ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Only a Fedzillacrat could possibly think raising taxes on the wealthy could accomplish anything toward restoring sanity in the financial insane asylum known as our federal government.

Let’s be honest; we are not close to going over the “fiscal cliff.” We drove off that cliff a long time ago. We can only hope the crash doesn’t demolish the republic.

Raising taxes on the wealthy, closing loopholes and eliminating deductions is analogous to seeing Michelangelo’s very first short paint stroke on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and claiming it’s a masterpiece.

We are more than $16 trillion in debt today, and estimates are that America will be $22 trillion in debt at the end of this president’s second term. If that’s not a certifiable, titanic financial disaster, someone please tell the American public what is.

You won’t get an argument from me that America has a spending problem. A much larger problem we face, however, is a federal government problem. We’ve got malfunctioning departments stacked on top of bloated agencies that are stacked on top of a bungled mess of various supporting offices that are overstocked with duplicitous bureaucrats. We’ve created the very beast (hence the name Fedzilla) that our forefathers warned us about, and it’s killing us.

We can’t keep throwing good money after bad and expect different results. What we need is a wholesale, top-to-bottom assessment of the federal government, and then we need to slash and burn all Fedzilla departments, agencies and offices that are not constitutionally required or deemed vital. This should be fundamental before any deals are cut regarding new taxes.

The three sacred entitlement cows in the room that no politician wants to poke are Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. A blinding statement of the obvious is that we are never going to get our financial house in order until these sacred entitlement cows are not only poked, but slaughtered. Until the slaughter is over, everything else is just taxation window dressing.

In addition to slaughtering the three sacred entitlement cows that consume a vast majority of the federal budget (and I use the term budget generously), let’s truly spread the pain around and raise taxes on everyone, including the nearly 50 percent of Americans who pay zero federal income taxes. Those Americans need to have some skin in the game, too. I recommend at least a 5 percent federal income tax bracket for them. The insane free ride needs to end.

Every federal agency and department should be required to take an immediate, real 15 percent cut in its budget — no funny accounting tricks, but a real 15 percent cut. Agency budgets then should be rolled back to their 2005 level before the end of 2013.

No tax-raising deal should be signed without including a balanced-budget amendment.

Let’s also stop the insanity by suspending the right to vote of any American who is on welfare. Once they get off welfare and are self-sustaining, they get their right to vote restored. No American on welfare should have the right to vote for tax increases on those Americans who are working and paying taxes to support them. That’s insane.

In addition to suspending a welfare recipient’s right to vote, we also need to get our voting system straightened out and eliminate voter fraud. We need to ensure that only Americans vote by requiring polling places to validate the identification of each voter.

It shouldn’t take a Motown guitar slayer to come up with these common-sense bargaining chips before taxes are raised on the producers, which will further choke the economy. How about it, GOP?

Ted Nugent is an American rock ‘n’ roll, sporting and political activist icon. He is the author of “Ted, White, and Blue: The Nugent Manifesto” and “God, Guns & Rock ‘N’ Roll” (Regnery Publishing).

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