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I had a thought recently: What if we voted for policies instead of people? A bunch of policies are put forward, we vote on those, then we choose people to implement them/oversee their implementation. I'm sure this falls down under any level of analysis, but as someone who has avoided politics all his life, it seems soooooo ridiculously silly to hold this popularity contest / PR event we call elections.

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The problem is when the voters see a government with expenses > revenues and send someone in to implement:

1) Increase government spending on services by 10%

2) Reduce taxes by 10%

3) Run a balanced budget. No borrowing or tricks.

The politicians need to have some level of freedom to deal with impossible voter demands and then you get back to voting for people who are most likely to make decisions the voter likes.

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