Most
Important Idea to Reduce Debt and Government
The
Line Item Vote
Richard Salbato, May 27, 2010
Recently the Republican Party announced that
they were going to attempt to cut $1.4 Trillion Dollars from the Federal Budget
and seemed to be patting themselves on the back for this. As a Tea Party Constitutional Conservative
that angered me, and as you think about it, it will anger all
conservatives. To save
Republican
Whip, Eric Cantor, came up with a great idea called “You Cut” and each week
puts up 5 good ideas to cut Federal spending and lets the
However,
even this web site is thinking too small.
In reading their first ideas (all good), they are cutting millions from
the debt when they need to cut billions and trillions. I have looked at how we got here and how to
stop it. The number one thing we can do
to cut the Federal Government debt is pass a Line Item Vote. You might ask:
what does that have to do with debt? I will explain. This is the reason we are in debt.
Line Item Vote
First
understand that there are many things today that a President gets away with and
does not even ask Congress (presidential orders and Czars) and most of these
are not constitutional. But what he does not have power to do is pay for these,
only Congress has the power to pay for anything in the government and it has to
do this year after year. If Congress
refuses to pay for something it does not get paid and has to close down. How then do hundreds of departments keep
getting funding year after year and even with larger budgets and members of
Congress do not even know what they do?
The answer to that question is “the system”.
How
many times have Congressmen submitted a good bill to the House or Senate and
then could not even vote for their own bill?
The answer is that little by little over the past 70 years all bills
have been corrupted to COMPREHENSIVE bills.
Why is the coming Finance Bill over 1300 pages instead of 6 or 7 separate
bills? Why was the Health Care bill over
2000 pages instead of 40 or 50 separate bills?
Why is the yearly budget one bill that you can vote for or against but
cannot vote for part of and refuse other parts?
Why is the Military Budget all or nothing? Why does a Military Budget have a line item
of millions of dollars for bike paths in
Line
item votes force people to read the bill.
Line item votes force people to be accountable for every item of the
vote. Under the present system if I ask a Senator why he voted for bridges to
no where, he has a legitimate answer. He
had to vote for it or vote completely against the entire bill.
Why
cannot we vote for a Border Fence in one vote, a National ID card in another
vote, a pathway to citizenship in another vote?
Why cannot we vote for each item separately? The way
The way bills are written
now is that the sections and subsections are numbered so that lawyers can
reference the different parts of the law similar to how court documents are
written.
Under a Line Item Vote law,
each and every numbered section would have to be voted on separately by every
member of the House and Senate and those that did not get a majority of the
vote would be removed. Only the approved
items would go to the president for signature.
We
now have a 13 trillion direct debt (90% of GDP and higher than
This
has no chance to
do anything about the debt. If we had a
line idem vote and I was a Senator or Congressman, there would be 165 Federal
Departments that I would not finance at all.
I would not finance any Czar. At
the same time the real job of government (to be the referee to see all things
are equal and save) is being under financed.
I
want to look at every bill on the Internet and little by little see every item
and how everyone voted on that item without having any excuse. I believe this is the most important idea of
all the following other 34 good ideas.
Outline of
Ideas for American
Save
These
are the most important but for a complete list see below:
1. Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment. (Explanation below)
2. House member to represent no more than
100,000 citizens. (Explanation below)
3. Eliminate all Federal Departments that
are not allowed in the Constitution. (Explanation below)
4. Eliminate all house and senate
payrolls to members and their staff by the Federal Government and have them
paid by the counties and states. (Explanation below)
5. Make illegal all campaign funding for
any elected office. (Explanation below)
6. Make all government workers Non-Union.
(Explanation below)
7. Make it illegal for businesses to
offer Medical, Retirement, or SSI to employees (Explanation below)
8. Make all taxes equal to all - rich,
poor, young or old without deductions.
(Explanation below)
9. Eliminate all Corporate and Business
taxes. (Explanation below)
10. Eliminate all tax on tax. (Explanation below)
11. Stop all payments and votes to the
United Nations. (Explanation below)
12. Help form a “League of Real
Democratic Nations UDN”. (Explanation below)
13. Repeal all Federal Environmental Laws
regarding Climate Change. (Explanation below)
14. Eliminate the Federal Education and
Energy Departments. (Explanation below)
15. Make sure that no international
treaty be signed without 3/4th approval of congress. (Explanation
below)
16. No money be printed that exceeds
growth of GDP and/or replacement of old bills.
(Explanation below)
17. No comprehensive bill shall be passed
period. Every section should be voted on
separately. (Explanation below)
18. No bill will have unrelated
attachments. (Explanation below)
19. No Government employee will accept
money or perks from anyone whatsoever and for any reason whatsoever. (Explanation below)
20. To eliminate all laws that protects
me from me. (Explanation below)
21. To make all tenure laws illegal -
period. (Explanation below)
22. Sell all Federal Lands to States or
private citizens that are unconstitutional and/or could be used better by
states or citizens. (Explanation below)
23. Bring the Federal budget down to 15%
of GDP and never allow it over again without congressionally declared national
emergency or war. (Explanation below)
24. Enforce Monopoly Laws for unions and
companies. (Explanation below)
25. Eliminate all mandatory classes in
1-12 grades that are not part of basic education. (Explanation below)
26. Eliminate all College mandatory
classes that are not needed for a degree.
(Explanation below)
27. No federal laws should regulate
production, but only interstate and international distribution. (Explanation below)
28. Create and require a tamper proof ID
that proves citizenship for any job, private or government. This
proof shall be a valid Birth Certificate. (Explanation below)
29. Demand that the FBI investigate
entire background of anyone holding a Federal Job of any kind whatsoever. (No explanation needed)
30. Repeal all laws that are not strictly
constitutional to the letter of the law and require all laws to be judged by
the Courts with or without a challenge being made. (Explanation below)
31. To keep our military the greatest in
the world by far. (Explanation below)
32. To encourage all citizens to serve
two years in the military. (Explanation
below)
33. To pass a law requiring all court and
lawyer costs, civil or criminal to be paid entirely by the looser of the case
and no awards be beyond reason. (Explanation
below)
34. To outlaw restrictions to Interstate Health Insurance Competition and
itemized inclusions to each person and not to groups. (No explanation needed)
35. There is no such thing as separation
of Church and State in the Constitution. (No explanation heeded)
Notes:
1. Articles in support of the above ideas to reduce debt and government:
Ideas to Save
America: 1. Line Item Vote
Ideas to
Save America: 2. Social Security
Ideas to Save
America: 3. Medicare
Ideas to Save
American: 4. Double GDP
Ideas to Save USA: 5. Get
Congress out of DC
Ideas to Save
Ideas to Save
America: 7. Education
Ideas to Save
America: 8. Legal Systems
National ID
Card: 9. - Get Over It
Stop
Federal Growth Now - Not Later
Predictions
and Solutions for America
Science
Predictions Related to Politics
Getting away
with Unconstitutional Laws
Millions
Dying From American Seeds (GMOs)
Fair
Tax, Flat Tax, or Sales Tax?
Did Soros
Cause the 2008 Crash?
Maurice
Strong - Father of American Destruction
American
Revolution in One to Three Years
Union of
Socialist America - USA
Galveston
Social Security Plan
World
Government - The Actual Plan
Pros
and Cons of a Third Party
The Truth
about Global Warming
1. Explanations to 35 Ideas:
Explanations
1. Before the Seventeenth Amendment,
Senators were not elected, but appointed by the Legislators of the States. This kept the power in the hands of the
States and eliminated the infusion of money from outside the State to elect
people that could vote on things that had no effect on the State. It also gave the State Legislators the power
to remove a Senator that was not looking out for the State and abusing his
power. It was this Amendment more than
anything else that resulted in the growth of the Federal Government and the
massive Pork Barrel projects. Under this
term limits will not be needed.
2. The founding fathers intended that Representatives of the House be
elected directly by the people and should represent no more than 30,000 people
each. Today we have only 435. If we stuck to the 30,000 people we would
have 10,000 members, because the population has increased by 23 times. That
would be hard to change right away, but we should double it every two years
until we reach at least 100,000 people per Representative. At that point we would really know the
representative and he would be one of us instead of special interest
puppet.
3. There are over 1000 departments and
sub-departments in the Federal Government that are not constitutional and not
needed. In order to get out of the
national debt, that is not sustainable, these have to be closed and closed
forever. Some of these are so stupid you
would not even believe they exist.
4. If the states send members to the
Federal government, the states should have the power in their hands. That means
the power to regulate their pay, the quality and quantity of their staff and
their pay. Who holds the purse holds the
power.
5. Today because of Cable TV and the
internet, any campaign funding for any office is not needed. If I was not up against someone like the New
York Major, who put $100,000,000 of his own money in his campaign, I could just
create a web site, get the required number of signatures and run for office. I
would get free TV coverage, free internet coverage and everyone would know my
views and promises, and I could run against anyone, rich or poor. If I was
running for major, I could go face to face with most people, and have town hall
meetings without money. A Federal Senator
would not be elected and a Federal Representative would only have 100,000
people to reach through the above means.
Money and special interests are taken out of elections.
6. Government workers are paid by tax
payers, but we tax payers have no say in what they are paid. Almost all government
workers belong to only one union and this is the most powerful, corrupt and
un-constitutional organization in the
7. I have no problem with businesses
offering benefits to workers but I have a problem with people not knowing how
much of their money is paid out to these things. For example, if the company
wrote a payroll check and then required us to write a check for our SSI and
give back to them or prove we mailed it, we would know just how much we are
paying. Even as to contributions to
retirement plans, we should actually see the check every week.
As
far as Medical Insurance, I believe it should be illegal for businesses to
offer Medical Insurance. People have no idea what this costs in
lack of wages because of this, and Insurance companies would have to sell
directly to the people, and become more competitive.
I do believe states should require that
everyone have at least Catastrophic Health Insurance, just like they do
Liability Auto Insurance. The reason for
this is that Tax Payers end up paying for people who do not have it.
If businesses could not offer benefits at
all, they could compete with countries like
8. The Constitution says that all people
are equal, rich and poor, black and white, male or female, but the Tax code is
not equal and in fact, does not work. Of
course, what I am promoting is a Flat Tax, but truth is that only the flat tax
is legal. In fact, because of the
progressive tax and the 10,000 pages of loopholes and deductions, some
millionaires pay less tax than I do. A flat tax without any loopholes or
deductions would actually bring in more money from the rich than the system
does now.
9. Is it possible to tax business? No! Let me explain why. Businesses total costs of doing business, add
a profit to their costs and sell at the sum total of cost and profit. A tax is part of the cost of doing business,
so in the end the buyer pays the tax and not the business.
In most cases the buyer is the poor
person. It is not possible to tax a business at all. Tax the money that people take out of the
business but not the business.
Why is it that the stock market goes up
at a time when everyone is hurting?
Businesses can make money but reducing costs and adding profit to even
inflation or a weaker dollar. Only the
people are harmed and not the companies.
Allow companies to be free from government and they will hire more of
the people who actually do pay taxes.
This is called “Supply Side Economics” and it is the only thing that
works, both for full employment and more taxes.
10.
Tax on taxes is illegal but we do it all the time. When governments
(both Federal and State) tax raw materials, and then tax again the production
of that material into a product, and then tax again the distribution of that
product, and then tax again the sale of that product, they taxed the tax again
and again four times. Under law you
cannot tax tax.
11. We need to get out of the United
Nations, but the first step is to just stop paying for it, and it will
disappear by itself.
12. Cooperation between nations is a good
idea, but we cannot cooperate in any way whatsoever with dictatorships and
governments formed by forced and corrupted elections, and should not. Most of the nations in the UN are not real
democracies and yet have the same vote we do.
I would form a new UN made up of only
free and democratic nations, which would have our economic and military
support- United Democratic Nations.
13. Environmental Laws regarding
pollution of rivers and waterways are good.
There is no evidence whatsoever that CO2 causes any change whatsoever to
the environment and no laws to this effect should be passes. No Federal laws should be passed even on
other environment things unless they affect more than one state.
14. The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our
dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of
$24 billion a year (Billion with a B) and we import more oil than ever
before. The Department of Education
costs more and since established we have gone from number one to last in the
civilized world. Education belongs to
the cities and counties, not to the Fed.
It is not even constitutional, except for Military Colleges.
15.
Treaty approval by 3/4th of the congress is the law but has been
bypassed many times in the past 60 years.
16.
The Federal Reserve (which we should eliminate in time) should not be allowed
to increase the money supply for any reason whatsoever except to keep up with
the growth of the GDP and should reduce it when GDP goes down.
17. The entire concept of a Comprehensive bill is a way of saying
it will have hidden and incomprehensible pork barrel and social programs. There is no logical reason why each section
of any bill, even the defense and budget bills, should not be voted on item by item.
18. It should be a congressional law that
no bill should have unrelated attachments. This is why many socialist things
were not vetoed by President Bush. They were included in the bills to support
the war in
19. This will eliminate most corruption
and allow legitimate special interests to give an argument and not bribes. Today they are forced because if they don’t
others will.
20. There are no laws (not even drug and
alcohol laws) that are constitutionally legal that take away my personal
freedom, unless it effects others. The
reason for government is to protect me from you and you from me, but not me
from me.
21. Why should anyone in any job have
preference over others simply because they have been there longer? Preference should always be given to those
who do more or better work. Under the
present system, if you had no job available, you could not hire Einstein
because everyone else would have tenure.
If Bill Gates worked for you, but he was the newest, and you had to lay
off 10 people, he would have to go.
22.
The Federal Government owns so much useless land,
it could almost pay the National Debt just by selling it off to states and
citizens. It owns the majority of
23.
The Federal Government was never supposed to be over 15% of the GDP and
should be lower than that. In fact, if
we could get it slightly lower than that we could eliminate the Federal Income
tax altogether. If it only did was it
was constitutional allowed to do, it could not go over that amount. Eliminate 1000 departments.
24.
The founding fathers believed in individual and equal freedoms. They knew that any monopoly would violate
freedoms. Mostly they believed that a
monopoly of government was evil, but they also believed that a monopoly of
democracy could be evil, so they divided everything so that no one person or
group of people had too much power. They
also talked about and made laws preventing businesses from having a monopoly on
anything the people needed or wanted. Even the founder of the first union in
25. We are graduating people from High
School who cannot read or write, but they know how to relate to gays. With only twelve year to learn basics there
is no time for more than the basics of education. Most of the basics we should know have been
eliminated, like Geogrophy, American and
Constitutional History, World History, Physics and advanced science.
26. Why should a student of Mechanical
Engineering be required to take a class in Social
Science. We can make 4 year degrees into
3 year degrees just be eliminating the garbage, which are just social
engineering or brainwashing.
27. If I manufacture a gun or a chair and
only sell it in my state, by law I only have to obey state laws, and only then
if they are constitutionally lawful. But the Federal Government only has rights
over interstate
transfer of goods, and even then only if it effect health and
safety.
28.
Illegal Immigration could be reduced by 80% if we would simply make it
impossible for them to get a real job in this county and everyone knows it. If we had this law and enforced it, BO
would not be President right now.
29. No explanation needed.
30. If we eliminated all that governments
do that are not constitutional we would cut government by 70%.
31.
32.
In
33. Many countries including