Badly Needed Senate Procedure Reforms: Part 1

As the election is now complete, and a new legislature will convene in January, we felt it was time to discuss what we feel are much needed reforms to Congress.  We are focusing our attention this time on Congress's upper house, the Senate.

First, we'll focus on the filibuster.  What was once a procedure to extend debate has now become an obstructive tactic, aimed at delaying  or oftentimes preventing, a measure from being brought to a vote on the Senate floor.  Per the Supreme Court ruling United States v. Ballin, Senate rule changes can be achieved by a simple majority, though, of course, these rule changes could also be filibustered before any vote would take place.

Below, we can see how many times filibusters have been used by tracking instances of cloture.  Cloture is invoked to bring debate to a quick end and to force a quick vote.  Recently, cloture has been invoked, with limited success, showing that numerous filibusters have been successfully used to block bills, especially by the  Republican Party.

In order to begin debate on a bill, the senators must adopt a "motion to proceed."  Once this occurs, debate is unlimited unless 60 senators vote to end it.  Therefore, because of the rules governing filibusters and senate debate, a minority of 41 can stop a bill cold.

This tactic has been used to prevent presidential appointments, tax bills from passing, and the end of tax subsidies from taking effect.  The filibuster has even been used to block Mark Udall's proposal to end the current filibuster.  These procedures are now a hindrance to the governmental process, making the Senate slower moving and gridlocked.  The rules are actually an undue regulation on the democratic process, endorsed predominantly by Republicans.

Now that's big government.

We need to change the rules so that it does not take 60 votes to get any bill passed.  A simple majority to end debate is all that should be required.  Perhaps this will eliminate the chance of the minority to have a say, but in today's partisan gridlock, we desperately need a way to streamline the legislative process.  Eliminating outdated and obstructive filibuster rules is the first step towards making that happen.

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Comparing Economic Freedom

In our world, there is extraordinary disparity in the degree of economic freedom.  While some countries, like Australia, Ireland, and the United States have very high economic freedom, others are widely classified as repressed.  Here's a world breakdown of economic equality:

If we measure economic freedom versus economic productivity, we can see the benefits of creating a free-market economy:

These two graphics, with a bit of extra information, can provide us with a few lessons.  First of all, the greatest growth in economic freedom has been occurring in emerging markets, which bodes well for these countries trying to grow.  China and India, also, have in fact gained on the scale in economic freedom.  Latin America has seen small improvement too.

The obvious takeaway is that the more restrictions a country puts on businesses, consumers, and investors, the more they will struggle financially.  While some regulation can be good, to much restriction clearly limits growth.

Another takeaway concerns the Middle East.  Many of the Middle Eastern and African countries are solidly in red or orange.  These closed societies are not only breeding grounds for terrorism and intolerance, but they also offer little economic opportunity to their citizens.  This is especially dangerous, for oppressive societies in poverty are likely to stay oppressive, and young people trying to avoid terrorist organizations will have little options and opportunity 

The Minimum Wage: A Case Study

The Federal Minimum Wage, as well as minimum wages set by certain states, has been around for a long time.  Fighting various Supreme Court administrations, activists finally were able to set a minimum wage in 1938, and it has increased progressively throughout the years (see below).

This tends to be because of inflation.  Adjusted for inflation, federal minimum wage has actually been decreasing over the past few decades.  Of course, many states (and even cities) have different minimum wages than the federal level:

And here's how the United States stacks up against some other countries:

The US is in the middle of this pack, just below Greece and just ahead of Spain.

Despite the merits of the minimum wage, most economists actually disagree with it.  They see it as an inefficiency in our economy, and that it costs the country thousands of jobs.  Here's why:

Here is a simple Price vs. Quantity Demanded/Supplied Chart that is used to illustrate the interplay of supply and demand, which determines price.  The Wage, on the left, or the y-axis, is the price.  The bottom, or the x-axis, is the quantity supplied and also the quantity demanded.  The line sloped downward is demand, because as price gets higher, the quantity demanded gets lower, and if the price is lower, the quantity demanded is higher.  Supply is the upward sloped line and works differently.  As price gets higher, more producers are willing to supply their items at that price.  The lower the price, the fewer producers willing to sell at that price.  Where supply and demand meet, that is, where the two lines intersect, is the equilibrium price, where the maximum number or suppliers are willing to sell and the maximum number of buyers are willing to buy.

In this case, the item being sold, or supplied, is labor.  The buyers, or demanders, are businesses that hire the suppliers.  The equilibrium price, therefore, is a wage, determined by supply and demand.

The minimum wage acts as a price floor.  It is a threshold amount that buyers must pay for the labor of their workers.  A price ceiling would be the opposite: it's a maximum that suppliers can charge.  In this case, we draw the price ceiling as a line above the equilibrium wage point.  We draw it above because it acts as a barrier to the market reaching a low equilibrium point.

By creating a minimum wage that is higher than the equilibrium wage, we end up with a shortage of labor.  How?  Look at the graph above.  The quantity supplied at the minimum wage price is actually far lower than the quantity supplied at the equilibrium price.  In other words, supply and demand don't intersect, they don't come to a consensus.  The result is a surplus in labor, which translates into underemployment.

There are, however, positives to the minimum wage.  Adults that currently work minimum and near minimum wage jobs would likely lose employment to teenagers.  Workers also need a minimum amount of income in order to survive, which might be higher than the equilibrium wage.

The federal minimum wage, throughout history, has fluctuated above and below the poverty line, individually and for a family of 3.  Many minimum wage workers are the sole breadwinners in their households, so eliminating the minimum wage would undoubtedly hurt them.

Our Ideas:

Eliminating the minimum wage could help end underemployment problems, but it could also hurt many people.  One of our proposals is to end the minimum wage for teenagers to help them earn wages while still being dependent on their parents (they would not need to earn wages that are higher than the poverty line). If not for all teenage workers, we could at least relax the wage rules for teenagers who wish to gain some sort of income/work experience.  Another possible solution includes dramatically reforming the tax code, helping workers and businesses and providing incentives to provide specific kinds of jobs.  This could solve the problem at its source.  We'll delve into this topic in one of our later posts.

Changes Beyond Immigration Needed on GOP Policy

For the Republican Party to improve its standing among Latinos and other immigrants, much more is needed than simply immigration reform.  Immigrants need to feel included by the Republican Party and wanted in this country.  Like all of us, they want jobs and economic security.  They want, as many of us do, strong education for their children.

To a certain extent, this can be a lesson to both major parties.  The Republican Party, however, is the party that lost the minority vote by a very large margin this election, so we'll focus mainly on them for now.

Policies that Democrats have championed that are favorable to Latinos have been rejected by many Republicans, such as the Dream Act.  Below is one poll, out of many, that shows strong Latino support for the dream act, which was passed by a Democratic House of Representatives and fell by a GOP filibuster in the US Senate.

Strong Latino support seems to be ignored by Republicans, who are against what they perceive as amnesty for illegal immigrants.  While Republicans have certainly had ideas about immigration, it usually takes the form of a deport-first, something that rankles some more moderate GOP members of congress.  Marco Rubio, Senator from Florida, came up with a competing measure to the Democratic Dream act, sponsored by Illinois's Dick Durbin, to push the issue of immigration.  Here is a Latino preference breakdown of the two competing bills:

The Durbin proposal is clearly more popular in this poll, conducted by Latino Decisions.  The main difference between the two bills is that Durbin's offer's a path to citizenship, while Rubio's does not, instead giving non-immigrant visas to the children of illegal immigrants.  Rubio has cooled on his own bill recently, seemingly outdone by President Obama's executive order.  If the GOP wants to take the lead on immigrant issues, they will have to do far more than simply change their immigration policies.  They need to come up with plans like the Dream Act to empower Latino youths by providing them with a means to get an education.  Being a strong support of the youth movement gained Obama much needed grassroots support in 2008, and to a certain extent, again in 2012.  The Republican Party needs to not only cater to immigrants, but cater to young immigrants/immigrant's children, in order to survive this change in the electorate.

GOP's Demographic Problems

Below is a chart of the demographic breakdown for the presidential election of 2012.  As one can clearly see, the Republican Party did well with white voters, but quite poorly with minority voters, a problem brought upon themselves.  In recent years, the GOP has taken a combative stance against illegal immigration and minority rights.  While some Republicans might blame the message rather than the actual policy, it has been duly noted that the Republican party is not an ardent supporter of immigrant and minority rights.  Bills have been passed in states, such as Arizona and Alabama, that would seem to encourage racial profiling to find illegal immigrants.

The results from both the 2008 and 2012 elections do not bode well for Republicans.  The demographic is shifting now, with minorities making up a larger portion of the electorate.  Now, with two strong showings, the Democrats, at least for now, have the allegiance of this critical groups.  The electoral map, therefore, has dramatically changed from previous decades, with Democrats running well in western states as well as Florida.


Here is the electoral map for the 2012 Presidential election:

And here's one for 2012:

As one can see, Obama won Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Florida in both elections, all states that have gone Republican in the past and have been classified as more right leaning.  All these states have large Latino populations that are only getting larger.  In order to ensure that they can survive on a national scale, the Republican Party must moderate their position on immigration and other issues important to minorities, especially Latinos.  It is not just that they have trouble communicating their message.  They need to be leaders on the issues that matter to these groups.

There are many risers in the GOP that could help with this, though many are outside of Washington.  By adapting their policies, the Republican Party could become more centrist and appeal to many minorities, as well as independents.  By becoming more inclusive rather than exclusive, they can promote policies that will benefit all of America rather than some of America and help them become stronger politically, a win-win for Republicans.  Advocating fiscal responsibility will resonate with many people and if the party can change a bit and become more innovative when it comes to minority groups, the GOP can become much more formidable in national elections and perhaps make this country a better place. 

Electoral Reform

In this election, individuals and corporations have been able to spends tones of money while being "unaffiliated" with a candidate.  This poses significant problems for the US.  We need elections that are not bought; not sold to the highest bidder.  We need legitimate electoral reform where there are caps on spending and getting rid of the electoral college.

A map scaled to reflect the dollar importance in the 2012 election

National Public Radio featured the map above, as well as some others, in a feature where they showed how different states have vastly different electoral, as well as monetary importance for candidates.  There article can be found here: A Campaign Map, Morphed By Money.  With Super PACs, the problem is now compounded  with even more money flowing into the election this year.

CNN Money used the above graphic in their feature, which called the 2012 election the priciest to date, with a $4.2 billion dollar price-tag, with some time left to spend.  The numbers are likely to only get bigger if super PACs continue to hold sway in American politics.

The Solution:

Because of the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision, as well as the continuation of the Electoral College, it will likely require some sort of constitutional reform in order to get rid of Super PACs and the electoral strategies that currently exist.  A constitutional amendment that bans such groups, as well as establishing the general framework for fair and free elections without large amounts of outside cash is necessary to ensure that our version of democracy can exist long into the future. Getting rid of the Electoral College would also ensure that instead of spending time and money in only a few states, national candidates would have to have a wide ranging base all over the country to win the popular vote.

Please Vote This Election

In the election, it is vitally important that all eligible voters participate in the democratic process.  In this election, and in all elections, please make sure that your voice is heard, and no matter who you support, exercise your right and duty to vote.

Even though the voter turnout has risen in recent elections, it is still at historically lower proportions.  We need our citizens to take an active role and participate, especially the young people who are less likely to vote. In order to prepare for the important decisions regarding our future, we need everyone we can to help decide our new elected officials.

New Voter ID Laws Jeopardize Individual Rights

The new voter identification laws, pushed by conservative legislatures in states around the country are severely limiting one of the most basic constitutional protected rights for all citizens above the age of 18: the right to cast votes in elections.  This right is in serious jeopardy as ID laws have become the vogue.  The laws are proposed under the proposition that it would limit the amount of voter fraud and thus lead to more accurate voting, but this is simply not true.

Yes, this process can lead to lower voter fraud, but voter fraud is not the problem.  According to News21 voting rights database, the number of voter identification fraud in elections in all 50 states since 2000 equal a mere 10.  Given that during that span 146 million votes were cast, resulting in false identification affecting an alleged .000007% of all votes cast, the assertion that voter ID fraud is a problem is simply a nonstarter.

However, this does severely limit the ability of people to vote.  By some estimates, around 9% of currently legal voters in Pennsylvania will not be able to vote because they do not have a government issued ID.  But Pennsylvania is just one state.  Four others have similar laws (Indiana, Tennessee, Georgia, and Kansas) and 12 more have other requirements for presenting photo ID. Strict voter ID policies limit the amount of votes cast while trying to solve a nonexistent problem.  

Illogical Electoral Math

Consider the following:

Say, as a hypothetical, that candidate X wins the state of California by only 1,000 votes.  California is the nation's largest state, so it accordingly has the most electoral votes, in this case 55.  Yet if Candidate X doesn't have a very good ground game in some other state(s), for example, New York, Massachusetts, and North Carolina, they could very well lose in a landslide to another candidate, say candidate Y, albeit only in those states.  However, if we add up the electoral votes in the 3 states candidate X lost big in we get (29+11+15) = 55 electoral votes.

That means, even though candidate X lost big to candidate Yin the popular vote over these 4 states, perhaps by hundreds of thousands of votes, the net electoral college loss is zero.  This situation is unlikely to happen, but far from impossible.  The way the electoral college is set up means that instead of trying to increase voter turnout everywhere they can, candidates concentrate on big swing states to help them get over the magic number of 270 electoral votes, the amount needed for a majority.  The victory in California gave candidate X over 20% of that total.  This math works accords other states as well.  Small wins in larger states can outweigh huge losses in small ones, even if the margin of victory is as small as 1 vote.

Do you want to sit on the sidelines while only a few states really vote for president?

More Efficient Governance

The bureaucratic United States Government must undergo an evolution.  This is no longer the time to be a big, slow, thundering giant in the world.  In order to better serve its citizens, the United States government must be fast and efficient, delivering the needs of its people more rapidly.  Globalization has changed our world to where it is no longer the largest, most powerful countries that win.  Now, efficiency, speed, and quality are rewarded in the world markets.  The government can harness to power of the internet to speed up services that have taken nearly forever previously.  Why stand in line so long at the DMV or other local government agency when you can do it at home on your computer?  Why must government projects take so long to attain approval and begin work?  By utilizing current and future technologies, we can create a more efficient government in our country.

For reference, here is a breakdown of how the Federal Government spends its money: