ITEM #5 - Repeal Obamacare
Besides being unconstitutional, Obamacare does not accomplish its stated purpose of insuring all Americans and, in fact, counts on Americas NOT obeying the law's individual mandate in order to secure the fines necessary to fund a good portion of the plan. For purposes of this discussion, the most damning aspect of Obamacare is that it creates uncertainty. Businesses cannot estimate what their healthcare costs are going to be and, therefore, cannot project what their future profit margins will be. If they do not know how much money they will have on hand, then businesses cannot make a determination as to whether or not they have sufficient funds to make new hires and they do not know what it will cost to provide benefits to those new employees.
This same principle of uncertainty applies to any government-compliance related cost: energy reg compliance (i.e. what will be the cost of transporting goods, supplying offices/plants with electricity, etc. with an Administration and a regulatory regime in place that are dead set on killing the fossil fuel industry, which supplies so much of our energy requirement), financial reg compliance (ex. the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has carte blanche to draft and promulgate its own regs with no Congressional oversight and relies solely on the Federal Reserve for funding, in essence, placing it outside the purview of the Legislature; and Dodd-Frank with its stringent, but non-sensical requirements, all of which favor large banks, and its provisions that actually institutionalize the concept of "too big to fail" in perpetuity), and labor law compliance (i.e. the government has no business getting involved in labor disputes or contracts between employee and employer and the NLRB was created for the specific purpose of "evening the playing field" between labor and management which necessarily means that the federal government has decided to take the side of employees against employers). Ending government employee unions will help eliminate costs at every level of government.
ITEM #6 - Privatize government entities.
Any time the government provides a good or service, there is at least some degree of inefficiency and there are potential private sector jobs that are crowded out. We should end the boondoggle that is Amtrak or sell it at a fire sale to a private entity and let them try to operate it. Dissolve the Postal Service and repeal the laws that prevent private entities from competing to deliver our mail. That will end the USPS's annual $5 billion in losses. End Freddie and Fannie (did I already make this argument?). If there is going to be a mortgage clearing house, then the more efficient private market should supply it. This will have the added benefit of reducing the likelihood of future housing bubbles. End the Export/Import Bank, the Small Business Admnistration, and every other federally-funded entity and organization designed to provide cheap credit to businesses based on politics. These types of entities distort the market and contribute to malinvestment/bubbles or they result in the misallocation of taxpayer funds.
Clearly, there will be some that will call into question the possibility of creating jobs by ending government jobs and here's my response: government agencies that drain taxpayer dollars take money out of the economy that could be used on more productive activities and create terrible inefficiencies and waste. They should not exist, period, for that simple fact alone. However, there will be a tremendous demand for some of the services they perform. Accordingly, private entities will step in to fill that vacuum. This will allow government employees to obtain equivalent jobs in the private sector. Moreover, growth in any industry leads to greater employment opportunities. Since the USPS, for example, cannot grow unless the government says it can grow, the amount of jobs it can create is a fixed number. However, private entities, motivated by profit (and the increased productivity that leads to it), will want to grow as much as is feasible, thereby increasing the rate of job creation.
Item #7 - End government employee unions.
See my reasoning in Items 6 and 7 above. By way of further argument, government employee unions are particularly egregious because they allow one group of citizens (government union employees) to leverage money from other citizens solely for the benefit of those unionized workers. The real employers, the taxpayers, have no say in the negotiating process. Providing a service in the public sector should not grant you rights that other citizens cannot enjoy simply because you work for the government and have joined a union.
Item #8 - End the employers' contribution to FICA.
It is monumentally stupid to force employers to match their employees' contributions to FICA. First, it discourages employers from paying those employees a higher wage. Second, why should an employer be forced to contribute to its employee's retirement? What benefit does the employer received from doing so? None. Third, it is a cost that employers use to calculate whether or not to hire someone. Make it easier for them and repeal the employer's matching requirement.
I am sure that there are other areas of regulatory compliance that need to be trimmed back if not outright deleted. Ultimately, federal regulatory compliance is estimated to cost businesses $1.75 TRILLION annually. Remove that cost, save our economy, and create jobs.
