One Person....Seventy Votes?

A troublesome trend in recent American history is the absence of new ideas. Why have we been so weary of change? The Constitution is treated like the word of God, even though its authors intended for it to be regularly amendable. Labor Unions' greed, complacency and criminal activity after earning key concessions from big business in the 20^th century has hurt workers and continues to do so today. Reagan's “Revolution”, could not have been further from one; it was merely a throwback to the late nineteenth/early twentieth century ideas of classical liberalism, which were discredited by the Great Depression, a period of history that many fear could be repeating itself today given recent economic worries. What is it about America that is so inherently conservative? Without war, are we slated for stagnation?

A simple change to the legislative branch of the government could help remedy this lack of innovation in government. As far as I'm concerned, the sooner this antiquated part of the state is shut down, the better. I'm talking about the United States Senate, of course.

The reason that the Senate should be scrapped has to do with the way it mocks a fundamental principle of democracy. Consider the following:

California, Texas and New York are the three largest states in the Union, with a combined population of about 80 million people (about the size of Germany). Wyoming, Vermont and North Dakota are the three smallest states with a combined population of about 2 million people (about the size of Latvia). Both groups of states, large and small, each have 6 senators.

If you're still confused as to why the Senate should be banished, let us further analyze the existential consequences of the United States Senate. Assume that each Senator carefully considers the opinion of his/her constituents when voting, by holding a referendum that will determine how the Senator votes. Using a Senator's vote as metric of political power, a Californian's vote is equivalent to 1/36,000,000 of a unit of political power, whereas a citizen of Wyoming's vote is equivalent to 1/523,000 of a unit of political power. Thanks to the Senate, a voter in Wyoming has roughly seventy times the influence as a voter in California.

This problem must be remedied. This injustice is illustrated by data from 2005, which shows the return to the average taxpayer from each dollar spent on federal taxes. Of the states in the top 10 per capita returns to tax dollars spent (the whole table can be seen here), only three of them have populations that rank in the top 25 (Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi). This is not an argument against income transfers, but a point about fixing something thats broken. Why don't working class Californians, Texans and New Yorkers see a higher return to their tax dollars?

In addition to furthering the cause of justice, more proportional representation would also help eliminate the problem of reckless federal spending. What we have now is Senators trying to maximize their own state's return to federal tax money, thus increasing their chances of reelection, which does nothing to cure a public debt that has burgeoned to a staggering 40% of GDP.

Furthermore, eliminating the Senate could also do away with counterproductive Culture Wars between Red State and Blue State inhabitants by giving Blue State inhabitants (including Republicans who aren't socially conservative) their fair say in government. By some accounts, Blue State citizens outnumber their Red State counterparts by some 40 million. Yet the Senate's balance currently lies with the Democrats by a mere two votes, and only because the two independents in the Senate offer their support to them.

Not only are Armageddon-loving, freedom hating, science loathing fundamentalists generally detestable, but they are also over represented in Washington. They are free to peacefully be as willfully ignorant as they wish, but they should not unjustly force their beliefs on others, as per the current situation. This iniquity, and others, can practically be corrected by abolishing the Senate, thus making the United States Legislature a unicameral system.