What To Abolish: Musings Of A Conservative

[Wake-up!]

Article by Michael Rozeff at Lew Rockwell.com

[It could be subtitled, Forty Ways to Save Money. Did the writer miss any?]

Cleaning out old files, I came across a file dated 2008 from a conservative who wanted to reduce government. The list of government to get rid of is quite extensive, nothing like what so-called conservatives of today advocate. The author might be termed a true conservative or even a true American. Anyway, the list is bracing, even for libertarians used to this sort of radical thinking.

1. Bring all US military people home from every foreign post;
2. Eliminate all tariffs on imports;
3. Eliminate particular regulation designed to protect certain American businesses;
4. Privatize the Air Traffic Control system with either the possibility of employees form-ing their own corporation or airlines forming a consortium to run it;
5. Cease the Federal Highway System program and allow private firms or states to handle this matter;
6. Privatize the Weather Bureau;
7. Eliminate the Bureau of Indian Affairs;
8. Stop all foreign aid;
9. Stop all selling promotion subsidies to American businesses seeking overseas business;
10. Legalize "recreational" drugs, perhaps making them available through a doctor's prescription wherein the physician could, at minimum, give the recipient a lecture on their adverse effects;
11. Privatize all federal prisons;
12. Establish short-term "Sunset" provisions for all federal laws;
13. Stop all Corps of Army Engineers projects, letting the individual states do their own work or form joint cooperation groups with other states having a common problem;
14. Close the FFA—let airlines police and regulate themselves;
15. Drop federal assignment of airwave frequencies;
16. Drop any laws regarding media ownership;
17. Eliminate OSHA;
18. Phase out Social Security;
19. Close down Medicare and Medicaid ASAP;
20. Eliminate the Federal Reserve Bank and privatize the currency;
21. Privatize the Postal System by offering it for sale to its employees or others based on its assets or shut it down completely;
22. Stop AMTRAC subsidies as well as those to waterway and highway transportation operatives;
23. Stop ethanol tax rebates or any other subsidies related to it;
24. Sell off NASA;
25. Eliminate federal nuclear power generation control;
26. Eliminate all federal taxes and establish a tax on all retail items except food and medicine—at the same time sharply curtailing the size of the IRS;
27. Eliminate the minimum wage standard;
28. Repeal all laws regarding the regulation of labor unions;
29. Repeal all campaign contribution and limit regulations;
30. Have Congress impose term limits on itself—one term for senator and six years for a representative;
31. Remove any mandatory retirement age provisions from private and public sector;
32. Eliminate the following cabinet level entities: Departments of Commerce, Labor, Transportation, Health and Human Resources (including the National Institutes of Health which could be privatized), Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs (this can be integrated into the sharply reduced Defense Dept.)—also to go would be EPA, FDA, and the Office of National Drug Control while the Center for Disease Control would be retained.
33. Raise the age and length of service that which any federal employee may retire and move their retirement funds with their choice into privately run accounts;
34. Eliminate the ICC;
35. Out contract all Veterans Administration work;
36. Cut out all Congressional perks;
37. Privatize all nuclear waste disposal and storage;
38. Eliminate the Department of Education and with it any federal outlays to states–edu-cation is a local and state matter at best;
39. Eliminate the Department of Agriculture and all subsidies to farmers, ranchers, and others—do maintain however plant and animal disease inspection and quarantine of for-eign introductions;
40. Stop all Government Printing Office publications other than those related to new laws and regulations and changes—the use of the Congressional Record would be restricted to actual Congressional records with no padding or changes allowed.