The ramifications of this plan would really create a surge in economic stimulus. More current renters would soon own their own residences, and neighborhoods would see better caring for property, and a newer pool of home owners would see more need for housing...meaning more cabinets and doors and accessories needed...meaning more work and more jobs etc.
One aside: As a renter myself for most of my life, I recall when my new wife and I rented the upstairs of an old house on Long Island N.Y. in 1992. Our landlord was an absentee one, owning 19 such homes in the area. He did as little as he could get away with in way of repairs and upgrades. We had an old refrigerator that I would joke about, saying it had arthritis. The bathtub had tiles cracking and slowly falling into the tub. We had no banister to our upstairs apartment, so my 80 year old parents could not visit us. He had a pear tree in the yard where he allowed us to park our cars.
Each fall, the pears would fall off of the tree and lay in waste on the ground. One day my landlord called me and said "Why don't you clean up the pears where you park?" I told him "When you give me a break in my rent I will be happy to keep your yard clean." He came the next day and had the yard cleaned.
* Public Funding of all elections. Now we know that the Supreme Court ruling in 1976 (Buckley vs. Valeo) said that "Money is free speech", thus eliminating any chance to see private money prohibited from elections. Well, this needs to be changed. If it takes an amendment then a mass movement should begin. Obviously, this will take a long time, what with the level of understanding of our fellow citizens currently.
Yet, in 1996 Maine instituted its clean election law. It stated that for all elections held in Maine, excepting federal seats, candidates who received enough valid signatures and collected a few dollars from each signatory for the state held pool, could be placed on the ballot as a "Clean Election Candidate".
This meant that each such candidate would receive money from the pool to operate his or her campaign (not much money at that) and most importantly, the public would know this person was running free of any private donations or using their own money.
Please note, that in the first election in Maine using that formula in 2000, around 27% of those elected ran as "clean election" candidates. If we had such clean election laws in all our states, maybe John and Joan Q Public would get wise to the con job perpetrated by the Two Party scam now being run. Honestly, despite what many on the so called "Left" think, the Democratic Party cannot be reformed. This attempt has been tried for generations to no avail.
As far as the other party, well, they are so far gone to the far right that they are simply hopeless. It is more than high time for regular, well informed and well thought out folks to be able to run and secure elected office. By having lots of political parties and lots of independents in office, deals can be made in the spirit of compromise to get laws passed and laws changed.
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