seen as a first step – testing the waters – for potential rollbacks of religious freedoms and an intertwining of state and religion that would prove very dangerous.

 

Low Quality of Life

 

40.  Paid Sick Leave, Vacation, Parental Leave, and the Child Tax Credit. On the topic of how keeping a perpetual underclass is a bad idea both morally and economically, we have the problem of people being overworked. We are the only developed nation without paid parental leave. We know, better than ever, that when sick people feel compelled to work it’s bad news for everyone. We know that paid vacations make for happier, more stable employees, and we saw the Child Tax Credit lift ½ of American children out of poverty – if only briefly.

41.  Single-Payer Healthcare. In the category of ‘sick, tired, uneducated laborers make for bad employees, consumers, and citizens’ we have a ridiculous healthcare system. No other developed country has the same terrible healthcare that we do – it gives corporations way, way, too much power as healthcare providers, and produces bad results. You shouldn’t have to beg for your life in the wealthiest nation on Earth. It’s bad morals, and it’s bad for the economy - money that could be better spent elsewhere. Replace it with cheaper single-payer.

42.  Mental Health. Only fairly recently have Americans begun to be more open about our mental health, and the country’s systems haven’t caught up. If we reform our healthcare to be sane, we need to ensure that things like depression, anxiety, and other mental health concerns are properly addressed.

43.  Disability Rights. Did you know, if you get married, they can drastically reduce your benefits? What the…?

44.  Abolish Private Prisons. The idea that we have private prisons, that people make money and profit off of incarceration, is morally abhorrent. To incentivize locking people up is not a Good Thing. They should be eliminated. Which leads us to…

45.  Eliminate Cash Bail. The majority of people in jail haven't actually been found guilty of a crime – they are awaiting trial, but can’t afford the bail. A system of justice where wealth equals freedom is not a just system. We wouldn’t need all the private prisons if we didn’t lock people up because they were poor. Debtor’s prisons were a bad idea the first time, and they haven’t gotten better with age.

46.  Make Prisons Rehabilitative. We incarcerate more people than any other nation in all of human history. That’s a stupid drain on resources. Sure, prison can be a punishment for the most vile people – psychopath serial killers who can’t be allowed back in society. But for most, after time served, the goal is to have them reintegrate after paying their debt to society. Our prison culture absolutely does not foster that, instead choosing to keep repressing people, leading to high recidivism.

47.  End the Death Penalty. You know which countries still have the death penalty? Iran. North Korea. Afghanistan. Somalia. China. Saudi Arabia. Syria. Yeah, it’s not a good list to be on… All civilized nations have abolished it as immoral – especially since we know some innocents have been slaughtered. There’s no moral or civil reason to keep it.

48.  Privacy and Data Protection. As we live increasingly online, our privacy rights have more or less vanished. The 00s were going to be the decade to safeguard this, but we got distracted, and looked up twenty years later to find they were gone. We can get them back, if we choose – and we should. There’s no good reason the government should be allowed to read your emails, or listen to your phone calls – nor companies, for that matter.

49.  AI Protection. On that front, we currently have no protections against AI – from stealing your art to taking your job, from impersonating you online to using your photo to make an ad for someone else. A whole host of protections from AI are needed, moving forward. So far only Hollywood has secured them.

50.  Pornography Protection. Speaking of the dangers of AI – there are lots of terrible things people can do with your photos and videos, and there should be strong guardrails in place to protect everyone not only from AI-generated content, but also revenge and faked images.

51.  Social Media Reform. In this vein, our social media landscape has become a cesspool. From privacy lapses to hate speech to conspiracies, it’s all a mess. And it’s made worse by having high rates of addiction and being proven to be destructive to mental health. It needs to be cleaned up, scaled back, or dare I say, totally overhauled.

52.  Child Marriage. Did you know 37 states allow child marriage? Four – California, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Oklahoma – have no minimum age. 200,000 children were “married” in the last twenty years or so. Kids, obviously, should not be getting “married”. 95% of the time it’s a girl to an older man – clearly, this is abuse.

53.  Secure Abortion Rights and End CPCs. The majority of the country agrees: taking away the rights of Roe v. Wade was a bad call. Almost every state that’s put it to the ballot has supported and expanded abortion rights. A federal protection could put the issue to rest and ensure no more hoops to go through, either, that lead to unnecessary trauma for the mother. Then there’s CPCs – crisis pregnancy centers. These are anti-abortion nonprofits, that prey on woman seeking an abortion, to try and convince them not to. This is just cruel, and could be outlawed.

54.  Homelessness. There are way, way, too many people on the streets and living out of their cars in the United States of America. They need houses, they need services, they need mental health assistance. On the flip side…

55.  HOA Reform. Homeowners associations have carved out a bizarre amount of legal power, and have begun to run amok over the past couple of decades. These are usually companies, not just a few friendly neighbors who’ve been elected, and these companies can radically alter your home, your mortgage, and your life. Time to put some checks on their overreaching.

56.  Public Service. Part of the reason the U.S. was (maybe) more united in the past was the peacetime draft – men of all different backgrounds and races had to serve together, talk to each other, and get along. For the 21st century, taking two years for men and women to do service together – either military, nonprofit, or Peace Corps – would make a huge difference in how we interact with, and get to know, each other. It would be a massive step towards ending tribalism and would help the nation heal.

57.  Police Militarization. Thanks to the 1033 program, small town America got armored vehicles and the like, which they absolutely did not need, since there was a surplus after the Cold War. If we repeal the program, and things like it, we can begin to undo the damage of having a highly militarized police force roaming America’s streets. This is a good first step towards serious policing reform.

58.  Common Sense Gun Laws. You have a right to bear arms for a militia, I guess (but really, a Constitutional amendment here wouldn’t be out of place). But weapons in the home are dubious – a raft of research shows they lead to increased crime and suicide. At the very least, we need to get rid of the military-style weapons that are used in mass shootings. No one needs semiautomatic weapons.

59.  Immigration and Asylum Reform. We need a better way of handling people at the border – and by better I mean more humane and expedited. The government could easily incentivize more lawyers and judges to process refugee and asylum cases, for example. As for illegal border crossing, most illegal immigration is through airports, not the dangerous southern border.

60.  Drug Laws. We need to do a better job on all fronts. It turns out, studies are now showing, that weed is more harmful than we thought. The opioid crisis is abating, but prescription pill abuse remains high. Fentanyl is a serious problem. We need to increase harm reduction, and treat addiction for what it is: a health issue and not a crime.

61.  LGBT+ Protections. Codifying protections for people of different orientations and genders, besides being morally obvious as helping the downtrodden, will show the world we stand up for the disadvantaged, and for the marginalized. The science is in: gay people, trans people, and fluid people are not going away – it’s not “a choice”. So, faced with their existence, the only decision we have to make, as a nation, is whether to treat them cruelly or kind. Obviously, morally and civically, kind is the better option.

62.  Highspeed Rail and Urban Transit. I get it. You live in rural Wyoming, forty minutes from the closest town. You need that big old pickup truck. As for the rest of us… We need electric trains and busses, and highspeed rail between hubs. Then we can begin to lessen our dependence on planes, which are nearly impossible to make renewable-friendly. Speaking of…

63.  Invest in Renewable Energy. What other choice is there? Fossil fuels are limited, and destroy the Earth. The future is either going to be green, and sustainable, or Mad Max. Won’t our lives be better if we pick the former? Part of the problem here is…

64.  Recycling Overhaul. Most of what we put in the recycling bin isn’t recycled, and most of the stuff we could recycle isn’t. This needs a complete do-over, so that we aren’t wasting metal, glass, paper, and plastic. One suggestion is that corporations bear the responsibility. Another focuses on better packaging options and compostable materials. Another on decreasing single-use items… I suspect it’ll be a combination of factors.

65.  Food Waste. 1/3 of all food grown in America ends up being wasted. Again, we need to tackle this in many stages: from harvesting to the grocery store, to food banks and soup kitchens. There’s no reason any American should go hungry, and just from an efficiency standpoint, no reason to be so wasteful.

 

Ignorance

 

66.  Education Investment. Teacher shortages, structurally unsound buildings, lack of supplies – the public school system is churning out citizens who aren’t ready for the world, barely educated, and only able to secure low-paying jobs. This is, once again, dangerous for a democracy which requires a well-informed citizenry (to quote Jefferson) in order to survive. Mobs are not well-informed, nor are conspiracy theorists, or people who think the 2020 election was ‘stolen’ – a strong predictor of which is education attainment. If we invest wisely in our schools, then we’ll have a better workforce and citizenry.

67.  Scale Back Standardized Tests. Obviously the peak days of standardized tests are behind us, but they are still, as they’ve always been, pernicious. One bank of tests, once a year, not tied to funding or anything like that, is plenty – STAR and ERBs, say. Individual testing, like the SAT, should probably be scrapped too, as study after study has shown that as a predictor, it’s best at determining household income.

68.  Outlaw Book Bans. The fact that we still have to deal with idiots trying to ban books in schools and libraries is just so sad. Strong laws need to make it clear: No one, no parent, PTA, school board, or community, can vote to ban books from their schools or libraries. This is basic free speech and freedom to publish.

69.  Scaling Back Homeschooling. It’s fine in a few cases – such as extremely rural populations or a student who needs extraordinary services the local school can’t provide. But it is starting to get out of hand: churning out kids who can’t do basic math and writing; who have never learned the scientific method. Your liberty ends where my society begins: I deserve to live in a country not surrounded by people who are so uninformed and dangerously uneducated. There need to be guardrails. School districts need to check progress, social services need to ensure there’s not abuse in the home, curriculum standards need to be enforced, etc.

70.  End School Segregation. Some of our schools are now more segregated in the 2020s than they were at the time of Brown v. Board of Education. Thanks to some disastrous Supreme Court cases, which ended bussing and allowed property taxes to be used to fund public schools, we’ve ended up with zip codes having a huge impact on your education. This is, of course, dumb and not in the national interest. Ideally property taxes can’t be used (except in an equally allotted pooling) and all public schools need to be basically the same – then we can make sure some kids don’t get trapped in a bad education due to zip codes, and that people of different socioeconomic status are intermingling.

71.  Reform Student Loans. When you are 18 you can sign a loan for hundreds of thousands of dollars – but you can’t be trusted with the financial responsibility of renting a car or hotel room. Or celebrate your new loan with a drink! That’s ridiculous. In-state college tuition should be free or close to it for state-run schools. These loans have become a huge drain on the economy, and we shouldn’t perpetuate the cycle moving forward.

72.  Ad-Free News. The nightly news is an hour of television designed to provide a public service. But since they still want to make money, news companies need to attract advertisers during this bloc of programming. If they eliminated that need, then corporations’ influence on the fourth estate would diminish.

73.  Bring Back the Fairness Doctrine. Even better, if we reintroduced the fairness doctrine, which disallowed partisan bias in reporting, then companies wouldn’t be able to target specific groups of consumers – and I expect our discourse would begin to heal.

74.  No Native Advertising. Watched the nightly news lately? A huge proportion of it, shockingly, is not actually news. Some of it is, admittedly, just fluff – cute animal stories and human-interest pieces. Things you don’t actually need from the news, which is not supposed to be entertainment. The news should tell you two things: things you need to know (i.e. there’s a fire nearby) and things you need to know for the ballot box (i.e. this Senator is being charged with bribery). Native Advertising is branded, sponsored journalism. It looks like news, but is actually just an ad, and it’s both ubiquitous and far more dangerous than cute animal stories.

75.  Ending Humbug. Psychics, snake oil sales, people who talk to the dead – these are scammers. These people prey on the vulnerable, often the grieving and medically desperate, and lie to them. If you and your friends want to play with tarot cards or a Ouija board, or chart your horoscope, fine. But as an industry the B.S. needs to be regulated. Most importantly, perhaps, is “alternative medicine,” homeopathy, and supplements – which is entirely unregulated and brings in billions. All this nonsense leads to the rotting of the American mind, and poorer health outcomes.

No comments: