Some things I'd like to see (but know will never happen)

[Engineer]

Are are a few items that I would like to see done, but, I know would never happen.

1.  Bills coming before congress would stand or fall on their own merit.  No attaching riders and other things to them.  For example, a bill banning assault weapons would contain nothing else, no money for a bridge in St. Louis, or anything else.  It would mean lots of bills, but limit the amount of time for debating them.

2.  Cut the budget of all departments (except military) 5% in year one, and 5% in alternating years.  The cuts, though, can only be in administration.  All departments in the government are notorious waster of money.  Cut some administrator, and you also reduce the amount of supplies they use, the rental on the space they take up, etc.  The biggest problem with balancing the budget is that Congress just can't cut spending to 'buy' their re-election.  Make the government do what the average citizen has to do.

3.  All the pork bills need to be gotten together and financed though budget surplas only.

4.  Uniform electronic voting system with a paper trail, similar to ATM machines.  The votes are registered electronically, and the voter gets two copies, one to deposit with the election officials (and check that the machine accurately recorded his vote) and one to keep.  The copies would be numbered, to match up if ever required.  Along with this, uniform voter registration with a national voting card, that wouldn't allow you to vote twice.

5.  Elimination of the 527 groups.  Let the parties pay for their own ads through contributions.  That way blatantly false ads can't be 'denied' by a party.  All ads would have to be approved by the candidate.


I have other ideas, but these really can't be construed as conservative or liberal.  I could get into those, but I'll leave it at these for now.

[Gabu]

1.  Bills coming before congress would stand or fall on their own merit.  No attaching riders and other things to them.  For example, a bill banning assault weapons would contain nothing else, no money for a bridge in St. Louis, or anything else.  It would mean lots of bills, but limit the amount of time for debating them.

All of these suggestions are good ones, but this is one I would especially like to have happen.  If this was eliminated you could stop the retarded process of attaching unrelated stuff to bills and then chastising anyone who voted against the bill for not supporting the unrelated part.

[David S]

1) Good idea.
2)I like the idea, but also get rid of any department that is not specifically authorized by the constitution.
3) Just end the pork. Don't let the feds spend on anything which is not authorized by the constitution.
4) OK
5) End all campaign finance laws and just require that candidates publish the source of their funds.