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elchief

You know what I'd like to see? Fewer total laws in America.

The law is so complex in America, that you probably break several laws a day, without knowing.

And it costs law makers little to make new ones, and it's a pain to get rid of old ones.

I'd love to see

a) a huge clean up of out-dated and unnecessary laws.

b) then a cap on the total number of laws. If they want to add a new one, they need to repeal an old one.

(Allow for very minor growth over time as society becomes more complex).

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So what you're saying is the law needs a good refactoring? :)

That is precisely what is necessary. Businesses have to continually cut complexity to keep costs down and stay competitive, but for a government, especially the federal government of the richest nation in history, the costs of steadily rising complexity are low, and personal consequences minor. Often times complexity is retained or expanded unnecessarily purely for political reasons, such as representatives of districts refusing to close redundant military bases that the Pentagon doesn't even want for fear of losing their seat in the next election.

Very apropos username btw, the law could use a good "rm -rf /" :)

One of the biggest problems in our government was never implementing a way to refactor without grand upheaval. Also they didn't really think about scale very well and campaign funding restrictions. I feel we are in a place right now where special interest is more important than public.

What significant law do you think is outdated and unnecessary, the repeal of which wouldn't be controversial? Let's limit discussion to the federal level since we're talking about a Presidential candidate.

That's the thing; we're in love with our code, even though we all know it's awful and needs to be refactored. No one has the time or motivation to do it, because we're all burnt out and trying to constantly push features :)

Why the restriction on "significant" laws? Most laws are significant to some people, and a vast morass of insignificant laws is arguably worse than a single law that affects everyone, since they greatly increase the cost of doing anything without hiring expensive counsel and hoping that the courts and IRS will agree with his/her interpretation of your particular case.

If someone is spending money trying to comply with an outdated law, I'd call that significant. If there is a provision in the tax code that talks about how to properly depreciate horse-drawn carriages, that's not really increasing anyone's cost of compliance.

That's the thing. It wouldn't matter if repealing a law was controversial. They'd have to repeal one, if they wanted a new one. They'd obviously start with the least controversial...

Yes it does. A law that some people continue to support is not a valid example of a law that is "outdated and unnecessary." Blue laws and dry laws, for example. You may disagree with them substantively, but they're not just cruft someone forgot to take out.

I like to see a law or amendment that evens the playing field by making it unlawful for government officials and officers to lie. A federal officer can lie to you but you can't lie to them. I think that's BS.

Absolutely. I've always thought all laws, sans the constitution & bill of rights, should be wiped out every so many years. That would also include the tax code.

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