Chapter 55

At 1300 I walked out to the new fancy podium that the crew had placed in the news room while we were at lunch. The news people were making their way in with papers in their hand.

I knew what the papers were, my tax returns had been released this morning along with other things. Lorrie and Marcy had texted me during lunch. I knew things were coming. It was going to be a blow out afternoon.

‘‘Good afternoon, I have a lot of announcements to make today. First, the new revenue measure was introduced in both Houses today and I support the bills in the current form. After months of negotiations, meetings, finger pointing, yelling, screaming and various obscenities, the final bill does the following,’’ I said.

‘‘It eliminates all individual income tax brackets and replaces the tax code with a ten percent sales tax. If you make a Million or a billion you spend it on something, it does not go under your mattress so tax will be paid on it. Many of the loop holes in the current system will be gone,’’ I said.

‘‘If you buy stocks, bonds or investments, you will pay the sales tax but there will be no tax on dividends - and if you sell them, the buyer pays,’’ I said.

“There are a few of the dedicated tax programs that were retained,’’ I said.

‘‘One is the Social Security tax - both for the employee and employers - as was the Medicare tax. The tax was bumped up by half a percentage point in the proposal. Social Security payments have escalated over time with inflation, it was past time for an adjustment,’’ I said.

‘‘Business will also be under the ten percent sales tax; there are no exemptions or exclusions. Everyone will pay the same,’’ I said.

‘‘Fuel taxes such as gas, diesel and aviation fuel taxes were retained, as were excise taxes on cars and trucks. These taxes support specific transportation programs - an example is road and bridge maintenance and construction,’’ I said.

‘‘The Internal Revenue Service budget will be reduced from last year’s peak of one hundred and twenty-five billion to one billion next year, saving an estimated one trillion, two hundred billion over a ten-year period,’’ I said.

I hated the government norm of ten-year averaging on budgets - it was just a promised cloud hidden by a smoke screen. But it sounded good for the media presentations.

“The Internal Revenue Service has been operating under a hiring freeze for the last three years and with the billions spent on AI programs that have now proven effective in audits and revenue related problems, it’s time for a down size,’’ I said.

‘‘There were multiple agencies caught up in the SWAT team scandal that those operations were suspended or the agencies were temporally closed. Those suspensions and closures will continue for another physical year,’’ I said.

‘‘That whole problem is much bigger, more involved than the early investigations indicated and involved thousands more federal employees; many are going to be serving time in jail cells,’’ I said.

‘‘With all these changes, the Treasury indicated in its reports that we will have a surplus budget for two years in a row, something that hasn’t happened in decades,’’ I said.

‘‘There have been ongoing discussions for several years about adding more states to the current fifty states. This has been brought about by a change in demographics of our population with a few cities with liberal, progressive agendas controlling massive states,’’ I said.

‘‘I support this expansion of our sates. Currently there are five states that are candidates for division; Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, California, New York and Washington.’’ ‘‘There was some discussion in these meetings about Washington DC being added to the list. I am fiercely opposed to DC ever becoming a state. It was called the District of Columbia for a reason - so that the federal government or operations of the federal government would not be hamstrung by state laws or an aggressive state government,’’ I said.

‘‘The package of rule and law changes necessary will be entered in the House and Senate today. Included in that package is language that will forever stop DC from ever becoming a state. Another piece of legislation in that goal to keep DC the seat of our federal government is to stop all private ownership of property in DC and building or renovation permits,’’ I said.

‘‘As the current owners of property pass on the Government will acquire the property by outright purchase or use of eminent domain with the heirs being compensated. Corporate ownership will be phased out over ten years,’’ I added.

‘‘The next item is the court system. I am terribly disappointed in the direction that our court system has and is going in. The Supreme Court seems to have taken a leave of absence. States and the lower courts are running over our rights with a steam roller and the Supreme Court seems uninterested any more,’’ I said.

‘‘I don’t know if there are too many cases needing Supreme Court review or the judges are slowing down with age or whatever the problem is, but something has to be done. The Constitution and the Bill of rights will soon be a memory if the Supreme Court doesn’t step up to the plate to reign in the lower courts and states,’’ I said.

‘‘The freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to keep and bear arms, the right to vote and civil rights seems to be under constant attack from the states, special interest groups, Congress and the Justice Department itself. The Supreme Court sits idly by, ignoring challenges from distressed citizens,’’ I said.

‘‘I am proposing that the current nine-member court be expanded to a twenty-seven-member court. Along with that comes multiple changes in the operation and members of the court. We are starting with mandatory retirement at age sixty-seven for all federal and judicial personnel, including all judges,’’ I said.

‘‘Additional changes would require all emergency appeals to be approved by nine members of the bench. This would stop attorneys from shopping for a judge that was sympathetic to their cause,’’ I said.

‘‘Another change would require all challenges between Congress, the Executive Branch, the Department of Justice and the Courts to be heard directly by the full Supreme Court, eliminating the massive deadlines, and delays of dealing with the lower court and appeals process. It shouldn’t take months or years to resolve disputes,’’ I said.

‘‘Another change would be a review of all rules, regulations and laws of all agencies be reviewed by the committee from the court to determine if they are constitutional before they are put into effect, not months or years after,’’ I said.

‘‘Another change would require that an agency or agent of any agency that had been determined to violate the rights or civil rights of a citizen or citizens to be punished by termination of the individual or in the case of an agency, they lose fifty percent of their finding for a two- year period,’’ I said.