How To End Partisan Political Bickering

If I run for President in 2020 I would talk only about non-partisan issues:

- Election reform, specifically, getting rid of the electoral college and gerrymandering.

- Tax reform, specifically, replacing the income tax with excise taxes, and giving taxpayers a voice in how their taxes are spent.

- Deregulation, especially of medical and allied health professions.

- Other health care reform, such as encouraging people to write living wills.

I would avoid talking about divisive issues, including guns, abortion, and gay marriage.

But look again at these issues and you’ll see that we can work on them at the state level. There’s a word voters should know: devolution, meaning pushing power down from the federal government to the states, and then from the states to the counties. Add this to my Presidential platform:

- Devolve power from the federal government to the states.

85% of counties lack a hospital or clinic that provides abortions. 85% of counties could outlaw abortion and there would be zero impact on women’s lives. Devolve the issue from the federal level down to the counties and it stops being controversial.

Gun control similarly becomes less controversial as it devolves. The right gun laws for Wyoming are different from the right gun laws for the south side of Chicago. What’s controversial is trying to make a one-size-fits-all gun policy for the entire country.

Gerrymandering is a state issue. States could choose to split their electoral votes, eliminating the phenomenon of candidates losing the popular vote yet winning the election. States, not the federal government, regulate professions, from doctors to hair braiders and bartenders, increasing costs to consumers and stopping low-income people from getting jobs. (Milton Friedman famously pointed out that the people lobbying states to license professions aren’t consumers wanting to protect their health or safety, but are professionals wanting to protect their incomes.)

A Planet Money podcast suggested that healthcare costs could be cut, and family anguish reduced, if everyone had a living will. This was done in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on a local level. No need for federal or state politicians to get involved. La Crosse now has the lowest health care costs in the United States, about half the national average.

This leaves tax reform as the lone federal issue. I would increase taxes on alcohol and tobacco. (Cannabis should be devolved to the states.) I would implement a BTU tax, which would reduce climate change while raising money for the government. I would make these new taxes popular with two ideas:

- Give taxpayers a choice. You can choose between paying income taxes or paying excise taxes. If you choose to pay income taxes, you’d get a card that entitles you to lower prices for gasoline, alcohol, cigarettes, etc.

- If you choose to pay income taxes, your tax return would include a form for voicing what you want to spend your taxes on. Education or the military? Infrastructure or Social Security? At first, this would be advisory, not binding on legislators. But perhaps in a few years 50% of income taxes could be spent as taxpayers wish. Giving taxpayers choices and decision-making power will change taxpayers’ feelings about taxes.

Let’s change how senators are elected. Instead of voting by state for individuals, let’s vote nationally for parties. Each party would have a list of candidates. If the Republicans get 40% of the vote, the top 40 names on their list go to the Senate. If the Greens get 2% of the vote, their top two candidates are seated. Within five years there’ll be a dozen parties in the Senate. The current dysfunctionality of our two party system is because modernization (esp. the Internet and social media) has enabled Americans to find their tribes, and there are more than two tribes in this country. A lot more than two tribes. The Republican Party has painfully realized that representing the interests of both wealthy bankers and poor farmers is really hard. Democrats are trying to represent Silicon Valley billionaires and the Latino immigrants who clean their bathrooms, not to mention dozens of other groups. If the Senate had a dozen or more parties, passing legislation might not be easier, but voters would be happier with their parties.

And one more point. The New Yorker’s profile of Angela Merkel (December 1, 2014) is worth reading. You say that you don’t know anything about Germany’s Chancellor? The de facto President of Europe and the most powerful woman in the world? You don’t know what her policies are, and you’ve never seen her starring in a reality television show? Yes, and that’s the point. She doesn’t have policy ideas, or at least stays quiet about her opinions. She avoids the celebrity lifestyle. She listens to each side in a controversy and helps them to find middle ground. That’s what a president’s job should be. Bill Clinton did that. Hillary didn’t, but instead thought she had the right answer to every question. Americans should stop voting for presidential candidates with strong opinions, loud voices, and outsized personalities. We need those politicians in Congress but not in the White House. Let’s elect a quiet President who listens more than he or she talks.