Arkady
President
Here's another neutral, "good government" style initiative that the parties should, in theory, be able to come together on: go through statutes and identify everything where values are given as a dollar figure, and, wherever it makes sense to do so, modify the law so that the they're indexed to inflation. In some cases, this will address Democratic priorities (e.g., resulting in a rising minimum wage each year, so the wage doesn't get eroded over time by the cost of living). In other cases, it will address Republican priorities (e.g., resulting in the tax bracket cutoffs rising each year, so people aren't pushed into higher brackets simply by inflated earnings). Have the agreement be that these will all be proposed by some non-partisan group, with an up-or-down vote on the lot of them by Congress, so neither party gridlocks the process by trying to get more of their type of inflation adjustments than the other guy's.
This would still allow future governments to decide to change fundamental understandings (deliberately changing tax brackets or minimum wages, etc.), but it would remove the silliness of these things becoming political footballs every few years for no better reason than that inflation changed what a particular dollar figure meant. This country is big and complicated enough that we don't need our politicians wasting their time on changes that would happen automatically in any well-conceived system. Already we have plenty of precedent for such inflation adjustments, with things like Social Security benefits, but too often these things are done inconsistently.
This would still allow future governments to decide to change fundamental understandings (deliberately changing tax brackets or minimum wages, etc.), but it would remove the silliness of these things becoming political footballs every few years for no better reason than that inflation changed what a particular dollar figure meant. This country is big and complicated enough that we don't need our politicians wasting their time on changes that would happen automatically in any well-conceived system. Already we have plenty of precedent for such inflation adjustments, with things like Social Security benefits, but too often these things are done inconsistently.
