This might need to get moved to Chat, but most of these criticisms are, I think, not well-founded.
I think my main thing(s) to change would be in congressional processes/rules, but would have presidential implications:
1) A balanced budget (validated to be without blatant chicanery) must be passed by XX date. If not, every sitting member is ineligible or re-election FOREVER and their entire operating budget (including pay and benefits) is suspended until one is passed (and reduced proportional to the time lost). It's their #1 job and if they fail at that (which they usually do), they should be fired.
This would make the position of "Budget Validator" -- presumably an unelective executive appointee, to boot! -- the single most powerful person in the country.
I should add that you've created an office
with the power to abolish the entire legislative branch of our government (!) to solve a nonexistent problem. Economists may argue as to whether our current debt is too large, but
no economist, as far as I know, argues that there's some sort of inherent problem with a government running a deficit. Indeed, most
corporations and other organizations frequently operate at a deficit to adjust to market fluctuations; otherwise, your employer would be forced to lay people off every time there was a market downturn.
Do you really want that? Do you honestly want the U.S. government to have to cut vital programs every time there's an economic downturn?
2) A non-partisan editorial office would review all bills to ensure they're written clearly and concisely and focus on a single cohesive issue. Otherwise, they're swiftly returned for rewrite. Congress routinely puts unrelated crap in every bill of consequence, often forcing them to accept wasteful or stupid crap. Most bills are needlessly (often intentionally) complex, written by a bunch of lawyers used to charging by the hour (or word).
Another unelected official with dictatorial powers?? How exactly are you going to choose this "non-partisan editor?" Trust the President to pick a guy who pinky-swears he doesn't care about politics?
Omnibus bills
do suck, but this solution is a hell of a lot worse than the problem.
(Side note: Congressional lawyers aren't paid by the hour.)
3) Congressional pay, benefits, and retirement work as they do for government workers, including being affected by sequestration, etc. They don't get separate pay increases, etc.
Yeah, I'm okay with that, although it doesn't particularly matter. Most members of Congress are already independently wealthy.
4) Congressmen cannot vote unless PRESENT to vote. No one may vote for them, nor may they enter their vote after the fact.
No one can vote on a Congressperson's behalf now.
5) All votes are on-the-record
I'm okay with this, too, but again: what problem do you think you're solving?
6) All presidential appointees MUST be voted on within 90 days. If not done before then, the vote will push aside ALL other business on that day.
Yeah, I'm okay with that, too.
7) All bills in committee must be either rejected by majority vote or sent to the floor within 30 days. Committee leaders can't hold things hostage forever.
So... committees vote bills down instead of tabling them. How does that help?
8) Filibusters must be real and in-person and can't be done on motions to proceed
Hey, this is a good idea!
9) Congressional seating is changed from its current partisan layout. Seating could be purely alphabetical, geographic, by seniority, etc. This would make political opponents more likely to talk to each other instead of just remaining in an "echo chamber" of like-thinking peers.
I can't tell if this is a joke, but if it is, it's kind of funny.
