Manifesto

I generally don't like to have the terms "manifesto" and "conservative" in the same sentence, but Mark Levin has put them together and this is EXCELLENT! Here it is:

1. Taxation

Eliminate the progressive income tax-replace it with a flat income tax or national sales tax-for its purpose is to redistribute wealth, not fund the constitutionally legitimate functions of the federal government.

All residents of the country must be required to pay the tax so they have a stake in limiting its abuse.

Eliminate the automatic withholding of taxes, for it conceals the extent to which the federal government is confiscating income from its citizens.

Eliminate the corporate income tax, for it is nothing more than double taxation on shareholders and consumers, and penalizes wealth and job creation.

Eliminate the death tax, for it denies citizens the right to confer the material value they have created during their lives to whomever they wish, including their family.

All federal income tax increases will require a supermajority vote for three-fifths of Congress.

Limit federal spending each year to less than 20 percent of the gross domestic product.

I would add that if you really want people to understand the taxes they pay AND hold their elected representatives accountable, you would have income tax paid once a year, and it would be the same day as Election Day.

2. Environment.

Eliminate the special tax-exempt status granted to environmental groups, since they are not nonpartisan charitable foundations.

Eliminate special statutory authority granting environmental groups standing to bring lawsuits on behalf of the public, since their main purpose is to pursue the Statist’s agenda through litigation.

Fight all efforts to use environmental regulations to set governmental industrial policies and diminish the nation’s standard of living, such as “cap-and-trade” to regulate “man-made climate change.”

Let's be honest - the environmental movement is the last refuge of the socialists that tried to destroy the country during the Vietnam War. These groups have an agenda that would take us back to the Stone Age. There is room in the environmental agenda for a conservative view that would focus on preservation and sustainability...the proper maintenance of God's creation...and it should be pursued.

3. Judges

Limit the Supreme Court’s judicial-review power, which far exceeds the Framer’s intent, by establishing a legislative veto over Court decisions-perhaps a two-thirds supermajority vote of both houses of Congress, not dissimilar from the congressional override authority of a presidential veto.

Eliminate lifetime tenure for federal judges, given the extra-constitutional power they have amassed and their routine intervention in political and policy decisions-which the Constitution leaves to representative branches.

No judicial nominee should be confirmed who rejects the jurisprudence of originalism.

No argument here.

4. The Administrative State

Sunset all “independent” federal agencies each year, subject to Congress affirmatively reestablishing them.

Require federal departments and agencies to reimburse individuals and enterprises for the costs associated with the devaluation of their private property from the issuance of regulations that compromise the use of their property.

Eliminate unions for federal government employees, since the purpose of a civil service system is to promote merit and professionalism over patronage, and the purpose of federal unions is to empower themselves and promote statism.

Reduce the civilian federal workforce by 20 percent or more.

Great suggestions here. Especially the reduction in the workforce. I would add that we should institute performance incentive pay for Federal employees.

5. Government Education

Eliminate monopoly control of government education by applying the antitrust laws to the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers; the monopoly is destructive of quality education and competition and is unresponsive to the taxpayers who fund it.

Eliminate tenure for government schoolteachers and college/university professors, making them accountable for the quality of instruction they provide students.

Strip the statist agenda from curricula (such as multiculturalism and global warming) and replace it with the curricula that reinforce actual education and the preservation of the civil society through its core principles.

Eliminate the federal Department of Education, since education is primarily a state and local function.

Our education system has become a joke - it is at best a semi-effective daycare and at worst an indoctrination camp. Take the shackles off and let the states compete!

6. Immigration

Eliminate chain migration, which grants control over immigration policy to aliens and foreign governments, and which the Statist defends to expand his electoral and administrative state constituency.

Secure the nation’s borders and discourage those who violate them-illegal alien and citizen lawbreaker alike-by enforcing the immigration laws.

End multiculturalism, diversity, and bilingualism in public institutions, which beget poverty, animosity and ethnic balkanization; promote assimilation and unity of citizenship, allegiance to American culture, and English as the official language.

Exactly. I would only add that we should seek to encourage immigration to the United States by trades and skills that we need.

7. Entitlements

Social Security is going bankrupt. Medicare is going bankrupt. Medicaid is going bankrupt. These programs and others have accumulated more than $50 trillion in IOUs due end payable by subsequent generations. Educate the young people about the intergenerational trap the Statist has laid for them-which will steal their liberty, labor, opportunities, and wealth-and build a future electoral force for whom the elixir of entitlements is understood as a poisonous snake oil. These programs were created in politics and will have to addressed in politics. Only in this way can they be contained, limited and reformed.

Fight all efforts to nationalize the health-care system. National health care is the mother of all entitlement programs, for through it the Statist controls not only the material wealth of the individual but his physical well-being. Remind the people that politicians and bureaucrats, about whom they are already cynical, will ultimately have the final say over the choice of doctors, hospitals and treatment-meaning the system will be politicized and bureaucratized. Remind them that this human experiment has been tried and has failed in places like Britain and Canada, where patients have been subjected to arbitrary treatment decisions, long waiting periods for lifesaving surgeries, antiquated medical technologies, the denial of high-cost pharmaceuticals available elsewhere, and the inefficient rationing of health care generally. And remind them that despite past utopian promises, the Statist rarely delivers.

Here's a craaaaazy idea: let's fix what is already broke - Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid - FIRST, before we start a whole new system of flushing money down the drain.

8. Foreign Policy and Security

Ensure that all foreign policy decisions are made for the purpose of preserving and improving American society.

Reject all treaties, entanglements, institutions, and enterprises that have as their purpose the supplantation of America’s best interests, including its physical, cultural, economic, and military sovereignty, to an amorphous “global” interest.

Ensure that America remains the world’s superpower. Ensure that at all times America’s military forces are prepared for war to dissuade attacks, encourage peace, and, if necessary, win any war.

Doing! Might want to add a clause that spells out everyone we've apologized to and end the worldwide mea culpa tours. We have to act like grown ups in the world.

9. Faith

Oppose all efforts to denude the nation of its founding justification-that is, God-given unalienable, natural rights that the government can neither confer on the individual nor deny him. The Statist seeks the authority to do both, which explains his contempt for, or misuse of, faith. Moreover, faith provides the moral order that ties one generation to the next, and without which the civil society cannot survive.

John Adams spoke often about the need for a moral society founded in faith. Those without true faith will follow false prophets - how do you spell "Obama?" The republic depends on this.

10. The Constitution

Demand that all public servants, elected or appointed, at all times uphold the Constitution and justify their public acts under the Constitution.

Oppose all efforts to “constitutionalize” the statist agenda.

Eliminate limits on and rationing of political free speech through unconstitutional “campaign finance” laws, which benefit incumbent politicians, the media, unions, and other Statist-related groups. Any American citizen or group of American citizens should be free to contribute to candidates as they wish, as long as the source, amount, and recipient of the contributions are made known.

Defeat all efforts to unconstitutionally regulate the content of political speech on broadcast outlets, such as radio. The Statist now seeks to consolidate the power he has accumulated by silencing noncompliant voices through a variety of schemes that would regulate broadcast content.

President Reagan said, “Freedom is never more then one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

This noble document, our Constitution, is under full frontal assault. As I pen this, reports are coming over the wire about a bill working its way through the Senate that would give the President power to control the Internet...let's get back to the instruction manual now!

Levin has done an excellent job pulling this together. We should make this a rallying cry.