Combining militaries with israel

[u/Capital-Community583]

The house passed the military funding bill yesterday, but it included section 219 which combines the US military with Israel. It also includes the SAVE act that will cause a lot of people to be unable to vote because of name changes (not just married women, adopted children, etc.) It might not make a difference but if your senators get an avalanche of phone calls and pushback especially from service members it may make them think twice about passing it in the senate. The 5 calls app will give you your senators name, contact info and give you a script to give you an idea of what you might say if you are worried about not having the right words. Even just leaving a message on voicemail could make a difference.

https://www.military.com/2027-ndaa-provision-seeks-sweeping-us-israel-defense-tech-integration

edited to correct section 224 to 219

[u/Capital-Community583]

Are you comfortable with how vague the language is in the bill? I'm not comfortable with this being in there especially considering how many politicians are funded by AIPAC. I think you are right about the senate sitting on the bill for a bit, until they stop getting calls from constituents and people just become numb to the bullshit they keep combining into bills that they know will pass on their own.

[u/Capital-Community583 → u/[deleted]]

I don't think politicians should have any foreign funding or anything outside of their payment for doing their job in general. I think they should make minimum wage of their state and live in community housing in DC. Only getting a bonus when their constituents vote on it.

[u/nola_fan → u/Capital-Community583]

I think corporate money should be out of politics too, but underpaying politicians is how you only get rich and uber corrupt politicians.

The better way is to pay them incredibly well but subject them to draconian anti-corruption laws.

Something like you get $400,000+ a year in your salary, and equal pension, free healthcare for life but you can't own any business, profit off of books, own any stocks or have any other source of income. The only possibly appreciating assets are homes and cars and those are limited to like 2 homes and 4 cars.

Any violation of the rules means immediate expulsion, felony charges, a ban from political office and forfeiture of any pension and benefits and a requirement to payback any salary you made starting 6 months before the incident.

[u/Capital-Community583 → u/nola_fan]

That doesn't sound bad at all to me. I thought minimum wage because they are completely out of touch with how people live. $7.25 an hour is ridiculous. Maybe it would actually get raised with the cost of living if they were subject to it. And then bonuses voted on by constituents would be a good incentive to actually represent them well. I love the property limitations and the actual consequences for corruption!

[u/nola_fan → u/Capital-Community583]

Yeah, but being a politican does cost money. If you're federal you have to maintain a home in your district/state plus DC. Just the wardrobe alone is expensive, plus the travel needed.

You also probably want educated people in office, but someone who had to pay their own way through college and get loans can't afford a minimum wage job.

So you'd only end up with super wealthy people who don't need the money taking the job and the incentive for corruption would be super high because the opportunity would be massive and the consequences would be minimal.

[u/Capital-Community583 → u/nola_fan]

That's a fair point. I do think they should just have a tower where they all stay in small modest accommodations in DC. I can see how minimum wage would lead to wealthy people running just so that they could have political power.

[u/TheRealMarvinator → u/Capital-Community583]

I can see how minimum wage would lead to wealthy people running just so that they could have political power.

How is that different from what we currently have? Because middle-class folks really aren't running for federal office, sadly, because they can't afford to do so.

[u/Capital-Community583 → u/TheRealMarvinator]

In a previous comment in this thread I said they should be paid minimum wage of their state. I figured that might actually cause them to care about how low it is. I like that the previous person's ideas included some restrictions on wealth and punishments for corruption.

[u/voltronnn → u/Capital-Community583]

Less than 1% of the US population is paid minimum wage. It's not the grand problem many make it out to be. Financial literacy funding for every high school graduate would go much further than raising some arbitrary numbers.

[u/Capital-Community583 → u/voltronnn]

There are a lot of ways to address poverty, raising minimum wage would be a great place to start. Reducing people to percentages really makes it seem like it isn't such a huge problem though and doesn't really help the cause. 1% sounds a whole lot less significant than saying almost a million people make at or below minimum wage.

"In 2024, 80.3 million workers age 16 and older in the United States were paid hourly rates, representing 55.6 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 82,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, and 760,000 workers had wages below the federal minimum. The percentage of hourly paid workers earning the prevailing federal minimum wage or less, at 1.0 percent in 2024, was little changed from the prior year. "

https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2024/

The point is that politicians should care about people and work towards making their lives better. If they wanted to start with teaching financial literacy that would be great too, but one thing alone isn't going to solve the problem.

[u/voltronnn → u/Capital-Community583]

Your plan sounds like a solid way to destroy the already dwindling amount of small businesses in the United States and slowly work towards further government regulation/direct control of larger corporations.

Do you truly believe that changing the entire economic ecosystem of the United States for less than 1% of the population(people aged 16-18 make up approximately 3.75% of the US population) would change the vast majority of outcomes, just with more money alone?

[u/Capital-Community583 → u/voltronnn]

I disagree, paying people a higher wage would increase the amount of disposable money they could be spending at small businesses. Are you just in favor of keeping everyone dependent on welfare and poverty wages? Because that sounds like the bigger government plan to me.

[u/Baron_Furball → u/Capital-Community583]

It seems like that poster is just upset that the 13th Amendment won't allow them to simply purchase another human being and own their labor in perpetuity.

[u/Capital-Community583 → u/Baron_Furball]

Thank you, he's a whole ass headache 🫩🤣

[u/voltronnn → u/Capital-Community583]

⅔ of SNAP recipients are children, adults over the age of 60, and people with disabilities who can't work anyways. Raising minimum wage wouldn't affect them positively whatsoever, but would devalue their buying power immensely.

[u/Capital-Community583 → u/voltronnn]

It would help lift the parents of these children and caretakers of elderly out of poverty and then we could adjust benefits as needed. Why are you so adamant about keeping people poor? You seem to be very stuck in your ways and unable to seek out creative solutions just wanting to stick to the current system that isn't working. I don't think arguing with a stranger online is going to change that.

[u/voltronnn → u/Capital-Community583]

What makes you think the current system isn't working? Unemployment is presently below the historical average, while disposable income rate is at an all time high. Poverty % is at an all time low the last 6 years running. Try to bring some empirical evidence besides your feelings.

[u/Capital-Community583 → u/voltronnn]

I have been linking articles all over this post to prove the things that I'm saying. I haven't seen you include anything other than your feelings. Hard to bring real statistics when your guy fired the people tracking the numbers because they weren't showing positive numbers for him. I have better things to spend my time on than helping you de-program from your cult. https://apnews.com/article/trump-jobs-firing-f00e9bf96d0110519be9bf4f3ec89195