USA 2024 Elections Thread

[grarpamp]

Vivek Ramaswamy has been making a lot of public in-person
presentations and podcasts lately, and has been rising in
the polls even matching the sinking DeSantis, people seem
to be resonating with Ramaswamy as he smooths out.

Vivek is one of only two dedicated Crypto candidates,
has a detailed what you see is what you get platform,
and is expected to reach the top of the campaign.


Ramaswamy Unveils Plans to Eradicate FBI, Department of Education,
Nuclear Regulatory Commission

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/ramaswamy-unveils-plans-to-eradicate-fbi-department-of-education-nuclear-regulatory-commission-5414520

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during the
Faith and Freedom Road to Majority conference in Washington on June
23, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during the
Faith and Freedom Road to Majority conference in Washington on June
23, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)
Nathan Worcester	
By Nathan Worcester
July 21, 2023Updated: July 21, 2023
biggersmaller
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Presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy detailed his vision for the
administrative state at a New Hampshire town hall on July 20.

Mr. Ramaswamy appeared on stage at Saint Anselm College’s New
Hampshire Institute of Politics to the strains of Jason Aldean’s “Try
That in a Small Town.”

The music video for Mr. Aldean’s song was pulled from the air by
Country Music Television over accusations of racism. The country
singer has strenuously denied those allegations. Former President
Donald J. Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are among the
politicians who have come to his defense.

Mr. Ramaswamy began by explaining why he chose the song.

“You want to understand the best measure of America’s health? Here’s
what it is: it is the percentage of people who feel free to say what
they actually think in public,” the biotech entrepreneur told the
crowd.

“I respect—whether it’s a musical artist, whether it’s a parent,
whether it’s a corporate executive who will say in public the things
that you are otherwise supposed to keep to yourself.”
Epoch Times Photo Singer/songwriter Jason Aldean performs during Jason
Aldean’s 2nd Annual Concert For The Kids, Benefiting Children’s
Hospital Navicent Health of Bibb County, raising over $700,000, at
Macon Centreplex in Macon, Georgia, on Aug. 11, 2017. (Rick
Diamond/Getty Images)

The candidate reiterated some of his past promises with respect to the
administrative state—for example, instituting eight-year term limits
for bureaucrats.

Yet, he went beyond that over the course of an in-depth speech that
made ample use of org charts. He explained in specific terms how he
intends to “shut down the administrative state and the bureaucracy
that sucks the lifeblood out of our constitutional Republic.”

The Founders, he said, “fought a revolution to say that ‘We the
People’ decide how to settle our political differences, for better or
for worse.”

Mr. Ramaswamy argued that the sprawling administrative state has
betrayed that revolutionary promise.

“I stand not on the side of reform. I stand on the side of American
revolution,” he said, his fiery rhetoric recalling the title of a
famous pamphlet by revolutionary Marxist Rosa Luxemburg, albeit from
the opposite end of small-l liberalism.
Plans for Ending FBI, Department of Education

Mr. Ramaswamy argued that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is
structurally anomalous, which enables it to “[escape] cabinet-level
accountability.”

He pointed out that there’s no FBI-like independent investigative body
between local prosecutors and local police, as there is between the
Department of Justice and the U.S. Marshals.

“That is a formula for corruption,” the 2024 hopeful stated, arguing
that the agency is vexed by waste, redundancy, and mission creep. Its
mission creep only worsened after 9/11, he said.
Epoch Times Photo Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) building in
Washington on June 28, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

Presenting a diagram outlining the dismantling of the FBI during his
first year in office, Mr. Ramaswamy said he’d shift some of its
employees to the U.S. Marshals, the Drug Enforcement Administration,
and other agencies less “politicized” than the brainchild of J. Edgar
Hoover.

“The corruption investigations will move to the Secret Service. The
counterintelligence investigations—which is a tiny portion of their
employees, but important, I acknowledge—will move to the Defense
Intelligence Agency under the DOD [Department of Defense],” Mr.
Ramaswamy continued.

He then explained how he would take apart the Department of Education
(DOE), which he said “should have never existed in the first place.”

“This is the head of the snake when it comes to the spread of
woke-ism, transgenderism, [and] indoctrination of our kids,” the
anti-woke investor told his audience, adding that the radicalism at
some local schools was often downstream of incentives created by the
federal agency.

Mr. Ramaswamy said districts seeking money from the DOE must toe the
line on those hot-button issues. He said former President Donald J.
Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, couldn’t bring her charges
to heel.
Epoch Times Photo Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in the East Room at
the White House in Washington on July 07, 2020. (Chip
Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“I do not believe we can reform this agency,” he said.

“What we really need more of in our educational system is
decentralized choice that belongs to the parents.”

Mr. Ramaswamy said the agency’s financial incentives “tip the scales”
toward college, even for students who would do better in a vocational
program.

He vowed to end the department after his first year as president.

“Half of its budget will be disbursed back to the states and to the
people,” he said to applause, adding that outstanding loans and grants
would fall under the authority of the Department of the Treasury.

Mr. Ramaswamy said he’d transfer the DOE’s existing workforce and
vocational education programs, which he described as “relatively
poorly run,” to the Labor Department. And, under his plan, some
foreign exchange-related functions would go to the Department of
State.
Reveals Nuclear Regulatory Commission as New Target

The candidate announced that he intends to shutter a third, more
obscure agency—the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

He called it “the single wet blanket, the damper on the revival of
nuclear energy in the United States of America.”

Mr. Ramaswamy pointed out that nuclear plants in the United States
currently take decades to come online, pinning the blame on expansive
NRC regulations.

He argued that those burdens have counterintuitively increased the
risk from nuclear power for Americans by making it harder for new,
safer reactors to join the country’s fleet.
Epoch Times Photo The Edison power plant in San Clemente, Calif., on
Dec. 29, 2020. (John Fredricks/The EPoch Times)

“The culture of the agency itself is hostile to the existence of
nuclear energy in the United States of America,” he said.

Mr. Ramaswamy said he’d put an end to the NRC, transferring what he
sees as useful functions to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
the Department of Energy, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS),
and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

“Are these bureaucracies perfect? They are not,” he said.

As president, Mr. Ramaswamy said, he could legally make these moves
without Congressional authorization.

“Next week,’ he pledged. “I will lay out the Constitutional and
statutory authority that the U.S. president has, as the duly elected
president, to actually do it.”