May 8, 2015--Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee--or Mike Huckleberry as my mother refers to him--this week announced to no one's surprise that he is again running for president.

There is room in the Republican clown car for him since he is literally a lot smaller than he was in 2008, the last time he ran, thanks to lap-band surgery and the pressure to look slim on TV during the years he had a talk show on Fox News. He has little chance of winning the nomination but should see a bounce in his lecture fees and at the minimum during the campaign be good for a few laughs.

In regard to that, he started off with a few zingers--

First, to differentiate himself from all other GOP candidates, while calling for cutting or eliminating almost everything else, he offered strong support for retaining Social Security and Medicare pretty much as they are. Chiding other Republicans--specifically those many no-shows in the Senate who, on the public payroll, are running for the presidency--Huckabee called for cuts in their own fat government pensions and health care benefits instead of those of more vulnerable citizens.

This was a smart move for him, considering his likely 65+ year-old base of supporters, and fits right in with the Populist passion to take regular swipes at anything having to do with government.

But beyond this, he is such a fiscal conservative (a GOP requirement) that he advocated the elimination of much of the rest of the federal government. Supporting the military--another imperative--aside. For that he wants to spend more and presumably use our troops more aggressively than he claims they are at present. Do I hear in Iran?

From his perspective I get eliminating the Department of Education--the federal role in education has for decades been a Republican whipping boy, with claims that it exists only to promulgate socialist, secular propaganda in our public schools. Of course, neither Huckabee nor any of the others tell us what they would do about various forms of student financial aid (the largest part of the DOE budget) that even Republican critics use to help them and their children pay for college.

OK so we'll figure out how to make that work. Probably through privatization--give those programs back to the banks. Who cares if it would cost billions more than at present. If the private sector is in charge, to conservatives by definition that's better than the government playing a role.

And of course, top of the list of federal agencies to be eliminated is the loathsome IRS. Even poor Rick Perry last time around was able to remember that was one to the three programs he would eliminate--he needed help with the other two. Perhaps soon he'll tell us which they are since he too is about to grab a seat in the clown car.

Without the IRS why would anyone feel compelled to pay taxes? Talk about America becoming just like Greece where hardly anyone does.

But, of course, that would be a good thing--no tax money means no federal government. Sure, Huckabee and his colleagues would have to figure out how to pay for the military and border security. Their two favorite federal programs.

Maybe we'll privatize the military. Turn it into a for-profit operation. For example, let Boeing or United Airlines run the Air Force, GM or Ford the Army, and Carnival Cruise Lines the Navy. Issue stocks and bonds to support it and peg dividends to how many wars we can drum up and  . . .

And then we could hire Blackwater to take over border security. Look how good a job they did in Iraq where the Bush administration had them provide security for American operatives. No matter a host of them were recently convicted of murdering Iraqi allies.

Do we want the CIA, FBI, NSA? If so, is it possible to privatize them? We could contract with Facebook and Google to do the electronic surveillance. For marketing purposes, by collecting big data about each of us, they are already doing a version of that.

Do we want an FDA to offer assurance that our medications work and are safe? Not if we have to spend tax money to do so. But since we do want to avoid the undue side effects of new medications (the current scary ones are enough) we could turn the FDA functions over to Pfizer and Novartis. They'd jump at the chance to fast track the approval of their own new products.

Our crumbling federal highways and bridges? Sell them to Abu Dhabi. They already have experience running the parking meter concession in Chicago so maybe we should ask them to repave our interstates.

The Government Printing Office and Mint? Turn them over to Citibank. In the early days of the United States banks offered their own currency so this would be a strict-constructionist way to manage our money 2015-style. And while we're at it, get rid of the Federal Reserve. With Citibank controlling the money supply, who needs them?

Federal Prisons? Many states have already privatized theirs so why not the U.S. government.

The airports? A perfect role for JetBlue.

The postal service? A no-brainer--FedEx is already handling a substantial portion of our packages and is venturing successfully into mail service. So let's turn the rest over to them.

And of course we should sell the national parks to Disney. That's an easy one. Grand Canyon Land. Yosemite World. Love it! Now if Disney would only add a water slide at Old Faithful and . . .