America is Dying (And How to Save It - Part 2)

America is Dying Part 3/3: Economic Reform and Social Renewal

Oct 19, 2025

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Economic Reform

We have more issues, however, than just military and immigration. We also have a severe debt problem. To begin solving the conundrum of massive debt that our country has created, Americans need to place blame and enact consequences of the over-spending where it should be placed: Congress.

Congress holds the power of the purse, according to the American Constitution. To ensure they spend our money wisely in the future, American lawmakers should pass a Law, or better, ratify an Amendment, that bars anyone in Congress from reelection if the U.S. Treasury holds any debt whatsoever. Our Country must be a creditor, not a debtor, if we want to retain our greatness.

Furthermore, once we have paid our debts and have a financial surplus, we must begin purchasing large amounts of gold. Once we have a justifiably large quantity of gold, we must peg the U.S. dollar back to it.

This is no easy task. To ensure that we don’t devalue our currency, we would need to purchase a large amount of gold. I don’t know what the actual amount, in tons, America would need to purchase in gold to get back to a gold standard. But it’s safe to say this could take decades of gold purchasing and gold mining to achieve; however, the long-term goal of a gold-stable U.S. Dollar would be worth the time and effort.

Speaking of the U.S. Dollar, the Federal Reserve must be abolished. They have mishandled the U.S. Dollar since it began operations in 1914.

Truly free markets must be able to dictate the interest rates on loaned money, which means the federal government must not have such a large role in the economy, as it currently does with its ability to adjust interest rates against free market currents.

The Federal Reserve was not envisioned by the Founding Fathers, who had incredible foresight. Many things that were invented by the federal government as additions to its Constitutionally granted powers were mistakes. The Federal Reserve was one of those mistakes.

But there were also things that the Founding Fathers missed. Which is why we have 27 Amendments. And I propose we have one more.

I believe that we should have a 28^th Amendment that declares that corporations are not people, nor should they be granted the same rights as people.

Ever since the 1886 Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Supreme Court ruling, we have continued to grant more human rights to corporations. We have allowed people to shield themselves from legal burden and tax liabilities with entities like limited-liability companies. And we have permitted corporations, interpreted by the Supreme Court as ‘persons’ under the law, to buy property.

Corporations should not be allowed to own property as a person can. If we want home ownership to be affordable, we cannot let large corporations be property owners and landlords. And if we want fair landlords, they must be people, not massive corporate entities.

Large corporations have also captured the American market through regulations. In 1971, economist George Stigler argued that “As a rule, regulation is acquired by the industry and is designed and operated primarily for its benefit.”

Much to the disagreement of the socialist, regulation does not control big business, regulation supports it. Regulation creates barriers for small businesses to compete. It encourages monopolies by restricting competitive practices employed by smaller companies, who are targeting the market of larger companies with novel approaches.

Most regulations in America are spearheaded by large companies, in collusion with the government for exactly this purpose. If the regulation is implemented before any collusion takes place, collusion happens after the fact, to ensure that the large corporation does not have to withstand the consequences of the regulation that is in its way.

American businesses are dying from corporate regulatory capture. Almost no new banks, telecom, or healthcare businesses can be created because of the web of regulations that currently exist. To stop large corporations from continuing to suck the life out of small companies through regulatory capture, we need to implement a three-step plan:

1. Place a five-year regulation freeze on all future federal business regulations.

2. Set a one-year expiration on all current business regulations at the federal level.

3. Force all expired or about-to-be expired regulations to pass the House and Senate with a two-thirds majority and be signed by the President to be reinstated.

Having all regulations expire after one year completely refocuses our House and Senate on reinstalling only those regulations that are useful, instead of adding more harmful regulations. And since there would be a two-thirds majority requirement, the regulations will most likely be bipartisan.

Furthermore, stopping new regulations from being implemented over five years would limit the government’s ability to slow down businesses in the short term. This also would allow the economy and environment to experience this low-regulation period to see which regulations are needed back into the system.

Social Renewal (Work, Retirement, Entitlement)

Regulatory capture is not the only thing holding back the U.S. economy. There are also three more government-supported systems staining the American workforce: entitlement programs, unions, and retirement programs.

America is facing a workforce that has been defined by government dependence and entitlement. We have over ten million working-age Americans currently receiving some or multiple forms of disability payments through Social Security, the VA, or other programs. And we all know people who are on these programs. I would go as far to say most of these people receiving these payments could work — and would work — if the programs didn’t exist.

These entitlement programs are encouraging people to remove themselves from the American workforce. Their reception of this money is also a massive burden on the American taxpayer who must pay for them. It is time we abolished these programs. Or, at the very least, raise the bar for those who receive their support.

We should also abolish all federal laws that offer union protection. Unions should be allowed to exist, as there is no constitutional argument restricting them. But there must be a balance between the employer and employee. Free markets depend on voluntary agreements. And employers get very little, if any, say in how they can handle their employees in union-led industries.

Union bloat has pushed a lot of manufacturing offshore due to this pressure on employers to provide working conditions and pay levels that are not economically possible. This bloat has also greatly slowed down the speed of construction in the United States. We have all seen a roadside construction site with one guy digging a hole and four guys watching him. These types of overly empathetic working conditions, driven by union demands, should end.

Unions also provide pensions to union members. This is fine if a union can support such a system. It is even fine for an employer to develop and enact a pension system. The issue is, most pension systems, if upheld only by the currents of the free market, would fail. Unless a union or company is eternally growing faster than the number of people retiring from it, pension systems are always mathematically doomed to collapse.

This is also true for federal pension systems and social security. Both of which need to be immediately abolished. The reason for my hard stance on these systems is because pension systems and social security convince workers that they can receive a paycheck forever for doing no work after a certain age. These government-backed systems, just like any union pension system, are also economically not feasible. And we are currently seeing this with the US Social Security system, which is supposedly going to be totally depleted by 2035.

Old-age retirement systems create bad incentives. They ensure that people, at a certain age, can stop working for the rest of their lives. This, in a functioning society, is not possible. There must only be a small number of people whom the rest of the population supports. Otherwise, if this non-contributor class grows too large, the whole population begins to collapse. This is happening right now with Japan, whose dependency ratio is now at about 70 dependents (children and elderly) for every 100 working-age adults. A country that was once the epicenter of incredible growth and innovation is now seeing economic stagnation and rural collapse. America cannot face the fall that Japan is experiencing, and the numbers show we are quickly headed there.

America was never meant to be a country of retirees. Nor could it theoretically withstand such fate. But slowly, that is what America is becoming.

Not only do we have pensions and social security draining the pockets of taxpayers, but homes, private businesses, property, and public market assets have become vehicles to support retirees. This retiree class is sucking the life out of the American economic system, which to operate at the productivity level that will give us any shot at a future that looks like The Jetsons, requires an all-hands-on-deck approach to making progress.

Now, that doesn’t mean that older people need to work in factories with their bare hands. Their roles should transition to more physically manageable tasks or more mentally engaging tasks that involve their ability to use their wisdom in decision-making. But they must be productive Americans. They must help us build the future and restore the American Dream.

My solutions are simple and easy to implement with the right amount of willpower. Nothing I’ve proposed requires more than Americans agreeing on what America should be and then signing on a dotted line. The biggest physical hurdle will be building the border walls. Everything else is a matter of focus and desire.

As Americans, it is time we call on our leaders to do what is right. It’s time they fight for America, not for foreign nations. Our leaders should govern for Americans, not corporations and illegal immigrants. And then, we must come together, as a community of Americans and as groups of American families, to build each successive generation better than our own.

That is the American Dream.

America is Dying (And How to Save It - Part 2)

America is Dying Part 3/3: Economic Reform and Social Renewal

Economic Reform

Social Renewal (Work, Retirement, Entitlement)

Read Next: Part 1 or Part 2 of the America is Dying Series

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