Frodo Quixote - President
K.I.S.S. stands for Keep It Simple Senator, the last S having other equally appropriate words that are interchangeable. It’s amazing how much simpler decisions get, when one decides to weigh only what’s right, what’s best for the people it affects, not what’s best for the senator, not how to line one’s pockets in the process, not how to reward lobbyists and rich donors to your campaign, not do what’s best for a lucrative government career.
Simple is also easy to track, audit and follow what your government representatives are doing. Did he vote against the budget and thus shut down the government, or did he vote against the budget that allowed more power for corrupt departments to continue spying and punishing along partisan lines? One bill, one subject. Simple to know who voted for what and to pass what is needed without additional pork.
The concept of the KISS party is that simplicity in government is transparency, transparency leads to honesty, honesty leads to integrity, and integrity is the real currency of a productive, successful society and nation. You can bank on it. You can invest in it. You can innovate and pursue your dreams without oppressive, changing and partisan government regulations, and deep state hidden agendas.
Free Enterprise: The way the Founding Fathers intended it. “To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.” -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816 Although some like to cherry pick semantics to lead one to believe it’s not true, the pilgrims discovered that communal land with all produce shared equally, was an unproductive failure compared to allotting each family their own private land and allowing them to keep the fruit of their own hands. https://www.forbes.com/sites/frankminiter/2016/11/23/did-capitalism-really-save-the-pilgrims-and-give-them-a-thanksgiving-to-remember/#28ab44824ffb
Free enterprise is the best economy for a free society. It allows individual freedom to the pursuit of happiness and the efficient regulation of choices of products by the people with their purchases to support successful and useful products. The result is prosperity and opportunity for all. Government ownership in industry results in slow or no response to public needs, products that people didn’t choose, and government chosen career path , i.e. no passion, lower motivation, lower innovation, and lower standards of living. Most importantly, free enterprise allows all people the hope to prosper, and government ownership dictates a limited path. Government ownership, Socialism, has a stagnant view of the economy. Their solution is to distribute the current wealth. Free enterprise has a dynamic, prosperous view of the economy and allows the people to shape it with their creativity and resourcefulness and are motivated by their own prosperity which is contingent on serving a need of the public.
Free enterprise depends on competition. One can prosper by creating a better or less expensive product. The people choose who succeeds by buying the product best suited for their needs. The evolution of this process creates efficiency, innovation and products appropriate for the times, that meet a demand of the public. Meanwhile, the individual can prosper by creating a service or product to meet a need of the public.
If a company becomes too large, it can squash its competition by threatening suppliers or undercutting prices because they can afford to take a loss while the smaller company cannot. Once a company has control over the market place, it can raise prices, cut quality and do just about anything because the people have no other choice to go to. This is true of the government interference also. No one can compete with the endless power and resources of the government. Today, you can see that the government in collusion with media companies can control political speech by monopolizing what can be reported and what is not reported. Social media is able to control who can tweet or post and can even propagandize and lie with abandon once they squash any competing views. They can cast aspersions on anyone dissenting from their view and agenda and with bullying suppliers that need them, cut off any competing political adversaries from getting to market their views.
In the past monopolies have been divested into smaller competing companies to maintain a healthy competition, as the telephone companies were. We need to do the same with Twitter, Facebook, and Google and keep government favoritism for a political agenda out of it.
Back to the TopFair Tax: The Fair Tax passage would put the economy on rocket boosters and eliminate the partisan corruption in the IRS as well as the power of the IRS to financially punish political opponents.
Benefits:
- Everyone would pay their fair share (no loop holes or exemptions)
- Illegal incomes (drug dealers) would pay their fair share
- Businesses would not go overseas because they are not taxed
- Tax payers would fill out a form like the census form, in 10 easy minutes
- Everyone gets a check for the amount of taxes up to the poverty level
The America proposed by the FairTax Plan would feature:
- no federal income taxes
- no payroll withholding taxes
- no self-employment taxes
- no capital gains taxes
- no gift or estate taxes
- no alternative minimum taxes
- no corporate taxes
- no loopholes
- no taxes on Social Security benefits or pension benefits
- no personal tax forms
- no personal income tax record keeping
- no personal income tax filing
- No IRS audits
- No owing the IRS anything, EVER!
No Internal Revenue Service; no April 15th stress; no debtor slavery; all gone, forever.
All of these benefits without any loss of revenue, are due to the collection of taxes at the point of sale.This is a highly studied and vetted system that calls for a 23% tax on purchases of NEW products, with a check to everyone to cover the tax amount on the first dollars spent up to the poverty level.
No complex loopholes. The One Percenter buys a $100,000 yacht - $23,000 in taxes. A tax payer buys a $10 coat – $2.30 tax. In case this sounds high, remember this taxpayer brought home 100% of his paycheck, not 67% to 80% of his paycheck. The illegal drug dealer buys a $100,000 car - $23,000 tax.
No corporate taxes. Remember, the CEOs and highly paid personnel will pay their fair share of taxes. The corporation does NOT need to be an “Entity”. It’s a business. One that won’t think of going overseas or to Mexico to save money on taxes. One that might come back to the U.S. and create thousands of more jobs for Americans.
No IRS and debtors that can’t pay their taxes in April. The IRS only need audit retail businesses, not every individual taxpayer. When you have an installment plan to pay thousands of dollars in taxes you realized that you incurred on April 15th, you are a debtor to a master that knows no regulations of fairness. As recent partisan corrupt use of the IRS proves, this is dangerous. They can and will demand payment of everything and ruin a person financially. This happens to well-intentioned individuals often. With the FairTax, all taxes are paid as you go, no individual is ever in debt to the IRS, or must scramble and worry about how to pay a sudden big tax bill, or go to jail for tax fraud, or have their bank accounts drained, or have their passports revoked.
See FairTax.org for all the details.
Remember that there was no income tax before 1913. The Founding Fathers were against it in principle and a Constitutional amendment had to be created to put it into effect. Why? Because it is not wise in many ways to insert government inefficiencies and harshness between the fruit of one’s labors and his mouth, to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson. A consumption tax has always been the least oppressive way to tax in a free society. It is simpler, more transparent, therefore less corrupt, fairer, and less oppressive to business and innovation.
Back to the TopElections: Voting integrity is a corner stone of democracy. Without it, corruption of the process makes democracy by appearance, corrupt autocracy in substance. Voter ID creates integrity and obtaining IDs is much easier than opponents would like you to believe.
Drop boxes, ballot harvesting is ripe for cheating and should be eliminated.
All votes should be counted within 2 days of election day. Whenever a delay in counting occurs, opportunities for manipulation abound and the results are questionable.
I feel that the two party system limits my voting options. I can't vote for a 3rd party option that I like the most without guaranteeing a win for the candidate I like the least. This binary process eliminates the possibility of new ideas being expressed in the voting count. To expand our choices and count our voices, I think we should be able to rank all candidates so that we can express our opinions on other ideas, yet still register our preference for other candidates over others. We should vote our priority for our first 4 candidates, the first choice garnering 1 point, the second .5 points, the third .25 points and the fourth .13 points. Candidates should win based on total points. If my first choice doesn't win, at least I have supported my second choice.
State elections should represent the state's citizens. Campaign funds fron outside of the state should not be allowed.
Campaign reform: Structured mandatory debates and written synopsis of values, intentions, equal minimum basic media exposure for every candidate meeting signature requirements and other criteria, equal media expenditures limit, funded by the government. No limit on free media, but media has no authority to edit or limit a candidates speech. This eliminates campaigns with the most money winning, illegal campaign funding, kickbacks and rewards to donors when elected, gives candidates an opportunity to express new and different views and issues, and gives voters a chance to vote their conscience, not the compromise the prognosticators tell them has a better chance to win.
Back to the TopImmigration: No country can survive open borders. All countries of significance have rules for orderly immigration of “desirable” immigrants. No one wants to take in murderers, thieves, people who will not add productively to their new home or especially those who wish harm on the citizens and to overthrow the native government. The U.S. has allowed all of the above through our borders and believes that’s ok because most of them are good people. The spread of ISIS and terrorism, drug cartels and gangs escalate the risk of disaster in our own land. We must have guarded borders, by wall, National Guard, or drones or combinations of these. Once that is done, murderers and drug cartel members can be deported and not be able to return. Then we can begin to deal with the millions of illegals here. All people here should have an ID that shows their status. If you are not here legally, there should be a clear path, with clear steps, and an efficient process. Those who pass the DACA test should be given, immediately, a temporary visa, then further vetted to prove their allegiance and participation in our society, pass the citizenship test and given citizenship. An alien with family or job or skills with no criminal activity should be given a chance to become a citizen. He should be required to pass the citizenship test and serve two years of some community or military service. If you want to live in a country, you should have an allegiance or some buy-in to the country. Those not willing to do this should be deported. I believe that the vetting process of immigrants must be antiquated. A new system using computer software with sufficient personnel, at a time like this, should speed up the process. If we were to send illegal aliens back to their homeland to “get in the back of the line”, it would take them 5 to 10 years in some cases to get their turn. Quotas no doubt have an affect on immigration timelines and quantities. They may have to be temporarily suspended to deal with the current crisis and breakdown of immigration procedures.
Back to the TopGun Control: Gun buyers and owners should go through a licensing process akin to car licenses. It should include gun care and storage, responsible use, and carry the social responsibility of protecting those around you from attack and crime. No one wants to hear that Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers believed that the country needed a “standing militia” of armed citizens to guard against those in power taking over the country and deviating from the constitution. If the government has all the guns, they can not be challenged if they go off course. It would be a positive to have gun owners trained and responsible.
Back to the TopGay Marriage: Marriage is a religious/spiritual sacrament. The constitution says that the government should not make any law favoring one religion over another. Therefore marriage should be left to the churches. Legal issues of inheritance, visitation, power of attorney can all be handled in the legal system.
Back to the TopHomeless: There are two basic ways of addressing this problem. One is to provide a place for them and let them live that way, either housing or a space for them to live. The problem with that is that no one wants that space to be near them, because crime and unhealthy conditions come with it. The other is to incarcerate them for vagrancy or breaking other laws. Some say that is too harsh to some who are homeless through no fault of their own. My solution is to combine the two solutions. First, provide a space for them. But incarcerate them in a “tent city” with a wall where they can continue to live as they have been. As part of the structure, allow them to work for food, shelter and materials. Any work that helps others in or outside the camp can be done in exchange for what the individual wants. If someone saves enough to acquire housing or has created a career for oneself and will be responsible for oneself, they can be released from “tent city”. If one commits crimes against their own inmates, they can be sent to prison. If one is unable to care for oneself and is creating unhealthy conditions, he should be put in an appropriate facility, care or mental, if no relative is willing to care for him.
Back to the TopTerm Limits: Our newly formed government never intended political office to be a career. Citizens swore allegiance to the Constitution and sacrificed their time to perform a civic duty and service to represent the people and resolve complaints or problems dealing with their rights under the basic tenets of government. Today, politicians scramble to acquire fame and privilege and to enhance their resumes for a continuous, lucrative career. They make laws that they do not have to follow. They sell promises and influence for votes and wealth. They make complex loopholes and laws to benefit friends, lobbyists, and their pocketbooks. They corrupt the purpose of the job into a lucrative money-making career and will do anything to save it. It becomes a corrupt web of deceit, backroom deals, pork, propaganda and C.Y.A lies.
Term Limits became a possible solution to entrenched corruption that perpetuates itself on cronyism, career building and the creation of an elite class. Many of the Founding Fathers believed term limits should have been in the Constitution, but after serious debate, were omitted. Thomas Jefferson himself re-started the conversation in 1808.
I propose term limits that connect the real life experience of citizens into their representation. One must have one year of making a living, working, in the private sector, for each year of eligibility for public service at the Federal level. They know how free enterprise works in the economy. They have lived and will live in the private sector and must follow the laws they create in Congress. They have lived life in a working reality, not in ivory towers of pompous government privilege or care-free inherited money. That way, you don't have ivory tower elitists ruling over the peasants with laws that they don't have to follow. That way, you don't have entrenched quid pro quo lobbyists and crony corruption. You have citizens committed to individual Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, representing their peers, to create realistic solutions to common problems.
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