With the 2008 election year kicking off this past week, I present to you my own party platform. If you like what you are about to read, perhaps you could donate to my presidential campaign for 2016. If you don’t like what you are about to read, then you may be living in the wrong country.

Individual Responsibility

First and foremost, I am a firm believer in individual responsibility. Somewhere along the way, that concept has become lost on the citizens of this country. Many Americans preach to others about their freedoms but don’t truly love everything that comes with liberty. They only love it when everything is going their way. People look to the government at all levels to make decisions for them, to provide personal services for them, and to be a crutch when their will to endure freedom has been broken. When was it decided that we should give up our freedom to make bad decisions, deal with the consequences, and learn from our mistakes?

One of the reasons our government has become so powerful is the forfeiting of individual responsibility by our citizenry. Americans are so caught up in doing what’s easy and time saving, that they would rather let politicians make important life decisions for them. They assume politicians know better and would never steer them wrong on any issue. Why do we give so much power to these people to control our everyday lives? Is it the fancy title that accompanies their name? Politicians are no different than any ordinary citizen, they just happened to win an election. People need to have enough respect for themselves to make their own decisions and live with the results. It’s all part of living in a free society.

States’ Rights & Senators

In 1913, the 17th Amendment to our Constitution was ratified by the States of our Union. Whether they were intended or not, the consequences have been significant. State governments no longer have representation in our federal government. Senators are elected by the residents of their State instead of the State legislature and now act according to the demands of their constituents. They no longer represent their State’s constitutional laws, so instead of having a House of Representatives and a Senate, we have two Houses of Representatives who cast votes on federal laws without any consideration of the individual or collective State governments.

State matters should be decided by State laws. Our federal government constantly infringes on States’ rights. The citizens of the individual States and the legislatures of those States are supposed to hold a majority of the power, not the federal government. By abolishing the 17th Amendment, we can bring the balance of power back to the States. Senators should be elected by the State governments and they should be in Washington D.C. representing the laws of their State. Foreign countries have more representation in our nation’s capital than our own States and their constitutions.

Taxation & Spending

Our system of taxation is severely flawed. It negatively impacts our economy and the welfare of our population. A progressive or graduated income tax happens to be a prerequisite for Marxist communism. The 16th Amendment to our Constitution needs to be repealed. I believe the FairTax is the best solution for tax reform. It eliminates many federal taxes, including the income tax, and replaces them with a sales tax. It will help to take power away from the federal government and give it back to the people and the States.

Spending by the federal government is out of control. Our federal government currently spends about $2.5 trillion annually and will undoubtedly continue to increase. Our national treasury should not be used for funding anything other than federal needs, i.e. national defense and security, interstate highways, national parks and monuments. The citizens of any particular State or local municipality should not have their tax dollars taken from them by force and spent on individuals or municipalities of another State, unless it funds one of the major federal programs. The federal budget should never be more than 10% of our nation’s gross domestic product.

Social Programs

As previously stated, our citizenry is grossly overtaxed and our federal government overspends its revenues. This is largely due to our multitude of social programs. Lyndon B. Johnson had noble intentions when he introduced his Great Society, as did Franklin Roosevelt with his New Deal, but many of the policies and programs have either failed or are unsustainable. Most of them should never have been introduced or implemented. It is not the responsibility of government, especially at the federal level, to provide retirement, healthcare, welfare, or any other monetary support based on individual needs. Today these programs drain over half of our annual budget.

Federal, state, or local taxes should not be collected from one individual and given to another in any form of financial support. It is not the duty of the government to financially support those who make bad decisions or use poor judgment. If an individual needs support because of economic shortcomings outside of their influence, such as natural disasters, they should turn to charities or non-profit organizations. Being a victim of a hurricane does not entitle you to someone else’s confiscated tax dollars.

Government Education

The quality of education in our country continues to decline despite the fact that spending on education has increased. There are several reasons for this and in large part it is because education is under the control of our federal government. That needs to change. The Department of Education needs to be abolished and the decisions for educating our children need to be left in the hands of the people closest to the matter – parents and their local governments. Localized control and funding of education needs to be the ultimate goal of any government education program. Preferably, education should be left to private entrepreneurs where quality and competition would be seminal factors that could influence excellence in education. Let the free market work for education just as it does for any other service or product.

Another major problem with government education is the teachers’ unions. Quite frankly, the teachers work for the local citizens that pay property taxes, which in turn pay their salaries. In essence, the teachers are paid by the parents of the children that they are supposed to educate. (This is how it works in private schools as well.) If teachers decide that they are not being paid enough, then it should be a matter for the local citizenry to vote on. Teachers should not be allowed to strike, threaten a strike, or avoid being terminated based on closed-door deals with anyone other than the parents in the local community. Teachers are salaried every year with confiscated tax dollars paid by everyone in the local school district and the service provided should not be interrupted for any reason without the consent of the taxpayers.

If education is not privatized, control should be handed over to local municipalities and teacher unions ought to be abolished.

Immigration

As we all know, immigration was once a vital aspect for the growth of our prosperous nation. Our constantly expanding frontiers and our industrialized society demanded vast amounts of bodies to fill work boots and critical vacancies in developing our national infrastructure and economy. Those needs have slowed over the past century. Our demand for any skilled immigrants has become a demand for specifically skilled ones. Our ever-changing economy has gradually but steadily transformed from a largely manufacturing-based industry to a more service-based industry. In order to sustain wages and high levels of employment, we can no longer allow great influxes of immigrants into our society. We cannot provide anyone with the opportunity of prosperity and happiness if our market is flooded with workers competing for a limited number of jobs.

The same reasons hold true when discussing the problems with illegal immigration. Nobody in this country illegally ought to have access to any type of privilege or benefit guaranteed to citizens of this country. This includes employment, health care, education, Social Security, welfare, housing, banking, voting, and our judicial system. Illegal aliens put a fiscal strain on all levels of government and artificially deflate wages in markets that would otherwise provide decent salaries for lower and middle-class workers. Our borders need to be fully secured and anyone knowingly hiring illegal aliens for any job ought to be severely punished. Furthermore, birthright citizenship should not be extended to the children of illegal aliens.

If these policies are adhered to at all levels of government, illegal aliens would have no reason to enter our country and the ones already here would have no choice but to leave on their own.

National Defense & Security

Providing for the common defense of the United States was one of the key principles laid out in the Preamble to our Constitution. The best way to ensure that our freedoms and liberties are protected is to ensure that we have the best means of protecting ourselves from any viable threat, foreign or domestic. In order to do this, we must have the most advanced, well-equipped, and highly-trained military force on Earth. With real threats to our national security on the horizon from all regions of the globe, we must be capable of protecting our nation from any and all possible scenarios. We need human intelligence to accurately predict these threats as well as physical protection should one of them become an imminent reality.

Feasible threats to our national security from international leaders or militant groups should be treated with the utmost sensitivity and responded to in a swift and forceful manner to prevent any prolonged diplomacy that will provide time for the enemy to organize any meaningful opposition. Any nation that formulates military hostility towards the United States or harbors organizations that explicitly threaten or attack United States facilities or citizens, will be immediately denied any foreign aid and - according to the severity of the aggression - may be subject to military retaliation.

Energy Independence

Increasing oil prices and instability within the nations that comprise the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has undoubtedly had a negative effect on our economy. We need to become far less energy-dependent on these nations. The United States has an abundance of energy resources in Alaska, off both coastlines including the Gulf of Mexico, and along the Rocky Mountains, as well as many other smaller regions. There is no reason why these areas cannot be used for our own gas and petroleum needs. Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) alone will double our daily supply of oil from Alaska.

In addition to recovering our own domestic oil and gas, we also need to begin construction of modern nuclear power plants. Nuclear energy provides approximately 70% of our “clean” energy, but only 20% of our total energy output. Nuclear energy is the best solution to reducing carbon emissions and becoming less dependent on carbon-based energy sources. In combination with domestic drilling for oil and natural gas, we need to convert many of our old power grids to rely on safer, modern nuclear energy production.

Family & Other Social Issues

The role of the federal government is not to involve itself in family matters. Our government should not confer special benefits or privileges to people who make personal or family decisions and deny them to other individuals who make different choices. This includes giving tax breaks for married couples and tax deductions for children. Having a larger family does not mean you should have a smaller tax burden. In any case, with the implementation of the FairTax, tax breaks and deductions would become a moot point.

With the elimination of government involvement in the family unit, there cannot be claims to civil rights for couples who are not legally married. Marriage would be returned to the realm of families and of the Church and government influence over religious definitions would cease. No amendments would be needed to define what marriage is because marriage would no longer be co-opted by the government.

Laws concerning abortion should be left up to the States and the citizens that comprise them - it is not an issue for a judge, or a panel of judges to decide. However, abortion should definitely not be a substitute for other preventive contraception.

The “war on drugs” is a failed endeavor and ought to be pragmatically re-examined. Our local, state, and federal governments spend over $50 billion annually fighting this “war” with no significant reduction in the demand or use of drugs. Alternative, reasonable solutions ought to be suggested and thoroughly vetted until a cost-effective program can be implemented. Crime that stems from the black market of the drug trade is a direct result of our past and current drug policies. We ought to learn from the lessons of Prohibition and devise a logical and rational policy that addresses all aspects of drug use, abuse, and the black market that perpetuates violent crime and creates multi-millionaires out of law-breakers.

Additional Thoughts

I hope this has been insightful for many of you who may not have known me or my ideas of government. If there are any other issues that you are interested in and that I have not addressed, please feel free to comment on them and I may add them to my list. This is by no means a complete list of my thoughts on government, nor is it an absolute decree which can never be tweaked or adjusted according to my level of knowledge or understanding about these topics. I would like to think that what I have written is logically sound and factually correct, but I have been wrong before…once. Let me know what you agree or disagree with and why. I am open to criticism and enjoy a healthy debate. Just try to stay on topic.