Change for America: A Few Things I'd like to See Barack Obama Change

DO get health insurance and the tobacco corporations out of each others pockets. Why don't health insurance companies pay for smoking cessation drugs/programs. I've never been able to figure this one out. Smoking costs health insurance companies millions of dollars every year, but they won't pay for preventative medicine. What kind of pictures are in the vault at Altria headquarters? Some really raunchy stuff from the Humana Xmas party, I assume.

DO away with the Department of Education. Cut my taxes that go to support the DoEd so I can happily pay them to my local schools. No child left behind. Are you kidding me? Washington mandates this junk and doesn't send near enough money to pay for it. Let the locals handle their own. Besides, I know a kid or two that needs to be left behind or at least dropped off at the vo-tech.

DO away with the IRS. Do you know how much of the $11.4 billion dollar Treasury Department's budget is slated for the IRS? $10.4 billion. Yep. 90% of the Treasury's budget is for collecting the money that pays for their budget. Sort of circular, ain't it? Abolish the income tax. Set up a VAT or Fair Tax and you can trim down the collectors to a couple thousand people to audit the system.

DO trim some Federal overhead by combining the DEA and ATF under the FBI. They're all under the DOJ anyway. Why do we have these separate task forces? One FBI doing all the Federal police work would be just fine. Who thought we needed to break off alcohol, tobacco, and firearms anyway? If there are two things that don't mix, it's alcohol and firearms. This only makes sense, folks.

DO reorganize HUD and give it a real mission. This agency is all over the map. It has no real direction. I mean, a $3 million budget and separate division for "housing for people with AIDS?" I don't want to seem uncompassionate, but what the hell is $3 million dollars going to do? How many houses can you build for that kind of money? How many people with AIDS can the Fed help this way? Do the math and find a cure already.

DO look into the Department of Homeland Security. How the hell does the Coast Guard manage to do the superior job it does on $5.6 billion while the Border Patrol can't secure the border for $16 billion. The return on investment my taxes are getting on that deal are worse than my 401k. Last I looked, the United States had more water borders, too. Where's that 100% cargo container scanning program? Last I heard, they weren't going to meet the goal by 2012.

These are probably not the changes Mr. Obama has in mind and I didn't get elected. What the hell do I know other than how to vote?