A new opportunity: Party-driven politics vs. results

My fellow Americans, we embark on a new era of self-governance that asks us to do a few things many of us, even Conservatives, have trouble doing: Stop thinking about party-driven policies and focus on results-driven policies, even if it means goring some of our favorite cows.

Liberals want everything for free and it can't all be paid for by other Americans and small businesses who badly need some long-term relief. Imagine how our citizens could benefit if we could cut just 20 percent of federal government spending. 30%. Half. We are talking literally trillions of dollars.

I voted for Trump, the first presidential vote I've cast since 1992, because we need to spend about $1 trillion a year on the ground instead of on pinheads in D.C. trying to dictate how we live.

A few practical examples surfaced during one of my many rants on social media sites.

Take the EPA, as an example of all wonky, inefficient, ineffective, bloated government agencies. It spends $8.6 billion a year.

We need an EPA, I get that. But the feds use the stick too often and are controls freaks because it gives them power, control, oversight...and money. Too much power in the hands of any one government agency.

Fist, cut the budget down to a petty $1 Billion a year and see how that other $7.6 billion might help Social Security, Medicare, vet services, universal health care, to name a few. Why not make businesses who pollute self-regulating so they spend their own money making sure they meet or exceed regulations? All the feds need is oversight - kind of like random drug testing. Liberals hate "corporate welfare" so why not make the "evil" businesses pay instead of taxpayers?

Here's another wrinkle. One of my other beliefs is that those who create the problem should have to fix it, not the government. We lived in Southern California before we moved to Western Montana, where we have some of the cleanest air and water on the continent and deer walk through our yard every day - in the city!

Urban centers have an unbelievable impact on natural resources, especially compared to the rural areas. Give LA and Chicago and Seattle, etc. incentives to pursue better environmental processes and let their residents pay for them.

Montana only have a million people living in the entire state, a geographically large area. Our biggest city is 109,000 people. We have coal mines on the east side of the state that supply hundreds of the best-paying jobs in the state. We also have the cheapest, most abundant and environmentally friendly source of electricity known to man - hydroelectric. Montana and the surrounding states have no need to mine coal for our own energy supplies. The only reason we have coal mines is so it can be shipped to refineries for use in urban centers that use far more resources than they produce.

Ironic, since urban Liberals who live in these Pollution Frappes are the ones who complain about pollution and overpopulation, which is another column.

We can go through other agencies like the IRS, military, education, but my point is simply this: Trump gives us an option we haven't had in my lifetime: The opportunity to look at every federal agency, deconstruct it, reassess it, reorganize it, make it really work for us.

We've made great strides in just a few weeks and I can only hope we have the guts - including Conservatives - to take advantage of these opportunities.