Month: November 2022

The intent of this series is to answer President Biden’s question, “What are the Republicans for?”  His point being, at the time he said it, the Republican Party does not stand for anything.  A way to do this, that the mainstream media will find it difficult to avoid, is for the Speaker of the House of Representatives to present a series of briefings beginning on 3 January, the opening day of the 118^th Congress.

The intent for the Republicans in the House is to move quickly with a legislative agenda that will highlight what the Republican Party is for.  This will also begin framing the Republican Platform for the 2024 presidential campaign.

 Part 1, of this series, how to fix education and race relations and a plan for immigration reform.

Part 2, election reform.

Part 3, a plan for fixing a dysfunctional Congress. 

Part 4, taking on the bloated bureaucracy and uncontrolled spending by the Executive Branch.

Part 5, terms of office and term limits.

Here is Part 6, campaign finance reform.

Again, let me point out that none of this proposed legislation in Parts one through six have a price tag associated with its implementation.   

Presumptive Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy speaking: 

How bad and broken is the financing of political campaigns?  It is out of control, getting worse for every election, tainting the entire election process, setting up elected officials beholden to a quid pro quo process that aligns them with special interests, individuals, unions and corporations. 

Additionally, according to an estimate from The Center for Responsive Politics, the 2020 election saw more than $1 billion in dark money spending. The billion-dollar sum includes a whopping $660 million in donations from political nonprofits and shell companies into Super PACs, more than $300 million in advertising and $88 million in FEC-reported spending.

While there are hundreds of rules related to campaign financing, because each state has its own set of rules and they differ widely, what is lacking is reasonable federal guidance for the election of Representatives, Senators and the President and Vice President.  

Campaign finance reform is not a new issue. President Teddy Roosevelt who held office from 1901 to 1909 called for reforming the federal campaign process.  He wanted to limit the growing power of special interests such as business leaders. who donated money to candidates’ campaigns in exchange for favors. During his tenure, Congress passed the Tillman Act of 1907 which prevented corporations from donating money to political campaigns at the national level.

The Supreme Court plays an important role in all of this. In a Supreme Court ruling in 1976 their finding included two important points:

One, campaign contribution limits act as a deterrent to quid pro quo corruption, whereby contributors to campaigns are given preferential treatment because of their financial assistance.

Secondly, they established the principle that political money is synonymous with free speech, because, quote “virtually every means of communicating ideas in today’s mass society require the expenditure of money.” 

With that background, let’s begin with a discussion of political action committees, (PAC).  A PAC is a committee that raises and spends money to elect or defeat candidates. There are differing types of PACs:

A Leadership PAC is established, financed, maintained and controlled by a candidate or an individual holding federal office.

A Hybrid PAC solicits and accepts unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, labor organizations and other political committees. Notice the words, unlimited contributions.

Super PACs are independent PACs that can accept (again) unlimited contributions from individuals and organizations and spend unlimited amounts in support of a candidate but they cannot directly contribute money to or work directly in concert with the candidate it is supporting.  As of November, 2022, 2,418 groups organized as Super PACs reported total receipts of $2.3 billion and expenditures of $1.3 billion in the 2021-2022 cycle.

PACs also include separate segregated funds (SSFs), which are political committees established and administered by corporations, labor unions, membership organizations or trade associations.

There are over 7,000 PACs in the U.S. today; the top twenty PACs contributed over $8 billion in 2019 and 2020.

In the 2020 election, Forbes listed twenty billionaires who collectively shelled out a total of $2.3 billion in campaign contributions. While the Supreme Court decreed that campaign contributions are free speech, are we to believe twenty individuals contributing $2.3 billion has the same influence on the candidate as twenty individuals each giving $100?

A former federal election official called the $400 million-plus that mark Zuckerberg spent to help finance local elections, quote “a carefully orchestrated attempt to influence the 2020 vote.”

The 2022 midterm election set a new spending record with over $9 billion with about $1 billion of these funds attributed to the top 50 donors.  George Soros led the pack with $129 million

The Campaign Act of 1974 ensured that all donations to federal elections campaigns were part of the public record, limited individual contributions to candidates to $1,000, limited contributions of political action committees to $5,000 and created the Federal Election Commission. I’m sure that fifty years ago billionaire political donations of hundreds of millions of dollars was not a part of the political contribution’s discussion.  That was then, this is now and it is time to review the bidding.

UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, a widely respected expert on the First Amendment has published a set of rules for organizations with respect to free speech. Rule 5 states, quote “corporate and union direct contributions to candidate campaigns can be sharply limited.”

Before I get to some recommendations on reform, a word about the Federal Election Commission. Their mission, since established in 1975, is to protect the integrity of the federal campaign finance process by providing transparency and fairly enforcing and administering federal campaign finance laws. But the FEC of late is a complete failure.  They reportedly haven’t even updated their rules to include the term Super PAC, much less taken into account all the ways Super PACs actually collaborate with candidates and parties. The FEC is out of touch with the modern elections landscape and routinely fails to even investigate serious violations.

I agree with Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness who said, quote “If we are going to have a democracy that works for everyone, we need to greatly curb the influence of billionaire money in our politics.”

It is my intent to have House committees begin immediately to thoroughly investigate and lay out for all America to see what influence the doners, who can and do lay out tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, can have on election outcomes. Then we will produce and pass a Campaign Finance Reform Act to restrict donor influence and the resulting quid pro quo.

The Campaign Finance Reform Act will look something like this:

Campaign financing for all federal candidates will consist of one, and only one, source; the source is the voter who is geographically associated with the candidate.  For example, any registered voter in the U.S. may donate to a presidential candidate; any registered voter in a state may contribute to their U.S. Senatorial candidates; and any registered voter in a congressional district may contribute to a House of Representative contest. 

The amount that can be contributed by any single registered voter to any single candidate cannot exceed $1,000 or $2,000 or $5,000, the amount to be determined during the House debate.  This limit also applies to the candidates themselves.

Anyone found to have contributed more than the limit to a single candidate will be guilty of a federal offence and subject to a fine of $25,000 each offence. 

Before this reform takes place, we will have passed a Voter ID Act and from that every state will have an accurate and up-to-date listing of eligible voters which will be key to policing contributions so that the Federal Election Commission can accomplish its mission. Every contribution must contain the voter ID number of the contributor and each candidate must keep scrupulous accounting records of every contribution that can be accessed, sorted and reviewed by both name and voter ID number.

Every national candidate must publish their contributions and expenditures on line in an accounting format specified by the FEC and the data must be updated every time there is an accounting transaction.  The FEC will have an auditor in every Congressional District during the election process that will constantly pour over the approximately 500 candidate accounting web sites. The objective will be to ensure contributions do not exceed the limit, that a contributor can only contribute once during the primaries and once during the general election and that expenditures and income are equal.

Also, during each calendar year of a national election, the FEC will create some number of panels consisting of three retired federal judges for each panel.  All accounting irregularities will be immediately referred to a FEC panel of judges.  If the panel finds conclusive evidence of gross campaign finance irregularities, the candidate is subject to disqualification.

The objective is that we-the-people, eligible voters, make political contributions directly to candidates and that no other individual or PAC or union or corporation or other group be allowed to do so.

Bottom line, the 2020 and 2022 elections have clearly demonstrated that the process is completely out of control and not in the nation’s best interest. Recall that in November, 2022 when the Georgia Senatorial race went into a 30-day runoff there was an almost immediate infusion of tens of millions of dollars. We simply have to return the entire election process to we-the-people before it destroys us. Will we really miss the thousands of TV ads most of which seem to consist of a character assignation of a candidate’s opponent? 

Any questions?

OK, see you all tomorrow for some more House legislations in the 118^th Congress.

Author’s note:

The next proposed Speaker presentation to America outlining the legislative agenda for the 118^th Congress will soon appear entitled, WHAT’S NEXT REPUBLICANS? (Part 7 Fix the Primary Election Process and Timeline).

Republicans have to educate the American people that the numerous and significant nation-wide problems can be fixed and they will lead the process. Therefore, again I ask, if any of you who agree with what I have proposed in Part 6, and if you have contact with any movers-and-shakers in Washington, please provide them a copy.  Thank you.  Marv

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, and a new book May 2022, FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA as well as the author of a blog WeThePeopleSpeaking.com

WHAT’S NEXT REPUBLICANS? (Part 5)

The intent of this series is to answer President Biden’s question, “What are the Republicans for?”  His point being, at the time he said it, the Republican Party does not stand for anything.  A way to do this, that the mainstream media will find it difficult to avoid, is for the Speaker of the House of Representatives to present a series of briefings beginning on 3 January, the opening day of the 118^th Congress.

The intent for the Republicans in the House is to move quickly with a legislative agenda that will highlight what the Republican Party is for.  This will also begin framing the Republican Platform for the 2024 presidential campaign.

 Part 1, of this series, how to fix education and race relations and a plan for immigration reform.

Part 2, election reform.

Part 3, a plan for fixing a dysfunctional Congress. 

Part 4, taking on the bloated bureaucracy and uncontrolled spending by the Executive Branch.

Here is Part 5, Terms of Office and Term Limits. By the way, none of this proposed legislation in Parts one through five have a price tag associated with its implementation. No taxpayer money. None.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy speaking: 

January 20, 2017 while the nation watched President Trump’s inauguration, I recall one of the talking heads, filling up some air time during the parade, launching into a diatribe about what President Trump needed to do to keep from losing the House and/or Senate majorities during the 2018 midterms. That scenario has been repeated since President Biden’s inauguration 20 January, 2021.

So what? The so what of it all is that every day we see national issues, security issues, economic issues, crisis issues that are all tainted, delayed and debated in light of what it will mean for the midterms. The debate is too often not about what is best, or in some cases, what is absolutely necessary for the nation, but rather how it will impact the next mid-term election results. Sad but true.

None of us should fault the brilliance of the Founding Fathers when they put our system of government together. They were on their own with nothing in the world to use as a guide and our system, in its totality, has become the envy of the world. But, over time, change is necessary for most organizations and our terms of office and term limits could use a re-look to become more efficient and effective.

The unfortunate nature of many politicians is that the next election becomes their top priority and everything else, no matter how important to the nation, is a distant second. Our U.S. Representatives are unlikely to change of their own accord.  To protect the nation from our politicians’ prioritization we need to change the environment and hopefully thereby make the Congress more productive.   

Electing 435 U.S. Representatives to the House every two years is outdated and unnecessary. Their collective campaigns cost hundreds of millions of dollars. It is an unfortunate fact of life that a huge amount of a Representatives’ term in office is spent raising money and campaigning for reelection. 

Change the term in office for Representatives to four years. The advantages of a four-year term for Representatives are so obvious and make so much sense, that it should become a priority to get it changed. One would think the Representatives themselves would be wholeheartedly in favor of a four-year term.

And while that amendment to the Constitution is working, why not take on the issue of term limits. There is something about the Potomac water; the more of it a politician drinks the longer they want to stay. Four terms, 16 years, for Representatives and three terms, 18 years, for Senators seems about right. It is not as though those in Congress need years to learn the system and become effective, change and new blood for Congress can only be a positive thing. Senators and Representatives remaining in office for thirty or forty years is not commensurate with serving the nation well.

And while we are at it, the Supreme Court could do with a little update. It seems so untoward that millions of Americans and many politicians sit around hoping some eighty-year-old Justice of the Supreme Court will become too infirmed to continue serving or even die in office in order for a sitting President to fill a vacancy.   

Because the Supreme Court is often accused of being too politicized, there is extreme pressure for some justices to remain on the bench no matter their age, health, personal desire or capacity to do the job required of them. Appointed-for-life is just not the best answer.

The Supreme Court is too important to become a political football. It is not difficult to fix this and thereby turn the court over periodically by limiting the term of office to fifteen years.  it is interesting to note that since the formation of the Court in 1790, the Justices have served an average of sixteen years.

Change the Constitution and set in motion a system wherein the longest serving Justices would retire in two-year intervals until all of the Justices were inside the mandatory term limit; the remaining Justices would then retire when they reached the term limit..

While we are at it, what about the four-year term for the president?  Here is the scenario that habitually plays out with a four-year term and an opportunity to add one more term. 

Generally, after two years in office, the media begins asking the president about a second term.  We are not yet at the 24-month period of the Biden administration and will-he, won’t-he, should-he run in 2024 has become almost a daily dialogue. Aren’t there enough serious issues facing the nation every day that require his complete attention?

The second disadvantage is that if the president decides to run for a second term, the fourth year is devoted almost entirely to campaigning and the affairs of the nation go onto the back burner for months.  Not good, not smart.

On the other hand, if a sitting president decides not to seek a second term in office, he immediately becomes a lame-duck president and very little important work gets accomplished in the last 12 to 24 months in office.

So, any way you look at the current four-year, two term limit, there are huge down-sides in terms of productivity and service to the people every day of the term. 

An easy way to do away with all of the will-he, won’t-she, should-he/she and for the president to better serve the nation is to a change to one 6-year term for the president.   

Given these changes to the terms and term limits, the national election cycle would look like this:

2028: Elect the president to a one six-year term in office.

Elect all of the 435 Representatives. Representatives who will have served sixteen years by January 2029 will be ineligible to run.

Elect one-third of the Senators. Senators who will have served eighteen years by January 2029 will be ineligible to run.

Why do this? The founding fathers were perhaps the greatest gathering of minds at any time in world history. But they did not have a crystal ball and could not get it all right. Thirty-three amendments to the U.S. Constitution have been proposed by the U.S. Congress and sent to the states for ratification since the Constitution was put into operation on March 4, 1789.  Twenty-seven of these were ratified by the states and are part of the Constitution today.

It is time for change to terms of office and term limits for the betterment of the nation.

Any questions?

OK, see you all tomorrow for some more House legislations in the 118^th Congress. We are going to be busy.

Author’s note: The entire, detailed concept or operations for changes to terms and term limits is contained in, FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA, Chapter 6.

The next proposed Speaker presentation to America outlining the legislative agenda for the 118^th Congress will soon appear entitled, WHAT’S NEXT REPUBLICANS? (Part 6).The Republicans cannot afford to go into the lead-up to the 2024 election with business as usual. We have to educate the American people that the numerous and significant nation-wide problems can be fixed.  Therefore, again I ask, if any of you who agree with what I have proposed in Part 5, and if you have contact with any movers-and-shakers in Washington, please provide them a copy.  Thank you.  Marv

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, and a new book May 2022, FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA as well as the author of a blog WeThePeopleSpeaking.com

The intent of this series is to answer President Biden’s question, “What are the Republicans for?”  His point being, at the time he said it, the Republican Party does not stand for anything.  In light of the lackluster midterm election results, Republicans should find a way to make it crystal-clear to the American public that there are policy underpinnings for the Republican Party (strong defense, growing economy, states rights, law and order, secure borders, energy independence, deregulation) to name a few as well as numerous national issues that need to get fixed quickly.  A way to do this, that the mainstream media will find it difficult to avoid, is for the Speaker of the House of Representatives to present a series of briefings beginning on 3 January, the opening day of the 118^th Congress.

The intent for the Republicans in the House is to move quickly with a legislative agenda that will highlight what the Republican Party is for.  The intent is also to begin framing the Republican Platform for the 2024 presidential campaign.

 Part 1 of this series, (What’s Next Republicans?) published 13 November was how to fix education and race relations and a plan for immigration reform, Part 2 published 18 November provided for election reform and Part 3, 21 November, produced a plan for fixing a dysfunctional Congress.  Part 4, to be presented by the presumptive Speaker Kevin McCarty, has to do with the bloated bureaucracy and uncontrolled spending by the Executive Branch.  But, some of you are saying, the Senate won’t pass these bills and even if they do the president will likely veto them.  You are correct but the Republican Party will be on the right side of what is best for America and the Democrats will have a difficult time defending their position in the next election

Kevin McCarthy speaking:  

A mammoth, sprawling, uncontrollable, federal government currently numbering about 4.3 million plus hundreds of thousands of contract employees was never the vision or intent of the founding fathers.  Organizations have a propensity to grow to a point of diminishing returns; it ceases to be efficient, effective, and/or no longer performs the functions for which it was created.  At that point, a large organization will tend to look inward and become self-perpetuating rather than value-added for the greater good.

Some or all of that could apply today to the Departments in the Executive Branch of the federal government. This results in two major problems that desperately need to get fixed. 

First, a too-large organization is very expensive to maintain.  A more effective and efficient Executive Branch will be much smaller and less expensive. Every 1% reduction in end-strength equals about a $1.5 billion saving in annual salaries plus billions of dollars more in long-term retirement pay and benefits.

Second, and more importantly, the annual U.S. budget boils up out of this massive organization. Every government-funded program is maintained and sustained inside these bureaucracies.  These programs are this organization’s product.  General Motor’s product is vehicles; the Executive Branch’s product is taxpayer-supported programs.  The question is, what is the value added of those programs?  An in-depth review will undoubtedly find programs that have existed for decades, their original purpose no longer relevant, programs that sounded good at their inception but have failed in execution, programs to solve a problem that should have been the purview of state or local officials, programs initiated to solve a short-term problem but live on forever.  The list is long.  President Reagan summed up the problem with this statement, quote, “Government is like a baby, an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”

Before we launch into how to fix spending and the bureaucracy, a word about the national debt.  The out-of-control spending and debt increase is a relatively new problem. The Obama/Biden administration swamped us with more debt than all of the 43 previous presidents combined.  And now increasing debt annually has become the norm.  The Congressional Budget Office has been telling us for several years that annual debt increases are “not sustainable”, aka, there will be a day of reckoning and it will be ugly.  

It is difficult to get our minds around a debt figure of $31 trillion and growing at a rate of about $6 billion a day; a billion dollars about every four hours.  If you had stood on a street corner in 1960 handing out dollar bills, one dollar per second, you would just about now finish giving away the first billion dollars. You would be on that street corner for 62,000 years to hand out the first $1 trillion. If you were paying off the current debt at one dollar per second, it would take you about 1.9 million years.  Unsustainable. We have to do something about spending and we have to change the way we think about debt before that day of reckoning becomes a reality.  

As Joe Biden was sworn in as president on 20 January 2021 the U.S. national debt reached $27.6 trillion. Twenty months and two weeks later it passed $31 trillion.  

A frontal assault on the Executive Branch could result in the first major attempt at reducing annual federal spending by hundreds of billions of dollars; something the current Executive Branch and Congress collectively are incapable of doing. 

The federal government can be fixed but it will take strong leadership, attention to detail and, if done properly, at least six months of hard work.  The current administration is incapable of taking on this project. But fortunately, the Biden administration will eventually go away and when that happens it provides an opportunity for the Republican party and the future of our country. 

There was a time when the Republican Party stood for smaller government, states’ rights, strong defense, strict interpretation of the Constitution, and fiscal conservatism.  Politicians have moved away from being fiscally responsible. Just as was the case in 2016, the American people are looking for someone to lead us away from growing governmental control, cultural entitlement, and out-of-control government spending also known as uncontrolled taxation.

The intent of this legislation we are proposing is for the next president to initiate an Executive Branch-wide effort to reduce the size, reach, budget, and influence of the sprawling Executive Branch. The authority to do so resides in the Committee on Oversight and Reform whose jurisdiction includes over a dozen areas in the Executive Branch to include, quote, “Reorganizations in the executive branch of the government.

In all probability the big-government proponents in the Senate as well as the Biden administration will not take up this task.  But the Republican Party will be on record with a specific plan to reduce the size and reach of the federal bureaucracy which will reduce spending and make us more fiscally conservative.

But the House Republicans can use this legislative agenda, and the fact that the Democrats have rejected it, to lay out a phased program from now into the new 2025 administration. 

Phase 1, 118th Congress, January 2023-2025.  Pass legislation in the House for education reform, immigration reform, election reform, reform the way Congress operates, the plan to streamline the Executive Branch as well as future issues I will be presenting.

Phase 2, The 2024 Presidential Campaign.  All primary-election Republication candidates should agree that Spending and Debt Reform is a critical issue facing the nation and if elected will make it a priority to execute the reform process.

During the 2024  general-election campaign, the Republican presidential candidate will make it clear that the priority for his/her vice president will be to lead Spending and Debt Reform execution.

Phase 3, Nominate Executive Branch Leaders, November 2024 – January 2025. The president/vice president-elect should concentrate their selection process on principals and their deputies who understand organizations, who have successfully led large complex organizations, and who will lead the effort to re-think their mission and to restructure their organization to most effectively and efficiently achieve their mission.

Phase 4, Spending and Debt Reform Execution, January 2025-June 2025.  This will be a difficult process because we are talking about change, massive change.  We must recognize that for any large organization, especially one as large as the Executive Branch, change is very difficult. Fear of the unknown is a powerful human force, especially in government with an entrenched, layered bureaucracy that is stiff, stifling, and, in many respects, self-serving.

The newly elected Vice President will provide hands-on leadership from start to finish with periodic in-progress reviews to the American people.

How does all this get accomplished? It is a long and tedious process, even explaining it is a long, tedious read, but there are no viable shortcuts to re-thinking, re-designing, and re-structuring large organizations and making them be all they can and should be. 

First January 2025, the vice president should set up a senior Spending and Debt Reform Task Force consisting of the deputies of all the departments, agencies, and commissions. They will be the change-agents and become the junkyard dogs of Washington.  

Second January 2025, define the end state and end date for the campaign. For example, the VP might say, “Over the next six months, or as long as it takes, our task force will look inside every organizational element of the Executive Branch.  We will assess their mission (is it relevant today), their structure (too many or too few people), layering (is it OK or dysfunctional), can the organization integrate (communicate) vertically and horizontally efficiently and effectively on a day-to-day basis? Is the organization as a whole agile (able to deal with change as a matter of course) and is there overall value-added for the government and especially for the American people?”

Third January 2025, organization charts: The process begins in every named organization by putting together a very detailed organization chart. That’s the visual for the task force and it provides an immediate sense of the size, complexity, and layering.  Big government is layer after layer after layer; some of which produce nothing; they exist just to oversee what is being produced at the layers below.  Why the organization chart?  Because it allows the task force to begin the analysis and restructure at the bottom of the organization. One cannot reorganize and restructure top-down; to be successful it must be bottom-up. 

Using the Department of Agriculture as an example, there are 65 different organizational elements that come under the headings of departments, agencies, councils, institutes, programs, foundations, services, authorities, offices of, boards and facilities.  Inside them are departments, directorates, branches, sections, cells, and individual elements.  Every one of those becomes a “box” in the organization chart.  Each organizational box must list the name of the element, number of employees, and the grade of the leader, GS 10, 12, whatever.

Within the Department of Agriculture, for example, the Deputy Secretary, part of the VP’s senior task force, will form his/her own internal departmental task force. The Department Task Force’s first action will be to send out an internal memo to the leaders of every “box” to submit in one week a no-more-than-two-page report to the Deputy Secretary.  The report format should include, as a minimum these six elements:

First, a one or two-sentence mission statement that describes what it is that element collectively does; for example, responsible for writing, executing, and enforcing Department Regulation 135, Beef Export Program, and reporting results quarterly to ………

During the following week, the Department Task Force will begin a detailed review of every input report. Their job is to ask, do we need Dept Reg 135 any longer?  If so, could this be done with fewer people?  Could the same number of employees also be responsible for Dept Reg 246, Pork Export Program? Do we need the report quarterly? And most importantly, what is the value-added of that organizational element to the overall Department’s mission?

Keep in mind that here are undoubtedly tens of thousands of worthless reports written every year by an entrenched bureaucratic mass that lives on forever sucking up tax dollars, stifling initiative, and being a roadblock to progress.

Second, the report should describe the grade structure of all the employees in the box.

The Department task Force will look at the grade structure for each of the boxes in the organization chart.  Is it commensurate with the degree of complexity of the mission? Could two or more similar “boxes” be combined, perhaps scaled-down and led by this same leader (a span of control issue)? Is the leader a “working leader” or just grading the papers of his/her subordinates and passing them up the chain?

Third, describe a typical work week; number of meetings, amount of travel, etc.  

This can reveal a lot about an organizational element and its leader.  Many meetings are just to fill up time, or are a daily social coffee clutch, or make the person in charge feel like he/she is actually “leading”.  Many are a colossal waste of time. If employees have time to attend too many meetings, they probably are not very busy to begin with.  Is the travel critical to success, nice to have, or perhaps just to fill up the workweek? Travel is very expensive.

Fourth, what laws and/or regulations guide that organization’s work? 

This is a critical element in the review.  Has this organization been acting out a scenario that is unnecessary or at least should better reside at the state or local level?

Fifth, a list, in single sentences, of major accomplishments in the past twelve months

The task force will then determine if the accomplishments are in line with the mission or are just doing busy work?

Sixth and finally, a short statement of value-added. For example, without us the Department would not/could not do the following………

The Departments’ Task Force reviews of the input from the bottom-up is all about policy, practices, process, grade structure commensurate with overall responsibility, span of control, layering, and value-added determination.  When the Vice President randomly, as he/she should do every day, Departmental Task Force sessions, he/she will be grading their work and progress; are they tough enough, too tough, thorough enough, on the right track, or being overly protective of the status quo?  The VP will also be able to pick up strong points and pass them along to other Departments as best practices. 

The leaders of the Executive Departments along with their deputies will attend, in mass, a monthly in-progress-review with the president and vice president where they will lay out their findings to date.

Once the task force has worked its way up from the bottom, looking at every element, their individual mission, and value added, then and only then will they be capable of looking back and seeing how many subordinate elements are off track, irrelevant, unnecessary or even counterproductive.  They will then be capable of restructuring, re-aligning, re-tasking, reorganizing the subordinate elements to create an organization that is more focused, aligned, responsive, innovative, agile, and rid of pockets of resistance

What must be emphasized here is the importance of the bottom-up review process.  As the task force works up from layer to layer on the organization chart, they will come to some conclusions about value added at each level. Having reached the top of the org chart it is possible the Vice President’s senior task force could conclude that an entire department’s continued existence should be questioned.  A prime example is the Department of Education as outlined in part 2 of this series; Education in America is a national disgrace and not getting better despite the hundreds of billions of tax dollars expended by the department since its inception 40 years ago.

This process may look tedious and time-consuming because it is.  But unless we begin at the bottom and unless we include every element, we will never achieve an acceptable level of success.

Having described the process that must take place here are some of my conclusions:

The task forces must be especially mindful of the phrase “we provide oversight.”  That is a red flashing light that an organization does not, in and of itself, produce anything of value. They simply exist to grade papers, expand their purview, inhibit progress and expend tax dollars.  As President Reagan reminded us, “The most terrifying words in the English language are, I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

During the process, it is important to not lose sight of the two-fold objectives.  First, the objective is NOT to reach some specific lower end-strength number of federal employees.  The objective is to rid the government of “boxes” in the organization charts that have no valueadded, they just exist because they have always been there.  The end state is an organization that is leaner, more focused, more efficient, more effective, and agile.

Why do all of this work?  Two reasons:

One the most common attempts at downsizing, in my experience used numerous times over the past decades, have been to declare a hiring freeze or order an across-the-board, for example, ten percent personnel cut, neither of which make any sense nor achieves any positive results. 

Second, what I have described above has never been done before.  We have just allowed the Executive Branch to grow without ever undertaking a necessary pruning process.

When completed, many positions, perhaps hundreds of thousands of them, will be eliminated. It will then take a couple years of shuffling the deck by the Office of Personnel Management to get folks reassigned or retired, but it is within the art of the possible and worth the effort. 

Let me remind you one more time, the president’s budget is the sum of what all of the departments, agencies, councils, institutes, programs, foundations, services, authorities, offices of, boards, and facilities believe they need to accomplish their mission.  When, perhaps tens of thousands of actions, programs, and policies are eliminated because they are outdated, unnecessary, and/or redundant, the budget requirement can in all probability be downsized by billions of dollars.

There is also a states’ right issues in all of this.  As the federal government grows a natural outcome is that they over-reach into areas that are better and more effectively handled at the local and state levels.  Federal over-reach tends to result in a one-size-fits-all approach to problem-solving and it is usually ineffective and inefficient. 

President Reagan got it right when he said:

“Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.”

“Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

“Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.”

The bottom line is this, getting spending and hence debt under control will resonate with the American people a lot more than the tax-and-spend economic baseline of the Democrat Party.  This is a necessary, positive endeavor the Republican Party needs to embrace now with legislation that will call for this to happen with the next administration.

This legislation will send a powerful message to Congress.  Congress has become increasingly irresponsible with deficit spending and debt.  They need a wake-up call and if the Republican Party will campaign and win in 2024 with the Spending and Debt Reform message, the Congress will change.

There is an age-old saying in the organization reform process, “change or die.” There is a lot of truth to that in this case when it comes to deficit spending and debt reform.

Thank you for your attention, are there any questions?

OK, see you all here tomorrow for another proposed legislative action in the 118^th Congress. 

Author’s note: The entire, detailed concept or operations for Congressional reform is contained in, FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA, Chapter 4.

The next proposed Speaker presentation to America outlining the legislative agenda for the 118^th Congress will soon appear entitled, WHAT’S NEXT REPUBLICANS? (Part 5).The Republican cannot afford to go into the lead-up to the 2024 election with business as usual. We have to educate the American people that the numerous and significant nation-wide problems can be fixed.  Therefore, again I ask, if any of you who agree with what I have proposed in PART 4, and if you have contact with any movers-and-shakers in Washington, please provide them a copy.  Thank you.  Marv

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, and a new book May 2022, FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA as well as the author of a blog WeThePeopleSpeaking.com

Part 1 of this series published 13 November presented solutions to education, a national disgrace, and open borders, a national security crisis.  On 18 November Rip published Part 2 on election reform. The subject for Part 3 is how to fix our dysfunctional Congress.  The scenario is that the presumptive Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy is presenting the proposed Republican legislative agenda for the 118^th Congress in succeeding days beginning with Part 1 on 3 January, 2023. 

Representative McCarthy speaking:

Since 1973 Gallop has published the results of an annual poll which seeks to list, in order, the organizations in which we-the-people have confidence.  Thirteen percent have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in Congress while 45% have very little or none. Over the decades, Congress has always been at or very near the bottom.

Also, a Gallop poll in 2020 surveyed Americans on how various professions rated on honesty and ethical standards. Congress came in dead last with a high or very high combined rating of 8% and a low or very low rating of 63%.  The American people deserve better, a lot better. Fixing a dysfunctional Congress is a priority for the Republican legislative agenda during the 118^th Congress.

Let me describe for you a good example of what a dysfunctional Congress is capable of doing to, not for, but to the American taxpayers.  In 2020 when the pandemic was beating up every aspect of our society, the Congress concocted a 5,593-page monstrosity for Covid-19 relief, The Cares Act.  The taxpayers were stuck with a bill for $2.2 trillion. Certainly, the relief was welcomed by a large segment of the population, but here is the pathetic part; under the guise of helping Americans through the pandemic, members of Congress took the opportunity to pork-up the bill with dozens, if not hundreds, of earmarked funding directives that have absolutely nothing to do with Covid or Covid relief.  Here is a sampling:

$10 million for “gender programs” in Pakistan’

$300 million for fisheries,

$100 million for NASA,

$300 million to Endowment for the Arts,

$300 million to Endowment for the Humanities,

$300 million to Public Broadcasting,

$500 million for Museums and Libraries, 

$720 million to Social Security Administration,

$315 million to the State Department,

$90 million to the Peace Corp,

$492 million to National Railroad Passenger Corp,

$526 million grant to Amtrak. 

$4.7 billion in foreign aid to nine countries.

This is just a sampling of the pork earmarked in the must-pass Covid-19 relief law. Are these examples Covid-19 related? Should we be borrowing money for these types of expenditures? If viewed separately by the American taxpayers, would they pass the smell test?  Absolutely not.

For years politicians have been emphasizing the need for infrastructure spending.  So, in 2021 Congress passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill which, by the way, also provides funding for universal pre-K, child care, enhanced child tax credit, earned income tax credit, Affordable Care Act subsidies, Medicaid expansion, medical hearing benefits, affordable housing, Pell grants, children’s nutrition, immigration, state and local tax deductions, etc. etc. Only about 25% of the expenditures actually exist for real infrastructure such as roads, bridges and airports.

Why has Congress become so continuously inept?  Simply stated, they do not have a set of established standards and any organization without standards is a failed operation. Establish and enforce a set of simple standards and a lot of things in Washington can get fixed, quickly. 

However, keep in mind that change is a frightening concept to most organizations.  Fixing Congress will take some courage and strong, sensible, insightful leadership.

In accordance with this plan a small agency will be formed under the Office of Inspector General (free from Congressional influence) inside the General Services Administration (an independent government organization). It will be called the U.S. Congressional Legislation Standards Authority (CLSA). Their sole purpose will be to enforce these standards and to administer the life-cycle of legislation in the House and Senate.

Every bill will first appear on a Congressional web site (operated solely by the CLSA) that is totally dedicated to enforcing the standards for every bill.  Every member of Congress will receive an alert each time a new bill is proposed and posted.  This web site will be managed solely by the CLSA; The sponsors of a piece of legislation will provide all of the information for the administration of a bill to the CLSA and may contact the CLSA at any time to update schedules, to notify members of committee hearings, to make changes to the legislation, etc.  But the CLSA are the only ones who can access the site to add, delete or change any piece of information.

The CLSA does not have the authority to recommend changes, additions or deletions to the intent of the legislation.  Their function is to determine if the proposed legislation meets the following standards, with particular emphasis on Standard Number Three, Applicability. 

STANDARD NUMBER ONE, Outlaw “Earmarking”:  An earmark is a provision inserted into a discretionary spending bill that directs funds to a specific recipient while circumventing the merit-base or competitive-funds allocation process. Most earmarks are attached to a “must-pass” bill so that it is protected from non-passage or Presidential veto.  Generally, think of an earmark as an idea that would not have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting passed if, standing alone, it was exposed to the public before passage.  

STANDARD NUMBER TWO, Sunset Legislation: This is a measure within a statute, regulation or other law that provides that the law shall cease to have effect after a specific date, unless further legislative action is taken to extend the law. Most laws do not have sunset clauses and therefore remain in force indefinitely. Keep in mind that many laws cause some Executive Branch organization to be stood up.  Our government is full of agencies, divisions and branches that require annual funding, while having outlived their original requirement to exit.

STANDARD NUMBER THREE, Applicability: In the recent 5593-page Covid-19 relief bill there were scores of organizations funded from this bill that had absolutely zero association with the Covid-19 outbreak or relief thereof.

Hereafter all of the provisions of a particular bill must clearly identify with the subject, purpose and intent of the bill. It will save many tens of billions of needless expenditures per year.  It will prevent publishing bills that are too lengthy to read; e.g., not a single Representative or Senator actually read the 5593-page Covid-19 relief bill before they voted on it.

STANDARD NUMBER FOUR, Stand-Alone: Every bill will be a single-issue piece of legislation.

STANDARD NUMBER FIVE, Time Limits: There are two different situations to consider.  One is the federal budget process and the other is all bills other than those in the budget process. 

First, the non-budget process bills will get processed in one continuous 90-day timeframe.  The CLSA will enforce the scheduling of all activities to ensure the bill is ready to be voted on before the 90-day timeframe expires.  The exception to this is, at any time the bill’s sponsor may pull it from consideration. 

STANDARD NUMBER SIX, Leaders cannot hide a pending Bill:  The Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader in the Senate too often practice sitting on bills, not allowing them to be voted on for protracted periods of time. This will not be allowed.  Every bill will be voted on during the 90-day window.

STANDARD NUMBER SEVEN, Standard Website Format in four sections: 

Section one will contain administration information and be continuously updates throughout the 90-day window. Section one will contain the following:

-Title of the legislation

-A statement that all data is current as of (include a date).

-Date which starts the 90-day calendar.

-Not-later-than date for floor vote on the bill.

-The member of Congress who is the principal sponsor plus all co-sponsors.

-Author of the proposed bill (a member of Congress, a Congressional committee staff, Executive Branch Department, Non-governmental organization, lobbyist, private citizen, etc.).

-Sunset legislation date.

-Schedule of committee hearings. 

-When determined, the actual date to be debated and voted on the floor of the House of Representatives.

-When determined, the actual date to be debated and voted on the Senate floor. 

Section two is a statement of legislative intent:

The narrative for section two will be limited to one single page, font 12 and must begin with the words, the purpose of this legislation is to…….

Intent is one of the least used and most important aspects of any law.  Congress and the authors of a bill should not leave it to the applicable governmental departments, who will be charged with administrating the law, to infuse their own intent for what the laws should or should not be about. 

Section three presents the major components of the bill:

This section of the Standard Format will provide an outline of the major elements.  It is similar to a Table of Contents but with a single sentence explaining each entry.

Section four will include the bill’s entire narrative. For the first time the American people can go on-line and read the proposed legislation and contact their congressional representatives with comments and questions before it is voted on. 

Let me shift now to the federal budget process legislation which consists of twelve separate appropriation bills, 

 Each October, federal agencies begin compiling their budgets for the following fiscal year and submit their proposals to the President via the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).  OMB edits, calculates, and coordinates the budget for final review and approval by the President.  The President then forwards the approved proposal to the House and Senate by the first Monday in February.  

Upon receipt various Committees begin reviewing their respective sections of the budget; the process is spear-headed by the Budget Committee.

The Budget Resolution document is then considered on the House Floor and goes through a similar process in the Senate and is to be completed not later than April 15^th.  The CLSA will closely monitor the resolution process looking for violations of the standards on earmarking and applicability.

The timing of the entire budget review is critical, and this is where Congressional ineptitude begins to impact the Budget Resolution process because they too often choose to disregard protocols and standards. For example, in six of the seven most recent fiscal years, Congress never adopted a formal budget resolution at all.  This indiscipline represents the beginning of the downfall of the entire annual budget process.

Between the April 15^th Budget Resolution and May 15^th, the differences are to be reconciled between the House and Senate into the compromise resolution for all 12 separate appropriations bills. May 15^TH then begins the 90-day CLSA Standard window for passage of the 12 budget appropriations. 

One of the most basic tasks of Congress is to pass a fiscal year budget and do it on time.  However, Congressional ineptitude continues to place the day-to-day functioning of the federal government in jeopardy and thereby negatively affecting millions of Americans.

Failure to pass the appropriation bills on time results in either passing continuing resolutions (CRs) or shutting down the government.  Congress has used CRs in 40 of the last 44 fiscal years. In FY 2013 a full-year CR covered 7 of the 12 appropriations. It has been 23 years since all of the appropriations bills were passed prior to the beginning of the fiscal year.  In the past 43 years there has been an average of 4.6 CRs per fiscal year. Additionally, it is important to note that Continuing Resolutions have many negative and expensive unintended consequences.  For example, programs that were scheduled to end will be needlessly extended and important new programs will not be initiated.  This is what one would call unacceptable institutionalized ineptitude.

What I have just presented to you serves to illustrate the level of disfunction in today’s Congress, abrogation of constitutional responsibilities, the absence of concern over continued deficit spending and rising national debt and its inability to clean its own dirty laundry. The Speaker of the House and Majority Leader of the Senate hold the keys to success or failure of the federal budget legislation.  Failure to keep the budget process on a successful timeline leading to a completed budget prior to the beginning of the fiscal year is a failure of leadership. Leadership failure should have visible consequences, one of which would be for the House and/or Senate members to pass a resolution seeking the resignations of their respective leader.     

Conclusions:

After the fact, that’s when we found out about the $10 million for gender programs in Pakistan and dozens more ridiculous “Covid-19 relief” packages. Did the general public know about them before they became law?  No, because Congress can waste our tax dollars almost at will while hiding behind a wall of anonymity in legislation that is thousands of pages in length.  Without standards there is no accountability.

Under the Congressional Legislation Standards Authority (CLSA), we would have known on day-one who sponsored the insane $10 million for gender programs in Pakistan earmark.  We-the-people would have known when a committee was going to discuss it.  We would have known weeks in advance when it was going to be voted on.  We would have known all this because it would have been a stand-alone bill, not hidden inside a 5593-page unread bill.  Accountability and transparency would have been front and center. The fact is, that bill would never have made it to the floor for a vote because visibility to the press and to we-the-people would have caused it to go away. 

Furthermore, one of the great advantages of a standards-based legislative process is that in all likelihood, the bill would never have been written because anonymity would be non-existent.

Journalists will use the CLSA website as a source for up-to-the-minute reporting on pending legislation.  Citizens can read it, learn what the legislation is all about, understand the positives and negatives of the intent and weigh in with their elected legislators before, not after, it becomes the law of the land.

After about a year, this simple CLSA process will guide all activities in the Congress and will be accepted as the new normal.  This will save untold tens or hundreds of billions of dollars per year.  It will have the effect of spending our tax dollars first in support of we-the-people vs attempting to buy our way into changing overseas cultures.

Successful, admired organizations operate this way every day. It is as simple as one-two-three.  One, thoroughly define the TASK at hand.  Two, define the CONDITIONS, in this case stand-alone bills vs appropriations bills. Three, set and enforce the operating STANDARDS without exceptions. 

By the way, in the time it has taken me to present these remarks, about twenty minutes, the national debt has increased by about $84 million.  Bringing order and discipline to the Congress is the beginning of a process of reducing reckless unnecessary spending and move the Congress towards a balanced budget mentality. 

Are there any questions?

I will see you here tomorrow to present another proposed Republican legislative initiative for the 118^th Congress.

Author’s note: The entire, detailed concept or operations for Congressional reform is contained in, FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA, Chapter 5.

The next proposed Speaker presentation to America outlining the legislative agenda for the 118^th Congress will soon appear entitled, WHAT’S NEXT REPUBLICANS? (Part 4). Let’s not forget that polls have been telling us that 75-80% of Americans believe Biden has this country on the wrong track.  Add to that the fact that after the midterm elections Biden announced that he would “change nothing.”  This is perhaps the greatest opportunity a party has had in recent decades to stand for solutions to America’s numerous and significant nation-wide problems. Therefore, again I ask, if any of you agree with what I have proposed in PART 3, and if you have contact with any movers-and-shakers in Washington, please provide them a copy.  Thank you.  Marv

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, a columnist for THE PILOT, a national award-winning local newspaper in Southern Pines, NC and the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.

The bottom line is that the 2022 midterm elections did not end well for the Republican Party or the nation. One possible reason is that Republican campaigns concentrated on the obvious near-term issues (inflation, fuel prices, open borders, lawlessness, etc.) but failed to demonstrate to the voters that this is the Party that can change the overall direction for the nation. We have to gain the voters’ trust and respect.

Part 1 of What’s Next Republicans, published on 13 November, presented solutions to education, a national disgrace, and open borders, a national security crisis.  My intent is to publish a series of solutions to national problems.  The scenario for this series is that on 3 January, 2023 when the 118^th Congress is convened, the presumptive Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, will address the nation to explain the Republican’s upcoming legislative agenda. When he closed his remarks (Part 1) concerning solutions to education and open borders on 3 January, he told the audience he would address them again on 4 January.  Here are the proposed remarks for Speaker McCarthy on the subject of election reform: 

For every eligible voter in America to be comfortable in the belief that his or her vote counts (once), and that none of the parts of the system are easily subverted by fraudulent actions and activities is right up there in importance with free speech.  If we cannot consistently hold free and honest elections, what does that say to us and to the world about our status, our morality, our honesty.  Without those attributes how can we be a model for the remainder of the world?  The sad truth is that too many Americans believe our election process is compromised. A survey conducted in 2021 tell us that over half of all Americans have lost confidence in our election system. This must get fixed before the 2024 election.

While the Republican Party believes strongly in states-rights initiatives, too many states have demonstrated that their policies and procedures on elections do not adequately serve their voters and in fact set the system up for possible failure.  We will propose guidance for all national elections.

Let’s begin by defining the problem; here are ten reasons why the election system is broken and must get fixed:

ONE, voter registration rolls are inaccurate.

For example, in 2017 Judicial Watch brought suit against California and Los Angeles County, alleging that LA County has more voter registrations on its voter rolls than it has citizens who are old enough to vote. LA County has over 10 million residents, more than the populations of 41 of the 50 states.  Additionally, 11 of California’s 58 counties have registration rates exceeding 100% of the age-eligible citizenry. January, 2019 California in general and LA County in particular were ordered to begin the process of removing 1.5 million invalid registrants. 

Whether deliberate or not, terribly inaccurate voter registration rolls across America provide the basis for fraudulent election results. 

TWO, mail-in ballots provide opportunities for fraud: 

In some states blank ballots, with no security identifier, (easily reproduced on any copy machine) are automatically sent out to everyone on the voter registration rolls. That could result in millions of ballots out there for ineligible voters, dead people for example, that could be filled out by anyone.

Signature verification of returned ballots is so difficult that some states simply don’t require verification. Additionally, the volume of mail-in ballots in some areas is so high, election staff may have as little as five seconds to check a signature. If someone mailed in multiple ballots, there is virtually no way to catch the voter.

THREE, ballot harvesting provides opportunities for fraud:

Ballot harvesting is the collection of mail-in and absentee ballots from voters by a third party who then, supposedly, delivers them to election officials. The term vote harvesting was essentially unknown to the general public until the North Carolina State Board of Elections overturned the results of the 2018 election for the Ninth Congressional District due to illegal vote harvesting; what the board called, quote, “a coordinated, unlawful and substantially resourced absentee ballot scheme.”

A Florida grand jury summarized the problem as follows: quote, “once that ballot is out of the hands of the elector, we have no idea what happens to it. The possibilities are numerous and scary.”

FOUR, fraud by election officials: 

This happens when ballots are manipulated by officials administering the election, such as tossing out ballots.

FIVE, chain of custody: 

In so many ways voters lose control of their ballot; ballot harvesting being a prime example.

SIX, chaotic behind-the-scenes ballot counting:

During every election we see videos of counting rooms with large numbers of election workers milling around and tables stacked with hundreds or thousands of ballots.

SEVEN, the movement towards non-citizens voting:

The New York City Council, December, 2021, passed an ordinance allowing over 800,000 noncitizens to vote in city elections, declaring, quote, “New York City must be seen as a shining example for other progressive cities to follow.” 

EIGHT, uncontrolled so-called “dark” campaign spending and billionaire involvement:

While the Federal Election Commission is authorized to enforce the limits and prohibitions on contributions, it is impossible for them to accomplish that mission given that current campaign finance laws, which in some cases authorize “unlimited” and “undisclosed” terminology. 

NINE, only one day for in-person voting:

Why are we so stupid as to believe one of the most important functions of our cherished republic has to be a hurry-up affair during one work-day?

TEN, VOTER APATHY:

In the 2016 election an estimated 100 million eligible voters did not vote.  In the 2020 election a record number of Americans voted but still an estimated 80 million, one third of all eligible voters, did not vote.   

Given the above list of ten sub-systems, it is obvious to the casual observer, we need to fix a terribly broken election system.

Americans want election reform. This was confirmed by a July, 2021 poll conducted by the Republican National Committee with 800 registered voters (31% Democrats, 29% Republicans, 31% Independents): 

80% agree Voter ID is a key security measure.

87% were against ballot harvesting.

77% rejected the Democrat claim that Voter ID is racist.

78% agreed with voter signature verification and chain of custody controls.

89% agreed that voter rolls need to be cleaned up.

88% believe states should not send mail-in ballots to the general public and non-citizens.

Can election reform become a reality before we have an election meltdown that tears this nation apart?  Yes, it can be accomplished with a no-more-than 20-page federal law.  It needs to be no more than twenty pages so that newspapers will publish it, whereby all Americans can read it and support it.  The law needs to be very specific in its requirements so opponents cannot distort the intent or meaning.

ELECTION REFORM BIGINS WITH A REQUIREMENT FOR VOTER ID:

Here is what we know will happen first.  The president, VP and right on down the line Democrats will immediately accuse anyone who believes in voter ID of being a racist and that voter ID is voter suppression. My response to that is a question, Mr. President am I to believe you are saying that adult Black Americans are incapable of going to the DMV and getting an ID? 

Precedent for personal IDs:  In 2005 Congress passed the “Real ID Act” establishing minimum security standards for state-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards.  Implantation was to have been October, 2020 but was Covid-extended to 3 May, 2023. Under the law applicants applying for a Real ID must prove their birth date, birthplace, citizenship, legal status, Social Security number and residence documentation.  Without a Real ID, Americans will be denied access to TSA at any airport. The point to be made here is this; is there a movement to oppose the Real ID law?  Have you heard one single dissenting voice in the main-stream media concerning the Real ID requirement? Is anyone calling it racist? No, because there is no opposition.

Ask yourself this question; do I know any adult U.S. citizen who does not have a valid ID?  I thought so, you can’t think of one, neither can I. So why is this particular ID requirement racist voter suppression?  It makes absolutely no sense.  

The reality is, a Voter ID Card system will solve most of the ten election problems and it will be self-policing.

The intent of a Voter ID Card law is to positively identify a voter at a voting site with a current photo, a valid state Voter ID number, current address and a history of voter activity. Under this federal law everyone who is eligible to vote must have a Voter ID Card in order to perform in-person voting or to apply for an absentee ballot, the only two voting methods that will be authorized. 

The Voter ID Card will be obtained from a state Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) facility and it will expire simultaneously with the expiration of a driver’s license. Both can be renewed at the same time. 

The Voter ID Card will be the same size and quality as today’s Real ID. the Voter ID Card will present a photo, full name, date of birth, address, sex, eye color, height, hair color, expiration date and, most importantly, an individual Voter ID 10-digit number beginning with the two-letter state abbreviation such as NC-456-789-3322.

In order to obtain a Voter ID Card, you must be 18 years of age and present the following documents: a valid passport or birth certificate proving identity and date of birth.  One document confirming full name and social security number. Two documents with a current physical address proving state residency.

The state DMV will immediately provide the state election headquarters with all Voter ID Card data.  Important point here; THAT LIST WILL BECOME THE STATES’ VOTER REGISTRATION ROLL. This immediately solves the first election fraud problem of ineligible voters on the voter registration rolls.

When a voter presents their Voter ID Card at the voting site, the administrative assistant will swipe the Voter ID Card and ascertain if that particular Voter ID Card number has already been used during the current election period.  if not, the assistant will print out an individual ballot which has the voter’s full name, address and Voter ID Card number printed on the ballot.  In the presence of the voting assistant, the voter will sign the ballot acknowledging that the data is correct.  Fraudulently signing a ballot will be a federal offense. With Voter ID Cards, every ballot instantly becomes individualized with the voter’s name and number.  This prevents ballot stuffing, voter impersonation and fraud by election officials. 

Once the voter has filled out the ballot and it has been read by the vote-tabulating machine, any subsequent ballots presented with that Voter ID number will be automatically rejected.  Additionally, any ballot presented without or with a fraudulent ID number will be rejected.

The Voter ID Card system will also be self-policing.  That is, when a Voter ID Card hits the expiration date the software will automatically delete that Voter ID name and number from the system.  Furthermore, when a voter gets a new card or renews an expired one, the system will automatically add the voter to the registration rolls.  The result will be that we will no longer have dead people voting or 1.5 million ineligible voters registered to vote in LA County.

Ballot stuffing means casting illegal votes or submitting more than one ballot per voter.  That cannot be done with voter ID because every ballot must have a voter ID number on it and that number can only be used once during an election cycle.

Voter registration fraud involves filling out and submitting a voter registration card for a fictional person, or filling out a voter registration card with the name of a real person but without that person’s consent and forging his or her signature on the card. None of that can happen with the voter ID card system in place because of the voter identification requirements at the DMV site.

Voter impersonation occurs when a person claims to be someone else when casting a vote. The voter ID card prevents all of that activity.

Fraud by election officials happens when officials administering the election are tossing out ballots or casting ballots in voters’ names. The system will not accept ballots without a valid number and the system will only accept that number once. 

Opponents of voter ID call it “voter suppression and racist”, a ridiculous, unintelligent, slanderous charge. Their scenario is that perhaps some elderly, single lady living alone in the north Georgia mountains will have no opportunity to get a voter ID card.  That is a doubtful assumption but even if true, voter ID is for the greater good for the most people. 

Let me now comment on election day.

Why are we so stupid as to believe one of the most important functions of our cherished republic has to be a hurry-up affair during one WORK-DAY?  And we wonder why one out of three eligible voters fail to cast a ballot. 

There is an easy fix, make the election a weekend happening.  The Constitution gives the States and Congress the authority to, “set the time and place of elections.” 

Begin voting on the first Saturday in November from 8 until 7 o’clock? Continue on Sunday, 10 until 7.  The majority of voters do not work on weekends. Top this off with a Monday national election-day holiday every even numbered year. Give everyone ample opportunity to participate, eliminate long waiting lines, and take away most apathetic lame excuses for not voting.  Make it difficult for citizens not to vote.

IN-PERSON VOTING AND ABSENTEE BALLOTS:

The intent of this federal law is that the maximum number of registered voters will physically go to a local polling site, record their vote privately on a paper copy and observe the ballot being inserted into the electronic counting terminal.  The only alternative voting procedure is to request an absentee ballot from where they are registered to vote. Mail-in voting and ballot harvesting are prohibited.

Furthermore, the intent of the specific voting procedures described below is to ensure transparency of the process, accountability by all election personnel, and voter faith that the process is error free. 

A citizen may be registered in only one location.  Multiple registration is a federal offence and punishable by a $25,000 fine for each occurrence.

During presidential elections voters will receive two ballots; one for president and vice president only and one for federal congressional offices, state and local candidates.

Every election day, we inevitably see videos of the back-room activities at voting sites and it looks absolutely chaotic with multiple tables stacked with ballots, people milling around and a total lack of security. The object must be to improve on the efficiency and security.  Personnel working the in-person voting sites should be organized as follows: all of the work will be accomplished by teams. each team will consist of a person affiliated with each of the major political parties plus an observer.

Executive team: This team will oversee all operations during each voting day and ensure that every procedure prescribed in the law is being adhered to. An executive team member must secure the voting facility after the last departing election worker.

Administrative team: they are responsible for in-processing all voters and getting them to a voting booth.  

Counting teams:  They are responsible for a back-up system of manually counting all in-person and absentee presidential ballots. After a ballot has been read by machine the voter will then hand the ballot to a counting team member. That ballot will be manually numbered from 1 through the total number of ballots that will fit in a storage box; let’s say for example 200. Additionally, the counting team will keep a manual count of how many votes each candidate received; for example, when the box is full the counting team will agree that it was 115 votes for candidate A and 85 for candidate B. When ballot number 200 goes in the box it will immediately be sealed with permanent tape with the total for each candidate recorded on the box exterior.  That box will immediately be turned over to the Accounting Team. That manual back-up counting process can be accomplished in just a few seconds with 100% chain of custody and no stacks of unattended ballots on tables in the election center.

Accounting team: they will verify the count of each box of ballots, secure the counted-ballots in a secure storage room and maintain an up to the minute total presidential vote count.

ABSENTEE VOTERS ACTIONS.

Absentee voters must fill out and mail the federal mandated standard voter registration and absentee ballot requestto the voter registration office where they are registered to vote.  That request will require the voter to specify the reason they cannot be on hand to vote locally, such as:

-Being unable to get to the polling place due to illness, injury, or disability.

-Being on business travel or vacation outside of the county or area of residence on election days.

-Being a student at an out-of-state college or university.

-Military personnel stationed out of state or overseas.

If this is accomplished by mail, the voter is responsible for mailing the absentee ballot request not later than September 15^th.  Voter registration offices are responsible for mailing the return absentee ballot not later than October 5^th.  Absentee voters must mail in their completed ballot not later than October 20^th.  Counting teams will begin counting absentee ballots on 25 October using the same procedures described above for in-person voting.

For voters who determine they will be unavailable to vote in person due to illness, unprogrammed travel, etc.  after the 15 September mail-in request date, may get an absentee ballot in person at their regular voting location up to within 24 hours of the beginning of in-person voting and turn in the completed ballot before in-person voting ends.

All election results will be released simultaneously across the nation beginning at 12 o’clock, noon, eastern standard time, on Tuesday, the day following election close.  Any release of voting results by anyone at any time before this is a federal offense and will be immediately investigated by the FBI. 

Races that end with competing candidates’ vote count within one half of one percent of each other will be recounted. 

My conclusions and final thoughts:

What is recommended here is a load of changes to the election system.  But, to me, that simply explains what a mess the election system is now and how badly it needs to be cleaned up.

I am a states-rights advocate; I am against big government with big controlling regulations.  But I do not believe we can equivocate on foundational issues, such as free speech and free and lawful elections, that have been the hallmark of this great republic for over 200 years.  In order for the electorate to have confidence in the system, this nation needs one set of common-sense rules for elections that apply to every state.

Finally, it is important to note that in 2021 the democrat-controlled House of Representatives and Senate set forward election reform bills, HR-1 and S-1.  Fortunately, neither bill came to a vote.  The bills were about 800 pages in length and generally would have mandated into law most of the elements discussed above that currently have the potential for fraudulent results. When drafted and presented to the House of Representatives for consideration and ultimately for a vote, this Election Reform Bill will, in my estimation, be about twenty pages in length.

Thank you for your attention, I will be here tomorrow, same time, to present additional legislative initiatives for the 118^th Congress to consider as soon as possible.

NOTE: The entire, detailed concept or operations for Election reform is contained in, FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA, Chapter 3.

Author’s note.  The next proposed Speaker presentation to America outlining the legislative agenda for the 118^th Congress will soon appear entitled, WHAT’S NEXT REPUBLICANS? (PART 3)

And again, if any of you agree with what I have proposed in PART 2, and if you have contact with any movers-and-shakers in Washington, please provide them a copy.  Thank you.  Marv

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, and a new book May 2022, FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA as well as the author of a blog WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.

For the past six months politicians, pollsters and prognosticators have been telling us the Republicans would “win” the 2022 mid-term election; it was just a question of by how much.  Would it be a defining moment in American politics?  Would it effectively wipe out all the misery the Biden administration and Democrat-controlled Congress has imposed on the American public over the past two years?

The general consensus seems to be that the results were good for the Republican party but not great. This begs the question, What’s Next Republicans? A good point of departure is the tried-and-true process of an old fashioned After-Action-Review aka Good-Better-How. Three questions:

WHAT DID WE (THE REPUBLICANS COLLECTIVELY) DO GOOD? The House majority is supposedly Republican. The Senate majority is (at this writing still TBD). Governor DeSantis, Florida, exposed himself as a top contender for the 2024 presidential race.

Conclusions: Ho-hum. The 2022 mid-term election was no Red Tsunami by any stretch of one’s imagination. It did not create an insurmountable headwind for the 2024 election. It did not send masses of Democrats to the Republican side in spite of the misery the Democrats have inflicted on the general public over the past two years.

Second AAR question:  WHAT COULD WE HAVE DONE BETTER?  Short answer, a lot. Did any Republican leaders (for example, Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, the Republican National Committee) stand out as articulate leaders and spokespersons for the party? No. Was there an organized, concerted effort to get every Republican candidate across the country singing from a proactive sheet of music entitled Here-Is-What-We-Are-Going-To-Do? Nope. Were the Republican arguments too much about blinding glimpses of the obvious (inflation, gas prices, lawlessness and illegal immigration) and not enough about what the Republican party will specifically do going forward? Absolutely. For months leading up to the election, poll after poll was telling us that 75-80 percent of Americans believe Biden and the Democrat Congress have us on the wrong track.  Did the Republicans take advantage of that and campaign on a new, different, identifiable, positive track?  No.

Did this election change the U.S. political landscape, effectively having large numbers of Democrats and Independents move into the Republican camp?  That does not appear to be the case.

Conclusions:  We did not need to campaign on the facts that were so self-evident to every voter every day; inflation, lawlessness, fuel prices, immigration, higher taxes etc. We needed to make every voter believe the Republican Party is ready and able to change X, Y and Z by specifically legislating and executing A, B and C. The Republican Party needs to build trust and respect for the long-haul; the midterm campaign did neither.

Third AAR question: HOW DOES THE REPUBLICAN PARTY INSTITUTIONALIZE WHAT NEEDS TO BE CHANGED GOING FORWARD TO GAIN TRUST AND RESPECT OF THE GENERAL ELECTORATE AND THEREBY RECRUIT LARGE NUMBERS OF NEW MEMBERS?

DISCUSSION:

At a 19 September speech in Pennsylvania, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy presented his (the Republican Party’s) “Commitment to America” speech.  It was a knock-off of Speaker Newt Gingrich 1994 “Contract with America” which was instrumental in gaining Republican control of the House of Representatives for the first time in forty years. McCarthy’s “commitment” presented four themes:

One, the first had to do with safety; complete the border wall, make violence against police a federal crime and withhold funding to woke district attorneys.

Two, take on the tech giants with new rules to protect free speech.

Three, eliminate wasteful government spending that is driving inflation.

Four, hold government officials accountable for corruption and abuse of power.

This was a weak effort, six months too late that captured little or no mainstream media interest. Most Americans didn’t even know it happened. Contrast that with Speaker Gingrich’s Contract with America which was a specific list of ten bills they promised to pass in the first hundred days of a new Republican Congress along with a set of rules as to how the House of Representatives was to operate.

SO, WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN?

Between now and 3 January, 2023 when the 118^th Congress is convened, Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, and/or a Special Action Group, and/or whomever needs to select a number of critical national issues that impact every citizen, define the problems, prepare solutions, put them on a near-term time-line (first hundred days seems appropriate) and present them in a speech to the nation by one of the Congressional leaders (for this paper, let’s assume the speech will be given by Speaker Kevin McCarthy). This will accomplish the following:

One upstage the president who said, in a post-election press conference, that he plans to change “nothing” in the next two years.  

Two, put the entire Republican Party on notice to get their act together, cooperate, participate and support the programs.

Three, provide the Republican National Committee with a starter-set of a 2024 Republican Platform.

Four, create early momentum for the 2024 presidential campaign.

WHAT FOLLOWS IS A LIST OF CRITICAL NATIONAL ISSUES TO BE ANNOUNCED, 3 JANUARY, 2023 by Speaker McCarthy (beginning with education, race relations and immigration reform):

EDUCATION AND RACE RELATIONS: Speaker McCarthy will begin a speech as follows:

“Education is the wellspring from which a nation ascends … or the quagmire into which it sinks.”  Michael Russell.

Education in America is a sinking ship that has been taking on water for the last forty years.  The top-down concept by which our education system operates is fatally flawed and cannot be fixed.  Every president since Carter has come into office with a new idea, hundreds of billions of dollars, legions of federal bureaucrats and hope for improvement.  Well, hope is not a process. The only way to fix our education system is to start over with a new concept of operations which we have in hand.

But first let’s look at how our schools are doing today? The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the only assessment that measures what U.S. students know and can do in various subjects across the nation, states, and urban districts. Also known as The Nation’s Report Card, NAEP has provided important information about how students are performing academically since 1969.  They grade mathematics, reading, science, writing, technology, arts, civics, geography, economics, and U.S. history for grades 4^th and 8^th every 2 years and 12^th grade every 4 years

Here are the pre-covid results for reading and math from 2019: Reading comprehension, grade 4, 59% NOT proficient. Grade 8, 66% NOT proficient. Grade 12, 76% NOT proficient.  Yes, 3 out of 4 high school graduates are not proficient in reading comprehension.

How about their ability to apply mathematics knowledge: grade 4, 65% not proficient.  Grade 8, 66% not proficient. High school graduates, 63% not proficient. 

Other subjects were even worse.  For high school seniors 88% not proficient in history, 77% not proficient in writing ability and 78% not proficient in science. 

These pathetic results also present a national security issue in that over 70% of high school graduates, ages 18-24 are ineligible for military service because of obesity, criminal record, drug abuse or inability to pass the entrance examination. 

Additionally, we now know that after the Covid shutdown, these numbers are lower. It is time for a complete overhaul of our education system and that is exactly what we intend to do.  As I mentioned earlier, we have in place a complete concept of operations to do so.

The Department of Education is a 40-year failed project.  Hundreds of billions of dollars, thousands of bureaucrats, thousands of regulations are a huge part of the problem and have little to do with the solution.  No accountability. No standards-based solutions. A top-down fix for education has not nor will ever be successful.

Across this nation every school day about 7000 students drop out of school and face an uncertain future. Man dropouts turn to crime; about 80% of criminals did not finish high school. According to the U.S. Census, 37% of non-high school graduates are receiving some form of government welfare.  A bad education system is expensive.

Before getting into the details of how we are going to fix education, let me make an important point about race relations in America. First of all, we absolutely disagree with President Biden, his VP, and his Cabinet members when they tell us “Racism is systemic in America.” That’s ridiculous. Babies are not born bigoted, disrespecting or hateful.  While growing up they learn it at home, in school, on the playground and on the street.  We can systematically defeat racism simply by changing what they learn. When we look at the tools we will use to fix education, we see they are the same tools we would use to eliminate racism. Two for the price of one.

It is also interesting to look at the enormity of the K through 12 education landscape in America. There are about 142,000 schools, 180 million adults with children under age 18, 60 million students K through 12, 4.5 million teachers and over 200,000 Superintendents, Principals and Education Board members. That is about 245 million Americans, three of every four, who are in some way part of the education organization.

With all of that preamble, here are the changes that must be made. Bottom-up is the only way to fix education and race relation and it is not rocket science; we are going to accomplish an education transformation through these eight initiatives:

One: Reduce the Department of Education to a small agency taking care of grants and other issues that do NOT directly impact day-to-day instruction.  

Two: It’s all about standards and accountability. An organization without standards is a failed organization. Standards are the key to success in education and it is an easy process.  Here is how it should work: during a summer session the Governor will bring in a couple top-notch elementary school Principals and, three or four outstanding third grade teachers.  They will come to an agreement about what the end-of-year third grade standards should be.  Then they will outline what needs to be accomplished during each, for example, six-week period all year long. Sitting in on that session will be three outstanding fourth grade teachers.  Now armed with the standards for third grade, their beginning point, the fourth-grade teachers will go through the same process.  Over one summer this process will determine the end-of-year standards for every grade, every subject kindergarten through 12^th grade.  The Governors are accountable for making standards a critical element of the education equation. 

Three: Fix accountability for the Boards of Education to embrace the concept of standards.  If they don’t. vote them out of office. The point being, parents cannot reach out today to some nameless, faceless bureaucrat in Washington but they certainly will know all the accountable players at their level, nearest the point of execution.  

Four: Hold County/City superintendents accountable for planning and enforcement of standards; replace them if they fail.  

Five:  We are getting closer to the point of execution. Hold school Principals will be held accountable for requiring every teacher every day to teach from a lesson plan that systematically leads toward achieving an end-of-year standard. If a principal is not in the back of at least one classroom every day checking on the teachers’ progress, he/she needs to be replaced. A Principal’s job description is simple; create a safe and secure environment for learning and ensure every teacher is teaching to standards.

Six: Hold teachers accountable for achieving every end-of-year standard. They must not pass their failed efforts to the next grade. Students who get behind in fourth grade will get further behind in fifth, then sixth, etc. until in high school they are so hopelessly behind they become a dropout statistic with little hope for the future. While they are teaching, how does a teacher know if the student “got it”? The only way is to execute a consistent rotation of teach, test, teach, test, teach, test all year long. If a student gets behind, have an immediate parent/teacher conversation, get a tutor, send homework to the parents to administer.  Never-let-a-student-get-behind must become every teacher’s mantra.

Seven: School administrators and teachers meet with parents with the express purpose of explaining standards, the repetitive teach/test concept that leave no student behind and establish some sense of accountability by the parents.  

Eight, last by certainly not least.  Character training works.  It is a proven concept. It is the fuel for all the other techniques and procedures to achieve standards and accountability.  Just imagine sixty million students K through 12, in 142,000 schools across America, every school day for thirteen years, in a homeroom class with the same school mates being led in a discussion of character by, most likely, a senior citizen volunteer.

Let me quickly give you the Character Curriculum:   ACCOUNTABILITY, CITIZENSHIP, COMMITMENT, COMPASSION, COURAGE OF CONVICTIONS, COURTESY, CONFIDENCE, HEALTHY HABITS, HONESTY, HONOR, HUMILITY, INTEGRITY, JUDGMENT, LEADERSHIP, MORALITY, PERSEVERANCE, PUNCTUALITY, RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, SELF-RESPECT, SELFLESS SERVICE, SPORTSMANSHIP AND TRUST. Every student in America will become part of a homeroom “gang” that they can count on, trust, and respect through 13 years of schooling. Life-long highly respected colleagues.

Let me say it again, character education is a proven concept.  How many of you know or know of a youngster who spent some number of years in Scouts or The First Tee, both of which are youth organization that are centered around character development?  Show of hands please.  OK, how many of those youngsters ended up dropping out of school? Zero is almost always the answer to that question.

One last thought on character development. Why combine improving race relations and education into the same campaign?  Good question; it just so happens that if we were to attack those two problems with separate campaigns, they would both work off the same solution, character development. 

Let’s talk for a moment about intent of this national initiative.  It is not a political move; I’m hopeful and confident that we can get a significant number of Democrat co-sponsors for this legislation.  The intent is to create new generations of Americans who understand, believe in and live by a culture of ACCOUNTABILITY, TRUST AND RESPECT.  Accountability trust and respect; a powerful unbeatable combination. Why is that important?  Because the existing deep-seated culture of blame and hate is blocking progress and tearing this great nation apart.  We are better than that. An insightful observation, often attributed to Alexi de Tocqueville in 1835, “America is great because it is good; when it ceases to be good it will cease to be great.” This character education agenda is all about goodness. To illustrate, let me take just a few seconds to go through the subjects: 

Accountable students do not resort to blame.

Students who are steeped in commitment, confidence, perseverance, punctuality and responsibility do not skip school, fall behind or drop out.

Students who are deeply rooted in trust and respect will strike down bullying and are unlikely to become racially bigoted adults. 

Students who are compassionate, courteous, honorable, good citizens and demonstrate the courage of their convictions do not join street gangs.

Students who have accepted honesty, morality and integrity as their guiding light will likely be life-long upstanding citizens.

Students who understand, live and accept a life of selfless service are unlikely to become self-serving adults.

Students who have an understanding that there is a lot they don’t yet know and even part of what they believe they know might be incorrect, have the quality of humility. 

Students who understand self-respect recognize that they are now better than they used to be and can be counted on in times of temptation because they are morally dependable and their homeroom gang has their back.   

With this value base, students across the nation are more likely to exercise good judgment and become great leaders.

How much new spending will it take for this education and race relations transformation?  None.  How much will be saved? The Department of Education FY 22 budget was $102.8 billion.

I rest my case for the need to transform education and race relations in America.

Does anyone have a questions about this initiative?

Author’s note:  The entire detailed concept of operations to fix education and race relations is contained in a new book, FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA, published May 2022; Chapter one. The purpose of this article is not to sell books but to try to get across to folks in Washington D.C. that this nation has some enormous problems and the powers that be treat them as if they can be solved by throwing a few more billions of dollars at it.  There are workable solutions that are within the art of the possible.  We need to find a way to make our Republican Congressmen and women understand and believe this.

Speaker McCarthy continues speaking:  Moving on, the next Republican Party initiative has to do with illegal immigration.  This will be a shorter discussion because there is a simple solution to the national crises on our southern border. 

Facts bearing on the problem: During FY 22 the Border Patrol averaged about 6,300 illegal immigrant encounters every day.  Additionally, there were an estimated average 1,600 so-called “runners” every day. This is a national crisis and a serious every-day national security risk. The Border Patrol is overwhelmed processing, feeding, housing, providing medical care and transporting 6,300 persons every single day. Integrating illegal immigrant children into the nation’s school system is a serious problem. These numbers are a daily strain on our welfare systems. The annual bill for illegal immigrants is difficult to determine but it is way north of $100 billion per year and continuously increasing.

Notwithstanding the tax-payer burden, most importantly those who purposely evade the Border Patrol represent a serious and continuing threat to our country.  They purposely evade detection because this group, estimated to be 1,600 per day, consists, at least in part, of gang members, criminals, drug traffickers, human traffickers and terrorists from 160 different countries. This has to stop.

During FY 22 agents seized over six tons of fentanyl at the border, that’s 192,000 ounces. Two milligrams, a very small fraction of an ounce, can be lethal.  The question is, how many tons successfully passed across the border? Last year, on average, fentanyl killed over 190 Americans every day. This is a self-imposed crisis that must be stopped.

If we were to brainstorm what an immigration system should do for us, the result would probably include the following wish-list:

One, institute a policy that will shut down the mases of illegals crossing our borders, forever.

Two, free up the Border Patrol agents to fulfill their intended mission; catch illegals and stop the flow of drugs, terrorists, gang members and human trafficking.

Three, create a path to citizenship for the hard-working, law-abiding illegals already in the U.S.

Four, provide a clear distinction for illegals that ICE should locate, arrest and deport.

Five, walls work. Walls are a deterrent.  Walls tend to force intruders into restricted areas where Border Patrol can effectively seal the border.

Six, accomplish all this with a program that pays for itself.

We have a concept of operation in hand that will do all of this and we intend to pass the legislation immediately and set this in motion. Here are some of the details.  For purposes of discussion and understanding of a doable time-line, let us assume at this point that this legislation can be researched, debated, passed and signed into law by 30 June, 2023.  The time-line and actions required should be treated as time-constrained crisis planning and execution. 

Phase One, 1 July through 30 September, 2023:

The Immigration Reform Act (IRA) will require every state to set up Illegal-Immigrant-Identification-Card (IIICard) processing sites.  The logical solution is to add positions to each existing DMV office.

Every law enforcement agency in the United States will forward information to the FBI on every felony committed by an undocumented inhabitant (who, what, when and where).  The FBI will establish and maintain a continuously updated national database of these cases which allows for an immediate check against an application for an IIICard.

The IRS will set up a special division to handle income taxes for the illegal immigrants who have an IIICard. 

Every undocumented inhabitant in the U.S. will be invited to report to an IIICard registration site in the state where they reside in accordance with a published alphabetical schedule (last name beginning in A, B, C, or D report starting on 1 October, 2023. 

At this point some of you are thinking something like, invite the illegals to report to the DMV, are you out of your mind?  Please stay with me, they absolutely will report to the DMV. 

Phase two, 1 October, 2023 through 31 March, 2024:

Prior to appearing at the IIICard registration site, each applicant must download a Federal Form, Employer’s Statement of Employment, fill it out and have it signed by their employer. No employer signature, no IIICard.  The form must contain a statement of strong penalties for any employer signing a false statement. There will be special rules for those who are self-employed. Registration fee for the IIICard is $50 per year which is the first step in fulfilling the objective of immigration reform without taxpayer dollars.  

 The DMV will check into the FBI felony data base and if the applicant has a felony conviction, that person will be taken into custody, deported and will NEVER be eligible for an IIICard.  This is an example of the specificity of the language that must be in the Immigration Reform Act, IRA; one strike and out. 

The IIICard will have a number for each individual; for example, if issued in North Carolina the identification number will be NC123-45-678. The card will include a photo, height, weight, hair color, issue dat,e termination date (one year) and number of dependents (spouse and children)..   

Data from every card issued by a state DMV will be forwarded to the IRS registry.

When Phase Two ends it will never have to be repeated. Let me say that again, it will never have to be repeated because every illegal immigrant in the U.S. as of 31 March, 2024 will be categorized as either a legal holder of an IIICard or they are deportable.  On 31 March, 2024 we will know how many employed illegal aliens there are, where they live, where they work, what they do and how many direct family (spouse and children) members they have.

Phase Three, 1 April, 2024 through 30 September, 2024. This is the phase that begins to change behavior and thereby solve the dual problems of tens of millions of undocumented inhabitants and continued unsecured borders.

On 1 April, 2024 the day following the initial six-month registration period, any employer who employs an undocumented worker (no IIICard) will be subject to a first-offence fine of $25,000 for each worker and $50,000 each worker, second offense. No exceptions, no excuses. No employer is going to risk their livelihood over the employment of an illegal immigrant. Laws change behavior and, for the first time, immediately adds accountability of all employers into the immigration solution.   

This simple act of requiring illegal aliens to carry an IIICard will have four positive and immediate results:

First, employers will protect themselves from potentially heavy fines by only hiring inhabitants who have a valid IIICard.

Second, undocumented inhabitants who choose not to apply for an IIICard or were denied an IIICard will be unable to find an employer who will take them on.  They will be unemployable, will be constantly liable for deportation if detained for any reason and will likely return to their country of citizenship.

Third, and this gets us to the wish-list to shut down the mases of illegals crossing our borders, forever. Foreigners contemplating illegal entry into the United States in order to work will soon learn that no employer is going to hire them and illegal entry will be a futile effort. This inevitable behavior change will, by default, reduce illegal immigration to a manageable trickle. Stated another way, as we get into Phase one, July, 2023, foreigners contemplating illegal entry will realize that under this new concept of operations they do not have enough time to make the trip to and through Mexico, cross the border, process, find a home base in the U.S., get a job and secure a signed job certification from an employer by 1 October, 2023 when the IIICard application process begins.  This open border nightmare could be within a few months of being shut down. 

Fourth, this will provide Border Patrol agents the opportunity to concentrate their efforts on the illegal entry of drugs, terrorists, gang members, criminals and those just looking for a life of government handouts.    

Phase Four, 1 October, 2024:  This phase begins the twelve-month reissue of IIICards; $50 fee.  The IIICard color will change each year.  ONLY those inhabitants holding an IIICard can receive a new card.  Additionally, they will be denied renewal if they have been unemployed and made less than $5000 or if they have been convicted of a felony or if they failed to pay their 10% federal tax.  Once denied, they will be detained, deported and never receive another card. Any IIICard that is not renewed by the annual renewal date will automatically be moved to the government’s deportation list.

In order to fund the Immigration Reform Act, a provision in the law will require IIICard holders to pay 10% Federal income taxes on gross income.  Employers must issue a 1099 using the individual’s IIICard number to identify them to the IRS. The IRS will establish a National Registry of Card numbers and the data base will list earned income and taxes paid for the previous year, IRS.

During the IIICard renewal process, the DMV registration center will access the IRS data base to determine if the applicant has in fact been employed, made at least $5000 and paid taxes.  No tax records, no renewal and the applicant will be detained and deported.  The Federal Government will retain 2% of the tax revenue to fund four national data bases for The Immigration Reform Act. The remaining 8% will be returned to the States in proportion to the number of IIICard holders. 

Any IIICard holder convicted of a felony will have his card pulled, be detained and deported.  That person’s file and IIICard number will be annotated at the national registry to ensure that any future attempts to reapply will be denied.

To assist the law-abiding, hard-working illegals towards citizenship, the Department of Labor will establish a web site that can assist an individual who has lost their job.  Any card holder can get on the Labor Department website and provide their name, location and skills.  Employers will be encouraged to check this website when they have job openings

An IIICard holder will have the following four privileges:

One, they may apply for a state vehicle operator’s license and will be tested in English. A provision of the law will be that every state must also prominently display the individual’s IIICard number on the State Driver’s License.  Additionally, every applicant must show proof of auto insurance.

Two, a current IIICard will authorize the holder to legally cross U.S. borders. 

Three, legal holders may apply for an IIICard for their immediate family members using the sponsor’s IIICard number with a suffix, for their spouse and children (no extended family members).  If granted, the sponsor will be authorized to escort the dependents across the U.S. border.

Four, after legally holding an IIICard for five consecutive years, that person is eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship for themselves and their immediate family (spouse and children).

Any questions on the Immigration Reform Act proposal?

Thank you for your attention, I will be here tomorrow, same time, to present additional legislative initiatives for the 118^th Congress to consider as soon as possible.

That closing statement by Speaker McCarthy should grab the attention of mainstream media and the general public.  Game on.

NOTE: The entire, detailed concept or operations for immigration reform is contained in, FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA, Chapter two.

Author’s note.  I have in mind a number of critical national issues that somehow must get fixed if we are to move forward (voter fraud, size and scope of the Executive Branch, federal deficit spending, dysfunctional Congress, term limits, universal service and world aggression).  For each I will present a concept of operations and a solution. The timing is such that I also believe it could be advantageous for the Republican leadership to present them as a new version of a Contract with America, that will successfully carry us into the 2024 presidential campaign. To that end I plan to publish these articles as PART 1 (above) followed by PART 2, etc. as I get them put together.  One final note, if any of you agree with what I have proposed in PART 1, and if you have contact with any movers-and-shakers in Washington, please provide them a copy.  Thank you.  Marv

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, and a new book May 2022, FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA as well as the author of a blog WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.