Monday, December 9, 2013

Wanna Lower the Federal Debt? Here's A Start!


Are you tired of all this crap about how China owns us...how we don't have money because of the federal deficit and debt? How we're spending ourselves into oblivion and yet, Congress does nothing about it? Think you could do a better job than the idiots in DC? Here are my favorite top ten ways to eliminate the federal debt.

1.      Eliminate all “weird” programs. These are subsidies that study how democratic schools of fish are, and why ants move so fast. There is absolutely no need for this crap. Unless there is some tangible, solid proof that we need a study on why pigs smell, I say we don't do it. Leave it for the Chinese to spend money on. They've got enough of it...and frankly nobody benefits from it!

2.      Eliminate all federal funding for business.  Yeah, this one will hurt, but you know what? You can thank the liberals for that. We've gotten to the point that we subsidize everything. We just can't afford it anymore. So, it's gotta go. That means the farm subsidies that keep milk prices low are gone. That means that the tobacco subsidies that help the poor tobacco farmers while the government continues to demonize tobacco are gone. Get rid of the benefits to the banks, and Wall Street firms, and the auto companies. If you can't make it on your own, you deserve to go out of business. THAT my friends, is the American way. We've gotten coddled into believing the liberal mantra of something is "too big to fail" and "at least they're trying", that we've forgotten the first rule of capitalism....somebody wins, somebody loses.

3.      Lighten up on Obamacare. The government just cannot afford it. It's an idea that got over-blown and crazy long. Either dump it altogether and replace it with something sensible, or dump it altogether and go back to what we're leaving. There's no need for a 65 year old male to have maternity coverage. There are so many stupid things in this law, and it's so broken, we haven't begun to feel the pain we're going to feel. Dump it, or replace it with something that doesn't cost us anything (for real this time....not "Obamaspeak").

4.      Dump Health & Human Services, the EPA, and Education departments. They bring nothing to the table other than higher costs due to over-regulated decisions. Anyone want to guess how many thousand regulations the EPA alone has issued in the past year? It IS thousands, and most of them are arbitrary and unnecessary. HHS never should have been formed in the first place; the EPA is just a bad idea....Congress can pass whatever law they need to on that, or better yet, leave it to the states to pass; and leave Education to the local municipalities. The federal government does not belong in the education business.  Read MY lips! But if you like your teacher or your school district, you can keep 'em. Period.

5.      Pass an amendment to the constitution that calls for a balanced budget every year. No loopholes, no cheating. You take in X, you spend up to X. And you have to count everything. If you've already spent it for the year in June, you're done. Go home. That goes for disaster relief and foreign aid. I know that sounds cruel that we're not going to help the Krakatoans when they have another earthquake, but whoever decided it was our job to help everybody in the world anyway? That's what the Red Cross is for.

6.      Simplify the tax code. This goes along with #4 above. Institute a flat tax. That gets rid of the IRS altogether. Everybody pays the same rate. NO deductions. More savings. I don't care what the rate is....make it 8% or 10%, and don't tax income, tax wealth. Of course, Congress would be against a wealth tax because it would impact them a lot more than an income tax would. You want to raise a lot o money? Have a 1% per year wealth tax. You're worth $1,000,000? Fine. You owe us $10,000. Everybody has to pay 1% of their assets each year. That's not net worth. That's assets. No loopholes, No deductions.

7.      Congress and the President will have their salaries eliminated. These people don’t run to make money. They do it for power. And they don't get any benefits for being in government. You're supposed to be serving the people, not raping them for all the benefits you can get. No pensions, no insurance, no franking for mail. Nothing. You want to hire a staff, fine. Hire them out of your campaign funds left over. You run for office and one re-election, just like the president. And if you have campaign funds left over, you turn it over to the federal government to spend in Social Security. You caused the Social Security shortfall by giving perks and benefits to everybody and their cousins, so you can solve it, by paying back into it whatever campaign funds you have. And if you want to, you can hire two staff people with your leftover funds. That's it. And when your time is up (same goes for your staff), you cannot ever serve as a lobbyist or paid consultant. Ever. Period. Go back home.

8.      Eliminate “social charity” programs. This includes foodstamps and welfare. There are plenty of charities out there that can pick up the slack, and they do a much better, more efficient job than the federal government. If you let everybody think the government is going to help out, they won't step up to the plate. If people know the government isn't in the charity business, they'll help out and take care of their own (which is how it used to be!).

9.      Eliminate Head-Start programs. They have been proven not to work. These programs are riff with fraud and abuse and do nothing suck money out of the system. Get rid of them all now.

10.   Eliminate all “public unions” from government. It’s a plain fact that people in government make more (benefits included) than those in the private sector. You don’t need a union.  People in the public sector make a lot more than those of us in the private sector. You may not have been elected but we pay your salaries as well as those elected representatives. You don't need to make six figures for doing a secretary's job. And you're going to lose all of your perks as well. No pension, no Cadillac insurance plans...no special rules that apply to government workers. You want a retirement plan? It's called an IRA or 401k. Go for it, just like the rest of us have to.

 
Those are 10 ideas that are guaranteed to help get us on the right path. And guess what. I eliminated the federal deficit without touch Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security.  In fact, if you implement number 7, you're actually boosting Social Security, without hurting anyone...except the bloated politicians. Isn't it time to do something? Warren Buffet thinks so. you should see his plan to balance the budget. It makes this one look like a walk in the park.

 There. Now we’re getting close to a budget surplus. Any more bright ideas out there?

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