It's a government by rich owners for rich owners and it's working as designed
And none of you poors can do anything about it.
I mean, that's most governments
We pay more in taxes than the welfare states, have less representation... Seems like there was something in US History about taxation without representation.
Secede. That'll teach 'em.
Honestly of all the states, California probably has the best chance at seceding successfully.
At this point I wouldn't be surprised if California's GDP has surpassed that of the UK, which would make it the fifth largest economy in the world if it were to secede.
One person, one vote.
In Germany we have two votes, one for a local representative and one for a party. In itself it's a pretty decent system
Yet, the local representatives in the pairlaments (Bundestag, Landtag) represent districts of approximately the same population number. Thus, in our first chamber, no vote has more value than another.
But in the Bundesrat, which comes closest to the US senate, states with higher population number do have more representatives than small states, which weakens the inequality of votes, yet still one vote from Bremen (population 700k, 3 representatives) has 13 times as much value as one from NRW (p. 18 mio, 6 rep.).
I'm not really happy with our democracy. It always feels like our say stops at the ballot box, we need more direct democracy.
Eight years ago I would have agreed. But, I think we've demonstrated the short comings of putting authority for our most important policies in the hands of your average citizen.
I don't have a better answer, mind you. Hopefully someone way further right on the "average citizen" bell curve has better ideas.
The German system is what the US would have been if they would have regularly updated their constitution.
It was largely modelled after the US, with bugfixes applied. It definitely has issues but isn't remotely as fucked as a partisan 2-party system.
This is an example of why the House of Representatives also exists.
Except CA isn't fairly represented in the House either. CA would need 68 representatives just to have the same representation as Wyoming.
And say, shouldn't the states that have a huge economy and bring in more tax dollars have more of a say than the red welfare states that suck up those tax dollars? Just sayin...
CA would need 68 representatives just to have the same representation as Wyoming.
Every state is guaranteed one representative, and then otherwise by population. Wyoming has one representative.
Thanks for explaining how the system was rigged.
And say, shouldn’t the states that have a huge economy and bring in more tax dollars have more of a say than the red welfare states that suck up those tax dollars?
By that logic, a rich person should have more say in government?
No, they don't generate the tax dollars
States are not people and should not be given any extra power simply for being a state.
It's not a question of should. They do.
I disagree with the economy part. Fuck that. Your value isn't described by how much wealth you generate.
Republicans are (or were) hypocritical with their talk of fiscal responsibility while representing states that take in more money than they give back. This should be pointed out if they ever return to that argument. This isn't to say poor people from republican states (or anywhere else) are less valuable though. It's only hypocrisy that's wrong, not trying to help lower income people that's wrong.
shouldn't the states that have a huge economy and bring in more tax dollars have more of a say
Wtf, dude? Can you make something even more american-sounding?
The house were any given rep represents between 550k and close to a million constituents?
There's no need for a bicameral system. It was a system designed to capitulate to wealthy interests and nothing more.
It is as it needed to be to get the states to sign on. But times have changed, and it needs to as well
Don't forget, those senators translate to electoral college votes.
Them plus the house reps, which are artificially capped at a low number, again benefitting the low population states
Don't worry the House balances it*
*Until they froze the House because they couldn't fit anymore chairs...
This is where the issue is. The Senate works as intended, it is meant to give the States equal power so a State like California can't just dictate what Delaware does. The House is supposed to represent based on population. The arbitrarily low cap has turned it into a second pseudo-Senate.
The House should have something like 1600 members to properly represent States. Every House seat should represent roughly the same amount of people, but that's not how it works now because of the limit. Two Representatives from different states can represent massively different sized populations.
You're correct that the senate was designed not to represent people and give the number of states more power. To say that isn't an issue though is pretty fucked up. It was literally done this way to get slave states to sign on, giving them power to protect the institution of slavery.
States are made up. People are not. Only one of these should have power in a democracy. States can have their own laws that effect themselves, but federal policy should be dictated by the will of the people, not the will of arbitrarily drawn borders.
Representative democracy is unstable and corruptible by design and it can't be anything else.
They came up with the best thing they could agree on at the time. They did not intend on it to become sacred, untouchable, and without the ability to change with the times, and sometimes we have changed it. Just not quite enough times.
They came up with the best thing they could
Bad people with bad motives create bad systems of control.
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