I think we need a new rule for voting.
If you don't pay any federal income taxes, you can't vote.
If you have no skin in the game, you can't vote.
If you don't pay any federal income taxes and you vote,
all you can do is transfer my labor into dollars in your pocket.
I almost like Heinlein's approach -- if you haven't served a
part of your life in __volunteer__ Federal service, you don't
have the full rights of citizenship (ability to vote or hold
office.) Starship Troupers is his story about showing what he
felt it took to create a citizen worthy of the right to vote
or hold office. Heinlein's approach doesn't require wealth.
It asks the same personal time investment from rich and poor,
alike.
All this stuff was argued vociferously during the early and
mid parts of 1787, before finishing the writing of the US
Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Since then, things have
changed (we vote for Senators now, but didn't back then.)
Making voting based upon wealth is an old question. During
the US Constitutional Convention in Philidelphia, Gouverneur
Morris said (you can find Bancroft's books on this topic
[it's a 2-volume set] on Google Books, by the way):
"The ignorant and the dependent can be as little trusted with
the public interest as children."
On the same day, James Madison said:
"In future times, a great majority of the people will not
only be without property in land, but property of any sort.
These will either combine under the influence of their common
situation, in which case the rights of property and the
public liberty will not be secure in their hands, or, what is
more probable, they will become the tools of opulence and
ambition; in which case, there will be equal danger on
another side."
You would, I suppose, find little difficulty with the above
world view.
Ben Franklin said, just 3 days later, on August 10th of 1787:
"I dislike everything that tends to debase the spirit of the
common people. If honesty is often the companion of wealth,
and if poverty is exposed to peculiar temptation, the
possession of property increases the desire for more. Some
of the greatest rogues I was ever acquainted with were the
richest rogues. Remember, the scripture requires in rulers
that they should be men hating covetousness. If this
constitution should betray a great partiality to the rich, it
will not only hurt us in the esteem of the most liberal and
enlightened men in Europe, but discourage the common people
from removing to this country."
In the end, Ben Franklin's opinion and that of others who
agreed with him, together with the opinions of Madison and
Morris and others, were cobbled together into what we have
today. There is NO wealth test, but the States were left to
devise methods of selecting their Senators, for example,
leaving significant power in the hands of those wealthy
enough to have regular access to education and power.
That week in early to mid August was quite a week, by the
way. A lot of world views about wealth and poor and their
various peculiarities were exposed in plain view. And there
wasn't much agreement. Enough to get things done, but not a
lot. There was a divide and significant prejudices all around
about those who they understand poorly and that division of
perspectives continues to this day and is just as incorrect
and false today as it was then. (And I'm speaking about the
views that each have of the other; both are false and born
from a lack of understanding.)
Jon
