When reading through the President's proposed spending for 2014, I couldn't help but be amazed at how much we are wasting in things like education and the environment. The federal government, through the Department of Education, is simply creating an environment that leaves our children lacking in the knowledge to perform at the top levels of academia. I propose reverting all tax collecting for education to the individual states and allow each state to provide their school districts with the funding and oversight to produce productive, well educated students through instruction that is based on each school's student population needs rather than every school simply teaching children that which is necessary to pass a standardized test.

 

The same goes for the Environmental Protection Agency. That agency is a sea or regulation that is often duplicated by state law. The states are capable of handling their own environmental protections. There are a few agencies that provide a nation wide-wide service, such as the National Weather Service, most, however, should be disassembled. We do not need to fund research by other countries unless it is a joint project with the United States. While we are often times paying farmers to not grow food on their land, we should instead allow the farmers to grow the crop best suited to the soil and climate conditions. If it creates an excess that would cause a drop in price so far that it would prohibit the farmer from making a profit at market, the government should purchase the product, have it canned and delivered to countries needing humanitarian relief. Instead of spending tax dollars on rebuilding after seasonal floods along places such as the Red River near Fargo, ND., we should be spending money to divert that water southwest into drier states like Oklahoma and Texas where farming would be viable with that water. As for California, the Central Valley needs water from the Sacramento River and a tiny fish that is not even native to the southern end of the Sacramento River Delta, prevents California farmers from obtaining water to grow crops that you and I need to survive. I would propose legislation to capture a large quantity of the Smelt fish and reintroduce it to its original habitat then open the water for the farmers in the Central Valley.