2016  

Both Republican and Democrat presidential candidates should understand that to win in 2016 will mean changing the dangerous trajectory that Obama and the "progressives" have inflicted on the nation.  In a bi-partisan manner, if possible, they should  demonstrate to an exhausted, skeptical, fearful and angry public that the country can be turned around and led to growth, strength, full time jobs with good wages, individual freedom and prosperity.

This will mean the return of "certainty" to our domestic and foreign affairs, reestablishing the rule of law and renewing national fidelity to the Constitution.  At a minimum these will require a sharp curtailment of the administrative state that the left so reveres.  It will also necessitate a well thought out  and long overdue shrinkage of a bloated and morbidly obese Federal government.

  

Regulatory and other governmental agencies that have become power mad should be abolished and/or de-funded and only their most fundamental and essential legal functions should be preserved.  The IRS, EPA, CSB, NLRB, OSHA, NRC, BLM, NMB, FERC AND FEC have all violated their mandates and are no longer trusted.  Add to this, DoJ, DVA  and HHS which also act like imperious thugs and you begin to see a government out of control, behaving like criminals and contemptuous of the people who pay their salaries. 

The country must grow and become the most prosperous nation on the globe once again.  We must become energy independent in such a way that it results in us have the cheapest and most varied amount of power in the world causing investments and job creation to flow into the country.

We must fix what the Heritage Foundation calls our "confused, unfocused and dysfunctional"  immigration system by closing the southern border and then rethinking logically and systematically, what our immigration priorities will be.  For those here legally and illegally criminal behavior must result in immediate deportation after conviction and punishment.  Amnesty with a path to citizenship should be limited to those who were brought here as small children and those who serve honorably in the military.  Work visas should be available for those who have skills in areas experiencing difficulties in filling openings or capital to invest in legitimate job creating businesses.  Interior enforcement should be robust and unambiguous.  The primary goal of immigration should be patriotic assimilation into an equal opportunity society and not multicultural assimilation into a dependency society with open borders.

We must insist upon fair and honest elections that are verifiable.  The dead, the fictional, the clones, the 

Doppelgängers ,  the ineligible,  and the non citizens must stop registering and voting.  Rasmussen reports that 68% of the country believe that elections are rigged for incumbents and there have been voting irregularities reported in 46 states. 

Growth and prosperity is also directly linked to a total overhaul of the tax code which now smothers the economy with both crony capitalism and crony socialism.  The trillions of dollars earned and taxed abroad should not be taxed again if they are brought home.  This alone would begin to reduce the additional trillions of dollars now being invested abroad  instead of at home.  Tax rates for personal and business should be lowest per capita on earth and the tax base should be the broadest.  Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley need to be either repealed or redrawn so that banks can function productively and the market can function efficiently while both sectors operate transparently and honestly.

Our future workers, citizens and leaders must be the best educated in the world.  This means that the union monopoly should be ended and parents given as much choice as possible in a new globally competitive elementary and secondary school environment dominated by great teachers and not absurd work rules.  The emphasis on STEM education should be matched by equally emphatic  efforts to teach History, Civics, English, Literature, Art and Music. 

Academia  needs to become ideologically and politically diverse.  Our higher education system now currently resembles something out of the  old Soviet Union.  Free speech has given way to political correctness on steroids and tuition for this ghastly parody of university education has been stimulated by PC requirements of the Federal Government and its monopoly on student aid.  Public monies  should follow free speech and diversity should be focused on ideas and not group think and quotas.

The social safety net must be repaired or it will disappear.   Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are busting budgets on the Federal and/or state levels.  Healthcare alone represents over 20% of the GDP and ObamaCare will only make that number grow while delivering more expensive sub-standard care to the majority  of Americans accompanied by millions of man hours of administrative paperwork now required of health care providers.  ObamaCare needs to be replaced with a market driven program and bureaucrats need to get out from between patients and their doctors.  The over 80 programs for children and adults must be streamlined and sent to the states in order to end duplication, fraud and exorbitant administrative costs.

We need to be the most powerful military nation in the world.  This President is in the process of unilaterally disarming us.  His pattern of weakness, indecision and appeasement has created the most dangerous threat to world peace and stability in history. To reverse this we must make the nation invulnerable to any kind of attack including CYBER, EMP and WMD.  Our defense and intelligence forces should be second to none and able to prevent or respond to both symmetrical, asymmetrical or terrorist threats and challenges.  Our allies and our enemies and any and all in between should understand with perfect clarity and certainty that threats to peace and freedom will be met with resolve and overwhelming strength.  In short we need the defensive capability to withstand any attack and the offensive capability to deter an attack or obliterate anyone who attacks us.

We now live in a weak country with a diminishing and under educated workforce, massive dependency on the Federal Government, infinitesimal annual growth,  crushing debt and sky high annual deficits, a threatened social safety net and health care system, a degraded and demoralized military, non existent national borders and Federal agencies making up law as they go along. 

All of the above is now sustained by a lack of intelligent and mature leadership that places country above party.  2016 will be...no it must be... the election that restores America. 

ERLANDSSON