9 Ways To Make America A Better Place To Live
By John Hawkins (05/16/03)
One of the stock questions I sometimes ask in interviews is, "Theoretically, let's say you could get any five pieces of legislation passed that you wanted. These could either bills that are already in the pipeline in Congress or that you could write yourself. What pieces of legislation would you pass?" Well, I decided to crank that number up to 9 and answer it myself. I kept things short for brevity's sake...
Abortion: I don't believe the rights of any mother should include the right to kill her child unless her own life is in danger. I'd like to see a Constitutional amendment banning abortion except when the mother's life is in danger.
Balanced Budget Amendment: The ONLY way we're going to be able to get the government to spend within its means over the long-term is to force it to do so with a balanced budget amendment. If the government wants to spend more than it takes in some years, then it better start saving some money for a rainy day instead of spending it all on pork.
Fifty-One Votes To Confirm A Judge Rule: Our judicial confirmation system hasn't functioned well in a long time and now it's totally broken. Quite frankly, I think you could make a case that the Senate can't Constitutionally filibuster judges as it is, but in any case, this is what we need to be doing.
Flat Tax: Long-Term, a flat tax would do more to keep America economically strong than anything else we could do. It would give almost everyone (the poorest among us would be exempt) a stake in keeping taxes and government spending low and it would lead to a wave of economic growth.
The Glenn Reynolds' End to Racism and Segregation Act of 2003: I took this one verbatim from Instapundit. "I think the Republicans should demonstrate that they're taking the country beyond the legacy of segregation by passing the "End to Racism and Segregation Act of 2003," which would provide that neither the federal government, nor the states, nor any entity receiving federal funds may take race into account in any manner in the making of hiring, firing, promotion, or benefits decisions."
Illegal Alien Crackdown: I'd like to see us: use drones & greatly increased manpower to patrol our borders, crackdown on businesses that hire illegal aliens, refuse to let illegals have driver's licenses or go to public schools, we should use the police to help hunt down illegal aliens, and a work program that lets millions of Mexicans come her legally to work should be set up to reduce the motivation for people sneak into the US. Furthermore, to free up resources to deal with illegal aliens, we should severely cut back on legal immigration until the situation is in hand.
School Vouchers: I'd like to allow parents to vote with their feet and their money when it comes to schools. Give parents a voucher for the full amount that is being spent on their child and let them pick the school they want to spend it in. That will lead to competition and a lot of bad schools going out of business while quality schools pick up the slack.
Term Limits: Because of gerrymandering and the advantages of incumbency, many people in the House and Senate in essence have "jobs for life". That's not good for Democracy and only allowing a Congressperson to serve three terms and a Senator to serve two would make sure that we get the turnover necessary to keep our government healthy.
Tort Reform: We are the most litigious society on earth by far and it's a huge drain on our economy. Implementing a loser pays principle & setting damage caps on the amount of money that can be handed out in a case (among other things) would go a long way towards restoring sanity to our legal system.
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