About the Book: Opening Thoughts of Each Chapter
« Previous Chapter | Next Chapter »
Chapter 6-4: Mending Procedures
From here on out is where generalized philosophy gets translated into the real world.
If we were to just implement the actions noted in the prior chapter, regarding the basics of government, our legislatures, judiciaries, and executives, from that point on we would have a much better and smaller government. But! We would still be stuck with the bloated parasitic obesity from the past 60 years of quasi socialism, in the form of thousands of departments and agencies, which account for 80% of federal spending. Only 20% of federal spending is spent on the essentials of government.
These next chapters discuss how to actually transform this existing bloat into a lean machine. I will demonstrate how we can cut all our governments (federal, state and local), from the current 5 trillion dollars annually (5,000,000,000,000) ($50,000 per household annually) to one trillion dollars annually ($10,000 per household annually as a starting point). That's a three-quarter reduction, and it can be more. You might not want to go that far, or you might want to go further, but at least you'll be making your choices rather than acquiescing to an annual plundering of $50,000 of your family's income. If we really tried, it's likely we could cut it down to $500 billion annually ($5,000 per household).
I want to live in a society where I respect and admire my government, not one where I loathe it. I can't respect it now, and I doubt if you can either. I certainly do respect and admire our founding fathers, even though they did not craft a perfect constitution. In reading the constitution, you get the sense that they knew slavery was wrong, but they were unable to come up with a way to eliminate it and still form the Union. It took a Civil War a century later to formally eliminate slavery, and a civil rights revolution another century later to finally eliminate skin color as a measure of value. Let's hope that our attempt to sever our now metastasized government can be accomplished in two decades rather than two centuries.
We'll start by looking at those functions of government that fulfill government's essential purpose:
To protect us from enemies both foreign and domestic
To resolve conflict within our society.
These fundamental purposes translate into:
• A Justice Department to deal with criminality and to resolve conflict.
• A State Department to maintain civil relations with other societies so that we do not need such a formidable Defense Department.
• A Defense Department and its many ancillaries when civility fails.
• A Treasury Department to collect the tax receipts of the 50 annual invoices and to audit and oversee the dispersal of money.
Beyond these basic functions, all the rest of our bloated government is optional, and their elimination or modification will be discussed in some relationship to their functionality.
• Bureaucracies that are really businesses can be set up as true self-supporting businesses.
• Agencies that would function much better meeting regional needs.
• Museums – libraries – arts institutions that are in reality noble businesses.
• Agencies that regulate health, safety, fiscal, and environmental concerns can be converted into responsibility accepting organizations.
• Agencies that dispense welfare of all kinds.
We're now going to go through the federal budget department by department – and your eyes will not glaze over. To simplify, we'll also interject typical state and local government spending into the appropriate or most similar federal department as appropriate.
Want to read more? BUY THE BOOK!