Top 10 Most Needed Government Reforms

There have been debt commissions and super committees trying to figure out how to make government leaner and more efficient. Here are some good places to start: the Top 10 Most Needed Government Reforms.

1. Repeal ObamaCare: Get rid of this monstrosity before it infects our entire health care system. Costs keep rising and employers (those unlucky enough not to get waivers from the Obama administration) are starting to dump their workers’ health plans. By the time it is fully implemented in 2014, there will be far more patients and a decrease in the number of doctors. Expect lengthy waits for reduced care.

2. Simplify the tax code: Whether a flat tax or a fair tax, anything that brings simplicity to the tax code will be an improvement over the current Byzantine system in which corporations hire armies of accountants to take advantage of loopholes drafted by high-priced lobbyists. Tyranny begins when the average citizen can’t fill out his own tax form.

3. Enforce the border: With an invasion of illegal immigrants taking up needed spaces in U.S. schools and hospitals, America needs to take control of its borders. The cost of illegal immigration, from services provided to criminal behavior, are coming at a time when the country is in dire financial straits. And millions of unemployed Americans shouldn’t have to compete for jobs with those who have no right to be here.

4. Entitlement reform: If the major federal entitlement programs aren’t reined in, it won’t be long before they overwhelm the rest of the federal budget. Raise the retirement age, slow down the Social Security cost-of-living increase or means-test benefits. Just do something. Waiting is no longer a viable option.

5. Reduce regulations: America is drowning in red tape, which is choking the entrepreneurial spirit of small businesses and hampering job creation. The best way to get the economy moving again is to relieve the regulatory burden dumped on the private sector by overbearing federal bureaucrats. Do we really need the Environmental Protection Agency to start regulating workplace dust?

6. Energy production: It is far past the time for the federal government to get out of the way and let America’s vast energy resources be developed. With large coastal oil reserves and shale oil potential in the heartland, it is a crime that America can be held hostage for its energy needs by Middle Eastern madmen. Drill, baby, drill!

7. Dump federal agencies: From corporate welfare doled out by the Commerce Department to the Department of Education meddling in local affairs, the federal government has treaded in areas where it has no business being. It is time to start cutting back entire agencies, beginning with the two listed above, along with the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy.

8. Balance the budget: State governments, corporations and the average household all need to balance their budgets, so why not the federal government? Renew the push for a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget or at least start slashing the deficit by cutting spending in a meaningful way.

9. Public-sector union reform: Government is bloated at every level, and public-employee unions have made it worse with their high salaries, expensive health care plans and lucrative pensions. Why should taxpayers continue to foot the bill for such extravagance?

10. Get government out of culture: It may be small potatoes in light of the entire federal budget, but the money spent for National Public Radio, the National Endowment for the Arts, et al., is an affront to the Constitution. Harry Reid’s Cowboy Poetry Festival will no doubt be missed, but if it is that wonderful, let it find private-sector funding.

HUMAN EVENTS