General Discussion

Abolish senate and scotus? Wtf is this?

VAT is regressive, disproportionally taxing those who have to spend more of their income.

An income tax with a wide untaxed bracket and steeper rates for higher brackets would be more equitable.

The Supreme Court serves a purpose, but is being coopted by political interests and effectively controlled by the Senate, so changes are needed (e.g. eliminating the Senate, moving to elections, setting term limits).

Everything else is reasonable and necessary for a functioning democracy.

No. What kind of crazy shit is this?
Income tax is one of the only tools that could be used to combat inequality

Leave income tax (VAT is useful but ultimately a regressive tax in that it relies on consumption and therefore disproportionately affects the poor).

Leave the Supreme Court but add term limits-I like 13 years because it keeps the chances that any one person will be able to transform the court very small.

Add in universal pre-k and post-secondary education. Pre-k in particular benefits society at large because it teaches children how to interact with peers in an equitable fashion.

It would require a Constitutional Convention, large amendment, or several amendments. So really hard. Furthermore getting rid of SCOTUS and the income tax aren't good ideas. We need a court of last resort and a VAT is incredibly regressive compared to an income tax.

The supreme court should probably be a random selection of judges from the lower courts, rather than a set of jerks. Maybe they serve a short term, or are selected for each case.

Not sure why abolishing income tax is on here. That's usually a right wing fever dream.

There's other stuff that would probably help, too.

• Enforce monopoly laws.
• Break up existing orgs that are too much.
• Nationalize ISPs.
• Do.. something.. about police. Just don't let it devolve into outright private police. Probably need to unbundle all the responsibilities the police currently have into separate institutions, increase licensing requirements, increase accountability. I don't have a fully baked answer, but if the state doesn't provide an answer for "Someone broke into my house" then the private market will, and that's probably going to be worse.

It really isn't possible to abolish the Supreme Court without undoing the constitution entirely. You do that, and you aren't fixing things, you're starting over. And yeah, in theory you could amend the constitution to do it, but trying to make that happen is the same as undoing it in reality.

I'm not saying that's an invalid choice (viva la revolution!), I'm just saying that it is a different concept entirely.

But yeah, if you just changed the first one on that list (which could be done without drastic measures), it would fix 90% of the rest.

Where do you get the money for UBI if income tax is abolished?

Yes yes no no yes yes yes no

*Undo citizens united

• Star Voting
• Voting is a national federal holiday
• Universal mail in voting
• UBI
• Medicare for all And things start getting better from there.

Income tax and senate are important.

The last two points reminds me of the Fair Tax proposal that was popular among Libertarian circles for a bit.

(I should note that the Fair Tax was the name and not necessarily an accurate description)

Here's my modified list:

• RCV, Approval Voting, or STAR voting. Make voting day a mandatory national holiday, half-day for hospital employees etc. Protect write-in voting. Allow nationwide referendums on a separate ballot on the same day, in case there's something popular that no candidate is offering
• Abolish electoral college, and abolish state legislative districts or at least implement a simple district-drawing algorithm
• Keep the senate and house I guess idk it seems fine to me
• Give the supreme court term limits without reelection (no campaigning for reelection = less bribery & they can focus on their jobs). They serve for like 10 years or whatever and then you go back to being a normal circuit judge or whatever else you want to do. Give them a bunch of bonus money at the end so they're less likely to take bribes. Institute strict ethics regulations. These can be arbitrated by a committee of circuit courts. Maybe expand SCOTUS to 13 seats (1 per circuit)
• idk anything about the house rep cap
• Universal healthcare
• UBI, universal unemployment, or shorten the workweek. As we increase automation, we require less labor for a decent standard of living
• Crank up income tax and close tax loopholes. Double IRS funding, they make more money by catching millionaires+ than they spend on doing so
• Criminal prosecution for company leaders if they authorize illegal or extremely harmful activities. Any managerial position that accepts orders to carry that stuff out without formally objecting is also liable. Any higher position that allows a lower-position employee to carry out harmful acts without stopping it is also liable. The board is liable if they know what's happening and do not object.
• Monetary crimes are resolved by paying back all profits made from the crime, then adding damages on top. Profiting from a crime should not be possible. Non-monetary crimes (bribing government officials, extreme pollution, conspiracy to harm the general population, knowingly selling dangerously defective products without a recall, etc.) should have a large monetary fine AND accumulate "points" against the company. Accumulate enough in a certain period of time (several years at least) and the company is immediately liquidated, with the proceeds going to the same place that taxes do. Or maybe give a little to everyone's tax refund lmao

A bi-cameral system makes sense in a federated state. But it’s reasonable to graduate the power of one chamber to ensure legislation can’t be blocked forever.

A Supreme Court is necessary if you have a constitution. But judges shouldn’t be political appointees only. Many other countries have a selection process whereby the nominees are selected by a wide group of judges and the selection is done by an approval process in parliament (often not a majority vote, but an approval system that enables centrist candidates to emerge).

Keep the Senate, but give them seats according to the number of citizens.

See that sales tax applies to financial products, too. Mitigate the impact by giving everyone a fixed discount on that. Make basic food, hygiene products, and books/newspapers exempt.

For government overhaul would add abolishing the presidency and per district voting (just divide seats in the house based on percentage of the vote overall, I.e. one big district).

For the rest of society: abolish private ownership of companies, but award stocks to the employees instead. This will align incentives of the company with the people most impacted by its decisions.

Income tax can stay as long as its very progressive.

• Yes.
• Yes.
• Basically because influence in the senate isn't scaled by population? I can get behind that. Any other reasons?
• Why? (Aside from that it's stuffed with Trump appointees and insurrectionists right now, I mean.)
• Hadn't heard of this before, but what little I'm seeing about it sounds good.
• Obviously.
• I'm definitely not up on this one.
• Maybe, but only if we introduce something else that'll have rich people actually paying taxes (for real). Otherwise, reform income tax.

And ones you've neglected:

• Abolish corporate personhood
• Wealth tax
• UBI
• Constitutionally-protected reproductive rights
• Abolish 2A
• Abolish private prisons
• Abolish forced labor

And if we're allowed to include things probably well outside the Overton Window:

• Abolish private property, prison, cops, military, borders, employment, the profit motive, corporations
• To each according to need

That's just off the top of my head.

Only if you want to maintain the capitalist status quo by making sure the population is just comfortable enough not to turn on those few who actually benefit from it, while the rest of us scramble for these kinds of bare minimum, not even all-our-human-rights-being-met scraps, some even thanking our overlords for their generosity as they ~~piss~~ trickle down all over us.