Rivalarrival

What I'm describing has been federal law for over 30 years. The European criticism about ID cards is nonsensical. Every time you obtain, renew, or amend your drivers license or ID, you update your voter registration.

Remember the context of my comment: I am replying to European criticism of registration. The European approach is for everyone to obtain a government issued ID card and present it at the polling station. The NVRA already does this. We have already adopted the European solution to this problem.

being hit with a tax that basically kills any chance of renting out something.

That is exactly what should happen. It should be practically impossible for an owner to "rent" a property for enough to justify doing it. Landlords should be heavily pressured to convert tenants to buyers.

"Renting" should be confined to commercial activities, not residences. You want to rent out space for a shop, warehouse, office, factory, no problem. This is only for residential property that you are not living in. It should not be economically feasible to rent out such property as an investor, because that practice strips tenants of equity and is the leading factor driving people into poverty.

Go ahead and use your property to generate an income, but do it by charging interest on a loan, not rent.

The entire concept of rent needs to die in a fire. It is inherently exploitative. There is no way to redeem it.

Rent needs to be replaced with "private mortgages" or other approaches that return equity to the occupant.

Individuals that need the flexibility of temporary, short-term housing can use "land contracts" rather than exploitive rental agreements. Land Contracts have fixed payments for the life of the agreement: no annual rent hikes. The occupant is considered an "owner" rather than a "tenant", but only begins gaining equity after three years. The occupant is free to walk away before three years, or renegotiate after.

How do we eliminate renting? We make it less lucrative than other investment options. We increase the tax rate on residential properties to be extremely high. But, we also create a tax exemption for owner-occupants, so your effective tax rate is actually lower on your own home. Landlords are forced to choose between a small return on a rental, or a larger return on a private mortgage or land contract.

With that simple change, landlords will be fighting tooth and nail to convert "tenants" into "buyers", so they don't have to pay the excess taxes.

Beyond renting, with this change, lenders are motivated to work with borrowers rather than resort to foreclosure. As soon as the bank initiates foreclosure proceedings, they are on the hook for the increased tax rate.

Tell him to change his name to "Without Prejudice Bob Smith".

Tax discounts to lower rent prices only incentivize the worst, most negligent slumlords, in a race to the bottom for housing quality. Rent controls and discounts on taxes for below-market rents exacerbate the major problems with renting.

Jacking up taxes jacks up rental prices.

It does. But, if nobody will be renting; nobody will be paying those jacked up prices. Read my comment again: I am trying to eliminate the concept of renting, and replace it with a much more equitable approach.

I want to replace "renting" with "land contract".

A land contract is a type of purchase agreement that starts off similar to a rental. They aren't used very often because they are somewhat complex, and they put a lot of power in the hands of the buyer/tenant rather than the seller/landlord. Land Contracts have a fixed monthly price: there is no year-to-year price hike.

Most importantly, they gain equity for their tenant/buyer.

True. I would only allow the exemption on 1-4 unit properties. I would allow an on-site landlord to rent out the remaining 1-3 units without losing the exemption.

Renting should be a wildly atypical housing arrangement. "Land Contracts" should replace virtually every circumstance where renting currently makes sense.

Rent. Rent needs to die in a fire.

Landlording needs to be less lucrative than a private mortgage or land contract. Jack up the taxes on all residential properties, and grant steep exemptions for owner-occupants only.

Once it's been in effect for a while

It will never be in effect "for awhile". If they ever get to 270, it will last one election cycle at most. More likely, it will be dissolved between the time it comes into effect and the first general election afterward.

The national popular vote interstate compact is a pipe dream.

In the extremely unlikely event it is ever enacted, it will be dissolved as soon as a supporting state realizes it is likely to affect the outcome of the upcoming election.

If it ever actually affects an election, it will likely be deemed unconstitutional at the supreme court.

Even if it is not deemed unconstitutional, states bound to vote against their own voters will withdraw from it immediately.

At most, it will directly affect no more than one election, and probably not in the direction expected.

Probably trying to cozy up to one of the other shitbird candidates the GOP was offering up beforing falling in line behind Dementia Don.

You are describing solar noon: the highest position the sun reaches during the day.

Solar noon occurs some time between 11:30AM and 12:30PM in local standard time, depending on where exactly you are within your time zone: the east edge of your time zone experiences solar noon 60 minutes earlier than the west edge of your time zone. Solar noon only matches local standard time in the middle of the timezone.

Solar noon occurs between 12:30 PM and 1:30 PM in local Daylight Savings Time, depending on where exactly you are within your time zone. The clocks have shifted an hour, pushing solar noon an hour later in the chronological day.

Solar noon does not occur at 12PM during the summer in locations that observe DST. The clock shifts forward relative to the sun, moving solar noon back an hour.

We gain 6 hours of daylight.

Under standard time, we gain 3 hours of daylight before noon and 3 hours after noon going from winter to summer. Sunrise is about 3 hours earlier, and sunset is about 3 hours later.

But, because we also shift the clocks, sunrise is only two hours earlier in summer DST than winter Standard Time. Sunset is four hours later in summer DST than winter Standard Time. We effectively gain 2 hours of morning and 4 hours of evening time.