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RE: Proposals: Things the Right Has for Its Vision for America
(06-16-2019 12:34 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: In response to the thread asking for proposals from the left, I want to start one for proposals from the right. Although not a leftist, I posted this there as a consensus-type plan, and I am re-posting here to start a thread:
1) Bismarck health care/insurance system. I prefer the French model, probably because I am more familiar with it, but I believe Swiss or Dutch models would work. Also, introduce no-fault medical malpractice, like Sweden.
I'm not opposed to Bismarck, but our first goal must be to drive out non-value added costs. We need to do tort reform, much like states have done with worker's comp. That will reduce legal costs and unnecessary CYA tests. We need to quit subsidizing drug R&D for the rest of the planet. We need to invoke criminal penalties on executives of insurance companies who try to avoid paying or arrange to underpay claims as United Healthcare has done (and lost in court).
2) Guaranteed basic income, using either Milton Friedman's negative income tax or the Boortz/Linder prebate/prefund model.
I think this disincentivizes work too much.
3) 15% value added tax (VAT) across the board, to fund social programs 1) and 2) above, balance the budget, and offset lowering and flattening income taxes. This makes us way more competitive in global markets. I have run numbers suggesting that we could eliminate the individual income tax altogether. If we truly balance the budget and keep it there, the debt problem resolves itself in time.
It does many of these things. It also is "hidden" and so makes it ridiculously easy for government to raise money. Which it will then spend. Then negatives outweigh the positives.
4) Solidify social security by eliminating the earnings cap, raising the rate slightly to 15% (7.5% employer, 7.5% employee), and introducing a privatized component like Sweden. We could get this started by by privatizing and transferring certain federal enterprise-type activities (post office, interstate highways converted to national toll road system, air traffic control and airports, AMTRAK, TVA, western powered water authorities) in repayment of debt owed to the social security trust fund, thus reducing the federal debt. Models for privatization of each such activity abound in "social democracies." Note that the privatized component would significantly reduce wealth inequality over time by giving every working American a "piece of the rock," an equity stake in the capitalist economy, which could be passed along by inheritance.
I agree with all of this but raising the rate. I am strongly opposed to raising the rate because I believe we do need to raise the medicare rate. Medicare is closing in on bankruptcy far sooner than Social Security. The adjustments you propose along with perhaps an increase in the 125k cap can make Social Security solvent.
5) Have the strongest military in the world, by leaps and bounds, and never use to because nobody dares pick a fight with us, and we don't go picking on them. Reform procurement so as to eliminate future cluster-flocks like the Ford aircraft carrier, the Zumwalt "destroyers," the Littoral Combat Ships, the F-35, and the Bradley IFV. And never fight a war that you don't intend to win.
Sounds good.
6) Come up with a new trade and foreign relations strategy to replace the now 30-years-outmoded Bretton Woods formula. We can no longer afford to be the world's policeman and give everybody one-way trade access to our economy, in exchange for their help in wining the Cold War. Ross Perot said something in 1992 that I had been saying for some time by then, "In the post-Cold-War era, economic power will be more important than military power." China is schooling us on that right now, creating spheres of influence in Africa and Latin America with economic strength, while we are killing our 20-somethings in Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan.
We need to act when others (like China) don't play by the rules. That includes Europe as well as China. If we do that we don't need to assume as the left does that manufacturing disappears in the US. Its doing just fine in Germany.
7) Implement a comprehensive immigration policy. We could use Canada's as a guide--points-based merit system for legal immigration, with specific hoops that asylum seekers have to go trough before reaching a port of entry. And permanent guest worker status ("red card"), with no path to citizenship, for those who are here illegally and are making positive contributions to our economy.
Agree totally here.
8) For education, and this is where I break with the left, simply pouring more money at a failed solution will not work (hey, isn't that the argument we heard about health care?). We need a paradigm shift, so look at what the countries that are ahead of us do. They have tracking system that route students along vocational, general, or advanced tracks. They have real, useful vocational tracks that develop marketable skills. Most of them have some form of school choice (Germany has 7 different kinds of public schools, plus what amounts to vouchers for those who wish to attend private schools). While we are at it, get rid of the social engineering crap and the legions of administrators required to implement them. Focus on the classroom and the three R's. And return the teacher's ability to implement discipline. And yes, to put an end to school shootings, control access and have armed security to enforce it; anything else is kidding ourselves.
Bingo! College is not for everyone.
9) I am okay with common sense gun laws, were common sense is defined as maximum impact for minimum infringement of the 2nd Amendment. An "assault weapons ban" and gun registration meet neither prong of that test.
Agree
10) As for global warming, we need BHAG solutions, not stuff that makes you feel good but does not have a material impact. Some ideas for consideration:
- Build Egypt's Qattara depression project. This creates a significant source of green energy and also takes some seawater out of the oceans, marginally reducing the impact of sea level rise.
- Turn the northern Sahara into a solar farm to provide green electricity for Europe, Africa, and the Mideast.
- The headwaters of the Niger River are close to the Atlantic coast, from which it makes a big wide swing through the southern Sahara. Flow is very intermittent. Set up a massive desalinization plant and pumping system, solar powered, to run fresh water into the Niger headwaters, maintaining a year-round flow. The pumping would be significantly uphill, but on the other hand the distance is amazingly sort. This takes some seawater out of circulation, again reducing ocean rises, and permits year-round cultivation of a massive area that is now desert, providing huge CO2 consumption and significantly improving the economic well-being of several countries.
- Establish a connection with the sea to keep Australia's sub-sea-level Lake Eyre full of water. This could possibly include pumping up slightly to keep Lake Torrens full, with outflow to Lake Eyre, from which water could then flow back to the sea. Because of extreme evaporation, there are some challenging engineering issues. But this would also reduce sea water, helping with ocean levels, and would generate rainfall that would permit more intensive agriculture in central Australia, again massively increasing CO2 consumption.
- Until electric cars are viable, we still have a major opportunity to reduce oil consumption by converting our rail system back to electricity. That is a much easier problem because trains can get electricity from wires that run along the tracks instead of having to carry batteries. Work on battery technology to make cars more practical, and also to provide better storage for wind/solar power generated at times outside of peak usage. We probably need nuclear for base load, particularly as more cars (and trains) would come online, so do like France and come up with one reliable plant model and replicate it. And also do like France and recycle nuclear fuel until what is left over can simply be put back into the mines from which it came.
- Replace coal and oil with natural gas where possible for fossil-fired plants. Natural gas is currently priced below market so much of it is flared, a terrible waste. Get the price up and accelerate completion of gathering, transmission, and distribution pipes.
- As for coal, we would do well to find some way to use it because we have so much and so many depend on it economically. So revive the WWII German technologies for gasification and liquefaction. Those resulting fuels burn cleaner than coal. The problem is that the processes generate significant CO2 themselves, although they save it later. But point-source CO2 is much easier to deal with than when it is dispersed, and we can come up with ways to get rid of it.
- The elephant in the room is that if we don't get China and India and the developing world onboard, it really doesn't matter what the US and Europe do. So come up with a Marshall Plan clone to bring green energy to the developing world in a major way. Some people like to say, if we lead, they will follow. No, they won't, not unless it's in their best interests short term. So make it be in their best interests.
I don't buy your #10.
I am not skeptical that the globe is warming. I am skeptical with the arrogant scientists who think man causes everything. And I know China and India and Africa are not going to help, so what we do, even if it is manmade, will be insignificant and just hurt us.
Here's what we should do:
A) Keep the economy strong. That is the biggest failure of the climate cultists. They want radical action (that accomplishes nothing without China and India) that will devastate the economy and make it impossible for us to handle the dislocations that will occur in their best case scenarios. There will be more coastal erosion. That will impact populations and infrastructure.
B) Quit subsidizing coastal development. Duh! The cultists vote for flood insurance subsidies. We need to quit subsidizing and we need to discourage. Development along the beach should be more like Texas and less like California, Florida and the northeast.
C) Raise gas taxes to discourage gas use and maintain our crumbling existing infrastructure while adding necessary new infrastructure. Petroleum is just way too valuable a commodity to burn it all up in a few generations in gas tanks. We need to move mass transit off gas and diesel quickly. We need to encourage electric fleets of local delivery trucks and taxis. We need to continue to encourage electric cars with tax credits as well as use of solar and wind power. Continue study on clean coal instead of trying to ban coal. Figure out if Yucca Mountain is the right storage place for nuclear wastes and look at moderate expansion of nuclear power (assuming we have a place to put it).
11) A final thing (since I don't like the VAT) to reduce the deficit by increasing revenue would be to get rid of the excessive incentives in the current tax code for writing off capital investments. You can basically expense everything now. Some incentives are good, but its excessive. That will bring money into the treasury quicker. And, of course, make the changes permanent, unlike the nonsense they do now. Another way to raise money and reduce the complexity of the tax code will be to eliminate the new benefits for Sub S corporations. The corporate tax is a double tax. There is no need to give flow through corporations the corporate tax rate. That is a subsidy for the self-employed by those who are employees.
12) Next, eliminate as cabinet level departments Energy, Education, the VA and HUD. Put energy back as part of the Department of Interior and scale the department back. Education is primarily a state function and nothing should be left but some grants for a few programs as well as research. It should be part of a Labor Department that is focused on skills, not protecting unions. The VA has done nothing as a cabinet level position to help vets. Instead, things have gotten even worse. Make it part of Health and Human Services. Housing and Urban Development is a city level function. Kill the bureaucracy. Leave some programs that focus on individuals and research in Health and Human Services. Some programs may move to Transportation. So you will go from 15 cabinet departments to 11.
(This post was last modified: 06-30-2019 04:11 PM by bullet.)
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[OPINION] Proposals: Things the Right Has for Its Vision for America
