People can be bad but governments will be worse

I believe that most people are basically good. Yes, there are some people who would commit violence against others, and there is a need for protection against such threats, but the reality is that all government is violence, because all law is enforced at the point of a gun. Therefore, extraordinary care should be taken before entrusting any legal authority in government, as it is an inherent guarantee of continued violence, one which once in place actively prohibits more peaceful and/or economically effective means of resolution.

Government is violence, so if we wish to limit violence, we must limit government. However, this does not mean universal privatization, either, as a publicly owned and administered prison is every bit as abominable as a privately owned and administered one. Instead, we must limit the government – and by extension, the law it enforces – to only those most critical functions where a market-based profit mechanism is not the appropriate governing force to yield a positive net impact to society.

Top 3 Most Urgent Policy Objectives

1. Rein in an out-of-control Executive Branch – since 9/11, the Executive Branch has slowly eroded Constitutional checks and balances in an attempt to achieve a true Unitary Executive under which the President has de facto dictatorial authority. It’s well past time to use the power still vested in the Legislature to challenge these overreaches in a meaningful and lasting way, passing laws and Constitutional Amendments as needed to limit powers of both this and any future Presidential administrations.
2. Eliminate Payroll Taxes to help struggling working Americans – by eliminating both FICA and Medicare withholding, neither of which actually pay for those services (these taxes merely go into the General Fund alongside your Federal income taxes), most working Americans would see an immediate 7.65% reduction in their total taxes paid, so someone making a salary of $50,000 a year would save $3,825 in taxes – every year.
3. Stop supporting apartheid and genocide with American tax dollars and put that money towards domestic social programs, instead – as Americans begin to face levels of poverty not seen in generations, the U.S. Federal Government continues to send hundreds of billions annually to an apartheid country actively perpetrating a genocide; this must end immediately.

Key Policy Points

• Constitutional Amendments: The Constitution has not adequately evolved to protect the rights of all persons; in many respects it remains a legal mechanism intended solely for the protection of the same sorts of folks who originally signed it. As such, it should be further amended as follows:
  
  • The 10th Amendment should be expanded to reaffirm, more explicitly, that the Constitution is a document of enumerated powers, with all rights not explicitly assigned to the Federal government reserved to the States, likely also including a schedule of government activities which the Federal government is explicitly forbidden from engaging in for good measure.
    
  • The 13th Amendment should be further amended to strike-out the exception clause which reads “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”.
    
  • The 16th amendment should be repealed in its entirety and replaced with a New Amendment which implements a national Unimproved Land Value Tax and corresponding rate schedule by usage category.
    
  • The long-delayed Equal Rights Amendment should finally be ratified into law.
    
  • A New Amendment, an honorary addition to the Bill of Rights, should be ratified reserving full bodily ownership and autonomy to all persons, with explicit protections for women’s reproductive rights, as well as an explicit prohibition of conscription of any kind, and explicit prohibition against any future attempts to prohibit consenting consumption of substances of any kind.
    
  • A New Amendment should be ratified establishing 19 as the new universal age of adulthood, including for the legal consumption of alcohol and other recreational drugs, mimicking the Canadian model.
    
• Elimination of all existing Federal taxes and replacement with a national Land Value Tax:
  
  • If Americans are to have a tax, it should be one which is both least economically destructive and prevents financial elites from hijacking it for their own ends over the long-term. Today, special interests have extensively hijacked the U.S. income tax system, making it even more economically destructive than it already inherently was, particularly for small businesses.
    
  • Famed economist Milton Friedman once said, “In my opinion the least bad tax is the property tax on the unimproved value of land, the Henry George argument of many, many years ago.”
    
  • In addition to the repeal of the 16th Amendment, all other taxes – whether income, excise, sales, etc. – assessed at the Federal level should also be eliminated, starting most urgently with the elimination of all payroll taxes (FICA/Medicaid), which represent regressive taxes today.
    
  • With a goal of achieving matching current tax revenues, the U.S. Federal government should implement a national tax on the Net Unimproved Value of Land, which is defined as the value of land without regard to any man-made structure build upon it, akin to the new sales value if it were suddenly to be cleared of all structures and become available for sale.
    
  • This will require a remnant portion of the IRS to implement a tax assessment and collection infrastructure, but will require far less staff due to the infinitely more straightforward method of tax determination, which will consist of a schedule of various tax rates based on land use category (e.g. primary residence, residential rental, farmland, commercial, vacant, etc.).
    
  • The IRS should reassess the Net Unimproved Value of Land on a rolling five-year basis, such that any given land parcel would receive a new assessment every five years, but that not all reassessments would occur on the same five-year cycle, with certain States or Regions grouped for assessment.
    
  • Each year the IRS should send every landowner a predetermined tax bill by multiplying the appropriate tax rate against the most recently assessed total Net Unimproved Value of Land for a given parcel according to the following land use categories:
    
    • Primary Residence (a.k.a. “Homestead Exemption”): to help enable individual home ownership amongst Americans to the greatest extent possible, those parcels of land where the owner also lives as their primary residence (where they reside at least 180 days a year) are subject to the lowest tax rate as expressed as a percentage and assessed against the unimproved value of their land.
      
    • Farmland and Greenbelts: to both provide an incentive for the preservation of farmland and greenbelts and help ensure the retention of family farms within those families over the long-term, land parcels designated as either farmland or greenbelts are subject to the second lowest tax rate.
      
    • Residential Real Estate: to help drive the expansion of housing supply for those not yet ready for home ownership, land being used for residential housing in situations where the owner does not physically reside on the premises is subject to the third lowest tax rate.
      
    • Income-Producing Property: any property actively producing income through any trade or business – whether manufacturing, retail, natural resource collection, or any other variety of business – is subject to the second highest tax rate.
      
    • Vacant Property: any property considered to be vacant (generally defined by not being residential nor income-producing while also not qualifying as either farmland or a greenbelt) is subject to the highest tax rate in an attempt to incentivize land use which delivers the highest social good to the local population while preventing land speculation.
      
    • Billionaire Adjustment Factor: any individual whose net worth, calculated based on the total assets within their control rather than simply assets explicitly in their name, will be subject to a tax multiplier for each billion of their net worth in excess of $1 billion, assessed on a pro rata basis. For instance, a billionaire whose net worth is $2.5 billion would be subject to 2.5 times the total tax a non-billionaire would pay on the same land. Part of the responsibilities of the newly reformed IRS would be reassessing a new net worth for each billionaire averaged across the duration of each prior year for calculation of their individualized tax rates, rounding additional tax rates to the nearest thousandth. For example, the IRS would assess a billionaire worth $3,799,000,000 with a 3.799 multiplier on their total taxes to pay (as compared to what a non-billionaire would have paid on the same land), essentially rounding their net worth to the nearest million for tax rate determination purposes.
      
    • Foreign Owner Adjustment Factor: in an attempt to make land (and, specifically, housing) as available and affordable as possible to U.S. citizens and other U.S. residents, any individual who is not a U.S. citizen, a permanent U.S. resident, or a temporary U.S. resident is subject to an additional 25-50% increase in their tax rates across all land use categories.
      
    • Tax burden rolls up to individual in control of land assets: in an attempt to prevent landholders from shifting land ownership into shell corporations or other entities to avoid billionaire and/or foreign adjustment factors, the tax burden shall fall to the person with material control over the land – regardless of ownership structure – so any land assets held in non-profit organizations, foundations, or other tax shelters which are nonetheless subject to the material control of a person subject to any adjustment factors must also apply applicable adjustment factors to these land assets, as well.
      
• Deconstruction of the Federal Police State: the following Federal enforcement agencies and related bureaucratic functions have demonstrated that they are inconsistent with a free American people and should be eliminated immediately and their funding redirected towards social programs:
  • The Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
    • Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
    • The Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
    • Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
    • Any surviving enforcement functions under DHS supervision today to be migrated to Dept. of Interior
  • The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
  • The National Security Agency (NSA)
  • The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF)
  • The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
  • The Bureau of Prisons (BOP)
  • The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP)
  • The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) – significant reduction with remnant left to enforce new Land Tax
  • The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) – to be dissolved and reformed under new governance
  • The U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) – all duties to be absorbed by the agency replacing the FBI, above
    
  • Furthermore, all appointees, employees, and elected officials within the Executive Branch – both new and existing – must take a new, extended oath to the Constitution which reaffirms their commitment to divisions of power across the branches of the Federal Government, explicitly affirms that the Constitution and greater U.S. law supersedes all Presidential Executive Orders or similar mandates, and reaffirms their willingness to defend the Constitution against all who might attempt to supersede or circumvent it, including the President or those who otherwise represent the office of POTUS.
    
• Deconstruction of the Federal Prison Industrial Complex: Although eliminating private ownership and operation of prisons is a critical step in prison reform, really there is an inherent problem with all American prisons, borne out by fact that the U.S. is home to a full 25% of the world’s total prison population. In addition to further amending the 13th Amendment to remove the clause allowing involuntary servitude for prisoners, the following corrective actions should be taken:
  
  • Immediately pardon and release all non-violent drug offenders in Federal prison, without exception.
    
  • Immediately decriminalize all personal drug use and possession similar to the Portuguese model.
    
  • Immediately overhaul the drug scheduling system to fully legalize cannabis, psilocybin, MDMA, LSD, peyote, all other psychedelics, and a variety of other low-risk drugs, while also decriminalizing and/or reducing penalties for other more high-risk drugs.
    
  • Prohibit private ownership and/or operation of prisons, mandating that all U.S. States and Localities determine whether to repurchase private prisons from private owners and operators and/or cease operation completely within 24 months.
    
  • Cease any and all prison subsidies to State and Local governments, forcing them to retain only the prison capacity which is truly necessary for their regions.
    
• Stop Enabling Overreaches of Power by State & Local Police: Although to a great extent the various States and Localities throughout the U.S. are responsible for their policies and enforcement actions of their local police forces, there are a variety of ways in which the Federal government perpetuates a police state indirectly by providing support via various channels to State & Local police departments. As a result, the following remediating steps should be taken:
  
  • Eliminate Qualified Immunity protections for police officers via Federal legislation which supersedes the SCOTUS precedent providing individual law enforcement officers with undue protections under the law, today, tearing down the legal framework allowing courts to turn a blind eye towards all varieties of civil and human rights abuses perpetuated by police at all levels.
    
  • Cease all Federal funding to State and Local police, including any “donations” or other allocations of existing military-grade hardware; any such existing hardware should be redirected to Ukrainian, Palestinian, and other countries defending against unjust invasion.
    
• A Rational, Peaceful, and Economically-sound Foreign Policy: given that the Military-Industrial Complex hijacked U.S. foreign policy decades ago, as “war is the lifeblood of the state;” I would aim to redirect U.S. foreign policy back to one of free trade, open borders, open dialogues, and an absolutely zero-tolerance policy for the support of foreign aggressors in any capacity.
  
  • Free Trade: the elimination of all Federal taxes except for a Land Value Tax means the elimination of all tariffs, so the American position on foreign trade should be one of radically free trade with zero U.S.-imposed tariffs, regardless of any tariffs each other country may have in place for U.S. imports.
    
  • Imperial Deconstruction: immediate efforts should be made to begun shutting down U.S. military bases around the world unless explicitly asked to remain by the corresponding governments, in which case the base may remain for an additional 5 years as local citizens are trained to provide a replacement force.
    
  • Israel: Congress should immediately cease all arms sales to Israel, impound any other financial support until the genocide ceases, and require AIPAC to register under FARA; for all intents and purposes the U.S. government should treat Israel as it would a hostile nation rather than how it would an ally and impose all applicable economic sanctions if not also participate in a UN-led military intervention.
    
  • Russia: the United States should cease providing any preferential or cordial treatment to Russian leadership and instead institute deep and wide economic sanctions paralleling much of the rest of the world – at least until all Russian forces are withdrawn from Ukraine (including Crimea), and potentially including participation in a UN-led military intervention to end its ongoing war on Ukraine.
    
  • Strict Policy Against Military Action without Congressional Approval: Since the Korean War, the U.S. Executive Branch has successfully usurped the power to declare war from the U.S. Legislative branch. In the interest of restoring a critical check and balance in our system of government’s various functions, no American military personnel should ever deploy, nor any remote system of war (e.g. drone, missile, etc.) used against a foreign nation unless Congress explicitly passes a declaration of war.
    
  • Strict Policy Against International Covert Operations: intelligence agencies and their individual agents should be stripped of any power to conduct covert operations in foreign countries, particularly any operations intended to overthrow or otherwise disrupt foreign governments. Any agencies or agents found to be continuing to conduct covert operations purportedly in the name of the U.S. government should be considered guilty of treason and punishable to the fullest extent of the law.
    
  • NATO & Other Alliances: The United States should continue to participate in a member nation in NATO and other international treaties and alliances so long as those alliances make good on their promises to promote and maintain peace; however, as part of imperial deconstructions, efforts should be made to decrease the share of spending the U.S. is responsible for as a member in these alliances, striving to better apportion funding requirements to member nations using relative population, GDP, risk profile, and other measures useful in finding a more equitable distribution of costs among member nations.
    
  • Automatic Sanctions for Human Rights Violations: Whether persecuting a minority group, conducting a full-blown genocide, or committing any number of other human rights violations, Congress should enact an evergreen law which automatically imposes economic sanctions in the presence of human rights abuses which meet measurable criteria also defined in the law.
    
  • Restoration of USAID: The money spent on preventing the proliferation of AIDS among children in foreign countries, preventing starvation, and other efforts to assist third-world nations are deeply noble and represent an enormous return on investment in regards to maintaining positive foreign relations with a variety of nations.
    
• Restoration of reasonable and rational regulatory, public health, and other similar bodies: The following regulatory and other bodies serve an important role in American society and should be restored to pre-2016 staffing and funding levels, alongside expanded oaths to the Constitution which threaten financial and criminal penalties for any dereliction of duty:
  • Food & Drug Administration (FDA)
  • The Center for Disease Control (CDC)
  • The National Institutes of Health (NIH)
    
• Restoration of entitlement program coverage to pre-2025 levels, as well as serious consideration for Medicare for All or another mechanism for providing universal healthcare coverage which does not rely on private medical insurers in any capacity (unlike the Affordable Care Act, which does).
  
• Implementation of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) for all U.S. persons, which can become politically palatable when paired with a bill to eliminate the Federal minimum wage.
  
• End all corporate subsidies not already rendered irrelevant by the elimination of the income tax and all corresponding credits and deductions, using the savings to fund social programs, instead.