@MataHarley

Thanks for the fiesty discussion on the Laws I’d Like to See thread. I’ve enjoyed the mental exercise immensely.

Like or Dislike: 0  0

@Clyar

after 9/11, Bush grounded all the airlines for a couple of days, and this seemed to be all that it took to put most of them in the red. (I couldn’t believe that they evidently had so little cash reserves.) The federal government proceeded to bail them out, and I don’t recall anyone, right or left, uttering a peep.

Bush’s actions would have been considered a “taking” if just compensation had not been provided. A taking has two elements. The depriving of a private entity of the use of their property and failure to justly compensate for said taking.

According to the Supreme Court, an unconstitutional taking consists of two components: taking of property and subsequent denial of just compensation. If a property owner receives just compensation through the process the government provides, the property owner does not have a taking claim. Id. at 194-95. Williamson County Regional Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172, 194 (1985).

2. No elected official may accept a campaign contribution of any kind while in office. (in regards to congress) in conjunction with 3. The number of representative shall be one for every 30,000 citizens. would force “special interests” to consider the potential payback of supporting a candidate that did not have the advantages of the power of incumbency and 9,000 representatives would really throw a monkey wrench into the special interest groups attempts to buy influence. They’d have to write an awful lot of checks.

The ultimate campaign finance reform would be to simply force Congress back into compliance with the Constitution and eliminate its ability to conduct favortism in the first place.

How do you accomplish this feat?

No. Corporate compensation is nobody’s damn business. Remember, in publicly-traded corporations, top executives serve at the pleasure of the Board of Directors, who in turn are elected by the shareholders. If said shareholders feel that executive compensation is excessive, they can and will threaten the Board members over the matter. Evidently, Disney’s shareholders felt that Michael Eisner was worth 90 million a year, and they are the ones who own the company. Who are you and I to argue?

If executive compensation is threatening the company’s financial health and passing along excessive costs to its customers, they’ll walk and the company will suffer, at which point the shareholders will act. Have some faith in their common sense.

Willima Edwards post provides the most eloquent rational for compensation limitations

The rule on limiting CEO pay is not anti-capitalistic in my opinion. Too often, these people are viewed as the owners of companies risking their own investments. In truth, they are employees and should be treated as such. If executive pay decisions were put to the stockholders, i.e. owners, the pay would come back into line with reality. These guys are replacable with plenty of well educated experienced people waiting in the wings.

This issue has been the result of anonymous stock ownership. I don’t know the ratio, but a lot of stock owned today lies in the hands of 401Ks, IRAs, pensions, mutual funds, and other grouped investments. I have no idea what I actually own. I can see some information, but not enough to impact corporate decisions. Unnamed managers of our accounts make those decisions with no ownership.

When these decisions are left up to the Boards of these corporations, it becomes a mutual payoff. Many of these people serve on the same multiple boards. “You vote me a raise and I will vote one for you.”

Like or Dislike: 0  0

2. No elected official may accept a campaign contribution of any kind while in office. (in regards to congress)

The “special interests” would still make contributions beforehand, and then expect the politician to do their bidding after being elected. This idea might water-down lobbying’s effects a bit, but wouldn’t eliminate it entirely. The ultimate campaign finance reform would be to simply force Congress back into compliance with the Constitution and eliminate its ability to conduct favortism in the first place.

7. Nationalize the Federal Reserve Bank.

I thought it was already…?

8. No business is too big to fail and bailouts of private business entities shall be prohibited.

Fine, except when some corporation is having money problems that are a direct result of government intervention. I remember right after 9/11, Bush grounded all the airlines for a couple of days, and this seemed to be all that it took to put most of them in the red. (I couldn’t believe that they evidently had so little cash reserves.) The federal government proceeded to bail them out, and I don’t recall anyone, right or left, uttering a peep.

A. Executive pay shall not exceed a multiple of 50 of the average compensation of all employees.

No. Corporate compensation is nobody’s damn business. Remember, in publicly-traded corporations, top executives serve at the pleasure of the Board of Directors, who in turn are elected by the shareholders. If said shareholders feel that executive compensation is excessive, they can and will threaten the Board members over the matter. Evidently, Disney’s shareholders felt that Michael Eisner was worth 90 million a year, and they are the ones who own the company. Who are you and I to argue?

If executive compensation is threatening the company’s financial health and passing along excessive costs to its customers, they’ll walk and the company will suffer, at which point the shareholders will act. Have some faith in their common sense.

Private corp’s (pre-IPO’s and others who don’t offer their stock for sale) absolutely are not answerable to anyone other than their customers.

B. Executive bonuses/stock options etc. shall be be identical to the workers as a percentage of base compensation.

See above.

If the workers don’t like the deal they’re getting, they can walk. Companies have to compete with one another for talent, and must pay accordingly. Individual employees can negotiate salary and benefits at hire. Again, it’s not anyone else’s business.

Your heart is in the right place, but I think you’ve missed the mark on a few of these.

Like or Dislike: 0  0

Donald, that’s a rather blanket assumption, alluding that I wanted to discard all amendments.

Sorry if I made an assumption based on what you wrote specifically.

we need to be stripping away all these revisionist “improvements” that came from “out of the box”, social justice intentions (emphisis added)

Like or Dislike: 0  0

Prior to the 14th Ammendment, the decision as to whom could vote was a matter left to the individual states. So yes, even here, we can see that the attempt to correct a social injustice that you have deemed worthy created another injustice. In fact until the 14th ammendment the Federal government had no power at all to determine who could or could not vote.

Getting it right is tough business.

Like or Dislike: 0  0

I might remind you of your own title to this post… “laws” you’d like to see. Not Congressional amendments.

Last time I checked, the Constitution was the highest “law” of the land. The title did not exclude the Constitution. I do not take modifying the highest law of the land lightly either and merely making “suggestions” will never alter the fact that it takes a great deal to change the document.

As much as I’d like to have the faith in our court system that you do, it is often that very court system through activist judges that has usurped our freedoms and infringed on the rights of congress. How many generations must live under the tyranny of unjust and unconstitutional laws before a challenge to such laws winds its way through the court system at a cost that would be out of reach to the ordinary citizen. When I “suggest” that legislation be reviewed by the court system for constitionality before it goes into effect, you claim that such an action would clog the docket. Nothing I suggested would preclude the individual from further challenging the constitutionality of legislation on a case by case basis based on the actual enforcement of such legislation. My suggestion would merely create a precursory check on legislative oversteps.

Perhaps we are both deluding ourselves. As you state, it is a very expensive proposition to seek redress through the courts and maybe only the interests of the uber rich will ever be addressed. On another thread, there is a situation concerning bussing and the issue has dragged for 30+ years through the court system and this is not unusual. The cost I believe was in excess of 260 million dollars.

Buying influence and congressional elections might seem cheap to the special interests. My first 3 suggestions in the original post were designed to look at that injustice. Were they perfect solutions, maybe not, but they were a point from which to begin debate. Do you honestly think that congress itself would even consider debating such measures? We now have the executive branch, bribing congressmen/women for their votes with the recipients bragging about the price which they recieved. There is a cancer in our country which I believe is in part a function of having an elected nobility that utilize the power of incumbency to create the most lopsided enviornment from which they can perpetualize their grip on power.

The Constitution says we have the right to property and that the government has a right to tax property, but when written only property owners could vote. Ben Franklin in his wisdom said “When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” Our system has exempted so many from the payment of taxes and the voters have elected so many that are willing to buy their votes with payment from those that do pay taxes that I believe Ben Franklin’s statement is very near coming true.

But, on the other hand, would it be such a great injustice to allow people that have paid property taxes for thirty years to have their homes free and clear of any further encumbrances so that they might be able to live out their years without having to work till the very end of their days to pay for the right to live in their own homes without fear of liens on their property and the threat of public auction to pay such taxes?

Like or Dislike: 0  0

BTW, as a tidbit of history, the 19th Amendment, women’s suffrage, became necessary for the reference to punish any denial of suffrage to “male” inhabitants in the 2nd clause of the 14th amendment. Prior to that, women were never prohibited the vote by any language in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights / original ten amendments. At that time, it was just a societal given.

However the specific gender language in that amendment actually resulted in the Constitutional denial of of the vote to women for over 50 years. Prior to that, were there a male barrister inclined to take such an unpopular case thru the system, it would have been hard pressed to find legitimacy in that denial prior to the 14th.

Like or Dislike: 0  0

Donald, that’s a rather blanket assumption, alluding that I wanted to discard all amendments. Certainly there are those I agree with… specifically those that clarified the original principles of freedom and pursuit of happiness to all citizens… i.e. voting rights and prohibition of discrimination based on gender or race.

There are others that started the assumption of powers never intended. Prohibition, the 18th Amendment, for instance and it’s repeal in the 21st. A stellar example of nanny “good intent” far beyond the scope of the Founders. Nor am I fond of the 16th Amendment, expanding the powers of taxation.

The revisionist improvements that I genuinely object to are the delegation of powers that Congress assumes when it tasks sundry agencies for implementation and specifics/details of their laws. A great example of this is what is happening with O’healthcare. Devil in the regulation details. It is in these agency regulations that the questionable acts of government overstepping it’s bounds come into play.

I might remind you of your own title to this post… “laws” you’d like to see. Not Congressional… sorry, brain fart… *Constitutional* amendments. Amending the Constitution is not an endeavor I believe should be taken lightly. There has only been 33 proposals in our history, of which on 27 have resulted in ratification. Yet our Congress averages (if you believe Wiki) around 200 attempts annually to “improve” our foundation – most of which never make it out of committee (thank heavens…). This means that the idea that “debate” doesn’t occur on Congressional “improvements” is quite mistaken.

However most of the proposals you have yourself cited, most especially the reference to property taxation, provide yet another “band aid” or abuse of a Congressional power, achieved by a very liberal interpretation of a Constitutional amendment.

Which brings me to your “any suggestions”, comment. I made my suggestion. Our system allows for laws to be challenged in our court system. Surely you don’t believe that Congress is simply going to change their mind and yield their increased powers. A perfect example of this is the ACLU/Gitmo assault on the DTA and MCA.

It’s an expensive proposition and highly unlikely to be handled by anyone with their eyes on their wallets first. It is, however, the singlemost effective way of slapping Congress down. If you have the bones for a good enough oral argument before SCOTUS to attack the very foundations of a law… i.e. is government health care mandates Constitutional… that precedent comes in very handy for other similar assumptions of power. And it starts clearing da sheeeet off the books.

Like or Dislike: 0  0

Maybe more and more foreclosures is a good thing, then of course we’ll have a higher percentage of people that own nothing and pay no property tax but still vote on the right to tax those that do own property. I’m sure liberal local government officials seeking to expand the role of local government would jump for joy.

If I’m not mistaken voting was once limited to property owners and who could vote was left up to the states. It wasn’t until the 1830′s that property requirements were abolished. It wasn’t until 1868 and the 14th ammendment before every male 21 and older got the vote. And not until 1920 and the passage of the 19th ammendment that women were given the right to vote. So let us strip away all of those ammendments and get back to what our founders wrote into the constitution in their infinite wisdom…. Those pesky revisionist constitutional ammendments that did address social injustice must go. What say you? Oh.. you’ve already answered that in your previous post.

we need to be stripping away all these revisionist “improvements” that came from “out of the box”, social justice intentions.

Like or Dislike: 0  0

The cure isn’t more regulation to cure bad regulation and law. It’s to force a Congress to revert back to founding priniciples and strip away the power they’ve absconded in ever increasing increments since the New Deal.

Any suggestons on how to accomplish such a task?

I think the founders’ simplicity and strict limitation of powers cannot be improved upon, and that we need to be stripping away all these revisionist “improvements” that came from “out of the box”, social justice intentions.

Does that mean we should abandon the contitutional ammendments passed since our founding or is it possible that there are improvements that can be made and the reason that our Founding Fathers in their great wisdom gave us a mechanism to do just that?

If there are improvements that could be made, isn’t a good place to start, the debate process?

Like or Dislike: 0  0