www.RickPerry.Org released this plan today. Here is just a sumery of it. The links send you to a detail plan and explonation why Texas Governor Perry thinks things need to change and how it will be changed:
Fundamental Reform of the Legislative Branch
- Establish a part-time, Citizen Congress, cutting congressional pay in half and allowing them to hold jobs in their states and communities.
- Slash congressional staff budgets and force lawmakers to do more of their own work.
- Criminalize insider trading by members of Congress.
- Amend the Freedom of Information Act to make it apply to Congress and the White House.
Fundamental Reform of the Judiciary
- Nominate judges who respect the Constitution and who will not make law from the bench.
- End life-time appointments to the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary through Constitutional Amendment.
Fundamental Reform of the Executive Branch
Regulatory Reform and Reining in the Federal Bureaucracy
Regulatory Reform
- Halt all pending federal regulations, order an audit of every regulation passed since 2008 and repeal those not affordable, effective and appropriate.
- Pass legislation to automatically end federal regulations unless Congress renews them.
- Require federal agencies to justify every dime every year – including a specified regulatory budget for each agency.
- Develop an online, searchable database of all current federal regulations.
Federal Bureaucracy
- Eliminate the Department of Commerce, Department of Education and the Department of Energy, consolidating key programs into other agencies.
- Restructure and reform the Department of Homeland Security (including transitioning the Transportation Security Administration to a public-private partnership) and the EPA.
- Review all federal departments from the top-down.
- Privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
- Order a Full Audit of all federal agencies to identify waste, fraud, and abuse within the executive branch.
- Work with Congress to require that duplicative programs actually get cut.
Fundamental Spending Reform
Balance the Federal Budget
- Fight for a Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) that protects against tax and spending increases.
- Cut Congressional pay in half if Congress fails to propose a long-term balanced budget. Freeze federal civilian hiring and salaries until the budget is balanced.
- Veto any budget bill that contains earmarks, and work with Congress to ban them.
- End federal bailouts.
- Cap federal spending at 18% of GDP and balance the budget by 2020.
- Reduce non-Defense discretionary spending by $100 Billion in the first year.
- Pass a law that requires Congress to reduce existing spending equal to or greater than any new proposed federal spending.
- Work with Congress to institute automatic Government Shut-down Protection.
- Veto bills with new, unfunded mandate on states, local communities, or schools.
- End Baseline Budgeting and require common-sense scoring rules.
- Require Emergency Spending to be spent only on emergencies.
- Pass legislation requiring a two-thirds majority for any tax increase.
