Floater

Def.: a) corpse in water; b) faeces in water; c) political idea that stinks;

Definition c) was made up by the K-landnews team. We did not research it, so that would be a cleanroom implementation.

Why did we feel the need to use a strongly negative term for a political idea?

Depends on  the idea.

Specifically this one: a German politician specializing in public heath issues had an idea about kids who get so drunk they end up under the stomach pump in the hospital.

The idea was to charge the parents 100 euros for each visit to the emergency room by the drunk offspring. The point was, said the pol, to remind parents of their responsibilities.

Dear readers, please excuse us for taking a short break for our morning language exercises. We run a few random thoughts every morning in order to not lose all language flexibility. Today's synonyms are "drivel, balderdash".
Okay, back to the post.

Parents of binge drinking teens tend to have enough problems and not enough money anyway, so we classify the 100 euro alcopay as a "floater".

On the numbers game, we posit that more teens end up in the emergency room today than, say, a generation ago not because of more drinking but because their parents or someone else worry.