We The People.ORG

Government-run healthcare is no longer a certainty, though Pelosi and Reid will try their best to pass the Senate bill in the hopes the next congress won’t have the will to repeal it. Cap and Trade is on the back burner, but never too far from the surface. And the EPA is ready, able, and more than willing to take command and control of the U.S. economy in a vain attempt to strangle the mythic carbon dragon.

When President Obama says at the end of the State of the Union, “I’m not a quitter,” you’d better believe him. And you’d better expect there to be sand and glass shards in the Vaseline as he uses every trick to push his agenda through.

It’s easy to say this thinking is delusional in light of the stunning rebukes their quasi-communist agenda has suffered thus far in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Virginia, but it would be dead wrong to ignore it. The Democrat Marxists have been the party slinging the most mud while complaining the most about its “corrosive effect” on discourse, and they will not stop. They have learned the lessons of Saul Alinsky well, and have applied them for many years. Though some in politics claim President Obama is the first to embrace Alinsky’s rules of revolution, We The People believe he is just the latest, and most gifted, Alinksyite practitioner.

Nor do the Sons of Liberty have much use for many Republicans, especially as they stand ready to reap rewards from seeds they have not sown. Our worry is that they, like the Democrats, will treat us like lobsters, but place us in a pan of lukewarm water before slowly turning up the heat rather than throwing us in boiling water as Obama & Co. has tried. Either way the result is the same: You are dead. The only difference is that one way is much less painful than the other.

It’s time to neutralize the left by actually accomplishing needed reforms and upheavals via market-based solutions, by expanding personal freedoms, and by increasing the responsibilities of every citizen for the health and well being of this great country. This involves showing the electorate the true costs of legislation, not just in terms of tax revenues and deficits, but also in terms of efficacy when compared to alternatives. In corporate sales and marketing, that’s called measurables: show through measurement of your success how effective the investment has been. Ours is a call to revitalizing citizenship by demanding that voters not sit on the sidelines and let others do the heavy lifting. A lazy citizenry leads to rampant corruption and Marxist-style redistribution, all of which attacks the very fiber that keeps a republic free.

Taxes, Spending and the Budget

The budget process and taxation are the heart of this beast. For too long we have allowed Washington to spend beyond its means, create new bureaucracies and entitlements without a concern for the cost to ourselves or our children. Decades of economic growth, and immense political and military power on the global stage, have shielded the United States from the need to closely watch inflows and outflows. And our largesse allowed the countries of Europe and South America to adopt socialist democracies on the back of our military superiority and duty to defend freedom. That cannot continue. Therefore we propose:

• The budget must be written following Generally Accepted Accounted Principles (GAAP), and overseen by a rotating list of outside auditors in order to control corruption.
• An end to line items, which are programs and spending that are carried “off the books.”
• Government assets must be valued and depreciated, and the cost of replacement calculated.
• All entitlement programs include projections of future costs against future revenues.
• Tax assumptions must use dynamic scoring so that the effects of lower or higher taxation accurately reflect the way people respond in the real world.
• The cost of both the future and current deficits must be carried on the books along with a credible plan for their elimination over a set period, including taxation and spending assumptions.
• Government departments must be measured on a cost-benefit basis with under-performers eliminated and their duties absorbed by other branches or devolved back to the states. Nationalizing programs has made it impossible for citizens to hold elected officials accountable, and in many cases has made the nation pay for a state or region’s folly. No more.
• The Federal Reserve, Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service must abide by strict sunshine laws that control when, where and how these agencies can meet, the reports coming out of those meetings, and the transparency of their decisions.
• The tax code must be revised through the elimination of the vast majority of superfluous deductions, and the extension or reinstatement of those that support the long-term health of the country, especially deductions for families.
• All new taxes should require a two-thirds majority for passage, except in times of war or national emergency, with the understanding that these taxes will by law be eliminated at the end of the conflict. Currently, tax cuts are subject to time limits while tax hikes are not.
• Every citizen, no matter how low their income, must pay a percentage of their earnings in taxes. Exempting people from the tax code lessens their interest in governmental efficiency and encourages dependence on federal programs.

Regulatory Reform

Americans are over-regulated, and the ability to create new regulations and laws is a jobs preservation scheme for politicians and political appointees. Therefore, we propose:

• Adopting a strict peer-reviewed cost/benefit analysis for new regulations overseen by a rotating group of auditors.
• This same process must also be applied to laws and regulations already on the books.
• Sunset laws must be enacted that force legislators to reauthorize legislation before it expires so laws do not stay on the books forever.

Health Care

The problem with the current system is a lack of competition at all levels, and especially across state lines. Therefore we propose:

• Overriding or eliminating the state and federal laws that prevent insurers from competing for customers and pooling risk.
• Passing legislation that gives every American the chance to open a tax-exempt Health Savings Accounts (HSA).
• Allowing surviving family members or non-family members named in a will to inherit these funds.
• Upon the death of the HSA saver, the inherited funds will remain tax-free if the individuals who inherit the funds keep them in their own HSAs, or the funds will be taxed at a rate not to exceed 20% if used for other purposes.
• Establishing a critical-risk pool for those in need of catastrophic health insurance or with pre-existing conditions (PECs) that are not covered by the PEC insurance certain to emerge with 50-state competition.
• Concurrently pursuing tort reform at the national level.
• Establishing a non-governmental best practices board to be funded by the insurance companies to explore new technologies, procedures and methods, while rating hospitals by specialty, procedure, care, etc.

Energy and the Environment

At best climate change regulations are a hoax, and at worst a massive fraud. And energy policy has done nothing to increase our energy reserves or decouple our fate from countries that mean to do us harm. The Energy Information Administration claims that, based on 2008 U.S. consumption levels and an average price per barrel of $99.55, we transfer $460 billion of wealth overseas each year. And we spend $49 billion to protect our Persian Gulf oil interests. Therefore, we propose:

• Not signing-on to any climate legislation or entering any treaties that do not exact the same regulations, sanctions and taxes of all countries, signatories or not.
• Returning true peer-review status to all government-financed science.
• Open all US offshore and on-shore lands to exploration for oil and natural gas, including those currently hidden behind fraudulent environmental obstruction.
• Using new oil extraction technologies, fund efforts to recover oil from “dry” wells where 30% to 50% of the oil still remains, but old technology prevents us from recovering it economically.
• Establish incentives for refiners to upgrade existing plants and build new state-of-the–art facilities that are clean, safe from terrorist attack and protected from catastrophic weather events (e.g., hurricanes in the Gulf).
• Eliminate the CO₂-driven EV “mandate” that will force the strip mining of lithium from hostile or potentially hostile countries like Venezuela, Chile and China, and the mining of vast amounts of rare earths for their electric motors.
• Offer tax credits to upgrade and decentralize the power grid to make it less susceptible to overloads and terrorist attacks.
• Foster true energy independence through the increased application of nuclear power, while increasing the use of cellulosic ethanol in vehicles designed to make the greatest use of this fuel.

Americans are waking up to the insidious side effects of government, and are in search of better free-market solutions. The next two elections (2010 and 2012) are a tremendous opportunity for politicians and parties to return to the idea of public service laid out within the U.S. Constitution. By drastically reducing the size, scope and reach of government, we can prevent it from turning us into subjects, and regain responsibility for the decisions that We The People make.

Tags: energy policy, environmental regulation, federal budget, health care, Pelosi, regulatory reform, Reid, Second Contract With America, Sons of Liberty, Sons of Liberty Declaration of Freedoms, State of the Union, tax and spend