5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
If you had the powers of persuasion (heaven help us if you really did, but this is idle fancy here) to rally America to tackle 5 core reforms, what reforms would you choose? In the conservative spirit, let's keep them to reforms that the government could legitimately make, not of the silly "I'd outlaw war" or "I'm going to nationalize healthcare" types. You've only got 5, then you'll either retire or, well...
To kick off my own list (in no particular order):
1. Remove professional trade associations from the process of accreditations. Get the teachers out of deciding who becomes teachers, get the ABA out of law schools, get AMA out of medicine, etc. These medieval guild relics have so gamed the system that they wield policy power disproportionate to their numbers.
2. End the War on Drugs. This has been the camel's nose regarding civil liberties and has introduced a corruption and rot into our entire legal and police systems. I'm not saying to legalize drugs (that's a separate debate), but our methods of combatting them have led to every podunk police department and obscure federal agency thinking they need a SWAT team. It has militarized our police beyond all necessity or control.
3. Take 5 years to phase out ALL subsidies, ALL price supports, and ALL foreign aid programs. Let industries fend for themselves. Congress has piled on many many layers of transfer payments, tax abatements, credits, and Lord knows what else over the decades to the point where many markets are distorted, and resources mis-allocated. I would include in here a wide assortment of personal tax breaks too.
4. Force federal agencies to clear ALL regulations through Congress. Executive branch agencies should never have been allowed the level of autonomy they enjoy. If regulators have to explain themselves in public, it reduces their incentive to write laws whenever they get bored.
5. Take 50 years to phase out and abolish Social Security. This program (as was predicted many decades ago) absolutely prevents people from saving for themselves, discourages people from marrying during their youth, discourages childbirth, pits the old against the young, encourages a neglect and abuse of the elderly, and breeds a total dependency on the government.
Pipe dreams all I'm sure.
- Comment (51)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (4)
Comments:
Feb '12
Re: 5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
Actually, I like your list. I think the FED needs to be dealt with as well, although I couldn't even pretend to know where to begin on that front.
Jul '11
Re: 5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
That is an awesome list!
Feb '12
Re: 5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
I have an innovative solution for Social Security... Tie it not to the age, but to the life expectancy. So, let's say when it was first introduced in the 30s, it started at 65, and life expectancy was, say, 75. So, on average, people received SSI for 10 years. Now life expectancy is 82 - so, social security age automatically moves to 72. Numbers are for illustration only.
Dec '11
Re: 5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
1.) Make Congresscritters stop getting high before they write budgets.
2.) Eliminate or dramatically neuter the prescription system
3.) Consolidate all federal police powers into 1 agency
4.) Ban no-knock warrants
5.) flat tax
Feb '11
Re: 5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
Automatically veto any bill longer than a few pages with the comment "Too long, didn't read."
Mar '11
Re: 5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
A bigger problem than bills with too many pages: Bills that only establish a new federal agency that will write the actual rules. Most new federal regulations these days are coming from unelected, unaccountable bodies rather than Congress. That's why Obamacare had to pass "so we could find out what was in it."
Re: 5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
Not a bad list and not utterly impossible. We should not acquiesce.
Dec '10
Re: 5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
Revoke all federal criminal laws.
Burn the entire CFR and start over.
End all direct federal welfare including social security and medicare.
Repeal the 17th amendment.
Repeal the 16th amendment.
Aug '11
Re: 5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
1. Loser pays tort reform2. Disallow public employee unions3. Convert from income tax to national sales tax4. Tie Social Security and Medicare to life expectancy less 10 years5. Roll back federal govt to 15% GDP with defense 4%
Mar '11
Re: 5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
Good ones so far! These have been a few of my favorites over the years:
1. Everybody's paycheck is in gross dollars not net dollars. We would have tax reform in seconds.
2. Back to the gold standard.
3. Set up a mandatory military-like training program similar to Israel's. No, not a draft. But a year-long school for high school graduates--men and women--so as to learn the basics for having a good militia: weapon use, basic survival skills, communications, etc. No marching, no uniforms. Just to prepare everyone--just in case. Then, they can join the military, go to college, etc. Americans have guns but coordinating a defense of the USA at the citizen level is something totally different.
4. Disband all the Departments that aren't in the Constitution. Good-bye Energy, Labor, HUD, Education, etc. And if I can't do that, I'll just tell all the employees in those departments to stay home--we don't want you anymore.
5. Sell off all Federal land, except for military bases, outside of D.C. Buildings, National parks, all of it. States or American citizens/companies can be the only purchasers.
Aug '11
Re: 5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
50 years to phase out and abolish Social Security? All we need to do is sit on our hands and in 20 years it will collapse of its own weight.
May '11
Re: 5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
1. Members of the House of Representatives to be selected by lottery in each district and serve for a single term. Work and vacation schedules to be consistent with those of the armed forces. 2. Senators to be selected by the states again, for single 6 year terms. 3. Baseline budgeting is banned, and Congress must pass a fresh 2 year budget each term.4. Supreme Court Justices serve for single 12 year terms. 5. Employment by by the Federal government in all non-military non-elective positions may not exceed 10 years.
Nov '11
Re: 5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
Let me build on what's been said here and push it further, but there's a lot of great ideas out here already.
1. End all coercive taxation.
2. Forbid governments from borrowing money.
3. Eliminate central banking and legal tender laws, and allow free banking.
These three together will solve 99% of the problems you have with the size and scope of government.
Oct '10
Re: 5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
1. Tie SS to life expectancy
2. Eliminate tax break for employer-provided health care (restore the relationship between the consumer and the product/service)
3. Eliminate the BCS
4. GOVICIDE's number 4
5. Repeal 17th Amendment
May '11
Re: 5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
Repeal the 17th Amendment is number 1 in my book.
The federal government has gotten the amount of power it has because there is no check on it. If the Senators were agents of the state governments instead of just another house of representatives, then the states would have a means of stopping the feds from coercing them into accepting so many controls. Since the states, like any organized body, will seek to increase their power and infuence, they would be able to limit the federal desire to increase power and influence.
I especially like your ideas about administrative agencies.
I would also remove the commerce clause from the Constitution and forbid the federal government from having any impact on commerce that was not equally applied to all businesses.
Edited on March 31, 2012 at 4:02pmMar '11
Re: 5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
Govicide,
I like your list excepting I would totally eliminate the income tax. It only goes to pay for the transfer payments -- the last time I looked. I would add a sixth of five items. Eliminate public schooling. I would have public schooling but as with the Articles of Confederation and the transition to the Constitution it is time to start completely over. That also goes for the teachers colleges by whatever name. Our present system was designed to train citizens to be employees and soldiers -- that is counter survival in our Republican system. We need a school system that educates citizens to be independent, not one dedicated to dumbing them down.
Nov '10
Re: 5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
I tried to come up with a better list than yours, Skipsul, but failed. Except that I want to add a flat tax and loser-pays tort reform. Oh, and GOVICIDE's number 4. And a more free-market version of a Singapore style health care system. And for Skipsul's number 5, how about moving us toward a Chilean style retirement savings plan?
I want too many things to change.
Feb '11
Re: 5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
Not at all convinced on Point 1. There is a problem, but particularly in technical areas, who will know better? I would agree that there should not be input from only one group, however.
On point 3, I'd take out prohibition on foreign aid. Sometimes it's just cheaper to bribe -- and that is how foreign aid should be viewed. Official bribery. Jimmy Carter quit bribing the mullahs in Iran and look what it got him and us.
Especially like point 4.
On point 5, 50 years? In 50 years people will have life expectancies of multiple centuries with cancer not being a problem and aging being reversible. That no one is thinking of this and what it will mean is unfortunate.
I'd add: Repeal Humphrey-Hawkins and require the fed to forget about unemployment and look solely at inflation, with gold, petroleum, and food included in their calculations of inflation. The Fed is far too focused on unemployment and it has caused serious, serious problems under Bush and Obama.
May '10
Re: 5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
Good list and good comments.
My top priority would be to eliminate the national income tax. Most other problems are enabled by that one.
Severely limiting the legislature's power to delegate authority is also extremely important. Some delegation is inevitable, I suppose.
Great point about the guilds. Non-government agencies should not have the power of law. Few activities should require a license.
Also, playing off the repeal of the 17th Amendment and restoration of the electoral college, more offices should be created and elections staggered more as populations grow. Democratic government relies on voters being able to actually know their representatives and representatives being accountable to voters in more ways than just elections. So have mayors vote for county officials, county officials vote for governors, and so on. The more distanced voters are from the individuals they are voting on, the more easily politicians and media can manipulate voters and the less accountable politicians become.
Jun '11
Re: 5 Fundamental Reforms - Your Picks
If we're the party of individuals, then it's time to end/repeal all race-based legislation, including race-based information gathering by the federal government.
Edited on March 31, 2012 at 4:11pm