Donald Trump surprised a couple hundred million Americans in 2016 by winning the election few expected him to win. After the fact, it became obvious that the American people wanted change. I believe they still do. We are sick and tired of the Washington mess; how they act, what they say, their privileged positions, what they fail to do and that they have generally lost perspective on what America is all about.
Obvious problems go unfixed, things we do not care about get an inordinate amount of attention and the constant blame and bickering is distasteful, shameful and just downright disgusting.
We are inside five months before the November elections. What follows is a list of issues you could be looking for as you go about deciding who to vote for:
SPECIAL INTEREST MONEY: When Special Interest Groups have an inordinate influence over our elected officials, it is bad for the nation. Look for a candidate who wants to limit special interest money flowing into politicians’ pockets or into the campaign process.
A BALANCED BUDGET: Future generations have a right to be protected from debts accumulated by present-day politicians. This nation absolutely cannot sustain the levels of deficit spending (averaging more than $1 trillion per year) over the past 12 years. Look for someone who has the courage to begin a balanced budget dialogue. Tax-and-spend is not a valid economic policy.
SIMPLIFY LEGISLATION: The Affordable Care Act left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. The ACA was about 2,700 pages followed by over 20,000 pages of implementing regulations.
Legislation should be a few pages not a few hundred pages, written in understandable English, with enough specificity to preclude thousands of pages of implementing regulations prepared and enforced by hundreds or thousands of bureaucrats.
LEGISLATION, FROM THE PRESIDENT: It is difficult to find references to legislation prepared in the Obama or Trump White House and sent to the Congress for action. Preparing bills in the White House is the logical way for a President to lead the nation. Failing to do so delegates the task to groups of Congressional staffers from varying committees whose results then get mashed together into an illegible, illogical mess; example, Obama Care.
PURE LEGISLATION: Each year Senators and Representatives attach tens of thousands of earmarks that are totally unrelated to the primary Bill. This process results in untold billions of dollars in fraud, waste and abuse. There are examples of Bills with literally hundreds of earmarks. Earmarking may be a key reason why polls show that more than 85% of Americans disapprove of how Congress conducts itself.
SUNSET LEGISLATION: Milk goes bad; so do laws. Unfortunately, most laws stick around long after they have served their intended purposes. A sunset provision should be included in every statute; It should state that the law shall cease to have effect after a specific date unless further legislative action is taken to extend the law.
LINE-ITEM VETO: Line-item veto is an executive authority to nullify specific provisions of a law without vetoing the entire piece of legislation. Forty-four State Governors have some form of line-item veto power.
While a Presidential line-item veto law was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1998, the next administration should seek new legislation in relation to an attempt to get a balanced budget amendment. That is, in a case where the Congress could not present a balanced budget, the President would have line-item veto power.
REMOVE ANNUAL BONUSES FOR GOVERNMENT WORKERS: A small percentage of hard-working Americans are in a situation that will ever provide for a bonus. When we read about the hundreds of millions of dollars going to government employees in organizations that have been less than sterling (the Veterans Administration, for example), it just does not pass the smell test.
DE-UNIONIZE GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES: Unions came into existence for good reasons; child labor, unsanitary working environment, unsafe conditions. Over the past century those poor conditions went away with child labor laws, OSHA protection and EPA regulations. Thereafter unions set their sights on office workers. Since most office workers cannot complain about their working conditions, what has evolved is unionized protection against being an ineffective employee. Bottom line, it is nearly impossible to fire a bad government employee.
The overall impact of union protection is that government employees no longer believe they have to be accountable for their actions or the quality of their work in order to remain on the job. Without accountability, any organization is, at best, mediocre.
There is a lot more water to be drained in the Washington swamp, vote for someone who at least promises to try.
Lieutenant General, US Army retired, Marvin L. Covault is the author of Vision to Execution, a book for leaders.