Congress should
- abolish all obviously unconstitutional bureaucracies
- abolish all arguably constitutional bureaucracies
When Southwest Missouri's Congressman was first elected in 1996, the
Republican Party National Platform promised to change the direction
of Washington D.C. from a socialist one to a capitalist one:
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As a first
step in reforming government, we support elimination of the
Departments of Commerce,
Housing and Urban
Development, Education,
and Energy, and
the elimination, defunding or privatization of agencies which
are obsolete, redundant, of limited value, or too regional in
focus. Examples of agencies we seek to defund or to privatize
are the National
Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the
Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the
Legal Services Corporation.
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The National Endowment
for the Arts was notorious for its subsidizing of anti-Christian, pornographic
“art,” including “art” which featured a figure of Jesus
Christ submerged in a container of the "artist’s" urine.
These programs mock the idea of "Liberty Under
God," and undermine the very heart and soul of America.
But not only have these
wasteful, unconstitutional, harmful bureaucracies not been abolished,
they are all dramatically bigger than they were before Republicans took
control of Congress. The Department of Education, as an example, now has
a budget twice as big as it was under Bill Clinton.
These were good
promises. They should have been made -- and they should have been kept.
They should have been
made because Republicans took an oath to "support the
Constitution." None of these agencies have any constitutional
justification. Everyone who signed the Constitution would be outraged at
their very existence, even if they weren't so wasteful and unAmerican.
Southwest Missouri needs a Congressman who will
follow the Constitution and restore "Liberty
Under God."
We need a Congressman who will remember these basic features of the
Constitution:
The following cabinet-level bureaucracies should be
abolished, and the following order would be acceptable.
- Department of Education
- Department of Energy
- Department of Agriculture
- Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
- Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
- Department of Transportation (DOT)
- Department of Commerce
- Department of Labor (DOL)
- Department of the Interior (DOI)
- Department of Veterans Affairs
- Department of Justice (DOJ) - Attorney
General
- Department of State (DOS)
- Department of Defense
- Department of the Treasury
A vote for Kevin Craig is not a vote to have these all disappear in
the next two years. Politics is a tug-of-war. Most
members of Congress are tugging in the direction of bigger budgets, not
total abolition of the agency. If the libertarian agenda were subjected
to "bipartisan compromise," it might go step-by-step, as
outlined here. Obviously the last four or five
departments will be the last to go, and will probably not be abolished
for several decades in the future. America would be more prosperous and
admired without them.
Cabinet Rank Members
These Cabinet-level agencies should also be abolished:
- There are many other bureaucracies that should be abolished, such as
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They are:
| Boards,
Commissions and Committees |
Boards,
Commissions and Committees are created by Congress in the form
of an amendment to an existing act, to advise the President and
Congress on specific topics.
|
| Quasi-Official
Agencies |
Quasi-Official
Agencies are not officially Executive Agencies but are required
by statute to publish certain information on their programs and
activities in the Federal Register.
|
It is clearly not likely that this will all be accomplished if voters
elect Kevin Craig to a 2-year term in Congress. Most members of Congress
would call this agenda "radical," "impractical,"
"unrealistic," or even "crackpot." (These same
Congressmen agree that students in government-run schools should
not be told that the Declaration of Independence is really true. And of course there's nothing "crackpot" about amassing over $100 Trillion in unfunded promises.)
However, if voters massively oppose the coercive redistribution of
wealth, some members of Congress might be shamed into making compromises
with their statist religion, and move us a little closer to "Liberty Under God." The following
"bipartisan compromises" might be expected if enough voters
begin rejecting the Republicrat-Demoblican agenda:
Before taking office, each member of the 112th Congress should be
required to
- read the Constitution
- read the remarks from the Framers of the Constitution found on
this page:
The 112th Congress should:
- live up to its constitutional obligations and cease the practice
of delegating legislative powers to administrative agencies—legislation
should be passed by Congress, not by unelected administration
officials;
- before voting on any proposed act, ask whether that exercise of
power is authorized by the Constitution, which enumerates the powers
of Congress;
- exercise its constitutional authority to approve only those
appointees to federal judgeships who will take seriously the
constitutional limitations on the powers of both the states and the
federal government; and
- pass and send to the states for their approval a constitutional
amendment limiting senators to two terms in office and
representatives to three terms, in order to return the legislature
to citizen legislators.
The 112th Congress should:
- encourage constitutional debate in the nation by engaging in
constitutional debate in Congress, as was urged by the House
Constitutional Caucus during the 104th Congress;
- enact nothing without first consulting the Constitution for proper
authority and then debating that question on the floors of the House
and Senate;
- move toward restoring constitutional government by carefully
returning power wrongly taken over the years from the states and the
people; and
- reject the nomination of judicial candidates who do not appreciate
that the Constitution is a document of delegated, enumerated, and
thus limited powers.
The 112th Congress should:
- cut federal spending from 21 percent to 16 percent of gross
domestic product over 10 years, as detailed in
this chapter;
- terminate, privatize, or transfer to state governments more than
100 programs and agencies, including those involved in agriculture,
education, housing, and transportation;
- reform Social Security by cutting the growth in government
benefits and adding a system of private accounts;
- cut Medicare spending growth and move toward a health care system
based on individual savings and choice;
- convert Medicaid into a block grant and freeze federal spending;
and
- impose a statutory cap on the annual growth in total federal
outlays.
5. Fiscal Federalism
The 112th Congress should:
- begin terminating the more than 800 federal grant programs that
provide state and local governments with about $500 billion annually
in subsidies for education, housing, community development, and
other nonfederal activities;
- convert Medicaid from an open-ended matching grant to a block
grant, as a first step toward downsizing this massive health subsidy
program; and
- end federal highway and transit funding and repeal the federal
gasoline tax that finances these programs.
Federal Aid: Theory vs. Reality
- 1. Grants spur wasteful spending.
- 2. Aid allocation is haphazard.
- 3. Grants reduce state policy diversity.
- 4. Grant regulations breed bureaucracy.
- 5. Grants cause policymaking overload.
- 6. Grants make government responsibilities unclear.
- 7. Common problems are not always national priorities.
The 112th Congress should:
- end subsidies to passenger rail and privatize Amtrak, which would
allow the company to innovate, invest, and terminate unprofitable
routes;
- privatize the U.S. Postal Service and repeal restrictions on
competitive mail delivery;
- privatize the air traffic control system;
- help privatize the nation’s airports, while ending federal
subsidies;
- help privatize the nation’s seaports;
- privatize federal electricity utilities, including the Tennessee
Valley Authority and the Power Marketing Administrations;
- privatize portions of the Army Corps of Engineers, such as
hydroelectric dams, and transfer the remaining civilian activities
to state governments; and
- sell excess federal assets, including buildings, land, and
inventory.
The 112th Congress should:
- require all “lawmaking” regulations to be affirmatively
approved by Congress and signed into law by the president, as the
Constitution requires for all laws; and
- establish a mechanism to force the legislative consideration of
existing regulations during the reauthorization process.
Each member of The 112th Congress should:
- pledge to be a citizen legislator by limiting his or her time in
office to no more than three additional terms in the House of
Representatives and no more than two additional terms in the Senate,
and
- keep that pledge.
Term Limits for Committee Chairs
The 112th Congress should:
- repeal the prohibition on soft money fundraising in the Bipartisan
Campaign Reform Act of 2002,
- repeal the provisions of BCRA related to electioneering
communications,
- eliminate taxpayer funding of presidential campaigns and reject new
proposals for such funding of congressional campaigns,
- repeal limits on spending coordinated between a political party and
its candidates and
- reject proposals to mandate electoral advertising paid for by the
owners of the television networks.
The 112th Congress should:
- cease trying to shirk its constitutional responsibilities in matters
of war and peace,
- insist that hostilities not be initiated by the executive branch
unless and until Congress has authorized such action,
- rediscover the power of the purse as a means of restricting the
executive’s ability to wage unnecessary wars, and
- reform the War Powers Resolution to make it an effective vehicle for
restricting unilateral war making by the president.
State legislatures should
- enact punitive damages reforms,
- eliminate joint and several liability,
- require government to pay all legal costs if it loses a civil case,
and
- illegalize contingency fees paid by government to private attorneys.
The 112th Congress should:
- constrain courts’ long-arm jurisdiction over out-of-state
defendants,
- enact a federal choice-of-law rule for multistate litigants in
product liability cases, and
- implement multistate class-action reforms.
The 112th Congress should:
- establish, in all parts of Medicare, premiums proportionate to
lifetime earnings;
- allow seniors to opt out of Medicare completely, without losing
Social Security benefits;
- give Medicare enrollees a means-tested, risk-adjusted voucher with
which they may purchase the health plan of their choice;
- limit the growth of Medicare vouchers to the level of inflation;
- allow workers to save their Medicare taxes in a personal,
inheritable account dedicated to retirement health expenses; and
- fund any “transition costs” by reducing other government
spending, not by raising taxes.
13. Medicaid and SCHIP
State legislators should
- deregulate health care and health insurance, and
- demand that the federal government grant them flexibility, not
additional funds, to administer their Medicaid and SCHIP
programs.
The 112th Congress should:
- reform Medicare and the tax treatment of health insurance,
- deregulate health care and health insurance,
- eliminate any federal entitlement to Medicaid or SCHIP benefits,
- freeze each state’s Medicaid and SCHIP funding at 2009 levels,
- give states total flexibility to use Medicaid and SCHIP funds to
achieve a few broad goals, and
- eventually phase out all federal funding of Medicaid and SCHIP.
14. The Tax Treatment of Health Care
State legislators should
- avoid creating special tax breaks for health insurance and medical
care, and
- eliminate existing tax breaks for health insurance and medical care
while reducing the overall tax burden.
The 112th Congress should:
- avoid refundable tax credits and other tax reforms that would create
new categories of government spending;
- replace all existing health-related tax breaks with a tax break for
“large” health savings accounts; and
- subsequently eliminate all tax breaks and reduce tax rates, by
moving to a tax system that is neutral toward medical care and other
forms of consumption.
State governments should
- eliminate licensing of medical professionals or, as a preliminary
step, recognize licenses issued by other states;
- eliminate “corporate-practice-of-medicine” laws;
- eliminate “certificate-of-need” laws; and
- enforce private contracts that include medical malpractice reforms.
The 112th Congress should:
- eliminate states’ ability to use licensing laws as a barrier to
entry by medical professionals licensed by other states,
- eliminate the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s efficacy
requirement for new drugs, and
- reject federal medical malpractice reforms.
16. Health Insurance Regulation
State legislators should
- eliminate licensing of health insurance or, as a preliminary step,
recognize insurance products licensed by other states.
The 112th Congress should:
- eliminate states’ ability to use licensing laws as a barrier to
trade with out-of-state insurers, and
- relinquish any role as an insurance regulator.
The 112th Congress should:
- allow workers to privately invest at least half their Social
Security payroll taxes through individual accounts.
Simple Rules for Reform
- Solvency Is Not Enough
- Size Matters
- There Is No Free Lunch
The 112th Congress should:
- phase down and terminate crop subsidies, a process that was supposed
to begin with passage of the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act;
- move farmers toward the use of market-based insurance and other
financial instruments to protect against adverse prices and weather
events;
- eliminate federal controls that create producer cartels in such
markets as dairy and sugar; and
- eliminate trade protections on agricultural goods while working
through the World Trade Organization to pursue liberalization in
global markets.
Policymakers should
- adopt a grand strategy of restraint, which means avoiding
state-building missions and eliminating most U.S. defense alliances;
- redeploy troops in Iraq, South Korea, Europe, and Japan to the
United States, lessening the requirement for U.S. forces and allowing
reductions in force structure;
- cut the size of the army to 25–30 brigades and cancel the Future
Combat Systems;
- reduce the size of the Marine Corps to two division equivalents and
cancel the Marine Corps Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program and
V-22 Osprey;
- reduce the navy to 200 ships by cutting the number of carrier battle
groups to eight, naval air wings to nine, and expeditionary strike
groups to six; and cancel the littoral combat ship program and the
DDG-1000 destroyer program;
- eliminate six fighter air wing equivalents, thereby limiting the air
force’s procurement of fighters;
- eliminate roughly one-third of the Pentagon’s civilian workforce
and identify jobs now done by military personnel that can be done by
civilians, who cost less and remain in their jobs longer; and
- cut the nuclear weapons arsenal to 1,000 warheads based on 8
ballistic nuclear missile submarines (rather than 14), and reduce the
number of intercontinental ballistic missiles to 100–200.
The 112th Congress should:
- recognize that its education programs have proved incapable of
achieving their stated goals;
- understand that its failed education programs have cost American
taxpayers $1.85 trillion since 1965; and
- phase out all its K–12 education programs over three years,
resulting in a $70 billion per year tax cut for the American people.
The 112th Congress should:
- phase out federal student aid;
- phase out federal aid to institutions;
- eliminate all grant programs and research unrelated to national
security;
- end pork: require that all federal grants to universities be
competitively bid; and
- continue to prohibit the U.S. Department of Education from requiring
school “outcome measures.”
The 112th Congress should:
- turn Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into fully private organizations,
subject to scrutiny by the Securities and Exchange Commission, as it
did for Sallie Mae in 1995; and
- reject any proposals to give the Department of Housing and Urban
Development, the Environmental Protection Agency, or other agencies
regulatory authority over land use in order to promote environmental
or other social goals.
State legislators should
- repeal any growth-management laws or other legislation, and refrain
from passing new legislation, that give cities authority over land
uses of rural areas.
The 112th Congress should:
- privatize the lands held by the Forest Service and the U.S.
Department of the Interior; or, failing that,
- reform the public land agencies by turning individual forests,
parks, refuges, and Bureau of Land Management districts, or
combinations of those units, into fiduciary trusts;
- allow those trusts to charge a broad range of user fees at market
rates;
- fund the trusts exclusively out of a share of those user fees;
- dedicate some or all of the remaining user fees to special
stewardship trusts whose goal is to maximize the nonmarket,
stewardship values of the land; and
- reform the Endangered Species Act to provide compensation for
private landowners for protecting wildlife habitat and to allow
privatization of some wildlife to promote recovery efforts.
The 112th Congress should:
- eliminate federal highway, transit, and other surface transportation
programs; and
- devolve to the states and local areas full responsibility for
highways and transit.
Failing that, The 112th Congress should:
- fund state highways in block grants based on each state’s land
area, population, and road mileage;
- fund regional transit in block grants based on each metropolitan
area’s population and transit fare revenues;
- eliminate any conditions on the use of those funds, such as air
pollution mandates or requirements for long-range planning;
- eliminate “flexible funds,” that is, funds that can be spent on
either highways or transit;
- encourage states and local areas to rely more heavily on user fees
to fund all forms of transportation; and
- ensure that any efforts to save energy or reduce greenhouse gas
emissions are cost-effective, that is, that state and local
governments only invest in projects that can be shown to reduce energy
consumption or greenhouse gas emissions at a lower cost than
alternative projects.
The 112th Congress should:
- eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts,
- eliminate the National Endowment for the Humanities, and
- defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The 112th Congress should:
- end programs that provide direct grants to businesses;
- end spending that indirectly subsidizes businesses, such as
preferential loans and assistance for exporting;
- eliminate trade and regulatory barriers that favor some businesses
at the expense of other businesses and consumers;
- eliminate earmarking in spending bills and subject all spending
projects—assuming that they are legitimate federal activities—to
expert review and competitive bidding;
- expand financial transparency with further Internet disclosures of
spending details for proposed and enacted bills; and
- downsize the federal government by terminating programs, reviving
federalism, and privatizing activities.
The 112th Congress should:
- stop authorizing secret subpoenas, secret arrests, and secret
regulations; and
- repeal the Military Commissions Act and close the Guantanamo prison.
Say No to the Surveillance State
- Secret Subpoenas
- Secret Arrests
- Secret Regulations
Revamp President Bush’s Prisoner Policies
- Detention
- Treatment
- Trials
28. Electronic Surveillance
The 112th Congress should:
- repeal the FISA Amendments Act of 2008;
- conduct a thorough, public investigation of executive branch
surveillance activities over the last three decades;
- require individualized warrants for all eavesdropping conducted on
U.S. soil unless both ends of a communication are known to be
overseas;
- require prior judicial approval of all domestic intercepts, allowing
a 72-hour grace period for emergency foreign intelligence intercepts;
- require that foreign intelligence be the purpose of all FISA
intercepts and prohibit coordination between law enforcement and
intelligence officials in the choice of FISA eavesdropping targets;
and
- reverse the Federal Communications Commission’s decisions
extending the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act to
broadband and Internet telephony providers.
Congress and state leaders should
- resist the establishment of a national identification card and
national identification system,
- defund and repeal the REAL ID Act,
- abandon the E-Verify national immigration background system, and
- encourage the development and acceptance of private identification
systems.
The 112th Congress should:
- resist the urge to regulate offensive content on the Web,
- allow the market to address privacy and security concerns,
- let technical solutions have the primary role in suppressing spam
and spyware,
- formally disavow authority over the management of Internet
addressing,
- reject preemptive regulation of radio frequency identification
technology, and
- decline to compel Internet retailers to collect out-of-state sales
taxes.
The 112th Congress should:
- compel Washington, D.C., to abide by the principles established in
the Heller decision;
- repeal the federal ban on interstate purchases of handguns;
- revoke the federal age minimums on buyers and possessors of
handguns;
- modernize and improve the operations of the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives;
- restore funding to process “relief from disability” applications
to own firearms; and
- rescind the Department of the Interior regulation banning defensive
guns in national parks.
The 112th Congress should:
- enact legislation to abrogate the multistate tobacco settlement, and
- reject proposed legislation to regulate cigarette manufacturing and
advertising.
The 112th Congress should:
- repeal the Controlled Substances Act of 1970,
- repeal the federal mandatory minimum sentences and the federal
sentencing guidelines,
- direct the administration not to interfere with the implementation
of state initiatives that allow for the medical use of marijuana, and
- shut down the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The 112th Congress should:
- enact legislation, to guide federal agencies and to provide notice
by the courts, that outlines the constitutional rights of property
owners under the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause;
- follow the traditional common law in defining “private property,”
“public use,” and “just compensation”;
- treat property taken through regulation the same as property taken
through physical seizure; and
- provide a single forum in which property owners may seek injunctive
relief and just compensation promptly.
Property: The Foundation of All Rights
What Congress Should Do
- Congress Should Enact Legislation That Specifies the Constitutional
Rights of Property Owners under the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause
- Congress Should Follow the Traditional Common Law in Defining “Private
Property,” “Public Use,” and “Just Compensation”
- Congress Should Treat Property Taken through Regulation the Same As
Property Taken through Physical Seizure
- Congress Should Provide a Single Forum in Which Property Owners May
Seek Injunctive Relief and Just Compensation Promptly
The 112th Congress should:
- amend the Federal Reserve Act to make long-run price stability the primary goal of monetary
policy;
- recognize that the Federal Reserve cannot fine-tune the real economy
but can achieve long-run price stability by its control over the
monetary base (currency held by the public plus bank reserves);
- hold the Fed accountable for safeguarding the purchasing power of
the dollar;
- abolish the Exchange Stabilization Fund—the Fed’s role is to
stabilize the domestic
price level, not to peg the foreign exchange value of the
dollar; and
- repeal the tax on privately issued bank notes and allow digital
currency and other substitutes for Federal Reserve notes to emerge, so
that free-market forces can help shape the future of monetary
institutions.
The 112th Congress should::
- amend the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978 to clarify
the congressional guidance on the conduct of monetary policy,
- repeal the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977,
- encourage the Treasury to use its new powers as a conservator of
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to liquidate these firms, and
- repeal the $700 billion bailout legislation.
The 112th Congress should:
- reject network neutrality regulation of the Internet,
- reject à la carte regulation of the cable industry,
- continue the transition to a system of property rights in spectrum,
- discourage the Federal Communications Commission from imposing
non-technical regulations on the use of privately held spectrum,
- deregulate the radio and television industries, and
- end “universal service” and other telecom taxes.
The 112th Congress should:
- establish an “orphan works” defense for copyright infringement,
- shorten the term of copyrights,
- repeal the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act but preserve the “notice and takedown” safe harbor
for Internet service providers,
- reject copy protection mandates such as the “broadcast flag,”
- restore jurisdictional competition in patent law,
- limit forum shopping by plaintiffs in patent cases, and
- establish an “independent invention” defense for patent
infringement.
The 112th Congress should:
- eliminate goals of zero risk in statutes governing occupational and
environmental health, and
- establish the purpose of safety and health agencies as the
identification of opportunities to improve safety and health at costs
that are much less than the market value of the benefits.
The 112th Congress should:
- repeal the Sherman Act of 1890,
- repeal the Clayton Act of 1914,
- repeal the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914,
- repeal the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936,
- repeal the Celler-Kefauver Act of 1950,
- repeal the Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act of 1975,
- repeal the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act of 1976, and
- pending repeal, strip the states’ authority to enforce federal
antitrust laws.
The 112th Congress should:
- extend recent tax rate cuts for individual income, dividends, and
capital gains;
- simplify the individual income tax by installing rates of 15 and 25
percent and repealing virtually all deductions and credits;
- cut the federal corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 15
percent;
- turn Roth individual retirement accounts into all-purpose savings
accounts by liberalizing rules on contributions and withdrawals;
- replace business depreciation with capital expensing;
- take these reforms further by replacing the income tax with a
consumption-based flat tax at 15 percent;
- repeal the individual and corporate alternative minimum taxes; and
- repeal the estate tax.
42. International Tax Competition
The 112th Congress should:
- cut the federal corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 15
percent;
- take steps toward replacing the individual and corporate income
taxes with a low-rate flat tax;
- oppose policies that would make U.S. companies uncompetitive in
global markets, such as raising taxes on foreign subsidiaries; and
- oppose efforts to impose global taxes or limit international tax
competition.
The 112th Congress should:
- open up public lands currently off limits to the oil and gas
industry in the outer continental shelf and the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge for exploration and drilling;
- repeal Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency standards along with all
other energy conservation mandates;
- repeal subsidies for all energy industries, including oil, gas,
coal, nuclear, and renewable energies of all kinds;
- repeal fuel consumption mandates for ethanol and resist prospective
consumption mandates for other renewable energies;
- eliminate all targeted public energy research and development
programs and replace them with a generalized tax credit for private
research and development undertakings;
- transfer the maintenance of the nuclear weapons stockpile from the
Department of Energy to the Department of Defense and privatize the
national laboratories;
- sell the oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and terminate the
program;
- eliminate the Department of Energy and all its programs; and refuse
appeals to impose new taxes and/or regulations on energy producers and
manufacturers.
The 112th Congress should:
- Establish a mechanism by which states can apply for regulatory
waivers from the Environmental Protection Agency in order to allow
states some flexibility in establishing environmental priorities and
to facilitate experiments in innovative regulatory approaches;
- replace the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and
the Toxic Substances Control Act with a consumer products labeling
program under the auspices of the Food and Drug Administration;
- repeal the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act and privatize the cleanup of Superfund sites;
- replace the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act with minimal
standards for discharge into groundwater aquifers;
- eliminate federal subsidies and programs that exacerbate
environmental damage; and
- replace the Endangered Species Act and section 404 of the Clean
Water Act with a federal biological trust fund.
The 112th Congress should:
- pass no legislation restricting emissions of carbon dioxide,
- repeal current ethanol mandates, and
- inform the public about how little climate change would be prevented
by proposed legislation.
Policymakers should
- stop using the misleading phrase “war on terrorism”;
- understand that an aim of terrorism is to elicit overreactions that
damage the victim state as badly or worse than direct attacks;
- focus on disrupting al Qaeda senior leadership’s ability to plan
future terrorist attacks and attract and train new recruits;
- work with foreign governments to apprehend al Qaeda operatives in
other countries, but be prepared to take unilateral action when
foreign governments are unable or unwilling to take action themselves
and when the diplomatic and strategic risks are low; and
- recognize that effective strategies for confronting the threat of
terrorism rarely involve large-scale military action and that the
presence of U.S. ground troops on foreign soil might actually be
counterproductive.
Policymakers should
- focus the federal government’s efforts on the few areas where it
can make a significant contribution to securing the country and
eliminate federal security programs that are better performed by other
levels of government and the private sector;
- make it clearer to the public that government homeland security
efforts cannot make the country absolutely safe against possible
terrorist attacks;
- ensure that homeland security efforts are not disproportionately
focused on defending against the last attack, such as another 9/11 or
the Madrid train bombings, at the expense of other vulnerabilities;
- avoid overreaction or exaggeration of the threat posed by terrorism;
and
- ensure that civil liberties are not sacrificed for unneeded and
ineffective homeland security measures.
48. Strengthening the All-Volunteer Military
Policymakers should
- accelerate the pullout of American troops from Iraq;
- improve recruiting programs and enlistment inducements, especially
for hard-to-fill occupational specialties;
- continue to change the mix between active and reserve forces to
reflect current military commitments, and further reduce the frequency
and length of overseas tours;
- consider creating special reserve units designed for garrison duty;
- fully withdraw U.S. forces from outdated cold war deployments in
Asia and Europe; and
- drop draft registration and eliminate the Selective Service System .
Policymakers should
- withdraw military forces from Iraq by July 1, 2009, leaving behind
only a small number of Special Forces personnel to work with Iraqi
authorities to disrupt any remaining al Qaeda cells in the country;
- encourage Iraq’s neighbors to help contain any post-withdrawal
internecine violence in Iraq;
- view the withdrawal from Iraq as the first step toward ending the
dangerous and intrusive U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf
region; and
- learn the real lesson of the Iraq experience and avoid future
utopian nation-building schemes in the Persian Gulf or any other
region.
Policymakers should
- press for direct diplomacy with the Iranian leadership;
- keep diplomatic aims limited to the Iranian nuclear program;
- evaluate and compose a “Plan B” in the event that diplomacy
fails;
- seek advice from U.S. military leaders about the implications of
military action against Iran;
- educate the public that there is little evidence the Iranian
leadership would use nuclear weapons unprovoked; and
- make clear that the war power rests in the hand of Congress, and
that it is not the prerogative of the president to launch military
action unauthorized.
51. U.S. Policy toward Afghanistan and
Pakistan
Policymakers should
- make the war in Afghanistan a top priority, as Washington’s
insufficient military focus has led directly to the Taliban’s
resurgence in that country’s eastern and southern provinces;
- plan for drawing the military mission in Afghanistan to a close,
including the withdrawal of most U.S. military personnel within a two-
to three-year period;
- develop a comprehensive plan to uproot al Qaeda, Taliban, and other
militant safe havens in the tribal belt of western Pakistan, an area
used by insurgents to infiltrate neighboring Afghanistan and sabotage
U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization operations;
- recognize that large-scale military action in Pakistan’s tribal
areas will further radicalize the region’s indigenous population and
should be deemphasized in favor of low-level clear-and-hold
operations, which employ small numbers of U.S. Special Operations
Forces and Pakistan’s Special Services Group; and
- maintain tighter oversight on the distribution of military aid and
the sale of dual-use weapons systems to Pakistan, especially those
that have limited utility for counterterrorism operations but instead
feed Pakistan’s rivalry with India.
52. U.S. Policy in the Middle East
Policymakers should
- embrace a policy of “constructive disengagement” from the Middle
East by de-emphasizing U.S. alliances in the Middle East, especially
with Saudi Arabia and Israel, and by drawing down the American
military presence in the region;
- recognize that the current round of peace talks between Israel and
Palestine are not expected to yield real results in the short term;
- understand that the Persian Gulf states cannot effectively use the
“oil weapon” against the American economy; and
- avoid taking a leading role in resolving regional conflicts given
that such efforts have produced an anti-American backlash.
Policymakers should
- maintain a policy of maximum economic and diplomatic engagement with
China;
- adopt a hedging strategy regarding China by encouraging other major
powers, especially Japan and India, to play more active security
roles;
- continue attempting to foster closer relations with India;
- acknowledge that while Washington and New Delhi have some common
interests, India is unlikely to become a pliable client state;
- further acknowledge that the U.S.-India nuclear deal has created
additional difficulties in existing nonproliferation institutions;
- cease efforts toward admitting Ukraine and Georgia into the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization;
- recognize that Russia, like most major powers past and present, will
insist on a sphere of influence in its region; and
- seek ways to sustain cooperation with Moscow on important issues and
avoid actions that may trigger a second cold war.
Policymakers should
- terminate, within three years, all defense treaties with South Korea
and the Philippines, and withdraw all American military units from
those countries by that deadline;
- rescind, within three years, the informal commitment to defend
Taiwan ;
- continue the policy of being willing to sell Taiwan conventional
weapon systems;
- withdraw all ground forces from Japan within two years;
- reassess whether to continue stationing any air and naval units in
Japan; and
- immediately commence discussions with Japan about replacing the
U.S.-Japan security treaty with a more informal cooperative security
arrangement.
55. Transatlantic Relations
Policymakers should
- offer no security guarantees nor other implied defense commitments
that they are unable to keep;
- recognize that our allies’ limited capabilities, driven by
demographic and budgetary constraints, but also a lack of political
will, increase the risks and burdens on Americans;
- reorient policy away from the use of military force toward the
attraction of American values and act to recover our lost moral
authority; and
- commit to following the original transatlantic vision proclaimed in
the Atlantic Charter, in particular the focus on reducing armaments as
opposed to perpetuating American hegemony.
56. U.S. Policy in the Balkans
Policymakers should
- support the transfer of peacekeeping duties in Kosovo to the
European Union;
- mandate the withdrawal of all U.S. ground forces from the Balkans by
the end of 2009;
- eliminate foreign aid for nation-building in Bosnia, Kosovo, and
elsewhere in the region;
- allow Serbs within Bosnia to seek greater autonomy or independence;
- suspend recognition of an independent Kosovo and promote genuine
negotiations between Kosovo and Serbia;
- support liberalization of economic relations with and political
liberalization within Serbia, but end meddling in Serbia’s
elections;
- leave developments in the Balkans to the people of the Balkans,
backed by the EU;
- shift responsibility for Balkan security issues to the EU and
individual European nations; and
- establish a future policy of nonintervention in Balkan affairs.
The 112th Congress should:
- repeal the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad, or
Helms-Burton) Act of 1996,
- repeal the Cuban Democracy (Torricelli) Act of 1992,
- restore the policy of granting Cuban refugees political asylum in
the United States,
- eliminate or privatize Radio and TV Marti,
- end all trade sanctions on Cuba and allow U.S. citizens and
companies to visit and establish businesses in Cuba as they see fit,
and
- move toward normalizing diplomatic relations with Cuba.
Policymakers should
- greatly de-emphasize counter-narcotics activities in Afghanistan,
since they undermine America’s much more important struggle against
al Qaeda and the Taliban;
- stop pressuring the government of Mexico to escalate the war on
drugs, since that policy is leading to a dangerous upsurge in violence
that threatens to destabilize the country;
- recognize that the “supply-side” campaign against cocaine and
other drugs from the Andean region has produced few lasting gains, an
inevitable outcome since global demand for such drugs continues to
grow;
- accept the decriminalization and harm-reduction strategies adopted
by the Netherlands, Portugal, and other countries as a better model
for dealing with the problem of drug abuse; and
- move toward abandoning entirely the failed prohibitionist model
regarding drugs.
The 112th Congress should:
- recognize that the relative openness of American markets is an
important source of our economic vitality and that remaining trade
barriers are a drag on growth and prosperity;
- take unilateral action to repeal remaining protectionist policies
and reform the regressive tariff regime;
- reform U.S. antidumping law to limit abuses and conform with U.S.
obligations within the World Trade Organization;
- enact implementing legislation for market-opening trade agreements
and restore trade promotion authority to the executive branch;
- ensure that the costs of physically moving goods into, out of, and
around the United States are not unduly burdensome;
- maintain support for the WTO as a body for negotiating
market-opening agreements and settling disputes;
- reform customs and administrative procedures to make them
transparent, predictable, and frictionless; and
- avoid using trade deficits and concerns about employment levels as
excuses for imposing trade restrictions.
Persistent Myths and Misperceptions about Trade
- Myth: Manufacturing Is in Decline . . . and Trade Is to Blame
- Myth: The Trade Balance Is the Scoreboard
- Myth: Our Trade Partners Cheat
The 112th Congress should:
- expand current legal immigration quotas, especially for
employment-based visas;
- repeal the arbitrary and restrictive cap on H1-B visas for highly
skilled workers;
- create a temporary worker program for lower-skilled workers to meet
long-term labor demand and reduce incentives for illegal immigration;
and
- refocus border-control resources to keep criminals and terrorists
out of the country.
Policymakers should
- unilaterally open the U.S. market to goods from Latin America,
- support the Colombia and Panama Free Trade Agreements,
- end the hemispheric war on drugs, and
- facilitate dollarization for any country that wishes to adopt the
dollar as its national currency.
The 112th Congress should:
- expand the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act by granting tariff- and
quota-free access to all imports from sub-Saharan Africa,
- end U.S. farm subsidies that help undermine African producers and
keep food prices in the United States unnecessarily high,
- forgive sub-Saharan African debt on the condition of ending future
official lending to governments in the region,
- oppose International Monetary Fund and World Bank lending to
sub-Saharan Africa,
- discontinue the U.S. Africa Command that might draw the United
States into more African conflicts and be viewed by Africans as a
neocolonialist venture, and
- impose “smart” sanctions on leaders under strong suspicion of
corruption and human rights abuses.
63. Foreign Aid and Economic Development
The 112th Congress should:
- abolish the U.S. Agency for International Development and end
government-to-government aid programs;
- withdraw from the World Bank and the five regional multilateral
development banks;
- not use foreign aid to encourage or reward market reforms in the
developing world;
- eliminate programs, such as enterprise funds, that provide loans to
the private sector in developing countries and oppose schemes that
guarantee private-sector investments abroad;
- privatize or abolish the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private
Investment Corporation, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, and
other sources of international corporate welfare;
- forgive the debts of heavily indebted countries on the condition
that they receive no further foreign aid; and
- end government support of microenterprise lending and
nongovernmental organizations.
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The
following suggestions are taken from the Cato
Institute in their