But what is the plan of action? In my humble opinion, we need to do the following:
1. Every government agency on the Federal, state and local level should be aggressively audited to look for bureaucratic overlap and agency size bloat and use the audit results to cut the size of government 30% now, with a goal of possibly as high at 70% within 4-5 years. For example, we should merge Social Security, Medicare and other national social programs into a singular Department of Social Services, which means a single-point access for all social services and eliminating a HUGE amount of bureaucracy, saving potentially up to US$500 BILLION per year in governmental costs at the Federal level.
2. Our income tax system needs to head towards the dustbin of history. We need to implement the Steve Forbes flat income tax NOW, and start a transition process that four years from now will repeal the 16th Amendment and phase out the income tax in favor of a national 28% consumption tax on new production goods and services, where 21% goes to the Federal government and 7% goes to the state at the point of purchase--essentially a modified version of the FairTax proposal that replaces income taxation at both Federal and state levels. This means it would encourage American residents to save and invest in the USA completely tax-free.
3. Our financial sector needs to be severely reigned in, given that it was the shenanigans of Wall Street that caused the 1929 and 2008 stock market crashes. The financial sector should operate like this:
a. Require real liquidity backing to trade in hedge funds, derivatives, credit default swaps, etc. or ban them outright as financially too risky.
b. Increase the minimum margin requirements for trading in commodities and stock futures to 20%, with 30% for strategically important items like crude oil, certain petroleum products (unleaded gasoline, diesel fuel and natural gas), certain foodstuffs (corn, oats, rice, soybeans and wheat), certain industrial metals (aluminum, copper, iron, nickel and titanium especially) and precious metals (gold, silver, platinum and palladium). Also, require that the buyer on margin must take delivery on 40% of the product.
c. Re-impose the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act to protect bank assets from the ups and downs of the equities market.
d. Revise the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to make it easier to do corporate initial public offerings (IPO's).
4. We need to start a decade-long process to phase out the Federal Reserve Note fiat currency and replace it with a new asset-backed US dollar, one that has the backing of gold, silver, platinum, palladium, copper and nickel (the most common metals used for coins and bullion blocks used in monetary transactions). An asset-based currency will far less likely lose value, as history has shown.
5. As part of the tax reform I mentioned earlier, this will allow private citizens to create their own financial "nest eggs" for retirement and/or medical bills. This will allow American residents to be weaned off dependence on Social Security and Medicare, which will allow both programs to be downsized in future years, dramatically cutting the cost of government.
6. Create a single national standard for environmental regulation, especially in terms of motor fuel mixes. For example, this will allow oil refineries anywhere in the USA to ship refined motor fuels anywhere in the country, saving many billions in production costs.
7. Repeal Obamacare and replace it with a new, privately-based medical insurance system where insurance companies can sell medical insurance policies over state lines on a regional basis, which will guarantee real price competition for medical plans in essentially every state. Also, impose tort reform for the medical industry, especially requiring the loser of the malpractice case to pay for all court costs; this would immediately cull all the frivolous lawsuits and keep lawsuits that have real merit like proven defective medications.
Implement this seven-point plan and our economy will be essentially booming within one year after the passage of these reforms.
Those are brilliant ideas and solutions!