AN INNOVATION AGENDA TO CHALLENGE OBAMA
By
Attorney Jonathan Emord
Author of "The
Rise of Tyranny" and,
"Global
Censorship of Health Information"
January 17, 2011
NewsWithViews.com
George W. Bush and Barack Obama share a lot in common. Both Presidents increased the size and scope of the federal government and, in particular, the federal bureaucracy, enormously. Both have committed the United States to new entitlements that will impoverish the nation by saddling it with debt for generations (President Bush’s Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit and President Obama’s Health Care Reform law). By placing blind faith in government to resolve all manner of human problems and virtually no faith in the American people and the private sector, these two Presidents have abandoned the original constitutional design, have all but completely replaced the republic with a bureaucratic oligarchy, and have reduced a once free people to ever greater levels of servitude.
Since President Reagan left office, George Bush Sr., Bill Clinton, George Bush Jr., and Barack Obama have lacked an ideological core and direction. In their incremental favoritism for government solutions to every problem they are largely indistinguishable. As the campaign for President effectively commences, those who would challenge President Obama would do well to appreciate the strong American sentiment demanding a return of our constitutional republic, an elimination of bureaucratic restraints on free enterprise, and an end to the creation of law by those whom the public does not elect (the unelected heads of some 138 independent federal regulatory agencies who create over ninety percent of the laws that govern the American people). Americans are demanding something from politicians that they have the greatest difficulty in giving them: sincerity. In the mid-term congressional elections, voters rejected the politics of the big government defenders and spendthrifts, insisting that candidates articulate a clear vision for restoring limited government, unleashing free enterprise from government restraint, and restoring the original constitutional republic.
In 2012, those same voters will reappear. As one of them, I offer the following agenda for the would-be presidential candidates in opposition to President Obama. I recommend the following Innovation Agenda:
Diagnosis of the Problem. American greatness has long depended on the protection of individual sovereignty. Our present federal government has become our sovereign ruler, leaving us in an increasingly servile state. The American economy suffers from excessive taxation and regulation. The President presides over a regime that presumes to dictate how Americans direct their resources from compelling business to abide by strictures that favor large industry over small to compelling uninsured Americans to pay between $5,000 and $15,000 annually for health insurance. He presides over a regime that distrusts Americans to retain and expend the fruits of their own labor on the theory that those in government know better than the American people what is in Americans’ best interest. The Obama Administration not only aims to tax heavily the most productive elements of our society but also to regulate them extensively in pursuit of a grand state plan that is doomed to fail. Government planning has failed in every country where it has been applied. Government is parasitic, bleeds the productive to fund its pursuits, and is never able to predict what products or services satisfy consumer demand better than the free market. The effect is to substitute for private initiative and innovation bureaucratic and political dictates not unlike those in European socialist states. The result is to disable that engine of progress, free enterprise, that defines us as a free people and upon which we depend to keep Americans employed, to foster innovation, and to uplift the American standard of living.
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The
Solution. The solution to our problems lies in reestablishing individual
sovereignty by taking those steps necessary to remake government as
our servant, instead of our master. In particular, the solution to our
economic woes and loss of freedom is:
(1) to repeal those entitlements that the country cannot afford, including
but not limited to, Medicare Part D and the Obama Health Reform law;
(2) to eliminate, among others, the Department of Education; the Department of Energy; the Department of Labor; the Department of Commerce; the Government Printing Office; the General Services Administration; the Occupational Safety and Health Administration; SallieMae; FreddieMac; and all subsidies for Amtrak;
(3) to eliminate, among others, most of the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, transferring select functions to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and creating tax exemptions for private institutions to perform health research functions; to replace the Federal Communications Commission with a statutory property rights system that vests property rights in operating parameters and spectrum in those who presently have licenses for facilities; to eliminate the Federal Trade Commission, transferring select law enforcement powers to the Department of Justice; and to eliminate the Food and Drug Administration, transferring select law enforcement powers to the Department of Justice and creating a statutory system for blinded university reviews of drug safety and efficacy;
(4) to eliminate all federal government subsidies for goods and services;
(5) to restore the gold standard and phase the Federal Reserve System out of existence;
(6) to place a three year moratorium on the creation of any new regulation and to eliminate during that moratorium period and thereafter every regulation except that which is passed into law by the Congress in the way in which the Constitution designates in Article I (Congressman Ron Paul’s Congressional Responsibility and Accountability Act);
(7) to phase out of existence Social Security and substitute in its place total federal and state tax exemption for those 65 and older, block grants to the states for needs based financial assistance to the indigent, and tax exemptions to physicians, hospitals, and health care providers for needs based assistance.
(8) to eliminate the federal income tax on individuals and to eliminate all tax imposed on savings and investments.
Few will have the political courage to do what is necessary to save the republic. Repeatedly over the last half century, politicians have been bailed out for their bad acts by a remarkable private sector that, despite the onerous weight of regulation and taxation, has rebounded and filled government coffers. The burden now imposed on the private sector is heavier than ever and requires a Herculean economy just to avoid massive and uncontrollable government debt. We must severely cut government and simultaneously liberate the private sector if we are to restore American greatness.
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We can be privileged to live in the greatest nation on earth where the freedom to engage in industry and to innovate is protected against the ever present threat of government. We can restore sovereignty to the people and reassemble government into a servant, rather than a master. Only if we do so can we aspire to greatness, but if we do so there is no limit to our potential.
� 2011 Jonathan W. Emord - All Rights Reserved
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