For Businesses
America's splendor owes greatly to its embrace of business. Nations that restrict business grow haltingly, if at all. Nations whose governments try to extract too much from their successful businesspeople lose them, their inventiveness, and their diligence.
This nation, and this state, should never lose sight of need for robust business. At the government level, that generally means getting out of the way. State government has to protect safety; beyond that, it should restrict with extreme deference to freedom. That means bargaining contracts, health care policies, hiring policies, retirement policies, and discrimination policies should be left to employees and employers in a beautiful cauldron called "The Free Market".
Yes, even employment discrimination. There are very few "crackers" left in Connecticut. If they are still so stupid as to not want to employ racial minorities, fine. Let them them lose their talents; and let them lose angry customers, minority and majority, to more enlightened competitors. Let the few misogynist employers who might still be left in CT also suffer the consequences of their stupidity.
Connecticut has been hurt by overzealous regulation. Connecticut's entrepreneurial class has been stifled by needless forms, unnecessary intrusions, restrictive regulations, and fear of law suits. Our legislators at times regulate the small to protect the powerful. That explains requiring 500 hours of hair styling school before a young woman can open a braiding business; it explains high barriers for a business to self-insure, and it explains why no small homeowner or farmer can become a solar energy generator (and thereby earn money on her property and reduce neighbors' utility bills.).
The state can be a good collaborator with business. In transportation and environmental hazard remediation the state has to. In education, it should. My largest expansion of state services to business is "First 500", so contractors can be building, shaping, and administering to schools. In incubating talent, the state would be wise to help our businesses more. We have loads of talented youngsters who will do innovative work for a variety of companies; we need to assure that regulations don't stymie their hiring or their continued training.
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Signifcant Savings For Families
The most significant savings I can give to families is also the most American. Connecticut families that don’t make demands on the Federal government for the unconstitutional services it provides, are excused from paying 90% of the cost.
The 10% can be considered a tithe, or the price of “leaving us alone”. It’s a necessary price for the freedom we are about to receive. With it, families will keep 90% of the tax money that goes to activities they don’t use and will not use.
I and others have calculated the costs of the Federal government conducting its Constitutionally-authorized operations. The largest of these, by far, is defense. Annual expenses for the other powers delegated to the federal government, including coining money, providing border enforcement, naturalizing citizens, establishing post offices, operating the courts, regulating foreign commerce, and running the patent office collectively don’t equate to even 20% of the defense budget. All these operations PLUS defense sum to at most 26% percent of the budget.
The remaining 74% are social programs not authorized by the Constitution. This includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, NLRB administration, NASA (except perhaps that related to space-based defense), ethanol programs, housing programs, nutrition programs, K-12 education, university education and all aspects of corporate welfare not related to defense or border enforcement.
This is the 74% that should not be funded involuntarily. Much of our Congress has felt otherwise for the last 80 years. But that is the nature of power: Congressmen like enlarged federal powers because enlargement gives them more clout, more likeability, and more ability to get re-elected. But the truth is that Congress is limited to the powers listed in Article I section 8. Supreme Court decisions from the 1930s onward to justify Congress overreach are themselves wayward. Those decisions can be revisited – we are not stuck with them permanently.
There are federal government benefits that are hard to avoid. It regulates the radio spectrum, air traffic, wireless phone transmissions, air quality, drainage, nuclear waste disposal, and some parts of highway maintenance. We owe the Feds for our use of these, even if they are unconstitutional. But their cost can be quantified and use can be approximated. These can be recouped by user fees. If the FCCs budget is $800,000,000 and there are 150,000,000 US households, a household’s cost of using the FCC’s regulated stations and radio spectrum is $5.33. If the Federal assistance to agriculture (also unconstitutional) is $2,000,000,000, a family’s share that uses domestic agriculture is $13.33.
Add the costs of the unconstitutional services you use. Most households will find this is under $4000. For the family using federal unconstitutional services at half this amount, it’s a mere $2000. Now add the constitutional share, approximately 24% of your current tax bill. Then add 10%. A family whose federal income tax is currently $50,000 would thus pay (.24 x $50,000) + $2000 = $14,800. Then you add 10% for the Feds’ tithe. Total Federal tax liability: $16,200. Prior liability was $50,000.
Now, with this big reduction, you are staying away from the Federal Government’s other benefits. You are not taking a boat out on Long Island Sound; you are not watching PBS; you are not attending federally funded museums, or if you do you are paying a surcharge for your entry. Same with National Parks: you don’t set foot in a National Park without paying a surcharge for that visit. Yes, we need to monitor freeloaders, but your tax-saving return comes with a permission to be electronically (but not intrusively) monitored.
“Three and Out” is Connecticut’s compliance with the Constitution, while keeping money with its own families, and ultimately supporting the federal government.
Here are the three requirements for being protected by Three And Out:
1.) Remove your substantial assets from the banking system. Connecticut’s armed forces can protect you from federal seizure of your real property and your person; we can’t protect against a wayward Treasury Department that doesn’t feel a 10% windfall is good enough freezing or seizing $ in your accounts. Switch to BitCoin or other Cryptocurrencies.
2.) Track your uses of Federal Services. The State Comptroller’s office will list activities and the proportionate share that is owing to the federal government.
3,)File your tax forms. This is not a system for staying outside the system; it is to work within the system.
For all workers whose federal income tax is withheld from each paycheck, the state will be negotiating to route these payments to the State’s Withholding office if not to you directly. Constitutionalists have favored direct payments ever since the 1940’s when FDR and a compliant Congress chose to withhold taxes from paychecks. Connecticut may be the only state in the Northeast with this mechanism, but many Southern state will be on board simultaneously. I look forward to your participation and to your keeping more of your assets.