What I would do with the national debt, out-of-control spending, expensive health-care system and an unworkable political system:

1. Consolidate all federal, personal and corporate income taxes, gifts, real estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, self-employment taxes, federal income and payroll-based taxes into a progressive, national retail sales tax, administered primarily by existing state sales-tax authorities. The Fair Tax Act (H.R. 25/S. 13) is nonpartisan legislation that does all this. Even undocumented workers would pay these taxes.

2. Reform the minimum wage to be industry-wide and not nationwide. Technology, $8.50 per hour; food, $7 per hour; agriculture and construction, exempt, etc.

3. End the health-insurance industries’ exemption from federal antitrust laws.

4. Amend our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.

5. Close down more overseas military bases. We are not the world’s police. How about a national defense instead of national offense?

6. Allow more flexibility for states to do their own reforms.

7. Use fewer military contractors to do a job that service members are already trained to do.

8. Encourage people not to vote for sleazy lawyers, and to write to their elected reps more to enact reforms.

Roberto Vizcarra
West Valley City