Mark Steyn’s latest is well worth a read.
Open Question: If you were the Republican presidential candidate and elected next November, along with Republican majorities in the Congress and Senate, what fiscal policy changes would you make in your first year of office?
I would immediately cut the deficit back to George Bush levels so Republicans could forever point to the large spike under Obama as an example of how the Democrats ruined the country. With a positive business climate the economy will recover on its own.
At the current rate of spending I would call it the ‘blue sky policy’.
In short, as the government continues it’s rapacious rate of spending the taxpayers will only be able to afford a tent with holes in the roof.
Occupy ‘blue sky country’ because as you look up in wonder that is all you will be able to afford!
CHEERS
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
I would :
– raise the eligibility ages for both Medicare and Social Security by six months every year for the next ten years.
– eliminate the mis-named Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is really the Equal Employment Result Commission.
– issue an executive order that no agency of the federal government would negotiate with a union.
– send a bill to Congress that states simply that no exclusion for members of Congress in any bill previously passed is valid – members of Congress have no special retirement plan, no special medical insurance, etc.
I would immediately scrap the EPA, scrap the drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico,and make every state a right to work state.
I would get rid of three government agencies…..
Now who are the 1 percenters!
Oops, comment meant for the other thread about the occupy Christmas poll.
1. no more bail outs for ANYONE ..let em fail.
2. get rid of he fed (although that would mean my assassination)
3. get rid of Obama care and end frivolous law suits on medical stuff
4. get out of all Muslim countries.
5. close the Mexican American border … all of it.
6. end affirmative action
7. no more Muslim immigration
8. Keystone goes through
9. other drilling for gas and oil
10. end the green energy subsidies of all kinds and put that money into research to create a new source of non polluting energy such as fusion or who knows what well funded nerds will come up with.
11. get rid of Fanny and Freddie
12. start raising interest rates so retirement funds can safely accrue some value.
Not in any particular order, but all of them would be high on the list.
I can guarantee you that not one single item I listed will be done … EVER.
1. Rescind the law of gravity.
2. Ukuleles for everyone!
3. Blame Canada.
4. Make Michael Moore the 51st state.
5. Make Dennis Miller Secretary of Comedy.
6. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.
7. Make Louis Louis the national anthem.
8. Mars or bust!
9. Make Bob Dylan poet laureate.
10. Become Muslim, behead Todd and declare Sarah Palin my second wife. Kate, you’re next!
@Thomas_L
I hope you’re running as a Democrat so the media will cover for you.
With BOTH houses of congress?
!] Close the Cepartment of Ebergy, which creates no energy.
2] Close the Department of Education, which educates nobody.
3] Close the Department of Agriculture, which raises no crops, or livestock.
4] Close the Department of Commerce that facilitates no commerce.
5] Shutdown the EPA which neither protects the environment, nor administrates existing policy.
6] Eliminate the Federal Reserve Bank that neither stabilizes the currency, nor moderates the booom-bust cycles.
That would be a good start. First six days, all of those people have to walk and find a new way to make a living. We lose over 400,000 private sector employees, almost every single month, as it stands now. We can take that half million employed, dead weight, government employees losing their jobs in a single week.
I guarantee that the following month, US employees newly applying for unemployment would drop below 400,000 and perhaps might drop to a negligible number.
Who cares if we lose a half million worthless government employees in a short effort, if we stop losing almost a half million private sector employees every single month?
I’d pledge to reverse every EO Urkel has implemented and any remaining from Clinton’s era on Jan. 20th, 2012. I’d close Dept. of Ed. for savings of 4800 employees and near $100 Billion. I’d remove all regulatory authority from EPA and convert it to a data mining operation run by 5% of current staff.
I’d eliminate the DHS and TSA. I’d return all Federal lands beyond National Parks and Monuments to their State owners. I’d sunset all Bureau regulations after 12 months unless renewed by Congress.
I’d demand Congress repeal a law for every new one passed. I’d demand 10% permanent layoffs across the board. I’d halve the budgets of the FCC, NOAA, fire 90% of the lawyers at the SEC and hire accountants to replace them.
I’d make tax reform and tort reform priorities, along with repeal of Obamacare. I’d institute targetted assassinations of environmentalists. I’d install lasers on space platforms to vaporize all traffic across our southern border save points of entry.
Then I’d roll up my sleeves.
Fiscal policy changes?
After I finished chopping entire government departments the fiscal changes would be happening automatically.
I would Eliminate the US 9th Circuit; that alone would smack down Corruption & the Environmentalists. It would kick start Commerce.. EPA would be history
BTW: Canada sends more folks (Activists) to the EU/UN conferences that every other country combined, where do they get all the money?
“than all the other countries combined”
1) Goodbye FM and FM
2) Cut Pentagon budget in half
3) Block grant Medicare/Medicaid and raise the eligibility age for those and SS
4) Begin SS privatization…or abolition
5) No more ethanol subsidies. Or any subsidies
6) No more Department of Homeland Security, Education, commerce, energy etc
Would think of more but too lazy right now.
Abe Froman
Excellant, thoughtful wish list…
My addition…..
Place a dead or alive bounty on George Soros…
That would fix current problems and deter future problems.
January 20, 2012, about 3:00 pm, a couple of hundred *Treasury agents* lock down the Department of Justice and unplug the shredders…
I’d close BATFE and more than half the divisions of DoJ. The top 3 or 4 levels of DoJ, FBI, EPA and a few other places need to be cleared…
Milton Friedman was interviewed about 1996. When asked he said he would reduce the 19 departments to 4 and a half… He would fold Veterans Affairs back into Defense and keep *only* Defense, State, Treasury and Interior…but Interior would be gutted. The rest would go. And that was 1996…
“…what fiscal policy changes would you make in your first year of office?”
I’d eliminate all the new borrowing of the US government possible without defaulting on current obligations.
I’d cut the budget of every Federal department by half.
I’d make it illegal for Federal employees to unionize.
Then I’d start looking at Federal transfers and entitlements.
Cut regulation and institute national right to work rules.
And Drill drill drill…..
This is entirely too logical and would go far in resolving the problems. That’s why it will be ignored and I will have to cast my vote for Thomas_L……
This could be fun.
1. Immediate 30% pay cut for all Federal employees, including elected officials, judges, etc.
2. Fold up the EPA; transfer the task of setting and enforcing emissions standards to Interior. No new standards to be implemented until the need is proven. Existing standards that are completely unrealistic to be rolled back to something achievable.
3. Shut down departments of Energy and Education. Open all Federal lands to drilling and mining; even parks.
4. Start RICO act investigations of Acorn, SEIU, Teamsters, AFL-CIO, Democrat Party, and all the left-wing foundations, as well as George Soros. Eliminate tax-free status for any and all entities that engage in political lobbying or public advocacy. Charitable contributions to be tax-free only to the extent that their income is disbursed in aid of the needy they purport to help. (bye, bye HSUS!)
5. Build the Mexico border fence, and get serious about deporting illegal aliens from all sources, but also create a mechanism for normalizing the status of a small number of illegals who have led otherwise blame-free lives while in the USA. (Just a wee bit of carrot to go with the stick.)
6. Implement a flat tax system, and push for a Constitutional Amendment to set a cap on total taxation.
7. Adopt the Chilean model for retirement funding.
8. Means-test all entitlements. No able-bodied and normally intelligent adults to get welfare.
9. TSA to drop random gropes, and start actively profiling travelers, as per the methods used by Israel.
10. And many, many more.
a) I would immidiatley have a nation wide adress , makeing the following statment’s and signing them into law some how.
-Cease all forgien aid
-decline any and all who are unable to produce proof of citizenship at any hospital
-no longer donate any money to ANY lobby groups/NGO’S
-eliminate the E.P.A.
-Let americans know that there will no longer (except in the case of war and by that i mean an atttack on american soil) be deficit spending and mandate a balenced budjet legislation .
-if cut’s are to be made they will be made to public sector employee’s starting with those who are unionized First.
-Mandate a if we don’t have them oney we don’t buy it law, to show the american people that if we demand they work with in there limit’s finacially we as a govornemnt should to.
-Starting immidiatley impose a 80% tarrif on all goods imported from china ONLY .
-review were troops were most needed and start bringing the ones home that were there “just in case”
-Order GM ,and Chrysler to pay back immidiatley all shares /cash borrowed to stay affloat even if it means they go under ,same with any banks that reicieved tarp money .
-Make short selling illegal, same with betting against currencies.
-reinforce the boarder between mexico and the u.s. with the national guard until the worlds biggest ,deepest fence was completed with a shoot to kill mandate for anyone seen comming accross illegally.
-DRILL BABY DRILL.
-Immidiatley stop purchasing conflict oil and see above comment.
-Offer a 100 dollar per illegal turned in by any individual/company to get the true americans back to work.
-Repeal obama care.
-Tell china that we will never pay them back.
-Reduce the size of Federal govornment and govornemnt beurocracy by 70% .
-Imiidiatley turn the power back over to the individual states.
Tht’s all i can think of right now.
Ohh yeah and immidiatley raise the age of retirment to 70. And have it go up by six month every year for the next decade.
And ban mosk’s and immigration from any muslim,third or second world country.
And force immigrant’s to pay atl east half a million u.s dollars before they are allowed to come here as well they must speak impecable english ,and have either a real trade skill , or some usefull skill that can be utilized immidiatley with out any retraining!!
Oh yeah and last but definalty not least
Make everyone who comes here sign a legal document claiming that liberalism is a mental disorder and if acting in anyliberal sort of fashion can be charged with treason and stripped immidiatley of there citizenship and deported along with all of there family back to there coutnry after selling all asset’s and using that money to pay for the plain ticket’s the rest would be donated to rebuilding of america.
1. Hire Ron Paul as Treasury Secretary.
2. Go golfing.
I think that in America, Milton Friedman’s ideal of a federal government reduced to Defense, State, Treasury, and Interior is just that, an ideal, one that may never quite be reached. It is worth striving for that ideal nonetheless.
To that end, I would start with the following:
– repeal Obamacare in its entirety
– repeal most of the regulations written by the EPA in the last 20 years. Cut the EPA by 75% and strip it of its regulation-writing powers, which amounts to an abdication to bureaucracy on the part of Congress
– bring all the troops not actively involved in fighting wars home and close most overseas bases
– end Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
– end the Department of Education, pointing to the 10th Amendment as justification, as education is a responsibility reserved for the States or the People.
– end the Department of Energy
– end the ATF
– simplify corporate and personal taxation by adopting the Fair Tax; reduce the size of the IRS accordingly
– raise the age at which one can retire on full pension by 6 months every year until actuarial tables show only 25% of the population retires on full benefits
– reduce NASA’ budget by 75% and refocus it on cutting edge R&D. Offset this with the formation of a Space Guard
It’s a start…
For once it will be the president on his knees in the Oval Office.
Post by: Woodporter
That would do it.
You all seem to forget that, in actual fact, the guy in the White House doesn’t have the authority to settle a trade issue even though he can obliterate civilization.
Its time all & I mean ALL public worker Unions made Illegal. Than start on the Alphabet soup departments like the EPA, & other regulatory bodies that are just nests of Marxists. Make education private, same with health care. Stop food stamps. Stop affirmative action, & busing. Make gold the Standard again.
Strengthen real family organizations & charities.
Get rid of Government grants for art or anything that people can do themselves. Allow individual innovation without outrageous regulation. Start drilling again.
Stop sending money to countries that hate the US. lets all leave the Islamic club the UN.
To eliminate its deficit and begin to lower its debt, the US needs to increase revenues through taxation and reduce government spending.
The Republicans won’t support the former; the Democrats won’t support the latter.
It’s a perfect storm, folks.
Alyric, I bet they’d want to see MY birth certificate.
Peterj, tired of tears, ship’s going down, might as well dance.
Mandatory balanced budgeting. Force people to make decisions on how they spend their tax dollars. Ends the ability of politicans to bribe the populace with their own money. Force ownership of fiscal reality back to the ordinary citizen.
Probably to late to do this and a fiscal collapse is ineveitable.
Line by line revoal of all funding of anything that gets in the way of energy independance, jobs and security.
Buh bye EPA.
Buh bye Ed.
Buh bye TSA.
Buh bye everything else not specifically named in the ORIGINAL Constitution as being Federal jurisdiction.
Buh bye green subsidies.
Hello incentives to bring manufacturing back to the US.
Gunboat Diplomacy is back.
Revnant Dream @ 3:10, I could vote for that list.
“1. Hire Ron Paul as Treasury Secretary.
2. Go golfing.”
@ Woodporter:
x2 That would do it.
Not all fiscal policy, but some are:
– All bills up to $5 would convert to coins, and anything above $5 would be polymer
– Switch fully to the metric system
– Rescind Obamacare
– Look at ways of harmonizing laws across states to make the climate more friendly with business
– Approve Keystone XL
– Make a much more business friendly climate
– Look at ways to make goods flow better across the Canadian border
– Stop spending so much on silly pet projects, and the military
Let’s see here.
Reverse everything that FDR, LBJ, Carter, el BJ (Clinton) and Obama have implemented. No more HUD, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Dept of Energy, Education, Agriculture or Obamacare. Severe cuts of 90% to the EPA, FDA and INS (since we’ll be cutting immigration to 0% not a problem). The war on drugs can not be won, so goodbye DEA. phasing out of Medicare, Medicaid and a revamping of Social Security.
Everyone pays a flat income tax. No more universal sufferage, if you haven’t put money into the pot you should not have a say in how it’s spent. A certain percent of income must be saved for retirement or you pay double that percent in tax.
Too big to fail? Baloney! No loans or subsidies to any industry, if it works it doesn’t need taxpayer support. All Keynesian economists are to be sent into a salt mine and the entrance will be sealed with explosives.
Now for constitutional changes. The big one would be repealing the 17th? amendment. Let the states appoint senators as was done until Woodrow Wilson. No more universal sufferage, if you haven’t put money into the pot you should not have a say in how it’s spent. Next, visit the idea of whether Islam should be considered a religion, due to its supremacist underpinnings and refusal to recognize women or followers of other religions as people. Oh, and the president can not run for a second consecutive term. As it is now they spend the last two years of the first term campaigning not leading. They can run again in 4 years time if they wish.
Campaign finance has to be addressed. No corporate donations and a maximum individual donation of $100 per year. If you can’t manage money well on the campaign trail, there’s no reason to put you in office.
All bills before congress would be written on ten sheets of legal paper, double spaced in 12 point font. No 2,000 page bills or omnibus bills. No passing the bill to see what’s in it. Any legislator who adds an earmark is to be summarily beheaded.
That’s off the top of my head. I would take care of the enviroMENTALists in the second week.
What Revnant Dream said @ 3:10 AM, plus I’d tell Obama to get his sorry ass out of politics and to grow up. Who needs a boy-POTUS?
Most of these suggestions are sensible, but they will never be implemented, even with a Republican President with Republican control of both houses. A 50% cut in expenditures will never happen, the complete elimination of government departments will never happen.
In the past year or so, I’ve come to agree with Mark – the United States is in an unstoppable decline. The only question is how steep the cliff and how far to the bottom.
I think Canada’s in much better shape, but we’re still going to be hurt badly, and not just financially, when our friend and protector devolves.