Not that I like justifying a bad idea with another bad idea, but perhaps we should offer the politicians in Albany a chance to show us their competence by taking an exam on the issues they vote on and the unintended consequences of the legislation they pass on the issues.

Instead of getting our information from the newspaper, we could use their test scores as a basis for how we vote. We could also tie their salary with how well they do on the exam. After analyzing the test scores, we could determine which political party or parties may be failing us.

If individual politicians or parties as a whole felt that a test was not the best judge of their performance, they could opt out.

Randy Wayne
Ithaca, NY

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