If I Were Calling the Shots

I don’t often get political in this place, but the current political climate has had me thinking quite a bit lately. What would I do if I were in charge? I don’t actually desire the job for one moment, but if it were thrown at me here’s what I’d do:

• Plan on only serving for four years. Two terms for a guy like me wouldn’t even be in the picture.
• Flat tax. Everyone pays an equal percentage of around 17-19%. That’s way less than what I’m paying now, but the surprising thing is that if this were in place and we did away with deductions and loopholes, we’d have way more revenue. The current tax code is in the neighborhood of 60,000 pages. Mine would be one page that reads, “Every citizen of working age who makes more than $5000.00 per year will pay 18% of their total earnings to the federal government. There shall be no loopholes, no deductions no exceptions, and no amendments made to this tax code ever.”
• Let companies that deserve to die just die. The only companies that are worth saving is our auto industry. Let the rest of them flounder. The auto industry keeps our military going by making the armored cars and tanks and such. We can’t afford to lose them.
• No more pork. I will absolutely refuse to sign bills with pork and I will publicly name the people who put pork onto bills.
• There would be energy independence. I would pull all of the federal governments research dollars to go toward making sure we are energy independent in 15 years. And no one gets their research money back until it is accomplished. Alternative energy must be taken seriously and given a real moon shot.

That’s all I can think of right now. I’m sure I could think of more. Disagree? Let me know.

[UPDATE 4.22.2009] My friend, Mike Lauer, who is an accountant has corrected my tax policy. Apparently the way I would set things up means that I would actually pay more taxes than I do now. Again, a demonstration of how complicated this problem really is. So in my administration, Mike would be in my cabinet to keep me straight on taxes.