The American People deserve better

Indulge me here for a minute and take a little ride in my demented brain. Sit back and enjoy this little rant. I am sick and tired of the Government thinking my money belongs to them and giving it away for nothing. I am tired of these career politicians getting fat while I work my ass off just to see them take what I work for away by force. So this little rant is about what I would do if I was President.

Sen. Tom Coburn estimates that the Federal Government wasted $19 Billion in 2012. $2M spend to subsidize Cupcake bakeries because they cannot make it on their own. $200M spent on a Reality show in India. $1.2M spent on the Chinese to test pig poop. $84M subsidy to Amtrak to offset food cost.  $2.5B (yes billion) wasted by the food stamp programs on beer, fast food and strippers.  Speaker of the House makes $223,500, Majority and Minority leaders make $193,000 and the Average Member of the house makes $174,000 not to mention their lifetime pensions even if they only get elected 1 time.  The Average government Employee makes 30% more money than their private sector counterpart.

There is an estimated 25M illegal aliens in this country wasting millions of tax payer dollars each month. They lower wages, quality of goods, siphon money from welfare programs, burden hospitals and send millions of dollars to other countries helping their economy and hurting ours. It is said it would cost too much to round them up and send them back home, but I bet it would cost less than $19B.

In 1996 Manufacturing accounted for 65% of the economy. In 2004 it was 9%. Today Manufacturing accounts for less than 6% of the economy. The US has led the world in manufacturing quality for decades; can we still make that claim? Since 2001 50,000 manufacturing facilities have closed according to Economic Policy Institute with a net loss of over 2.1M manufacturing jobs. This has cost the US economy over $217B since 2001.

Looks pretty bad doesn’t it. With the same old players do the same old Cover Their Ass politics how can we stop this? The Government does not have any plans to cut spending or rally the economy; right now they are concerned with how guns load themselves and walk around killing people.  So what is my plan? What would I do if I went mad and became President? This is going to be outside the box and would most likely get me impeached (for pissing Congress off not for high crimes or misdemeanors), but if I could pull it off it would change so much. Here is how I would get these things done. On my first day in office I would issue an Executive Order dropping Secret Service protection for Congress (They can hire their own guards) until they put the American People first and pass some real reform legislation.

Spending: With $19B in waste and a 30% over pay I would immediately institute an across the board Government pay cut of 20% to all government employees to include congress and the White House (except the Military which is underpaid). I would only take what my current Salary is now. I do not make anywhere near what the current President makes. Congress and the President get free meals, room and board plus pretty much everything else for free so why do they need such high salaries? They even travel on the tax payer dime.

There would also be a 10 to 20% budget decrease across the board for all Government agencies (except the Military) and Departments. When times are tough for the American people we have to cut back so the Government should have to also. We tax enough, it’s time we started using a little responsibility with the American people’s money.

I would give the IRS a second job; to watch for Government waste and fraud. The Dept of Education cannot account for $1B tax payer dollars. AS far as I’m concerned if you can’t account for it you don’t need it. There isn’t any reason to save money; in fact the opposite is true. At the end of the Fiscal year any money not spent is lost. This promotes waste and fraud. I would give an incentive to save. Let’s say Dept A has a budget of $10M for the year and 1000 employees. Dept A has a $1M surplus at the end of the Fiscal year. I take half of that $1M ($500,000) and divide it equally to the 1000 employees as a bonus. Each Employee gets a $5000 bonus at the end of the fiscal year. The other $500K goes back to Dept A as part of the $10M budget. So this year instead of paying out $10M it is $9.5M + the $500K they already have which gives Dept A the $10M budget for the fiscal year. I would also stop illegal’s from social program eligibility.

If a company gets caught hiring and illegal alien the first time fine is $250 – $2000. Second offense is $2000 – $5000 and 3^rd maxes out $3000 – $10,000. Let’s look at these numbers from a Carpenters standpoint. My brother is a Journeyman Union Carpenter that cannot find work because illegal crews are taking the work. My brother’s pay scale is $35 an hour with stamps which are benefits. HE worked an average of 36 hours a week making his weekly pay $1960 before taxes making his yearly average $65,520 + benefits. He tells me these illegal’s (I have never talked to an illegal crew, but have read the same information from other sources) are getting paid $7-10 an hour and working 50-60 hours a week. Let’s go to the average side for this little walk through. Jose works for Flybynite construction making $8 an hour for 55 hours for $440 a week = $22880 a year without benefits. Flybynite gets fined for having Jose on the payroll; this being their 3^rd offense they get the maximum fine of $10,000 (even though there are very few reported cases of the maximum fine being issued). Add that $10K to Jose’s salary and you get $32,880 that Flybynite has paid out saving $32,640 in salary; so I ask you why would any company ever hire anything but illegal’s with the fines being so small? Here is what I would do. The minimum first offense for hiring an illegal would be $25,000; 2^nd offense $50,000 and 3^rd offense $100,000 per head, with stiffer fines and jail time mandatory for 4^th offenses. Company would not risk hiring illegals and would drop the ones currently on their payroll. Without the ability to work or get free money via welfare most will go home on their own eliminating the need to round them up and send them home.

Bring manufacturing back to the US. This one is a little trickier but I bet it would work. I would make it that all products sold in the US must have 10% of the manufacturing process done in the US. It could be the final 10% of assembly or 10% of the parts manufactured in the US. This would bring back a lot of manufacturing /assembly jobs to the US stimulating the economy. This would be the hardest to implement and regulate, but would have the largest impact on the economy.

I know these changes would help the American economy and strengthen the dollar. I know I would have a huge target on my head and Congress would do everything within their power to impeach me. Even if I only lasted a year I think these changes would be worth I; after all the American people deserve better from our electorate than the same old bullshit year after year. It’s time someone looks out for the American people instead of their own simplistic self-interest.