What one US law, passed or revoked, would be a significant step towards making the world a more peaceful place?

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: piasabird
Repeal the Death Tax for small businesses and farmers.

Doing this only for farms would be a big benefit. Farmers have to save enough tax money up over their entire life just to pay the enheritance tax.

Although I agree with you, what does this have to do with US National security? Just wonderin'

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: ebaycj
A constitutional amendment that requires that every law has a maximum duration of 2 years and must be "renewed" every 2 years by majority vote to remain in effect. This would apply to state, local, and federal laws.

Hopefully this would cause enough havoc to keep some of the more BS laws off the books.

erm...there wouldnt be enough hours in a year to accomplish this...we would need to more than quadruple the size of the government to go through every law every two years lol

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: HotChic

Originally posted by: IamDavid
The US couldn't pass a law doing that.. We are not the source of the problems..

I don't think you have to be part of the source in order to be part of the solution. Do you?

Okay, here's my law. Anyone who as much looks at us wrong, we nuke'm.

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: IamDavid
"If you had to put together a single law, what would it be? US law only, can only directly impact the way the US operates."

Ban any imports of Energy from everywhere but North America..

oooo, that's not bad.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: vi_edit
Legalized prostitution.

We have it here

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: CPA

Originally posted by: IamDavid
"If you had to put together a single law, what would it be? US law only, can only directly impact the way the US operates."

Ban any imports of Energy from everywhere but North America..

oooo, that's not bad.

I agree....that would spur the economy big time!

 

[ebaycj]

Originally posted by: piasabird
Repeal the Death Tax for small businesses and farmers.

Doing this only for farms would be a big benefit. Farmers have to save enough tax money up over their entire life just to pay the enheritance tax.

Or at least raising the cap a bit.

I'm sure that $2M was quite a lot when the inheritance tax was passed, but it's not so uncommon anymore, especially when talking about inheriting a business / farm / etc... with a lot of assets. I'd say $10M - $20M as a base, with an annual increase that is based on the rate of inflation would be a good start. Anything over that you pay taxes on.

Possibly also add a progressive system to it: say the first $20M is tax free, between $20 and $50M you pay 5%, between 50M - 250M you pay 15%, between 250M - 1B, you pay 25%, over $1B you pay 50% (obviously all hard dollar values would also be inflation-adjusted as mentioned above, percentages would stay the same).

so for a theoretical $2B inheritance you would get:

(1.00) * ($20M) = $20.0M
+ (0.916667) * ($50M - $20M) = $27.5M
+ (0.75) * ($250M - $50M) = $150.0M
+ (0.666667) * ($1000M - $250M) = $500.0M
+ (0.50) * ($2000M - $1000M) = $500M

=> 20 + 27.5 + 150 + 500 + 500 = 1197.5M

government gets 802.5M.

Completely fair if you ask me.

 

[sandorski]

You don't really need a Law, you just need a Policy.

 

[AreaCode707]

Originally posted by: sandorski
You don't really need a Law, you just need a Policy.

Run with that instead, then.

 

[ayabe]

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Criminalize lobbying. At all levels.

:thumbsup:


This is what is destroying our government.

 

[ayabe]

Originally posted by: piasabird
Repeal the Death Tax for small businesses and farmers.

Doing this only for farms would be a big benefit. Farmers have to save enough tax money up over their entire life just to pay the enheritance tax.

It's the Estate Tax, nice talking points there.


If you did that, you realize that people like accountants, lawyers, and doctors, would also be immune to this tax or anyone who has an Ebay business. This is similar to the catastrophe of letting "small business owners" write off the purchase of an SUV even if it's not used for the business, i.e. an BMW X5 for your proctologist.

Farmers yes, "small business owners", NO.

 

[Hossenfeffer]

If it were possible, I'd like to see some sort of law that attacks the patriarchal structure of our society, the objectification of woman, and somehow gets us as a society "ok" with things like breastfeeding.


Dear lord.... What did I eat for lunch?

 

[shira]

Enact 100% public funding of all elections and make private contributions illegal.

 

[K1052]

Immediate repeal of the DEA's charter and nullification of all illicit drug laws from the Harrison Act to present.

 

[ebaycj]

Originally posted by: shira
Enact 100% public funding of all elections and make private contributions illegal.

Originally posted by: ayabe

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Criminalize lobbying. At all levels.

:thumbsup: This is what is destroying our government.

Combine these two. Add the higher-minimum, progressive, inflation-growing inheritance tax. Add self-expiring laws, and we have a winner !!

Also, I think that outlawing / banning political parties would be a good thing (make everyone run as an independent), this way people would have to actually evaluate each candidate on their individual views, instead of doing a straight partisan vote. There would need to be some minimum requirement to run for office (to prevent having 500 people running for prez on the ballot, for example). Maybe a petition to run, with X thousand signatures (with valid unique ID's)?

 

[ebaycj]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: ebaycj
A constitutional amendment that requires that every law has a maximum duration of 2 years and must be "renewed" every 2 years by majority vote to remain in effect. This would apply to state, local, and federal laws.

Hopefully this would cause enough havoc to keep some of the more BS laws off the books.

erm...there wouldnt be enough hours in a year to accomplish this...we would need to more than quadruple the size of the government to go through every law every two years lol

Exactly my point. There are WAY too many laws out there, and most of them are WAY too complicated. This measure would indirectly force the following:

• 1. Simpler (hopefully single-topic) laws, so as to make them easier to understand, and thereby vote on, in order to speed up the lawmaking/renewal process. This would hopefully eliminate riders (without actually making them illegal).

• 2. Less laws. The lawmakers would basically have to prioritize laws based on their importance. This would create an environment where only important laws would be passed/renewed because there wouldn't be time to make/renew unimportant laws. Since the unimportant laws would automatically expire on their own, if a law was left unattended by lawmakers due to its unimportance, it would (eventually) no longer be in effect.

Also, drawing on #2 above, there should be a define minimum amount of the voting body that has to be present and willing to vote on a measure (abstaining not allowed). Say, at least 50%. If they don't deem a law important enough to vote on, they don't have to show up. If the minimum amount of lawmakers isn't met, the law cannot be voted on (creation or renewal).

There would also need to be some kind of short competency test PER LAW to make sure the lawmakers know what they are voting on and what it's effects could be. If they fail the test, it would be treated as if they did not show up to vote on that law.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

Abolish the income tax

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: Hossenfeffer
If it were possible, I'd like to see some sort of law that attacks the patriarchal structure of our society, the objectification of woman, and somehow gets us as a society "ok" with things like breastfeeding.


Dear lord.... What did I eat for lunch?

oh boy, that's going to make the muslim world love us more.......

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: shira
Enact 100% public funding of all elections and make private contributions illegal.

Just say no to free speech!

 

[slash196]

Originally posted by: senseamp
Legalization of Marijuana?

QFT

 

[ebaycj]

Originally posted by: slash196

Originally posted by: senseamp
Legalization of Marijuana?

QFT

DQFT

 

[JEDIYoda]

Originally posted by: HotChic

Originally posted by: CPA
Your question assumes that America is the reason for all hate and violence. That's a silly notion.


Oh, wait, we could pass a law that all Americans are immediately communist muslims.

I don't assume that at all. My question comes from the idea that we can only make action on what we are responsible for, therefore we should be talking about what we can do to extend peace. That is my reason for looking for a US law.

And if a single person, such as Ghandi, can have so global an impact, a dominant country should be able to have somewhere near as great an impact. That is my reason for asking about a significant step.

Contrary to your question, I don't assume America is the cause for hate and violence any more than any other country is. I'm a right wing Republican and a good nationalist.

Your questions is too general and assumes blindly that the US is iether soley responsible or the main cause for something that is a world wide problem..

 

[Infohawk]

60% of Congress must vote to declare war in order for the government to undertake ANY military action outside US borders.

 

[ProfJohn]

I think something that leads to energy independence might be the best. Take us out of the middle east to an extent and more importantly free us from the oil blackmail we face now from places like Iran and such.

Also this would force Europe and Japan and others to take a more active role in the worlds military issues and not leave us to do all the heavy lifting.

The little petty dictators of the world, Saddam, hide behind the countries who refuse to take any action at all against them. If Iran said it was going to blockade the gulf tomorrow it would be the US that would have to break the blockade and the US that would look like the bad guy. Put if we didn?t need the oil our response could be ?yea block it all you want, like we care?? And that would force other countries to work together to solve these types of military problems.

We have to get to away from the current world dynamic where we are the only country taking action against the tyrants of the world and get to a situation where the world works together to solve these types of problems.
Right now Iran and N Korea stirs up the pot and watches us and Europe picker over what to do.
In the future we need to be in a situation where when they stir up the pot the world response is :slap: get your ass back in line and play nice with the other kids.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Whoozyerdaddy
Abolish the income tax

You have it right. Just take away the goverments ability to fund projects that cause problems at home and abroad.