Gov. Perry Unveils “Uproot and Overhaul Washington” Plan
Posted on November 15th, 2011
BETTENDORF, Iowa – Gov. Rick Perry today unveiled his Uproot and Overhaul Washington plan to fundamentally reform the three branches of government and review all federal departments, agencies, and spending programs from the top down.
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
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.
Even during this recession, our federal government has continued to wastefully spend and expand its reach. Members of Congress continue to fund their pet programs, while the executive branch creates new programs on a whim. Instead of tailoring the budgets of our current departments to the needs of the people, government bureaucrats continue to justify increasing federal budgets simply because of past increases in funds; we cannot continue down this road towards unchecked budgets feeding our uncontrollable deficit.
The federal government is too large, too wasteful, and involved in far too many aspects of our daily lives. Last year the federal government spent more money in a single day – roughly $9.5 billion – than it spent on the entire annual budget in 1940.1 Federal spending in 2010 was nearly six times higher than in 1980; its rate of growth more than doubled the rate of inflation.2
