While most knowledgeable persons admit that our Constitution may not be perfect, it is the best such political document ever written. There are some things that could improve the Constitution, not all of them radical alterations. The Founders knew at the outset that such amending will need to be done periodically, so they wrote into the document a method of change. They were wise enough not to anticipate future shortcomings of the Constitution; that is our job. Here are some proposals for major changes, some for minor tweaking.
1) Public financing of elections:
Public financing might be the most-important change our nation could need and it may be the best hope of saving our democratic principles. It would help institute ~ while not assuring ~ fair and honest elections. The argument that private financing of elections is a form of free speech is nonsense because the only free speech involved would belong only to those persons or corporations that can pay for "free speech." In all other matters involving "free speech" money is not a factor and it should not be a factor in elections.
This nation expends a great amount of money conducting trials, both criminal and civil, and in neither instance does government allow special-interest money to decide victors or winners. The same should be true for elections. We don't allow trials to be "swiftboated" by outside concerns nor verdicts to be bought, and we shouldn't allow elections to go that way. A misstated word in a trial could result in a mistrial; that's how dedicated we are to fair trials. We must do elections as we do jury trials with government acting as judge and the people acting as jury. A decision of "miselection "in 2000 or 2004 might be warranted, but we shouldn't have allowed elections to reach that point.
It is strange that on the same day in June the United States Supreme Court handed down two decision involving speech. In one, the court ruled 5-4 that a student's speech can be abridged by government because he seemed to be supporting drug use in a nonschool venue. The other decision said that government cannot infringe on the "speech" of special-interest groups during political campaigns. The decisions appear to be the opposite of how they should have been.
A public financing-scheme might go as follows:
The federal government would set aside $1 per US citizen per year~ based on the most recent census ~ to finance presidential elections. The money would keep pace with population growth but not inflation, thereby controlling costs of future elections.
States could set aside $1 per person for races involving senators and governors while local jurisdictions would set aside $1 per person for House races and all local races.
No outside influence would be allowed ~ why we need a constitutional amendment ~ after Labor Day in election years, and no government activity would be allowed in primaries, leaving the parties free to select their candidates in any manner they choose. Public financing would pay for all advertising and debates, which would allow third- and fourth-party candidates a forum for their views. Third- and fourth-party candidates may never come close to winning, but their views must be aired so the American public can decide if those views are worth considering.
Any advertisement that challenges another candidate or the candidate's position must be submitted to that candidate for rebuttal, and that rebuttal would be tacked onto the original advertisement. Perhaps this may eliminate or cut down on the smears, character assassinations and slanders dominating present elections.
And while we're at it, a clause establishing a nonpartisan body to draw congressional districts after each census would do wonders returning the government to the people. That needs a constitutional amendment to take that function away from corrupt state legislatures.
2) Eliminate the income tax and institute a profits tax :
We should fund government with three budgets and no crossover to borrow money from one by another. There must be no running away to Dubai (Halliburton) or the Caymen Islands (numerous companies) to avoid paying US taxes. Do business in the US and make a profit, pay US taxes, with no exceptions.
The income tax has been so manipulated with special-interests excused from taxation that it is no longer a useful tactic. After World War II in the late 1940 and early '50s individuals paid 53 percent of taxes, businesses 47. Now it is closer to 90-10 with individuals getting screwed. Tax and spend liberals didn't do that.
Corrupt corporations like Enron feasted on the manipulations of the income tax. With no taxes to be paid by Enron, executives would bring in money by borrowing, selling bonds or stock, then calling the income profit to keep the stock price soaring. As the stock price soared, executives would exercise their options, buying millions of dollars worth of stock at a low price (such as $10 a share), then immediately turning around and using the now-pricey stock as collateral to borrow (say at $70 share), from the company, netting a profit ($60 a share). As the scheme unravels the company was left with virtually worthless paper while the executives could feign innocence by claiming they didn't know of the companies problems and citing their stock "purchases" as proof of innocence. If Enron were required to pay a hefty tax on its "profits" there would have been no scandal or failed company.
The profits-tax program would work thusly: Everyone would be paid a livable income. In could average $1,000 a month or $2,000 a month and would be subject to no taxation. No income tax, no payroll tax. Then everyone would be entitled to share of the profit their labor creates. Profit sharing should be such that it constitutes more than half the average income and it would be taxed. That would insure that employees make their bosses honest. Executive compensation would depend on a company's growth, not on how much friends in the board of directors will give the CEO in order to keep their board seats. As a company grows bigger on improved products or services, the CEO's compensation package can grow in unison. Profits tax on individuals would fund Social Security, universal health care and nothing else. Workers in nonprofit firms and governments would be taxed as if they worked at for-profit outfits. Those Americans on Social Security and Medicare would be taxed exactly the same as those employed. As a bonus, there would never be a "Social Security crisis" or Medicare problem.
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Thomas Bonsell is a former newspaper editor (in Oregon, New York and Colorado) United States Air Force cryptanalyst and National Security Agency intelligence agent. He became one of American journalism's leading constitutional experts through years of study at Georgetown University Graduate School of Government in Washington, D.C., and tries (without much success) to be patient with people who argue endlessly on subjects they have never studied. He is the author of "The Un-Americans: Trashing of the United States Constitution in the American Press", a critique of the mainstream media for ignorance of, or disdain for, our constitutional principles of self-government. He left newspaper work years ago, disgusted at the direction the Fourth Estate ~ under the mismanagement of ineffectual, out-of-touch, can't-do executives ~ was taking away from honest responsible journalism and the observation that there was no place in the mainstream media for a progressive, or liberal, constitutional "expert". Bonsell is an honors graduate of Woodbury College (Los Angeles, California) with a bachelor of business administration degree. He is profiled in Marquis Who's Who in America. (Self-portrait, above, was handled to make author/artist appear prettier than he actually is.)
Personal motto: Have brain; will use.
You argue that the money would be used "to pay for advertising."
Well, most advertising is done over the PUBLIC's airwaves that are granted to the broadcast networks. I would require that as part of their right to have and profit from the public's airwaves, they need to provide the airtime for political advertising FOR FREE.
Why should a select group of businesses that have been granted the right to use the PUBLIC's airwaves be allowed to make a massive profit from a PUBLIC ACTIVITY such as an election. By allowing the networks to profit from political advertising it simply gives them the motivation to have lots of ugly mud-throwing back and forth that will result in bigger and bigger ad buys. Without the profit motive, advertising could get longer and more thoughtful, rather than simply 30-second sound bites.
That's my 2 cents.
by
Charlie L (2 articles, 2 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 638 comments)
on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 at 1:07:44 PM
Nice. I tried something similsr once and came up with the following (originally posted at Alternet) which overlaps with your own ideas in several places:
I have compiled a list that was originally conceived as a wish list for changes in the Constitution. But as I've come to understand that making such changes would be virtually impossible given the entrenched resistance, I now conceive of the list as improvements that I would make to an imaginary new constitution for a hypothetical new nation, perhaps this one some day. These are the kinds of changes for which I would advocate. Each element addresses a perceived flaw or deficiency in the present system:
1. It would be a treasonable offense punishable by life imprisonment or death for any elected public official to be caught taking money from any other source other than his meager paycheck. Just as it is recognized that influencing a judge or policeman’s decision with regard to enforcing or interpreting the law is a crime (bribery) and is immoral, it should be acknowledged that lobbying those who write the laws is just as corrupt and should be just as illegal.
2. Public campaigns for elected office are funded entirely by the appropriate level of government (federal, state, county, etc.) from tax dollars. There is no private collecting of campaign contributions permitted and no spending permitted except within prescribed limits. National and state level candidates will have television channels assigned to them and their race where they will campaign according to guidelines that insure the dissemination of all relevant information to anyone interested.
3. The Federal government would be banned from turning over the right to print currency and regulate monetary policy to private interests such as the Federal Reserve. This little known major flaw in American government has cost Americans trillions in debt and has deliberately caused countless depressions and recessions. Most readers will not see the value of this because they are unaware of the nature and the magnitude of this problem that is, unbelievably, the source of the national debt, not deficit spending.
4. Documents cannot be classified as secret by the whim of the president alone. Just as judges must approve warrants, so too do we need an independent body to approve removing documents from public scrutiny. Only matters of bona fide national security would be classifiable.
5. A draft or an automatic two-year period of service is expected of young people (to include the children and grandchildren of Congresspersons.
6. Attorneys would be held responsible for the merit of the cases that they bring, especially those taken on contingency. Contingency rates would be fixed and capped by a stepwise algorithm that limits the attorney fees to a fair amount that competent and successful attorneys will willingly work for. Expert witnesses are held liable for the accuracy of the testimony that they give. Juries for general criminal cases should be drawn from a pool of qualified and trained jurors representing all demographic categories proportionately. Trials of some professionals will be judged by specialty juries with special relevant training in that professional area, perhaps elected, and empanelled for extended terms, probably with pay or stipend.
7. There would be no crimes of vice. Specifically, there would be few or no illegal drugs. There would be no war on drugs.
8. Egregious election fraud would be punishable by life in prison.
9. There would be no foreign troops or military bases unless they are part of a larger, global policing network such as the UN's "military". War can legally ensue only following attack or imminent and apparent evidence of attack. The military could also be used for humanitarian purposes, in times of natural disaster and to serve in a planetary police force such as the United Nations if relevant, but for no other purpose. There would be no covert operations other than intelligence gathering (spying).
10. There is no constitutional right to firearms for individual citizens.
11. Media outlets have a social obligation to provide balanced views of political matters and must provide equal time for all qualified candidates and issues in a manner similar to that of the Fairness Doctrine revoked in the 1980’s. Also, no single entity could own more than ten (maybe 15) percent of television or radio stations or newspapers.
12. Prisons are to be run humanely. The only penalty permissible by law is the loss of property, loss of freedom and/or, in well-defined instances, permanent removal from the society by relocation to self-sufficient penal islands without weapons or landed guards (shore patrols would be necessary). Isolation is appropriate at times, but not in darkness, cold or on concrete. It is merely isolation. Prisons are not to be violent, abusive or dangerous. Torture is expressly illegal.
14. Congressional ethics committees will be manned not by Congressmen but by other citizens free to act independently. They will judge the ethical lapses of Congressmen, not the legality of their actions.
15. Most laws and governmental programs would have an expiration date and would need to be periodically studied and reaffirmed to maintain them in effect. Only programs that accomplish their stated and defined goals would be retained. Only laws that were still considered relevant and beneficial would be renewed.
This was posted at Alternet. One response was this:
A couple (or so) of things you overlooked, in my opinion, that I'd like to see:
1) Elimination or complete restructure of the Supreme Court since it's purpose was to maintain the status quo of the priviledged by design, and the only times it has acted in a progressive (meaning forward-moving) manner is when overwhelming public opinion demanded so and it's makeup happened to be less ultra-conservative than normal. Make them electable with explicit minimum qualifications for the position, and make them impeachable.
2) Political parties, per se, are expressly illegal. Citizens may form groups to foster positions or ideals and candidates may endorse these positions or ideals but beyond endorsement or rejection of such cannot claim any associations with such groups.
3) Corporations are formed as an act of government (already true) and do not have any standing within government (already true, believe it or not) beyond the revokable priviledge to do business under the act of incorporation. Corporations must act in the best social interests of the country and the people that the country belongs to or their charter to exist will be revoked and the corporation will be prohibited from engaging in commerce and the responsible principals will be prohibited from participating in future incorporations for (x) number of years. Government is expressly prohibited from taking acts that provide any advantage (tax reliefs, incentives, etc.) to any particular corporation and is prohibited from taking acts that provide corporations as a whole a benefit that does not also clearly benefit the citizens to which this country belongs.
4) All proposed acts of government must pass a review based on the "7th generation rule"- a rule, as I understand it, that was common among tribes of the original "Americans"- that states that any act undertaken by those in power must be shown to do no harm to the next 7 generations of people to come. (And many of our forefathers called them "savage" as they savaged them. Our ancestors, and we, are the true savages.)
by
Yaybob (12 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 175 comments)
on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 at 3:14:53 PM
We are of one mind on what you proposed, but virtually all can be done under ordinary law right now with no need for Constitutional alterations.
The problem is getting elected officials to enact such reforms; a virtual impossibility since the reforms would affect them. That is why I only proposed needed alterations while not expecting any of them to be enacted any time soon. Perhaps, if enough Americans propose them long enough and loud enough, something might be done in the distant future.
A couple of points.
The Federal Reserve Board is a government body while the Federal Reserve Banks are private entities owned by the banks that are subject to federal regulation. Learned that while working at the Federal Reserve in Los Angeles while in college.
The President doesn't have much say on what is classified secret. That is an automatic action in any agency that deals with secret material. Everyone had a bunch of rubber stamps designation material as "top secret" or "secret" or "classified." Whenever a person created a document at any "secret" agency he or she automatically stamped the paper with whatever stamp was at hand. Learned that while at the National Security Agency.
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tabonsell (28 articles, 0 quicklinks, 22 diaries, 250 comments)
on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 at 5:36:45 PM
In the 1886 Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the state tax assessor, not the county assessor, had the right to determine the taxable value of fenceposts along the railroad's right-of-way.
However, in writing up the case's headnote - a commentary that has no precedential status - the Court's reporter, a former railroad president named J.C. Bancroft Davis, opened the headnote with the sentence: "The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteen Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Oddly, the court had ruled no such thing. As a handwritten note from Chief Justice Waite to reporter Davis that now is held in the National Archives said: "we avoided meeting the Constitutional question in the decision." And nowhere in the decision itself does the Court say corporations are persons.
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Ignacio Fresas (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 4 comments)
on Wednesday, July 25, 2007 at 12:41:24 AM
"According to the official case record, Supreme Court Justice Morrison Remick Waite simply pronounced before the beginning of arguement in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company that
'The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.'
The court reporter duly entered into the summary record of the Court's findings that
'The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteen Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws'."
The implication is that the court reporter entered into the records what the SCOTUS judge had said before the case was argued. Of course there would be no decision from the court whether or not a corporation had the same rights as an individual because there was no argument on the question. The court just said so without any argument whatsoever. That is why the statement doesn't appear in the official decision. And the judge's note to the court reporter only affirmed that the court didn't entertain an argument on the question because it had already been decided by the court without argument.
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tabonsell (28 articles, 0 quicklinks, 22 diaries, 250 comments)
on Wednesday, July 25, 2007 at 1:20:54 PM
While I appreciate Tomm Hartmann greatly, his take on the Santa Clara case involves only the official deliberations and therefore is not complete.
Here's what the Noel L. Dowling Constitutional Law book says on the matter:
"Justice Waite told counsel that the Court would not hear argument on this point since they were of the opinion that corporations were protected."
When the judges reached that conclusion is not stated but it's reasonable to guess that is was in conference when they decided to hear the case. But, the fact that they reached such a conclusion before the case was even argued shows why it was not included in the official issued opinion. What the clerk wrote in headnotes occurred after the case was decided.
But it was a conclusion from the SCOTUS judges and not because of a "clerk's error" that corporations were given the rights of personhood. This long-standing "clerk's error" fallacy is just that, a fallacy.
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tabonsell (28 articles, 0 quicklinks, 22 diaries, 250 comments)
on Wednesday, July 25, 2007 at 2:49:35 PM
A second constitutional convention would be very dangerous because anything at all could happen. For one thing, our present Constitution and Bill of Rights could be completely scrapped and a dictatorship be put in place. This scenario would be the will of the right wing since Bush is already doing it without a constitutional convention. This careless, light-hearted talk about a second constitutional convention isn't well thought out and must stop. Be careful of what you wish for because you might get it.
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Dan Merica (21 articles, 72 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 47 comments)
on Wednesday, July 25, 2007 at 3:15:45 AM
Do you really think that there is much left to lose? Sure, things could (and probably will) get worse, but the existing Constitution isn't stopping or slowing that any, and trashing this one won't accelerate the decay. That document has no meaning or value any more. It is effete absent any desire by the ruling class to honor it, or any remedy for the rest of us when they don't.
Actually, as I indicated in my second paragraph, I don't have any delusions about fixing this country, and for me, the exercise is only meaningful in the context that in other times and places, people, maybe some of us, will be writing constitutions, and perhaps they can learn from our failings.
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Yaybob (12 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 175 comments)
on Wednesday, July 25, 2007 at 9:53:53 AM
First of all, I don't call for a new constitutional convention, I am leery of such because Americans haven't learned to understand the Constitution we already have.
That is why I write on the subject. Many people on this progressive site write and comment on the Constitution, but I often find they don't know it as well as they think they do.
When I studied Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Graduate School of Government under some of the finest constitutional minds in America, a professor asked why I had quit a job as sportswriter in Portland, Oregon, to study the Constitution at Georgetown. I told her I didn't want to waste my life writing about adults playing children's games, but wanted to get into something important like political reporting or editorial-page work and thought that studying the Constitution would be beneficial because I thought people doing that kind of work didn't know what they are talking about,
She replied, "I know they don't know what they're talking about." She read the Washington Post and New York Times daily and if those two didn't know what they were talking about, there's little chance anyone else would.
I never found a newspaper that cared to know, so I am on this site trying to get people to understand and appreciate what we have. Maybe one or two have learned something, but that I don't know.
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tabonsell (28 articles, 0 quicklinks, 22 diaries, 250 comments)
on Wednesday, July 25, 2007 at 12:22:13 PM
