Some quibbles in the details, but what we have been sorely lacking in our elected representatives is BOLD, SMALL-GOVERNMENT, FREE-MARKET steps. Everything’s always compromise, negotiate with the Dems, fear of any kind of pressure groups like unions, and fear of what the news might say.

Time for smart, constructive action, and I like most of these.

But…but…but…

The President won’t even have a cabinet…oh, wait! He doesn’t have a cabinet now!

Carry on…

n/t

Several quibbles like EPU said, but pretty good.

My primary objection would be opening statehood. Just about any country or locality in the world would do nothing but add one more liberal state and we have more than enough of those already. We really don’t want the headaches that would cause.

If we use the 7.62. why not go with either an M14 variant or a FAL? ARs are okay in that caliber, but not as reliable as the others.

I left one out. We subsidize big corporate and absentee farmers to not farm their land while we prevent family farmers from operating. There is something wrong with this picture. Is this another agency that needs to go the way of the dodo?

“Each of us has a natural right, from God, to defend his person, his liberty, and his property.” –Frederic Bastiat

that eliminates the designated hitter and gets rid of instant replay?

That would make it perfect.

Any federal employee who uses a computer model of a complex system to “prove” any scientific or economic theory that has a financial impact on the people is fired. That starts with James Hanson, the global warming swindler.

“Each of us has a natural right, from God, to defend his person, his liberty, and his property.” –Frederic Bastiat

All laws need to pass a cost-benefit analysis before they are approved. When I did the math I concluded that every $200K of negative impact to the economy kills one person, because of increased unemployment which is directly correlated with, and causative of, reduced lifespans. Whenever a regulation is considered, if it costs the economy as a whole more than this value for each life that is saved, then it fails the test.

“Each of us has a natural right, from God, to defend his person, his liberty, and his property.” –Frederic Bastiat

I hereby nominate you for President and Czar of the Government. This is a new office isn’t it?

1) Yes, no MORE bailouts.

2) Mark to market has been partially repealed actually.

3) We have had the Galt reaction of investors on strike since the Dems won Congress in 2006. I would not be surprised if Obama gets desperate enough next year to consider some real supply side tax cut stimulus.

4) I don’t favor the Fair Tax due to the difficulty of its implementation and to try and advance it wastes energy.

5) Agreed on repealing both CRA and SarBox

6) Agreed on Fannie, etc

7) Interesting…thinking

??

9) Agreed on naked short selling

10) The GOP should highlight voter fraud and demand investigations

11) Illegal immigration issues are ripe for the picking

12) agreed on restricting CHIP to truly needy children

13) Amen on de-regulating ins business

14) I favor civil disobedience oil drilling in national parks

15) Agreed on accelerated expensing of energy production costs

16) have to think on the copyright law changes

17) Build the fence

18) I like the deductibility of ins

more later

Arrest Al Gore for Global Warming scam. Confiscate all energy consuming and polluting possessions. Provide him with a federal scooter.

This is an extensive response to a comment. Disproportionate response….

You have too may items… So I’ll just point out the ones I strongly agree with..
—————–
Repeal mark-to-market and restore generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) including historical basis for value to stabilize toxic securities. Value stability of supposedly stable securities is the goal.

Repeal all capital gains and corporate taxes, which would bring the markets roaring back, and make George W. Bush tax cuts permanent, which would quiet concerns about punitive taxation and prevent the John Galt reaction we got.

Repeal Sarbanes Oxley, repeal CRA, which would restore sensible lending and double the profits of public companies at two strokes of a pen.

Close Border/eliminate Illegal immiration

Energy Independence / Repeal ethanol boondoggle.

Declare war on al Qaeda and the Global Jihad Front, allowing the country to use all the tools of war in the global conflict we are currently fighting.

Reduce funding to the UN and permanently reject the Law of the Sea Treaty, by statute if needed. The UN should be reduced to about 10% of its current size instead of being encouraged to become a world government.
——————

Great piece.

I don’t get that.

And on the Puerto Rico/Guam thing - I see no value in it for the United States. Other than pretty good rum from PR, the economic value is minimal. From a symbolic perspective, maybe. Guam provides value from a defense perspective just the way it is.

I disagree with at least 14 of these, and another 8 to 10 would depend on the details. So you must be a RINO. Or maybe I’m the RINO. Or maybe we’re both RINOs. Oh no, RINOs are everywhere! We need more purity in the party. One or both of us has to go. A smaller party is a party that wins elections. No, wait… that doesn’t seem right.

Like some people have said, there’s a few quibbles, but the basic summary is solid.

I think the biggest quibble is the illegal alien provision and tax deductions.

Not that I’m for the aliens, I personally don’t think we need to have illegals on american soil.

I just think, like the war on drugs, the war (sorry OCO’s) against illegal aliens a full lockdown is a losing proposition.

The nice thing about the Fair Tax is that EVERYBODY pays their tax, so we don’t look at them stealing from our public social service (which have grown out of control anyways). Regardless of their income or how they get paid.

The other quibble is the tax deductions. How are we going to track those deductions and enforce them. This sounds like an extension of the IRS.

The Fair Tax has a great oppurtunity to greatly reduce, or even eliminate the IRS as an agency.

Good summary though, it was a good read. Thanks

nt

Seriously, this is about the best, most comprehensive roadmap I’ve seen for leading us out of the wilderness. The Powers That Be need to see this.

There’s going to be another Tea Party in Minnesota next month, I plan to print this list up and hand it out to everyone who will take a copy.

but yours is simply the most complete one I have ever seen. Good job.

Just asking…..

1. No bailouts, no stimulus, no TARP. The money to restore the US and world economy has been sucked out to somewhere. The solution is to invite that money back in, not to print or borrow more money. (Agreed. US now has to compete for capital like anyone else. Once you understand that, the rest is clear.)

2. Repeal mark-to-market and restore generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) including historical basis for value to stabilize toxic securities. Value stability of supposedly stable securities is the goal. (Mark to market actually makes sense. Acquisition cost for a variable asset that now has an undefined value? Nonsense, the emperor would not only have no clothes; he would have no skin.)

3. Repeal all capital gains and corporate taxes, which would bring the markets roaring back, and make George W. Bush tax cuts permanent, which would quiet concerns about punitive taxation and prevent the John Galt reaction we got. (Repeal the Estate Tax, an exercise in grave robbery as well as double taxation.)

5. Repeal Sarbanes Oxley, repeal CRA, which would restore sensible lending and double the profits of public companies at two strokes of a pen. (Nonsense. Too damn many companies tried to go public when they had no cash flow in the dot.com ’90s. Let them do those deals in the City of London: you see how well that is going. There is a value to the CRA, as it encourages purchases of property in depressed areas.)

6. Prosecute the swindlers in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and elsewhere, and find the other Madoffs that are still out there swindling people. Also publicly audit the entire Federal Reserve system and mandate annual repeat audits with full transparency including internet publication. Also institute annual public audits of Federal Government spending with internet publication of results. (Paul Volker is recommending something like this.) Tie money supply, including available reserves, to gross value of all real property in the USA, no more and no less. This would restore confidence in the markets and the dollar. (Why real property? The relationship to the money supply is tangential at best. Why not GDP?)
7. Improve security of US currency with RFID and security technologies. Bring back coins that are worth something, like $5, $20 and $100 coins. (That would be . . . heavy, man, heavy.)

8. Declare that all credit default swaps and other forms of insurance that did not back up an actual covered security or property were immediately null and void. Same with the naked shorting that was being done at the time. Both these changes have been implemented recently. (Watch banks here and overseas go belly up. CDOs are a good instrument, but just aren’t investment grade, up to a AAA- level. If everyone understands that, they are fine.)

9. Investigate and prosecute vote fraud vigorously, including voter registration fraud and denial of voting rights to the military, since rampant frauds are destroying trust in the results of voting. Reduced trust in the voting process encourages violent revolution, since the ballot box can’t be trusted. (More likely, apathy.)

10. Enforce the US Constitution fully, including provisions against dual citizenship, and the 9th and 10th Amendments. (The X th Amendment is the key to the 21st Century.)

11. Don’t pass SCHIP reform that makes trust-fund “children” up to age 25 and children of parents earning well over the median national income eligible for “free” government health insurance. The whole bill was and is ridiculous. It must be repealed. (Reform health care by taking it away from both employers and the Government and you won’t need SCHIP, Medicaid or Medicare.)

12. Deregulate the insurance market for all types of insurance, allowing any US insurance company to insure in any state, thereby spreading out risk pools and lowering everyone’s rates. State insurance boards can get over themselves. This will bring competition into the health insurance market and lower administrative costs. Will insurance companies try to lower costs by denying coverage? Preventing those kind of shenanigans is what state insurance boards are supposed to be doing. (Allow people to set up health insurance buying cooperatives.)

16. Close the borders tight to smuggling of drugs and aliens, increase the quotas for LEGAL Mexicans, Filipinos, Canadians, and other desirable immigrants, and finish the fence. (The fence is nonsense. A good bit of the Border is in the territory of an Indian Nation that stands to gain from passing illegal border crossers through. If it didn’t work on the IZB, with guards willing to shoot, why would it work here?)

17. Grant individual deductions for health insurance, which would untie health insurance from employers, allowing people to form voluntary associations with which to buy group insurance, or even buy it individually. (This is probably the key along with legal reform. get employers and the governments out of this business. Maybe use this same approach to Social Security and pensions. Probably works better with groups than individuals.)

18. Call in all banks’ leverage to no more than 12:1. Restore Glass-Steagal. (Regulation should not tell people how to do things. It should tell them what not to do, as with Glass-Steagal, and it should tell them to report what they are doing, as with 10-K s and other SEC filing requirements.)

19. Fire all political appointees in the federal government. They can be brought back slowly, in reduced numbers, as the economy recovers and tax revenues allow. (They say the Obama Administration deliberately did not fill all existing political positions for that reason. If so, the next Administration needs to make that a tradition.)

20. Cut all federal agencies budgets by 20% except for defense. (Eliminate anything not reasonably attributed to an enumerated power of the Federal Government.) Also fire and prosecute federal employees who engage in political work on the clock. This would be a zero tolerance rule with a whistle-blower program. If this does not produce a balanced budget keep cutting budgets until it does. The unproductive government should not be allowed to grow while the productive economy is shrinking. (Bottom line: government needs to live within its [likely declining] means.)

21. Cut 90% of the pages from federal regulations across the board. (See if anyone misses them?) Make every department cut their regulations, leaving only the most important ones. Cuts should not be made by lawyers, but by subject matter experts.

22. Pass balanced-budget Amendment. (Also an amendment that prohibits knowingly inflating the currency.)

24. Withhold all federal funds from locales that do not enable enforcement of federal laws including immigration laws. Withhold all federal funds from schools that do not allow ROTC programs or military recruiters. (Why are Federal Funds being given to localities at all?)

25. Begin phase-out of student loan programs. Strongly encourage (by means of tax and other rules changes) schools to compensate by lowering prices, laying off non-teaching faculty and staff, and selling off non-core properties. There is no good reason why tuition should be the same as the average family’s annual income. And the government should not place graduates under intolerable debt burdens immediately after graduation as the student loan programs now do. (Markets set prices. Nothing else should try.)

26. Fire all government economists. Delete their positions. Create a voluntary, outside economic advisory group for Executive and Legislative Branches, and the States, and restrict it to followers of the neo-Austrian School. Explicitly ban access to Keynesians. Encourage advisors to profit by publicizing their positions and writing articles for popular audiences. Sorry, Keynesians. But Keynes admitted he didn’t believe his own theories before he died. He just never managed to write down his revised opinions. (Amen, Keynesian approaches just don’t work.)

27. Terminate federal arts funding. Terminate Department of Education and NCLB. Terminate PBS and Public Radio. (Eliminate anything not justified under an enumerated power.) Bring back Voice of America and translation programs of English language books to other languages, especially Arabic, the Indian subcontinental languages, and Chinese. (DoD, OK.) Reduce funding to the UN and permanently reject the Law of the Sea Treaty, by statute if needed. The UN should be reduced to about 10% of its current size instead of being encouraged to become a world government. (All of that is by Treaty. Not much you can do, other than ignore it.)

30. Managed bankruptcy for critical industries that need it, with the government guaranteeing their products to consumers, while allowing them to throw out legacy agreements that hobble them. (Constitution gives great power over bankruptcy to Congress, so OK.)

31. Switch to privatized social security with investments in the free markets (including gold specie), while guaranteeing payments will be no worse than those presently in the plans. (See 11, 12 and 17 above, do the same kind of thing.)

32. Cut back medicare/medicaid to restore them to their original purpose as safety nets for people who are temporarily down on their luck and the aged, instead of making them permanent programs for people who settle for being drunk, stupid, and poor. (Fix health care as you suggest and you won’t need them.)

33. Restore death penalty by hanging for treason, terrorism and piracy. (Let the local courts take jurisdiction of pirates and let them hand them under the Customary Law of the Sea.)

35. Raise the mandatory federal retirement age from 65 to 75. Lower the minimum age at which people can work from 16 to 13. (Fix education, so people get to work sooner.)

36. Repeal McCain-Feingold, and require 100% transparency in all campaign contributions of all dollar values, including in-kind contributions from artists, entertainers and the media who simply repeat campaign promises and publish hagiographic stories as if they were news. (Small donations to popular candidates work well. Your last idea is great.)

37. Begin negotiations on statehood with Puerto Rico and Guam. There is no reason in today’s world why the USA must be contiguous. We already know this because of Hawaii and Alaska, but seem to have forgotten. Create a process for other lands to apply for USA statehood. Just imagine if Iraqis could aspire to a future in which they were a part of the USA, with all the advantages that would come from it. (Offer to Let them buy out of the union, as an option. Federal government needs to sell off all its business and real estate holdings not related to an enumerated power.)

38. Start selling off and privatizing federal lands in a way that maximizes long term revenue in order to pay off the national debt. First goal is to make at least 25% of Alaska privately owned. (SEE ABOVE, IT makes sense.)

39. Stop all foreign aid. Encourage trade instead, which increases employment and reduces poverty instead of giving money to dictators for weapons and miltias. This would also zero out the US trade deficit, which is as high as it is precisely because of foreign aid. (Good to this point. The last is nonsense.)

41. Make bubble-caused losses in property value 100% deductible as expenses for up to ten years as they are incurred, without requiring the property to be sold, thereby allowing people and corporations to pay off the bubble-caused decline in their property value with zero net cost while keeping their full equity. Change bank regulations to require lenders to accept these and other early payoffs, coupled with reduction of the face value of the loan, without penalties. Early payment penalties should be illegal, and would be banned generally. (Tax credits for being current on mortgage debt?)

42. The Switzerland Rule: Encourage all minors over age 12 and adults of sound mind and body to be proficient in semi-auto 7.62mm rifle (AR15 or variant) and semi-auto shotgun. Make purchase and upkeep of one standardized copy of each, including ammunition, tax deductible for each adult of sound mind and body. Declare open carry legal everywhere, overruling all state and local rules. (No, this impinges on the rights of the States under the II d Amendment to “regulate the militia.” Do it through uniform laws or power of the purse, which I hate, but is more justifiable here due to Federal Support of the Army and Air National Guard.)