With the 2012 presidential campaign season rapidly approaching, I can’t help but notice that there are no candidates espousing my personal preference for a political platform. It is a niche that I think deserves to be filled, and I’d like to take a moment to outline my proposed platform, were I rich enough to enter into the presidential race. I welcome any suggestions as to whether these ideas are crazy or not.

Prohibiting Marriage

Everyone is up in arms over the gay marriage debate. My own state, New York, recently legalized gay marriage, but many states in this great Union have explicitly forbidden it. Personally, I’d give up the fight. I’d run on a platform of prohibiting all marriages. Marriage for no one! The law would be retroactive, so poof! no one is married anymore.

Without a legal recognition of marriage, churches would be free to marry whomever they wish. My platform has the added benefit of also being egalitarian towards those—like me—who aren’t married. Fairness and equality for everyone! That’s my mantra.

Cap and Trade…For Kids

In the United States, the institution of a cap-and-trade plan for controlling energy emissions has essentially been a failure. But in my best estimation, our political leaders are missing one key fact: we wouldn’t even have to worry about pollution if there weren’t so damn many people. Hence, I advocate a cap and trade system…for kids. That’s right, children, the result of sexual reproduction in human beings. The average American’s carbon footprint is 20 tons of CO₂ per year—double the global average and 43% more than the average Canadian’s.

Under my plan, each person would have a credit for one child; thus, every couple could have up to two kids. If you don’t want any kids, you can feel free to sell your credit to someone who does. What’s a potential child worth? A thousand dollars? Ten thousand? A million? That’s a question that can and should only be answered by the free market.

With such a solid platform, how could I possibly lose? Oh, that’s right—I’m not thirty-five yet.