Politics And Religion

Get Big Money Out of Politics

Americans are bored to death with unlimited money in elections eliminating their political power and drowning out their voices.

The voices of working Americans are being drowned out by those with the most important wallets, and if candidates are only reprimanded those funding their campaigns, they’re not paying attention to the American people. It means wallets on Wall Street bulge, and working-class wages stagnate. It means the value of a university education skyrockets. And it means the pensions you worked so hard to earn are gutted while wealthy special interests push massive trade deals written by and for the profit of multinational corporations.

The Government By the People Act within the House of Representatives and therefore the Fair Elections Now Act within the Senate aim to alter the status quo:

BUILDING A GOVERNMENT OF, BY, AND FOR THE PEOPLE
The Government by the People Act and Fair Elections Now Act are comprehensive reforms designed to combat the influence of huge money politics, raise civic engagement, and amplify the voice of everyday Americans – putting the general public interest back ahead of special interests.

EMPOWER AMERICANS TO PARTICIPATE
Provide everyday Americans with a refundable My Voice reduction to assist spur small-dollar contributions to candidates for Congressional office.

AMPLIFY THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE
Small-dollar contributions are matched from the fund, provided the candidate receiving the contribution forgoes big-money special interests and focuses on earning broad-based support from small-dollar donors. Carefully crafted to supply participating candidates with sufficient resources to compete, the liberty from Influence Fund would make the grassroots supporter even as powerful because of the big-money donor.

FIGHT BACK AGAINST BIG MONEY’S SPECIAL INTERESTS
In the wake of the Citizens United decision, unlimited outside spending has monopolized the airwaves within the final weeks of elections. Citizen-funded candidates who are ready to raise a minimum of $50,000 in additional small-dollar donations within the 60-day “home stretch” of the final election would be eligible for added resources.

 

Government

Why the Government Wants an Eco-friendlier Driving

Old cars for donation

 

Road traffic causes about one-fifth of greenhouse gas emissions in the Netherlands. An electric car does not emit greenhouse gases and nitrogen dioxide. That is why the government encourages electric driving and makes our old car donation to a more needy cause, sort of a charitable organization. This is stated in the Climate Agreement.

Advantages of electric driving

Driving an electric car has several advantages:

  • You can get an exemption from motor vehicle tax (MRB) and tax on passenger cars and motorcycles (BPM).
  • You may have a lower tax addition.
  • Electric driving is more economical than driving on petrol or diesel.
  • No emissions of greenhouse gases, nitrogen dioxide, and particulate matter
  • Contributes to cleaner air.
  • Individuals can apply for a subsidy for fully electric cars.
  • Entrepreneurs can apply for a subsidy for fully electric company cars.

Clean transport helps meet climate goals

The Climate Agreement states that the Netherlands must emit 49% less CO2 in 2030. In 2050, this will be 95%. Clean transport helps to achieve these goals. For example, all new passenger cars that will be on the market in 2030 must be 100% electric. These cars then run on electricity from a battery, hydrogen fuel cell, or solar panels.

Subsidy for electric passenger cars

The central government wants to make electric driving attractive for more private individuals. That is why private individuals can apply for a subsidy. The subsidy applies (subject to conditions) to:

  • fully electric passenger cars in the smaller or compact middle class;
  • the list price (original new price) is not lower than € 12,000 and does not exceed € 45,000;
  • cars purchased or leased in the year in which subsidy is applied for and there is still money left;
  • new and used electric passenger cars.

 

ALSO READ: Why Do We Make Politics So Complicated?

 

Charging 1.9 million electric cars in 2030

Electric cars need to be charged. There are more than 55,000 public charging stations on the street and in parking garages in the Netherlands. The National Charging Infrastructure Agenda (NAL) is the action to have 1.7 million charging points in the Netherlands by 2030. There are then about 1.9 million electric passenger cars in use.

Green Deals for Electric Driving

The government is working with other parties on agreements on sustainability in Green Deals. For example, the central government supports the use of electric vehicles in the transport sector. Think, for example, of electric lease cars, electric public transport, and electric taxis.

Energy labels for cars

New cars have an energy label. This energy label states, among other things, how much fuel the car consumes compared to cars of similar size.

Label for car tires

All new tires for cars and vans are covered by the European tire label. Allows you to compare tires in the field of fuel consumption.

Agreements on alternative fuels and energy savings

The central government stimulates the supply of environmentally friendly fuels for transport such as biodiesel. For example, with a subsidy. The Energy Agreement for Sustainable Growth contains agreements on energy-saving and more sustainable energy. These agreements have been made with employers, trade unions, and environmental organizations, among others.

Environmental zones for diesel cars

As of 1 January 2020, national rules apply to municipalities with environmental zones. In environmental zones, municipalities are allowed to ban older diesel cars, trucks, and buses that cause a lot of air pollution. Municipalities had their own rules for environmental zones until 1 January 2020. From 1 January to 29 October 2020, they will adapt these to the national rules.

According to the national rules as of 1 January 2020, the emission class of your diesel car, truck, or bus determines whether you can enter an environmental zone. Diesel cars with emission class 3 may only enter a yellow environmental zone. These cars will be up to 20 years old in 2020. Diesel with emission class 4 and higher are allowed to enter a green zone. These cars, trucks, or buses will be up to 15 years old in 2020.

Petrol-powered cars, buses, and trucks are always allowed to enter the environmental zone.

 

Politics And Religion

Why Do We Make Politics So Complicated?

Every day, it sounds like we rouse to an excessive amount of news. We are bombarded with announcements of recent and cruel state laws, of shifting guidelines on the foremost recent receding wave of the pandemic, of atrocities committed half a world away before we even have breakfast. The flashpoints of this young century—federal dysfunction, state-level oppression, international conflict on a scale we’ve not seen in decades, and a world population on the move. With most to find out and then much to grasp, it’s no surprise that we insist that we’ve received a reality that’s an excessive amount of to grasp.

So we don’t try. Instead, we collectively use our credulity and kindness, our extended empathy, and sprawling interconnectedness to hunt nuance and complexity within the explosion of noise. we discover space for brutal dictators who could simply be missing the suitable dose of childhood love. There’s always another explanation for cruelty, another rationale for bad behavior, a detail or perspective that we are missing that might make it comprehensible and thus forgivable.

Some of this is often deliberate, designed to muddy the waters and delay a response. a number of its innocent, an earnest try to bridge political chasms that threaten to swallow us otherwise. But irrespective of the intention, all of it’s chosen: we wish to believe this world is simply too complicated to be summed up because it absolves us from seeking solutions. As long as we remain overwhelmed, it’s a present that the planet is just too complex to mend.

We hedge our discourse about the difficult problems with our time with “perhaps” and “maybe,” hoping that we will perpetually preempt consensus and therefore the hard task of reaching it. Ours could be a society of easy permission: Let everyone have their own source for information; burnish the thought that we are all entitled to our opinions; roll with the resentment and anger of a political minority instead of attempting to defuse it. Whether it’s disappearing mask mandates after we have just finished burying our millionth body because of the pandemic, or the arbitrary skepticism offered to lawmakers who have explicitly and tacitly endorsed a violent coup against the central, we’ve become so frightened of jumping to the incorrect conclusion too quickly that we’ve got forgotten the chance of reaching the correct answer too late.

So here is the simplest read of our current paradigm and also the forces arrayed against our collective survival: We are in a very global fight for multiracial democracy and self-determination against the repressive forces of authoritarianism and therefore the regression it craves.

All of our other conflicts and conundrums derive from this battle over power and who will make the selections that shape this next century: pandemic response; climate change; technological advancements; economic distribution; infrastructure; information and social networks; national mythologies and also the harsh realities they hide. These are the battlegrounds for the edges in an exceedingly conflict that has been fed by the transformations of the last hundred more or fewer years—the tremendous leaps of progress within the 20th century have finally clashed with a reactionary force determined to claw it all back. So obsessed, so broken, so incoherent is their rage at a changing world that the kid who defines their own gender is treated the maximum amount of a threat as a nation that defines its own sovereignty.

No matter how we deny, reject, and stall it, our society is neck-deep within the confrontation between multiracial democracy and supremacist autocracy. The fight is on cardinal and one front. it’s within the free speech that permits conservatives extolling the virtues of hierarchy to take advantage of their words while banning the stories of Black and brown accomplishments from classrooms. It’s within the massive disinformation and propaganda campaigns that disparage democratic allies and uplift repressive authoritarians. It’s within the brutal starvation of Afghans and therefore the unmarked graves of Syrians and also the tested resilience of Ukrainians. It’s not hidden or unfathomable, missing or incomplete; we simply don’t want to seem at it directly because if we are able to keep it murky enough, maybe we don’t just see what we must change.

Yet the deeper we get into the conflicts, the more they reveal their own solutions. we’ve got denied our have to switch to less extractive renewable energy to forestall the worst of temperature change, and the way our addiction to fossil fuels holds us hostage to the authoritarian ruler of the third-largest oil producer in the world. We’ve got mortgaged our future to complement our present and have overleveraged our economy with unstable debt that threatens an intergenerational conflict that would decimate society. We’ve eschewed equality to coddle supremacy and now find that supremacy seeks to destroy anything it cannot control, whether or not it comes with self-immolation.

 

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