Social Security

The Social Security revenues must be taken back out of the general fund and kept in their own bucket. Future benefits for those currently under 40 years of age must be reduced, while giving them the opportunity to put more money into retirement savings accounts (e.g. 401K, IRA, Keogh) tax-free.

The Banking Industry

Extravagant spending must stop. We must pass laws that specify that banks and S&L’s: (1) build less expensive buildings; (2) eliminate luxury trips for officers; (3) reduce ridiculous salaries and bonuses (see “Salary Caps”); (4) stop predatory lending practices—don’t increase credit card limits unless asked by the customer; (5) require larger down-payments for housing loans; and (6) reduce credit card rates.

The Stock Market

The stock market must be brought back under control, eliminating all derivatives that add no value. We must increase the amount of money required for buying options from 5% to 25% of the stock value, eliminating heavy leveraging. Short-selling must be stopped altogether.

Government Spending

Government spending MUST be brought under control. The latest bailouts will do very little to help the common man—the rich will benefit in the short term and all will suffer with higher taxes in the long term, prolonging an otherwise short economic downturn.

Here is my plan to limit spending:

(1) Kick out the illegal aliens. They sap our economy by using our schools, our universities, our hospitals, and our public facilities, paying almost nothing in taxes, since they live mostly in an underground economy.
(2) Pass rules in both houses of congress to limit earmarks to no more than 1% of a fiscal bill. Give the President a line item veto. It is clear that the founding fathers didn’t conceive of the huge spending bills we would have today—for the first view decades, each “line item” was a separate bill, requiring every single spending proposal to stand or fall on its own.
(3) Limit spending increases to no more than the current inflation index.
(4) Pass no new entitlements and start phasing out all the existing ones except Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Food Stamps. Remove the revenues for these programs from the general budget and manage them separately again.
(5) Eliminate programs that don’t work.
(6) Eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse.