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He Who Pawns
04-07-2009, 02:46 PM
What are your top 5 Changes you would like to see in Washington? Try to make them practical. If you say, "Cut spending by 99%," you are just talking nonsense. Try to make your suggestions at least somewhat possible.

Here are mine:

1) 50% cut in federal spending. Obviously that will have to include some changes to medicare and social security.

2) Stop the warmongering and bring all US troops home, with the exception of a small handful of strategic bases.

3) Close down all unconstitutional federal agencies, starting with the Dept of Education, ATF, DEA, etc. This also means ending the war on drugs.

4) End the income tax and move to a 10% national sales tax.

5) Pass Constitutional Amendment banning all property taxes nationwide.

jdmyprez_deo_vindice
04-07-2009, 02:50 PM
1.) Get out of the U.N.

2.) Abolish the Federal Reserve

3.) Get to work abolishing all of these other idiotic agencies

4.) Close ALL foreign military bases

5.) Eliminate the income tax

This list could go on and on and on

torchbearer
04-07-2009, 02:52 PM
1. End the war on drugs
2. End the war on third world countries
3. End the war on personal liberties
4. End the war on economic liberies
5. End the war on everything

Kludge
04-07-2009, 02:57 PM
1) Elimination of all taxes which require businesses/people to report income.

2) Elimination of legal immigration barriers unrelated to the security of others (background/health checks).

3) Elimination of the Welfare State.

4) Elimination of all business regulations except in cases where aggression was committed.

5) Isolationist foreign policy. Elimination of all foreign military bases, 75%+ reduction in military expenditure, and signing of a treaty (via UN if necessary) dismantling as many nukes as possible.

constituent
04-07-2009, 03:07 PM
1) Elimination of all policies requiring businesses/people to report income, expenditures or health information.

2) Elimination of the entirety of the Department of Homeland Security

3) Elimination of the Welfare State, both personal and corporate. No more private/public partnerships.

4) Freeze all current/future expenditures until ALL money stolen through taxation (we'll start w/ just the income tax though)
has been payed back IN FULL PLUS INTEREST

5) Release all information regarding the development and deployment of nuclear arms,
in addition to information regarding both the actions and assets of the "intelligence" (so called)
community, into the public domain.

LittleLightShining
04-07-2009, 03:11 PM
1.) Get out of the U.N.

2.) Abolish the Federal Reserve

3.) Get to work abolishing all of these other idiotic agencies

4.) Close ALL foreign military bases

5.) Eliminate the income tax

This list could go on and on and onThis is almost exactly what I was thinking, too, but I think instead of #4 I'd end the War on Drugs.

We can get to the overseas bases after these other things are taken care of.

He Who Pawns
04-07-2009, 03:22 PM
jdmyprez, are you really putting "Get out of the UN" ahead of "Eliminate Income Tax"?? Was your list in order of importance?

Getting out of the UN would be very, very far down on my list. Shrinking of federal gov and ending the foreign wars is a way higher priority for me.

jdmyprez_deo_vindice
04-07-2009, 03:30 PM
jdmyprez, are you really putting "Get out of the UN" ahead of "Eliminate Income Tax"?? Was your list in order of importance?

Getting out of the UN would be very, very far down on my list. Shrinking of federal gov and ending the foreign wars is a way higher priority for me.

Yes... getting out of the United Nations and any other international alliance would be #1 on my list. What good has it EVER done? We spend how many millions and probably billions on the United Nations?

LittleLightShining
04-07-2009, 03:38 PM
Yes... getting out of the United Nations and any other international alliance would be #1 on my list. What good has it EVER done? We spend how many millions and probably billions on the United Nations?I totally agree. Totally.

Indy4Chng
04-07-2009, 03:48 PM
1. Abolish the federal reserve
2. Legalize marijuana (I want the rest too but, realistically you have to legalize 1 first)
3. Constitutional amendment that requires estmated expenses to equal revenues or the government shuts down operations on a GAAP basis and that includes all the books (i.e. current year expenses to social security would count against current year tax revenue, not just on a cashflow basis, which is how they currently do it)
4. End the department of education
5. Eliminate social services/welfare provided to illegal immigrants.

Theocrat
04-07-2009, 04:25 PM
"Get-Outs":

Get out of the womb.
Get out of the bedroom.
Get out of the economy (free market).
Get out of the affairs of foreign countries.
Get out of the business of the 50 States.

"Get-Ins":

Get in the Constitution to pass laws.
Get in protecting our civil rights/liberties and just jurisprudence.
Get in fiscal and monetary responsibility.
Get in the care and provisions for our veterans.
Get in protecting our borders.

RevolutionSD
04-07-2009, 04:33 PM
1. Abolish itself
2. Abolish itself
3. Abolish itself
4. Abolish itself
5. Abolish itself

Deborah K
04-07-2009, 04:37 PM
1. Get out of the UN and the get the UN out of the US
2. Secure our borders and enforce illegal immigration laws
3. Abolish the IRS and the Federal Reserve
4. Cut federal gov't by 2/3
5. NO more undeclared/unjustified wars

Kotin
04-07-2009, 04:42 PM
End of the Empire

End of the Federal Reserve System and Income Tax

End of The Drug War

Get out of UN

Term Limits for all Offices of Government

LibertyEagle
04-07-2009, 04:55 PM
I have one.

Dismantle the federal government as necessary so that it is in line with the enumerated powers listed in the Constitution.

Todd
04-07-2009, 04:55 PM
My first 5 days of presidency.....And in this order: The economy being the most important.


1. Abolish the Federal Reserve, return to a gold standard.

2. Eliminate Income Tax

3. Cut military bases overseas in half immediately

4. Eliminate all foreign aid. Yes...to Israel too.

5. Cut all government spending by 20% immediately with a goal of 50% by end of term.


And as someone once said.....

"On day 6 I'd be assassinated" :D

LibertyEagle
04-07-2009, 05:00 PM
Heck son, you'd be assassinated on Day ONE. :)

benhaskins
04-07-2009, 05:38 PM
Force elected representatives to read the constitution before swearing in and/or take a quick class that educates them about the meaning of the constitution.

powerofreason
04-07-2009, 05:55 PM
1. End it.

powerofreason
04-07-2009, 05:57 PM
Government Based on Coercion Cannot Be Tamed

by Michael S. Rozeff

The U.S. federal government is on a course of self-destruction. People of many political persuasions know this. People who are against coercive government know this. People who favor coercive government know this. People who do not mind if the federal government self-destructs know this, and people who want to save the federal government know this.

From a scientific viewpoint, one of the interesting aspects of a government that is self-destructing is that the process cannot be stopped, even when people who want to stop it, try. Government based on coercion cannot be tamed. It keeps on running until the clock stops ticking and the bomb goes off.

The Committee for a Responsible Budget, which is part of the New America Foundation, consists of Washington insiders. It chairman is William Frenzel. Leon Panetta was a co-chair up until joining the CIA. The Board of Directors is strictly Establishment. So are the Directors. Among them are Vic Fazio, Alice Rivlin, Robert Reischauer, Lawrence Summers, David Stockman, Paul Volcker, and David M. Walker. These people support the State, the federal government, the republic, democracy, and the Constitution. They would vigorously deny that they don’t.

These people do not want the federal government to destroy itself, but they tell us in no uncertain terms that the federal government is on precisely that course. It is precisely because this committee is made up of numerous Washington establishment figures that their statements are useful in complementing and confirming the observations of LRC writers, who might otherwise be viewed as unduly radical, alarmist, or biased. Here is a sample of statements coming out of this committee. See here, here, here, here, here, and here.

"The economy is in crisis, the deficit is out of control, all of the Bush tax cuts are about to expire, and the tax code is in many ways broken – this is no time to think small," remarked Maya MacGuineas, President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

"Borrowing has ballooned to unimaginable levels. A $1 trillion deficit – more than twice the previous record – now appears to be a conservative estimate for fiscal year 2009. The debt is already over $10 trillion. And to paraphrase President-elect Obama, economic conditions will probably get worse before they get better. Yet as bad as things seem today, the future looks bleaker. The projected rapid growth in spending – driven primarily by the aging of the population and health care cost growth – will put this country’s fiscal and economic health in permanent jeopardy. If not brought under control or paid for with new revenue, this growth will turn trillion dollar deficits from an exception to the norm.

"In its recent Budget Outline, the Administration claims to reduce the deficit by paying for its new initiatives, winding down the war in Iraq, and raising taxes on higher earners. In their budget, the Administration displays policy changes relative to a current policy baseline... The budget relative to the standard current-law baseline, however, reduces taxes, increases mandatory spending, and increases the deficit."

"Including the costs of his health care plan, spending would grow considerably under President Obama’s budget. Under the current law baseline, outlays would return to a fairly average level of GDP after the costs of the current economic and financial crisis have passed. Under the President’s budget, however, outlays as a share of the economy would reach a permanently higher level, and would only grow from there as population aging and rising health care costs take their toll on the budget.

"Mandatory payments – the combination of mandatory programs and net interest spending – increase from 62 percent of total government spending in 2008 to 72 percent of total spending in 2019 under the President’s budget.

"While it makes sense that the President would advocate for the policies on which he campaigned, we worry about the introduction of too much new permanent spending before addressing the unsustainable growth of existing programs.

"The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has warned that the President’s budget is not aggressive enough in reducing the medium or long-term deficit, and CBO’s [Congressional Budget Office] analysis projects a significantly worse situation than the Administration does, with the President’s Budget plan resulting in larger and continuously rising budget deficits.

"The budget proposal would increase the debt held by the public from $5.8 trillion, or 40.8 percent of GDP, in 2008 to $17.3 trillion, or 82.4 percent of GDP, by 2019.

"CBO’s recent analysis of the President’s budget paints a dismal fiscal picture, with deficits not only continuing, but increasing, as far as the eye can see, and debt growing to levels not seen since World War II. Although large short-term deficits may be necessary to put the economy on a path to recovery, debt cannot sustainably continue to grow as a percent of GDP over the long-term. If deficits are not eventually reduced to manageable levels, they will threaten long-term economic growth and impair the normal functions and flexibility of government."

Being supporters of the State, this Committee recommends the only remedy available to the government to prevent fiscal disaster: higher taxes.

"The Task Force would be wise to focus on base broadening by making recommendations to reform tax expenditures, and it should explore alternative means of raising revenue. Additionally, the Committee recommends that the Administration remove the restriction that prohibits the consideration of tax increases for families making under $250,000 a year."

No doubt, the projections of the alarmed Establishment are conservative! If any serious budget analyst were to go through the budget carefully and pinpoint all of its rosy assumptions that are unlikely ever to occur, the deficit projections would be even greater. Based on these optimistic deficit projections, the Obama budget shows debt doubling between 2008 and 2013. The rise is likely to be even greater. It then shows debt rising by less than 50 percent between 2013 and 2019, as in the best years of the nineties. Given the sour economy, falling tax revenues, and higher government spending, this is a pipe dream.

And so, in the good old American way, the Washington insiders attempt to alter the course of the government while preserving it. Their goal is to tame the government. It’s not going to happen. It can’t be done.

Why not? Why can government not be reformed? The government we have is coercive by construction. The law of the land is coercive by construction. They involve majority rule in which one group is able legally to impose its wishes on other groups by force.

A non-coercive government can be reformed. People only need to stop using its services. It then either shapes up and responds to people’s needs or it loses out to alternative means of governance.

A coercive government invariably imposes losses on some while providing gains to others. (The same person may gain from one vote and lose from another.) To survive, the state has to juggle these losses and gains so as to not to alienate too many people. Power has to ensconce itself. It cannot rely solely on the use and threat of force. That is too costly a means to maintain power. Instead, it seeks to make itself indispensable. It seeks to weave itself into the basic fabric of daily life. It inserts itself into basic needs that involve food, health, money, financing, education, and so on. Thus, the survival of the State goes hand-in-hand with growth in government because the growth allows the State to entangle many more people in many more ways so that undoing the resulting society becomes too costly and scary a possibility to the people caught in the web.

Furthermore, the growth of government is assured by a second circumstance, which is that the use of power attracts people who want to use that power and who compete to use that power.

Any attempt to cut back this growth or tame it poses a threat to the State’s survival and to the power-using inclinations of those in power. Such attempts at reform open up politics to new negotiations, new votes, new priorities, and new coalitions. They threaten to reduce the scope of power exercised by rulers. They alert the citizenry to entirely new possibilities. They unhinge old and established alliances and interests. In all reform movements lie great risks to the established system, interests, and people in power. If they cannot control these reforms, they will want to squelch them. If they control them, you can be sure that no real reforms will be forthcoming.

The governing establishment, left and right, is highly conservative in one major respect, which is the maintenance and extension of the existing power structure and hold of coercive government over the private lives and liberties of Americans. Not wanting to take the risks of reforming government and having much to gain by extending government, the government grows.

The interesting phenomenon emerges, which is that the government grows too much and risks its own destruction, even while those who are close to government, in and out, see that the government’s very survival is threatened. This is because growing government is advantageous to the rulers, both personally and in terms of managing to hold power over society, and because cutting government back opens up many political risks. It is far easier for those out of power, like many on the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, to identify the survival threat and warn against it, than it is for those in power to do anything about it. Those in power want to retain power and get re-elected. Their time horizons are rather short. It hardly pays them to do something for the long-term good, even of the government, especially when that something involves large political risks. To upset one or two constituencies by cutting back their benefits may mean losing office.

There is no question but that the unmitigated profligacy of Bush II and now Obama is hastening the day when the federal government implodes and takes the country on a far from merry ride downhill. Labeling them (fascist and socialist) hardly even matters. Obama is now fully responsible for the slide. His across-the-board spending increases in all departments of government are not stimulus. The intent is to exercise power, especially by Democrats. The intent is to give us bigger government, as his anti-Reagan rhetoric makes clear. (Reagan gave us bigger government too.) Bush gave us Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama gives us Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama accuses Bush of irresponsibility. He then turns around and gives us a new era of irresponsibility.

The conclusion, which I pose as a theorem of political dynamics, is that government based on coercion cannot be tamed. Coercive governments can and do commit suicide.

April 7, 2009

It will implode on its own eventually. Its inevitable.

xd9fan
04-07-2009, 05:59 PM
At this point I could give a shit making a list.
I would vote for any 5 that have been listed.
I just want real Constitutional change.
Everybodies lists would be amazing...if they can true.

mczerone
04-07-2009, 06:10 PM
1) Fund current liabilities (SS, medicare), but make no new promises to anyone.
2) Get our military presence out of every country but our own, and take care of Veterans by providing them with a modest living wage in retirement that is enough to buy their own medical insurance.
3) Privatize as many programs as possible, from money production to education to welfare. Ideally this would include even the security of the CIA and the armed forces, and the justice system
4) Stop all eminent domain takings unless the property has been attached to a criminal conviction.
5) Just die already. The US Government is just a step in the long run history of the world. It can be a step toward further tyranny and stratification of the human species into the 'rulers' and 'ruled', or a step toward personal responsibility and liberty, where all people recognize that we all have equal rights and are just out to secure for ourselves the best life possible and that people have no fear of having their rights violated unless they first violate someone else's (except by 'thugs' who are always criminal, despite what the State tries to tell you when they violate your rights)

powerofreason
04-07-2009, 06:31 PM
Some people just never learn. The State cannot be tamed. It is evil, like the One Ring from the LOTR. You want to use its power to do good, but evil will always prevail while it exists. The only solution is to destroy it.

powerofreason
04-07-2009, 06:42 PM
Below is Part 3 from Austrian economist's Hans Hermann Hoppe's essay, On the Impossibility of Limited Government and the Prospects for a Second American Revolution


III - The American Constitution

But what was the next step once independence from Britain had been won? This question leads to the third source of national pride — the American Constitution — and the explanation as to why this Constitution, rather than being a legitimate source of pride, represents a fateful error.

Thanks to the great advances in economic and political theory since the late 1700s, in particular at the hands of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard, we are now able to give a precise answer to this question. According to Mises and Rothbard, once there is no longer free entry into the business of the production of protection and adjudication, the price of protection and justice will rise and their quality will fall. Rather than being a protector and judge, a compulsory monopolist will become a protection racketeer — the destroyer and invader of the people and property that he is supposed to protect, a warmonger, and an imperialist.[6]

Indeed, the inflated price of protection and the perversion of the ancient law by the English king, both of which had led the American colonists to revolt, were the inevitable result of compulsory monopoly. Having successfully seceded and thrown out the British occupiers, it would only have been necessary for the American colonists to let the existing homegrown institutions of self-defense and private (voluntary and cooperative) protection and adjudication by specialized agents and agencies take care of law and order.

This did not happen, however. The Americans not only did not let the inherited royal institutions of colonies and colonial governments wither away into oblivion; they reconstituted them within the old political borders in the form of independent states, each equipped with its own coercive (unilateral) taxing and legislative powers.[7] While this would have been bad enough, the new Americans made matters worse by adopting the American Constitution and replacing a loose confederation of independent states with the central (federal) government of the United States.

This Constitution provided for the substitution of a popularly elected parliament and president for an unelected king, but it changed nothing regarding their power to tax and legislate. To the contrary, while the English king's power to tax without consent had only been assumed rather than explicitly granted and was thus in dispute,[8] the Constitution explicitly granted this very power to Congress. Furthermore, while kings — in theory, even absolute kings — had not been considered the makers but only the interpreters and executors of preexisting and immutable law, i.e., as judges rather than legislators,[9] the Constitution explicitly vested Congress with the power of legislating, and the president and the Supreme Court with the powers of executing and interpreting such legislated law.[10]

In effect, what the American Constitution did was only this: Instead of a king who regarded colonial America as his private property and the colonists as his tenants, the Constitution put temporary and interchangeable caretakers in charge of the country's monopoly of justice and protection.

These caretakers did not own the country, but as long as they were in office, they could make use of it and its residents to their own and their protégés' advantage. However, as elementary economic theory predicts, this institutional setup will not eliminate the self-interest-driven tendency of a monopolist of law and order toward increased exploitation. To the contrary, it only tends to make his exploitation less calculating, more shortsighted, and wasteful. As Rothbard explained,

while a private owner, secure in his property and owning its capital value, plans the use of his resource over a long period of time, the government official must milk the property as quickly as he can, since he has no security of ownership. … [G]overnment officials own the use of resources but not their capital value (except in the case of the "private property" of a hereditary monarch). When only the current use can be owned, but not the resource itself, there will quickly ensue uneconomic exhaustion of the resources, since it will be to no one's benefit to conserve it over a period of time and to every owner's advantage to use it up as quickly as possible. … The private individual, secure in his property and in his capital resource, can take the long view, for he wants to maintain the capital value of his resource. It is the government official who must take and run, who must plunder the property while he is still in command.[11]

Moreover, because the Constitution provided explicitly for "open entry" into state government — anyone could become a member of Congress, president, or a Supreme Court judge — resistance against state property invasions declined; and as the result of "open political competition" the entire character structure of society became distorted, and more and more bad characters rose to the top.[12]

Free entry and competition is not always good. Competition in the production of goods is good, but competition in the production of bads is not. Free competition in killing, stealing, counterfeiting, or swindling, for instance, is not good; it is worse than bad. Yet this is precisely what is instituted by open political competition, i.e., democracy.
"The Americans not only did not let the inherited royal institutions of colonies and colonial governments wither away into oblivion; they reconstituted them within the old political borders in the form of independent states, each equipped with its own coercive (unilateral) taxing and legislative powers."

In every society, people who covet another man's property exist, but in most cases people learn not to act on this desire or even feel ashamed for entertaining it.[13] In an anarchocapitalist society in particular, anyone acting on such a desire is considered a criminal and is suppressed by physical violence. Under monarchical rule, by contrast, only one person — the king — can act on his desire for another man's property, and it is this that makes him a potential threat. However, because only he can expropriate while everyone else is forbidden to do likewise, a king's every action will be regarded with utmost suspicion.[14] Moreover, the selection of a king is by accident of his noble birth. His only characteristic qualification is his upbringing as a future king and preserver of the dynasty and its possessions. This does not assure that he will not be evil, of course; at the same time, however, it does not preclude that a king might actually be a harmless dilettante or even a decent person.

In distinct contrast, by freeing up entry into government, the Constitution permitted anyone to openly express his desire for other men's property; indeed, owing to the constitutional guarantee of "freedom of speech," everyone is protected in so doing. Moreover, everyone is permitted to act on this desire, provided that he gains entry into government; hence, under the Constitution, everyone becomes a potential threat.

To be sure, there are people who are unafflicted by the desire to enrich themselves at the expense of others and to lord it over them; that is, there are people who wish only to work, produce, and enjoy the fruits of their labor. However, if politics — the acquisition of goods by political means (taxation and legislation) — is permitted, even these harmless people will be profoundly affected.

In order to defend themselves against attacks on their liberty and property by those who have fewer moral scruples, even these honest, hardworking people must become "political animals" and spend more and more time and energy developing their political skills. Given that the characteristics and talents required for political success — good looks, sociability, oratorical power, charisma, etc. — are distributed unequally among men, then those with these particular characteristics and skills will have a sound advantage in the competition for scarce resources (economic success) as compared with those without them.

Worse still, given that, in every society, more "have-nots" of everything worth having exist than "haves," the politically talented who have little or no inhibition against taking property and lording it over others will have a clear advantage over those with such scruples. That is, open political competition favors aggressive, hence dangerous, rather than defensive, hence harmless, political talents and will thus lead to the cultivation and perfection of the peculiar skills of demagoguery, deception, lying, opportunism, corruption, and bribery. Therefore, entrance into and success within government will become increasingly impossible for anyone hampered by moral scruples against lying and stealing.
"Instead of a king who regarded colonial America as his private property and the colonists as his tenants, the Constitution put temporary and interchangeable caretakers in charge of the country's monopoly of justice and protection."

Unlike kings then, congressmen, presidents, and Supreme Court judges do not and cannot acquire their positions accidentally. Rather, they reach their position because of their proficiency as morally uninhibited demagogues. Moreover, even outside the orbit of government, within civil society, individuals will increasingly rise to the top of economic and financial success, not on account of their productive or entrepreneurial talents or even their superior defensive political talents, but rather because of their superior skills as unscrupulous political entrepreneurs and lobbyists. Thus, the Constitution virtually assures that exclusively dangerous men will rise to the pinnacle of government power and that moral behavior and ethical standards will tend to decline and deteriorate over all.

Moreover, the constitutionally provided "separation of powers" makes no difference in this regard. Two or even three wrongs do not make a right. To the contrary, they lead to the proliferation, accumulation, reinforcement, and aggravation of error. Legislators cannot impose their will on their hapless subjects without the cooperation of the president as the head of the executive branch of government, and the president in turn will use his position and the resources at his disposal to influence legislators and legislation. And although the Supreme Court may disagree with particular acts of Congress or the president, Supreme Court judges are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate and remain dependent on them for funding. As an integral part of the institution of government, they have no interest in limiting but every interest in expanding the government's, and hence their own, power.[15]

TastyWheat
04-07-2009, 07:10 PM
End war on drugs
Close Department of Homeland Security
Repeal Internal Revenue Code; replace with flat 10% income tax
Abolish the Federal Reserve; criminalize fractional reserve banking
Close all foreign military bases