Fred Foldvary's Editorial
Open Letter to President Bush
Open Letter to President Bush
by Fred E. Foldvary, Senior Editor
Dear Mr. President: These reforms would make you one of the greatest presidents ever of the United States of America:
1. Eliminate civil asset forfeiture for people who are not convicted of crimes. Such confiscation violates the 4th-Amendment right to be secure in their possessions.
2. Change the "war on drugs" to a battle against addiction by providing medical treatment, counseling, and education rather than prison for drug users. Pardon all those in prison for using drugs. Stop pouring billions of dollars into Latin American drug wars.
3. Get involved in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict by offering the solution of a Confederacy that would own the disputed sites and the freedom of residents to choose their citizenship. Israel could then let in Palestinian exiles without losing its ethnic character.
4. You know that taxes hurt enterprise, so be a hero and go all the way to eliminate the tax penalty. Let taxes be a State rather than a federal problem. Let the States pay revenues to the federal government in proportion to their land value. Then abolish both the federal personal and the corporate income tax.
5. Preserve the environment by charging polluters according to how much damage they do. Use that revenue to pay landowners to help preserve wildlife on their property.
6. Since vouchers for schooling has political obstacles, advocate tax credits for parents who pay tuition.
7. Stop expanding NATO, unless you go all the way and include Russia. Let's really end the cold war.
8. Continue to promote free trade. Reform NAFTA to eliminate exceptions and protections, and to strengthen environmental protection. Expand free trade to the whole hemisphere.
9. Stay the course on reforming Social Security. Be bold and go further, offering workers private retirement plans instead of forcing them into the social security system. Use the budget surplus to finance social security privatization.
10. Tell the citizens of the United States that the Ninth Amendment protects their natural rights to liberty, and that laws in violation of liberty are unconstitutional.
11. Stop the spying on Americans. Let the banks respect the privacy of their customers' accounts, and tell the federal agencies to avoid snooping at the communications of peaceful people.
12. Shut down the School of the Americas that trains Latin American military forces to oppress the people.
13. Promote a better market in medical care by making all health care tax deductible, shifting control to the customers.
14. Reform the legal system so that losers in law suits pay the legal costs of the defendants.
15. Restore common sense to pornography laws so that children are not forcibly taken away from parents who innocently photograph them in the bath tub.
16. Reduce government waste and privilege-seeking with laws restricting government funding of local projects.
Mr. President, if you can achieve these reforms, history will hail you as one of the greatest Presidents of the USA.
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Copyright 2001 by Fred E. Foldvary. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, which includes but is not limited to facsimile transmission, photocopying, recording, rekeying, or using any information storage or retrieval system, without giving full credit to Fred Foldvary and The Progress Report.
