Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Japan's Hometown Tax

kalzumeus.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 260 posts

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#251

Post by jki275 »

int_19h wrote: post #223
jki275 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So get an amendment passed. Just remember, you have to get 2/3 of the states -- including all your fly-over states.

You need 2/3 of the states for a convention. But you need 3/4 of the states to ratify. Thing is, though, Constitution is just a piece of paper, if enough people - or states - believe that it is. Small states need to understand that the power that they wield is theirs only because the large states agree to abide by this arrangement. If that power is abused too much, the deal might just be altered - and in any such alt…

But they won't, and that's the beauty of the way it was set up. Every state still gets two votes in the Senate, and you can't change that without an amendment.

The majority of the small states still have to sign off on "altering the deal" for it to pass.

The Constitution is far more than a piece of paper, it's the foundation of all law in the US.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#252

Post by sobani »

_cbsz wrote: post #51
resoluteteeth wrote: post #10

Couching this in terms of Japanese culture is unhelpful in my opinion. The return gifts probably wouldn't exist in the first place elsewhere, but allowing them is simply a blatant loophole that various local governments have cynically abused to increase their revenue and this is something that would happen in any country. The biggest problem is that some local governments are apparently giving return gifts that have…

> based on the way the government is set up, rural votes have disproportionate power, and for this reason the LDP has a tendency to pander to rural interests Is there a Western government that isn't set up this way? You could write this same blurb about the United States. I would be very curious to hear about what happens when rural areas have political power consummate with their population instead of with their lan…

In the Netherlands every vote is counted equally. I don't know of any problems or complaints from our rural areas, but I don't live in them.

Also every party represents their constituents proportionally. In the last election 10,563,456 votes were cast, so every 704,230 votes (1/150th) gets you a seat. There are basically no thresholds, so it happens regularly that parties with less than 2% of the votes get seats.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#253

Post by jki275 »

jedberg wrote: post #155
jki275 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rural states' power in federal government is largely imaginary. In many elections, they have gone overwhelmingly for the losing candidate. If you look at a county by county map of the last election and then realize that the winner of the election actually lost the popular vote even after taking something like 85% of the counties in the US and you can still make the argument that the population centers should have…

That’s because out of the five times that the electoral college winner was not the popular winner, four times it was a Republican who won and the fifth time the Republicans didn’t exist yet (but the winner was the more conservative candidate). And also, the majority of this country votes democrat in every election since 2000, but because of gerrymandering the house retains a Republican majority. If the house matched…

The Dems gerrymander just as much as the Rs do.

You're using a tiny fraction of history to discuss this, and even within that tiny fraction your numbers are incorrect as the the dems held the majority from 2007 to 2011 and only lost it in the backlash from the health care debacle.

Also the national popular vote is totally irrelevant to the house membership. It's not set up that way.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#254

Post by int_19h »

jki275 wrote: post #251
int_19h wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need 2/3 of the states for a convention. But you need 3/4 of the states to ratify. Thing is, though, Constitution is just a piece of paper, if enough people - or states - believe that it is. Small states need to understand that the power that they wield is theirs only because the large states agree to abide by this arrangement. If that power is abused too much, the deal might just be altered - and in any such alt…

But they won't, and that's the beauty of the way it was set up. Every state still gets two votes in the Senate, and you can't change that without an amendment. The majority of the small states still have to sign off on "altering the deal" for it to pass. The Constitution is far more than a piece of paper, it's the foundation of all law in the US.

You miss my point. If the small states keep abusing their power, eventually the large states are going to simply reject the Constitution - and there's no mechanism for the small states to force it on them. In the end, it's a consensus arrangement. It was adopted back in the day in the form that it originally had, because that was the only thing that all then-states could agree on. If it stops being a thing that enough states can agree on now, then it is just a piece of paper. It doesn't have any magical innate powers to enforce itself.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#255

Post by jki275 »

int_19h wrote: post #254
jki275 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they won't, and that's the beauty of the way it was set up. Every state still gets two votes in the Senate, and you can't change that without an amendment. The majority of the small states still have to sign off on "altering the deal" for it to pass. The Constitution is far more than a piece of paper, it's the foundation of all law in the US.

You miss my point. If the small states keep abusing their power, eventually the large states are going to simply reject the Constitution - and there's no mechanism for the small states to force it on them. In the end, it's a consensus arrangement. It was adopted back in the day in the form that it originally had, because that was the only thing that all then-states could agree on. If it stops being a thing that enoug…

The large states can't "reject the Constitution". There aren't enough of them, and the mechanism to enforce it is the federal courts, who don't care how big a state is.

Access to the courts and their attendant enforcement mechanisms is not something restricted to the large states. Agreements were made, documents written and signed, and at least one bloody war fought to preserve that "just a piece of paper", and the result has been quite clear throughout the history of this nation.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#256

Post by Latteland »

int_19h wrote: post #222
eiaoa wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just one nitpick: the anti-democratic nature of the Senate (and the Electoral college, while we're at it) is very much seen as a problem by a lot of people living outside the sparsely populated rural states; It really depends on how you conceptualize it: there isn't much of an issue if you think of the Senate as a body that represents states as sovereign political entities not population. IIRC, Senators were origin…

The current compromise was established with a very different number of states, and a very different proportion of small states to large states. It made more sense then than it does now. Curiously, Federalist papers even have an explicit warning to that effect. Although originally it was written about the structure of the federal government under the Articles of Confederation - where it was one-state-one-vote, and man…

Interesting point re minorities.

I'm in a bigger state, I think we've basically had enough and if the subversion of democratic votes such is being attempted in Georgia right now happens, that might the thing that starts the bigger states to think about leaving. I know the current pres got elected by a situation that was unlikely, but the power majority the republicans have could keep going for a while. If it wasn't for China and Russia, the us could all go our own way right now, maybe into 3 or 4 countries.

We don't really have a solution for the people without much hope of a decent job, and hateful rhetoric like we see now won't get us anywhere. I don't feel ill will for the true believers, that somehow think dinosaurs walked the earth with people, but I would prefer we can live in separate countries and not hate each other.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#257

Post by Latteland »

jki275 wrote: post #95
Silfen wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should extend more generosity to the point GP makes. You can believe in adjusting the system so that representation is more equal without doing away with the protections for small states. For example, you can greatly increase the size of the House. It's the original first amendment! http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/its-ti...

The house already adequately represents the people, that's how it was designed. Expanding the house doesn't change representation.

The house doesn't represent the people in the sense that the party that got a significant majority of the votes has a significant minority of the seats because of gerrymandering.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#258

Post by thirdsun »

Balgair wrote: post #166

I LOVE this idea! Here in the US, it could really help out rural communities. The best part is that it is 'free' to everyone; you've already paid the taxes. Small communities could, and do, organize festivals based on local culture: Trout fishing in the summer, Ice festivals in the winter, Duck races in the spring, etc. They get people interested in some aspect of the community, be it a festival, music, the climate,…

I like the idea as well, but I think the benefits should be dedicated to the cities and areas you actually grew up in, not a region of your choice.

It takes a village to raise a child. Well, if that village turned you into someone who lives a successful life in one of the few metropoles in the country, maybe it's only fair to share that wealth with the hometown(s) that formed your childhood and adolescence.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#259

Post by jki275 »

Latteland wrote: post #257
jki275 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The house already adequately represents the people, that's how it was designed. Expanding the house doesn't change representation.

The house doesn't represent the people in the sense that the party that got a significant majority of the votes has a significant minority of the seats because of gerrymandering.

It's an interesting argument, but the house isn't a monolith that represents the entire US as a bloc - it's a regional thing that represents individual regions, and actually the vast majority of those areas in the US do not belong to the minority party. Overall popular vote is not how we elect the house.

You can argue about gerrymandering all day long, both sides do it and have done it since the beginning.

Post reply on HN