I have a number of ideas for saving the government money when I become POTUS/ Absolute Ruler of the Free World and I’ve decided to lay them out here for you, my loyal supporters, to see. The battle cry of my campaign is K.I.S.S. – Keep It Simple Stupid.
I’m not an economics major, nor an analyst of any kind; I’m also not a business owner, politician or any other kind of high level thinker type. I’m an average guy with an average brain so I figure if I keep it simple enough that even I can understand it then so can the average American who has to live under them. So, under the KISS principle there are no loopholes, no exemptions (except for food) and no sub clauses to my ideas that exempt one thing and include another. This is what we call “Equality under the law” since with my plan everyone IS REALLY EQUAL!
1 – National Sales Tax – This will replace all other forms of taxes. The National Sales Tax will only tax items at the final point of sale which will help reduce the cost of American made items, free up capital for companies to hire employees, purchase equipment and, most importantly, will put the taxpayer in charge of how much money he is giving to the federal government. You buy a Hyundai Accent, you’ll pay less in taxes than if you get a Lamborghini Diablo.
Food (as I said above) will be exempt under this so you can go to the grocery store and actually buy good food. This means all food – if you can consume it, it’s food. Not doing that stupid ’soda tax’ or ‘cookie tax’ – it’s not the government’s business to control what you eat.
This will also allow me to reduce the size of the IRS and bring it down to a reasonable level. They can then focus on making sure that the sales taxes from businesses are correct rather than chasing after small-time taxpayers while some businesses get away with murder in the accounting department.
2 – Eliminate the Department of Education and the Department of Energy – Both of these are a complete and total embarrassment to America. The Department of Education was formed to our schools turn out smarter students and better schools, while the Department of Energy was created to help reduce our dependence on foreign oil – we can see that they have both failed miserably at both jobs so I see no reason to keep them around.
I’m sure that I will find many more departments in the government to close, such as the Agricultural Marketing Service whose job is described this way:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service administers programs that facilitate the efficient, fair marketing of U.S. agricultural products, including food, fiber, and specialty crops. AMS has about 5,500 employees who are located throughout the United States.
Ummm… can’t the farmers handle this themselves?? I’m sure that they are doing the best job they can, but I would have to pose the question of “Should the government really be involved in this or not?”
3 – Divest the government of all private holdings – Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Amtrak, The Federal Reserve, AIG,and GM. All of these are excesses of government control and as we can see with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they are a losing proposition. $400 Billion may be chump change to the Government, but this is people money that they are fooling around with, not just magic monopoly money. There is no Constitutional authority or reason for any of this to exist anyway. It’s not the government’s job to give us houses, cars, health care, or trains. It says “The pursuit of happiness” not “Giving you happiness on a silver platter with garnish”.
The government’s job is to provide a standing military to protect us, to negotiate with foreign powers, to print currency, and to help settle disputes between the states. Nothing more, nothing less. These organizations are simply a money pit for the government and a way for corruption to run rampant. Better to sell them off to a private owner and have nothing to do with them at all. As for the Federal Reserve, why are we paying a company to print our own money?
4 – Single Item Budget Bills – I would push for Congress to adopt a “Single Item Bill” concept. All bills must cover only one topic, any amendments to the bill MUST ACTUALLY AMEND THE BILL. That is, if you have a Budget bill that deals with the military’s budget, then that’s all that can be in the bill. No amendments that award $24 million to some state to expand worm farming. It must deal directly with items in the bill that relate directly to the military. Each department of government would have to have this kind of bill. No massive budget bill with tons of crap thrown into the mess. Each department would have to stand up and be voted on to make sure that it is something that is really wanted by the people.
Essentially, there would be no hiding from your vote. No deal making and payoffs with this kind of deal – well, there probably still would be, but I bet it would be less.
5 – Close the Department of Indian Affairs – No one can honestly argue that they, or the federal government, have done the best they can for the Native Americans so let’s close it and turn it all over – money, land and equipment – to the tribes and let them start taking care of themselves. I’m sure they will do a hell of a lot better than what our government has done for them.
6 – Kill all Grants – Grants are the worst use of government money I can think of. Sure, a lot of good has come from them, but I am willing to bet that a lot more good could have come from letting the private sector handle this stuff instead. Why is the government handing out money to study the mating habits of the fruit fly? I bet there are private companies out there who would be glad to support that research because it has something to do with what they do for work. So let them handle it. Also, a good chunk of grand money has gone to groups like ACORN and Planned Parenthood, both of which have shown partisan political stances, have broken the laws on numerous occasions, and to which half the nation is opposed to politically.
To my view, it’s best to just to shut it all down and let people give their money directly to things they wish to support. We don’t need the government’s help in giving our cash away – if anything we need protection from it!
**UPDATE**
Oh, and finally:
7 – War – War with our enemies will be just that, War. Our military will be given the freedom it needs to take the war to the enemy and destroy them. Not arrest, not contain, but totally destroy, demoralize and decimate. Our enemies want us dead and we should have the same stance towards them. We should take the fight to them so hard and unrelenting that they have nightmares about our forces and plead for us to accept their surrender.
As far as the Geneva Conventions go, our enemy has already broken them over and over again (not that they ever signed on to them in the first place) so they have no right to it’s protection. BUT, even considering this, they would not have any protection under it since they do not fight in uniform our wear rank insignias and fight for a country so they would instead fall under the military law of the United States which would classify them as spies and saboteurs. That established I would give them a fair trial and a public execution.
For those who would say that this is too extreme of a stance let me remind you that our enemy has beheaded journalists, civilians, and military personnel. They have dragged our dead servicemen through the streets and cheered about this. They will give no quarter in this fight because they think they are fighting for god so we should give no quarter in return because we are fighting for our lives, our freedom and our families.
