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the agenda
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" i came i saw i conquered "Government
The American governing institutions are duplicated almost across the board. The states have become quite sophisticated in their own right, and perform the most vital functions of government efficiently and effectively. The federal government should let them be the servants of the people in all day to day affairs, and back off and become the facilitator.
Agenda Items
Special interests and political action groups have become the new pillars of the establishment in Washington. The general public seems content, and Congress is content - so why not just make it official and save everybody some tax money and increase the profits of corporations and the dividends of stockholders. That can be done easily enough by just outlawing all soft money contributions, and just giving everybody's vote a weight proportionate to their wealth. Almost all the recent tax break went to the 1% of wealthiest Americans. We can all see how much good it's done for the economy. Next time the money should go to the American people, not the elitist wealthy that has no loyalty.
A federalist government can allow each state to develop its own program, say for Welfare - with little oversight. Then a few years later the federal government can evaluate the fifty state programs, determine which is most effective and establish that program as a new standard. Then let the states go their own way, and so forth. This gives each region the freedom to determine it's best destiny, while benefiting from the experience from all the others.
The role of the federal government must have a new focus, upon it's Constitutional prerogative of defending the nation against all enemies foreign and domestic. The states have the infrastructure and the expertise to perform the other roles of government; and they should be allowed to do so. Conversely, they are less expert at matters of national and local defense and would best cede these obligations to the federal government so that a central coordinating authority can provide the best quality of homeland defense.
Military and federal employee promotions should be done on merit only. Promotion boards should know individuals by number only - no name, age, race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, or other potentially discriminatory information will even be on the documents considered in promotions.
Working for the government will become the most sought after job. Federal employees should be able to spend a year in a military branch of their choice (and vice versa), with appropriate training as necessary. Federal employees will also be able to transfer as frequently as military personnel do, worldwide. Likewise, if military personnel want to move around less frequently this will be arranged, with no penalties as far as pay and promotions go. What other job in the world lets you play soldier or sailor for a year's sabbatical every now and then?
Penalties in the form of reduction of federal funding should be meted out to the cities in proportion to the number of homeless people on the streets. Immigration laws will be enforced much more strictly in areas with high unemployment, high poverty, and homelessness. A community has no business allowing thousands of illegal immigrants to have good jobs while thousands of American citizens are homeless. Businesses who hire these individuals should face severe penalties. They exert the power of super citizens on the government, so they should be held to much higher standards too.
One of the wonderful things about the internet is immediate access to experts in any field or any location. It's an intangible, but anybody in business knows how helpful this is. The government has no such infrastructure on the web - most of their web sites have no emails, and therefore no access. The business of the government would be greatly facilitated if they had such access to other federal agencies, and to their counterparts at the state and sometimes the local level. The government needs its own private web - why not use the Iridium constellation of satellites for this purpose? This would also make it a lot easier to maintain secure communications between the national labs and their counterparts in academia.
Given the major breaches in security at the national laboratories - the Chinese stole our nuclear weapons secrets and our rocket science - a comprehensive overhaul is needed. They should use the latest technology - retina scans, digital fingerprinting, and in some cases DNA testing - to attain the highest possible level of security. If the government uses enough of these devices the price may come down enough to where industry can use them too.
We need an Amendment taking Social Security out of reach of Congress, under any circumstances, for ever.
© 2003 by bill clark
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