Reforming

A friend of mine shared a post on Facebook from a man named Sam Ratliff. He’s from the USA, and on Facebook on 7 April 2016 he had written:

Warren Buffett, "I could end the deficit in 5 minutes," he told CNBC. "You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election. The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971... before computers, e-mail, cell phones, etc. Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure.

Warren Buffet is asking everybody to share this and ask their friends to do likewise.

This then showed a USA Congressional Reform Act which was drafted, allegedly by Buffet, in 2011:

Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.
2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security
   system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for
   any other purpose.
3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.
4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/2017.

The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term's) [sic], then go home and back to work.

Whilst that the post may have been circling since that alleged draft Act 2011, I wondered if the USA government had acted on it. I’m pretty sure they hadn’t.

I looked up on Forbes, online. Forbes included a page about Buffett, and noted that on 14 August 2016 he was worth $66.4 billion. Buffet was one of the richest people in the world. He was Democrat (USA) and spoke to people about how to make money. I had known about him for quite a while, and previously I thought that he’s pretty much a good guy, yet he lives on his income as a billionaire.

Have a look also through his Wikipaedia page: it’s very interesting.

He talks to people throughout the world, yet I know that, in Australia, his advice doesn’t work for people who live in poverty. I looked at the Australian SocialSecurity page online. Section 5.3 said:

5.3 The primary purpose of Australia’s transfer, or social security, system is to provide individuals with a ‘minimum adequate standard of living’. 

Any “minimum adequate standard of living” in the current Social Security is primarily in poverty, and does not provide a true “minimum adequate standard of living”. It sounded, for me, unfair how the government is following this law; certainly it is unfair for people who are condemned to this uncomfortable standard of living.

The page mentioned the 2010 Tax Review – have a look through it, read it if you can, and understand what they have said. This is a large document, so it will take you quite a long time, but it is essential. This is sitting in the Treasury website, so that convinces me that the government – or previous government - has written it and now ignores much of it.

One comment stuck in my head in Part 1:

Australia reduced its company tax rate over the period from the late 1980s to 2000. This adjustment was an important element of policy reforms that have led to strong growth. A continuation of this responsive adjustment would underpin further growth.

Most of our “further growth” has gone up, but so has the reduction of whatever tax this government gets from any foreign company which operates in Australia. Personally, I believe that shareholders get part of the profit before we – Australia – get anything in tax.

This 1% recognisation really came onboard in 2014. Time did an online report of the Suisse Credit report which looked at half of the world’s wealth just held by 1% of the population. They reported:

The Global Wealth Report estimated that the world’s combined wealth reached $263 trillion in 2014, a $20.1 trillion increase over the previous year. It marked the highest recorded increase since the financial panic of 2007, but the greatest accumulations of wealth occurred at the very upper echelons of earners.

They also said that “only $3,650 would place a person in the wealthier half of the global population, $77,000 was needed to reach the top 10%.” In salaries, many Australians earn $80k or more. Are they in the 10%?

I thought about the Congressional Reform Act and I re-wrote it for Australia. I have no idea if we have any sort of Act which would reflect this, but if this has to become an Act introduced now, then it must.

Government Reform Act

1. No Tenure / No Pension. A politician collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.
2. Politicians (past, present & future) participate in social security. All funds in the politician’s retirement fund move to the social system immediately. All future funds flow into the social system, and politicians participate with the Australian people. It may not be used for any other purpose.
3. Politicians can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Australians do.
4. Politicians will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Government pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
5. Politicians lose their current health care system and participate in the same health care system as the Australian people.
6. Politicians must equally abide by all laws they impose on the Australian people.
7. All contracts with past and present politicians are void effective 1/1/2017. 

The Australian people did not make this contract with politicians. Politicians made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Government is an honour, not a career.

Think of that original post from Sam Ratliff. Now think about the rewrite from me. I know that this not the best, but maybe this will grow in Australia.

It should.