1. Tax reform powers, Activate! From of: A bill replacing the 18.4 cent/gal federal gas tax with a $5.79/Barrel oil import tariff (would slightly favor domestic oil production and the generation of renewable fuels over importation.) Also: eliminate the payroll tax cap, while exempting everyone's first 20k in income from payroll taxes while also passing a small carbon tax (to provide an incentive to recapture emissions, rather than simply mandating their recapture while also favoring renewable energies slightly), also a tax on mercury emissions from coal;
2. Create an independent body to investigate war profiteering, and thoroughly investigate government waste, pork projects, etc. ie. eliminating all "abstinence only" funding (which
has been thoroughly shown have no positive impact whatsoever) and generally increasing accountability and transparency for government spending, and more thorough auditing. Pass a law making it a felony to mislead congress in an attempt to gain authorization to use military force, and making the deceiver liable for damages for all property and lives destroyed in the use of such force. Make it a felony with no statute of limitations to classify documents for reasons of concealing spending, with no reasonable relationship between the secrecy and national security. Also investigate partisan political behavior of FDA in scheduling drugs contrary to medical evidence (ie. claiming marijuana has no medical uses when it clearly does, and requiring prescriptions for some drugs with excellent safety records.) Investigate usage of government money for partisan political advertisements. Appoint an independent investigator (ie ken starr) to find out if Bush and Cheney have broken the law. If the only thing that comes up is a bj, take the high road and don't ask him about it under oath. Only impeach if you can get them both, with strong evidence.
Notes on current US figures:
25.76 billion dollars revenue per year from gas tax
4,453,000,000 barrels of oil imported annually; An oil import tariff would give all competing domestically produced fuels an equal advantage over imports, while being revenue neutral by repealing the current gas tax (therefore no negative impact on the economy as a whole.)
Exempting the first 20k from payroll tax would benefit most people by $1240, and even minimum wage workers would save $620. If this came along with eliminating the payroll tax cap, then only people making more than $110k/year would end up paying more, and nobody making that much bank has anything to whine about. This plan would yield a net surplus for social security, while introducing a huge economic stimulus for consumers. More than 90% of taxpayers would benefit, and for the poorest 30% the benefit would be a significant 6.2% increase to their overall take home pay.
http://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedder/y1990imayp17-25.html
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