This is the most useless chapter in this book. Useless because its topic is something that just ain’t gonna happen.
If there’s any testament to the widespread dementia that courses through some of my listeners, it’s the all-too-frequent e-mails suggesting that I run for president. These people need professional help.
(Then again, when you think of Barack Obamamania…)
First, a reality check, on slim chance that any of you are actually serious:
There is no way in hell I could ever get elected. None. I was a horrible student all the way through my undergraduate years in school. I had a lower-than-C average in high school. I flunked out of college after the first semester of my sophomore year. Did I do anything exciting with my time waiting to get another chance at college? Oh, yeah: I pumped gas and delivered newspapers. I’ve been a department store assistant buyer in the fine jewelry and carpet departments, loaded trucks, sold insurance and chemicals, worked in an employment agency, and worked for the U.S. Postal Service. Add to that the fact that I’ve done things that would be considered crimes in thirteen states and the District of Columbia1, and that’s one helluva presidential resume, isn’t it?
Let’s face it. I’d be better off if I’d worked at a fancy law firm, drafting papers for an illegal tax avoidance scheme that cost the taxpayers millions of dollars; or if I’d gone to Vietnam, applied a few Band-Aids to some scratches, scammed some Purple Hearts, and then come home to accuse our troops of atrocities.
There’s also the problem of compensation. I make more than the president. And I’d like to keep it that way.
So I’m going to put this Boortz for President stuff to rest. Well…at least the serious part.
On the other hand, I’ve often thought it might be fun to take a stab at the Libertarian Party nomination. At least that way I know I wouldn’t win. (Then again, the Libertarians aren’t very fond of me now—a little something about my stance on the war in Iraq—so I’ll have to kiss that little daydream goodbye.)
Still…
If lightning did strike, what would I try to accomplish? Just for the fun of it, I decided to pull together a platform, full of my pet ideas. (Yes, what follows is a blatant exercise in runaway egotism. My guess, though, is that you’re going to see one or more of these platform items show up on someone else’s campaign brochure before it’s all over.)
REPEAL THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT AND ENACT THE FAIRTAX
There’s a reason Marx and Engels included a progressive income tax in their Communist Manifesto “to do” list. Our current tax scheme is a convoluted and impossible-to-understand system of income confiscation and redistribution, created by politicians to facilitate vote-buying and to enable the constant expansion of the size of government.
As your president, I would dedicate my term to the passage of the FairTax Act and to the repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment, which enabled our income tax system.
Obviously we don’t have the space here to go through a full description and discussion of the FairTax. Bottom line: The FairTax eliminates all corporate and personal income and payroll taxes, estate taxes, and capital gains taxes, and replaces them with one inclusive national retail sales tax. You can get all the information you need at Fairtax.org or by reading The FairTax Book, written by Congressman John Linder and yours truly. The book debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list, so don’t worry—nobody’s going to think you’re a crank for being interested.
REPEAL THE SEVENTEENTH AMENDMENT
Very few Americans realize this (quiz your children!), but we didn’t always vote for our U.S. senators.
Under our Constitution as originally ratified, senators were appointed by the state legislatures. The idea was that the members of the House of Representatives would represent the people of the United States, and the senators would represent the interests of the state governments.
In 1913,2 the Seventeenth Amendment changed all that. From that point on, senators were elected by the people.
Things have been pretty much going downhill ever since.
The principal problem with the Seventeenth Amendment is that it leaves the fifty states with no official representation in Washington. If the nation of Angola has some sort of a beef with our national government, it has an official representative—the ambassador from Angola—to meet with our State Department officials and smooth things over. If the state of Arkansas has a problem with Washington—a huge unfunded mandate, for instance—there’s no “Ambassador from Arkansas” to make the point. The Arkansas senators are elected by the people, as are the members of the House; the state government has no specific representative to take up its case.
Our founding fathers clearly felt that most governance should be at the local level. Today, we’ve failed at that goal. With no official representation inside the Beltway, the state governments have no real ability to help restrain the flow of government power from the local to the national level.
The repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment would help correct this imbalance, vastly strengthening the state governments’ hand in Washington. In that sense power would begin to shift from the federal level to the state level, bringing us closer to the system of semi-sovereign states that was envisioned by our founders.
Before he left public office, Senator Zell Miller of Georgia actually introduced a resolution calling for a Constitutional amendment repealing the Seventeenth. Smart man.
APPOINT A FEDERAL TENTH AMENDMENT COMMISSION
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people.”
Here again, the theme is limiting the power of the federal government and keeping as much government as possible at the local level.
Citizens feel more connected to those who wield power at the local level than they do to their U.S. senators and congressmen. They see their local politicians at church, in the grocery stores, on the streets, and at sporting events. Local politicians have a smaller support and voter base, and clearly understand that they’re far more accountable to the voters than their counterparts insulated behind the marble entrances of the House and Senate office buildings in Washington.
This is precisely why our founders wanted most governance to be local, rather than national. Hence the Tenth Amendment.
Today, most government comes from Washington. Our local politicians may be free to locate schools and set speed limits, but when the serious lawmaking starts, all eyes are on the U.S. Capitol.
Though the Constitution grants a defined list of specific powers to the federal government, it is routinely ignored. When the Feds want to assume a new power or responsibility, they simply do it. And it’s time to stop the bleeding. When was the last time you heard of anyone on the House or Senate floor citing the Tenth Amendment to complain about some overreaching new federal law?
Never? Yeah, me too.
My proposal, then, would be to establish a Tenth Amendment Commission, made up of an equal number of representatives of state governments and the federal government. After meeting for one year, the committee would present a report detailing a list of regulatory and legislative powers assumed over the years by the federal government that should be returned to the local level.
The result would be to bring governance back where it belongs—to the local level, and closer to the people.
ELIMINATE THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
This was one of the promises the Republicans made during the 1993 political campaign. It’s a shame they didn’t follow through.
Since the creation of the U.S. Department of Education, we’ve seen two trends at work. First, more and more of the power over our educational processes has flowed to the bureaucrats and politicians in Washington. Second, the amount of actual learning in our government schools has been on a steady decline.
I’m a little tired of hearing that the solution to our education problems is simply more parental involvement. The fact is, the more our educational system is controlled by the federal government, the more estranged they’re going to feel, and the less likely they will be to become engaged.
For the best interest of our children, we need to get rid of the Department of Education—and return the control of our local schools to the communities.
(While we’re talking education, by the way, I’ll repeat the importance of encouraging school choice programs at the local level. As I’ve said, competition improves the quality of virtually any product or service—including education. The federal government should remove all regulatory barriers to fostering school competition through voucher programs. And yes, this does include religious schools.)
EXTEND FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS TO THE BROADCAST MEDIA
This one is so simple, even a government school social studies teacher could grasp it.
Most Americans get their daily dose of news from the broadcast media. This means that most Americans are getting their news from organizations licensed by the federal government.
This is not good.
I would call for a Constitutional amendment granting full First Amendment rights to the broadcast media in the United States, and to the Internet.
This would surely bring cries of outrage from “activists” who are concerned about such issues as political correctness, whether or not some speech may be “offensive,” and whether a given speaker or writer is showing the requisite amount of “sensitivity.”
I would tell these people to go away.
REFORM HEALTH CARE
Do you remember the last time you had to go stand in line to renew your driver’s license or to buy tags? How about the last time you had to pay a visit to the local Social Security office?
Great…now drag up all the emotions that go along with that memory. That is the future of health care in this country.
I’m absolutely convinced that socialized medicine in the United States is inevitable. The American people have fully embraced the idea that the responsibility for their health care should belong to someone else—either their employer or the government.
As president (you know, I’m starting to get into this!) I would immediately take steps to introduce as much competition into the healthcare market place as possible. Here are just a few suggestions:
And that’s just the beginning; once those reforms are in place, we’ll assess the results and take it from there.
ENCOURAGE STATES TO END PROFESSIONAL LICENSING REQUIREMENTS
In the government pages of your local phone book, you’ll find a list of phone numbers for professional licensing boards, usually under the heading “Secretary of State.”
There is no reason for the state to be in the business of licensing all of these professions. This is something that should clearly be handled by the private marketplace.
Outrages abound in the operation of these licensing boards. In Texas and many other states, it would be illegal for an unlicensed individual to charge you for advice on whether or not a certain pillow would look good on your couch. In Louisiana, you can’t even arrange flowers without a license. What’s more, the people who decide whether or not you get that license are people who arrange flowers for a living. So you’re asking them for license to go into competition with them! Yeah…that makes sense. Let me know how that works out for you.
As president, I would push for a system where licensing of professionals is handled through private licensing boards.
My general policy in all matters governmental would be to default to freedom. When the question is whether to encourage freedom and individual liberty, or to increase the regulatory power of government, I will always favor freedom. I’m generally unmoved by arguments that some people may abuse that freedom and suffer as a consequence. Freedom means you’re free to make decisions that will hurt you. The government isn’t your nanny. We all need to grow up and take responsibility for our actions.
Let’s take a look at the two biggies: law and medicine.
My position is that people should be able to decide to receive medical services from whomever they choose, regardless of their background. If an individual wants to choose a medical practitioner responsibly, he should look for a doctor with appropriate private accreditation. Let the American Medical Association set up an accreditation process for doctors in all specialties. That way, when a consumer sees “AMA” after a doctor’s name, he’ll know he’s dealing with a competent professional. The state shouldn’t stand in the way of a person’s choice of medical practitioners—not when a private accreditation system would work just as well.
You might be interested in knowing that for the first 150 years in this nation’s history, we did not license doctors—or lawyers, for that matter. Somehow we survived.
As for lawyers, same thing. Let the American Bar Association put that “ABA” behind those they deem to be qualified, and then let the consumer make his free choice.
Know this: Most of the government’s professional licensing requirements are designed to limit competition, not to protect the consumer.
Competition lowers prices while improving services. Consumers should accept responsibility for their choices.
START A LOSER-PAYS SYSTEM FOR FEDERAL LAWSUITS
Our system of tort law has become a crapshoot. Treasure hunters have no trouble finding seamy lawyers who are eager to file lawsuits over any perceived grievance. Plaintiff’s lawyers and defendants know that if they manage to get a case to trial there’s an excellent chance that they’ll end up with an idiot jury that will award some damages “just because the plaintiff got hurt.”
It doesn’t matter whether or not the plaintiff caused his own injuries. The fact that he got hurt, regardless of causation, is often enough. All too frequently you’ll hear some juror say, “Well, after all, they’re insured. Isn’t that what insurance is for?”
Defense attorneys recognize the potential for a bad verdict from a rogue jury, so often they recommend that their clients settle just to avoid the costs of going to trial. Plaintiff’s lawyers know this, so they often file suit even when they know the defendant didn’t really do anything wrong.
This is a fundamentally unjust situation. To address the problem, I would push for a “loser-pays” system at the federal level. Under such a system, those who file a lawsuit in the federal courts—and lose—are required to pay the defendant’s legal expenses.
You win, they lose. They win, you lose.
I once had a character come into my law office with a can of soda. The top of the can carried a different brand name than the label on the side of the can.
He wanted to sue.
“What are your damages?”
“Well, I dunno. But the label is wrong.”
“How were you hurt by this?”
“Well, I wasn’t exactly hurt, but if we sue them, can’t we get something?”
“Get the hell out of my office.”
END THE WAR ON DRUGS
You know how I feel on this, so I’ll make it simple:
Put me in office, and the very first thing I’ll do is order a survey of all non-violent drug offenders currently serving time in prison. Those with no other criminal record would be pardoned.
The second thing I would do is instruct my drug “czar” to convert all federal drug programs from the law enforcement approach to a treatment-based approach. Much of the money saved would be returned to the taxpayers.
EXPEDITE EXECUTIONS
As president, I would make sure our country does not eliminate the death penalty, but continues to embrace it. Some people just don’t deserve to draw another breath.
What I would do is establish a special federal capital court with exclusive jurisdiction over death penalty appeals. A judge from this court would be assigned to sit with the presiding judge for the sole purpose of monitoring the trial and any death penalty issues involved.
After conviction, the defense lawyer would be required to file any appeal with this judge within two weeks of sentencing. This judge would then present the appeal to a three-judge panel of which he is a member. The panel would vote within one week, and if the sentence is upheld, the criminal would take the eternal celestial dirt nap one week after that.
From sentence to execution in one month: Just watch those crime rates drop.
Finally, I would find an equitable way to punish any holier-than-thou nations who choose to extradite criminals back to this country because of our death penalty.
A CRASH PROGRAM FOR ENERGY INDEPENDENCE
The best way to emasculate the Islamic terrorists is to deprive them of the funding they need to carry forth their goals.
As president, I would initiate a Manhattan Project–type effort to bring energy independence to the United States. If we made it a priority, we could have Arab sheikhs begging for oil buyers in a very short period of time.
I would immediately, by Executive Order if possible, bring about oil drilling in the section of the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) that was specifically set aside for that purpose.3 I would also lift restrictions on drilling for gas and oil off the Florida Gulf Coast. It’s time for Florida to become part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Subject to appropriate environmental protections, we would also immediately enable the private exploitation of the shale oil reserves in Utah and other Western States, and encourage private efforts at coal gasification in the East.
We would also have safe, modern nuclear power plants sprouting across the countryside like Starbucks coffee shops.
IMPLEMENT TERM LIMITS
Our professional politicians haven’t impressed me much lately, so it would be time to implement term limits. After two terms, senators would have to step down and allow state legislatures to come up with new blood. Ditto for members of Congress: Give them three terms—six years—in office, then send them back home to earn an honest living.
REPLACE OUR ELECTORAL SYSTEM WITH A PARLIAMENTARY MODEL
The United States is not well-served by this absurd presidential beauty contest we carry out every four years. Let’s face it. The voters of this country just aren’t prepared to make an informed choice about which candidate is best qualified to run the show for the next four years. Just because you have a nice head of hair and don’t sweat all that much on camera doesn’t mean you’re the best choice for commander in chief.
To understand the vapidity of the average voter, look at the Barack Obamamania that emerged in the fall of 2006. Here was a man who has accomplished little, if anything, in his limited years in elected office, yet suddenly he was being hailed as the great hope of the Democrat Party. Sure, he has a pretty face. Sure, he has a nice story about being a first-generation American. That’s not enough to be an effective president.
I would propose a Constitutional amendment calling for the members of the House of Representatives to nominate one person to serve as president for the following six years. That nomination would be subject to confirmation by the Senate.
Under this system, the representatives elected by the people would make the nomination; the senators appointed by the state legislatures would ratify that choice. Both the people and the state governments would have a say in who serves the single six-year term.
This plan has the added advantage of focusing the voters on the one body in Washington were the power truly lies: the House of Representatives.
What most voters don’t realize is that they can change the complexion of our government completely, every two years, simply by changing the makeup of the House. Why? Because the House has the sole power to originate all spending bills, as well as all tax bills. Our country is ill-served when the voters concentrate their attention and energies on the presidential beauty contest, while ignoring the races where real differences can be made.
PLACE NEW RESTRICTIONS ON VOTING
Given that the Constitution grants no actual right to vote in federal elections, I would move immediately to set qualifications for those who do want to head to the polls on Election Day. Bear in mind, under my new plan the highest federal office the people could vote for would be congressman. Those who wanted to make their voices known on who should represent them in the U.S. Senate would have to deal with their legislative candidates at home.
MAKE THE TAXPAYER’S ADDENDUM A REQUIRED ADDITION TO EVERY LAW
I actually managed to have a bill establishing the Taxpayer’s Addendum introduced in Georgia’s General Assembly years ago.
It went nowhere.
But such details are unlikely to stop a guy like me. So I’ll take the improbable event of my election to bring this concept to the federal government.
It’s a simple provision: Every time a congressman or senator co-sponsors a spending bill, he would be obliged to affix his signature to an addendum reading:
I, ______________________, in sponsoring/co-sponsoring this bill, do hereby affirm that I believe it is more important that the United States federal government seize the money appropriated herein from the taxpayers to fund this bill, than to allow the taxpayers who actually earned this money to retain it for their own needs.
After all, every time a member of Congress votes to spend one dollar of federal funds, that member effectively states that the federal government has a greater need for that money than did the person who earned it.
When Congress approved that half-million dollars for the restoration of Lawrence Welk’s birthplace, for instance, the members who supported the appropriation were telling taxpayers that this restoration was more important than anything they could have spent that money on—including paying their bills, saving for the down payment on a house, putting their children in private school, booking a family vacation, or anything else.
If a member of Congress cannot sign this simple statement, he should simply refuse to sponsor the bill, or vote against it.
ENACT SEVERE RESTRICTIONS ON THE USE OF EMINENT DOMAIN
No society based on freedom and economic liberty has ever survived once that society began to ignore the property rights of individuals.
But apparently that little history lesson has escaped our friends in the judicial branch of government. In the 2005 case of Kelo v. City of New London, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that property rights in America should take a back seat to the needs of politicians and developers.
As things stand now, a developer can approach a local politician and suggest that more tax revenues could be generated from a particular piece of privately held property if the politician would seize that property through eminent domain and turn it over to the developer. The opportunity for increased tax revenues, according to the Supreme Court, amounts to a “public use.”
The people of this country have made it abundantly clear that they’re not at all happy with this ruling—or with eminent domain abuse in general. The politicians, on the other hand, love it.
I would move immediately to remove any federal funding from any state or local government that willingly participates in eminent domain abuse of this kind.
END ASSET FORFEITURES WITHOUT DUE PROCESS
Property rights are human rights. Property has no rights. Humans have a right to property. Property should not be taken away from citizens without due process of law.
Several years ago there was a gentleman in Memphis, Tennessee, who made a few extra bucks every year selling plants at a local gas station. Every spring the routine was the same. The man would take several thousand dollars in cash and head for the Memphis airport. There he would buy a one-way ticket to Mobile, Alabama. When he arrived in Mobile he would rent a truck and use the cash to fill that truck up with all sorts of nice green plants. He would then drive overnight back to Memphis to set up shop at the gas station. Every year he made several thousand dollars doing this.
One year, the agent who sold him his ticket at the Memphis airport became suspicious. Here was a man buying a one-way ticket to the Gulf Coast with cash. Hmmmmmm. The police were notified, the man questioned. He consented to a search. They found his money and confiscated it.
He was not charged with a crime. He was not arrested. They just took his money, on the assumption that it was going to be used to buy drugs.
This kind of highway robbery has also been approved by the Supreme Court. By now, I assume you aren’t all that shocked.
When questioned about such behavior, police and their defenders will offer the ridiculous explanation that they’re engaging in no due process rights. Why? Because they aren’t taking action against the individual, but against the cash. If the man wants his cash back, they say, let him sue the government and prove he wasn’t going to do anything illegal with it.
If this doesn’t amount to being found guilty without due process, I don’t know what does.
Put me in office, and I’ll bring such federal asset forfeiture actions to an end.
GET THE UNITED STATES OUT OF THE UNITED NATIONS
You know where I stand: Since its formation, the United Nations has been an essentially anti-American institution. It’s a club that petty, tinhorn dictators from around the world use to slam the greatest country this world has ever had the privilege to host. We pay most of the bills and take most of the heat.
This has to end.
I would propose that the United States give the UN an eviction notice. They should be given five years to vacate their East River digs and move elsewhere.
Beyond that, a suggestion: Perhaps the world community would like to seize Haiti and give it to the United Nations? If the UN would like to prove its value as a peacekeeping body, perhaps it would like to begin by moving into that international basket case of a nation and giving it the old college try.
FORM A NEW LEAGUE OF FREEDOM
I do recognize that the world needs some kind of international forum for the resolution of disputes and for addressing problems facing the international community.
I would propose, therefore, an agency to replace the United Nations. As soon as the UN moves out of its headquarters, the new International League of Freedom should move in. This new international organization would be modeled loosely after the UN, but with one key difference: Its membership would be restricted to nations whose governments are elected by the people in free and open elections, and where a certain set of rights, modeled after our Constitution’s Bill of Rights, are protected.
PRIVATIZE SOCIAL SECURITY
Anyone who doubts that contemporary Americans actually fear freedom need look no further than the debate over Social Security privatization.
Social Security is not a retirement plan. It is an income redistribution plan designed to buy votes. If any private entrepreneur in any state in the nation were to devise a savings, disability, and investment program modeled after Social Security, he would be arrested and prosecuted for felony fraud.
The federal government should not promote a scam that would constitute a crime if promoted by a private company.
Instead, I would propose that Social Security be converted to a system of privately held accounts. The people who earned this money should not be forced to donate it to a sham retirement program that does more to rob them and their heirs of their hard-earned money then it does to pave the way to a comfortable retirement. I would also propose that during the transition period all current Social Security benefits to retirees and to those soon-to-retire be guaranteed by law.
STRENGTHEN OUR BORDER PROTECTIONS
I would expand the mission of the Coast Guard to protect all borders, on land and on sea. Further, I would fund the expanded mission of the Coast Guard with money saved from the end of the war on drugs.
The invasion of illegal immigrants into our workforce must be stopped—now.
I would also propose a system that would give American employers unable to find enough legal residents to staff their workplaces the opportunity to import guest workers from other countries. These workers would be required to have guest worker permits that can only be issued in their home countries. When brought to America for their temporary work assignments, they would be paid by closely regulated employment agencies hired by the employers. No direct payments of any kind could be made by the employer to the employees. All pay would go through the agency. The employer and/or the agency would be responsible for assisting the guest worker in finding temporary housing.
Once a guest worker’s employment period ended, he would be provided transportation back to his country.
Sanctions against employers who employed, housed and paid guest workers or illegal aliens outside of the agency system would be punitive.
START A NETWORK OF ECONOMIC REFUGEE CAMPS
All federal subsidies for welfare housing would cease, as would various other social service and welfare programs for the so-called “poor.”
In the place of these programs, we would establish a chain of economic refugee zones on abandoned military bases. There would be no gates to keep people in, or to keep them out.
Any person in this country who finds himself unable to cope, to feed or clothe himself, or to deal with his drug or alcohol addiction could report to or ask to be transported to one of these “Opportunity Zones.” There they would be provided with a place to live, food to eat, health care, and the basic necessities of life. They would also receive job training, drug or alcohol rehabilitation, and other forms of counseling. There would also be a wide range of job placement services available.
Once the individual felt prepared to work and to provide for himself, he would receive a small sum of cash and be transported to the city of his choice.
RIDES ON AIR FORCE ONE
Every time I flew somewhere for a speech or official visit, we would give an ordinary taxpaying American citizen the opportunity to grab a friend and ride along on Air Force One. We could choose them by location and lottery. It’s the greatest private jet out there—and the taxpayers paid for it. They ought to get a chance to use it!
(Notice I said citizen.)
OKAY, I’M EXHAUSTED
If you want any more out of me you’re going to have to give me a second term.
As self-aggrandizing as this chapter may have sounded, there was a method to my madness. I wanted to set forth an election agenda that would excite the passions of our more thoughtful, open-minded voters, and do the country some genuine good—regardless of which poor sap tried to use it as a genuine springboard to office.
Because any candidate who tried would never be elected. Not in this country, anyway.
Oh, well. We can dream, can’t we?