The 2190 date is snarky because I believe that a small number of these reforms will take that long. I will be long gone, but I can dream, can't I? Comments and suggestions are encouraged and appreciated, and will be added to the list. Be specific. Pax vobiscum, Shalom Aleichem, Salaam Aleichem.
Not in any meaningful order
1) Phase out and eliminate all agricultural subsidies. These programs outlived their usefulness 60 years ago and benefits go to large corporate farms. Annual Savings: $35 billion
2) Remove ethanol from gasoline and shut down the ethanol program. There is a zero net energy yield from ethanol production and it reduces gasoline mileage by 15%.
3) Ban all livestock grazing on public lands. To paraphrase Woody Guthrie, “This land is our land…” and it does not belong to ranchers and cattlemen.
4) Phase out and eliminate all subsidies for nuclear power. Use the Nuclear Regulatory Agency as an agent to shut down and mothball all existing nuclear power plants. Germany’s solar electric output now exceeds that of its nuclear plants, which are being decommissioned.
5) Phase out and eliminate all subsidies to coal, petroleum, and natural gas industries. Keep fracking for gas and oil under strict regulation, and require that all chemicals used in fracking fluids be listed in the environmental impact statements.
6) Phase out and eliminate all flood insurance programs. The insurance only encourages development and land-use policies in areas where no building should occur. The program now has $1.25 trillion in exposure for the residential and commercial properties that are covered and the American taxpayers are on the hook for those future losses.
7) Eliminate the IRS tax exemption for all religions, and religious organizations, including all their properties and commercial offshoots.
8) Remove all American troops from 900 military bases overseas and bring them home to replace the mercenaries that are corrupting the military and wasting money.
9) Replace our current military by instituting a draft. We do not have a “volunteer” military. Most of the people in the services joined because they were unable to find work at a living wage. A standing professional army can lead to the development of a Praetorian Guard that could overthrow the government. An army of draftees will make it less likely we will remain in a state of perpetual war.
10) Cut the pentagon budget by 80 percent. Doing so would still leave us as the largest and most powerful military in the world. Our current spending exceeds the combined military budgets of China, Japan, the UK, France, and Russia. The Defense Department failed us on 9/11 and they should not be rewarded for their failure. Annual Savings: $560 billion
11) Decommission the 5th and 6th Fleets in the Mediterranean and Indian Oceans. Their sole purpose there is to protect global flows of petroleum from Mideast countries that use oil revenues to fund terrorist networks. Savings subsumed in (10) above.
12) Stop importing all petroleum from the Mideast.
13) Require all automobiles, including light trucks to obtain at least 100 miles per gallon of fuel.
14) Stop building new roads and highways and begin construction of a nationwide rail system.
15) Ban all uses of synthetic fibers in clothing and furniture. Because of their high level of flammability, all these fabrics are treated with flame retardant chemicals that are demonstrably carcinogenic. Cotton, linen, flax, wool, and hemp can be used to supply all the raw materials necessary for use in furniture and clothing. Synthetics also require petroleum as a chemical feedstock.
16) Ban the use of all antibiotics in livestock. 80% of all manufactured antibiotics are used in animals raised for meat and eggs. We will be confronting a major public health emergency as resistant microbes evolve as a result of the overuse of antibiotics. Already, Methycillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is spreading widely.
17) Have the FDA regulate nicotine as a dangerous drug. It is beyond insanity to subsidize and make readily available a product that has killed millions of people worldwide, subjecting them to agonizing deaths by lung cancer.
18) Shut down the war on drugs, which has wasted over $1 trillion dollars over the past 40 years and has only succeeded in filling jails, and creating a major prison-industrial complex. Limit the production and importation of pharmaceuticals that are now responsible for most cases of substance addiction and abuse.
19) Require the Department of Education to establish a national curriculum for all secondary schools, public and private. Mandate the teaching of evolution in a clear, straightforward manner that includes discussion of the scientific method in depth.
20) Make higher education free for all qualified high school graduates by fully funding all state universities, making them independent of local and state control or interference.
21) Forgive all student debt.
22) Shut down fraudulent online diploma mills. Subject them to the same accreditation standards used by major universities. These online gamers are major recipients of federal student loans and only serve to defraud the government and impoverish students. These institutions will wither away as the state university systems expand.
23) Eliminate the income tax and replace it with a tax on wealth. Eliminate all state sales taxes, which are a major financial burden on lower- and middle- income people. Use the wealth tax to support the states.
24) Eliminate the development and production of genetically (GM) modified foods. Their primary role is to enrich the giant agribusiness industry. The major flaw in GM is that they have failed to take into account the evolution of pesticide resistance among insect and fungal pests, as well as the evolution of herbicide resistance among the plants.
25) Require that all chemical products manufactured within the last 50 years to be subject to retroactive tests for carcinogenicity and endocrine disruption. Remove them from the market until they have been subject to adequate testing. Every human being on earth carries hundreds of trace amounts of these toxic materials. When Rachel Carson wrote “Silent Spring,” DDT, which was heavily used as a pesticide in the 50’s and 60’s, was showing up in Antarctic penguins and mothers’ milk. Now these other products are appearing in human blood and fatty tissues as well.
26) The “Equal protection” clause of Amendment XIV to the Constitution should extend to all women and give them their right to be free from unwanted pregnancy and mandatory motherhood. A woman’s life it at risk as soon as her pregnancy begins, whereas fathers are subject to no such risk. Women de facto not have equal protection of the law when it comes to their bodies. No one, not clerics, not legislators, not husbands, no one has the right to tell a woman what is best for her body.
27) Eliminate the anti-trust exemption for the insurance industry. The McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945 (15 U.S.C.A. § 1011 et seq.) gave states the authority to regulate insurance with no federal regulation. Time to repeal it.
28) Human beings have an absolute right, guaranteed by a succession of Amendments, and inherent in the Preamble to the Constitution to associate, live with, and marry anyone they wish.
29) Every employee has the right to a living wage, and the right to organize and form a union. Thousands of American workers have been shot down like dogs over the past 120 years trying to establish their rights in this economy. They should be supported at all costs.
30) The Second Amendment, in an originalist interpretation, gives every American the right to bear arms, specifically single-shot flintlocks, pikes, halberds,