I would say it would only be irrational in the long run if we are not making a plan to increase taxes to go along with the increased costs, at least for costs which don’t have a value add later down the line. If X amount is what it will cost to pay everything then we should increase taxes on corporations to be able to collect at minimum X amount, if not more.
I still don’t think increasing the country’s debt should be the first choice, increasing taxes should be the first choice when the spending bill shows we would be spending more than we would be taking in. I’m not sure if they can show they want to increase taxes at the same time on that bill in not, but increasing taxes to cover the additional spending is important.
I do agree that the country even being able to be shut down is a major problem. I would say a shut down does hurt Republican voters more, but Democrat politicians care about their constituents.
It really doesn’t make a ton of sense for either party to get rid of the filibuster at this current point in time. If Democrats won big in 2024 then I believe they should have gotten rid of the filibuster, but they didn’t win big. They needed to win the swing states and at least gain an extra seat or two in the Senate but that didn’t happen. They could have expanded the House under such a situation so it is really unfortunate that did not occur. The main hope now is for Democrats to pick up seats in the midterms and in 2028 to try to make up some of the losses.
Really, anyone that wants to see positive change stick should consider moving to purple states and purple districts from their deep red state/deep blue states. If the swing states became solid blue states then we would have a much easier time passing legislation that is beneficial.
The debt ceiling is used that way by Republicans for the most part. They don’t want to increase taxes even for corporations, but they try to force a budget resolution by cutting spending when there really is only so much you can cut without hurting people.
The debt ceiling is a reminder that there is a cost to the money we spend, I personally believe we are still far from it being an issue but we should be increasing taxes to properly allocate money for spending. Ideally you want to collect more than you spend, but some instances it makes sense to go into a steeper debt to get those tangible benefits I mentioned.
Really a shutdown should trigger elections because it just shows that the governing body can’t do their jobs.
Having a debt ceiling isn’t really the worst idea to an extent. You can reach a hypothetical point where you’re not able to realistically pay off your debt to other nations for instance. That’s why instead of raising the debt limit and weakening the dollar in the process, it makes more sense to tax corporations more to cover your country’s added expenses. There are specific things it makes sense to increase the debt limit to do though such as funding education, science and research, renewable and nuclear energy, and public transit systems as these are all value adds for a society in the long run.
The smaller caucus in their party is more closer aligned to the presidency though. A populist president would have a better chance to making progress for a smaller caucus. A small caucus in the Senate is what prevented most helpful or progressive legislation from passing as well, as seen in Manchin and Senima who are both Independents.
RCV is Alaska is still relatively new for voters. Republicans only fought against it in Alaska when a Democrat managed to win an election when RCV was present, which they may have still won with FPTP as well.
The Democratic Party is not strongly for or against alternative voting systems. More or less on a state by state basis it could be in their favor to have, and the same applies with Republicans as well.
Some forms of Alternative voting have been banned in red states. They certainly are trying to prevent it and marketed against it hard in 2024. 2026 will likely have less Republican turnout due to it not being a presidential election year.
Many states were trying to push RCV and failed to get it passed in 2024. I feel it mostly had to do with not enough people understanding how it or other alternative voting systems worked. We have two to four years to work on educating people about how alternative voting systems will work and trying again and again to get an alternative passed. It’s okay if each state chooses something else, as almost anything is a step up from First Past the Post.
I will say that Alaska opting to barely keep RCV is still a solid sign for Alternative Voting systems as whole, as everywhere else it was on the ballot but not in place it got voted down in 2024.
I think along with a state centered Alternative Voting strategy, a lesson we can take from 2024 is trying to go for grassroots change at the local, city, school board, and union board elections level to promote alternative voting systems. If it’s something people are familiar with, it’s much more likely to succeed at the state and national levels. What’s neat is that even low stakes things such as a vote for what you and your friends want for dinner or what movie to watch can use these different voting systems to introduce people to the idea.
It will take time and hard work for change to happen, but every bit we do now will matter if we want to try to shape things for the better.
It functionally can’t without changing the system, imo. The system itself must change or the Democratic Party needs to be changed from within by electing more people like AOC. That later type of change can take decades though, and the more business oriented side of the party doesn’t make it easy for progressive to move up the ranks. Also, the old guard of Democratic voters is not as progressive as the younger base. The Baby Boomers and Gen X for instance don’t exactly want all of the same things as Millennials and Gen Z. The fact that Millennials and Gen Z do not make up the largest percentage of the base voting in elections influences some of the decision making as well.
It could happen in at least some states. It takes ballot initiatives that require signatures. If you have other ideas I’m all ears, but I think at least starting the process to change our current system and can be applied fifty states is at least worth a shot. It requires grassroots organizing and would benefit a lot from smaller political parties getting on board as well.
That’s close to what happened in 2024 tbh. Sites like Reddit, Instagram, and YouTube were heavily botted and full of bad faith actors to promote misinformation. Since there are no guardrails like BlueSky has for instance, the bots could show up early to every thread/post/video to set the narrative and then they’d be the last to reply before threads closed to get the final word in.
I believe the future depends on more Federated sites to become mainstream and for Federated sites to adopt the same moderation mechanisms used by BlueSky.
I think it’s important to work towards enabling more political parties between now and 2028. We need alternative voting systems like Alaska and Maine have, but in the other states as well. That is only really possibly through getting ballot initiatives passed in each state for something like STAR Voting, Ranked Robin Voting, Score Voting, or Ranked Choice Voting.
A different voting system enables us to move away from First Past the Post, which is what forces a two party system. By having this, there can be more smaller parties that more truly represent the values of each state that can work with the bigger parties. Plus, it opens up the door for the most liked candidates to not knock each other out over the least liked candidates when tallying the votes.
All that is needed in about half of the states is to get signatures to put ballot initiatives up for a vote. Through grassroots action we can make a meaningful difference, and get more politicians like Walz that actually care about us in office.
How is it redundant?
Great, the government is committed to funding the bill, then they should increase taxes to fund the bill.
We should only be incurring debt in specific situations where there is a long run value add. I’m not saying we should be cutting spending at all, but we should be funding our spending by increasing taxes on corporations.
I don’t see the issue with having a separate vote in these situations which should be uncommon, where you are not able to fund the spending because it’s for one of the specific costs that add values to our society.
I agree that private sector budgeting doesn’t operate in the same way as public budgeting, but at a certain point in future it will start chipping at the value of the dollar if our nation is not able to pay off its interest on the debt. My point is that we should be taxing corporations more to fund the spending.
Edit: I don’t see what’s controversial about this take, what’s wrong with just funding the bill?