Proposal For A Conservative Reduction Of Federal Government

[Hobbs]

Constitutional Amendments

Amendment XXVIII: (a) The 17th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed. (b) Senators for the representation of a state will be chosen from a slate of candidates provided by that State's Governor, ratified by a 2/3rds majority of the house(s) consisting of a State's legislature.

Amendment XXIX: (a) The 16th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed. (b) The sole source of revenue to the Federal Government will be 25% of taxes collected by the State governments, which will be turned over by the States upon completion of collection. (c) Withholding of funds from the federal government is a crime and will be handled by the Department of Justice.

Great, give the federal government the income of a third-world country. Exactly what is this supposed to accomplish?

Changes To The Federal Government Entire
- The federal government controls interstate commerce only on the following items: petroleum products, foodstuffs, radioactives, bioproducts, and precious metals.
- Concepts may only be patented after they have been demonstrated. If someone else can find another way to perform or produce that idea afterwards, then a license fee must be paid.
- Federal ID cards will be issued by the government; these will be tied to DNA/fingerprints. They are not mandatory, but they take the place of all passports, must be shown when a citizen wishes to use federal government services, and are required for the purchase of firearms.
- All laws restricting purchases of firearms are repealed. States may not make laws regulating firearms. The only requirement of purchasing a firearm is to provide a Federal ID. The serial number of the firearm will then be registered as belonging to that Federal ID.
- The Federal Weapons Statute: If a gun that has been tied to your Federal ID is used in the commission of a crime, you are liable for that crime, unless you have previously reported this weapon as lost or stolen and have had this report filed with your local police agency.

These provisions are just weird to me. At one point Big Brotherly, and at the same time, utterly carte blanc. You can buy whatever you want, but will be regulated within an inch of your life? And be liable for crimes you didn't commit, or could knowingly prevent?

Changes To The Executive
- All war-making powers are completely revoked, although any domestic peace-keeping action is fully within the power of the office.

Are you planning on completely changing the military command structure? Is the President still CiC? If not, what is your plan for restructuring the military command and National Command Authority.

- Congressional 'sessions' are eliminated. There is a three day recess for each national holiday. Otherwise, Congress is constantly working.
- Deficit spending is absolutely forbidden.

I'd like to see you go for two/four years without vacation time and be happy.

[

b]Changes To The Bureaucracy[/b]
- The Secretary of Defense is not appointed by the President, but by the Senate alone by unanimous vote. He is not replaced with the rest of the administration. Only the Senate may replace the SOD. The SOD cannot have ever been on the National Security Council or the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Huh? Unanimous vote? The seat will be vacant indefinitely. There's practically never been a unanimous vote in either house (not even in declarations of war...yes, WWII as well).

- The CIA, FBI, NSA, ATF, and DEA are folded into the Department of Homeland Security and no longer exist separately.

But some of these have nothing to do with Homeland Security. And this completely negates the purpose of having separate departments.

- The Secret Service is no longer response for investigation of currency fraud and forgery; they are solely response for the protection of the President. The new enforcement arm of the DOC&T will be called the Treasury Service

You do know the SS is part of the Treasury don't you? And that their initial job was anti-counterfeiting?

- The DOJ now controls only the Bureau of Prisons, the Special Prosecutor's Office (handling crimes within the government), the Federal court system, and the Federal Marshall's Service. The DOJ no longer reports to the President, but to the Supreme Court.

Why not? The executive branch is to carry out and enforce the laws. That's its definition.

- Due to the repeal of the 16th Amendment, the IRS is permanently abolished.

Again, why? You're crippling the federal government from taking away its funding.

- Food inspection, the postal service, the IRS, EPA, NEA, NASA, FCC, Social Security, Medicare, and all other separate entities or departments not hereby mentioned are abolished.

Um, how 'bout NO. Seriously, removing all of these agencies will do nothing but harm the people of the United States.

Changes To The Legal System

Wow, so many violations of civil rights, it's not even funny. Many of these violate the Eighth Amendment, among others.

- All fines will be paid for by the convicted criminal. If they cannot pay the fine or someone will not pay it for them, all possessions will be sold at auction to help meet the fine requirements. Work opportunities will be provided during imprisonment, with all salary donated towards the fine. Should the fine still be extant when imprisonment ends, military or hard labor conscription will be required at standard wages until fine is paid.

You do know that convicted felons aren't allowed to serve in the military, right?

[KitterCat]

Wow I’m libertarian, and I wouldn’t want to live in this “country”. Just because your libertarian doesn’t mean you give up all of your rights to privacy, or use for the 2nd amendment- just for a couple of problems I’d have with this.

[Anthony K. S.]

- A 2/3rds majority is required to pass a bill in each house.

I wonder if that would mean that the public would finally understand that a simple 51-seat majority is not enough to give a party "control" of the U.S. Senate.

As it stands right now, there seem to be quite a few people who think that having 51-59 seats in the Senate means that a party has "control," and, therefore, that it is absurd for them to blame the opposing party for blocking bills or causing "gridlock."

You can try explaining to these people that there are actually a number of procedural hurdles in the U.S. Senate that require a 60-vote majority to get past . . . Let me know how it goes. I've just about given up.

- Deficit spending is absolutely forbidden.

They've been trying to do that for decades.

You know what it is?

Everybody wants the government to cut spending . . . but nobody wants to give up the services and benefits that government spending provides.

"Take it away from somebody else first. Not from me." That's how it always goes.

- Pleas bargaining and probation are absolutely eliminated.

. . . You're kidding, right?

You have just eliminated most of the incentive that any defendant has to give up his right to a jury trial.

Our court system is jammed up, almost beyond repair, as it is. If we no longer allow prosecutors to offer defendants reduced sentences in exchange for guilty pleas . . .

Defense attorneys will have no choice but to go to trial if they can't get something from the prosecution to give to their clients. That will mean a huge increase in trials, and expenses for same.

Our court system will be reduced to a snail's pace, not that they're breaking any speed records now. And on top of that, it's going to be hard to pay for all of those trials since you've also proposed to drastically reduce government revenues.

[smileyeagle1021]

The funny part about that is that all the major package delivery services haven't entered the first-class mail arena because they wouldn't be able to do the job as cheaply as the USPS does.

And no, before you say anything, it's not due to unfair competition because the USPS is funded by the government. In fact, it isn't. The USPS operates completely on its own. It receives zero tax revenue, and makes its operating funding on what it sells.

Yeah, I remember during the health care debate someone asked me if I really wanted health care to be as efficient as the post office.
I responded, I could only hope it would get that efficient.
That for $0.44 I can send a document anywhere in the country, from my own home, in normally less than three days. If I drop a netflix in my mailbox netflix gets it the next day, about the only way I could get it to them quicker is to drive it to my local distribution center. The longest I've ever waited in line at the post office (not including the Christmas rush which is a special circumstance) was 10 minutes... my grandma before had to wait half an hour to be admitted to an emergency room while in diabetic shock (her blood sugar was under 50 and dropping and nothing she was doing was raising it back up, so definitely life threatening). And the private companies know that the post office is more efficient, I know they know this because FedEx contracts with USPS to provide service for them because it is cheaper than doing it themselves. Please, give me healthcare as efficient as the post office.

I'm all for cutting unnecassary government services, but let's not cut our nose off to spite our face, there are some things that the government does do better... even as a libertarian I understand that there are just some things that private enterprise isn't going to be able to do.

[crashhelmet]

And the private companies know that the post office is more efficient, I know they know this because FedEx contracts with USPS to provide service for them because it is cheaper than doing it themselves.

UPS has the same kind of deal with them too.

CH

[Hyena Dandy]

At the moment, as the Senate operates, it is greatly unfair.

The citizens send a Senator to the Senate, with a basic mandate from the people of the state they represent. That mandate is, essentially, "Do X," where X is what they promised to do if elected.

If 59 Senators have been sent with the mandate from their state to do X, they are unable to, if the other 41 Senators would rather do Y. It is quite clear that the people of the states that sent those 59 Senators there want X to get done. These 59 Senators, despite the majority of the country having sent them there to do X, are unable to, because there aren't 60 of them. Rather than make it so that 59 Senators are able to do X, seeing as that is what the people have said they should do, your setting would say that you NEED to have 60 Senators to do X, no matter what X is.

Also, under your system, you would like to take the ability to enforce laws away from the Executive, and give it to the Judicial, which makes me wonder whether or not you know what the Executive branch is actually supposed to do (namely, enforce the laws)

Its simple. The Legislature is supposed to make the laws. The Executive enforces them. The Judicial decides whether or not they're being enforced.

This is what is called a balance of power, and it makes sure that nobody can get to big for their britches, and stage a coup.

If the Judicial enforces laws in addition to deciding whether or not the laws are being enforced, then the judicial is essentially making the laws, because they can just instruct the DoJ to ignore a law passed by the legislature that they find personally inconvenient.

You do realize the DoJ IS domestic law-enforcement, right? Which you said stays with the executive?


Deciding that Governors appoint Senators rather than appointing Senators by election is supposedly done for state's rights and against federal rights. Alright, I'm as much for state's rights as anyone. Actually, more for state's rights than most people I know. But I am for State's Rights for the simple reason that the states are closer to their people than the federals. Taking a right away from the masses and giving it to a single person is not helping the matter. Its taking control AWAY from the people.

The same thing is done by making it so that Senators HAVE to have a 3/4 majority.


And while you champion state's rights on one hand, on the other you take them away, by making single, mandated punishments for all crimes in the country. You can't have it both ways. You can either have a single, unified system, or you can have several systems united in a federation. You can't have it both ways.





And may I ask a question, just for clarification, about your system of gun laws... If I buy a gun, and I get shot with it, does it get listed as suicide or homicide?

[Gawdzillers]

- All laws restricting purchases of firearms are repealed. States may not make laws regulating firearms. The only requirement of purchasing a firearm is to provide a Federal ID. The serial number of the firearm will then be registered as belonging to that Federal ID.

No. Uh-uh. Absolutely not. You may argue that the punishments you listed later in your proposal will prevent or at least curb violent crimes, but you would be wrong. You have to consider the fact that some people are stone-cold, suicidal, don't-give-a-fuck crazy. They are the kind of people who do not give a second thought to arming themselves, entering a school or university or place of business, killing as many people as they can, and then taking their own life. Eliminating gun control laws only makes their access to deadly weapons (and you even said, bazookas, grenades, automatic weapons) easier.

You may even argue that the suicidal end of the assailant in question prevents them from committing any more violent crimes in the future. Well that may be true, but you've still got a lot of dead and traumatized innocent people, don't you?

[Ipecac Drano]

Canada is looking more tempting everyday. So is Iran.