Cut spending -- dramatically. Before I explain exactly how I would do that, let's look at the problem.
Democratic and Republican politicians are both responsible for the bloated $1.6 trillion federal government, the ongoing multi-billion dollar deficits, and the $5 trillion national debt. Republican Presidents and Republican Congresses, Democratic Presidents and Democratic Congresses have all served to make government bigger and bigger and bigger.
With the exception of the retrenchment period after World War II, every President-- Republican or Democrat -- since Calvin Coolidge has left a government that's bigger than the one he inherited. We have to stop this trend.
Today, with the American public overwhelmingly anti-politician and anti-government, politicians of both parties try to convince us that they, too, are for "smaller government," "lower taxes," "less regulation." But the specific proposals they make will all lead to bigger government.
Democratic politicians play games by "reinventing government," even though every reform they propose makes government bigger and more expensive. Republican politicians play games by publicly proposing to close down Departments of the federal government while privately voting to save them.
By contrast, I say that government doesn't work -- and I want to remove the federal government immediately and completely from every activity not specified in the Constitution -- education, energy, regulation, crime control, welfare, housing, transportation, health care, agriculture, and all the other areas the federal government has stuck its nose into unconstitutionally over the past 60 years.
By reducing the federal government to its Constitutional functions, we can do away with all direct taxes -- the income, estate, gift, capital gains, and Social Security taxes -- financing national defense and the federal judiciary with the level of tariffs and excise taxes being collected already.
That's why I'm making this offer to every American: Would you give up all your favorite federal programs -- such things as farm subsidies, student loans, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and any other programs -- in order to be free of the income tax forever? That's what you can get by voting for Harry Browne for President.