Click on any subject that's of interest.
Abortion (again!)
Drivers' Licenses
Eligibility for office
Fair share of school taxes
Government without taxes
How fast would the State downsize?
Libertarian Nominee Blevens
National Defense
Poverty relief
Responsibility
Roads and vital functions
Society without government
How would government function, with no taxes?
Let's see if I have this straight. A thief has been robbing you blind for all of your life, and then you find a way to prevent him taking a good part of what he steals, and then you feel pity for him and want to know how he'll manage? - You don't really want me to answer that, do you?!
How could society get along without government?
Wonderfully well, though please recall that in my platform, the most I said I could hope to achieve was an 85% reduction in all your taxes, not 100%.
Government is the source of all wars, most poverty, and all public coercion. Without it, the whole society would flourish to a degree never seen in all recorded history.
Without the State Government, who would repair its roads?
Good question. And there are several other things the State does, which would still need doing if and when that government goes out of existence.
The answer is that, wherever a public "demand" existed, some alert and greedy businessman would quickly emerge to meet it, for a profit. That's called "capitalism", and is supposed to be what America is all about.
Actually several would emerge and compete for that business, and that's why the cost would be kept low. Monopolies (which drive prices high) can only be sustained with government protection, and that would no longer be available.
So to answer your specific question: the roads would be auctioned off, and bought by whoever reckoned he could make a profit from them. Users would pay on the basis of use (like telephones), new roads would be built where demand was predicted, and closed where profit could not be made. Free enterprise at work, as in every other prosperous and peaceful aspect of society.
Yes. You'd only pay for the things and services you wanted to buy (so you'd "buy" far fewer) and you'd pay less for each of those you did buy because free enterprise is always at least twice as efficient as government; but yes of course, if you want something, you pay for it. Why should someone else be forced to pay for what you want? No more than you should be forced to pay for things they want.
Point is, each and every penny you spent would be by choice. And so, you'd have 100% control over your own resources. That's called "freedom", and it's inseparable from responsibility.
Government creates poverty, and never yet reduced it overall. It's a great organization for breaking your legs, handing you a crutch paid for with someone else's money, and then expecting you to say "thank you!"; but weaves massive poverty out of whole cloth - for example, by precipitating the 1929 stock market crash by printing "money" in the 1920s and then, after a serious recession resulted in 1932, by reducing the supply of money at the very time it should have been left to stabilize. Yes, government created the Great Depression, contrary to all it has taught in its schools ever since.
If government is eliminated (and again, I can't quite promise to do that) the incidence of poverty will revert to the low level it was at a century ago, and for which the private compassion of individuals and churches will well suffice - as always.
The reasons private charity has worked so well for the five millenia prior to this Century are that (a) as taxes decrease, available wealth (from which donations can be given) increases, and (b) when charity is voluntary there is choice, and choice by millions of donors enhances the most effective charities at the expense of the least effective. For further comment on this important subject, please see a newspaper article I wrote in 1998, and then use your browser's BACK button to return here.
What you're asking is: suppose an unknown, radical reformer who breaks all the rules about How to Get Elected Anything, attracts something like 300,000 votes mostly from people who never normally vote; will he be prevented from taking office on the technical grounds that he's lived here 6 years, not 7?
I suggest that if anyone is foolish enough to try to frustrate that totally unprecedented expression of the popular will, he may get trampled on by the crowd. I very much doubt if any of the wimps in the Old Order are going to risk their lives by trying.
Elect me first. We'll deal with that problem if anyone dares to raise it.
I'm glad you're in the Party. Take a look at his Web site (www.blevens98.org) and make your own mind up, after comparing it with this one.
The only thing you may need apart from that reference, is a decoder for the phrase "repeal the current use tax," which lies at the center of his platform. This is Govspeak (the misleading language is not Ken's fault, of course) for "end the 80% discount on prop-taxes for a certain class of landowners."
I carry no brief for those favored landowners, but as an LP Member you will know that we "do not believe in the initiation of force." Accordingly, it is utterly anti-libertarian to increase taxes upon anyone. Cancelling an 80% discount means quadrupling taxes for that class of people, and I'm not about to stand still while an LP candidate proposes to do that. How about you?
Incidentally, if you (dear reader) are NOT an LP Member, why not consider joining? - the LPNH Web site is here.
I don't like your stand on abortion.
You read it under Particular Concerns, and I'm sorry. My purpose is to help you take back your own life. If you want to run someone else's life instead, go vote for some other candidate. Any other candidate!
Without Federal Income Tax, who will defend the country?
Please, not so fast! This question assumes that:
- the whole country will follow the NH example and stop paying it
- it is not replaced by any new Federal tax
- the Feds depend on it to meet defense expenses, and
- their "defense" program is actually to defend the US of A.
None of these presuppositions are fixed by my campaign platform. I certainly hope the first comes true and shall encourage that, but cannot possibly promise that it will. The second, unless we're very careful in whom we send to Congress, will very easily prove wrong; Dick Armey has had a National Sales Tax up his sleeve for several years now to foist on us in just such a situation.
The third is plain wrong: check your 1040 booklet, at the back. The Feds collect a quarter of their taxes in ways other than the Income Tax, but spend less than a fifth of the total on what they call "defense".
And the fourth is wrong too; just because it's called "defense" doesn't mean we need it, to ward off real enemies. At least two thirds of the $300B/yr spent under that heading goes to defend countries other than the USA.
True, I'd like to see the Nation defended by some means other than government - but as NH Governor, I could have only a small voice in that debate. So, elect good Libertarians to Congress and the White House, as fast as you can!
Will I need a Drivers' License?
Driving without a piece of government plastic is a victimless "crime", for to do so hurts no real, actual person. Therefore I will pardon anyone convicted of doing it, and therefore the law requiring us to have them will be unenforcible and therefore my answer to your question is "NO!"
Now, it may be a good idea to have some sort of "driving skills diploma" in case anyone (a court investigating an accident, or an insurance company) needs evidence that you know how to get behind a wheel. But that could be obtained at any age and without participation by government - whose only real interest is to impose on us an unlegislated ID card to help it snoop.
A word of caution: I hope to govern New Hampshire, but my pardons will have no value in Vermont or Canada or anywhere else. So if you plan to drive in foreign parts, best get an International Drivers' License.
How fast would the State Government downsize?
This is an extension of the question about how government would function without taxes, and in accord with the answer given there, this is not one that ought to lose us much sleep. The frustrated thieves will be in difficulty; so what? - it's really only of academic interest. The less money government has, the more is controlled by you and me; so, the faster its decline, the better.
However, for those academics, here's a bit of the detail. The table shows where the State Government's money comes from, in round figures:
Taxes taken directly from NH residents $0.9 billion/yr Subsidies from the Federal Government 1.2 " Sales of licences, liquor, services etc 0.7 "
Total $2.8 billionThe first line - the direct taxes - will cease to be "taxes" on Day One of my administration, as explained under "MONEY", in its section on State Taxes. However, habit and momentum are such that I doubt that they will dry up at once absolutely; it will probably take a year before everyone gets used to the idea of not paying this extortion.
The second line is unpredictable, so I'll not try to predict how fast it will fall. This will be a matter for the Pols in D.C. If they want to fund those programs in N.H. which they also mandate, so be it. They will however have their hands very full trying to prevent what they may call the "New Hampshire Disease" spreading to the other 49 States like a dose of the Hong Kong Flu.
The third is more interesting. State parks and ski slopes bring in sales revenue, and liquor sales bring in profits; these are "taxes" only in the sense that the services being sold are monopolized. Licensure will swiftly decline, as people realize they don't need government permission to earn a living, and so will the money "earned" by the sale of those bits of paper.
Control of the rest of this revenue stream will be in the Legislature's hands. As Governor I'd have the power only to suggest how it might be managed. True, the liquor monopoly would be broken; thanks to my automatic Pardons, nobody could be prosecuted successfully for operating a private liquor store. But the State has used its power so "well" that it pays articifially low rents and so has a huge competitive advantage that it may take years to overcome.
A final comment: the State Government has vast assets, in those ski slopes and other properties. One way for the Legislature to manage the drastic downsizing that my election will precipitate, would be to sell some of them off to raise capital. I would place no obstacle in the way of such a policy.
The real unfairnesses here are that 1.6 billion dollars a year are being ripped off the people of New Hampshire in a protection racket to allow us to live in our own homes, and that every year, some 15,000 children are being "graduated" after having suffered 12 years of mental abuse by government agents. My priority is to terminate those gross, massive injustices. If that process leaves an imbalance in the fine measurement of comparative gains and losses, too bad. This is an utterly evil system. Let's be done with it. Any delay will be someone else's doing, not mine.
