ArcaMax

I'm forming a new political party.

No offense intended to the two major ones we already have, but they stink. OK, well, if I'm being honest, some offense was intended. Currently, we're at "invading Venezuela to distract attention from the Epstein files" levels of incompetence, so a bit of change seems warranted.

I'm going to call my party The Nuisance Liberation Front, and you're welcome to join.

We're not going to tackle any hot-button social topics -- you can go somewhere else if you want action on wedge issues. We're dealing only with the stuff everyone agrees on, but no one ever takes action about.

Here are just a few of the planks in our platform:

A permanent end to corporate welfare. Recently, the CFO of ChatGPT company OpenAI, which lost an estimated $5 billion last year, said the federal government should "backstop" their $1.4 billion investments in infrastructure. It smacks of the "too big to fail" nonsense in the banking industry after they made a bunch of bad investments and then forced taxpayers to bail them out. You're gonna have to pick an economic system here, folks. No more capitalism for regular people and communism for the rich ones.

Fairness in grocery billing. At the grocery store, they will not be allowed to ring up items at the non-sale price and then tell you that "it takes the discount off at the end of the transaction, requiring you to have a postdoctoral degree to understand what you were actually charged. Too many times, I've been confused as to whether the sale price rang up or not, then had to decide whether to go back to the store to get my 50 cents or just give up and surrender more of my dignity to the obvious trick.

Truth in labeling. Speaking of groceries, they're not allowed to put less of a product inside the package and charge you the same amount unless they slap a giant "NOW WITH LESS YOGURT" sticker on the front. No downsizing food.

No personal warehousing. And the stores can't require you to purchase more than two of an item to get a sale price, unless they're going to pay you rent to store their overstock in your pantry. I'm sick of having to choose between buying 40 boxes of cereal or paying $10 for a box of Cheerios. Also, the bags in all cereal boxes will be legally required to be equipped with a zippered closure that prevents the cereal inside from going stale.

Pokemon cards for minors only. You'll need to show ID to buy them. If you have an ID, you're too old to get them. I'm trying to find some Pokemon cards for my kids for Christmas and they're nowhere in stock because all the resellers climb out of their moms' basements the second a shipment comes in to clear it out in one trip. Are you an adult and want some cards for yourself? Pay a kid to come with you. It's the opposite of what we used to do when we wanted to buy beer in high school.

Property tax stability. Here's one for the grownups: There will no longer be such a thing as an increase in the assessed value of a home. No more property-tax increases while you live in the same house. I mean, look, just because you say my house is worth that amount doesn't mean I would be able to afford to pay that if I bought it now. You can't tax someone for unrealized gains (or so I hear, from the billionaires who don't want to pay taxes on the stock they own). A house is worth what someone will pay for it, no more and no less. How do they know what I'd get if I sold my house? So, this is only fair: Your home's value is assessed when you buy it. You pay taxes on that amount or the sale price, whichever is higher. Until you sell, that's it. No increases.

I have plenty of other ideas, but I think you get the drift. The two political parties have us fooled. They think we don't have anything in common, but it's only that we've given up on tackling our shared national dislikes.

There are enough places where no one disagrees, and we can be the ones to actually do something about it. Make Congress functional again!

So, vote for the Nuisance Liberation Front: We're putting the "popular" back in "populism."

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.

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