Ideas
to Save
1.
Line Item Vote
Richard Salbato, 3 - 15 -
2010
I
am now confident that Constitutional Freedom Loving Americans will win back
most of the House and Senate this November, and if we do the right things
quickly we will completely take over in November of 2012. However, we must not be complacent and work
hard for the next two and a half years.
We
must also come up with radical Ideas
that can turn this economy around and put everyone back to work. If we swallow the lie by Democrats and
Republicans that we will not increase the National Debt, we will fail because
it is already unsustainable. If we
promise to not raise Taxes, we will fail because our tax is already too high for
growth at 52% of GDP.
We
must reduce the debt to Zero, and the size of State and Federal Governments by
another 50% immediately, down to 26% of GDP and then finally to 20% of GDP as
soon as possible - which is the National average up to 1960 when all Federal,
State and county governments started to grow out of control.
If
we Freedom Loving Americans do not have real ideas (not slogans) we will not
win this war. I have read the long list
of what the Tea Party people want of their candidates and these are all great
but they do not spell out how this gets done.
I will write ideas for Social Security, Medical, Medicare, DC spending,
Unconstitutional Departments of Government, Unconstitutional Union Contracts,
Worthless Government Departments, New Science that would change Government
costs, Reducing Education costs by 50% and making it better, Improving our
Military with less cost, Election Funding and Costs, Revamping Court System,
Cutting cost of Criminal Detention System, Fraud in all government programs,
term limits, and on and on. But let us start with one idea that would affect
all the above.
Line
Item Vote
Voters
and Presidents have tried to get a line item veto for Presidents for the past
40 years, but Congressmen refused to give up this power to one person. To understand Congressional Power, you must
understand how congress works and why it has a 13% approval rating. Where those 13% of stupid people come from, I
do not know. To understand congress you
have to read the rules and regulations that have evolved over the past 100
years. Then you have to spend time
watching C-Span and actually see Congress work. It will make you sick.
It
starts with the stupidity of how bills get to the floor so that someone can
vote on it. Then hours of speeches are
allowed before a vote can be made. Then
everyone has to come to the floor to vote, even if they have to fly in from
their own state, or be carried in from a hospital bed.
The
leadership of the house or senate decides what bill can be voted on and when it
is ready to be voted on. In the case of this coming 2,400 page Health Care
bill, it will be voted on in the house before anyone has a chance to read it or
even before it is priced so that voters know what it will cost. That is because Pelosi will bring it to the
floor when she knows she has the votes and will not take a chance that someone
will change their mind at the last minute.
She also knows it they read the full 2,400 page bill they will not vote
for it.
Although
they do allow speakers from both sides to speak on the floor for equal time,
and we watch them spout off on C-Span, these talks are meaningless and a
useless waist of time. What C-Span does
not show on TV is that during these speeches no one is in the house or senate
to listen to them.
Because
of the huge and time consuming way of voting on any bill, over the years bills
have gone from single bills to the so-called “COMPREHENSIVE BILLS”. Then comprehensive bills have evolved into
the methods for congressman to be bribed by special interest groups and huge
government expansion. “Comprehensive
Bills” is the number one problem of the expansion of government size, fraud and
corruption.
Now let us look at a typical bill before
congress. Let us take the least
controversial bill, the funding of the
military budget. Each year when they vote on this it is a big deal because
it is 4% of the total federal budget each year. Each branch of the military
submits its needs and wants and all this is compiled into one bill that
congressmen can vote for or against.
Included
in the last military budget was hundreds of millions of dollars for cargo
transit aircraft that the military did not want. They were included because
these were made by companies in congressmen’s districts and these companies
paid millions of dollars to campaign treasuries.
Included
also was millions for clean up of
Now
let us look at the yearly federal budget that this year went 1,700,000,000,000
over budget (just one year). Congressmen
cannot say, I agree with this but not that; they can only vote yes or no. Not even the congressmen have any idea where
this money is going even if they did read the bill and no one could ever read
it. Included in this bill are 60 year
old departments of the government that no longer do anything but have
continuous funding simply because no one pays any attention to them.
Would
51 Senators vote for Farm Subsidies that pays farmers for not growing
something, if it was not part of a larger bill that they have to vote for or
the government stops all together? Think
about the so-called transparency that Obama promised on the latest Health Care
Bill. He posted 40 pages of explanations
of what the bill says and expects us to believe this is the truth of the 1,400
pages. The fact is that there are things
in this bill that have nothing to with health care but instead with School
Loans.
I
was and still am against the bail out of the banks, but if each and every item
of spending was voted on separately, it might not have all the fraud it has now.
I
was and still am against the Trillion Dollar Stimulus Plan but if the spending
was voted on idem by idem it might have helped the economy. Instead we read everyday of the fraud.
Objections to
the Line Item Vote
The
first objection to the line item vote is that congressmen would spend all their
time voting in the system we have now.
That is true. We have to change
the system of voting. Why do Congressmen
and Senators have to go to the floor to vote and why are there time limits for
votes?
With
modern technology they can vote from anywhere in the world on their lap top or
cell phone and this can be tamper proof.
Why is there a time limit for voting?
What is the difference if you vote today and I vote tomorrow? A week to vote on simple items or a month on
complex ones is more reasonable. Why
would former Senator Kennedy have to be carried into the Senate to vote on
something, when he could have voted from his hospital bed?
This
would evolve over time to something I am passionate about, and that is getting
congress out of
The
next objection is that every idea by any congressmen would have to be voted on
so that amendments would not be needed.
This is true but it would require 51 votes and if 51 people did not
bother to read and vote yes on it, it would not pass and become law.
The
next objection is that less and less legislation would pass and that is true
but would be good.
Their
biggest objection is something they will never say out loud and it is the
special favors they add into bills for their states or their campaign
financers, businesses or unions. Only
two senators would vote for a bridge to nowhere in
This
one idea would eliminate most campaign finance fraud, special interests and
stupid spending.
Best
of all, congressmen would have to read each and every item of the budget and be
accountable to voters for how they voted.
I can imagine a town hall meeting where someone asks his Senator:
“You
voted for continuing funding for the Department of French Relations. What does that department do?”
“Ah,
I have no idea.”
“You
voted for continuing funding for the Department of Energy. It was founded in
1977 TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL.
It costs us $24.2 Billion a year with 16,000 Federal Employees plus
100,000 Contract Employees. Our
dependence on foreign oil has gone up every year since. What is this department doing? Why did you vote to continue it and even
increase its budget?”
“I
don’t know what they do.”
Accountability
Only
with the line item vote can we hold them accountable for their votes. Without the line item vote they say: “I did
not like that item but I had to vote for it because of the other things.”
Richard
Salbato