“”"”"Just as one only gets a vote in a corporation if one owns a share, we need to find a way to create a voting threshold based on paying some diminimus amount of federal income tax. While I realize that scaling voting influence with the amount of taxes paid would never fly, we could solve so many moral hazard issues in government spending if they people who voted actually had some financial skin in the game.”"”"”"

That’s sort of how we started out. At first, only people with property could vote. Of course it was more restrictive than that, since those “people” were almost invariably white men of at least 21 years of age. Nevertheless, it does bring up the issue of voter responsibility. De Toqueville warned us over 170 years ago about the possible hazards of enfranchising too many people. We now have 18 year olds who can vote, but not drink; a portion of our voting public has been infantilized by the law itself. There was a reason why 21 was the voting age even in colonial times, even with the shorter life spans: it was understood that a young adult male already had his hands full with homesteading and raising and feeding his new little family. Once he had put 3-4 years of adult responsibilities under his belt, he could be vetted to vote.