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Jan. 14, 2021 - Epoch Times
11:32
How to 'Drain the Swamp' in 7 Steps | Larry Elder
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President Trump famously promised to drain the swamp.
Here's the problem.
Government is the swamp.
You see, the founding fathers had no clue the government would ever get to be this big and become this intrusive.
So I offer seven steps to truly drain the swamp.
Step number one.
Raise money to settle our debt and to set aside money for unfunded liabilities.
How?
Sell or lease land.
The federal government owns about 700 million acres, more than one-fourth of all the land in the country.
The proceeds from sales, mortgages, leases, will fund our current and near-term liabilities, and with other changes, will completely eliminate our debt.
Sell or contract out government enterprises, including but not limited to Amtrak, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Hoover and Bonneville dams, the operation of the post office, and government-run nuclear and other power plants.
Number two, reduce the size and scope Eliminate, privatize, outsource, or sell slash lease many federal activities.
These include the aforementioned Amtrak and Tennessee Valley Authority.
These also include the Federal Student Aid Grant and Loan Program, public housing, The FDA, OSHA, the Departments of Energy, Education, and HUD, the EPA, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and the National Institutes of Health and the Federal Housing Administration, all of which could be done by the private sector.
Repeal laws that violate the principles of federalism, such as wage and hour laws, federal minimum wage, the Clean Air Act, the Americans with Disability Act, equal pay laws, the Davis-Bacon Act mandating prevailing union wages for those working under federal contracts, and all federal anti-discrimination laws that apply to the private sector.
Reform the three major entitlements, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Grandfather workers 55 years of age or older into existing Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid plans.
Offer those under 55 the option of setting up private savings accounts in lieu of the current Social Security system.
To replace Medicare, offer those under 55 the option of putting away tax-free money into a health savings account.
One can buy, as you do with car insurance, a policy with a high deductible for catastrophic care.
Other medical needs will be paid for out of the health savings account.
Such an insurance policy would be cheap, and when people pay directly, not via a third party for their medical needs, there are better shoppers and providers would have to compete to provide quality, affordable care.
Change the law to give businesses write-offs, but in many cases not you, for health insurance.
People don't get car insurance or homeowner's insurance through their employers.
Why get health insurance via their employers?
Giving individuals the same deductibility that businesses do would end the portability problem that occurs when people lose or change jobs.
Grandfather everyone currently on Medicaid and then admit no more people and end the program at the federal level.
Federal charity is not allowed by the Constitution and it should be left to the states and the private and non-profit sectors.
Number four, taxes.
Eliminate income, corporate, capital gains, dividend, and estate taxes.
Given the reduced size of government, the limited duties of the federal government as described in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution would be funded as the Founding Fathers intended with duties and tariffs.
Number five, immigration laws.
Our immigration laws are designed to benefit us, America and Americans, not to benefit immigrants, however sympathetic their circumstances may be.
Harvard economist George Borjas has done more work on the impact of legal and illegal immigration maybe than anyone else.
And he says there's no question that illegal immigration hurts urban unskilled workers.
If we want a bigger economic pie because of immigration, some people lose, mainly the workers, and some people gain, mainly the employers.
The immigrants gain a lot, too.
So to choose an immigration policy, you're really making a decision about how much you care about natives as compared to immigrants, and how much you care about this particular group of natives versus that particular group of natives.
The Commission has concluded that a properly regulated system of legal immigration is in the national interest of the United States.
The Commission recommends significant redefinition of priorities and reallocation of admission numbers to fulfill more effectively the objectives of our immigration system.
Now, to be specific, the immigration recommends a tripartite immigration policy that permits the entry of nuclear family members, professional and skilled workers, and refugees.
We propose core immigration levels of 550,000 per year.
The Commission emphasizes nuclear family.
We recommend As a priority, the closest family members, spouses and minor children of citizens of legal immigrants and parents of citizens are admitted as expeditiously as possible.
I urge the Congress to adopt tough policies needed to verify employment authorization.
What the Commission is concerned about are the unskilled workers in our society, in an age in which unskilled workers have far too few opportunities open to them.
When immigrants are less well educated and less skilled, They may pose economic hardships for the most vulnerable of Americans, particularly those who are unemployed or underemployed.
And the Commission sees no justification to the continued entry of unskilled foreign workers unless the rationale for their admission otherwise serves a significant national interest, as does the admission of nuclear family members and refugees.
One more note about immigration.
Why is it that if you come to America illegally, have a child, that child becomes an American citizen?
This country has been good to illegal immigrants.
You have been given jobs, houses, tax money, free tax money, welfare, social security.
They opened a business for you guys, et cetera.
None of, no, I don't know of any of these agents who have been hung in front of a tree.
I don't know any of them legal aliens who have dogs been sicked on.
So that's very offensive for you to sit up here and allow these people to say that and get away with it thinking people are going to feel sorry for them.
That's very offensive.
Okay?
Do the right thing.
My people get three strikes.
I have a nephew in jail now.
22 years for something he didn't do.
My people commit a crime, they go to jail.
You people commit a crime, they get out of the state.
We should amend the Constitution to deny citizenship to children of illegal aliens.
America, unlike most other industrial nations, grants citizenship to children of illegal aliens simply because they were born on American soil.
The Fourteenth Amendment has been interpreted three times by our Supreme Court to say that if you were born in the United States, even if you were here in a legal status, if your parents were here in a legal status, you're automatically entitled to citizenship.
There are a lot of people who come to this country for the very purpose of having a child.
Some break our law by coming across the border in our border states to go to American hospitals to have a child so that child will become a citizen, having an anchor to the country.
There are other people, rich people mainly, from the Mideast and Asia who come to America on tourist visas for the purpose of having a child in an American resort with a hospital to gain citizenship.
I think those two ways of conferring citizenship really undermine the value of citizenship.
So I think that's not an unreasonable request in a prospective fashion to change the 14th Amendment by allowing the Congress to set rules on citizenship.
The Fourteenth Amendment was meant only to confer citizenship on newly freed slaves, not on illegal aliens.
But since some say the Supreme Court has ruled otherwise, the Constitution must be changed to make it clear that children of illegal aliens are not citizens.
The borders must be closed.
We need to put the appropriate mix of border agents, fencing, and other messes to stop illegal aliens from entering, whether from the North or the South.
Mandate E-Verify for all workers.
We should require all illegal aliens to register with the feds and deport those convicted of serious crimes beyond illegal entry and beyond using fraudulent documents to obtain work.
But they should not get citizenship.
Number 6.
Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution limits, restricts the government, as mentioned earlier, to a handful of duties and responsibilities.
Everything else should be eliminated.
Amend the Constitution to overturn Supreme Court decisions that prohibit states from denying free education and medical benefits, including emergency benefits to illegal aliens.
Our military exists for our own national security.
Europe and Japan can and should defend themselves.
End all non-defense foreign aid, including contributions to the International Monetary Fund and to the World Bank.
Finally, number seven.
Pass an amendment to the Constitution that restricts government spending to a fixed percentage of GDP. I would propose something like 10%.
Most people want it higher, but I think 10% is more than enough, with exceptions for war and for natural disasters.
Finally, this president warned us about what happens when you have a costly, intrusive, inefficient federal government.
You know, there's a ten-year delay in the Soviet Union of delivery of an automobile.
And you go through quite a process when you're ready to buy, and then you put up the money in advance.
This man, he laid down his money, and then the fellow that was in charge said to him, Okay, come back in ten years and get your car.
And he said, Morning or afternoon?
And...
And the fellow behind the counter said, well, ten years from now, what difference does it make?
And he said, well, the plumber's coming in the morning.
I'm Larry Elder, and we've got a country to save.
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