(08-13-2024 10:52 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote: I'm not "liberal"
But your big five are all pretty much leftist talking points. So maybe you're not liberal, you're leftist.
I am liberal, at least in the classical sense--less government, more individual liberty and freedom.
Since you named a big five, and others on here have done similarly, I'll post mine:
1. Balance the budget and start working down the debt before it destroys our economy. Cut the administrative overhead that consumes up to 75% of federal programs, including the military.
2. Reform taxes to include a national consumption tax (VAT) coupled with lower, flatter, and broader (fewer/no non-business deductions/exclusions) income taxes, like what Bowles-Simpson and Domenici-Rivlin recommended a decade ago
3. Implement Bismarck universal private health care and either Milton Friedman's negative income tax or the Boortz-Linder prebate/prefund, and farm current health/welfare programs out to states on a voluntary basis, to be funded by the money the states save because Bismarck makes Medicaid redundant.
4. Build the strongest military in the world, at least equal to the next two combined, and never use it to fight a war that we don't intend to win.
5. Restore the voice of voters by transferring the power of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats back to elected officials with three changes to the Administrative Procedure Act (APA): 1) all new rulemaking subject to advice and consent of congress, automatically if the impact exceeds a certain amount and otherwise upon petition by a certain number of congress critters; 2) sunset review of every agency and all its regulations every ten years; and 3) replace the captive administrative law judges (ALJs) who currently adjudicate administrative disputes with Article III administrative law courts in every federal judicial district.
6. Revise tax (see 2) and regulatory (see 5) rules and procedures and upgrade infrastructure and education, to encourage domestic manufacturing, energy, agriculture, and other value-added activities to return to the USA instead of offshoring, particularly in cases of essential goods.
Do either of the major parties plan or promise to do any of those things? No.
