Some suggestions to help in the current government financial crisis

According to the 27th amendment to the Constitution this Congress can not reduce its own pay. It is perfectly possible to reduce Congressional pay in the future. Since the Congress is not doing its job, it makes sense to reduce the pay for future Congresses until one shows it can do the job. How much help does the Congress need when its gridlocked? Lets cut the staff and rent out some of the space in the many palaces that Congress occupies in downtown Washington, DC.

There are more than 300 million guns in the United States. We don't need and most of us don't want that many guns in circulation. Lets tax them! I bet a lot of people asked to pay say $100 per year to keep an assault weapon at home would decide that it wasn't really necessary. We could also have progressive tax -- the higher the rate of fire, the higher the annual cost; the bigger the magazine, the higher the annual cost; the shorter the barrel, the higher the tax. You could also have a sales tax on guns and ammunition and a licensing fee for gun users licenses which would of course require passing a test to assure the ability to operate a weapon safely. There could be big fines for having an unlicensed gun or having a gun without a license. It would be relatively easy in such a system to be sure that target and hunting weapons were affordable.

One simple reform for entitlements would be to have the government negotiate low prices for pharmaceuticals, medical devices and supplies for the Medicare and Medicaid systems. Perhaps the transaction costs of private insurance companies could be limited to those achieved by the federal system.

Add your ideas as comments.

Of course the do nothing Congress will never enact any of these useful ideas.