CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction CHAPTER ONE An America in Danger CHAPTER TWO An America that Reforms Its Politics CHAPTER THREE An America that Pays Its Way CHAPTER FOUR An America that Prospers CHAPTER FIVE An America that Works CHAPTER SIX An America that Heals CHAPTER SEVEN An America that Leads Afterward Appendix This book is dedicated to the millions of volunteers who accomplished the seemingly impossible task of getting the petitions signed. You did it brilliantly. You changed American politics in just five months. You made it clear that the people, not the special interests, own this country. Everyone in Washington now understands that the American people own this country, have reasserted their roles as owners, and want the country's problems addressed and solved. The creativity, ingenuity, and focused dedication to this task are unique in American politics. The founders of our government must be looking down from heaven, smiling on all of you. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS For years I watched with concern as the national debt mounted and our competitive position declined. I collected news items, government reports, outside critiques, and editorial opinions that told the story step by step and instance by instance. I listened to thousands of people in and out of government. These people have good, solid, practical ideas about how to solve our country's problems and put it on the right path. To all of you who gave me ideas and plans, I offer my thanks. If the content of this book seems familiar, it is because your ideas are valuable and deserve to be studied carefully. To the team that assembled these ideas into a workable framework I owe a debt of gratitude, especially to: John White, Bob Peck, Richard Fisher, Doug Austin, Steve Brooks, Carol Cimitile, Cathy Eddy, Eric Hoffmann, Mia Lee, Steve Ostrover, David Parkhurst, Susan Bruns Rowe, Laura Sainz, Kevin Warmath, and Andrew Wise. I'm especially grateful to Ashley Chaffin, whose ability to track down any fact or answer any question is first-rate. Thanks to Tom Luce, David Bryant, Brad Harris, and Clay Mulford for their observations, comments, and help. I told the American people I would study the issues and tell them my positions on matters that will determine our country's future. This book and the movement that spawned it are only the beginning. I urge you to continue to monitor your government and to demand results from all candidates and officeholders, especially in this election year. Only the people can rebuild America. INTRODUCTION Unless we take action now, our nation may confront a situation similar to the Great Depression and maybe even worse. Our economic growth has been sluggish for nearly two decades. The unemployment numbers remain depressing, while the Federal Reserve worries about inflation. The institutions we depend on to preserve our financial security are shaky. If they fail, millions of people will be devastated. Banks are already weak. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which we as taxpayers guarantee, may incur liabilities greater than those from the recent Savings & Loan crisis. In other words, our economy is perched on the edge of a cliff. Either we work together to climb back to safety, or we must brace ourselves for potential disaster. This book provides a plan to pull our nation back from the brink. It is the legacy of a movement unparalleled in American history. I look at this book as a dynamic plan that will stimulate discussion and debate. The only objective is to create the plan that best serves the American people, and then implement it! We want action, not words. Not everyone who supported me or participated in this great movement will agree with everything I write. I am only one voice in a loud chorus. I do hope that people who agree with me about the symptoms of our national disease, even if they dispute some of my proposed cures, will use this book as a means of judging candidates for national office in the November elections. In the space of six months, the grassroots movement roused the nation and shook the political establishment to its core. They did it working as a team. That's why they call themselves United We Stand. The result is that candidates for President, Senate, and House of Representatives are listening to the people as they haven't done in years. This movement will succeed if it holds the candidates accountable. Ask them specific questions, and require specific answers: What about the deficit? What about entitlements? What about the special interests? What about foreign governments hiring American lobbyists to write our laws? What about our government's hobbling of business? What about our loss of jobs to foreign countries? Washington has created a government that comes at us instead of a government that comes from us. Slick campaign commercials and entertaining television spots won't work in 1992 if you ask the questions and demand the answers. You are the owners of this country. Nobody else can do the job. Our system has been corrupted because we weren't exercising our responsibilities as owners. This is the year to reassert your ownership. One voice is tiny, and alone it cannot be heard above the din of politics as usual. The people's voice, when it cries as one, is a great roar. United We Stand: that's the magic. It cannot be ignored. You can change our country. You can pass on the American dream to our children. You can change the world. AN AMERICA IN DANGER (chapter 1) In June, 117,000 more Americans were thrown out of work. While we were putting the finishing touches on this book in July, eight companies announced they were shedding 23,000 jobs. Those were just the announced layoffs. The Federal debt is now $4 trillion. That's $4,000,000,000,000. Our political leaders will add over $330 billion to that debt in 1992 alone. We add about $1 billion in new debt every 24 hours. Does anyone think the present recession just fell out of the sky? People are working longer and longer hours to accomplish less and less. New families can't afford to buy their first homes. In many families, both parents must work to make ends meet. Young people coming out of high school or college can't find a job, so even more of a burden is carried by the families that raised them. If your family is fortunate enough to have had a child or grandchild born in 1992, by the time that child enters the third grade in the year 2000 the Federal debt could be double what it is today. Let's try to imagine that third-grade classroom just eight years from now. Today we have a $4-trillion debt. By 2000 we could well have an $8-trillion debt. Today all the income taxes collected from the states west of the Mississippi go to pay the interest on that debt. By 2000 we will have to add to that all the income tax revenues from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, New York, and six other states just to pay the interest on the $8 trillion. If you live in one of those states, take a look at the IRS payroll deduction that reduces your next week's take-home pay. Your money is going just to pay interest on this debt, which in 1993 will amount to $214 billion. During the first 152 years of our nation's existence, we spent less than $214 billion to operate the entire government of the United States! Think of the Louisiana Purchase, the westward expansion, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the building of the railroads, the assimilation of millions of immigrants, and the industrialization of our economy. All the great achievements that built America into the world's most dynamic and powerful nation were accomplished without any substantial debt. And let me repeat: that $214 billion we'll pay next year is interest only. Interest doesn't buy a thing. It doesn't spur new business to give people jobs. It doesn't help people out of poverty. It doesn't maintain our highways. It doesn't protect our forests and national parks. It doesn't put more police on the streets. It doesn't restore our inner cities. It doesn't defend us. It will never build a classroom or fund research to fight disease. TOTAL FEDERAL DEBT T R $5 + I | ** L $4 + ** L | ** ** I $4 + ** ** O | ** ** ** N $3 + ** ** ** S | ** ** ** ** ** $3 + ** ** ** ** ** O | ** ** ** ** ** ** ** F $2 + ** ** ** ** ** ** ** | ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** D $2 + ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** O | ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** L $1 + ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** L | ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** A $1 + ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** R | ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** S $0 + ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** |_______________________________________________________________________ 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 Source: OMB The debt is like a crazy aunt we keep down in the basement. All the neighbors know she's there, but nobody wants to talk about her. If we allow the debt to grow, however, we are impoverishing ourselves. An $8-trillion debt would be a disaster requiring us to overtax our people, slash services, and severely reduce pensions and Social Security. We are a great nation. We are a people with a great heart. We want to reach out to the single mother struggling to support herself and her children. We want to help the disadvantaged, provide scholarships for deserving students, and make basic health care available to anyone who needs it. Instead, the result of the toil, sacrifice, and dedication of our working people will go into paying the interest on a government debt we shouldn't have created in the first place. Elected officials don't like to talk about what that massive runaway debt is doing to our country. Instead they keep to the time-honored tradition that has become standard for our elections. They talk about every tiny group's special interest and do nothing about an economy in sharp decline. This year it must be different. The movement to place my name on the ballot has accomplished a major goal. It has focused the nation's attention on the real problems facing our country. Instead of swatting flies in the kitchen and stomping on ants in the living room, this year the nation will focus on the gorilla charging up the front steps -- the debt. We have to face up to our debt. We have to do it now. We have to do it because no nation can afford to pay $214 billion a year for nothing. We have to do it because what happens in that third grade classroom eight years from now will determine the future course of American history. HOW BAD IS IT? Not only have the politicians failed to reduce the deficit and the interest we pay on it, in 1992 alone we will add over $330 billion to the $4 trillion we've already piled on our children's shoulders. That doesn't include another $3 trillion in the form of money the government has already promised to spend in the future. Our leaders keep those liabilities off the books. The weight of that debt may destroy our children's futures. Suppose the American people demanded radical action tomorrow to eliminate just this year's addition to the debt. We've seen much posturing recently about a Constitutional amendment to balance the budget. Suppose we decided to take one action this year to wipe out this year's deficit and balance the budget. Here are some radical but unrealistic choices to show just how big the deficit is: * Shut down the Defense Department. Abolish the entire army, navy, and air force. That wouldn't be enough to erase $330 billion of new debt. * Shut down all the public schools nationwide. That would get us $330 billion. * Seize the profits of all the Fortune 500 companies. That doesn't get us even half of what we need. * Confiscate the wealth of the Forbes 400, the richest people in the nation. That wouldn't do it either. * Now for the worst option: raise everyone's taxes. How much would we have to raise income taxes on every person in the United States just to eliminate this year's deficit? We'd have to almost double them! That's how big a $330-billion deficit is, and we haven't even begun to tackle the $4 trillion we already owe. HOW DID IT HAPPEN? How did one year's deficit become so large? How did things get out of control? In 1990, George Bush and the Democratic leadership made a deal. The President backed off of his pledge of "no new taxes" and agreed with Congress to raise taxes by $166.5 billion. We were told we would have a budget deficit of only $96 billion. That's still a lot of new debt, but it was a major step in the right direction. So we all went along. There were secrets in that budget agreement neither the President nor the members of Congress of both parties who approved it told us about. Specifically, there were authorizations for $304 billion in new spending$1.83 in new spending for every dollar they raised in new taxes. Instead of the $96-billion deficit we'd been promised, Washington was "shocked" to discover a few months later that the deficit would really be $318 billion. A little while later, they raised the estimate yet again. President Reagan had a reason for the deficit spending that occurred in his Administration. He wanted to bankrupt the Soviet Union, and he did it by accelerating the arms race. In the last several years, our debt has grown for no reason. Government spending has risen to a record 25 percent of our gross national product, and it hasn't bought us much. The United States is the largest and most complex business enterprise in the history of mankind. Elected officials like to say that government can't be run like a business. I can see why. In business, people are held accountable. In Washington, nobody is held accountable. In business, people are judged on results. In Washington, people are measured by their ability to get reelected. With 96 percent of Congress reelected in 1990, they must be running the most successful enterprise in the world, and they reward themselves handsomely for it. Let's bring it down to the level of a small town. Let's assume in this small town there has always been one person who has been generous and helpful and caring all his life, as our country has been. Suddenly he finds that he's bankrupt from making bad investments and running up too much debt. Can he still give to the United Way? Can he give to the Salvation Army? Can he endow the community college or donate food to the homeless shelter or help build a new house of worship? Can he help anyone anymore? No, he can't. And what's worse, he's the one who now needs help. Will that be our country's fate? Is that what all the dreams and hopes of two centuries will come to? Is that why our mothers and fathers labored or why our soldiers died, so that the greatest country the world has ever known would come to this? AN AMERICA THAT WORKED We used to be the country that did things no one else could do. We created the cotton gin, and clothed the world. We created the harvester, and fed the world. We created the electric light and turned night into day. We taught the world how to fly. We invented the telephone. After a French company tried and failed, we went and built the Panama Canal. The integrated circuit is one of our country's great inventions -- created and first manufactured in America. Yet, 19 out of 20 integrated circuits used in the United States today come from Japan. After World War II, Japan and Germany lay in ruins. Today they are economic superpowers. In 1946, Humamatsu Honda was wandering around the streets of Tokyo looking for scrap iron to make a motor scooter. Today his company's profits are over $1 billion a year. In 1951, Toyota was bankrupt. Today it is the third largest car maker in the world. Toyota City, Japan -- not Detroit, Michigan -- is the car capital of the world. Did they discover a secret? No. There's no secret. They made the hard choices; our leaders made the easy ones. For their sizes, Germany invested over twice as much, and Japan invested over three times as much as we did throughout the 1980s to build their countries. Our political and business leaders seem to think short term. Their leaders think long-term. Before the early 1970s, our standard of living doubled every generation and a half. Now it will take twelve generations for our standard of living to double! This is not the America our parents and grandparents knew. We've allowed ourselves to be lulled into thinking that the bills would never come due. We've been led to believe we could keep on borrowing our children's money to finance a lifestyle we haven't earned and can't afford. It can't go on. BETRAYAL BY THE ELITES After taxes, the average household income in the Washington, D.C., area is the highest of all major metropolitan areas, especially in the surrounding bedroom communities of Washington where our political elites live. How come? Who are these people who make these big salaries and what do they do to earn them? These are the people who go to Washington to do good and stay to do well for themselves. They take government jobs to gain expertise and add to their resumes. Then they use what they learned on our payroll to grab $500,000 consulting contracts from foreign governments and big interests. This is the famous revolving door. The revolving door is truly bipartisan. Members of Congress, top congressional aides, cabinet members, aides to the President, and campaign officials are very happy to join hands across the aisle if it will help in the scramble to represent the big interests with big budgets to spend. You've seen them swarming at the national conventions where "hospitality" is often a polite word for something else. GENERATIONS REQUIRED FOR U.S. LIVING STANDARDS TO DOUBLE 12 12 + ********************* | ********************* G 10 + ********************* E | ********************* N 8 + ********************* E | ********************* R 6 + ********************* A | ********************* T 4 + ********************* I | ********************* O 2 + 1.6 ********************* N | ********************* ********************* S 0 + ********************* ********************* |_______________________________________________________________________ At 1947-73 Annual At 1973-90 Annual Growth Rate Growth Rate I'd like you to ask two simple questions: First, what are they selling? Second, who needs to buy what they're selling? To get the picture, look at the system they've created. Elections have become so expensive that our elected representatives spend most of their time raising money from special interests to finance their campaigns so they can get back into office. When they're back, they raise more money to get reelected again and again. A lobbyist walks in the door with a fat check from the special interest political action committee (PAC) he represents. If you were that elected official, you would listen carefully to what he has to say. Pretty soon, the elected person doesn't have time for his own constituents. He needs to spend his time listening to these people who give him the money to stay in office. If you ever have a chance to visit Washington, drop in on that elected official. Chances are he won't be able to see you. He's too busy. It wasn't always this way. When I was a midshipman in the Naval Academy, my folks and I paid a visit to Washington to see the sights. While we were touring Capitol Hill my mother decided she wanted to visit one of the senators from Texas. Here we were, a common family from Texarkana, and we walked into a senator's office and said we were from Texas and wanted to meet our senator. Five minutes later we were ushered into the office of Lyndon Johnson, majority leader of the United States Senate. Don't bother trying that today. It's easy to see what the Washington lobbyists, political consultants, and lawyers are selling to their clients. They're selling the access you aren't allowed anymore. They make their living by "providing access." Who are the buyers? More and more, foreign governments and businesses are the buyers. If you wonder why international trade is not played on a level playing field, don't point a finger at the Japanese or the British or anyone else. Look first at our own political elites who enter government to gain expertise and personal contacts while on the public payroll, then leave to enrich themselves by taking inside knowledge to the other side. We've had American trade negotiators quit on Friday and show up on Monday as consultants for the country they were just negotiating with. What has happened to common decency, ethics, and patriotism among the people who are supposed to lead our country? WHO'S TO BLAME? Whenever a citizen raises questions about the conduct of our government and its officials, our representatives look around for someone to blame. Whenever a voter asks an embarrassing question about the decline of our economy, the first reaction is to blame someone else. The President blames Congress, and Congress blames the President. Republicans blame Democrats, Democrats blame Republicans, and both of them blame the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy has caught on, too. Last year when the budget projections were wrong, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) actually blamed the Department of the Treasury, as if Treasury was some mysterious organization located in Mongolia. Modern politics has become little more than shirking responsibility and blaming somebody else. There is, however, a very obvious answer to this. If anyone wants to know who's to blame for the $4-trillion debt, just go look in the mirror. You and I are to blame. You and I are the shareholders of this country. We own it. We allowed this system to develop where political action committees, the tools of the lobbyists, have more power than people. We allowed politicians to buy our votes by promising newer and grander giveaways (with money, by the way, they didn't have and had to borrow from our children). We allowed them to rack up deficit after deficit while we reelected them time after time. As owners, you and I established the incentives. How could we be surprised at the results? Why do we find it strange that the Senate voted itself a 23 percent pay increase last year after it had just approved the largest deficit in American history? Did you get a 23 percent increase last year? Do you know anyone who did? Our senators only did what they thought we would let them do. They blamed that deficit on somebody else and got on to the really important business of taking care of themselves. We did exactly what they expected us to do: nothing. You and I didn't start this country; we didn't build it. Only a few of us have done anything to deserve or preserve it. We inherited our ownership stock. We were given only one charge by the generations who left it to us. We were to do as they did and pass this nation on to our children in better shape than they left it to us. GROWTH IN DOMESTIC PRODUCT 1965-1989 A V E 8.9% R 9.00% + *************** A | *************** G 8.00% + *************** E | *************** 7.00% + *************** A | *************** N 6.00% + 5.5% *************** N | *************** *************** U 5.00% + *************** *************** A | *************** *************** L 4.00% + *************** *************** | 2.80% *************** *************** G 3.00% + *************** *************** *************** R | *************** *************** *************** O 2.00% + *************** *************** *************** W | *************** *************** *************** T 1.00% + *************** *************** *************** H | *************** *************** *************** 0.00% + *************** *************** *************** R |____________________________________________________________________ A United States Japan Asian Newly T Industrialized E Countries DECLINING GROWTH OF U.S. BUSINESS PRODUCTIVITY P E 35.00% + 32.60% R | *************** C 30.00% + *************** E | *************** N 25.00% + *************** T | *************** A 20.00% + *************** G | *************** E 15.00% + *************** 13.30% | *************** *************** 11.30% G 10.00% + *************** *************** *************** R | *************** *************** *************** O 5.00% + *************** *************** *************** W | *************** *************** *************** T 0.00% + *************** *************** *************** H |___________________________________________________________________ 1967-70 1970-80 1980-90 Who among us in good conscience is willing now to say that this solemn charge has been fulfilled? Which ones of us loves their country or children or grandchildren so little that they would leave behind an America weaker or sicker than the one they inherited? Who among us can look at these facts and turn away with a shrug? These are not simple problems that can be solved with a single vote on Election Day. One person in one office will not restore excellence to America. There is only one person in the entire world who can with character, devotion, hard work, and sacrifice create an America stronger and healthier than it is today. Go back and look in that mirror again. AN AMERICA THAT REFORMS ITS POLITICS (chapter two) Our political system has lost its moorings. It no longer rises to meet new challenges. It seems designed to avoid solving problems. The first words of the Constitution are "We, the people." We created the Constitution. We created Congress. It exists for us, not the other way around. We hire and pay for the bureaucracy. They all work for us. Before we can hope to face up to our problems, we have to restore the intent and meaning of the Constitution we created. We cannot repair our economic engine, retool our economy to be competitive in a new age, and put ourselves on a solid footing for the future unless we take back control of our government that has been taken from us. The first and most important action we can take as a people is to treat our elections seriously. Candidates for public office must be required to lay out their proposed solutions to the problems that confront us. They avoid this like the plague. They'll raise false issues, appeal to the voters' self-interests, or sling mud - anything to avoid facing the tough issues. The Savings & Loan crisis is a case in point. In 1984, the administration and Congress believed that the S & L crisis was a $20- to $30-billion dollar problem. The special interests mobilized. The S & L operators flooded Washington with lobbyists, campaign contributions, PAC money, and free airplane trips to fancy resorts. As a result, the issue was swept under the rug. It didn't reappear on the screen during the 1988 elections. The day after the 1988 election, our Republican President and Democratic Congress suddenly discovered we had a $400- to $500-billion S & L crisis that could no longer be ignored. In 1990 we were told by Washington that the deficit for the next five years would be $547 billion. A year later we were told there was a slight mistake. The five-year deficit would total $1 trillion. As usual, nobody wanted to talk about it. Do not allow any candidate in this election to ignore our deficit. When Governor Clinton talks about his new programs, ask him where the money is coming from. When President Bush talks about finishing the job he started, ask him when he's going to start on the job of getting this country back on track. If you will hold all the candidates accountable, then we'll be on the way to getting this problem fixed. You will have done your part no matter for whom you vote. After the election the real work will begin. The men and women who are chosen by the people to go to Washington in 1992 should pledge themselves to restore the people's control over our institutions. That will mean irritating their powerful friends and big donors. It will also mean shutting the revolving door. It will mean restoring the intent of the Constitution. START AT THE TOP Before we can hope to eliminate our deficit, we have to overhaul the political system that created it. Our Founders built a beautiful ship of state, but the barnacles have latched on and the hull has rusted. It's time for a scrubdown from top to bottom. It's not just a matter of bringing in new people. It's not just a matter of replacing a Republican President with a Democrat, or a Democratic Congress with a Republican one. To throw the rascals out is an impulse as American as apple pie, but it alone won't do the job. The wave of new members of Congress who were elected in 1974 as reformers in the wake of the Watergate scandal were as bright and sincere as Congress has ever seen. Eighteen years later those who remain in office are as encrusted in the system as the people they replaced. They enjoy the same perks, PAC payouts, bounced checks, fawning staffs, and personal exemptions from the laws they pass. Take any good, decent citizen and put him in a limousine, hold the red lights for him, give him a private jet for personal use, supply him with free tickets to any place he wants to go, and he'll lose touch with reality in a hurry. If we replace every person in Washington tomorrow but keep the present system intact, in a few weeks the new people will be just like the old people. The British aristocracy we drove out in our Revolution has been replaced with our own version: a political nobility that is immune to the people's will. They have created through our campaign and lobbying laws a series of incentives that corrupt the intent of the Constitution. It's time to make a few changes. Specifically, we need to insist on a sweeping package of reforms for our political system: * Restrict campaign contributions to $1,000 period. No more "soft money" contributions of up to $100,000 from corporate interests, labor unions, and rich people. No more $8-million extravaganzas where the dinner seating is determined by how much money you gave to the President's campaign. Think of it. This is the presidency of the United States. This is the office George Washington once held. We will no longer allow it to be demeaned and cheapened by pandering to wealthy donors from all over the world. * Curb political action committees. In 1974 PACs contributed nearly $13 million to congressional candidates. About that time lobbyists noticed that congressmen returned their phone calls if their PAC had given money. In 1990, PACs contributed over $150 million, an eleven-fold jump. Who are we trying to kid here? We know what they're out to buy. It's time for the owners of the country to declare that the United States Congress and the White House are not for sale. * Give the Federal Election Commission real teeth. Right now, the President appoints six members. By tradition there are three Republicans and three Democrats. Guess how many tie votes there are. You can also guess at the amount of winking and nodding that goes on around the table. No wonder it's a paper tiger. It must be revamped. Let's have five members appointed at staggered terms. Give it criminal prosecution powers to enforce our election laws. * Change the way we hold elections. First, shorten the campaign season. Five months is long enough for anyone to make a case. Hold elections on both Saturday and Sunday so working people can go to the polls. Release no information until all polls are closed. Since the airwaves belong to the public, require equal free time for candidates for federal office. Joined with easier voter registration, these measures will improve our elections and stimulate more voters to go to the polls. * Eliminate the electoral college. There's no reason to filter the people's vote. Why shouldn't we let the people directly choose their President and Vice President? Whoever gets the most votes of the entire country should be the President. PUBLIC SERVICE IS A PUBLIC TRUST Reforming our campaign laws is only the beginning. We have to restore the idea that public service is a sacred trust. Being an elected, appointed, or career public servant is a noble calling. Some of our elected and appointed officials see their terms of office as interim steps to high-paying lobbying jobs. We need to make it abundantly clear that anyone who enters the federal government comes to serve, not to cash in. * Make it a criminal offense for any foreign government or individual or company to attempt to influence American laws or policies by means of direct or indirect campaign contributions. Tighten laws requiring full and prompt disclosure. * Rewrite the foreign agent registration and lobbying laws to close the loopholes. Today there is not even a clear definition of what lobbying is. For example, if you don't want to be accused of hiring a lobbyist, you hire a law firm to accomplish the same task. * Forbid any former President, Vice President, cabinet officer, agency director, Federal Reserve governor, commission director, White House staffer, trade negotiator, member of the Senate or House from accepting one penny for any reason from any foreign interest ever. Anybody who holds one of these high offices does so because the American people gave them their trust. That trust should be honored. * Forbid anyone who has held any position in the federal government to be a paid lobbyist for any domestic interest for five years after leaving government. Slam the revolving door shut. * Draft a tough ethics code for private citizens who serve as consultants and advisers to the federal government. The federal government contracts with these private citizens, most of whom used to work for the government, to do the work that federal employees could do. These people usually get paid much more than workers on the federal payroll. Establish stiff criminal penalties for any abuse or fraud. * Forbid anybody on the payroll of a foreign government or foreign interest from serving in any capacity, volunteer or paid, in a presidential or congressional campaign. Right now, foreign lobbyists play key roles in both the Democratic and Republican campaigns. That is inexcusable. CLEAN UP THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH At a time when we're asking the American people to make sacrifices for their country, why do we allow our political elites to live like pampered royalty? No wonder the American people have grown disgusted with their government; we need to take severe steps to restore that sacred trust. * Move immediately to sell off the 111 civilian aircraft maintained for discretionary use by federal government executives. Conduct a case by case review of the remaining 1,100 civilian planes owned by the federal government that are allotted to different legislative and executive agencies. Keep the few that are essential. * Eliminate the 89th wing of the air force. It exists solely to transport top officials around the country. The Cold War is over. The Vice President doesn't need an air force jet to go play golf. I don't understand how a chief of staff to the President could even consider using a government jet to take him to the dentist. People might say, "Aren't you being a little hard? These people have giant responsibilities while running huge departments of government. Most corporate executives never run anything so large and complex, and they all have corporate jets." These people work for us. They are our employees. Unless we take steps like this, they will continue to believe we work for them. We need to capture their hearts and minds. No matter how high their office or how lofty their titles, members of the next administration should fly commercially. They should go out to the airport, get in line, lose their baggage, eat a bad meal, and stay in touch with how normal people live. Then, if there's a recession in this country, it won't take three months for them to figure it out. The person in the seat next to them will let them know in no uncertain terms. * Have the cabinet members spend most of their time outside Washington answering tough questions and solving real problems. What good can the Secretary of Education do behind a desk while our schools are falling apart? How can the Secretary of Health and Human Services tackle the massive bureaucratic problems of this system without really understanding the people who encounter them? * Encourage federal employees to treat citizens as owners. When any owner of this country walks into a federal office, that person should be treated with the courtesy and respect that an owner should receive. We need to restore pride in the federal service so that our employees will smile every day at the office and be polite. * Reduce civil service restrictions and allow more discretion so that federal employees can be more responsive. The word 'bureaucrat" conjures up some bloodless, uncaring robot with a rubber stamp. In truth, I've found almost every federal employee I've encountered to be a dedicated, intelligent professional. We need to lift restrictions that keep our employees from doing their best jobs. We need fewer employees and more rewards. We need to give our officers the tools to do the job. Right now, for example, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development presides over a department of 13,000 people. By legislative statute he can only hire or fire 105 of them. It's not surprising that public housing is a mess. * Drastically cut the White House and executive branch staffs. John F. Kennedy had a White House staff of 600. George Bush has 1,850. In 1960, Congress had a total staff of 5,610. Today it has a staff of over 20,000. What do all these people do? From my experience, their main mission is to insulate executive officials and members of Congress from you, the owners. Their secondary mission is to make sure their boss gets reelected. Congress and the executive branch have grown fat, complacent, unwieldy, and unresponsive. The White House and Congress could easily reduce their staffs by 30 percent. Never forget that staffs accomplish very little. All of the action is in the field. Look at the Agriculture Department to see how much the bureaucracy in the executive branch has grown. In 1948, farms employed 20 percent of our population, and the Agriculture Department had 67,000 employees It was considered a huge bureaucracy. Today only 2 percent of our people work on farms, but the Agriculture Department has swollen to 118,000 employees. Instead of creating a new cabinet office every time a special interest group wants more attention, we should overhaul and permanently reduce departments of government so that we can apply our resources where they will do more good for our people. We don't need staffers in Washington to hold a cabinet officer's briefcase. We need hands-on problem solvers out in the field where they will do some good. RESTORE CONFIDENCE IN CONGRESS Congress needs to take a good, hard look at itself as an institution. It has been through trying times. It has in large measure lost the respect and confidence of the American people. We cannot afford to let this go on. A representative democracy depends on the essential trust the people place in their institutions. We should urge Congress to regain that trust by taking four measures immediately: * Slash the current $2.8 billion budget that supports Congress, its agencies, gymnasiums, staffs, barber shops, free mail, and all the other perks that have been built up over the years. Cut congressional staffs by 30 percent and other perks by 40 percent. Congress could apply nearly $1 billion toward cutting the deficit. Suddenly the people, the financial markets, our allies, and our competitors would realize that the United States is serious about facing its problems. Congress would rise to new heights of respect in everyone's eyes by becoming more productive. * Reform the retirement system. Up to 93 members of Congress are eligible for lifetime pension benefits exceeding $2 million apiece. This is much higher than their constituents' pensions! The people consider such excesses a breach of trust. * Reorganize the legislative system. As many as fifteen committees and subcommittees must be involved for any significant piece of legislation to pass the House. Negotiations among all these committees and subcommittees become so complex that loopholes and special favors get enacted with only a handful of people knowing about it. Congress needs to streamline this process so that they and the people can follow the progress, or lack of it, on bills before the House and Senate. Members of Congress should be acutely aware that the people run this country, not the lobbyists in the hallways and offices. * Turn in excess campaign funds to the Treasury. Some congressmen have racked up campaign war chests which hold many millions of dollars. Every two years, the PACs pour more money in just to stay in their good graces. Clean it up. The owners want that money back. RESTORE A SENSE OF OWNERSHIP TO OUR PEOPLE Owners have responsibilities, too. If you have guests in your house, and you allow them to pocket the loose change on the dresser, you have nobody to blame but yourself when you discover they've stolen your television set. The most honest people in the world will be corrupted by a pattern of winking at minor misdemeanors. By the time they get to the television set they've lost all sense of proportion. They've begun to believe that they deserve it and that nobody will mind. If that's the psychology at work with people in your own home, magnify it a million times to understand the problem that festers in Washington. Again, if you want to know who's to blame for our political system that encourages and rewards people who cash in on public service, look in the mirror. We have abdicated our responsibilities as owners. Our political system can only be repaired if we take charge of it. * First, all of us must vote. We need legislation to make voter registration more accessible. How can anyone disagree? We should change the voting time from Tuesday to both Saturday and Sunday. * Second, we must stay informed. I've suggested we have an interactive "Electronic Town Hall" so that as a nation we can lay out the issues, review the choices, argue over the merits and demerits, and reach a consensus. This has aroused a lot of controversy, but why? Most of us carry on a quiet debate with our leaders every morning while we're reading the newspapers. I remember that FDR's "Fireside Chats" united us as a country and set a national direction. President Reagan used the same medium to explain his ideas. The only difference between the Fireside Chat and the Electronic Town Hall is that the first was one-way, the only radio technology available at the time, and the second is two-way, which we can do today. Instead of passively listening to the radio or watching members of the political elite debate on television, our citizens will be able to engage their representatives and appointed officials in a direct conversation. This may be a conversation our political elites would like to avoid, and I can understand why. That doesn't mean they should be able to avoid it. For our system to work, our elected officials must listen to the owners (us) we, the people. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, and citizen participation is the price of responsible representative democracy. This is what our Founders intended and what we must restore. FIX THE SYSTEM FIRST We must repair the political system. If we don't, the actions we take to repair our economic engine will be just another series of temporary fixes. We have to change the incentives if we expect our political leaders to hold the course in setting this country right. Let's tackle this like our grandparents would have. Let's fix it. Then let's keep it fixed. Do it as an act of love for our grandparents and parents who gave us this country, and also for our children and grandchildren. They deserve the very best government we can give them.