A Citizen’s Guide to Fixing The Federal Government

The majority of Americans have lost faith in and distrust the federal government. Currently, just 19% of Americans say they can trust the government always or most of the time, among the lowest levels in the past half-century.

What can citizens do to fix the federal government?

fixing federal government guide book coverJohn H. Ramsey has published “A Citizen’s Common Sense Guide For Fixing The Federal Government.” Ramsey presents the problems but more importantly offers common sense solutions to fix what is broken in Washington, D.C. Ramsey lists the most important problems facing the American people as:

  • 70,000 pages of tax code
  • Rampant Deficit Spending
  • 175,000 pages of regulations, many which are not authorized by law
  • Mismanaged Social Security and Medicare Funds
  • Improper Accounting that masks America’s true liabilities

Ramsey offers the following solutions implemented by “We The People”:

  • Tax Only to fund Government with no social engineering
  • Deficit Spending only in national emergencies
  • Tie regulations to law with fair Administrative Courts
  • Repay Social Security and Medicare. Manage as trust funds.
  • Use generally accepted accounting for government

Ramsey proposes a Constitutional Amendment to reign in the federal government.

Most Americans will agree with Ramsey’s analysis and his solutions for fixing the federal government. Some may not agree with his solutions. Creating a new amendment to the Constitution is fraught with dangers. Ramsey’s Constitutional amendment verbiage would be subject to the whims of Congress, those who are the root cause of the problem.

To the naysayers Ramsey responds:

I think there is enough impetus that a Constitutional Convention is probably going to happen. Our task therefore is to influence the outcome. Clearly, Congress may meddle but they cannot stop it.

My goal is to help to adopt an Omnibus Amendment to The U.S. Constitution requiring that our Federal Government:

Tax only to fund Government, with no social engineering. This could be accomplished either with a flat tax based on income or a Fair Tax on consumption. The key is to eliminate 73,000 pages of exceptions, deductions, and attempted social influences that have nothing to do with funding the government.

Deficit spend only in national emergencies; pay down existing debt. You didn’t comment on this but it is crucial that we enact an amendment that stops runaway deficit spending.

Tie regulations tightly to law with fair and impartial Administrative Courts. This provision would tie regulations more closely to the underlying laws which authorize them and would enable the courts to throw out regulations that exceed the specific authorization in law. Furthermore, currently Administrative Courts are the only recourse for citizens wishing to challenge particular regulations, but such Administrative Courts are staffed entirely by government employees who almost always rule in favor of the government. They are not independent and impartial which my Constitutional Amendment would require.

Repay money misappropriated from Social Security and Medicare and manage them independently as trust funds. Repayment of amounts “borrowed” from these funds would reduce the federal deficit by about $2.8 trillion, almost 15% of the total.

Use generally accepted accounting for the federal government. This requirement is simple but not easy, but it is essential because we simply do not know the extent of federal liabilities because they are accounted for improperly and inconsistently, and so much of the exposure is “off the balance sheet”.

There are other efforts being proposed to fix the broken federal government from eliminating the Sixteenth Amendment as proposed under the Fair Tax (H.R.25), to an Article V Convention and a Constitutional convention to impose term limits on the U.S. Congress recently approved by the Florida legislature.

All of these efforts are dramatic bottom up efforts and each has as its goal to fix an increasingly out of control federal government (legislative, administrative and judicial).

The American people have had enough of top down solutions, they hunger for a bottom up approach.

In that light, Mr. Ramsey’s is one of those solutions worthy of a closer look.

RELATED ARTICLE: Pitfalls to Abbott’s Call for Convention of States

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