Starve Washington D.C.

Want to cure a lot of political ills? Stop feeding the federal government. Do you want to get the money out of federal elections? Do you want real election reform? Shrink the federal budget. There, I’ve solved some of the biggest problems in the nation. Let me explain. No, that is too long, let me sum up (Points if you can name the actor and movie of that line).

With election season fast approaching we are being hit with every possible scandal that could possibly be dredged out and thrown at us. While the Left has the edge on mudslinging (it’s a natural gift, it would seem), the Right is firing back with its own water-enriched clay. Most of the scandals seem to revolve around money and undue influence on Congress. Congressmen from both sides of the aisle taking bribes, exhibiting unethical influence, fraudulently hiding “fast money” gains, and taking perks and favors from lobbyists fill our front page newspapers daily.

Do you know why? I already answered that one. Money. Congress controls trillions of dollars of spending power. Congress writes the laws that not only govern where that money will go, but who the federal government will collect it from. You will never be able to completely remove graft and corruption from the body, because even stripped it will need money to operate the necessities of federal government (defense, etc.). However, by vastly reducing the money in federal coffers, you remove the lion’s share of the corruption. It isn’t perfect, but it will at least work. Compared to attempts like the freedom-shackling McCain-Feingold boondoggle, it’s a heavenly gift.

One area that could easily see improvement is subsidies, for example. Stop subsidizing industry and agriculture. Give the money back to the states and the people. Industry and agriculture will survive or die on its own, but it will inevitably meet the needs of us Americans. People lose jobs, get laid off (I certainly have been) and businesses fail. Things inevitably get better, though. We have over 200 years of trial and error to prove that healthy competition without government meddling works. We don’t need to subsidize every industry that thinks it needs our money to stay afloat, though. That alone should put a tremendous amount of lobbyists out of a job, another group we’re subsidizing, by the way.

Foreign aid is another major drain on our economy. I see strategic reasons for aiding certain countries in reasons where we have a vested interest. Giving aid to countries that are ripped apart by civil war or whose leaders are corrupt or tyrannical (Hey ex-Pres Clinton, did you know that Kim Jong-Il was a dictator who intentionally starved his own people when you gave him those nuclear reactors and oil?) The Marshall Plan has been demonstrably proven to have stunted several countries’ economic recovery. While it might’ve been a short stop-gap to keep communists from overrunning those countries, it didn’t gain us as much as we put into it. And any country that you can regularly hear “Death to America” chanted out in the streets loses cash. Sorry Egypt. Although I understood the reason for going into Iraq (ultimately a giant U.N. fiasco), I’m not crazy about all the money we’ve put into a country rich in its own natural resources. I don’t care for that at all. Most of that money could’ve gone back to the U.S. taxpayer and been better spent here.

And while we’re on the topic of the U.N., not only could it be moved to Caracas, where Hugo Chavez wants it, but we can stop paying dues. There’s some more savings and a nice shrinkage in the federal budget. I will miss, though, getting to see John Bolton tell U.N. diplomats where they can stick the top few floors.

Welfare, Medicaid and Medicare along with Social Security are the giant hidden tax we all pay. Actually, it’s not that hidden. Look at the FICA listing on your paycheck. That’s part of what you’re paying for those very ill-conceived programs. Again, these programs have arguably and drastically increased the cost of health care to levels unheard of. They have conned a bunch of the populace into thinking the federal government needs to be their safety net and they keep Democrats and liberal Republicans elected. I see no advantage to it. Unfortunately for us, there’s no way to wean the current generation off of it. They will die still on it and there’s little we can do to stop that. We will likely end up paying for the mistakes of the 60’s for a very long time or until the Baby Boomer retirement cripples the U.S. economy by draining it to pay for their retirement. Joy for me, I’ll be around to see it.

Well, that’s a quick brainstorm of what could be done to help keep Washington honest, to drain the proverbial swamp. Simple ideas are sometimes the best ones. No nuance is needed to understand that the federal government is not the one the Framers of the Constitution intended it to be. Although many on the Left would argue that’s a good thing, I challenge them to show me how states and individuals couldn’t do better than the massive failure that is our federal bureaucracy. Come on. I dare you. For everyone else, keep these things in mind when you consider who to send back to Congress this November. No one is making a secret of what they’ll do once they get there in regards to your money. Guaranteed.