Limited Government

        The number one concern of our founding fathers was  our federal government getting too big without checks and balances.  The Constitution clearly defines what was the responsibility of states and what was the responsibility of the federal government, which we have ignored.  The Constitution also limits the power of our three braches of the federal government and we have let this get out of control with things like the use or abuse Executive Orders. 

        We need to limit government with term limits for our legislators.  Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to his fourth term as President.  It did not take long after his death to pass the 22^nd Amendment to limit the Presidency to two terms or ten years.  It makes sense to do something similar with our elected members of Congress. 

        Another area I would like to propose limits is the size of any legislation Congress passes.  We complain that Congress does not read a bill before passing it, but with a 2,400 page bill like Obama Care, most legislatures will not read it. 

        I would like to see a fifty page maximum.  Think what this would achieve.  Legislators would actually be able read a bill before voting on it.  There would be very few earmarks as there would be no room.  Every piece of legislation would be a single issue voted on for it’s own merits.  There would be no bundling of unrelated issues.  No deals would be made for votes by adding earmarks or exceptions.  We cannot legislate every possible situation anyway, so there would have to be some common sense interpreting the bill.  I know some of you think advocating the use of common sense in government is an oxymoron, but we must try. 

        In the Creative Financing chapter or my book, Business Fits, I address the need to keep documents simple.  I mention an investor agreement that my attorney drafted that was fourteen legal pages long.  It was too long and too intimidating. I revised the agreement to one 8 ½ x 11 page document and gave it back to him.  He admitted the one page revision covered everything it needed to cover and approved it.  Remember the KISS principle.  Keep It Simple Stupid.

The proposed Fair Tax bill is only 150 pages long and I bet it could be condensed to 50 pages.  This bill would totally eliminate the 70,000 page tax code.  It would actually eliminate all other federal taxes and most of the Internal Revenue Service, and replace it with one consumption tax that would be fair. 

         On July 24, 2012 I posted a blog called “The Solutions To Affordable Health Care.”  In this blog I stated that we could reduce health care costs by 40% in the first year and 80% when fully implemented.  I have made the claim that this could be done with legislation covering six points in ten pages or less.  This is not rocket science, but we have to get the politics of government out of the solution.  

This is not some idle talk or claim.  It could be done, but we must first recognize that government intervention and first dollar health insurance are the major causes of increasing health care costs.  We must then recognize that we can’t solve these problems using the very things that caused the problem.  We must eliminate the cause of the problem. 

We must observe the Constitution and reduce the size of the federal government if we are to maintain our freedoms.