PREFACE
There are five proposals on this website for improving our country by improving the news media. But the first proposal will probably be rejected by reporters because they don’t want to communicate like an advertising agency. Then the second proposal will also probably be rejected by reporters because they don’t want to communicate like a teacher. And the third will probably be rejected by talk radio hosts because they don’t have enough patience for fighting a never ending war of attrition against government spending. The fourth proposal probably won’t be profitable in the short run, but it might be profitable in the long run, while the last proposal probably isn’t important enough for the news media. For feedback, please contact me via Twitter at my address @StanleyKrauter
JUDGMENT DAY
The federal income tax code is my favorite example of the news media’s many failures to communicate. There have been thousands and thousands of news reports about the tax code since the 1986 reforms and surveys have repeatedly shown that the voters knew that the code was being repeatedly corrupted by lobbyists and special interest groups with enough money for many large campaign contributions. But the voters have never done anything to stop Congress and the post Reagan Presidents from creating more and more tax deductions. So all of the hard work by many reporters was an almost complete waste of time. Their only positive accomplishments were the money they earned and the journalism prizes they won for entertaining their customers, and our politicians, with gotchas.
(In my humble opinion, the 2017 tax reform by President Trump doesn’t qualify as a reform because it created a permanent tax cut for corporations, a temporary tax cut for people, and the elimination of some tax deductions that mainly benefitted Democratic special interest groups. The tax cut for corporations can be categorized as a reform because it was necessary to make American corporations competitive with foreign corporations. But a temporary tax cut for people is not a tax reform and the elimination of tax deductions for Democratic special interest groups was only petty revenge.)
As a result, the failure of the tax code journalism should be an interesting challenge for the news media. The reporters have done everything they were supposed to do. Almost every voter knew there was a corruption problem and they wanted to have the code reformed. And every Congressman and Senator has an incentive to eliminate tax deductions because almost every tax deduction must be paid for with a tax increase for everyone who is paying taxes. Even the people who qualify for a deduction will be paying higher marginal rates. But the story of the tax code has been like seeing a crime being committed in broad daylight and nobody trying to stop it. The only thing that can be done is to decide who to blame for the disaster. The lobbyists who bribed our politicians with large campaign contributions? The politicians who took the money and made the problem worse? The voters who were too incompetent to fire their politicians for corruption? Or the news media?
Obviously, I think the news media should be blamed because they are the only group in this process who can independently change their behavior. A fact that seems to be too difficult for reporters to understand. And I believe that the tax code could be reformed if every major news outlet would just publish a list of the twenty biggest tax deductions every year on April 15. The repetition would gradually make voters madder and madder every year that the worst tax deductions are not eliminated. Which could gradually force Congress to reform the tax code. Just like a teacher’s biannual report cards forcing a student to reform his study habits. But without the annual reminder on April 15, most of the voters will forget about the issue when they walk into the ballot booth and the tax code will never be reformed. Just like the news media will continue to deny that they are ultimately responsible for letting our democracy fail because of voter apathy. To make the voters’ intense anger about tax deductions even more profitable, the news media should also publish every year on April 15 a report on America’s distribution of income, distribution of wealth, distribution of tax burdens, and distribution of welfare payments for poor people. (most tax deductions are a form of welfare for middle class people) And to make the reports much more effective, reporters should also include information about the shares of national income that are going to capital and to labor and analyses about the cities and states that have the most progressive, or the most regressive, tax systems. This should help voters decide if the trickle down theories of economics and politics are working. But this also can’t happen now because reporters are communicating like entertainers by repeatedly writing about today’s most important facts.
However, reporters must communicate like entertainers. They can only write about yesterday’s most important facts when it is a very slow news day. Not when people want to memorize the information. So I am not complaining about what reporters are doing but what they are not doing. Which is to communicate like an advertising agency just once a year. Firecrackers are advertised right before the 4th of July. Toys are advertised right before Christmas. And everything is advertised during the Superbowl. So if they wanted to, reporters could repeatedly write about expensive tax loopholes on April 15, American History on the 4th of July, health insurance and pension plans on Labor Day, and World History on Columbus Day. But they don’t want to communicate like an advertising agency. They like communicating like an entertainer with random repetitions. They don’t even want to do an experiment with a scheduled repetition on April 15. They just don’t care about their many failures to communicate.
Reporters are probably justifying their refusal to do an experiment with the belief that it will fail. But advertising agencies are paid for communicating effectively while reporters are paid for getting people to look at advertising. So advertising agencies use a much different strategy for communicating effectively. And they have lots of statistical proof that their approach works. But obviously reporters won’t take advice from professional communicators who belong to a lower social caste. They are behaving like the doctors of the nineteenth century who refused to start washing their hands after being given evidence that they were killing their patients by spreading infections with their unwashed hands. All of the doctors had gone to college to learn their profession and they had many years of experience. They were not going to listen to a lunatic talking about the transmission of germs. Or to a news junkie talking about white noise and the failures of journalism. That might explain why nearly everyone in the news media has repeatedly ignored my emails about publishing a list of the biggest tax loopholes every year on April 15. My emails were even ignored by reporters who specialize in writing about the news media. My logic was also ignored by think tanks dedicated to the betterment of journalism. My sales pitches were equally ignored by journalism professors. And on Twitter, some journalists responded to my tweets but no commitments were made. Only non sequiturs and snarky comments. (Although at least four journalists and one talk radio moron blocked me because I was too rude in my comments. After more than thirty years of failing to persuade reporters to communicate more effectively, I have lost some of the patience necessary for interacting with people who won’t admit that they have failed to communicate.) So why did I fail to communicate with people who are paid to communicate?
AMERICAN HISTORY DAY
On July 4, 2026, our country is going to celebrate the 250th anniversary for the Declaration of Independence. To prepare for the celebration, every major news media outlet should publish the one hundred most important dates and events of American History on July 4, 2026. Then after 2026, they should continue publishing the list, with updates when needed, every year on our nation’s birthday. To make the information more entertaining, a ten to twenty question quiz should also be published every year on the 4th of July. And book reviews should also be published for the ten to twenty best American History books of the previous year. They could be very popular because a one paragraph or two paragraph book review can be enough to make some people feel like an expert.
(Probably the fastest way to write the chronology would be to use the chronology in the New York Times’s yearly almanac and select the one hundred most important events and dates. Some of events could be enhanced by getting more information from Wikipedia or an AI bot.)
More importantly, publishing the most important dates and events of American History every year on the 4th of July will create enough peer pressure to change the chronologies into the minimum amount of information that everyone should know. Even children will realize that they will be expected to memorize the information before they graduate from high school. As a result, the entertainment value of an annual American History Day will be changed into an annual citizenship day for children and adults that can be satisfied by studying only ten to fifteen minutes every year. And the same thing could happen again if the news media would just publish the one hundred and fifty most important dates and events of World History every year on Columbus Day. Then the estimated times before the invention of writing would make it possible to include when the bow and arrow was invented and horses were domesticated. Most people would enjoy that kind of information.
But why doesn’t anyone in the news media want to create an annual American History Day? Can’t they see that this will increase the demand curve for journalism? Don’t they want to promote patriotism by making people more conscious of what previous generations of Americans have accomplished?
A TAXPAYER’S HOLIDAY
America should have a national holiday for celebrating capitalism that is as exciting as the 4th of July and Christmas combined.
And it could be done by creating a new holiday, or by rescheduling Presidents’ Day, so the paid vacation day for so many government employees is always celebrated on the Monday closest in the calendar to our average rate of taxation. (aka Tax Freedom Day) Every year this new or improved holiday should make most taxpayers madder than an unregulated firecracker at government spending. This will give fiscal conservatives an advantage in every election. Which might stop the growing popularity of socialism among younger voters.
Moreover, every year the taxpayers’ anger should make it profitable for conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation to publish on their website an annual list of the government programs that should be eliminated. Then every year talk radio hosts could use the list to force our Presidents and Congress to do rescissions of the worst programs. Sort of like an annual Christmas present for angry taxpayers.
But the special interest groups of America are much more powerful than the listeners to talk radio because we live in a republic, not a democracy. So the geniuses in talk radio will probably lose more often than they win when they try to persuade our Presidents and Congress to do one or more rescissions every year. Even Rush Limbaugh was unable to stop the federal government from getting bigger and bigger and bigger after he went national in 1988. If they are too weak to eliminate programs like the one for ethanol subsidies, talk radio hosts might stop trying to get as many rescissions as possible. Like politicians, they will decide that protecting self-declared image as the Cool Kids of politics is more important than saving their country.
As for rescheduling Presidents’ Day so it becomes a de facto Taxpayer’s Holiday, people should remember that this will be cheaper than creating a new holiday. And I think that George Washington would approve of using a three day weekend to stimulate Americans into fighting every year for No Taxation Without Justification.
(The average tax rate in America for 2025 was 31.0%. So a Taxpayer’s Holiday could have been celebrated on April 21, 2025. But to adjust to changes in our taxes or economy, every holiday will be scheduled twenty years in advance based on a twenty year moving average. Therefore the Taxpayer’s Holiday for 2026 would be based on the average tax rate for 1986 to 2006 and the Taxpayer’s Holiday for 2046 on the average tax rate for 2006 to 2026.)
FREE FOREIGN LANGUAGE LESSONS FOR SUBSCRIBERS
Major news media outlets should also publish on their homepage a daily foreign language quote with a translation. So on Monday, people might read a French quote by Napoleon with a translation. On Tuesday, a Chinese quote by Confucius with a translation. On Wednesday, a Spanish quote by Don Quixote, or Sancho, his assistant. A Japanese quote by Emperor Meiji on Thursday. And on Friday, a Russian quote by Peter the Great.
Then to make the reading lessons more entertaining, and read much more often, a link should be provided so people can hear someone say the quote in the foreign language. This will make it easier to estimate how many people are reading quotes. And to make the lessons more productive, a two or three paragraph foreign language biography of the quote’s author should be added so people can practice reading in the foreign language. The first paragraph will be on the home page right under the quote. But the second and third paragraphs will be on another page so the number of people who click on a link for the extra paragraphs can be counted. The biographies will also be translated. If anyone wants to listen to audio versions of the biographies, they can download the appropriate Narrator software from Microsoft.
More importantly, the demand curve for the foreign language lessons should gradually increase because the free lessons will inspire many grade school, high school, and college students to learn a foreign language. But because they usually won’t have an opportunity to use their new language, they will quickly forget everything. So they could become very loyal readers of foreign language quotes and biographies that can be studied just once a week in only five to ten minutes.
THE APE INDEX
As everyone should already know, stock markets go up and they go down. But amateur investors usually invest in the stock market only when it is going up fast enough and high enough that almost everyone can buy low and sell high. So their investments are going to lose money when the stock market goes down to a normal level. However, if major news media outlets would include at least once a week the Average Price Earnings Ratio for the Dow Jones Industrial Averages, amateur investors would become much more likely to buy low when the stock market is depressed and never sell high when the stock is irrationally exuberant because they will have to pay a capital gains tax on their profits. More importantly, the APE Index will also tell everyone how many years it will take to get their money back, before paying taxes, from investing in the Dow. Which will be an enormous increase in what many people know about the stock market and the economic behavior of rich people.
Naturally, for people investing the stock market an APE Index of ten will obviously be much better than an APE of twenty. In fact, it is so much better return that most amateurs will immediately become more likely to invest when the market is going down, instead of when it is going up. Then they will be able to buy low and sell high when the stock market goes up to a more normal level. Or collect a high dividend rate by buying low and keeping the stock.
But no one in the news media has been interested in my idea for improving the public’s understanding of the stock market. Why? Don’t they know how to calculate the Price Earnings Ratio? Don’t they care that ordinary people usually don’t know what the PE Ratio is used for.
BONUS PROPOSALS
As previously mentioned, when our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution they gave us problems with special interest groups that still haven’t been solved. And then they made things even worse by inventing political parties. With political parties, the majority of voters in the largest political party usually get what they want instead of what the majority of voters in the country want. And sometimes a minority of voters in the largest political party, like the pro-life and pro-choice radicals in the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, get what they want instead of what the majority of voters in either party wants. But both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party agree with one another on at least one issue. They should not have to compete with a third political party. Or a fourth political party. Or a fifth political party. And two of the proposals for curing the problems created by political parties, Ranked Choice Voting and Mixed Member Proportional Representation, will weaken the Republican Party and the Democratic Party at the same time that they strengthen both the Green Party and the Libertarian Party.
The ballots we currently use are not the same kind of ballots that our Founding Fathers started with. For example, there were no political parties on their ballots. And they also didn’t have primary elections for deciding who would be put on the ballots in the general election. However, both politicians and philosophies have a better chance of surviving if they join a political party. So political parties were invented soon after our country was born. But the next package of reforms, called initiatives and referendums, were enacted because too many Americans were still not happy with politicians and political parties. They then enacted campaign finance reforms that have been re-reformed and re-reformed and re-reformed because the prior reforms didn’t work. Which brings me to the latest package of reforms that are being proposed — Ranked Choice Voting and Mixed Member Proportional Representation Ballots. And to no one’s surprise, many of the most powerful politicians in both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party are intensely opposed to the proposals.
To explain how the Republican Party and the Democratic Party can be weakened with Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), I will start by describing what I think is the best version. The most important change will happen in primary elections. In most primary elections, only Republicans vote for Republican candidates. Only Democrats vote for Democratic candidates. Only third party members vote for their candidates. And independent voters can’t vote for anyone. But again, this produces politicians who are selected by a majority of Republicans, or by a majority of Democrats, or by a majority of another political party, instead of by a majority of Americans. Moreover, voter turnout is usually very low for primary elections and a high percentage of those voters belong to the extreme right wing or the extreme left wing. This is another reason why we are currently not electing politicians who truly represent the people of America. So in my favorite version, every candidate in a primary election will compete with one another on the same ballot. Even politicians who don’t belong to any political party will be on the ballot. Then everyone will be able to vote for anyone that they like. Republicans will be able to vote for Democrats that they like. Democrats will be able to vote for Republicans that they like. No one will have to join a political party if they want to vote. All that every voter will be asked to do in a primary election (and in the general election in November) is to check off their first, second, third, and fourth choices. So with four candidates winning in primary elections, there should be an increase in the number of moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats in the general election. Which could really reduce the impact of extremists in both parties. However, some experts believe that the ballots for Ranked Choice Voting should not indicate who is a Republican, a Democrat, a Greenie, a Libertarian, or a member of another party. And in local elections, where there usually isn’t enough money or volunteers for having an election, they have declared that primary elections won’t be needed because the most popular candidate can be determined in the general election. I disagree with both opinions but experiments will have to be done to decide which are correct.
Then to explain how the ballots will work in a general election in November, I will describe what could have happened with the last election for President. The four candidates on my imaginary ballots will be Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, and Kamala Harris. And one group of voters, called Never Trumpers, might have selected Ron DeSantis as their first choice, Nikki Haley as their second choice, Kamala Harris as their third choice, and Donald Trump as their last choice. Now, if Ron DeSantis had gotten more than fifty percent of the first choice votes, he would have become President. But if he had gotten the smallest number of first choice votes, his name would have been taken off the ballot and Nikki Haley would have become the first choice vote on the Never Trumpers’ ballots. Then if she had gotten more than fifty percent of the first choice votes, she would have become President. But if she had gotten fewer first choice votes than both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, her name would have been taken off the ballot and the Never Trumpers would have voted for Kamala. One of the advantages of Ranked Choice Voting is that people can vote for their first and second choices without automatically throwing away their votes. The Never Trumpers wanted Ron DeSantis as their first choice and Nikki Haley as their second choice, but they were still able to vote for Kamala Harris when DeSantis and Haley were removed from the ballots. A similar voting strategy could have been used by Democrats who wanted to vote for Harris but were afraid that she would lose to Trump. All they would have needed to do was vote for Haley as their first choice and Harris as their second choice. Then if Haley had won, Trump would have been defeated. But if no one got enough votes to win the election and Harris got more first place votes than Haley, all of Haley’s votes would have been changed into votes for Harris.
Another advantage will happen in states that are dominated by either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. In those states, people who belong to the subordinate party are usually wasting their time when they vote. They won’t have any influence over who is nominated by the dominant party in the primary election and almost all of the candidates nominated by their party will lose in the general election. So why should they vote? With Ranked Choice Voting, on the other hand, they might be able to determine who wins in both the primary election and the general election with STRATEGIC VOTING. For states like Nebraska, which is dominated by Republicans, that would force Democrats to vote for moderate Republicans as their first and second choices. Then they can vote for Democratic candidates as their third and fourth choices. Which will mean that Nebraskans will finally be electing politicians who are supported by a majority of Nebraskans instead of by a majority of Republicans. Then in states controlled by the Democrats, liberals will still be strong enough to get almost all of their candidates elected but the Republican Party will become strong enough to decide which Democrats are elected. In every state, pro-choice Republicans and pro-life Democrats will have much better chances of winning. Another advantage of Ranked Choice Ballots is how they reward politicians for being polite to one another. Now they are rewarded for insulting one another. Even when it is two candidates who belong to the same party. The politeness should even apply to members of the other political party. Which could make it easier for Republicans and Democrats to make compromises when making a compromise is the only way that something can be done. More polite politicians will also make better role models for our children.
Then to understand how Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMPR) can also weaken the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, let’s create a new state for America. This fifty-first state, to be called Sparta, will have ten Congressmen but the state will have only five congressional districts. So each district will be represented by two Congressmen. One will be elected as a candidate on Ranked Choice Ballots and the other as a party representative via MMPR Ballots. Therefore everyone will vote twice. Once for a candidate and once for a political party (or for no party). This means that each candidate has a chance to win as a district candidate or as a party representative. But both of the candidates will have identical responsibilities in Congress.
In Sparta’s last election with gerrymandered districts, Republicans won four candidate seats and the Democrats won one. Then for party representatives, the Republicans got fifty percent of the votes while the Democrats got thirty percent. The Libertarian Party and the Green Party each got ten percent. However, the Republicans were given only one of the party representative seats because they already had four seats from the candidate elections and one Congressman plus four Congressmen equals five Congressmen. Which equals fifty percent of Sparta’s ten congressional seats. But the Democrats were given two party seats because two Congressmen plus one Congressman equals thirty percent of Sparta’s ten congressional seats. Thereupon the Libertarian Party and the Green Party were each given one Congressmen because that gave both of them ten percent of Sparta’s congressional seats.
Because the Republicans got the largest percentage of party votes, they got the first party representative and he was the Republican with the most RCV second place votes. Or the most RCV third place votes if the other party candidates won second place in every district. Either way, one of the five districts could have two Republican Congressmen. Then the Democrats won the second largest and third largest percentage of party votes. So in the four remaining districts, the two Democrats with the most RCV second place votes were the winners. Or the Democrat(s) with the most RCV third place, or fourth place, votes will win. Then one district will have a Democrat and a Republican for its two Congressmen while the other district might have two Democrats. And in the two remaining districts, a Libertarian Party candidate and a Green Party candidate will be the party representative winners. But if there are no Libertarian or Green Party candidates in a district, the winner will be the Republican or Democrat who won second place on the RCV Ballot. If a state has an odd number of Congressmen, one will be elected by the entire state, instead of by a district, with a RCV Ballot. So people will vote three times in those states. Once for a district candidate, once for a state candidate, once for a political party.
The MMPR Ballots will neutralize gerrymandering by the largest political party at the same time that smaller political parties get help for winning the right to represent their supporters. And using Ranked Choice Ballots for district elections will weaken extremists in both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Therefore the new ballots will probably have to be enacted with initiatives and referendums. Republicans are not going to support MMPR Ballots if they are powerful enough to gerrymander their state. Nor will Democrats. But I believe that the Republicans in California will be happy to organize a petition drive in their state to publicize how unfairly they are being treated by the Democratic Party and the Democrats in Texas will be happy to organize a petition drive in their state to publicize how unfairly they are being treated by Republicans. And they will certainly be helped by Greenies and Libertarians who would like to do an experiment with a new process for electing Congressman. Then our two party system will gradually change into a three party, or a four party, or even a five party system at federal, state, and local levels. As a result, Congress will become more like what John Adams said it should be: “,,, a portrait, in miniature, of the people at large, feel, reason, and act like them.” But this won’t be an improvement if we don’t have better educated voters and the news media doesn’t want to change from communicating like an entertainer to communicating like a teacher.
The Angry RINO 