Friday, August 5, 2011

5 1/2 Solving all the Problems in the USA

For those that know me, I am pretty politically involved. God gave me a country, a vote, and a spirit that is co-mingled with His to help me be discerning, have love, wisdom and compassion for my fellow man. I ask you from the very beginning of this blog, how will the government ever be more godly unless Christians get involved?

I have often thought about running for an office. I even received a donation once, as well as encouragement from others to in fact run. I am still thinking about it. We have so many important issues facing us here in the USA, that I would like to get in there and represent the people of my state in some capacity.

Because I care about solutions, I have a hard time with party politics!

Today, if I were running for the Congress, here are my top issues with some simple solutions. (Sure they can be complex, but a broad view often helps put an outline to the solution.)

-1 Taxes, Social Security and Medicare: I think that every one needs to pay taxes. The Flat Tax is the best plan (though I like the Fair Tax except that it screws seniors who have paid under the current system all their lives.). We could get rid of the IRS and take a flat percentage out of every type of income, wages, tips, interest, corporate profits and a short list of capital gains. I don't know what the percentage is, but it would have to fund the budget.

We could tax profits from corporations and lose the subsidies. The only deductions I would give them would be a reduction in employment taxes for keeping jobs here in the US, and for certain types of innovation. For example, ones that get us off foreign oil!

Put SSI and Medicare in their own funds with their own budgets. This is how SSI used to be until LBJ started to rob it to fund the Vietnam war.

We have now reduced the power of special interest groups, and the temptation to rob SSI and Medicare to fund everything else.

I like the idea of a balanced budget amendment as a percentage of GDP! (You do know that this week we hit 100%, borrowing as much as we take in!)

-2 Immigration: Lock down the borders with whatever it takes: fences, moats, soldiers - get it done. Make a line, and put everyone in it! Make a set of hurdles that must be overcome by each immigrant. Learn English, pass a citizenship test (all US students should!), keep your record clean and in 3 years you are in if you have a job.

Get rid of the criminals that are here.

Fine the illegals that are here and put them in the line if they know English and have a clean record. 

Heavy fines for companies that hire illegals!

Start a real guest worked plan that hires immigrants after companies have run an ad for 15 days to hire American Citizens.

-3 Jobs: Provide incentives for companies to hire people, to innovate, and to keep workers. Government jobs cost tens of thousands of dollars to create. The private sector runs a free ad on Craigslist and it is done. Here the employment tax could help as a sort of tariff to keep labor here. The tax could be used to fund education for Americans.

If we are already giving workers assistance for not working, how about we let them have the assistance for a period time after they start a job so that the incentive is there for both employee, and employer? We want people to feel good about getting back to work (or starting work altogether). Unemployment needs some reform here too. It is too easy to take a vacation.

If the Feds reduced taxes on business, the states could do a better job of controlling costs at a local level. This helps create jobs. IE: A financial company got a better deal on taxes from a neighboring state and move 1,500 workers over the border here in MA. Another company sent 3,000 jobs to China after we funded their start up?!?!? Hello!

-4 Health Care: It's a huge mess. Start over! Let's get a basic coverage outline for what health care is. How about a yearly physical, dental and eye exam along with mammograms and colonoscopies (Washington could use a few dozen of these to find their heads!). Then add major medical coverage for important conditions. The pay for everything system is not going to be affordable. Again, safety net, not hammock.

The rest could be picked up by insurance companies if citizens choose to have it. This way no one if forced to purchase something. They have a safety net for huge things, and basic preventive care. Let the insurance companies compete for all the vanity options, additional visits and medication. It is not perfect, but at least people get to see a doctor every year as apposed to never having any care at all.

I like the idea that no preexisting condition can cause you to be declined coverage or dropped for whatever reason.

And how about a cap on malpractice suits? Most life insurance policies are $300-500K. It is a good start.

-5 Welfare: If you can work, you should. Why we pay some people to sit around and do nothing is beyond me! It should be a safety net, not a hammock! I am not talking about sick or disabled people, I am taking about people that don't want to work, or are not motivated to work because, well, it's easier to collect a check. It would be better to put them to work doing something that we pay government contractors for, than to allow this to go on.

While I am on it: Prisoners live better than many seniors in nursing homes. I have a problem with that. And you should too! Oh yeah, and why don't we have non-violent prisoners on home-confinement and let them pay for their room and board?

- 5 1/2 Big Government:: There are too many ridiculous line items to mention. Can't we keep it to military protection, infrastructure for commerce and a few important regulatory and informational agencies (NRC, NOAH, FDA etc)? Leave education to the states along with a host of other things.

So what do you think, did I cover important things? Are my solution reasonable and workable - well once we get rid of the current crop of ineffective representatives!

10 comments:

Tony C said...

Brilliant! Major revisions to welfare that requires, among other things, drug testing would result in a number of people going back to work in order to eat. That would squeeze a lot of the illegals out of jobs forcing them back from where they came.

Is that cold hearted?

David-FireAndGrace said...

@Tony - I do think the drug testing which they are doing in FL is going to have an impact. I like it.

I am not for sending everyone home. Sorry, so illegals came here many years ago and our system allowed it. Shame on us. They have children in college that are legal citizens - it is deep.

I am not quite as cold hearted as you, but we need to address the problem, and soon is good!

Anonymous said...

This government you are talking about exists. It is called

Canada

Balanced budget? check
Health care for all, at the State (Province) level? check
Few overseas military invasions? check
A well regulated Banking industry? check

- a gnawn on moose

Charlie's Church of Christ said...

when I used to work in homeless shelters I supported welfare - but the more I've experienced the less I support it. Giving people money kills motivation - we've lost our sense of gratitude. I even experienced this when I received unemployment for 3 months - it can settle down the urgency. I think when welfare was developed it was good and useful, but sometimes people can ruin the party for everyone and there's enough clear cut cases of abuse that the baby needs to go with the bathwater.

Note this was written by someone who's known hundreds of people on welfare.

Anonymous said...

Love the flat tax. What do you think about getting rid of income tax altogether and only tax sales?

David-FireAndGrace said...

@Anon - yes, Canada has much of that. What they don't have is one of the largest economies in the world, or a defense budge that requires them to take car of themselves. If they get attacked, the US will be the main force to be reckoned with. It is the same for a lot of Europe - they depend on our military spending to take car of business. No comparison in my book.

@Matt - there are two problems with the federal sales tax idea. Seniors have already paid into the income tax system, so it's not fair. The other is this. Many very wealthy people do not spend a comparable percentage of their income - many save bajillions of dollars and the am would never be taxed. They they leave it to other family and the same things happens. I am not convinced.

In the end, I think we could have both like many states. IE: A 5% sales tax on everything but food purchased at the grocery, and a 10% income tax on all types of income. It would need a 10 year period or longer to transition to make it fair. The idea of deductions is a joke. Yet, the sales tax encourages saving for sure.

Thanks for reading along guys!

David-FireAndGrace said...

@Charlie - yes, I once applied for welfare when I was out of work and unable to collect unemployment. They handed me a shovel and sent me to a construction site in town for minimum wage.

Rudi London said...

I need all the help I can get :)

Anonymous said...

@Dave - Canada has the 15th largest GDP of 227 independent economic entities ranked by our own CIA (bizarrely, they rank the EU first). That easily makes Canada a major economic power.

As far as defense goes, who has invaded Canada more than any other country? Well, that would be the USA. So thank you very much, Canada is happy to have it's own defense force.

Citations:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html?countryName=Canada&countryCode=ca&regionCode=noa&rank=15#ca

David-FireAndGrace said...

@Anon - major, but not a country that the world bases the dollar on. Compared to the US, they are not a star player.

My comment was based on the climate today, not a historical USA/Canada conflict. That is like saying England attacked the USA - well, yeah, 200 years ago.

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