HOW?

Every candidate I've ever heard says the same three things.

We're going to cut the cost of living. We're going to bring down inflation. We're going to grow the economy.

And I believe they mean it. That's not my objection.

My objection is one word, and I have never once heard it answered.

How?

If you're not telling me how, all you're selling me is a pipe dream. And in my years as a  young and dumb kid I smoked enough pipes to know what those dreams look like, and what they're worth.

So let me go through it, and you hold me to the same standard I'm holding them to.

We're going to control the cost of living.

How?

 By naming the six things that eat eighty-some percent of what a household spends, finding which federal agency already has authority over each one, and saying what that agency does differently on the first day.

We're going to help with your household finances.

How? 

Through agencies that already exist for it and are already funded. So the answer isn't new money. It's whether the money already appropriated is doing the job it was appropriated for.

We're going to create jobs and raise wages.

How? 

By naming the specific rules that came apart over forty years, one at a time, and saying which one gets rewritten and who rewrites it.

We're going to improve the health of the economy.

How? 

By publishing the measurements. All of them, on a schedule, including the ones that make the administration look bad.

We're going to make the government spend efficiently.

How? 

Every missed target gets a named fix, a named owner, and a published deadline. Every department, every quarter.

We're going to cut the deficit and still provide the services people depend on.

How?

That one takes forty-four documents. And they're written. And they're posted. And you can read every one of them before you vote for anybody.

That's the campaign. Every claim, the same question. And every time, an answer you can go check.

Now — why doesn't anybody ask it?

I don't think it's a conspiracy. I think a television segment is four minutes long, and the honest answer to how takes longer than four minutes. So the format asks what, because what fits in the box. Nobody had to decide anything for that to happen.

Which means if you want the how, somebody has to write it down where the clock isn't running.

So I did. All of it. Before the election, not after.

Read it. Dispute it. If the arithmetic doesn't hold, say so out loud and I'll fix it in front of you.

But don't let anybody — me included — tell you what they're going to do without telling you how.

My name is Martin Ginsburg. I'm a United States Air Force veteran and a registered nurse, and I'm running for president.