Refelections on a special day.

I awakened yesterday as a sixty-year old man.  In my youth I would have considered that quite old and near the end of the road.  But as of yesterday, and today, I find it quite middle aged and lacking any real significance other than I can go to certain buffets and eat at a discounted price. Oh yeah, and then there are all those AARP mailing I keep getting and how they are representing my needs in Washington.

The best way to represent my needs in our nation’s capital is to get rid of everyone there. (See at 60, I can sound like a Tea Partier, too.)  But, I had the pleasure of listening to Tom Coburn, the Republican Senator from Oklahoma – not a state that I have agreed with much lately on anything  and Tom’s party affiliation made me very cautious, because I don’t trust Republicans these days…at least not since Barry Goldwater – but Coburn has  a new book out called The Debt Bomb and in it he makes some very powerful arguments that we need to cut spending and raise taxes to avert a national calamity. Remember he has an R after his name.  An elephant.  The GOP.  And he is saying the same things a lot of us have been saying. On TV he proclaimed that the GOP has been standing in the way of much needed changes.  He also said that the Democrats haven’t been much help either. He is right on both points.

It is time in America that the political parties sit down and iron out a plan for Social Security, for Medicare and for a debt reduction that gets this country solvent again.

Here are some ideas that might help. I’ve had 60 years to think about these.

Everybody pay 22% tax. A flat tax until the debt is paid down. Then it would go down to 17%.  Everybody.  No deductions.  No loopholes.  No kidding. (This isn’t class warfare…it would apply to every wage earner in America.)

No wars without tax dollars to pay for them. Ever again.

Medicare needs to have its own tax and revenue that is not borrowed from by Congress to pay for other things. And people coming into Medicare in the next 22 years could have a savings plan cover their needs supplemented by the government, until Medicare is solvent again. We might want to consider raising Medicare and social Security entry age to say 68-70.

The same is true with social security. LEAVE THE SS REVENUES ALONE, CONGRESS.

Now the really tough part.  Over the next ten years, the federal government has to decrease it size by 20%. Real decrease. In people, buildings, and costs.

The Pentagon must decrease spending and not increase it.  It has to start spending money wisely.  How many fighter aircraft programs do we need at any one time?

Foreign Aid should (along with our soldiers) come home. We aren’t buying friends…so why waist the money?

Let’s cut real waste at home, too.

Let’s start with the bloated Homeland Security Department. We can cut it by 20% today if we just would.  It is that overstaffed and overlapping in operations.

Every piece of legislation must be revenue neutral or must include provisions for paying for itself.  Every one.

           

The SEC should be shut down and its role turned over to the FBI and Justice Department.

Every member of the House should be limited to three terms and every Senator to two terms. Lifetime achievement awards are for Hollywood, not Washington. The President should have one, six-year term. (And his/her Vice President cannot follow directly into the White House.)

Here’s a biggie:  Supreme Court Justices should serve seven years and that’s it. Period.  Their appointment process could stay on track as it is now ABA gives qualified names to the President who submits his choice to the Seante, but they need to be staggered every four years.

These are just some starter thoughts. Things to help turn the tide of spending around and make our government and our country run smarter again.

And finally, just as the Senator from Oklahoma did: let’s make the discourse civil again. We can begin by taking away the broadcast license of Fox News and MSNBC. There…it just got a lot quieter.