Thursday, July 9, 2009

My wish list for the election?

Well, first ...

A system for tracking employment that is meaningful.

How many people between the ages of 21 and 57 have jobs. What kind of jobs do they have?
Full time
Full time with sick days and vacation
Full time with sick days, vacation, and retirement
Full time with sick days, vacation, retirement and health care
Part-time with no benefits
Part-time with no benefits and expected to last less than 6 months
Part-time with no benefits and with some hope of more than 1 year of steady work
On-Call with no hope of steady work
Outside Contractor that does not have a company or business beyond a status of "outside contractor"
Temporary with no advancement to permanent
Temporary beyond six months
Temporary beyond a year

That would be a good start on employment statistics. Changes and trends between these categories might reveal more than our current system of .... Unemployment is at a percentage ... or 565,000 new jobless claims were filed last month when seasonally adjusted ...

New legislation that stops banks from lobbying or contributing to political parties or campaigns. Why? In this day and age I have to use banking services. My fees shouldn't be used to mobilize an army that might not share my political views. Same thing goes for utilities.

Laws that make sense of PAC names. I shouldn't be able to start a new PAC with a name like National Rural Electrification PAC. It should be named Electric Company PAC. Yeah, there is a PAC with a name like Rural Electrification PAC. How do we enforce such a law? License a PAC. Want to lobby for electric companies? Then, you can only lobby for electric companies and electric company issues. Not electrification. Not energy. Want to lobby for whales? Then, only lobby for whales. Just make a list of issues that should have a lobby for it. How about the Poverty Lobby, the GED Lobby, Unemployment Lobby, Truth in Government Lobby, ...

Just set up a list of things that should have a lobby. Then, set up a list of companies that can collect or donate to the issue.

If we can't do that, outlaw PACs making donations to other PACs. And, candidates making contributions to other candidates. And, outlaw candidates from moving their campaign funds around, period. At the end of the race, whatever money is left, tax it 100% for the state.

I'll get back to this topic.

What do you want changed ...

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