[EM] [RangeVoting] line item veto

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 02:12 AM 3/7/2006, Jan Kok wrote:
>Right now, it's "You vote for my pork and I'll vote for your pork."
>(It's called "logrolling".)  I don't see how Voting With Money really
>helps.  In fact, it could encourage even more pork barrel spending,
>because legislators would vote as few dollars as they dared on
>"essential" items and as much as they dared on pork.

I'm also not sure it is a good idea, but an argument for it would be 
that it would distribute a certain amount of money roughly by 
population. Without this, pork tends to get awarded more to districts 
which elect a representative of the party in power. This is the real 
problem, not logrolling per se, which is only an aspect of 
bargaining, which is a basic tool of deliberation.

Assigning "pork" -- district specific projects -- by creating an 
overall budget for such things -- would limit pork to a level that 
would have to receive majority approval, as a level, rather than 
lumping it in with other appropriations, making it effectively 
invisible except to those who dig deep. So I'd think it would be an 
improvement.

Of course, once again, as I keep pointing out, interests which obtain 
inequitable power will almost always resist change toward equity; in 
order to overcome this, there must be organization outside the 
existing structure. I was led inevitably to the FA/DP concept, it was 
not just a hodgepodge of arbitrary ideas.

Mark Twain: The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.

At this point, I consider "success" to be wider discussion and 
understanding of the concepts. Which, gradually, is happening.

I'm also gratified by the independent invention of DP, delegable 
proxy, which I did invent perhaps twenty years ago (as did, I think, 
some others).

FA, the free association concept, I did not invent, most of that 
credit would go to Bill Wilson, founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, who 
studied the forces which make organizations fail. AA was founded, 
effectively, when *one* other person became strongly involved, the 
man known as Dr. Bob. (There is now at least one AA meeting in just 
about every small town in America, many -- hundreds in some cases -- 
in large cities, and many around the world. I bet there are meetings 
in Iraq; I know there are such in Saudi Arabia. It is the AA 
traditions which made this happen. Other "self-help" temperance 
movements had failed over the century before AA was founded. AA, it 
must be acknowledged, is about as successful as is possible.)

FA/DP as a combination, I think I can take credit for. A new idea; 
hopefully, there will soon be more hands on the crank.