Cancel culture, political correctness gone wild, racial tension, and gender confusion and it feels like today’s America is dry as Californian brush waiting for lightning to strike and the fire to rage.

I’d argue we have given the American government too much power in the last two decades.

Our government has grown to be a fat hog, unable to see its own arse, and ready for the slaughterhouse. People are fed up: both the rich and poor.

Our public education and healthcare systems are like the outskirts of Detroit used to film parts of The Walking Dead series.

Medical insurance is not insurance and rarely pays up when it’s needed.

Our communications infrastructure is outdated. You can download a movie to your phone in less than two minutes in South Korea. Try that at home…

People are finally waking up and starting to pull nodes from their heads realizing they’ve been asleep in the U.S. government’s version of the movie Matrix.

Regardless of political leanings, our political duopoly is not working for us anymore. It’s time for a political engine overhaul. What that will look like will take some thought. I don’t have all the answers but I know the patients are running the insane asylum.

This isn’t a Republican or Democrat problem; it’s a Government problem.

Biden’s new tax proposal reminds me of one of my favorite Ayn Rand novels, Atlas Shrugged. In her famous book, steel pioneer and captain of industry Hank Rearden refuses to bend a knee as incompetent competitors lobby the government to force him to give up his intellectual property because he has a better product that is patent protected and has an “unfair” advantage. Rearden and the other titans of American industry end up shutting down the country. The rest I’ll leave for you to read, however, I can’t help but draw comparisons to what’s happening now.  The Democrats aren’t really taxing the rich either.  They are just re-introducing the loopholes closed by the previous administration.  This allows them to use the tax code to dole out favors to industries and individuals who make cash contributions to their party.

Democrats aren’t really going to increase taxes on, “The Corporations” either.  Fewer and fewer new businesses are filing as Corporations and instead as LLCs, Sole proprietorships, and Limited partnerships because the=y know the tax code is punishing businesses filing as corporations.  When the government claims tax revenue from corporations is falling, they seem blind to the fact that tax policy is the cause of that decline.

Our government can’t manage its own budget. Politicians spend with little accountability like a sailor on shore leave in Thailand, and what do we have to show for it?

Two trillion dumped in Afghanistan and we’ve armed the Taliban to the tune of $98B. WTF over?

What has the modern government given us in the last 50 years?

Alternative energy? Better roads and highways? Free basic college education? Basic healthcare for all? We can’t even take care of our returning combat veterans.

The answer?

“Let’s just go after some billionaires and spend some more.”

It’s easy to think like this but let’s think about how many jobs companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google, Tesla, and Space X create. These are good jobs, and most are high income. The tens of thousands of people working there all pay taxes. The buildings rented or bought incur real estate tax. The billionaires create plenty of value but the government, which can’t manage its own budget, will just go and grab some more cash from their pockets assuming that this will solve everything.

My grandfather used to say, “You can’t fix stupid.”

You actually can.

In the SEAL Teams, we’d fix stupid all the time. It usually resulted in someone getting their SEAL pin pulled and being sent back to the regular Navy or discharged out of the community.

People with money know how to optimize their wealth and will figure out a workaround, just like politicians taking $100 checks that don’t have to be declared by name. There’s always a work-around, and let’s remember that these same tax loopholes were created by the government.

The core issue is that our government is broken and doesn’t live by the same rules as its citizens. Ask your local senator what their retirement and healthcare benefits are.

It’s time for new leadership in America; this much is clear to me.

It’s time to fix the stupid.

Let’s just hope we still have people brave enough to take it on.