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Jon Galt

User Profile Image Jon Galt
Member since : May-28-2009 (Verified)
12 Ideas, 0 Comments, 13 Votes

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Ideas Posted

Increase the incentive to vote, make it easier to participate, and place in prison anyone who tries to stop another citizen from voting including employers or election officials. Examples: (1) Issue a receipt for appearing at the polling place with a time stamp, name, and voter id number. Employers are required to document what percentage of their employees went to the polling place. High percentages are rewarded and low percentages are investigated for making it too difficult for their employees to vote. (2) Submit this voting receipt with federal taxes for a good citizenship refund (3) Spread elections over a multi-day period to increase participation and resolve any voting irregularities (4) Mandate mail in balloting as an option for any citizen eligible to vote (5) Create a mandatory prison term for each person prevented from voting not some type of fine or slap on the wrist and (6) Eliminate the electorally college and use simple popular vote.
Require a global perspective and awareness to solutions by comparing them to similar projects implemented around the world. Require a brief summary comparing the current project to the best international example with justification for any differences. Many highly effective solutions have already been found and tested which do not need to be slowly recreated again from trail and error while living in ignorance. Examples include health care, energy efficiency, waste recycling, education reform, voter participation programs, etc… Standard best examples could be posted online with citizens having the ability to comment, research, and provide suggestions.
Create an easy anonymous web based method for providing feedback and evaluation on all projects. Every project will have a public tracking number and be web searchable. Those with any knowledge or interest in the project can post public comments and suggestions about it with responses being optional. An independent organization can be responsible for investigating any important items of interest. Evil grows in the dark where things are easily hidden, so shine some light from all directions.
Create incentive and reward for being under budget while still providing quality outcome. The current budget system often encourages people to waste money at the end to reach projected figures. When cuts come it is often as a percent of previous budgets, so the higher more wasteful budgets feel less pain than the efficient smaller ones. Change the system to reward being under budget. Allow a percent of the money saved to immediately reward those who saved it and the remainder to act as a credit buffer against future cuts. Shift the focus to reward being under budget.
Require all training materials created using federal taxpayer money be posted on a free easily accessible system such as YouTube. This will allow for reduced duplication of effort spent creating the same material in multiple locations. Also, provide a financial reward for the most viewed training material to reward high quality material creation/sharing.
Require use of free open source software solutions as the default option. Require justfication if another option is used including full cost difference of project for using the proprietary solution. Examples include Open Office, Gimp, Drupal, Uniform Server, Thunderbird, VLC, Audacity, Knoppix, Apache, etc… Provide free training materials for all open source solutions posted on a freely available system like YouTube so that training material does not need to be redeveloped.
Local political institutions including schools, which consume massive proportions of local taxes, often hide their financial details behind large vague budget items. Require any local agency receiving federal money to release full detailed line item expenses at the accounts payable level using an open system such as Google Docs Spreadsheets. If the citizens can see where the money is really going then we can provide better ideas and force true accountability. The local power structures are often too strong for such an idea to grow from the bottom but it would work if required by the federal government.
Provide a financial reward system for exposing wasted tax payer money, providing solutions which save money, or collecting taxes which are not paid. For example, offer 20 percent of the money saved to a citizen who can identify and prove corporate or private tax evasion. Or, rewarded with a percent of the money saved by identifying when special interest groups make deals which waste tax payer money. Change the incentive structure.
Create a web based accountability and reward system for all employees or organizations which receive federal taxpayer funds using open source web based content management systems to reduce any overhead. For example, allow local citizens to evaluate the performance of employees motivating the lowest performers to improve by being publicly identified, and financially rewarding the top performers for their service to the public. This shifts some of the focus and reward back to the citizen as the customer of a service paid for by their tax dollars. The reward could come in the form of a federal tax reduction to the high performs to avoid all budget arguments.
Reduce the power of special interest lobbies and increase accountability to citizens by shifting the physical location of elected representatives back to their local geographic areas. With current technology, it is possible for elected officials in the Congress to remain in their election districts and not relocate to Washington DC. This makes it much more difficult for special interest groups to focus their resources in a single location, and it greatly increases local citizens ability to directly influence their representatives. Physical relocation is based on a time when transportation was by horse and communication by pigeon.
Reduce the incentive to remain in power and make it easier for new qualified individuals to obtain office without being rich. Change the way committee chairpersonships are awarded based on the number of years elected, so there is no advantage after 2 terms in office and there is a limit on consecutive terms as chairperson. Also, balance the playing field for potential newly elected individuals using the public airways which are owned by the citizens and leased out by the government. Grant public airway time to those running based on a combination of terms in office and the financial resources of the opponent. Maximum free airtime is given to the first time person plus an additional amount based on the financial resources of the opposition (such as 50% of difference between campaign war chest). The public airways are owned by all citizens and could make elections much more fair.
Release full details of federal government expenditures down to the accounts payable item level so that citizens can see where the money is really going and make meaningful suggestions. Avoid hiding all detail in large budget line items. Possible implementation could include:
(A) posting spreadsheets on Google Docs to make the information easily sorted/searched/charted, and (B) allowing interactive discussion/feedback with open source content management systems like Drupal or Joomla.
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