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Comment by PhantomGremlin | Hacker News Reader

half the population ... oblige the other half

I'd love to see an experiment where democracy was modified. People should get multiple votes, proportional not to their income or their wealth, but to the amount of taxes they paid the previous year.

There would need to be some sort of limit. E.g. nobody gets less than 1 vote nor more than 10.

But something like that would create what some call "skin in the game". Those people who pay the most money will have the most influence on government.

It's been proposed before, but never implemented AFAIK. Still, "the usual stuff isn't working". Why not some experimenting?

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So in other words you think that the wealthy do not yet have enough representation in government?

That's quite a bold claim.

Like I said, an "experiment". Really a "thought experiment" since I don't see this being constitutional anywhere in the USA, and I'm not familiar enough with other countries to know where it could be tried.

Here's something simpler: Look at your previous year Federal tax return. If it shows that you paid even $1 in taxes, you get a vote in Federal elections. If not, then no vote. Same with State taxes.

Simple enough? Or would that still give too much representation to "the wealthy"?

Edit: I suppose one could voluntarily pay $1 in taxes just to get a vote. But this would probably be considered a "poll tax", and that has definitely been ruled unconstitutional in the USA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_tax_%28United_States%29

>Here's something simpler: Look at your previous year Federal tax return. If it shows that you paid even $1 in taxes, you get a vote in Federal elections. >Simple enough? Or would that still give too much representation to "the wealthy"?

No, but then again it's not substantially different to what we already have, so I don't see the point.

WTF is up with your quotation marks anyway?

According to one article, 46% of US households didn't pay any Federal income taxes in 2011.[1]

That was the observation that got Romney in trouble. If those people weren't voting, that would be a very substantially different to what we have now. E.g. quite likely Romney would be president. (Let's not debate if Romney would have done better than Obama. Too much of a tangent.)

You're absolutely right about the "quotation marks". :) I went way overboard. Please accept an upvote as an apology.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/09/18/w...

Edit: I forgot that, to a considerable minority of people, Romney and Obama aren't substantially different. It's easy to think Republican vs Democrat is the entirety of the political spectrum, but it's not.

This is just begs the question of what the tax policy should be. If mainly income is taxed, then the rich get (proportionally) more votes. If mainly consumption is taxed, then everyone else (those who spend their income rather than save/invest it) gets more votes.

Now, let's extend your idea. Everyone can vote with their dollars for what they want to have in their lives! That way, no one is forced to use products or services someone else imposes on them. Now wouldn't that be the fairest system of all?

How revolutionary! Will be cool to try it for real at least once! Pure capitalism is the form of government that haven't try yet. New Zealand is the closest. The US with 38% of the GDP being public spending hardly/halfly qualify.

I've tried a few times to suggest the idea that people should have more say in which sections/parts of the government their tax money goes to. Similar to the HumbleBundle, with of course the "total tax amount" not being an amount people can change at will. I.e. they still pay taxes, just that they determine where to put more/less.

I.e. let's assume all of government is composed of:

Welfare

Education

War/Military

Police/Protection

By default, individuals start off giving in 25% into each bucket. You know, you could even put limits... e.g. "no more than 70% into any single bucket" and "no less than 10% for any single bucket".

These are just examples, obviously it's not perfect and/or ideal. But the fact that in our modern/digital age we haven't even considered and tried such a thing smacks of absolute hypocrisy. We don't "govern" ourselves in any sort of remote way, and to tell us so by virtue of "noble democracy" is an outright smack in the face if you ask me.

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