Solving Our Budget Problems

There are a few things we could do that would solve our budget problems.

1) zero-baseline budgeting, so nobody will be able to call a spending increase a spending decrease just because it was less of an increase than was built into the system.

2) an amendment to the Constitution making it mandatory for all extra-Constitutional laws to have a 10 year sunset. Thus, every law would have to come up for a revote every 10 years. If a law or program is worth having, it's worth passing again.

3) all bills should be stand-alones -- including pork. No more bundling of bills.

4) there should be transparency for all Congressional procedures not involving national security -- nothing should ever be allowed to be done behind closed doors

5) all bills should require at least 1 day per 50 pages between the bill being finished and it being up for a vote,so legislators can read the bills before voting on them -- then a short quiz should be required of each to see if they understood what they read. When 100% of legislators pass the quiz, the bill can come up for a vote. During this time, the bill should be available online.

In fact, this would go a long way to solving most of our problems whose source lies in our legislatures and in legislation.