Government Reforms

The US government needs to address its dysfunction by reducing its footprint to comply with the US Constitution (as originally written). Congress needs to remove departments, agencies and programs that have failed and begin to reduce funding for Education, Healthcare, Welfare and Federal Lands. These responsibilities need to be assigned to the “States and the People” according to the 10^th Amendment.

US Politicians no longer work for the Voters.  They work for their campaign contributors. Most of our Politicians sell out to Globalist Corporations rather than doing what their Voters want.  Our politicians live in fear the Liberal Media and Democrat Socialists who want to destroy the US Constitution. State Legislatures need to enact campaign finance reform to allow only registered voters to make campaign contributions and only for those candidates who appear on their ballot.

Bond financing is a bad deal for taxpayers. Government needs to stop wasting tax revenue by ending the practice of selling Bonds to finance projects.  Bonds that pay 5% interest and are scheduled for 30 years make everything they fund cost double, like a home mortgage. There is no reason government cannot set up accrual accounts for large projects and pay cash to save interest costs.  Your new $20 million public schools actually will cost $40 million. Single family home mortgages should be taken out by all families. It is the only expenditure of interest cost that makes sense. Renting should be avoided.

Education spends too much money on new buildings and pension plans. The curriculum is packed with liberal propaganda and junk science. Basic skills are not addressed and too many graduates are incapable of reading, writing, understanding or doing math well enough to function as adults. Students need to be made responsible for their own education.

Obamacare ruined Healthcare by expanding mandated coverage beyond what consumers really need and forcing the healthy to subsidize the big spenders. It was a scam. Lyndon Johnson broke the Law of Supply and Demand when he signed Medicare and Medicaid.  Consumers were no longer able to control the prices, because the free market system was abandoned by Johnson. Government Healthcare is choked with fraud and waste. Consumers need to be made responsible for their own healthcare.

Welfare reform should start with removing all non-citizens from eligibility. This should include the removal food stamps, housing subsidies, child tax credits and all other taxpayer funded assistance for immigrants.

Georgia needs to privatize all Public Transit. Taxpayers should not subsidize public transit with tax dollars.  Government Transit Authorities receive 50% of their revenue from taxes.  Ridership is 50% of capacity because public transit doesn’t go where you need to go, it takes too long to get there and it isn’t really safe. Private operators need to take over all government run transit and schedule it to be self-supporting or replace it with things that work. The failure of public transit is obvious with the introduction of Uber and other services. The cost of Public Transit is unsustainable. It costs millions to add bus routes and billions to add commuter train infrastructure. These millions and billions are better spent to fix roads and crumbling water and sewer systems.

Providing low cost housing is not the job of government. Those who want lower cost housing need to move to the Exurbs where land prices are lower. Home Builders need to reduce their building costs to attract these buyers. The Poor need to stop buying “stuff” and put their money in home ownership or they will always be poor.

Government Owned Lands are unsustainable. The federal government owns 30% of the US land mass.  Forest fires wipe out millions of square miles of government owned forest land each year. Privately owned forests don’t have these annual fires. Western States should take over federal lands and sell most of the land to private owners to open farms, ranches and tree farms. “Endangered Species” should be cared for on land owned by the Sierra Club.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader