10-Point Plan for Responsible Government
If you agree with the conclusion that the country is in deep trouble, I assume you are asking yourself the question, “OK, so what can I do about changing the negative direction of the country?” Well, I believe I have some answers that will give the country a new and more positive direction. For one, you can conclude that I am not only vehemently opposed to big government but I would like to see government slashed at the state and local levels, too. It is very simple in concept; I want the government to be fiscally, ethically and morally responsible to the people. Since the Republicans won the 2004 elections with a respectable majority, it can definitely be said that people are returning to their roots, by rejecting many of the principles of the Democratic/liberal/leftist axis. Republicans now control the oval office, the Senate and the House of Representatives. What is most remarkable about the results of that election was that many people were openly hostile to George Bush’s war-like policies in Iraq, which I’m sure cost him millions of votes, and yet he still won with over 120 million Americans casting votes. I can only conclude from the election results that Americans reject many of the principles of the Democratic Party. However, the election results were not so overwhelming as to give unlimited power to the Republicans, either. According to pollsters, the major reason for the large voter turnout was not to support Republican policies, but to repudiate many Democratic-initiated issues. I strongly suspect that many votes were cast for the lesser of two evils. Of the hundreds of people I interviewed, I can categorically state that few voters exhibited a firm commitment to either political party. I honestly believe that Americans are fed up with the state of the political control in the country. People want change and they don’t know where to turn to accomplish that change. We live in a plutocracy – governed by the rich Democrats and Republicrats. Well, here’s plan to return the government to the people that can be accomplished in two-phases: First, we must get the apathetic voters reinvigorated and actively participating in the political process using their potential clout to commence the process of fundamental change via a simple 10-point plan Secondly, once you are involved, as the next step we’ll briefly show you how we can minimize the power of our elected representatives by directly voting on every issue. Phase 1 - 10-Point Plan for Effective Government Here is my 10-point plan to change the political direction of the country: Make sure you are registered to vote Vote every incumbent out of office. Investigate and support alternative political parties Get involved in local elections Bond with your neighbors and friends Petition to Limit Terms of Congressional Representatives Write letters to your Congressmen/Congresswomen and newspapers Demand reduced Federal and state budgets Investigate your own state’s spending excesses Register with smaller government and tax reform web sites. Here’s more soul-searching detail on each of the ten points: 1. Make Sure You are Registered To Vote In order that you can have an impact on the political process, you must be registered to vote, and it only takes a few minutes. There are a number of ways you can register. One way is to check with your county registrar. Better yet, you can actually register to vote online using your computer. Go to either of the following web sites for more information: http://www.electionimpact.com/ http://www.iwanttovote.com/ 2. Vote Every Incumbent Out of Office Get involved – find the time to vote – the country needs your support. When you hit the voting booth, automatically vote EVERY Democratic or Republican incumbent out of office regardless of your knowledge of that candidate, but retain any independents. The entrenched professional politicians will quickly get the message. Don’t forget, you can simply write in a candidate of your choice including your best friend’s name, or even better, how about your dog’s name? A few votes for “Ruff” will look good on the elections results. I believe there’s a certain irony in that option. 3. Investigate Alternative Political Parties The alternative political parties, such as the Green Party, Reform Party or the Libertarian Party, are slowly gaining strength in the country, and may support your personal convictions more so then the mundane and muddled platform of the Republican or Democratic parties. Contribute monies to these parties even its only $10 or $20. Refer to Chapter 10, “Analyzing Political Parties and Candidates,” within this book for a list of alternative political parties and their web sites. Ignore the Democratic/Republican propaganda about how a vote for any other party other than the elephant or the donkey is a wasted vote. If you have no respect for either of these parties, then a vote for any other candidate or party will be recognized. Don’t be fooled by the low voter numbers for these third party candidates. Even if you are concerned that a vote for a third party candidate will lessen your impact on a potentially tight race between the two powerhouses, stick to your guns. It’s the only way we can finally change the balance of power. The two evil empires watch these numbers carefully. Remember all the crying and screaming there was about how Ralph Nader (Green Party) cost Al Gore the presidential election in 2000. 4. Get Involved in Local Elections Starting at the grass roots level, get involved in local elections, whether you focus on your election to the local school board or as a representative on your town council. The horror stories of parents who control school boards and are harmful to the education process are plentiful. You would not believe how many positions go unfilled at all levels permitting a few individuals to make major decisions that affect your property taxes and local laws. Spend a few minutes and investigate who your local councilmen and councilwomen are in your area. You may be pleasantly surprised to find that you have vastly superior qualifications for a given position. 5. Bond With Your Neighbors and Friends One of the easiest methods of getting involved is to start conversations with your friends, neighbors and family. Determine if they share your political thoughts. Go to lunch with your friends every few weeks. That’s what my friends and I do about every two weeks to commiserate about the abysmal state of politics. Have a backyard barbecue for your neighbors. Even if one or two of your neighbors are entrenched Republicans or Democrats, you may be surprised as to the tone of the conversation that will surprise you. Although most of us were raised to believe that you don’t discuss politics or religion with friends or family, at least most intelligent Americans I know can be quite open about political subjects. 6. Petition to Limit Terms of Congressional Representatives The Founding Fathers never intended that we have a class of professional politicians. They intended that we have a true representative democracy whereby average citizens would represent their congressional districts or states. In the 2004 election, 98% of all incumbent candidates were re-elected to the House of Representatives. That statistic is shocking and must reflect voter indifference or stupidity. The representatives to the House of Representatives are elected every two years. In order to reduce the power they accumulate over lengthy terms, we should limit all representatives to two terms or a maximum of four years. Senators, who are elected every six years, should be limited to one term. If we campaign for these brief term limits, it will significantly reduce their political clout. The major advantage of term limits, however, is that our representatives will be able to concentrate on the business of government and much less on passing “pork barrel” legislation to buy votes at home. A number of citizens have been successful at legislating term limits in their states. You can read more about term limits at: http://www.termlimits.org/ http://www.citizencongress.org/ 7. Write Letters to Your Congressmen/Congresswomen and Newspapers Although it may seem like an empty gesture to contact your Congressional or state representatives, let them know you are unhappy with their callous and indifferent attitude about taxes, spending and civil liberties. A continuous volume of letters from all of us will eventually get their attention. The following web sites are beneficial in finding out the names of your congressional representatives. A few of these sites may assist you in writing a letter to these people:
	Organization			Web Site
	Office of the Clerk – U. S. House of Representatives			http://clerk.house.gov/members/index.php
	Contacting the Congress			http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
	Senators of the 108^th Congress			http://www.senate.gov/general/
Senate and House of Representatives Web Sites
The Internet is also a valuable resource to find and contact your state representatives. A few of the web sites identifying state legislatures are listed below.
	Organization			Web Site
	Washington State Legislature – Members of the 59th Legislature 2005-2006			http://www.leg.wa.gov/email/members/
	Florida House of Representatives			http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/legislators.aspx
	Pennsylvania House of Representatives			http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/ member_information/representatives_alpha.cfm
	Minnesota House of Representatives			http://ww3.house.leg.state.mn.us/members/ housemembers.asp
State Representatives Web Sites
Write Letters to Newspapers - Writing letters to the editor of your local newspaper can be very beneficial. Some newspapers even permit individuals to write guest opinion or op-ed columns. Larger newspapers like the New York Times or Washington Post, although considered very liberal in its editorials, will print letters supporting anti-government growth and tax reform if for no other reason than to “balance the books,” so they don’t appear to be 100 percent liberal and leftist. 8. Demand Reduced Federal and State Balanced Budgets Are you disgusted knowing that we now have a $8 trillion national debt? Well someone did something at least at the state level – yes, California, the state that normally leads the nation in innovative ideas, reacted strongly to the problem. In March 2004, Californians voted on Proposition 58, the California Balanced Budget Act. The question that was asked of voters was: “Should the state Constitution be amended to require that the state adopt a balanced budget and provide for mid-year adjustments if the budget falls out of balance? Should the Constitution also include state budget reserve requirements and limits on future borrowing to finance budget deficits?” Guess what? The act was passed with 4,461,157 Yes votes to 1,813,507 No votes with a yes/no percentage of 71% versus 29%. Unfortunately, the politicians always can find a way around a solution demanded by the people, but we can change that. To balance the fiscal year 2004-2005 budget of $105 billion, the state floated a bond issue for $12 billion. Let Congress know that you want government spending prioritized on the critical issues in the country like fundamental defense needs (wipes for the troops are a good start), tax reform and senior citizen drug price breaks and other high priority items. Rescind all of the totally unnecessary items that drain our wallets. We have to keep pounding on these people to get results or else we’ll need to throw the whole rotten bunch out in the street. Maybe then they’ll get the message we are tired of their contempt of the people. We must pressure the people in control to focus on the following issues: Tell Congress To Prioritize Government Spending - Again I emphasize, write letters to your state and Congressional representatives. Let them know we are sick and tired of their borderline criminal spending habits. Forcefully inform them that we insist on a reduced balanced budget by eliminating the pork barrel projects and focus only on those items that are essential for our country. You can easily find your own totally unnecessary items in the budget and then target those items in your letter. They will probably laugh at your outrageous requests but if we inundate their offices with these demands, perhaps the message will get through to them after they return from their golf outing in Fiji. To make your letters have an impact, get your friends and neighbors to add their names to the letter, too. A letter signed by ten citizens will garner far more attention than ten individual letters. Demand Accountability for our Ill-Managed Defense Budget – The Defense Department claims that the majority of defense expenditures go towards supporting the troops. This is an outright fabrication. The majority of the money is wasted on defense contractors, who are bleeding the taxpayers dry with their outrageous bills for unnecessary and horribly managed projects. It is very difficult to analyze exactly how our monies are wasted with these people as many of these multi-billion dollar projects are classified as secret or top secret. Even if we wanted to scrutinize the invoices from defense contractors, we would not be able to access this information. But under the Freedom of Information Act, we can get our hands on bits of information that will let us scrutinize many of the projects. The United States Department of Justice publishes a list of the Principal FOIA Contacts at Federal Agencies. The list can be found at: http://www.usdoj.gov/04foia/foiacontacts.htm In addition to scrutiny of defense contractors, we need to demand that the government shut down many of the minimally used military bases around the country. These bases are only kept open to provide unnecessary jobs for the community to retain votes. Not only that – demand that they bring our troops home from at least 100 out of the 135 countries where they are entrenched. Why do we still have troops in Germany and South Korea? There is no plausible reason for many of these bases. Not only will the cost savings be substantial, it will improve our worldwide image. We also need to scrutinize other Federal and state agencies and demand that they too pare back their bloated budgets and number of employees. I’ll clue you in on one place you can focus on immediately – the outlandish pension system in many states. State employees are collecting two and sometimes three pensions from state jobs they held just prior to retirement. In the corrupt states of New York and New Jersey, this practice borders on criminal irresponsibility. For all of the people who insist that government intervention and control is a good thing, and that we should add more agencies to control big corporations and Wall Street, let us not forget that according to the General Accounting Office (GAO) the Federal government has failed its own internal audit for the eighth year in a row. How can we expect the government to carefully track its contractors when the it’s own financial statements are a disaster? The GAO said that the financial record keeping is so inadequate that their auditors could not determine whether the statements meet generally accepted accounting principles. It’s only ignorant people who want more government control. Wake up and smell the roses, dummies! 9. Investigate Your Own State’s Spending Excesses When I wrote this book, I spent quite a few hours researching the expenditures for New Jersey, my home state. Every state has a Office of Budget or similar organization. I found that most of the information I desired to unravel the budget was found fairly quickly in newspapers, libraries and especially the Internet. But then again we must realize that my task was probably easier than your task will be as I live in the most corrupt state in the Union. On any given day, it seems that one-half the office holders within the state are under some form of indictment. Using the same course of action I recommended for Federal office holders, send letters to your state representatives and to your local newspapers. Badger them. Let them know they are not pulling the wool over your eyes. 10. Register with Smaller Government and Tax Reform Web Sites Throughout the book I mentioned various organizations that investigate developments at not only the Federal level but also at the state and local level. You will find it very helpful to access the web sites of these organizations and register. They will send you information on achieving smaller government, violations of our civil rights and Constitution, and tax reform. The list of web sites is presented in concise form below for your convenience.
		Organization			Web Site
		Institute for Policy Innovation			http://www.ipi.org/
		Americans for Tax Reform			http://www.atr.org/
		Free Enterprise Society			http://www.freeenterprisesociety.ws/
		National Taxpayers Union			http://www.ntu.org/main/
		National Center for Policy Analysis			http://www.ncpa.org/
		Project Vote Smart			http://www.vote-smart.org/
		Institute for Policy Innovation			http://www.ipi.org/
		Project On Government Oversight (POGO)			http://www.pogo.org/
		Citizens Against Government Waste			http://www.cagw.org/
		Eagle Forum			http://www.eagleforum.org/
		Eagle Forum Court Watch			http://www.eagleforum.org/court_watch/
		Pro-Death Penalty.com			http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/
Informative Web Sites
Phase 2 – Dump the Politicians Turning America Into A True Democracy Unless we grab the bull by the horns to change America’s direction for the next hundred years, we will likely watch helplessly as this country slides into the abyss. We must investigate and pursue the concept of changing America from a republic to a true democracy so that the people regain control of the government. This will be accomplished by using our technological advantage to permit every American to vote directly on every issue. Representatives in the state legislatures, Senate and House of Representatives will be reduced to clerical functions to prepare bills on which Americans will vote. Only then can we eliminate the corrupt political influences, and restore fiscal reality and moral and ethical values to the country.