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A New Year, a New Declaration of Independence [1]
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Date: 2025-01-01
If we are going to make New Year’s Resolutions, then let’s get radical. Not transitory yearnings about weight loss, time management, exercise, better budgeting, etc. These are not unimportant, except Rome, i.e., the planet, is burning, and America is not working for the majority of her citizens.
While there have been some landmark pieces of legislation dating back to 1964, so much more has just been tinkering around the edges. And now a partisan, conservative Supreme Court is ripping one right away after another, undermining democracy and paving the way for an authoritarian leader. Their preference for a unitary executive is a stone’s throw from an imperial presidency.
If we had today’s lack of political imagination and courage in the past, we would have lost World War II, although we still may, and we would never have landed on the moon.
What follows is not the first word on these ideas or the last. It is just an attempt to refocus energies to think big enough and dream big enough to start talking about large systemic changes. I look forward to critiques, additions, revisions, comments, etc. I thank you in advance for your wisdom.
In writing this, I was taken back to the 1976 movie, “Network,” when newscaster Howard Beale, played by Peter Finch, has a famous meltdown during a live broadcast and shouts: “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” He then told viewers to open their windows and shout those words as loud as possible. My window is open!
So, as in 1776—We hold these truths to be self-evident:
Our Constitution is an anachronism, a relic that is incapable of serving our complex needs in the present or the future. For the U.S. Supreme Court to declare that a document that was ratified 236 years ago can speak to us and for us is absurd. Apart from the 26th Amendment (1971), which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, the previous consequential amendments go back over 100 years: the 16th, 17th, and 20th, which is to say that the amendment process has failed to bring the Constitution into the 21st century. We need a Constitutional Congress to produce a document that is able to meet the current moment and address future challenges, one that reflects the opinions and yearnings of the American people, defends democracy, guards our rights, and ensures our freedom. It should reflect the ideals that America has stood for, not the prejudices of 1776, while rejecting the privilege and prejudice of White Supremacy, Christian Nationalism, American Capitalism, etc.
Our Supreme Court is riven by a partisanship that is intellectually unbecoming and, quite frankly, embarrassing. An increasing number of its rulings belie common sense—symbolized by its Presidential Immunity ruling, which forever makes a joke of the rule of law. Regardless of its method of interpretation, it arrives at the conclusion it seeks before it took the case. This is not jurisprudence; it is legislation. Because it is answerable to no one, the Court has become corrupt. At a minimum, the Court must be increased to 12 justices to match the number of regional courts with more diversity. Membership must be balanced between right and left to ensure that rulings are more nuanced, driven by compromise, and serve the majority of people while protecting minorities rather than serving ideologies. A different method for cases reaching the Supreme Court must be devised, not the partisan cherry-picking that currently exists. Lifetime terms of the entire federal judiciary must be replaced by fixed, staggered terms, for example, of 12 or 18 years.
The structure of Congress no longer serves the needs of the American people. Gerrymandering must be eliminated, and every Congressional District must have a coherent geographical boundary that is as balanced as possible between the two parties to force candidates to campaign on and deliver compromise. The number of districts must be increased dramatically to ensure that members of Congress are better connected with and accountable to their electorate. Smaller congressional districts based on population would also naturally increase the diversity of the Congress. The term for the House of Representatives should be increased from two years to three. Rather than reallocating districts based solely on the changes in the population based on the census, a formula should be used where the number of districts is increased. However, some states could still lose representatives. Term limits of 18 years should be imposed to prevent the “geriatrification” of the chamber. Further, the Electoral College, which is antithetical to democracy, must be eliminated.
The structure of the Senate is also an anachronism and equally antithetical to democracy. Moreover, this most august deliberative chamber has behaved increasingly like the House of Representatives in its governance. While each state should have one Senator regardless of population, although combining states could be considered, the Senate should also be population-based, with more populous states having several or many Senators. The size of the Senate would be larger. Further, the filibuster, which is also antidemocratic, must be eliminated.
Presidents should be elected for one six-year term. With two 4-year terms, we are left with a lame duck at six years in any event. Further, having to campaign for a second term takes away from the primary duty of governance.
The length of political campaigns must be shortened by legislation. Primaries should be limited to 6 to 8 months of campaigning. The general campaign should not be longer than 3 to 4 months. And all campaigns must be publicly financed. The U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizen United ruling in 2010 allowed the elites to control our elections further and, therefore, our destiny.
Finally, our two-party system stifles compromise and denies a meaningful voice or governing responsibility to “none of the above,” i.e., independents, who make up one-third of the electorate. This aspect of our political system is broken.
Our system of capitalism continues to be that of the Robber Barrons. We have passed from a second Gilded Age into a new Roaring Twenties. While the current capitalism serves individuals, it does not serve the American people or the infrastructure or environment, e.g., climate change needs of America, both of which should be beneficiaries of the tax code far beyond current levels, and not those who exploit the tax code to enrich themselves unreasonably.
Wealth must be taxed in the same way as labor, which is to say that every wealth-producing mechanism must be taxed, and every wealth transaction, like stock trades, must also be taxed at some rate. As wealth increases, the rate of taxation should also increase to deliberately prevent the creation of an oligarch class.
Addressing climate change must be moved to a war footing, which is to say, combining dramatic investments and rapid scientific, technical, and industrial mobilization on a scale exceeding World War II.
All Americans should have affordable health care—period. If a secondary, private system is utilized, the benefits offered should be taxed at some level as income to fund the primary system. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: You can’t enjoy liberty or pursue happiness without life, a healthy life. The fact that our health care costs per capita are higher than in any country and our health outcomes are worse than in comparative countries means that our system is rigged, broken, or both. The Healthcare Sector accounts for 18% of U.S. GDP, making it the second largest sector in our economy. When you pay too much and get too little, the system has perverse incentives that must be changed.
There are so many other areas to address: commerce, education, the national debt, child care, the prison system, reproductive rights, and more and more.
If we were creating a society from scratch today that prioritized the American people rather than having them exploited by the top 20%, it would be designed very differently. In terms of our government, we collectively ask for little and get less—scraps. Climate change alone makes this unsustainable.
However we go forward, let us strategically frame how to proceed in ways that will appeal to a broader swath of the electorate who are, in fact, getting ripped off by the Man—i.e., the oligarchs and economic and political elites.
Oh! I forgot. Happy New Year!
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