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My Recommendations for a better

America and world

Eliminate all of the trillions of dollars in tax expenditures (corporate welfare, home mortgage deductions, etc.) listed in Tax Expenditures the Hidden Entitlements, by Citizens for Tax Justice and elsewhere except those recommended below. Inflation adjust all those below.
Eliminate 15.3 percent payroll taxes. Pay for Social Security and health care with taxes on bads, not good things. Slap a buyer's cartel fee of $315 on each imported barrel of oil and other petroleum products costing more than 26 dollars. Implement a 22 percent tariff on all goods and services imported from all nations that do not institute similar or larger fees on imported oil and petroleum products.
Cut the 1.05 trillion dollars in annual defense related expenditures by 28 percent. Exempt the VA from these cuts.
Maximize sanctions on Sudan. Make Darfur a no-fly zone. Send 46,000 American, ITO, and NATO troops. Forcibly expel Janjaweed and Sudanese military forces from Darfur. Forcibly dismantle rebel fighters. Help refugees return home. Make Darfur an independent democracy.
Carve Iraq into four countries. Create a small country within Iraq for infidels--Christians, free thinkers, Mandeans, and others. Move American forces to infidel Iraq. Gradually reduce the force in Infidel Iraq to 8,000. Sign a mutual defense treaty with infidel Iraq. Liberate all American citizens, military personel, and noncitizen subcontractors from the rest of Iraq and Afghanistan within the next nine months. Cease construction of the US embassy in Iraq now. Liberate all military personnel from all OIC member lands, except Sudan within the next 23 months. Liberate all Army and Marine enlisted personnel, excluding special forces, from Eurasia and South America within the next 28 months. Cease expansion of NATO. Invite all infidel nations to join a defense organization to reverse Islam and spread infidelism. Call it ITO.
Ban all federal foreign aid to foreign governments and quasi-governmental entities, except aid for humanitarian emergencies, family planning, communicable disease prevention or defense from aggression.
Vaccinate at least 99 percent of children worldwide for measles. Deliver insecticide sprayed mosquito netting to each individual in malaria prone areas. As per the Bellagio Study Group, spend 2.5 billion dollars yearly for prevention and treatment of malaria worldwide, four billion dollars yearly for treatment of other childhood illnesses.
Eliminate all drug "war" related spending outside US land and waters.
Create a $8.50 per ton of carbon emissions externality tax on fossil fuel generated electricity. Increase the tax $6.50 per year for nine years. Increase the tax with the CPI thereafter.
Ban all NIMBY lawsuits, zoning ordinances, and related laws for non-fossil fuel sources of energy.
Restore habeas corpus for those detained by the government and its subcontractors. Repeal the Military Commissions Act and 2006 Defense Authorization Act. Eliminate the Department of Homeland Security. Pass the Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act of 2007, Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007, Congressional Lawmaking Authority Protection Act of 2007, Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007, American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba Detention Center Closure Act of 2007, Military Commissions Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007, Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007, Anti-Torture Clause in the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, National Security Letters Reform Act of 2007, State Secrets Protection Act, Torture Outsourcing Prevention Act, National Security with Justice Act of 2007, Freedom of Information Act Amendments of 2007, Open Government Act of 2007, Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National Government Act (OPEN) Government Act of 2007, Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, Whistleblower Protection Bill, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Modernization Act of 2007, RESTORE Act of 2007 (Responsible Electronic Surveillance that is Overseen, Reviewed and Effective Act), and NSA Oversight Act. If any of the above legislation condradicts other laws recommended here, write laws eliminating the contradiction, choosing the alternative in the direction of increased liberty. Repeal the USA Patriot Act.
Allow any scientist or technician who has semi-decent character and was formerly employed in the production of weapons of mass destruction to immigrate to the United States and receive U.S. citizenship.
Set all capitals gains tax rates equal to income tax rates. Primary reason: To prevent massive incentive of having other income relabeled capital gains. See the Labyrinth of Capital Gains Tax Policy by Leonard E. Burman.
Implement the tax reforms proposed by Michael Graetz in 100 Million Unecessary Returns.
Eliminate NASA and replace it with a much smaller agency that has nothing to do with space shuttles, space stations, and other joy riders in the sky.
Open almost all federal lands and waters for oil, oil shale, and natural gas extraction.
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Add a 14 cents per gallon federal sales tax on fuels derived from oil. Increase the tax five cents per gallon per month for the next 29 years. Increase the tax with the CPI thereafter.
Create a 85 percent VAT on the sale of "natural" diamonds. Make the sale of all manufactured and imitation gems exempt from state and federal sales taxes.
Ban anti-biotics in animal feed.
Increase the number of FDA inspectors and inspections by at least 20 percent.
Create trade incentives for nations to stop selling antibiotics over the counter.
Require food and health workers to keep their fingernails short. And prohibit artificial fingernails on food and health workers.
Increase funding for Toxoplasma Gondii research.
Pass a constitutional amendment: Eliminating the US Senate, devolving necessary functions to the House (excluding filibusters); electing the Attorney General, Supreme Court, and Chairperson of the Federal Reserve by rank list popular vote (making all of them impeachable); banning military interventions lasting more than 30 days without quarterly House approval; Requiring federal elected officials to participate in a military draft lottery (with a 20 percent chance of being drafted into the infantry as an enlisted soldier with no age, medical or other excuses for escaping service, to be served for two years at the end of each drafted officials current elected term); eliminating the electoral college and electing presidents by nationwide instant runoff vote; creating party-list proportional representation in the House with seats awarded to the candidates from each party who receive the most votes; reducing the supreme court to three individuals who are elected every four years; banning the supreme court from judging the constitutionality of laws; distributing house seats by the best research methods, not mere census data, creating independent, blinded redistricting czars to eliminate gerrymandering; implementing nationwide vote by mail; Eliminating all lifetime judicial appointments (limiting judicial terms to six years; guaranteeing all adults the right to vote; automatically registering all adults to vote at the address on their national ID card; granting DC Statehood; giving every political party with at least 0.2 percent of registered voters registered in their names a spot on ballots.
Pass the The Security and Freedom Enhancement (SAFE) Act without alteration and without signing statements.
Seize all US assets of OPEC nations and citizens.
As per Larry Zaroff: Create a nationwide database of drugs prescribed to patients. Make the database available to almost all wroking pharmicists and medical prescribers. As per Shannon Brownlee: Create "a new Institute for Effective Medicine, which would need to be modeled on the Federal Reserve Board or the Securities and Exchange Commission to protect it from political pressure. Its mission would be threefold. It would serve as a new, independent source of research dollars for medicine. It would provide independent evaluation of data generated by industry. And it would oversee the creation of clinical practice guidelines, a manual of proven 'best practices' for physicians devised entirely without industry influence."
Fund a full tuition federal scholarship for all students wh major in alternative energy and maintain at least a 2.9 GPA in math and engineering courses. Subsidize all tuition costs for all courses in energy conservation and alternative energy for all students at all public institutions.
Send 80 percent of lawsuit punitive damages and 60 percent of pain and suffering damages above $400,000 to charities that provide primary human services--health care, primary education, nutrition, child care.
Increase the NIH budget 14 percent.
Cut the number of federally funded endarterectomys by at least 50 percent.
Create a free to enroll single payer health care system, open to all US citizens, modeled on the VA before conservatives started damaging the VA. Allow those who want to pay for additional health care at private facilities the option to do so. Eliminate the prescription drug "benefit," require the federal health care purchasers to make purchases as a buyer's cartel. Fund comprehensive family planning including free IUDs, and tubal ligations. Legalize the reimportation of prescription drugs. Give FDA approval to Plan B.
Provide every American who is not institutionalized with a $1650 annual electronic voucher used for the purchase of broccoli, cabbages, kales, kelp, onions, tofu, carrots, cauliflower, celery, radishes, rutabagas, scallions, kohlrabi, arugula, chicory, spinach, barley, squash, fennel, tempeh, purslane, eggplant, tomatoes, parsley, turnips, lentils, walnuts, escarole, watercress, cucumbers, chayote, asparagus, saccharin, aspertame, sucralose, blueberries, raspberries, cranberries, beet greens, split peas, bok choy, collard greens, brussels sprouts, pre-boiled mushrooms, dandelion greens, mesclun mixtures, romaine lettuce, leaf lettuce, butterhead lettuce, lamb's lettuce, green peas, turnip greens, lamb's quarter, all beans except coffee beans, all peppers, chards, psyllium husk fiber, blackeye peas, wheat bran, oat bran, corn bran, oat bran bread, wheat germ, soy flour, carob powder, buckwheat flour, garbanzo bean flour, textured vegetable protein, whole grain teff, whole amaranth, whole grain corn flour, whole grain corn meal, whole grain bread, omega-3 supplements, alpha-galactosidase supplements, veggie burger products having less than 30 percent of their calories from fat. Make the voucher nonrefundable and prohibit the addition of expensive or unhealthy substances to items purchased with the vouchers. Provide an additional $180 annual voucher for exercise equipment and health club memberships.
Implement a 50 percent VAT on the retail price of products that are more than 10 percent poultry or seafood or both. Implement a 85 percent VAT on the retail price of all other products that are more than 10 percent meat. Implement a 30 percent VAT on non-meat food products that provide more than 30 percent of their calories from sucrose, glucose, maltose, dextrose, fructose, partially or fully hydrogenated fats, or saturated fats, or combinations of these substances, excluding foods mentioned above. Require food labels to list masses in grams to one decimal point. Require food labels to list the masses in grams of trans fatty acids to two decimal places. Prohibit the sale of foods containing more than four percent of their calories in trans fats. Require all foods sold by any entity with more than $30,000 in annual revenues to have sugar, trans, and fully hydrogenated fats labels by percent of calories and grams to one decimal place. Ban the retail sale to children under 16 of all foods having more than two percent by mass trans fats, one percent fully hydrogenated fats or four percent by mass sugar.
Require mandatory vaccination for all children, visitors, and immigrants for measles, mumps, and whooping cough.
Prohibit any individual with a greater than one in 600,000 probability of belonging to or physically supporting any hate group or terrorist group listed by the following organizations from immigrating to or visiting the United States: The Southern Poverty Law Center, The Department of State List of Terrorist Organizations, The International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, The Hate Directory, The Terrorist Research Center. Exempt individuals who were formerly employed in the production of weapons of mass destruction, have tolerable character, are federally monitored and have renounced belief in the hate ideologies.
Require states to notify all adoption agencies within 200 miles of the foster home or last known parental home when parental custody rights have been terminated. Allow states to contact adoption agencies outside 200 miles at their discretion.
After a child has been in foster care for more than a lifetime total of 150 days, terminate parental custody rights and allow the child to be adopted by the best available parents.
Give states $40,000 in federal funds for every child in foster care who is successfully adopted.
Use carrot and stick trade approaches with North Korea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Lebanon, Equatorial Guinea, Zaire, Cuba, Zimbabwe and all OIC members. Require major moral changes in policy for carrots. Eliminate the trade embargo on Cuba.
Provide 4.6 million annual green cards for nonmuslim citizens of good character from China, Vietnam, North Korea, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and the Philippines.
Warn every nation that supports terrorism that if terrorists set off a nuclear weapon in any infidel land nation, they will be subject to a nuclear response.
Require environmental laws to be in a language of overall benefit-harm and rights rather than do no harm.
Cut the number of military bases by at least 20 percent between 2000 and 2010.
If a cheaper commercial product of equivalent or better quality exists for a product, require the military to buy the commercial product.
Require the military to reduce the percentage of its personnel in support services to 40 percent by 2010.
Continue funding the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program. Increase funding to $2.6 billion. Use all Nunn-Lugar funding for dismantling nuclear and biological weapons, not chemical weapons. Require Nunn-Lugar contracters be paid per weapon dismantled after the weapon is dismantled.
Ban the importation of goods that do not meet standards similar to ILO standards. Create coordinated import controls of imported oil so prices do not skyrocket when glitches occur.
Remove prisoner on prisoner rape victims and those at risk of rape from the general prison population at all federal, state, and local prisons.
Eliminate TANF. Create a $5000 annual refundable tax credit for all American children age zero to four who live in single minor child families that have not received public assistance in the past year. Create a $5400 annual refundable tax credit for all citizen children age zero to four who live in two minor child families that have not received public assistance in the past year. Create a $5800 annual refundable tax credit for all citizen children age zero to four who live in three minor child families that have not received public assistance in the past year. Create a $6200 annual refundable tax credit for all citizen children age zero to four who live in four minor child families that have not received public assistance in the past year. Create a $6600 annual refundable tax credit for all citizen children age zero to four who live in five minor child families that have not received public assistance in the past year. Create a $7000 annual refundable tax credit for all citizen children age zero to four who live in six or more minor child families that have not received public assistance in the past year.
Create federal agencies to administer and distribute all vouchers and credits described in these recommendations.
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Create a 30 percent housing voucher or credit for all families having minor children and are below 100 percent of the "official" poverty level. For families at or above the poverty level, gradually phase the voucher or credit down until families at 90 percent of median family income for that size family are reached.
Index all vouchers, credits, and other policies to inflation.
Create a new agency to keep tabs on who has custody of every American child, to audit those who claim child related vouchers or credits and to ensure that no nonexistent dependents are claimed, that no child is claimed more than once, and that other fraud is eliminated.
Provide funding for long-term care insurance out of the value added taxes.
Eliminate work restrictions on holders of spousal, fiance, and fiancee visas.
Eliminate requirements that spouses of immigrants provide spousal support after divorces or break ups.
Eliminate income minimums to obtain spousal, fiance, and fiancee visas. Require the INS to approve or disapprove all spousal, fiance, and fiancee visas within two months of application.
Create more prison employment for prisoners. Numerous studies suggest that prison employment is a large crime reducer.
Increase the number of H1-B visas from 200,000 to 1,850,000 per year. Give these visa holders Green Cards when their visas expire, provided they have not been convicted of any crimes during the duration of their visa. Eliminate all visas for individuals from OIC nations and Kosovo except a small number of diplomatic visas.
Choose monetary policies that maximize overall benefit, not policies merely to check inflation, maximize GDP or create moral hazards that serve the wealthy.
Require catalytic converters on fossil fuel driven lawn and garden engines. Institute a 60 cent tax on each plastic bag. Create an 94 percent VAT on plastic packaging materials. Create a 46 percent VAT on all other plastic products.
Prohibit government funding of underfunded private pensions. Eliminate the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. Pass the Workplace Wrongful Death Accountability Act, increasing fines and prison sentences for corporate murder and manslaughter. Exempt individuals earning less than three times the national median income from libel and slander lawsuits. Prohibit libel and slander claims from exceeding 16 percent of defendent assets. As per Peter Swire and as Daniel Prieto writes, institute "a $50 cap and automatic dispute resolution for identity theft losses, similar to the basic anti-fraud provisions for credit cards."
Create national legislation legalizing surrogacy contracts and holding individuals to the contracts they sign.
Require mandatory credit counseling before individuals declare bankruptcy.
Require people with larger incomes and larger assets to repay more of what they owe when they file for bankruptcy.
Allow qualified nurses and physician assistants to act in place of general practice physicians.
Amend relevent privacy laws so that price and quality data on doctors can be collected, analyzed, and published. Pass the National Medical Error Disclosure and Compensation Bill, creating a national database of medical errors, researching injury prevention, and implementing injury prevention programs. Require states to increase the number of nursing school graduates 35 percent and medical school graduates 60 percent to qualify for federal health care funds, and to continue increasing enrollments in proportion to population increases. Prohibit medical interns from working more than 15 straight hours. Require that they leave their place of internship for at least 10 hours after their shift ends.
Give states latitude in deciding how to spend WIC money.
Require all WIC recipients to have their children receive all necessary vaccinations when they pick up benefits.
Create a universal nurse home visitor program similar to the Prenatal and Early Childhood Nurse Home Visitation Program.
Eliminate the following: The Small Business Administration, Federal funding of state and local construction projects, Americorps, FEMA, HUD, Head Start, Franking by legislators, The Maritime Administration, The Federal Railroad Administration, The Export-Import Bank, The Appalachian Regional Commission, The Farm Credit Administration, The Federal Transit Administration, Overseas Private Investment Corporation, SSI for children who do not have total disability, The Mining Act of 1872, The Bureau of Indian Affairs, Food Stamps, Job Corps, Demonstration projects, Federal drug treatment programs. End of above elimination list.
Terminate all federal education funding except funding listed herein. Create universal, voluntary federally funded after school and summer school programs.
Allow auto owners to purchase auto insurance allowing them to contract prior to accidents property and personal damage covered, including pain and suffering damages and ability to sue--similar to the Auto Choice Reform Act.
Eliminate the Farmers Home Administration
Allow individuals to choose to enter into contractual binding pre-commitments for drug treatment.
Eliminate all drug war funds and services sent to other countries.
Gradually increase the low benefits age for social security from 62 to 65 by 2020 and 66 by 2040.
Gradually increase the full benefits age for social security to 67 by 2010, 69 by 2030 and 70 by 2040.
Terminate parental contact for those parents who have been convicted of abuse or neglect. Allow contact when the child reaches adulthood.
Prosecute criminal perpetrators regardless whether victims want to press charges.
Require the loser to pay court costs in civil trials.
Separate visitation from child support.
Keep the adoption tax credit, and make it refundable.
Require a minimum mean of 1200 hours of classroom instruction per year, per district, for K through 12 students nationwide.
Make English the national official language.
Eliminate bilingual education.
Repeal the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Implement a $3.90 hourly wage subsidy for employers who hire individuals with total disability and who pay those individuals at least $6.40 per hour.
Eliminate fuel economy rules (CAFE) for vehicles.
Allow private companies and individuals to deliver all forms of mail.
Eliminate all federal student aid, except for loans.
Make 30 years imprisonment the mandatory minimum for the use of a signing statement.
Defund all particle collider activities.
Remove all diplomatic personnel from OIC member lands except one ambassador or dimplomat in each land.
Offer at least four million dollars in federal funds to each of the following to accept exile: Omar al-Bashir, Dictator Abdullah, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Idriss Deby, Seyed Ali Khamanei, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Saparmurat Niyazov, Islam Karimov, Mswati Kangwane, Denis Sassou Nguesso, Joseph Kony, Chama Cha Mapinduzi, Robert Mugabe, Obiang Nguema, Omar Bongo, Than Shwe, Kim Jong-Il, Blaise Compaoré, José Eduardo dos Santos, Boungnang Vorachith, Tran Duc Luong, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Yahya Jammeh, Lansana Conté, Meles Zenawi, Hugo Chavez, Pervez Musharraf, Bashar Assad, Raul Castro, Husni Mubarak, Gnassingbé Éyadéma, Aleksandr Lukashenko, Isayas Afewerki, Abdullah Gül, Bamir Topi, Pascal Couchepin, Fatmir Sejdiu, Giorgio Napolitani, Mehmet Ali Talat, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Yoweri Museveni, King Mswati III, Muammar Qaddafi, Gordon Brown, Jan Peter Balkenende, Angela Merkel, Mary McAleese, Nicolas Sarkozy, Fredrik Reinfeldt, Horst Köhler, Heinz Fischer, Romano Prodi, Giorgio Napolitano, Bertie Ahern, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Micheline Calmy-Rey, Yves Leterme, Jens Stoltenberg, George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Michael Mukasey, Alberto Gonzalez, John Ashcroft, William Clinton, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Justices Breyer, Thomas, Ginsburg, Alito, Kennedy, Stevens, Roberts, Scalia, and Souter--and all rulers of OIC members not mentioned above.
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Add China, India, and South Korea to the G8 nations.
Prohibit sale or possession of microbes potentially used for biological warfare except for government agencies working on defenses from those microbes. Expand and Strenghthen international treaties limiting the possession of bioweapens.
Impeach George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
Pass the Sudan Peace Act, including the Bachus Amendment.
Seize all US assets of Persian Gulf states, dictators, and subjects for price fixing and waging war on infidels. Seize all US mosques and convert them to community centers and government buildings.
Deport all Muslims who do not give up Islam to other nations, Lanai, Niihau, and Molokai. Do not provide them with welfare benefits.
Have trade relations with only infidel nations that deport Muslims who do not give up Islam or move Muslims to isolated land areas or both.
Prosecute former students who default on student loans and have adaquate wealth or incomes.
Federalize child support. Take out child support payments from wages the way payroll taxes are removed.
Hire private agencies to find dead-beat parents when other methods have failed.
Eliminate the Age Discrimination Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act
End all federally sponsored or subsidized loans to foreign countries, organizations and individuals.
Require uniform property tax rates throughout the state if the state has property taxes.
"Require states to invest roughly equal resources in [every school district] per pupil" --Chaka Fattah
Eliminate Hope Scholarships. They encourage price gouging by colleges.
They are unjust to those who do not go to college. College grads earn more over their lifetimes. They can afford to take out loans. They encourage people to attend college who would otherwise be doing better things with their lives. Many odinary college degrees create no overall benefits.
Cut the dependent, personal and standard deductions by 40 percent.
Keep the adoption credit and make it refundable
Ban pay based solely on seniority
Replace social security cards and numbers with a new national identification card and number. Require names and national identification numbers of both parents to be recorded on birth certificates when both parents are American citizens.
Raise the retirement age for federal employees to at least 67.
Grant line item veto power to the president. Ban signing statements.
Eliminate all Congressional retirement benefits.
Eliminate the Electoral College. Elect the president by popular vote.
Eliminate all water, electrical, and land subsidies.
Charge 18 percent royalty fees on minerals taken from public lands.
Rent mineral containing federal lands at market rates.
Eliminate the Economic Development Administration, Interstate Commerce Commission, Helium Reserve, U.S. Information Service, Federal Advisory Commissions, Community Development Block Grants
Pass a constitutional amendment requiring the federal government to set national education standards for all public school courses, test the standards, and provide reports of the results. Require inclusion of the results on student report cards.
Require national end of course exams in all public school courses.
Require that the national exam be at least 20 percent of the final course grade.
Test all American students in math and reading in the first, fourth, eighth, and twelfth grades. Provide statistical reports of the performance of all schools.
Provide an additional $1.3 billion a year for the NIH to publish and advertise the best clinical research on drugs.
Provide an additional 840 million a year for the NIH to study the effectiveness of drugs with expired patents and study the effectiveness of substances lacking patents in new medical applications.
Provide an additional 400 million a year for the NIH to study and compare the cost effectiveness of various, relevant drugs for a given illness.
Sell all federal aircraft except military and law enforcement aircraft.
Eliminate 7,000 congressional employees
Campaign finance reform: As per Bruce A. Ackerman and Ian Ayres, give every adult citizen 50 dollars to donate anonymously, electronically to the candidates or parties of their choice. Require all campaign contributions to be anonymous and electronic. Increase the 50 dollars with the CPI.
Keep the Social Security cost of living allowance.
Gradually make social security income taxable for individuals with more than $33,000 in all income, couples with more than $47,000 in income and retirees with one dependent child with more than $57,000. Add $10,000 to the $57,000 for each additional dependent child.
Institute a universal six-month waiting period prior to marriage.
Require universal pre-marital counseling with licensed counselors based on research and that has high, enforced standards.
Create two types of marriage:

1. Covenant marriage:

At the time of any divorce in a covenant marriage:

If both individuals want a no-fault divorce, immediately grant a no-fault divorce. If one or both individuals want an at-fault divorce, immediately grant the divorce and decide post-divorce duties and rights via legal proceedings later.

2. A no-fault at divorce marriage that immediately grants divorce.

Link aid to Russia to reductions in weapons of mass destruction.

Use carrots and sticks with China and Russia to encourage their governments to:

Sell 85 percent of government controlled media and to permit freedom of the press.
Eliminate biological and chemical weapons research and weapons.
Stop selling nuclear and bioweapons products and technologies.
Make all military spending subject to a new internal affairs and accounting office whose management is appointed by the president and approved by Congress, and are forbidden from ever receiving any direct or indirect gift or employment from any military contractor or any other military related employer. Make it a federal offense for any elected politician, or subordinate of a politician to in any way threaten an employee of the new office.
Require that all new military weapons begin testing as soon as feasible in the development process and continuously.
Eliminate the DEA, federal funding for dislocated workers, all federal housing programs except those recommended herein, and the class size reduction program.
Increase GEARUP funding by 22 percent and the number of students served by a similar amount.
Create a 45 percent VAT on all advertising.
Enact the recommendations found in The Limits of Safety by Scott Sagan, especially outfitting ICBMs with remote self-destruct devices that are thoroughly tested to greater than 99.95 percent reliability.
Ban all medical advertising.
Raise the federal exise tax on alcoholic beverages to 27 cents per ounce of ethanol. Raise $1.8 billion per year taxing water polluters. Adjust these taxes and tobacco taxes for inflation.
Cut the number of military bases 20 percent within the next ten years.
Keep the total number of U.S. strategic nuclear warheads at least at 3,500.

Create a 24 percent tax deduction or credit for charitable national or international donations exclusively engaged in the following:

Non-cosmetic health care and health education; basic nutrition; moral education that emphasizes consequences, merit, duties, and human rights; independent and ethical press; basic sanitation; primary education; emergency services; democratic civics education; Charles Ballard's National Institute for Responsible Fatherhood and similar parenting programs; international, non-Muslim religious missionary work.
Eliminate all federal charitable deductions, transfers, and subsidies except those recommended above. If citizens want to donate money to the National Committee for Chicken Nugget Artwork, they should not get a tax break for doing so.
Require 14 hours of weekly human service to receive unemployment insurance.

Strengthen SEC disclosure rules and enforcement.
Deport all individuals who are illegally in the United States, except those who should be incarcerated within the United States.
Make anyone, anywhere who develops or assists in the creation, trade or use of banned bio weapons subject to war crimes charges.
Restore the United States-Republic of China (Taiwan) Mutual Defense Treaty.
Prohibit U.S. banks from doing any business with shell banks or any business heavily into money laundering.
Enact sanctions on nations cavalier about banks doing business with shell banks or businesses heavily into money laundering.
Increase the budget of the Employment Standards Administration by 80 percent and increase the number of work place inspections by at least 80 percent.
Support international efforts to reduce money-laundering, tax evasion, and rogue banking. Rich criminals say it would violate their right to privacy. Too bad. Their right to criminal privacy is outweighed by the rights of others to protection from crime and by the benefit created by preventing parasites from profiting. No one complains that the government has access to the financial records of ordinary wage earners, people who cannot afford armies of lawyers to defend themselves. Yet rich criminals expect that they should get special privileges to do harm.

As per William Greider: Suspend NAFTA's investor-state enforcement mechanism allowing corporations to sue governments because government regulation of corporate misbehavior has incurred a loss to the corporation.

Do not sign trade agreements with anything similar to NAFTA's Chapter 11.

(end of Greider)

Provide universal federal funding for:

1. Implementing the Know Your Body health ed program at all public primary schools, but remove the self-esteem building part of the program.

2. Life Skills Training or Project ALERT or both.

3. Prenatal and Infancy Nurse Home Visitation Program.

Stockpile 680 million doses of smallpox vaccine, enough for every citizen and for non-Americans at places of outbreak. As per Michael Alderman: Produce bacterial pneumonia vaccine for every American.
Give FDA approval to vaccines that have passed phase I trials.
Collect fingerprints and DNA sample of all individuals living in the country. Some say it violates privacy rights but the samples would protect the much larger privacy, moral, life and property rights of non-criminals. "Given the restricted information we're talking about and the limited access that would be afforded, the main privacy right at stake is the right to commit crimes anonymously"--Steven Pomper
Pass a hate crimes law for violent criminals.
Eliminate portions of federal laws that regulate infrastructure development.
Require alleviation of congestion to be the most important criterion in allocation of federal transportation funds.
Open federal lands in Utah for coal mining. Restore PUHCA to reduce the power of utility cartels. Eliminate the railroad anti-trust exemption.
Implement the John Kerry proposal to tax U.S. corporation's untaxed overseas earnings and reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 33.25 percent.

As suggested by Bruce S. Jansson:

Prohibit ex pentagon employees, military officers or both to work for companies receiving defense contracts or receiving gifts from companies receiving defense contracts.
Close all loopholes that undermine competition for government contracts. Eliminate cost plus contracts. Create independent civilian boards to award and oversee military contracts.
Prohibit former employees of defense contractors from working for the pentagon. (end of Jansson)
Legalize cloning for therapeutic purposes.
Create a constitutional amendment stopping courts from deciding the legality of laws.
Set corporate tax rates and capital gains tax rates equal to personal income tax rates.
Elect and appoint individuals who will overturn Buckley v. Valeo
"Permit businesses to deduct the present value of all depreciation deductions for an asset in the year of purchase" --Aaron, Gale and Sly with idea from Auerbach and Jorgenson
Grant U.S. citizenship to sweatshop workers in U.S. territories who have not been convicted of any crimes.
Create an international agency to locate and track dangerous comets and asteroids, with the U.S. contributing $200 million per year.
Cut the number of U.S. troops in Okinawa and Japan by 16,000 and the number in Germany and Britain by 21,000.
Use federal highway spending for only repairs.
Require dietary supplements to comply with food and drug laws.
Increase IRS funding:

1. Until the cost of each additional audit outweighs the revenue received.

2. To increase the audit rate of those earning over $100,000 from one percent to at least 12 percent.

Eliminate SSI to non-citizens and non-native born citizens who have worked in the U.S. fewer than 20 years except those citizens with total permanent disability.
Change the progressivity of estate tax rates to four through 39.6 percent marginal tax rates.
Eliminate all federal job training aid and programs.
Eliminate all congressional subcommittees.
Limit the terms of congressional committee chairpersons to one term.
Cut the National Security Agency budget 60 percent.
Take away all intellectual property rights held by anyone who renounces their citizenship primarily for tax purposes and prohibit them from transferring the property rights to other individuals or organizations.
Prohibit anyone who renounces his or her citizenship primarily for tax purposes from reentering the country.
Create an exit tax on those who renounce their citizenship primarily for tax purposes.
Make anyone who renounces their citizenship primarily for tax purposes liable for federal taxes for 15 years after leaving.
Require greater competitive bidding, more efficient purchasing, and faster development within the military.
Allow the army to purchase close support jets.
Build no new aircraft carriers.
Locally administer federal housing, education and childcare vouchers.
Require calculation of teacher pay in per pupil spending totals within districts for allocating Title I funds. Increase Title I funding by 40 percent.
Make federal education funds contingent on redrawing school intradistrict lines so that public schools have greater equality of family income within them

As per Lawrence Sherman and others:

Require 10 percent of federal-local partnership crime funds to be used establishing controlled studies of methods.
Increase spending on federal-local crime partnerships 10 percent.
Create a central evaluation office within the Department of Justice.
Put the office in charge of the previous two recommendations and make the office responsible for the results it produces.

(end of Sherman)

Offer guaranteed jobs to non-prisoner citizens age 16 or over at $3.50 an hour. Index for inflation.
Require Internet transactions to pay the same sales taxes as other transactions.
Create a limit of four terms for all elected, federal offices.
Eliminate all pensions for federal elected officials.
Require states, local governments to publish and distribute a publicly funded voter's guide describing issues and candidates.
Implement a system of proportional representation for all state and federal offices.
Prohibit federal elected officials and their appointees from working for any lobbying organization at any time of their lives.
Do not sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Eliminate federal income taxes up to the 15 percent bracket.
Eliminate mandatory minimum laws. They are too inflexible. They turn minor criminals into monsters because it puts them in the same peer groups as monsters.
Eliminate the Departments of Energy and Agriculture. Hand their essential tasks to others agencies. Eliminate all farm subsidies.
Allow competent adults to sell their body parts while living and to sell their future cadavers. According to Bruce Gottlieb, 2,300 people a year die waiting for kidney transplants. Kidneys from dead people last eight years. Kidneys donated from the living last 17 years. Dialysis costs $40,000 per year for those waiting for a transplant. Others in medicine make bags of money. It is not just to prohibit potential donors from selling.
Implement multiyear pentagon budgeting.
Sell Amtrak.
Increase federal funding for addictive drug vaccines, and addictive drug vaccine research by at least 100 percent.
Require government agencies to pay market value for new private lands declared wetlands or placed under endangered species restrictions.
Eliminate the Superfund and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and replace with better laws. Eliminate the Peace Corps.
Remove politicians who receive contributions, gifts, bribes from foreign governments, individuals, or organizations, disqualify them from any future political office, prohibit them from contacting any elected U.S. government official.
Strengthen laws preventing the export of national security related goods and services. Enhance enforcement, and increase prosecution of violators.
Institute an eight percent federal tax on all gross public and private gaming revenues.
Use inflation-indexed bonds for the national debt. This would lower the interest rates paid.
Eliminate all interest subsidies.
Sell the Power Marketing Administration.
Allow all licensed physicians to prescribe Mifepristone, also known as RU-486. Reasons: Little danger, earlier abortions rather than more and later abortions.
Sell the national gold reserves. Reasons: Raises $50 billion, Holding gold is a terrible investment. Even savings accounts perform better. Government possession serves no purpose. Government ownership creates incentives for greater gold mining and environmental destruction.
Require 160 hours of human service for all immigrants.
Eliminate funding of family preservation programs.
Fairly auction electromagnetic broadcast frequencies. Pass the cable TV CHOICE Act.
Provide $75 million for creation, recruitment, organization of local non-profit service providers and implementation of incentive based contracts to these providers.
Implement a trial merit pay program for teachers.
Eliminate tenure for teachers and administrators
Create a federalized unemployment insurance plan and disability insurance plan similar to those described in True Security.
Create a federal parent locator service to assist in enforcement of child support.
Create an employer paid ten percent exise tax on fringe benefits.
Automatically tax the gifts, inheritances, net income, and fringe benefits of noncustodial parents of minor children to provide child support. Tax at 16 percent for those with one child up to a maximum payment of $36,000 per year, at 24 percent for those with two children up to a maximum payment of $57,000 per year, at 30 percent for those with three children up to a max of $77,000 per year. Add four percent and $21,000 to the max for each child beyond three up to a maximum of 46 percent. Divide payments among custodial parents on a per child basis, except when the costodial parent of a disabled child deserves a greater percentage.
Eliminate the F-22, C-17, V-22, F/A-18E/F, crusader artillery, and comanche helicopter programs. Retire 40 B-1 bombers. Keep 18 SSBNs Produce 397 D-5 missiles. Reduce the carrier fleet to six.
Require parents or guardians convicted of child abuse or neglect or have had a child removed because of abuse or neglect for more than one month to undergo mandatory vasectomy or tubal ligation.
Require children born drug addicted or with fetal alcohol syndrome to be immediately placed for adoption.
Prohibit the sale of alcohol and cigarrettes to pregnant women.
Prohibit government officials and immediate families from receiving direct and indirect gifts and payments from any foreign entities.
Tie cooperative threat reduction funds to actual reductions and elimination of Russian nuclear warheads.
Provide free potassium iodide tablets for all Americans and legal aliens.
Require states to implement graduated driver licensing to receive federal highway funds:
Allow new teen drivers to drive only with licensed adults over 20 during their first year with a license. Restrict driving between 10pm and 5am.
Allow teen drivers solo driving during the six months following the first year, but no driving between 10pm and 5am.
Grant an adult driver's license after the first 18 months are completed with no moving violations or at fault accidents.
Eliminate the OSC and replace it with a new, larger whistleblower agency whose head is nominated and selected by a majority vote of the second largest party in the House. The agency head may be replaced by only majority vote of the second largest party. Pass a law requiring independent audits of all federal agencies at regular intervals, with the intervals determined by well-reasoned cost-benefit reasoning. As per Luigi Zingales, award whistleblowers ten percent of corporate fraud fines and awards.
Require all public companies to be audited by accountants appointed by a presidentially appointed and congressionally approved official. Pay the accountants with only public funds and prohibit them from ever directly or indirectly receiving a gift or payment from a public company or its representatives during their life times. Prohibit the accountants from joining labor unions. Base their pay on accuracy in reporting.
Grant asylum to Jews living in Europe.
Prohibit federal agencies from requiring any synthetic substance be labeled different from a chemically identical non-synthetic substance.
Pass the bill that automatically deducts a percentage of payments to defense contractors who owe taxes.
Require all acetaminophen tablets to contain low doses of N-acetyleysteine.
Eliminate tax-free life insurance compensation.
Build a precision earth penetrating nuclear weapon.
Eliminate all congressional Subcommittees. Require all federal elected officials to spend at least 280 days a year in Washington DC.
Ban clear-cut logging from all state and federal lands.
Prohibit all ships, aircraft, and vehicles with Muslims on board from entering U.S. lands and territorial waters.
Eliminate the IMF. Replace it with an organization that implements the International Financial Institution Advisory Commission's prescriptions for reforming the IMF. Allow only short-term loans to countries that reform their financial practices.
Use carrots and sticks on almost all the countries with a Freedom House score of 5.5 to seven. (a one to seven scale with seven being the worst)
Place all microbes and toxins that can be used for bioterror under strict federal control.
Allocate $30 million annually for the study and development of 18-mc, noribogaine, and similar drugs.
As per Cato Institute: Eliminate the Agricultural Adjustment Act (food import quotas and restrictions, the Export-Import Bank Act of 1945 (corporate welfare for exports), the Meat Import Act of 1979, presidential food-import proclamations, the Agricultural Act of 1958, The Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, U.S. funding of the World Bank, The U.S. Information agency, The School of the Americas, The Selective Service System, the Asia Foundation, the Delaney Clause, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
Require regulatory laws to meet cost-benefit standards.
End the Rural Electrification Act, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the Community Reinvestment Act
Terminate FDA drug export license requirements.
Allow drug companies to sell drugs proven sufficiently safe, but that have not yet been proven effective, provided the drugs are labeled as such in at least a 12 point font in bottles having a neon orange cap. Ban other medicines from having similar colored caps.
Eliminate funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Prohibit state and federal prosecution for the same offense.
Rid three strikes laws.
Eliminate: Highway Demonstration Projects, The Maritime Administration, Cargo Preference Programs, Wastewater Treatment Subsidies, The Economic Support Fund, The Corporation for National and Community Service, ACTION, The Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation, National Flood Insurance, The Service Contract Act, Free mailings by congresspersons, congressional non-salary benefits and perks, Economic Development Assistance, The International trade Administration, The National Institute of Standards and Technology, The Advanced Technology Program within the Department of Commerce, Substance abuse block grants, the Federal Transit Administration.
Eliminate federal laws on the sale and possession of marijuana and alkyl nitrites.
Ban imported pets and the sale of any pet for more than $50 inflation adjusted dollars. Create and fund single payer free clinics that sterilize pets. Ban alone chaining of pets.
Ban forced molting, beak trimming, ear cropping, tail-docking, bass pair trawling, total confinement factories, the feeding of animal protein to livestock, gestation crates and all long-term crating or caging of livestock.
Require all livestock be dead before skinning or slaughtering. Punish violators with a $150,000 fine. Double fines for each subsequent violation. Hire an adequate number of inspectors to enforce the law. Repeal the law that bans the slaughtering of horses. Ban ownership of livestock by any entities other than nonprofits and sole proprietorships. Institute a federal ban on cockfighting and on the sale and interstate transport of cockfighting equipment. Ban the sale of veal, foie gras, animal furs, animal civitone, and castoreum. Ban catch and release fishing.
Require all packaged foods to list their country or countries of origin.
Ban mining and logging on public lands by any entities other than domestic sole proprietorships. Ban government funding of the construction and maintenance of logging roads. Ban ranching on all federal lands.
Eliminate all federal grant money to nonprofits.
Encourage Japan, Taiwan, Austrailia, and South Korea to stealthily develop nuclear arsenals.
Grant statehood to the District of Columbia.
Ban and defund all particle accelerator activities. Enforce severe consequences on nations that attempt to engage in supercollider activities, including air strikes if other carrots and sticks fail. Vaguenes, as per Bill Joy: "Create an international body to publicly examine the dangers of technologies... Relinquish pursuit of that knowledge and development of those technologies so dangerous that we judge it better that they never be available."
Create a U.S. agency to study and enforce technology violations. Use the U.S. military to enforce violations abroad if the international agency refuses to do so.
Eliminate the Department of Education and replace it with a new cabinet level department that works in only three areas:

1. Moral education.

2. Equalizing per pupil funding in public schools across the nation while factoring local cost of living.

3. Nationwide research, standards, testing and reporting.

Ensure federal college student loan programs are at market rate.
Create an agency to provide vouchers to cover 36 percent for the first $14,000 dollars of building a blast or fallout shelter.
Pass a constitutional amendment requiring a 3/5ths supermajority to cut tax rates for the top one percent. Ban private tax collection agencies from collecting state and federal taxes.
Eliminate Department of Labor programs except for research, reporting, and regulatory functions.
Eliminate all subsidies to the airline and airport industries.
From Goodman and Musgrave: Require cost estimates prior to any medical service over $160, except in cases where the patient or her representatives is not fit to respond and the patient needs immediate care.
Close the Gerry Adams loophole that allows terrorism advocates entry into the US. Make databases of known criminals available to banks for anti-dirty money enforcement. Pass the Levin and Coleman tax haven reform plan. Create a tamperproof, biometric electronic employment verification system, approve REAL-ID with biometric data, expand US-VISIT to all US entry points. Eliminate all federal anti-terrorism grants to states and local governments. Eliminate the domestic use of coin and paper currency. Replace them with electronic currency. Implement many of the anti-terrorism prescriptions of the Gilmore

Commission. They can be found at

http://www.rand.org/nsrd/terrpanel/terror3-recs.pdf

?J.T. Fournier

My Main Page with Links to My Other Book Reviews

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