Let’s assume that you are the “king” of the United States for one 6 year term. You can do anything that you want relative to government.
Tell me what the top items on your wish list would be.
I’ll begin:
Cut the size of the federal government to about half. Sending things like the Department of Education back to the states.
Abortion would be illegal except in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother.
I would impose a flat 20% tax and close all loopholes.
I would end welfare as we know. From this point on if the person did not work they would not get any benefits. And those benefits would end after a reasonable period of time regardless. The age of the welfare queen would be over.
No more protected classes and certainly no quota system. We are all human beings and when you give someone special rights you are taking them away from someone else.
There are the first five things that I would do.
What do you guys think? Let’s see how you would rule.
If after my 6 year reign the country gets handed back to the current non-monarchical system we currently have, I’d use my power and try to fix that system, starting with forcing neutral redistricting and term limits. I’d also consider changing the president’s term to 6 years with no successive election (i.e., he or she would have to wait a term to run again).
[quote]ZEB wrote:
Let’s assume that you are the “king” of the United States for one 6 year term. You can do anything that you want relative to government.
Tell me what the top items on your wish list would be.
I’ll begin:
Cut the size of the federal government to about half. Sending things like the Department of Education back to the states.
Abortion would be illegal except in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother.
I would impose a flat 20% tax and close all loopholes.
I would end welfare as we know. From this point on if the person did not work they would not get any benefits. And those benefits would end after a reasonable period of time regardless. The age of the welfare queen would be over.
No more protected classes and certainly no quota system. We are all human beings and when you give someone special rights you are taking them away from someone else.
There are the first five things that I would do.
What do you guys think? Let’s see how you would rule.
Zeb
[/quote]
Did I inspire this when I said I was the king of the U.S.?
That is logically awful. IF abortion is murder, the source of the life is not relevant–you’re basically killing one person for something another person did. If it is not murder then why regulate it at all? If, as with me, the development of the fetus plays the main role, regulate based on that, not the source of conception.
I’m more OK with (actually support) a ban, barring medical reasons, on abortion in the last trimester and no regulation in the 1st; I view the fetus’ agency as increasing throughout the pregnancy as it develops.
As far as me?
God help hte nation if I’m king is all I can say. I am not sure I trust myself with that sort of power.
Ban abortion except in the cases where mother’s life was endanger.
Legalize all drugs
Castrate rapists.
20% flat tax.
Tell China to fuck themselves.
Tell the Middle East to go fuck themselves and produce all our own oil. What we cannot produce we cannot burn.
Utilize all technologies available to make electricity. Change over from a grid to a local system where each dwelling is self sufficient to make it’s own power utilizing the grid incase of emergencies.
Imprison for life all the Microsoft developers responsible for Windows 2008 and SQL 2008.
Ban hybrids and electric cars because I hate them with a passion.
Ban Tennis because I think it’s a gay sport.
Eliminate the drinking age.
Change back over to the gold standard.
Reinvigorate NASA and go back to the Moon and try to put people on Mars cause it would be cool.
Injured war veterans would get a free ride on me(the government).
All war veterans and their immediate families would have full medical care for the rest of their lives, no questions asked.
Open the prescription drug market to other countries.
Regulate the medical industry for price gouging. Anybody caught price gouging will be shot.
I’ll have to think on it some more… so much to do as king.
Tax - Lower the ECI and Repatriation rates to 18%. Change the AMT rates on Capital Gains and Dividends to 20%, while increasing the exemption 50%ish. Eliminate tax on Cap Gains, Dividends & Interest on anyone over the age of 55 with an AGI under 150k. Tier the Long Term Cap Gains and dividend rates based on proceeds, 13%, 15% 18%. Create a 5% bracket and bump up limits on the other brakets by 10%ish. Expand Section 199, DPAD. Tax life insurance proceeds in excess of 1 million at 20%. Expand EITC. I could go on here if you’d like
Repeal Obamacare and the Patriot act while pointing to my balls and saying “now that is a big fucking deal”. I would open up health insurance companies to compete across state lines, and give tax incentives to those that covered pre-exsisting conditions and eliminated life time limits.
Remove the pension benefits from all of congress and anyone that gets it in the whitehouse. (I would expect this to result in SS and Medicare being fixed in about 20-30 days.) All elected officals and appointees would have to file, publicly, detailed personal financial statements each year they hold office. Fraud here would result in 10 years min. Any year without a balanced budget will result in congress not getting paid in the following year, exceptions for war time will extend 36 months.
Take a hacket to bureaucracy, redundancy and just fire people like it was a joy in my life. The tears of pain would give me life energy. Kick back to the states everything they can afford, education, wellfare, social programs, everything. If they can’t afford it, form a joint task force of private citizens to examine the books and records and work on a bipartisain plan to fix that problem. Dismantle DHS as much as humanly possible. To get more detailed on this would take more time than I have.
Just for the fun of it how about the opposite of everything Zeb does
Double the size of the government, I’ll need to ramp up this as I will need a lot of people to carry out my dirty work. Some states just have a lower average intelligence than others so things like education will need to be done at the federal level.
Abortion legal, I’m not convinced rape is nothing more than women changing their mind after the fact.
Flat 80% tax and open all loopholes, this rewards people who are smart enough to find loopholes.
Too many poor people on the streets would make my reign look worse than current society, so free shelter and no more homeless.
I think my opposite on this actually ends up being the same result
No more riders at all. Single subject rule on federal legislation much like numerous states have. No sneaking little add ons in bills at the last minute.
Since I would now have access to everything I would want to know about JFK, RFK, Roswell, Chem trails, US military space shuttles, DARPA tech, Bildeberg, Nixon tapes, and about what the US knows about the true capabilities of the Japanese Self Defense force. I never bought into this limited power idea and the Japanese military.
if I where an all-powerfull king in the US I would do this:
Make a 5 year plan to transition education( all kind ), health care, welfare( pensions, unemployment welfare, disability welfare ) to the states on the condition that the states have obligation to run it themself and make shure everyone of their citizens have acces to this entitlements. Part of this reform would also ensure that the states got more of the tax money.
Nationalize all banks and create a system where the federal government and the states shared the control over the banks. Part of this reform would be to provide cheap student loans, house loans, business loans, but also to eliminate corrupt banking activity.
Abortion reform modeled on the norwegian model( makes it legal untill some time in the pregnacy )
Eliminate the death penalty in the entire USA.
Drug policy reform: Legalize Cannabis and focus more on stopping the trafficking of heavier drugs like cocain, heroin etc. Also people who is found to posess an small amount of drugs of any kind are not to be sent to jail, but are instead fined.
Tax Reform: Close all loopholes. both wage based and profit based income are taxed the same. I am stealing Zebs 20% flat tax rate since it sounds so clean and simple. everyone regardless of income pays an extra 5% where those 5% are going directly to pay off the debt. When the Debt is payed off, this debt tax will become a rainyday-fund tax.
If private corporations threatens to outsource their corporations because of the increased taxes, their corporations will be nationalized to prevent people to lose jobs and to maintain a stable economy.
Strict anti-corruption reforms will be implemented: Politicians who are found accepting money from lobbyists loses their seats in whatever house they are in. This rule concerns also all federal employees.
Strict financial and enviromentalist regulations would be put in place.
The war in afganistan will be ended as soon as possible and there will be no new military adventure
in my reign. The US military will also be reformed to be a pure defence force.
Gitmo will be closed and all the prisoners their will be trialed like an american citizen. If the court is a problem, I will set up a improvised court at Gitmo. Prisoners who are found guilty will serve their time on US soil in a special prison for ex-gitmo prisoners. Prisoners who are found innocent will be sent back to their homeland except in the situation their life is at stake doing so.
Gay marriage will be Legalized.
Maximum sentences time will be set to 20 years. This will save the prison system money and 20 years are a long enough time.
All federal wages will have sealing at what today constitutes 200.000$ a year, Congress men and senators wages are set to no more than 100.000$ a year. This is to give money hungrey people less incentive to go into politics or get a job at the federal level.
There will be an implementation of a 2 term rule, that means that after 2 terms any senator, congress man is out of the office.
Labour union reform: Everyone have the right to unionize if they want and no employer( including states and the federal goverment ) can denie any one this right. Also it will be illegal to ask anyone if they are a union member in a job interwiew. Its offcourse also a persons right to be not unionized, but union shops stays.
Democracy in the work place will be implemented: This means that no bussines can make changes to their workplace policys without asking their employees. If the mayority of their employees says no to change in policy then they are not allowed to implement it. Breaking of this rule will be considered a criminal act.
Higher education reform: All public higher education is free and all students have the right to get a loan for living expenses. This loan is interrest free and for each full semester a person passes, half of that loan is erased. Also the re-payment plans for the loans will be based on a individuals income and will be adjusted each year.
Natural resources such as oil, gas, coal etc will be nationalized and will be run by a corporation that are co-owned by all the states, the federal government and the employees of this corporation. The profits of this production will be split in three ways, 1 third to the employees, 1 third to the states and 1 third to the federal government.
The patriot act will be repealed.
Political commersials on televison and in cinemas will be made illegal. Also Commersials directed at children will also be made illegal.
All states are obligated to provide shelter to the homeless. ( someone else said this and I liked the idea so I stole it )
The electoral college will be eliminated and presidential elections after my reign will be determened by the popular vote alone. The principle here is one man one vote.
If states issues ID voter laws they must also provide all citizens 18 and above of their state Voter ID free of charge.
Electricity will also be nationalized since it is basickly part of the infrastructure.
The states should be in charge of the electrity system within their states and they are obligated to keep the prices as low as possible.
I bet most of you are happy as fuck I am not your King
Operating under T-bolt’s assumption (that after I’m gone, we go back to the current system), my goal would be to rig the system such that barring great effort, the federal gov’t shrinks over time instead of growing.
I would make the following Constitutional amendments:
1.) All legislation (including existing legislation) has a 10 year sunset clause. All laws expire after 10 years, but can be renewed after 10 years if Congress so desires. Exceptions would made for SS, medicare/medicaid, which would be phased out slowly over the next few decades.
2.) Repeal the 17th amendment, the Senate is returned to the states.
3.a) Legislation whose sole purpose is to reduce spending, taxation, regulation, or repeal existing law would require only 1/4th support to pass the House and Senate.
3.b) All other bills would require 3/4th support to pass the House and Senate.
4.) Every ballot in every national election would include a “Vote of No Confidence!” box. If 3/4ths of all voters check the no-confidence box, all elected federal officials will leave office at the end of their current term and would be prohibited from ever holding another federal elected office.
All income is treated the same…wages, salary, interest, capital gains, etc.
Everyone files as an individual…no married, no dependents.
Every individual receives the same exemption…from the first dollar earned up to $24,000. Everyone pays the same % on every dollar of income after that. We’ll use Zeb’s 20%.
Repeal/outlaw ‘immplied immunity’ for all public employees [salary paid by taxes].
Repeal the 17th
Require that for each new law/regulation that is passed, two existing laws/regulations must be selected for repeal-at every level of government.
Require each law/regulation to contain a statement of specific intent.
Operating under T-bolt’s assumption (that after I’m gone, we go back to the current system), my goal would be to rig the system such that barring great effort, the federal gov’t shrinks over time instead of growing.
I would make the following Constitutional amendments:
1.) All legislation (including existing legislation) has a 10 year sunset clause. All laws expire after 10 years, but can be renewed after 10 years if Congress so desires. Exceptions would made for SS, medicare/medicaid, which would be phased out slowly over the next few decades.
2.) Repeal the 17th amendment, the Senate is returned to the states.
3.a) Legislation whose sole purpose is to reduce spending, taxation, regulation, or repeal existing law would require only 1/4th support to pass the House and Senate.
3.b) All other bills would require 3/4th support to pass the House and Senate.
4.) Every ballot in every national election would include a “Vote of No Confidence!” box. If 3/4ths of all voters check the no-confidence box, all elected federal officials will leave office at the end of their current term and would be prohibited from ever holding another federal elected office. [/quote]
