Policies

Primary Objectives:

• End the “conflict” in Gaza
  • The How:
    • Reroute forces currently deployed in the middle east to secure Gaza’s border wall
    • Enable aid trucks entry
    • Allow international press agencies entry
    • Remove IDF forces from the area
    • Permit well established international humanitarian aid groups to take over aid distribution.
  • The Why:
    • Because what’s happening is fucked up. That’s it. Pretty simple.
    • Also, if you’re worried about our troops – we sent them to die in Iraq and Afghanistan for “weapons of mass destruction” which turned out to be a lie… where we got stuck there for decades and spent billions if not trillions of dollars. Go and ask them if they’d be willing to die to protect these people. I’d bet they’d say yes.

• Cut ties with Netanyahu’s Israel
  • What this means:
    • Weapons & trade embargos.
    • Immediately resuming the U.S. trial of Netanyahu.
    • Impose aggressive sanctions and tariffs on nations supplying weapons and arms to Israel.
    • Support for International Crimes Court on the full investigation of Netanyahu under the assertion that Israel is committing war crimes.
    • Immediate dissolution of AIPAC.
      • There is no reason to support a better “relationship” (read: mechanism for controlling our politicians) from an “ally” that has dragged us into Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Iran, and is currently attacking and starving a population of 2.2 million people, all while they knock down homes of these people in other areas and are illegally taking their land. *Phew that was a mouthful.*
  • Why?
    • The U.S. doesn’t negotiate with terrorists. This should be expanded to include regimes and nations under international accusation of war crimes and genocide.
    • Plus, we stood up to Russia for doing this shit, and they weren’t actively targeting civilians or starving the population. Like… come on with this bullshit.

• Audit all publicly elected and appointed government officials
  • How:
    • All financial assets of all publicly elected and appointed government officials will now and forever be a part of the public domain.
    • This will include audit rights for current officials for 7 years prior to being elected and 10 years after leaving office.
    • Once an elected official leaves office, they can again retain citizen level privacy of their finances. However all financial assets can and will be audited for up to 10 years after leaving office.
      • (Meaning if government officials try and act on future buy outs and payments – they’ll have to wait at least ten years. The U.S. public has the right to know if their government officials actually care about the populous or if they are just waiting for deferred payments from outside entities.)
  • Why?
    • American’s should have the right to know who is buying their officials.
    • Once enacted, this policy should be retroactive, allowing us to audit all current government officials.
    • Regardless of being elected or not, this should be immediately implemented.
      • Any elected official opposing this should be immediately impeached / removed from office and replaced with someone who will support this initiative.
    • In short, let’s find out who is buying our government.
      

• Provide the Epstein list
  • This is the item that will likely get me “suicided” by external forces, but it’s also the most straightforward of the core goals. Publicly publish and display the full Epstein list.

Secondary Objectives:

• Removal of insider trading rights for elected officials.
  • More specifically, members of the House and the Senate will be subject to the same exact laws of all citizens of the United States.

• End Taxi Bills
  • How:
    • Force the house, senate, and president to do their damn jobs. They vote on one issue at a time, instead of trading favors and concessions to get various parts of a bill secured behind closed doors.
    • Create a U.S. based public facing app that shows exactly how each politicians votes on each matter, their reasoning for voting in that matter, and keeping historical records on all voting actions.
    • Incorporate either AI or database driven metrics to compare campaign promises versus actual voting and bill creation for each sitting member.
  • Why:
    • This is why our political “system” is soo messed up. Bills are pages and pages long with various “items” that each side uses as negotiating points to push their agendas and hold or approve the opposing side agendas.
    • Fix the issue at the root problem. Vote on one issue at a time. If it’s good for your constituent base – state why, have the vote and reason recorded, and move on. No more games.

• Create term limits:
  • How:
    • Each elected official can sit for a max of 2 consecutive terms.
    • After two consecutive terms, a minimum of one term length needs to be waited until that individual can be re-elected to a public position of similar stature (IE. You can just jump between the house and the senate over and over.)
  • Exceptions:
    • Outside of the presidency, an elect official can be re-elected for additional terms beyond 2 consecutive terms should they win their electoral race with 65% of votes. (Essentially meaning ~2/3’s of their constituency wants to see this individual reelected.) This will be allowed for a maximum of 4 consecutive terms, after which time the elected official must relinquish their office for at least the period of 1 term length.
  • Caveats:
    • No gerrymandering. This means, no redrawing of electoral areas to favor one candidate or party. Electoral areas are set once and left permanently. The only exception to this rule would be for a 65% public vote to adjust electoral border areas.
  • Why:
    • One of my favorite quotes is: “Politicians are like diapers, they need to be changed frequently and for the same reason.”

• Dissolution of all Super Pacs
  • No more lobbyist money buying our politicians before they’re even in office.

• Campaign Restrictions:
  • You might be asking, “how do I run for office if I can’t get funding?” – Simple. Everyone gets the same campaign setup:
    • It will be a web page, with your about info, your credentials, your stance on major issues, why you – as a candidate – make the most sense, and any video and media you’d like to record. No TV ads. No big rallies. No need for costly venues, travel expenses for you and your staff, and security details, all of which tie down our political candidates to outside funds.
    • Debates can be run via Zoom or online conferencing service. That way we can mute your individuals being… less than respectful… of their peers time.
    • Campaigns will be limited to a 4 week period. That’s it. That’s all you get. If you can’t convince a constituent base about your merit in values in 4 weeks, with potentially months and years to prepare… then you probably shouldn’t be in office.
  • Why:
    • Almost all generations currently consume media through the internet, whether it be streaming content on TVs or on their phones.
    • This would alleviate the need for external money, such as PAC and lobbyist money, that can influence our politicians and complicate their values and goals before they’re even in office.
    • This will also allow some normal, non-millionaire, non-trust fund types in office for once.

• Taxes:
  • Implement a flat tax rate – TBD by people a lot smarter than me. No more capital gains vs income tax. Just a flat cut.
  • Also, no tax on tips (and we’ll keep the lower taxes on OT)
    • Important: For those people saying “Trump already did this!!” Well your kind of right… If you didn’t read the “Big Beautiful Bill” here’s what it actually says: “tips will be allowed greater tax deductions”. “Overtime (OT) will be allowed greater tax deductions.”
    • If you don’t believe me, you can read it for yourself here: https://www.congress.gov/119/bills/hr1/BILLS-119hr1enr.pdf. What Trump provided was great deduction amounts for tips and OT.
    • This is not to be confused with the term “tax exempt” meaning tax free. The only item that received this language in the Big Beautiful Bill was “gifts” from $5 MM to $15 MM (yes that’s million). These are now tax exempt – meaning tax free. (I wonder which elected officials might benefit the most from this one…)
  • Also, to make this change more palatable, I’d would advocate for eliminating all inheritance tax.
  • Why these changes?:
    • Every year corporations and the wealthy use every mechanism they can to dodge taxes and pay the absolute minimum (if anything). This eliminates workarounds and spreads taxation evenly across all individuals and corporations. No shucking of resposibility.
    • This also eliminates the burden for everyone else that has NO IDEA what they owe or why they owe it – having to go through multiple friggin forms or agencies to pay the government what the government claims each person owes.
    • As for the elimination of the inheritance tax, that’s simple: You’re taxed when you make money, you’re taxed when you spend money, you’re taxed on assets when you buy them (cars, houses, boats, condos, etc.), and your taxed continually for owning them. (Note: This setup may need to be adjusted in a flat tax system.) But essentially your money has been taxed to hell and back already at your time of death. There is no need to tax it again when passing your money and assets off to your kids.
    • Why again?… because it was taxed when you made it, taxed when you spent it, taxed when you bought the stuff, and taxed again for own the stuff. At this point, the government has gotten their cut.

• Reinstituting the protection of our national parks and federal lands.
  • Note: If you think this happened in the “Big Beautiful Bill” go and friggin read it. Specifically the parts where we’re not just granting oil company the rights to buy parts of these protected areas, but that we are MANDATING A NUMBER OF SALES. (In short, read the damn bill if you want to argue about it.)

• Changes to the Governor and Senator Compensation:
  • Members of the House and Senate will no longer be guaranteed salaries for life. Just like annnnnyyy other job, you get paid for the job while working the job.
  • Also, members of the House and Senate will no longer get special health care.
  • Instead:
    • Members of the House and Senate will get the median income for their constituent base. They will also be allowed a healthcare plan that resembles the median level of coverage available to their constituent base.
  • How do we implement this:
    • We will track standard key metrics in each state. These will include:
      • Median Income
      • Available insurance and care options
      • Unemployment rate / job growth rate
      • Infant mortality rate
      • % of high school graduation
      • Homicide rate / rate of violent crime
      • (whatever metrics American’s deem important)
    • Members of the House and Senate will receive financial compensation based on the median income for their state, to a minimum of $120k / annually
    • Bonuses will be awarded at the end of the year based on improvements to these categories to the upward of $250k in total annual compensation.
  • Why?
    • Being an elected official was once called being a “public servant”. We’re going to make politicians public servants again.
    • Their actions on a daily basis should be to improve the lives of their constituents.
    • Stopping payment for past members of the Senate and Congress, plus lowering the starting salaries will allow for additional compensation based on performance – IE. Performance compensation – just like any other job.
    • No more insider trading, no more campaign funds or need for campaign funds, no more infinite salary, and getting back to doing actual work and a publicly visible and transparent fashion.
    • With the standardizing of campaigning, the lack of need for MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of “SUPER PAC” (read: outside influence and control) money, these jobs can be acquired by normal, everyday people – many of which would see $120k – $250k as great salary opportunities. People that want to actually do the work vs. whatever the fuck politicians do now.

• Investment in AI and Energy infrastructure:
  • For those oil tycoons licking their chops, this one is not for you. I’m talking AI infrastructure so we can compete globally for the future – and solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear energy options that will add jobs, be better for the environment, and will be around when the oil dries up.
  • IE. We’re talking about the future of our nation, not the wallets of some old crusty fucks saying Alaska needs to be drilled for oil, or “clean coal” is the future. GTFO here…
  • We have deserts with legit vast open spaces where we can build massive solar & wind hubs or put nuclear power plans, add jobs, eliminate U.S. need for outside oil, and become a global energy producer.
    • We can do this because we have what a lot of other nations don’t have, and that’s space.

• Finally on my list is Education:
  • I will ensure that student loans can not be privatized and gouged for corporate profits.
  • I will take 0.5% to 1% of the defense budget and allocate it to public school salaries and education infrastructure.
  • We’ll elevate the average teacher salary to $70k annually across all public schools in the U.S.
  • Why:
    • We will pay our teachers who are taking care of our kids and prepping them to help build the next wave of great Americans.
    • We’ll make these jobs something that people want and can make a decent living off of.
    • We’ll be elevating the future generation of Americans and making us more competitive globally.

I’m sure there will be more to add, but that’s all I can think of for now. I had to do something instead of sitting around and waiting, so here’s my plan.

My name is Ben Birkner, and I am running for President of the United States of America. Because, enough is enough.