4 ms·

It just seems like it'd be such a huge win from a PR angle, even if the bills fail. You could literally post screenshots of the bills in their entirety on twitt

It just seems like it'd be such a huge win from a PR angle, even if the bills fail. You could literally post screenshots of the bills in their entirety on twitter showing how simple they are (student debt is abolished, college is free, medicine is free, etc) and just say "here is what we tried to do for you, and here are the people who said no." I think the most productive change we could make to our government right now would be to set a page limit on new legislation. But this might produce legislation that actually helps normal people, which is why it'll never happen.

leetcrew 4y ago
that doesn't sound like a very good idea to me. legislation is not complex only because of pork; there are always edgecases and loopholes to be handled. I highly doubt a reasonable solution to any of the problems you listed could be described in a mere ten pages. take student debt for instance. imo there's a decent case for erasing undergrad debt under a certain threshold, but if you took on a six figure debt to attend a fancy liberal arts college, that's on you to unfuck. similarly, people like lawyers and doctors take on a lot of education debt, but that's also priced into their respective salaries. a professional paying off an outsized debt with an outsized salary doesn't need or deserve the assistance of the median taxpayer. a naive implementation of such could potentially be net regressive. obviously you might disagree with some of that, my point is just to show that "abolish student debt" is controversial and complex even among people that agree at a high level.
- notacoward 4y ago
  A single sentence bill might indeed be too short to address edge cases and attract support, but it can still be single topic and probably no more than ten or twenty pages. Literally no legislator actually reads all of these 1000-page entire-legislative-agenda monstrosities. At best they have their own aides do it and summarize the highlights. More often, they just follow their own party's "leadership" on what parts to use as excuses.

leetcrew 4y ago

that doesn't sound like a very good idea to me. legislation is not complex only because of pork; there are always edgecases and loopholes to be handled. I highly doubt a reasonable solution to any of the problems you listed could be described in a mere ten pages. take student debt for instance. imo there's a decent case for erasing undergrad debt under a certain threshold, but if you took on a six figure debt to attend a fancy liberal arts college, that's on you to unfuck. similarly, people like lawyers and doctors take on a lot of education debt, but that's also priced into their respective salaries. a professional paying off an outsized debt with an outsized salary doesn't need or deserve the assistance of the median taxpayer. a naive implementation of such could potentially be net regressive. obviously you might disagree with some of that, my point is just to show that "abolish student debt" is controversial and complex even among people that agree at a high level.

notacoward 4y ago
A single sentence bill might indeed be too short to address edge cases and attract support, but it can still be single topic and probably no more than ten or twenty pages. Literally no legislator actually reads all of these 1000-page entire-legislative-agenda monstrosities. At best they have their own aides do it and summarize the highlights. More often, they just follow their own party's "leadership" on what parts to use as excuses.