Mantus

I argue that the US government is broken and I don't see any possibility of things getting better.

I'm a Canadian citizen living in Costa Rica. Both countries are heavily influenced by US events. The whole world has it's hand on America's pulse because if this country falls apart the global political, financial and social landscape will change drastically. I'm guilty of following US politics more than my own. The more I learn about the current state of affairs in Washington the more I believe that US politics is broken beyond repair and Washing is no longer capable of governing it's country.

As an example lets compare three healthcare systems. The following numbers are from WHO 2006.

US life expectancy is 75 and 80 for men and women. Health care costs $6,714 per person annually or 15.3% of GDP.

Canadian numbers are 78/83 with a cost of $3,672 or 10% GDP.

Costa Rica is at 76/80 with only $743 spent per person or 7% GDP.


Both the Canadian and Costa Rican healthcare systems are far from perfect but they are still superior the the US system. Clearly the US system is broken. Clearly it requires a complete overhaul. Yet neither the Democrats nor GOP are willing to make drastic changes. I don't know how many times I've read a conservative arguments about how a social healthcare system is inefficient and how in an ideal world private healthcare will be cheaper and better for all.

This isn't an ideal world. If I'm running a company and my options are between a not-so perfect solution or continuing to pay twice as much for a service the “corporate” thing to do is implement a flawed system rather than do nothing at all and continue to bleed money.

Yet the government has continued to do nothing about health care for decades. The US political system is completely paralyzed by ideological quagmire. The outdated socialist bogyman and capitalism/free market dogma is preventing people from using simple logic.

GOP is like the Catholic church. They are willing to let their country get raped for the sake of ideological posturing. Democrats are impotent and lacking any direction. They are all talk at best; equality culpable at worst. This leaves the US in a precarious position.

As another example of this I look at the recent financial crisis and how it was handled. If I'm to believe my sources the system was never fixed but simply reset with hope of things going better this time around. We see that the government is incapable of running an economy while being dependent on it. When a country's government is incapable of benefiting it's people (health care) while being of benefit to it's corporations (bailouts) it has become a corporate socialist state.

Your thoughts would be much appreciated. I still have much to learn.

Cheers!

Jinn

This post has a few things to address. from the actual subject line to healthcare to whether or not the two are related.

So I'll start simply and say that I tend to dislike the Catholic church, conservatives, weak Democrats, and the polarization.

That said, I'm not sure life expectancy is the best measure of health care system quality. Could there be a connection with lower infant mortality rates and lower life expectancy? It is, after all, an average. If we keep more children alive who would have otherwise died, I reckon they will die sooner than those who weren't, etc. Perhaps more metrics should be used to decide whether one health care system is better or worse?

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RogueGypsy

I'm not sure what Healthcare has to do with politics. Healthcare is the business of healing and politics is the art of bullshit. The two should remain separate. I'm not going to start a Healthcare debate here, I'll just say there's a better way to do things and no one in the world has a great system. They could all be better.

As to the title, I doubt it. Remove all donated money from the equation, put all players on the same field with the same tools, add term limits, eliminate retirement plans for elected officials, prosecute for misleading statements and all would even out. It won't happen overnight but if campaigns are more like a job interview and less like a Broadway production, we should be able to elect some officials who will do good. Government should not be a career, it should be a service to the nation.

To clean up the mess we're in now, we need to hold those responsible, accountable. Try and prosecute them. Enact laws banning 'special interest' from government. Enact and enforce much stronger environmental laws. Abolish the Infernal revenue disservice and establish a flat tax rate. Reform tort law, rescind the health care bill and start over.

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Derwood

Yes, it's broken beyond repair. The only way to reform it is to rely on the corrupt to clean it up themselves, which will never happen.

The Health Care argument is actually a good analogy for our government; both are now crass "for profit" institutions that don't give a shit for those they are supposed to serve.

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WhoaitsZ

In its state it is beyond repair. You can't clean up corruption with corruption.

I do believe we have some officials who are not corrupt but they get squashed like a bug. The woman who warned Clinton for years about the real estate crises that hit us, for example, was thoroughly ruined and demonized.

You get real people trying to make a difference like Kusinich and they become a joke.

As for health care not being political all I can say is 'wtf, seriously?'. Our whole country has been arguing over health care for years and has had our gov in turmoil and it isn't political? Is education, war and our real estate crises not political either?

The problem with our health care is very, very easy. We treat it as a business. Health care and education should never be a business. Our taxes can easily pay for both. As for us costing more, to Obama's credit he has been saying over and over and over how we are really doing a terrible and flat out stupid job because we pay much, much more for far less. Then again Obama caves in like a damned wimp.

I think if we cannot let people vote on what becomes law or get rid of the old politicians we are fucked.

EventHorizon

i don't think its beyond repair.

i think we need to go back to the reaganomics (i think thats the right term anyways) and employ the masses of people collecting welfare to construct public works. i don't think another new highway system is needed but (for the sake of conserving space) we started useful tunnel systems or massive greenhouses capable of turning a turbine or two with the heat produced.

right now social security is costing the government more than any other program, even more than the DoD. i think the social security program is great, but what i don't like is the welfare program. i think the people who are able to kick back for 99 weeks without a care in the world knowing that they're getting paid need to earn that money provided by taxpayers by working for the taxpayers. road repair, vocational education, farming, there are so many projects that America could get a great return on instead of just throwing money at unemployed people and hoping that they find something to do at the end of 99 weeks.

the first thing i ever learned about economics was that it isn't about money, its about making decisions and the first law of economics is that people respond to incentives. do people on welfare have any incentive to work? nope. Even if the labor isn't manual labor but rather assembling staplers or cleaning computers or just doing door to door surveys for the government, people should be made to earn their welfare.

/rant

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Quote:

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Cynthetiq

If we keep this up, we'll all be broken and broke.

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aceventura3

I am aware of the controversy involving verification of the quote below to Alexander Tyler, but I think it is applicable to the circumstance in the US and is responsive to the question presented in this thread.

Alexander Fraser Tytler Quotes

Obama and Democrats play into more and more unsustainable populist promises. There are growing numbers who are becoming vocal and active against the phenomenon outlined by Tyler, specifically those in the Tea Party movement. I think 2012 (kinda ironic with the Myan calendar, 2012, prediction being the end of the world), will tell the tale of the future of this country. If Obama's false populist message prevails, the US has no real future. If the Tea Party, taxed enough already, message prevails I expect another few hundred years before the question confronts the nation a second time.

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dc_dux

Reaganomics, the core of which was massive tax cuts with the assumption that it would "trickle down" and stimulate the economy. It failed. Reagan economic policies added more to the US debt that every president before him combined....only second to G Bush in total contribution to the debt.

FRD's Works Program Administration was more like what you suggested...public works spending on infrastructure and creating jobs. BTW, in case you hadnt noticed, your suggestions for infrastructure investment to create jobs and investments in developing alternative energy programs were at the core of Obama's stimulus program.

There is an easy fix for Social Security. Raise the level of income that is subject to the payroll tax. Now if your income is over $106K, there is no FICA tax on that income, so, in effect, if you make over $106 K, you pay an increasingly lower percentage of income in FICA taxes as income rises.

Your comments about welfare are old stereotypes. The welfare program was significantly improved by Clinton and the Republican Congress in the late 90s, with stricter requirements on working while receiving money and limits on how long one can stay on welfare. As a result, the number of people on welfare had been on the decline....until the deep recession started in 08.

As to the question of the US being broken beyond repair.

I dont think so. My concern is not as much with the system that can be repaired with tweaks as with the unwillingness of those who make policy to compromise.

And therein lies the problem. If the US is broken to any degree, it is because the extremists, with the loudest voices, are having a far greater influence than the vat majority who prefer practical solutions over rigid ideology.

---------- Post added at 03:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:17 PM ----------

I would suggest the highest level of of public assistance is due to two factors..

1) the post WW II baby boomers beginning to drawing from Social Security and Medicare

2) the onset in 08 of the worst recession in more than 75 years, with resulting increases in people utilizing the social safety net programs for a short period of time.

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roachboy

i think they're ground to paralysis. it seems that is a symptom of fading empires--driven by fear but without a coherent way of naming what's really causing it---the collapse of empire itself---trapped in fantasies about former glory, unwilling to face the future because they cannot face the present because they are unable to face the past.

the dynamic particular to fading empires is performed in an exemplary manner by the tea party.


the united states is in the binds it is in because of 40 years of neo-liberal domination. "reaganomics"---"free market capitalism"---"voodoo economics"---"the washington consensus"---blah blah blah. an epic failure by any rational standards.

now we are faced with ideological paralysis in part because there's nothing that's been advance to push neo-liberalism out of the way.


so there's miasma.

i don't see a way forward from the center.
i don't see any reason to compromise with conservatives because it is the ideology they espouse that's landed us here in the first place.
but they remain a very well-funded, well-organized and effective meme-generating machine, the right. so the corpse of conservatism continues to exert influence despite its track record of failure.


sometimes it is a bit depressing to look too hard at where the united states finds itself.

but some empires collapse very slowly. others in a few years. there's no way to tell in advance which trajectory any given fading empire is on.

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EventHorizon

thats what i was thinking of, thank you

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Does Marcellus Wallace have the appearance of a female canine? Then for what reason did you attempt to copulate with him as if he were a female canine?

Quote:

Originally Posted by canuckguy Pretty simple really, do your own thing as long as it does not fuck with anyone's enjoyment of life.

Tully Mars

Given that neither side is willing to make any real changes the trajectory is likely to be rather sharp. The latest budget battle where the Fed nearly shut down was over what amounted to less then 1% of the budget. If they can't make more rational use of their time then that I see little hope... or change.

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aceventura3

"Welfare state" policies are at the root of economic failure.

Americans depend more on federal aid than ever - USATODAY.com

Poor people do not generate economic growth or drive standard of living improvements - the "rich" do that. If Obama has the right plan, when is it going to start working? Obama's class warfare approach has severely hurt what would have been a normal recovery from a recession. Reagan had it right.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

roachboy

empirical reality be damned.
record of massive economic failure be damned.
reagan was right.

it'd be amazing were it not so predictably stupid.

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Willravel

The government of a democracy is only as good as the voting public makes it. The government isn't broken, the people are. Not enough people vote and not nearly enough people are well-informed. This is our fault.

Derwood

I don't entirely buy that. A politician can lie through his teeth to get elected, and then we're stuck with them for 2-6 years with no way to stop them. If you do your due diligence, vote with your brain, but then your candidate does the exact opposite of what you've elected them to do, you can't do a damn thing until the next election cycle.

Voting doesn't fix the massively corrupt core of Washington politics

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aceventura3

Are you saying Reagan is responsible for our current unemployment rate?
Gas prices?
Foreclosure rates?
Healthcare inflation?
Gas prices?
Three wars?
Devalued dollar?
Record numbers living off of government?
Record debt?
A surging China economy at the expense of the US economy?
Record spending?

And a bunch of other problems?

When Reagan was President we actually saw the economy and conditions improve. I am, and I think you are, old enough to remember the 1970's and the changes that occurred in Reagan's 8 years, leading to the boom in the 90's.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

roachboy

that is a structure problem tho, derwood. what it reveals is the lack of democracy in the american system, in which people are politically free one day every 2 4 or 6 years. it's possible to do recalls, but these have become more about party-dominated organization and their power to get out signatures.

the right has been talking against democracy whenever they are out of power.
and it's also clear that privatization is not about efficiency, but rather is about reducing spaces of exposure/accountability to the public.
so conservatism in its american form is really quite opposed to democracy.

but i think there should be more of it, not less.

the problem is that extending or making more flexible/responsive the us democratic system would require---and this without question---a basic transformation of the infotainment system. it'd probably require a nationalization of a lot of it. i don't personally see the idea as a bad thing. the devil of course would be in the details.

but it's obvious that private corporations cannot be trusted to delivery high quality information, and it is also obvious that for a more flexible/responsive democracy high quality information is fundamental.

this lack of good information is the core of american soft authoritarian politics.
that soft authoritarian politics is the core of the ideological paralysis.[COLOR="DarkSlateGray"]

---------- Post added at 09:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:06 PM ----------
==================================================

the reagan legacy:

the largest transfer of wealth into the top 1% in terms of income ever recorded.
dismantling of the american manufacturing sector
the refusal to take the military off cold-war footing
the expansion of the national-security state
illegal wars as normal operating procedure
union-busting.


reagan "cured" inflation by removing from its index the things that caused it.
the beginning of the neo-liberal fraud---statistics became an instrument of ideology.

read david stockman's book on the reagan budget process.
learn the history of your own political movement.


i'm not interested by your list of problems you in your amnesia would prefer to associated entirely with obama----->all 11 elements you list have direct causes from the bush period. and cowboy george talked the reagan-y talk. that's why you supported him.

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it make you sick.

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Baraka_Guru

When are the Democrats gonna return to the centre-left?

When are you guys gonna get social democrats?

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Mantus

You are both right. So how can it be fixed?

Maybe the only way to fix federal politics is for people to focus on local politics.

I don't know about you guys but as someone who grew up in a big city: local politics was rarely discussed in my social circles. I don't think I've ever known who my local councilman was. One reason for this is the anti-social-keep-to-yourself big city mindset. The other culprit is the media who are often national in scope and only cover local stories when there is blood involved.

The more I think about it the more I believe that federal representation can never work. It's too far removed from voters. Americans are capable of making intelligent and educated choices about their elected officials. The real problem is that they are being forced to make a choice on a subject that only those with many years of education can fully understand. Yet the media keeps trying to push a bigger picture. Thanks to networks like CNN there is even global politics to consider. There is nothing wrong with knowing what's going on in Libya but if you are like me and know more about a country on the other side of the world than what's going on in your own back yard something has gone terribly wrong. This is where the foundation of democracy falls apart.

Local politics isn't clean. It's as petty and corrupt as any other institution but at least you can shake hands with the person you elected into office. You can ask your neighbor about credibility of a candidate. Local politicians are tied to their neighborhoods. It's harder to steal someone's tax dollars when your kids go to school together.

We can't fix the White House. It's too far removed from our influence but local politics is within a voter's reach and maybe this is where education and information needs to be aimed.

Cynthetiq

there is plenty of local coverage for local politics and many locals still screw their neighbors. hell, even those non profits screw their neighbors. it just happens to be that sometimes people suck.

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aceventura3

Democratic Party controlled congress during a portion of Bush term had nothing to do with what you describe as Bush period problems?

A Democratic Party super majority in Congress with Obama as President had nothing to do with the problems?

Obama ran on a theme of change, he won, when does he take responsibility for anything in your view?

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Willravel

Doesn't this assume people aren't aware that politicians are dishonest, though? I'm not sure I buy that everyone's that naive. And I don't think it takes a rocket surgeon to realize that looking at a politician's record is a lot more useful than listening to his or her campaign pledges when it comes to the decision to vote for someone.

roachboy

i dont think it makes sense to abandon the federal level and focus on the local in anything like an exclusive way. first because the federal level is where in the contemporary capitalist framework that basic policy directions are determined and on that basis quite significant resources allocated---without which state and local governments would implode in a hurry. second because of the nature of major media coverage. the focus on the Person of the Leader, often walking into or out of a hotel of office building (because the entrance shot is a basic element in the vocabulary of pretend-youre-there) would make a royalist blush. there would need to be an accompanying shift in media. it's entirely possible to effect such a shift but it'd have to be strategized and attended to.

the consequences of not attending sufficiently to packaging is one of the main stories of the obama administration. that in a context of continuous reactionary hatchet-jobs...well, you see the results of this. i'm not saying this is the only problem...but if the right is entirely oriented around "winning" news cycles and the administration isn't really playing the game, there'll be a period in which the administration will seem to be moving backward. it's an illusion created by different media strategies.

but the point is that attending to this transform seems to me important.

personally, i can't imagine anything short of social-democracy getting the united states out of the conservative-engendered clusterfuck it is in materially.

the ideological problem is more fundamental. what i would maintain is that if the united states were a democracy in any serious sense and if debate amongst the polity was meaningful and serious critique something indulged in, then neo-liberalism would be pulverized simply by being held to account for its own disastrous legacy. that the right has anything to talk about is in itself an indication of the dysfunction of american democracy.

and there are others.

i think structural change is possible. but it'll take something a whole lot more thought-out and radical than seems possible so long as the illusion persists that it makes any sense at all to govern from the center.

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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

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ASU2003

When they change the name to Christian Socialists (yeah, separation of church & state, but put the name Christian in front and people would look into it.)... The type of Christians who don't care what you do in your bedroom, and work more on helping the poor and disadvantaged.

This is pretty close to the situation I think. I would add that the GOP does things to benefit themselves and the corporations, with the hope that the rest of us will work hard or find a job.


Economic theory is divided into Capitalism, Communism, Socialism, and Individualism. Each of those has different healthcare policies that go with it. The politicians are the ones who decide which system we will use in this country.

I wonder what the CBO would say if Obama had come up with the 'perfect' healthcare system and how much it would have cost. My family and I have close to perfect health, and it doesn't cost very much currently. The big question is how to you pay for all the hospitals and doctors if there aren't enough sick people (not that the US has this problem...)?

urville

The Dems and Repubs are the same company in a different wrapper. Until we remove these corporate and private funds from our politics and impose tighter term limits we'll never be free.

All this blame back and forth is a joke. It makes no difference. The people who really caused all this have been in power for ages and handing the reins right over to more of the same all the way down the road. All this sides and ideology crap is a distraction with no basis in anything real. Paulson, Geitner, Bernake, Greenspan, and so on, perfect proof.

Companies with more rights than people. This NeoLiberal Globalization, free market, Randian pipe dream crap doesnt work and its the baby of both sides in reality. Cream doesnt rise to the top in a free system, liars and cheaters do. Big surprise. Theres nothing there to stop them but a failed ideology that doesnt produce real supermen just a rampant destructive nihilism with no responsibility. No matter what they say at the end of the day the record is clear. Even if one side made it work to some extent they still let it nearly destroy us while delaying the inevitable and playing a game of patchwork that was temporary at best.

The tea party is different? Common people who are actually just rallying to make corporations more powerful in the guise of some utopian hidden valley of small businesses just waiting to save America by profting without obstruction while no one pays taxes... except maybe the poor? Eradicating all the programs will suddenly transform us into the perfect country of workers? it's not about the workers at all... Surely your joking.

Yet we keep buying in. Lets keep a system designed to be socialist running under a for profit system and then wonder why it doesnt work, thats smart. Let's make these people work and find out that in reality most of them are senior citizens and disabled who simply cant. Maybe we'll finally realize we lose far more from companies than we do the actual real numbers in aid of those cheating it. That if our education system was half what it should be and actually taught life skills, etc we wouldnt have people on welfare or cheating the system in any significant numbers to begin with.

The logistics needed to keep this system rolling as is no matter what form of economics is used or ideology is in power, are impossible, not to mention idiotic. We've entered a time when conspiracy theories must be proven wrong to not be automatically deemed fact rather than proving them true to be taken seriously. Today there are no facts only interpretations and ideologies.

it's 90% horseshit that no one wnats to buy anymore, yet its the only thing on the market to anyone actually paying attention and we're somehow surprised no one takes it serious or wants to choose between flavor a of getting fucked and flavor b of getting fucked? Or flavor Tea?

end rant

dksuddeth

the people can indeed fix that, via state laws. If a US senator from (insert state here) is found to have deceived the people that voted for him/her, the people of that state can then implement recall laws. all politics is local.

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ottopilot

Is it time for a new constitutional convention? If we don't like the way things are... change the constitution rather than constant circumvention by external tactics. The system is broken and convoluted. Get all the issues out in the public forum by honest discourse and let the ideas win or loose on merit. Clean our houses methodically and cautiously with the procedures outlined in the Constitution. Develop attention-spans and discipline so we don't collectively fall for the constant spin. We've become like heroine addicts to the knee-jerk pablum we're regularly fed.

We are a constitutional republic, not a democracy. Democracy becomes unfocused mob-rule regardless of best intentions. Authoritarian rule lives in the extremes of both left and right (fascism, social-nationalism, socialism, communism, theocracies). I think the framework has always been in place and Americans are generally good-willed. Perhaps redefining what "winning" means relative to our politics should be influenced by all of us being less political. Divisiveness only spawns extremes. Extremes will push us more and more toward authoritarianism. Can't we just try to calm down and begin speaking from common ground rather than ideology?

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urville

I hate to mince, but I think perhaps Stalinism, non-revisionist (kimism), Castroism, etc may indeed be authoritarian, but saying all forms of socialism (which encompasses communism) must be authoritarian is not entirely true anymore than saying all capitalism leads to plutarchy and oligarchy. Just for accuracy here. I mean i get that you would probably quote Marx as saying "the dictatorship of the proletatriat", but thats hardly the end all be all on socialism in all of its modern forms and thought. Especially since many originally conceived it to exist with democracy in the long run. There are in fact operating social democracies of some form or another in most of europe. Just a pet peeve there.

ottopilot

I appreciate your point... I probably should have left it general. It's already hit the wrong button and my overall proposition is now distracted by defining authoritarianism... my mistake.

But to your point, authoritarianism can be individuals, bureaucracies, take your pick. In socialism the leadership determines what's best for all... the greater good... right? Authoritarianism light? Perhaps, but still authoritarian.

But getting back to the point... if we believe the people want socialism (or anything else), put it in the national discourse and honestly debate it's merits. Change the Constitution by amendments or a constitutional convention to reflect the will of the people. Methodical and disciplined.

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urville

Your right, sorry, didnt mean to sidetrack. Just a personal issue for me. Actually to answer that real quick, yes in traditional models like Marxist/Trotskyist models etc, the state controls all but thats sort of outdated thinking. Alot of us are on to new forms of the philosophy. I could go on, but I imagine as you've pointed out, this isnt the place. the idea would be that as little as possible would change about the constitution as possible, and for that matter how we practice democracy, except to rid it of all this crap and return it to votes for voices not dollars.

ottopilot

Yes...that is very reasonable. I think it's how we begin.

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