Realizing that a Libertarian Reduction of Government is EXTREMELY unlikely. A little lengthy.

I thought I would post my paper from my American Government Class.  The essay was on how to restructure a government if we could. So here goes.   

I was trying to think of a way to approach this subject.  I can't even project something, without putting it into context.  For that reason, I have created a hypothetical scenario, where the ability to restore the government to its origins, with amendments to account for the unseen concepts that have developed.  I will address the specific changes in the Epilogue.

The type of government I would want to set up could not be accomplished by an individual or even a group.  The way I decided to do this was through the eyes of the Chief of Staff of a newly elected Libertarian President.  I know, not realistic, but that is the closest I can come to effecting change in the nation.  My preferred form of government is the form that was established by the Founding Fathers, but with safeguards built in based on two centuries of experience.

Starting the transition, we announce that we will consolidate, with the intention of significantly reducing the bureaucracy.  We will merge all the departments into four; Treasury, State, Interior, and Defense.  We also announce that there will be no other permanent members of the cabinet.  Undersecretaries will provide leadership until the departments are consolidated.  Working with Congress, we will work to make these changes permanent.   We will also announce that upon inauguration, a series of Executive Orders will be issued, with the intent to correct the direction the country is headed.  These Executive Orders will not be writing new law, but rather to aid the Congress in their legislative session to come.  Knowing that our plan will cause significant disruption, we plan to hit the ground running, not expecting a second term of office.

In our first meeting with the leadership of Congress, we advised them that any bill needing more than ten days for the President to review will be vetoed.  We will also inform Congress that during the Congressional Session, they will be receiving from the Executive Branch all Regulation that not duly passed by Congress.  The Executive has no authority to make law, and any bill passed by Congress that requires additional lawmaking will be vetoed.  All current regulation will be sent to Congress for review, and if they take no action, will be ended by Executive Order.   We will make clear to these leaders, that there will be no time in their schedule for business as usual.  We know that we only have four years to peel back a century worth of bureaucracy.   It will require both parties working together to accomplish this task.

Additionally, we would call on Congress, to pass legislation regarding the number of members of Congress.  That number currently stands at 435, and has since 1911.  Population in 1911?  The 1910 Census shows a little over 92 million.  Or slightly more than ¼ of todays.  Setting a number based on population say a 1 to 300,000 ration, would get rid of the politics of gerrymandering districts.  If Congress refuses to act, to preserve their power, we will go to the governors.

We will also meet with the governors of the states.  We will have two objectives in these meetings.  The first, is to stress the need for an Article V convention, to assist in returning this country to the Republic that it once was.  Specifically, we want to call for repeal of the 17^th amendment, regarding the election of Senators.  When the Republic was established, the Senate was the house of Congress that represented the states.  Members of the Senate were selected by state legislatures for that purpose.  That is why Treaties require a 2/3rds vote in the Senate to be law.  It allows the States their role in weighing in on operations of the Republic.  There is no way that an amendment repealing 17 gets through the Congress; that is the purpose of the Article V convention.  We would also hope for amendments specifying the role the Supreme Court plays in the interpretation of laws.  Since Marbury vs Madison, with a few exceptions, the Supreme Court has created a process known as Judicial Review, where they determined the constitutionality of laws.

The second is to prepare the governors for the offloading of unconstitutional functions of the federal government to the states, for them to do with as they will.  These include needs based entitlements, education, health care, both Medicare and Medicaid, and many other items.  Understanding that this would require legislation, we just want to prepare the governors for what is coming.  We will also seek the governor’s assistance in influencing their representatives to participate in the reformation of government.

Nominations for the four Cabinet heads are put forward, as well as those Assistant Secretaries that will help guide the bureaucracy into the four cabinets.  These will have to be willing to work themselves out of a job, as that will be their job.  Trim the bureaucracies down as much as possible.  Leading the point will be the Secretary of the Treasury, assisting in budgeting, and prioritizing responsibilities.

On Inauguration Day, we announce that our first act will be to set a deadline for Congress to act on an issue.  Right now, the Federal Drug Laws are a farce.  We will give Congress 60 days to rewrite the Drug Laws, and get a bill on the President's Desk to sign.   If they don't, we will start enforcing the drug laws in all 50 states, regardless of their laws regarding marijuana, whether medicinal or recreational.  If states don't assist, then all federal aid to law enforcement will be suspended.  The President will stress that this is not a bluff.  It is Congress's job to write the law; now it will be time to fix it, included in that fix should be relief in the form of case reviews of all convicted of drug offenses.  If there were no gun violations or violence charges that were dropped, then consideration will be given for clemency, once the laws are fixed.

The second item in the forefront for Inauguration Day is an announcement that as the Indian Wars of the 1800s are over, we will be relocating Army bases from the interior of the nation to the borders, to secure them, until a proper immigration process can be put in.  We truly are a nation of immigrants, but until we get our process fixed, we need to control it.  We would encourage a very liberal immigration policy, with one caveat; that immigrants are identified, and given status to work.  Enforcement will be done then, not on the individual, but at the workplace, with severe penalties on employers that have not verified their employees.

As Commander in Chief, the President does control the military, and will act as necessary to defend the nation, but outside of that, a Declaration of War will be required.  Not an Authorization for the Use of Military Force.

The third item for the Inaugural Speech is the announcement of Senator Ted Cruz as the replacement for Justice Scalia on the Supreme Court.

Finally, since the Executive Branch will no longer be writing laws, we will announce our intent to eliminate at least half of the Departments’ staffing, as they will be focusing solely on enforcement.

As the weeks go forward, in line with the intent on the Drug war front, we encourage Congress to review the federal law books, for overlapping laws within the states.  The intent is to eliminate cross jurisdiction laws.  When there are too many laws, there is, in fact, no law.  Federal Law enforcement should only be involved in interstate or international crimes.  They would provide resources when insufficient support exists.  Judicial reform to reflect what we are trying to do with federal crimes is essential. 

Besides federal criminal laws, we will also bring Executive Branch Regulation to the Congress for them to dispense with, either by doing nothing, which will result in Executive Orders eliminating them, or revising, or, more likely, take the easy way, and voting the regulation into law without reviewing.  Doesn't matter to us, as long as those laws meet the requirements previously stated.

The Presidency has inherent power.  It can be harnessed to abuse, or, it can be harnessed to rein in the law.  The President is limited only by his ability to work with Congress.  The current administration demonstrated both the power, as brute force and the inability to move Congress on things so unpopular, that even the full court press couldn't help.  The Affordable Care Act is an example of passing legislation through brute coercion and cost the Democrats the House, and the Senate in 2014.  No Republican voted for it, and it remains extremely unpopular to this day.  The other could be Cap and Trade, or Immigration reform in 2010.  The President had an overwhelming majority in the House, and a Filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, but that wasn't enough to overcome the people in those two instances.  However, the President can, by using the Veto pen, and campaigning to divest power, use that power to rally the politicians, because, make no mistake, the howling in DC over what we are trying to do will be heard 24/7 on all networks. Cries of unemployment in DC, poor people on TV crying about how they will eat their next meal.

The Presidency, as now constituted, has too much actual power.  It will be tough to relinquish that power to the Congress, but if the Republic is to be restored, it must be done.  The power of the government should be focused on the Congress.  Laws are initiated, debated, and passed by them, and unless the bill is unconstitutional, or puts the nation at risk, it should be acknowledged and signed by the President.  By forcing Congress to do its job, we can indeed accomplish what the people, and the states want.

Epilogue: 

People think it would be easy, if everyone wants it, to do major reform.  Everyone hates the IRS, hates Income tax, and most want something much simpler, the problem is that tax preparation, planning, and accounting is a $200 billion industry.  It is an industry that is moneyed, and very powerful, and will not surrender, in spite of the overwhelming distaste for the IRS.   We would hear about the economic crisis that it would cause, the upheaval, and not just from H&R Block.  Businesses that have built their planning on getting this tax credit, or this expense, and end up having to pay a tax based on income, or revenue, rather than the government winking and nodding, will also be up in arms. 

Reducing the federal workforce as mentioned above would be catastrophic for the DC area. Housing would collapse, and while many of the federal employees could probably find work in the suddenly burgeoning state payrolls, most will have to be retrained, relocated, and undoubtedly there will be an outcry.  Of course, DC was never intended to be a place that people lived, or the government become its own industry.  The Public Sector Unions have considerable power, and they will use it.

The fourth branch of government, the lobbyists, will be in full force.  I said that we only had one term to execute the plan, in reality, we would have a year.  Because elections will be in less than two years, and Congress will be overwhelmed with cries to stop the damage.  It will be essential for the President to be a tremendous communicator, and to have an extremely loyal core group, which will not allow leaks, and cannot be bought.  The President will have to provide cover for those members of Congress that are supportive, and work to elect more that are willing to do the job.

The changes proposed are as follows:

Restoration of the Senate as the House for the States’ Legislatures, repealing the Seventeenth Amendment.  By doing this, the legislature is brought back into balance, and in a large measure, federalism is restored.  As stated, this would be part of an Article V convention, as there is no way that it could pass the Senate, let alone with a 2/3rds majority.

Establish, by statute, a ratio of US Representatives to the population.  James Madison said that there should not be more than 1 for every 30,000 people.  I would think that would be unworkable, but maybe one for every 300,000 or so.  Congressional Districts would be drawn based on populations, and less likely to force the gerrymandering that has plagued our Republic for decades.  In Kansas, the Second District includes both a large population center, (Topeka) as well as a broad band of rural.  The Third is also a problem, as it encompasses both a very impoverished urban core and very wealthy suburbs.

Congress has ceded too much power to the Executive Branch.  They allow the Bureaucracy to write its rules.  It has to be changed, but would require a President to allow the Congress to do its job, and work to reduce the power of the Office.  That is why the power of the purse, the Congressional weapon against the Executive has diminished.  Nothing wrong with a strong President, but before FDR, Congress was very jealous of its power, regardless of party.

I know that we were not supposed to focus on policy, but I want to use the Drug War as another big problem to be scaled back.  With the vacuum created by the end of states as partners, rather than pawns, in the federal republic, a whole criminal code has been established on the federal level.  While there is jurisdiction for the Federal Government, most of the laws today, are unnecessary and have created a whole bureaucracy itself in the judiciary.    Since we will never be able to reverse the idea of Judicial Review, then, reluctantly, I would support term limits for judges, and ability to override with a supermajority in Congress, a Supreme Court decision.  These ideas would have to be put into the Constitution, through Amendment.

As the Executive has taken on legislative power, the Federal Government has assumed too many responsibilities that are not within their purview.   The Federal government is responsible for: securing the borders, negotiating treaties, and settling disputes between the states.  The Federal Government does many things that are not clear, but here are some that they have no business doing: Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Social Security, Agriculture, Energy, Education, and Commerce.  There are others, but that is a start. 

Short of a dictator, who had convinced enough military that a tyrant was the only way to fix the system, most of this is just a dream.  I don’t think that could happen, as even in Egypt during the recent Arab nightmare, the election of an extremist, who immediately tried to dictate, was thrown out by a military realizing that that was wrong.  It would be wrong here also.

As a final note, I have advocated for these changes for a while, but I must acknowledge that the idea for the Article V convention came from the book, “The Liberty Amendments”, by Mark Levin.