Our Top 38 Political Agenda

(A series of modest proposals)

"The art of politics is to make the impossible, possible."

Critical-
1. To re-instill an atmosphere of peace and tranquility throughout the land.

2. To enforce all of the laws uniformly on all Americans and to provide sufficient means for legal redress of grievances.

3. To strengthen and train our law enforcement officers and our military to adapt to 21st century realities.

4. To bring known conspirators, traitors, and criminal leaders to justice.

5. To stop all forms of domestic, foreign, and international terrorism.

6. To abolish all forms of sex trafficking, human trafficking, and child labor in the United States.

National-Government
7. To reform all governments- (RE: Government Streamlining, Accountability, Cost-Efficiencies, & Performance Metrics)

a. Governments can and should adopt the practices and policies of the private business sector to the extent feasible. This includes the concepts and techniques of marketing, sales, customer service, advertising, human resources, inventory control, property management, capital (long-term) planning and budgeting, finance, and investments.

b. All too often individual agencies have overlapping responsibilities, entrenched bureaucrats, and underutilized employees. For this reason, similar agencies must be combined, intransigent agency heads must be replaced, and redundant employees let go.

c. A market analysis and cost-benefit study must be conducted before the roll-out of a government funded program; and throughout the life of the program customer satisfaction surveys must be done. Programs where demand has dramatically shrunk, when the satisfaction and expectations of the program's participants are not being met, or when the costs far exceed the benefits will either be redesigned or scrapped.

1) Every effort will be made to transition the participants of a defunded program to a comparable funded program.

d. Performance metrics for all departments, divisions, agencies, bureaus, and staff can and should be implemented. Even the most esoteric social services program can be evaluated against a set of performance metrics. Annual, semi-annual, or quarterly performance reviews can and should be completed by and for all departments, divisions, agencies, bureaus, and employees by the immediate overseeing supervisor. This measure of accountability will be applied to the lowest grade worker up to the Cabinet level. All government workers, including political appointees, can and will be fired if they fail 3 performance reviews in a year.

e. A short formal appeal process is available to terminated employees; small awards, bonuses, promotions, or public service commendations will be given to employees who outperform and exceed all performance review criterion.

f. All outdated laws and regulations will be voided.

g. Taskforces, work groups etc., with limited goals and objectives will be sun-stetted upon the completion of their goals.

h. Outdated, worn, scrapped, or abandoned property and equipment must be disposed of in the private market at a reasonable price. All old, outdated, or buggy computers, servers, I.T. equipment, software, and accessories must be replaced by the newest or next newest equipment or software. This system-wide replacement and upgrading of government equipment will be awarded to the top 2-3 U.S. manufacturers on a competitive bid basis.

1) Inasmuch the government is a non-profit entity, and cannot show a profit perse, practices and procedures geared toward saving money, cutting costs, exercising fiscal responsibility, and returning money to the Treasury are not precluded. For this reason, policies aimed at repairing, recycling, reusing, saving time, money, and energy shall be encouraged. Practices, procedures, and measures of cost-controls, precise budget analysis, inventory control, and assessing the effective life-span of the product will be followed.

8. To balance the budget as realistically as possible.

9. To pay down the national debt as realistically as possible.

10. To amend the tax code so that everyone pays the same percentage of gross income.

11. To promote the idea of "customer user fees" wherever and whenever feasible, practical, and reasonable.

12. To phase out Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare slowly gradually and methodically over a 10-20-year period and replace them with self-directed or employer directed government backed securities with fixed incomes, premiums, payments, etc. Heath Savings Accounts, etc. can and should be used in place of Medicare premiums.

13. To merge/combine all federal retirement plans, programs, and agencies into one Federal Retirement Agency. This will include military, civil service, foreign service, railroad workers, forest service, public health service and other federal retirement programs for specific groups of people.

Areas of Major Spending-
14. To develop a cost-effective and honest health care system.

a. A sizable health care regulatory agency must be established with enforcement powers to curtail the widespread abuse and dishonesty prevalent throughout the current health care systems

1) The major problem of health care systems, past and present, is the proclivity of all of its participants (including doctors and patients) to lie, exaggerate, and embellish the facts.

2) No system can survive and succeed when most people involved are dishonest.

15. To reform the criminal justice system including the police, courts, prisons, parole, probation, related law enforcement agencies, hospitals, and other related facilities.

16. To provide Affordable Housing to those who cannot easily purchase a home. The exact placement, size, composition, style, and location for the construction of affordable housing will be left to the local community to decide. To provide low-cost equitable loans to married couples qualifying as first time home buyers.

17. To rebuild the nation's infrastructure including freeways, highways, truck routes, bridges, tunnels, canals, ports, waterways, airports, water systems, dams, railroads, the electric power grid, all public buildings, and to provide for the development of public transport.

18. To relocate the residents of pre-WWII public housing into temporary housing, demolish all dilapidated public housing, and build new sustainable medium quality public housing for all poor and low-income families.

International Relations & Foreign Policy-
19. To assure friend and foe alike on the international scene that we will not interfere in the domestic affairs of another country. We will honor all existing treaties and agreements if they are in our best interest to do so. Treaties, agreements, that are not in the best interest of the United States &/or put the United States at a severe disadvantage, will at the appropriate time, be opened for renegotiation or annulment.

a. Treaties, agreements, codicils etc., which came into being by Executive Order and without the consent of Congress will be reviewed, voided, or sent to Congress for formal adoption.

20. To promote, support, encourage the concept of a territorial imperative. In furtherance of this we hold that the individual sovereignty of each nation-state is inviolate and of a high order.

a. We will respect, protect, and enforce the concept of national borders, boundaries, and demarcation lines.

21. To work with multi-lateral, regional, and international organizations for the maintenance and defense of an interdependent world order. This type of world order is founded on the laws of each nation-state as well as a series of international laws that stipulate the rights and responsibilities of each of the actors. In place of direct foreign aid, we will donate/contribute funds, supplies, people, equipment, and services to other countries on an as need basis and through IGOs and NGOs. In addition to promoting the principle of a fair open democracy based on a popular vote for elected officials whenever and wherever reasonable and practical, we will support genuine efforts to alleviate hunger, disease, poverty, abuse, and the aftereffects of disaster throughout the world.

a. Since this is primarily a description of a political world order, it does not directly address the international economic scene or the advance of global trade. We assert that the responsibility for the economic well-being of each and every nation state lies within its own economy and will be managed by its own national government. On the one hand, large multinational corporations, financial institutions, strategic alliances etc., can and do affect the economy of nation-states; but on the other hand, we must guard against the unwarranted encroachment of private businesses into other country's domestic affairs. We recommend that if a company or business has a major and direct effect on a foreign country's economy, then it should also have a lawful and abiding interest in its culture, morays, and customs.

1) While the U.S. government can act as an intermediary in resolving international political and economic disputes, and enforces applicable U.S. Customs regulations, it will not interfere with the local laws, practices, or customs of other nation-states.

National-Political Reform
22. To create rules of conduct and ethics for all prospective candidates. A thorough background check will be conducted before each political party's national convention of all of the finalists including criminal civil, financial, and political improprieties. Candidates will be forbidden to accept funds or make pledges/agreements with foreign governments, agencies, parties, or businesses before, during, or after their campaigning.

a. Prospective candidates with a proven long-term track record of unsavory or criminal behavior will be barred from running for public office.

b. Muck-racking, rumor mongering, candidate character assassination, the bribing or cajoling of a "witness" cannot and will not be tolerated. Unsubstantiated stories that are published under the guise of factual reporting will be prohibited. Individuals, companies, or organizations that create, publish, or disseminate prejudicial reports/articles will be fined or sentenced up to 20 years in prison. In short, publishing damaging and false news is a crime.

c. A moratorium/blackout period on presidential coverage will be put into effect on the news media 48 hours prior to election day.

d. Every effort will be made to improve the accuracy, time involved, and the efficiency of tabulating voters' ballots throughout the country.

23. To impede, curtail, restrict the influences of special interest groups, lobby groups, and PACs of all kinds in the nation and states' political processes. A procedure will be developed that puts lobbyists, etc., at arm's length from elected officials.

24. To overturn Citizen's United.

Services & Programs-
25. To promote and fund technical training at the high school and secondary school level.

26. In view of enormous unemployment, underemployment, part-time, seasonal, and temporarily employed population; trends that leave most Americans scrapping by, we will curtail current immigration as much as possible. All current immigrants will be afforded a pathway to citizenship &/or an opportunity to repatriate to the home country. Any employer who knowingly and willingly hires illegal immigrants will be sentenced to 8 years in jail. We will not deport illegal immigrants unless they have committed a crime within the past two years.

27. To explore and develop all forms of energy with an emphasis on developing the local energy sources that best fit the resources and needs of the local community, city, or state.

28. To address poverty, crime, hunger, homelessness, and sickness in a wise, impartial, and humane manner.

29. To address unhealthy and counterproductive demographic trends in the United States.

30. To listen carefully to the American people, seek the guidance and wisdom of the Almighty, and to closely consider the desire outcome, its implications and repercussions before making a policy decision. To achieve a balance in all areas of public life.

Education, Media, & Internet-
31. We are now in an era of overwhelming news and information, and the public can no longer discern fact from fiction. In view of the explosion of media outlets, on-line and print commentaries and the reprehensible behavior of many journalists, bloggers, reporters, columnists, and commentators we will begin monitoring and censuring those individuals and organizations that falsify, distort, lie, and manufacture rumors and wild speculation. This will be done by an impartial panel of journalistic experts trained in ethics and the laws governing Free Speech.

a. The current high level of distrust and animosity of the American people is/has been exacerbated by blatantly irresponsible news reportage and commentary.

b. Since the bedrock of our American democracy is an informed and enlightened public, this rule is endangered when the public is misinformed, confused, and misunderstanding.

c. Barring any strict enforceable code of ethics from the industry the government must set policy expectations for all those employed in the field and punish those who distort the truth.

32. To establish an Internet Enforcement Agency to investigate and bring charges against individuals, agencies, foreign governments, or businesses that engage in cyber-crime, child porn, identity theft in addition to a dozen other internet crimes. The IEA will work in conjunction with law enforcement, the intelligence community, and the military to track down and apprehend national and international cyber-criminals. In addition, the IEA will work with them to detect, monitor, and thwart spying, surveillance, hacking, and denial of service by foreign governments, their agents, or private parties. Finally, the IEA will work with private industry to monitor, track, and apprehend individuals and companies responsible for malware, viruses, and other unwarranted applications or fixes installed within computers that are intrusive, harmful, annoying, and mischievous.

33. Educational Reform-To encourage, promote, support, and fund conservative teachers, researchers, and academians in the nation's high schools, colleges, and universities. Publicly funded schools must achieve a balance between liberal-minded and conservative-minded teachers, professors, faculty, and senior administrative staff whenever possible. Presently, about 90% of all those employed in the field of education are of a liberal mind. Qualified but conservative minded candidates have been barred from employment through a selective recruiting process. This has led to a less than objective approach to all subject matter.

34. To rewrite all current textbooks- In conjunction with the prevalence of liberal left-wing academians, we've observed that most of the textbooks written in the last thirty years have taken a clearly contrarian view of society, both here in the United States and globally. Theories, studies, reports, and the fundamental assumptions of life eschew the positive, rational, or healthy precepts of humanity instead they reveal a distasteful, drab, and pessimistic approach to their subject matter. As if to throw off or reject hundreds of years of thought and study, the authors of college texts in use today adhere to a dogmatic philosophy of socialism, feminism, revolution, secularism, and liberation. By teaching such a narrow-minded ideological perspective, the student is deprived of a truly liberal education when he/she is allowed to wonder and ponder all of the possibilities. Perhaps, theories in general have outlived their usefulness, but in either case, students who are unable to see the pros and the cons to every argument cannot be well-balanced and reasonable thinkers. For example, almost every textbook in the broad range of social sciences emphasizes racial and economic inequality as the primary problem of life. Subsequently, the student is indoctrinated to the radical concepts of white male privilege, hidden discrimination, sexism, and a host of suddenly discovered phobias. The student is then persuaded that all of society's problems can quickly and completely be eliminated through violent revolution. It would be much to their alarm to find out that there have always been social problems of one type or another. In our opinion, there can be no wisdom but only foolishness and danger in this unenlightened and evil pedagogy.

a. Professors, teachers, researchers, or other employed in the field of education who distort or under report the facts, falsify their research data, teach, publish, or promote a patently misleading book, study, report, or publication will be severely disciplined. Barring an enforceable code of ethics by educational authorities, the government will censure, fine, and/or void the academician's credentials when they knowingly and willingly distort the truth.

35. To hold teachers accountable, perform performance reviews, and terminate teachers who consistently show poor academic achievement of their students over 2 � years.

Minor-
36. To abolish the predatory practices of time-share re-sellers or brokers. All time share owners must be given the opportunity to sell or forfeit his/her time share unit back to the management company with agreeable terms.

Other- Constitutional Amendment(s)-
37. To reestablish the connection between religion and state. A government devoid of all moral, ethical, spiritual, or religious principles and beliefs does not have a firm foundation; no guiding light, and consequentially is immoral and baseless. However, there shall be no official state religion. Matters of great weight shall be discussed openly but in a somber tone and a consensus of the entire body must prevail.

a. Each citizen has the right to adhere to the religion of their own choosing providing such religious practice does not interfere with the religious rights of others, and is not treasonous, criminal, barbaric, or satanic. No one will be forced, coerced, bullied, threatened, or ridiculed to adopt a religion not of their own choosing.

b. A dispute over the infringement of a religious practice will be resolved in a court of law providing the jurors and court officials are trained in resolving religious disputes equitably.

c. Within the public arena, politicians and elected officials shall not attempt to evangelize but merely state the core belief or principle at stake. A polite, civil, and mannerly discourse shall follow and the stronger most constructive argument shall prevail.

d. We believe that most major religions contain similar moral precepts, hence from a public policy perspective, disagreements over major religious principles should not happen.

e. Government(s) shall not promulgate rules for religious worship or in any way restrict the expression of sound healthy religious beliefs. Only broad religious concepts can be applied to broad areas of public policy.

f. If legislators, public policy makers, and those involved in enforcing the law do not feel qualified or are unable to intelligently articulate their own religious beliefs in addition to understanding the beliefs and concepts of other religions, the above item shall be struck in its entirety.

38. To seek fair, reasonable, realistic, and balanced compromises on: a) gun control, b) pro-life vs. pro-choice, c) climate change, d) nuclear proliferation and arms control.

In lieu of the great uncertainty over President-elect Trump's future policies, we've developed this short list of action items for others to contemplate and voice their opinion to appropriate elected officials. Call or write your elected representative with your thoughts on these issues.



 By William Holm



Article Source: Our Top 38 Political Agenda