As sadomasochistic policies both foreign and domestic birthed by the schizophrenic United States of America play the key role in the development and proliferation of the many nightmares escaped from Pandora’s sexy little box, I would like to extend a bit of solemnly timeless advice. Drastic problems call for drastic solutions, so I present this article in hopes of generating audacious controversy. Some of these ideas might seem familiar, while others I insist on taking full credit for. Combined, they offer something more sensible than either of the separated at birth mainstream political parties and their ping-pong politics are capable of individually, and hopefully a light in the darkened tunnel vision of our times.
How to fix the American government (or at least postpone the inevitable by a few more years).
Settling debts and reckoning the financial slate absolutely must come first, and this can be accomplished only by streamlining the tax code and cutting government spending in unison. We must discontinue the Federal Reserve AND the IRS immediately, as neither institution amounts to anything but an incredibly biased abuse of power. Let the only taxing be a set 10% sales tax on every dollar spent, no matter the product, with half going to the purchaser’s state government and half going to the Federal government. Foreign sales would result in the full 10% going to the feds. So if you buy a 3 dollar loaf of bread, that totals 3.30 then, with 15 cents to your state gov and 15 cents to the Federal gov. A 50 dollar carton of cigarettes would total 55 bucks with 2.50 to state, 2.50 to Federal. If you buy a million dollar yacht, that will require 50 thousand dollars to your state gov and 50 thousand dollars to the Federal gov. So essentially, the more you spend, the more taxes you pay. But no more localized taxes or taxes on income or anything else beyond this very specific sales tax, because if government spending is limited to necessity then anything else amounts to inconsequential cannon fodder for selfish elitists.
The only exception would be an estate tax claiming everything over one-million in combined assets and holdings, because inherited wealth creates monstrosities incapable of providing for themselves in particular or contributing anything useful in general. Nobody deserves entitlements or handouts. Additionally, we must permit no more corporate subsidies or tax breaks for anybody, period, and by god no more bailouts. Especially for agencies already so preoccupied with tax evasion schemes.
If industry is the spine of America then it requires no coddling, lest it turn crooked.
Churches of each and every denomination should be removed from tax-exempt status and taxed the same as any other business, which in my world would not be taxing earnings or property, but expenditures. With groups such as the church of Scientology, the church of Latter-Day Saints, and particularly the Vatican owning billions in real estate alone, they are nothing better than wealth-accumulating enterprises. And, as corporations are insistent upon being viewed as people too, so the very same tax rates would apply regardless of how their money is spent. No free rides and everyone pays their share. Be they individuals or groupings, ten percent of every dollar spent across the board.
Even more than Church and State, we need a separation of financial interests from politics entirely, because money does not grow on trees, resources are finite and the hoarding of wealth is explicitly the thing destabilizing western economies. Pageantry to ease economic problems, while giving no thought to preventing circumstances which created said problems, offer temporary solutions at best. Like UBI. The exorbitant costs of necessity prompts assistance, but inflation can continue unchallenged, rendering it useless. Minimum wages wouldn’t need raising if laws had been enacted to prevent costs of living from also raising after the last time minimum wages were increased. Capping maximum wages instead would bar over-charging and price-gouging, allowing costs of living to become worthwhile. Without working ourselves into early graves, multi-tasking on skeleton crews just to stay alive long enough to buy more bullshit with the pennies earned. We don’t need candy money, we need the billions sitting in bank accounts to reenter circulation.
In a moral society healthcare must be both free and universal regardless of one’s station in life. When the basic concept of insurance is betting against life, with healthcare covered I think the rest of the insurance industries as well ought not to be profiteered but nationalized, as an alternative revenue stream to ease taxation. People wanting insurance would be further investing in the government, and the government would be reinforcing its citizenry by methods less biased than tax forgiveness or tax write-offs.
As it’s undeniably the most expensive of all ongoing enterprises on the planet, cut military spending down to 50 billion a year (symbolically, one billion per state with the total still being more than what virtually any other nation spends annually on defense). This alone would save hundreds of billions in revenue streams misspent each and every year. On the flip-side, cut any and all foreign aid, because tax-paying American citizens are starving to death right here, right now, and limiting our involvement in global networks could only improve our relations internationally. Like the drunk uncle who is loads of fun provided he only visits every few years or so. The thousand or so American military bases and installations existing outside of American borders should be shut down and returned to their rightful owners. If stolen they should be cleaned OCD-style prior to handing the keys over, and where purchased the monies should as well be forfeited. Maintaining the largest military in the history of the world, black budgets and all, is clearly doing more harm than good. Correcting this would make the purported need for half of our national taxes obsolete. I’m not advocating raised spending of any sort, but diminished spending, down to the constitutional necessity of our lives, liberties and pursuits of happiness. Half the national budget is purposed with destruction, and its supporters are fucked in the head.
And every single political official, without exception every single politician elected or otherwise appointed from the President on down, should work for minimum wage so that politicians truly would be representing the people. And no overtime would ever be permitted, as these positions should require 100 hour work weeks on average, with an hour of pay docked in trade for each hour spent riding the clock over. These public servants are there to work, and work they shall. The added bonus to this would be that nobody would even bother to campaign unless they honestly wanted to do something constructive with whatever desired position. I think that just knowing there would be years of slumming it on the Yin-Yang diet of cheap white rice and store brand black coffee (along with chipping away at whatever prior savings) would be more than enough to frighten away many a technocrat from offices of power. This would also likely scale back city, county, state and Federal expenses somewhat, just by easing the payroll.
Ban the political parties, as one and all they masque their designs of ultimately serving themselves as wealth-accumulating initiatives. As their partisanship does not actually exist, it is vital for us to uproot all related branding no matter the political persuasion. Let’s let individuals vying for dominance rise and fall on their own personal, provable merits, free of labels to hide behind or crowds to be lost in or shelters for their taxes. Really simple purity test: any politico to have ever utilized a marriage counselor, divorce attorney, financial consultant, life coach, marketing expert, social networking guru or the like cannot seriously be expected to resolve the problems of others. All campaigners, at personal expense, must provide fully public transparency of their complete criminal background report at local, state and federal levels along with current psychological evaluations. Show us tax records, credit scores, college transcripts, with mandatory, regular drug screenings while serving in office. I’ve managed kitchens after more red-tape.
Heaven forbid I sound nihilistic, but the worst case scenario looks to be that the entire Democratic voting process is utterly illusory, with outcomes pre-planned by a small number of plutocratic oligarchs. The best case scenario is that voting is comparably no different from what those in Alcoholics Anonymous refer to as enabling. Maybe the final solution everyone is looking under rocks for would be for the United States of America to finally become an actual Democracy. Enough with the constitutional federal republic bullshit already. One living adult American citizen whether foreign or domestic-born, felon or not, but currently residing within the states either way, equals one vote, with any alternative being simply an excuse for deviancy. The only way to avoid that level of misconduct is to employ exclusively non-registered voters to operate all voting stations. The people who aren’t voting have their days canceled anyhow, what with businesses closed or with limited hours. Nonpartisan objectivity. Of course, there is a funny little reason why this is not already the norm, and why it will never ever in a zillion years be endorsed by either the GOP or the DNC. The system is designed to service itself.
Inundation only suits dry fields.
A smaller, more manageable government is obviously warranted, to better serve the people and to allow accountability and transparency to be realistically maintained. As such, the United States Cabinet of the Executive branch should be consolidated relatively, along with many other Federal government offices, to cut waste and further control spending and overreach. In honor of George Orwell’s harrowing novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and as reminder of the darkness we hope to overcome I propose the following for this specific concern.
The Office of the United States Secretary of Peace will consist of merged offices of Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Homeland Security, Secretary of Transportation, and Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
The Office of the United States Secretary of Plenty will consist of merged offices of Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Labor, and Secretary of the Treasury. This would also oversee the universal 10% sales tax, along with incorporating the Council of Economic Advisers, the Office of Management & Budget, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and the Small Business Administration.
The Office of the United States Secretary of Love will consist of merged offices of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice, Secretary of Health & Human Services including the CDC and the FDA, Secretary of Housing & Urban Development, and Secretary of the Interior. This would also incorporate the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Office of the United States Secretary of Truth will consist of merged offices of Secretary of Education, Secretary of Energy, and Secretary of State. This will also incorporate the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Election Commission, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Archives and Records Administration. Also NASA.
Each of the proposed new offices should receive equal funding, penny by penny and measure by measure, and would remain of equal authority from one to the other. The Ambassador to the United Nations would no longer exist, as the United States has no business being where it is neither wanted or needed. And a small bonus here would be that if the United States were free of the United Nations charter, then it would no longer have reason to abide by the United Nations drug policies, meaning that marijuana could be properly legalized, rather than simply decriminalized. This would enable a viable product upon the legal market, the sales for which could be taxed in accordance with all other goods and services bought.
Regarding the other two branches of government, members of Congress should be limited to three terms at the most, consecutive or non-consecutive and regardless of being elected into either the House of Representatives or the Senate or both at different times. For the Judicial branch, members of the Supreme Court would be limited to terms of ten years at the most, or must face mandatory retirement once reaching the age of 70, whichever occurs first. There can be no lifetime appointments anywhere in democratic politics. This insures at least a modicum of new blood and new ideas instead of death-grips enabling private agendas, as the ability to recognize and resolve the vital and ongoing needs for change should never be dependent upon seniority or partisanship.
To avoid any further temptations of government powers, all PACs, Super-PACs and lobby groups should be banned and made illegal, as politicians are already supposed to represent the people, and if all men are created equal then these agencies have no ethical place in the scheme of things. Campaign contributions from any and every for-profit agency should be banned immediately, across the board and with no exceptions. Mandatory accountability and full transparency will be expected from all government agencies, departments and offices in all matters, and with bare minimal “National Defense” excuses allowed as 99 times out of a hundred that is just smokescreen for illicit activities. Outlaw filibustering and sequesters as well, as congresspersons should behave as goddamn adults. Gerrymandering must also be rendered illegal, and the Electoral College must be dismantled as violently as possible. Elections must rely exclusively on the popular vote, with not one iota of authority, time or attention granted to delegates or super-delegates. They simply cannot be a part of the process for a democracy to be functional and healthy, and only marketing declares otherwise. What is a democracy, but the chance for the people to think for themselves?
And prison populations will NOT be used as free or cheap labor for corporate interests anymore, though trade programs could be established under the Federal government to put approved inmates to work repairing domestic infrastructure concerns for public benefit. No pay, as the education and exercise of such vocations would be part of their rehabilitation. No more death penalty either, as we can be more creative than that. Prisons should exist exclusively for rapists, murderers and bankers anyway, those persons who have proven themselves entirely incapable of being around others without doing harm. This would dramatically limit the costly war on drugs, simplifying the tasks of assorted law enforcement agencies while saving the taxpayers quite a bit of money in the doing.
These changes could, I believe, enable free healthcare for all United States citizens, short of cosmetic/plastic surgery. Keeping ourselves alive and healthy should not be a for-profit concern. Every chain is only as strong as its weakest link, so true patriots should want the best for their brethren. These changes would also enable free education for all United States citizens up to and including a Bachelors degree. In addition, these improvements to education and healthcare, and less taxation in general, would raise the standard of living enough so that all welfare programs could be cut entirely, including unemployment benefits, food stamps, WIC, etc. If any of these programs are needed then governance is not managing resources for the benefit of everyone. The legal loopholes actively exploited by the wealthy should be cut first and foremost, as their cost is far greater. Crime rates might well plummet, as persons would be less likely to be born into environments of desperation and equally, persons with authority would be less enabled to create such environments of desperation. These tax dollars otherwise wasted on enabling the lazy and ignorant (among the lowest class and throughout the upper class alike) could then be reapplied towards total education reform, total healthcare reform, and the betterment of infrastructure nationwide.
Of course, I do not believe in Democracy or any established form of government, but by my own reason and experience these conclusions seem wonderfully relevant. It is not a matter of getting things back on track. America was never on track. This country was arguably only great during the few minutes of the Hands Across America ordeal in the 1980s, and then only if we ignore the many home and vehicle break-ins that happened while everyone was distracted.
In all seriousness, I really think the only way to fix or to change the system for the better would be to slam on the brakes. If velocity knocks everyone even a little back and to the left then happy days, but if the culture and technology of our civilization are knocked back a hundred years or more, then so be it. A mess this big and ongoing did not happen overnight and it can only be resolved with equally megalithic forces. And that goes for the global economic crises as well. Things will not magically get better and there are no easy resolutions. Politicians can try to slow the damaging process with the same old tired and rehashed balms, but the end is still and will always be the end, and it approaches ever so fastly no matter how sexy the bread and circuses or the smoke and mirrors.
Seeing this any other way is just as productive as throwing pennies down a well. And contrary to what popular culture informs us, wishing is not problem-solving. The business interests of the American government comprise the singular root of all that ails the world, and any examination into potential cures which neglects that fact is inherently flawed, and utterly doomed.