i think elected officials should be reauired to publish their tax returns. they'd be less likely to use and protect tax havens or loopholes if their usage of such things was publicized. the short-term consequence would be a predictable popularity hit, but the long-term consequence would be an improvement in the justice, efficiency, and comprehensibility of government.   i don't think publicly funding elections is a partisan stance. i think it's bipartisan... but that's not the same as thinking if would be popular. i think it would piss off advocates of government efficiency. still, imagine if campaign donations were forbidden, but everyone had vouchers for donating tax money to politician campaigns. i think it'd be cool... in a counterfactual world with a huge budget surplus. kind of a pissy idea in our real world of perpetual deficits. i think republicans take steaming dumps on the budget because they're paid by rich people to cripple the government.   america's government isn't eager to challenge the local aristocracy with anti-corruption initiatives.   if the economy were less broken, people making over 100k would easily save enough to be millionaires. in the economy we actually have, the threshold our society considers high-income needs to be pushed a little farther into the six-figure range.
United States