Its an unfortunate fact that the majority of Americans do not take the time or do not make the effort to analyse and understand what government is or is not doing and the impact that these actions have on their daily lives. In part this is because we are all too busy with our daily lives to have the time that it takes to analyse and understand what government is doing to us and it does require a lot of time; it's not easy. We've elected people and pay people to look after our interest. But are they looking after our interest or are they more interested in their own position of power and increasing that power. Over the years, the government; the elected officials and the bureaucracies that they have created, have intentionally tried to make government a mystery to the vast majority of its citizens. Hence the title of this essay. It is clear to me that apparently it is too much to ask of government to be transparent and honest with the American people.
What changes would make government more transparent and honest? I have some ideas.
The first change that I would recommend is to take the Federal Reserve System out of the hands of the private investment bankers and adsorb it as the fourth branch of government. Their is no reason on God's green earth that the United States should have to buy their money from the now privately owned Fed. As it is , the Fed is not responsible to anyone, their actions are secret, and they can not even be audited. The new Fed, as the fourth branch of government, would need to be independent of the President and of the Legislature; but unlike the Supreme Court, they would be responsible to the people. I suggest an elected board of directors; one from each state. The Board would be charged with hiring and firing the management of the Fed. The Board would meet no more than once a month to review and approve the Fed¡s actions. Whenever the economy had grown to the point that additional dollars were needed in circulation, the Board would review and approve the Fed's recommendation; the new dollars would then be spent into circulation by the Legislature on projects for the benefit of the people and the President would retain veto power over the Legislature. Board members would serve for a maximum of four years with half the seats being elected every two years. Similar to a State of the Union address, the president of the Fed would make an annual report to a joint session of both Houses and the President.
The second change I would recommend is giving the President the power of line item veto. This way there would be only one person responsible if hidden pork legislation is passed into law or in spending appropriations bills. It is incredible how much crap our Congressmen and Senators try to hide from us.
The third change I would recommend has to do with hidden taxes. Take for example something simple like gasoline. Do you know when you drive up to the pump what the price of the gasoline is per gallon and what the tax is per gallon. When you ask for a receipt, it should show how much your paying for the product and how much your paying in taxes. All sales and excise taxes should be clearly stated on every receipt. This thought leads me to my principle recommendation on taxes. I suggest that the only tax that any government can demand of it's citizens is a sales tax because sales taxes are the most visible and transparent of all taxes. What I'm saying is that all income taxes should be abolished and all business and corporate taxes should be abolished as well. Why would I want to do away with business and corporate taxes? Because businesses and corporations don't pay taxes; but instead act as an unpaid tax collection agency for the Federal government. The cost of these taxes and the cost they incur in complying with the tax laws are reflected in the price of the goods and/or services that they sell to us. We the People pay these hidden taxes every time we buy a good or a service. Imagine if businesses and corporations didn't pay taxes how much cheaper everything would be. That just might spur investment and job growth like nothing ever did before. Imagine, also, If government at every level, but especially the Federal government, had to come up with a sales tax to cover 100% of the of their cost, what an eye opener that would be to the voting public. If every sales receipt was required to show an itemized tally of the price of the product or service, the local sales tax, the state sales tax, and the federal sales tax, we would finally know what we were paying for government services an we could better determine if we thought we were getting our moneys worth and if not , maybe we would get off our duffs and do something about it.
So these are my three recommendations for making government ant taxes more transparent. In and of themselves they don't make government more honest but with the far greater transparency, maybe we can do a better job of keeping them honest. Surely people smarter than me can come up other ways to improve government and make for a more economically sound future for all of us.
Enough said.
Sense or nonsense?
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