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.
2) Guaranteed basic income, using either Milton Friedman's negative income tax or the Boortz/Linder prebate/prefund model.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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'd vote for all of this.

The last point is by far the most important to me in the climate change discussion.

Desalinization and irrigation are incredibly huge issues that we keep ignoring. Can't remember if it was Buffett or Dimon, but one of them was 'all over' water 10-15 years ago... ahead of the curve... and we've ignored them completely.

I would like to see the VAT replace the income tax. They both cannot exist together as taxes would get ridiculous. Advantage of the VAT is rich would pay more as they buy more stuff, the drug dealers, pimps and others with illegal income would also pay their fair share with the VAT.

No guaranteed income, get government out of health care as much as possible, and balance the budget, finally set up strong borders and end the illegal immigration, wage war on coyotes and gangs like MS 13. Land mines would work great in this regard.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I'm on board, but when it comes to the climate initiatives I don't see how we fund them.

(06-17-2019 06:53 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  I'm on board, but when it comes to the climate initiatives I don't see how we fund them.

Easy. You steal it from the taxpayers at a greater rate than is already being stolen from us by adding a VAT and driving up the price of absolutely everything purchased. Enjoy that $5.00 a gallon gas, $10.00 a gallon milk, and everything else that suddenly gets that much more expensive, especially if you live in an area with state and local sales taxes already added.

But at least the powers that be in China, India, and the developing world will have fatter bank accounts courtesy of the US Dept of Treasury.

(06-17-2019 07:32 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(06-17-2019 06:53 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  I'm on board, but when it comes to the climate initiatives I don't see how we fund them.

Easy. You steal it from the taxpayers at a greater rate than is already being stolen from us by adding a VAT and driving up the price of absolutely everything purchased. Enjoy that $5.00 a gallon gas, $10.00 a gallon milk, and everything else that suddenly gets that much more expensive, especially if you live in an area with state and local sales taxes already added.

But at least the powers that be in China, India, and the developing world will have fatter bank accounts courtesy of the US Dept of Treasury.

Gas already has what is essentially VAT... and if you do it right, it doesn't drive up the prices. If they want to bilk taxpayers, all they have to do is 'eliminate loopholes, tax your health and charge you your fair share'

The point being, unlike all of those, there are ways to make it less harmful.... and it's certainly more straightforward and honest than what we're currently doing.

I mean, doesn't it give you pause that most of the rest of the world, especially very liberal Europe uses VAT, yet democrats have NEVER supported it here?

There is power in deductions and loopholes. VAT has very little/none of that.

(06-17-2019 08:40 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(06-17-2019 07:32 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(06-17-2019 06:53 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  I'm on board, but when it comes to the climate initiatives I don't see how we fund them.

Easy. You steal it from the taxpayers at a greater rate than is already being stolen from us by adding a VAT and driving up the price of absolutely everything purchased. Enjoy that $5.00 a gallon gas, $10.00 a gallon milk, and everything else that suddenly gets that much more expensive, especially if you live in an area with state and local sales taxes already added.

But at least the powers that be in China, India, and the developing world will have fatter bank accounts courtesy of the US Dept of Treasury.

Gas already has what is essentially VAT... and if you do it right, it doesn't drive up the prices. If they want to bilk taxpayers, all they have to do is 'eliminate loopholes, tax your health and charge you your fair share'

The point being, unlike all of those, there are ways to make it less harmful.... and it's certainly more straightforward and honest than what we're currently doing.

I mean, doesn't it give you pause that most of the rest of the world, especially very liberal Europe uses VAT, yet democrats have NEVER supported it here?

There is power in deductions and loopholes. VAT has very little/none of that.

July 1 here in SC taxes will add 22.75 cents per gallon of gas. For my 20 gallon tax that means I'll pay $4.50 in taxes when I fill up. If that's not driving up the price in your opinion then I don't know what to tell you.


And how you figure that adding a tax to every sinle item you buy isn't going to cause the actual price paid for an item is beyond me. If an item is $5.00 now and you add an additional tax to it how the actual price paid for the item isn't going to be $5.00 plus the new VAT tax. Show your work here.

(06-17-2019 08:59 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  July 1 here in SC taxes will add 22.75 cents per gallon of gas. For my 20 gallon tax that means I'll pay $4.50 in taxes when I fill up. If that's not driving up the price in your opinion then I don't know what to tell you.


And how you figure that adding a tax to every sinle item you buy isn't going to cause the actual price paid for an item is beyond me. If an item is $5.00 now and you add an additional tax to it how the actual price paid for the item isn't going to be $5.00 plus the new VAT tax. Show your work here.

I'm not going to go to that much effort as there isn't a specific proposal to evaluate, but if you replace corporate taxes (which are borne by the consumer) with a VAT (also borne by consumers) at the same effective rate... you collect the same amount of revenue and eliminate the incentive to load business expenses which increases efficiencies and lowers the cost to deliver the product. Increase the corporate rate (or VAT) to match this amount, and the net price remains the same while the tax revenue increases.

Vat also acts as an incentive to export and a tax on imports, which also increases domestic production and thus taxes on that production.

In the simplest example, many prices are highly elastic and others highly inelastic. Do an 18% VAT and a prefund of say $50,000 and the 'basics' are covered for everyone, meaning that while your costs for essentials (which can be highly inelastic) go up by 18%, so too does your income. Zero net buying power decrease or tax revenue. Even for someone earning 200k, the spending on the first $50,000 (which would mostly be those essentials) would be covered. On spending ABOVE the basics, we collect revenue and you pay tax... on things that are far more inelastic.

There are millions of ways to do it.

Here's one way to desalinate water. Fund this type of thing.

https://www.universal-sci.com/headlines/...king-water

(06-17-2019 09:37 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(06-17-2019 08:59 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  July 1 here in SC taxes will add 22.75 cents per gallon of gas. For my 20 gallon tax that means I'll pay $4.50 in taxes when I fill up. If that's not driving up the price in your opinion then I don't know what to tell you.


And how you figure that adding a tax to every sinle item you buy isn't going to cause the actual price paid for an item is beyond me. If an item is $5.00 now and you add an additional tax to it how the actual price paid for the item isn't going to be $5.00 plus the new VAT tax. Show your work here.

I'm not going to go to that much effort as there isn't a specific proposal to evaluate, but if you replace corporate taxes (which are borne by the consumer) with a VAT (also borne by consumers) at the same effective rate... you collect the same amount of revenue and eliminate the incentive to load business expenses which increases efficiencies and lowers the cost to deliver the product. Increase the corporate rate (or VAT) to match this amount, and the net price remains the same while the tax revenue increases.

Vat also acts as an incentive to export and a tax on imports, which also increases domestic production and thus taxes on that production.

In the simplest example, many prices are highly elastic and others highly inelastic. Do an 18% VAT and a prefund of say $50,000 and the 'basics' are covered for everyone, meaning that while your costs for essentials (which can be highly inelastic) go up by 18%, so too does your income. Zero net buying power decrease or tax revenue. Even for someone earning 200k, the spending on the first $50,000 (which would mostly be those essentials) would be covered. On spending ABOVE the basics, we collect revenue and you pay tax... on things that are far more inelastic.

There are millions of ways to do it.

That all sounds good until you take into account the fact that the corporations are still going to be paying taxes, but instead of corporate tax rates it's now a VAT on their raw materials, electricity, the toilet paper they use in the bathrooms on the manufacturing floor, etc. That's going to be passed on to the consumer too, but all we hear is "A VAT will eliminate the corporate tax rate that gets passed on tot he consumer". So now we'll be paying the corporate share of the VAT and our own share of the VAT when we buy anything. And that's not even beginning the mention the shares of the logistics system to get the product from production to market and the shares of the market itself, who is now paying a VAT on everything from the aforementioned toilet paper to register paper, to lightbulbs. It's an absolute pipe dream to think that a VAT is going to do anything but separate the American taxpayer from more of their money.

(06-17-2019 10:05 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(06-17-2019 09:37 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(06-17-2019 08:59 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  July 1 here in SC taxes will add 22.75 cents per gallon of gas. For my 20 gallon tax that means I'll pay $4.50 in taxes when I fill up. If that's not driving up the price in your opinion then I don't know what to tell you.
And how you figure that adding a tax to every sinle item you buy isn't going to cause the actual price paid for an item is beyond me. If an item is $5.00 now and you add an additional tax to it how the actual price paid for the item isn't going to be $5.00 plus the new VAT tax. Show your work here.

I'm not going to go to that much effort as there isn't a specific proposal to evaluate, but if you replace corporate taxes (which are borne by the consumer) with a VAT (also borne by consumers) at the same effective rate... you collect the same amount of revenue and eliminate the incentive to load business expenses which increases efficiencies and lowers the cost to deliver the product. Increase the corporate rate (or VAT) to match this amount, and the net price remains the same while the tax revenue increases.
VAT also acts as an incentive to export and a tax on imports, which also increases domestic production and thus taxes on that production.
In the simplest example, many prices are highly elastic and others highly inelastic. Do an 18% VAT and a prefund of say $50,000 and the 'basics' are covered for everyone, meaning that while your costs for essentials (which can be highly inelastic) go up by 18%, so too does your income. Zero net buying power decrease or tax revenue. Even for someone earning 200k, the spending on the first $50,000 (which would mostly be those essentials) would be covered. On spending ABOVE the basics, we collect revenue and you pay tax... on things that are far more inelastic.
There are millions of ways to do it.

That all sounds good until you take into account the fact that the corporations are still going to be paying taxes, but instead of corporate tax rates it's now a VAT on their raw materials, electricity, the toilet paper they use in the bathrooms on the manufacturing floor, etc. That's going to be passed on to the consumer too, but all we hear is "A VAT will eliminate the corporate tax rate that gets passed on tot he consumer". So now we'll be paying the corporate share of the VAT and our own share of the VAT when we buy anything. And that's not even beginning the mention the shares of the logistics system to get the product from production to market and the shares of the market itself, who is now paying a VAT on everything from the aforementioned toilet paper to register paper, to lightbulbs. It's an absolute pipe dream to think that a VAT is going to do anything but separate the American taxpayer from more of their money.

But, like it or not, the reality is that unless we are going to slash social security or Medicare/Medicaid, we actually need to separate some taxpayers from more of their money, or the deficit and debt will eat us alive at some point. The trick is to collect taxes at places and in ways that they do minimum harm to the economy. VAT probably does that better than any other approach.

Now it is time for the Right (without criticizing the left) to give their vision for a better United States. I'm locking and pinning the thread from the left. Next Sunday we will discuss the differences and the two sets of vision.

Proposals: Things the Right Has for Its Vision for America

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.

Last time I checked these places are not in America. Do you think the US government should fund these projects?

(06-24-2019 08:00 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  Proposals: Things the Right Has for Its Vision for America
- 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.
Last time I checked these places are not in America. Do you think the US government should fund these projects?

Ideally, no. But they're not going to fund them themselves. And there are advantages to us of building them. Give some work to American companies. Slow the advancement of Chinese influence on the African continent. And I haven't run the numbers, but these things would seem to have the potential to do a lot more for global warming than all the stuff currently being proposed here in the US.

(06-24-2019 08:39 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(06-24-2019 08:00 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  Proposals: Things the Right Has for Its Vision for America
- 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.
Last time I checked these places are not in America. Do you think the US government should fund these projects?

Ideally, no. But they're not going to fund them themselves. And there are advantages to us of building them. Give some work to American comapnies. Slow the advancement of Chinese influence on the African continent. And I haven't run the numbers, but these things would seem to have the potential to do a lot more for global warming than all the stuff currently being proposed here in the US.

Not to be cruel but more infrastructure and reliable electricity = a larger African population and they all want to come here or to Europe. The Saharan desert is the size of the USA. Let those countries figure it out.
https://www.africanexponent.com/post/879...-in-africa
Here is a list, in no particular order, representing the largest solar farms in Africa.

(06-16-2019 03:37 PM)Jjoey52 Wrote:  I would like to see the VAT replace the income tax. They both cannot exist together as taxes would get ridiculous. Advantage of the VAT is rich would pay more as they buy more stuff, the drug dealers, pimps and others with illegal income would also pay their fair share with the VAT.
No guaranteed income, get government out of health care as much as possible, and balance the budget, finally set up strong borders and end the illegal immigration, wage war on coyotes and gangs like MS 13. Land mines would work great in this regard.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

As far as taxes, here's a certain amount $X that we need to balance the budget, and because so little of that is discretionary tat number can't really go down much. The trick is to do the least harm taking it out of the economy. A VAT does that. Now, if we do just a VAT then the rate gets pretty high. But we could do a VAT at 15% and reduce the corporate income tax and reduce or possibly even eliminate the individual income tax. We would then have the lowest taxes across the board in all three areas--VAT, corporate, and individual--of any developed country. That would bring investment and growth to this country like never before. And that would truly be a rising tide tat lifts all boats.

As far as reducing that $X amount, the only way to do that is to revamp the whole entitlements approach. The thing that is really interesting about guaranteed income and health care is that we could probably do Friedman's negative income tax (NIT) or the Boortz-Linder prebate/prefund for less than we spend on welfare now, and France already does Bismarck health care for less per capita than our government spends on health care now. There is a huge amount of savings that could be achieved by taking a different approach. That's just how bloated and top-heavy our government is with useless bureaucrats at the top. "Means testing" requires a lot of gatekeepers and a lot of people to write the rules for those gatekeepers to follow, and those people are expensive. The IRS could handle either the NIT or the prebate/prefund, and if we replaced the individual income tax with a VAT, they could do it with fewer people than they have now. There's a reason why the 3 counties with highest household incomes in the USA, and 7 of the top 12, are in the DC area, and it's not because they are doing a good job of managing the taxpayers' money. Real estate values in Northern Virginia and southern Maryland would suck for a decade or two if we went this way, but that's a small price to pay for the benefit to the rest of the country.

As for the border, a wall alone won't solve the problem. There will always be people who find a way to sneak through, and as long as they can paralyze the whole system by screaming, "Asylum," we will have a mess. What we need is a rational immigration law. Trudeau seems to want to scream at us a lot about this, so let's take Canada's for an example. Merit-based legal immigration using a point system, and asylum applicants must have an asylum visa first. I could live with that.

From an article at Wall Street Journal that I just posted another thread about (the other thread is about Trump's campaign slogan):

https://www.wsj.com/articles/make-americ...1561070058

Quote:There is no lack of big ideas among those most vested in a second Trump term....

Economically, they include stage 2 of tax reform. Mr. Trump can promise that a reconstituted Republican Congress will deliver permanence to the individual tax cuts and make the corporate income-tax rate, which dropped from 35% to 21%, more globally competitive. How about 15%? There’s also the economically potent promise to index capital gains for inflation—which would potentially unlock trillions in assets. The president can pitch all this as part of his plan to create more jobs.

Now’s the time for the Trump White House to release an updated list of potential Supreme Court nominees, to remind voters of the 2020 stakes. And speaking of the judiciary, it’s overdue for an overhaul. The Judicial Conference for years has flagged the many districts overwhelmed by cases. And congressional commissions have long advocated restructuring the insanely large Ninth Circuit, which has a staggering backlog. It’s time for new judgeships, and a split in that circuit.

This gets to Mr. Trump’s theme of government reform, and he can bolster it by renewing his campaign for term limits. And there’s even more to do in draining the swamp. How about a major overhaul of the federal civil service, reducing its size by attrition and changing rules that govern hiring, firing, seniority and unionization. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue recently announced he is relocating several units from Washington to Kansas City, to make them more responsive and to cut costs. The president could promise more—a complete revamp of the federal bureaucracy’s size, scope and mission.

Those changes would result in modest savings, but the president could also embrace former Speaker Paul Ryan’s antipoverty plan: block-grant federal money for food stamps, Medicaid, and housing aid to states, and let them innovate and lift people back to work (as Bill Clinton did with welfare). Mr. Trump doesn’t want to touch Medicare and Social Security, but reforming means-tested programs is a huge first step and could put a big dent in the deficit.

Mr. Trump’s holdover ideas can be amped up. Infrastructure? Double down on overhauling the permit process. School choice? Pair it with a new focus on the searing problems in higher education, as well as the administration’s existing plans for more technical and vocational training.

Mr. Trump even has further bipartisan issues to pitch. How about a second round of criminal-justice reform, one that attacks civil asset forfeiture and goes after “overcriminalization” (the hundreds of thousands of statutes and regulations that can land the unwary in prison)? Even Democrats acknowledge these problems.

The proposal that no one is talking about, but will have the greatest impact...


Reduce licensing requirements for jobs.

Over the last 60 years, the number of jobs requiring government approval to practice a profession has grown from about 1 in 20 to more than 1 in 4.

Yet it is completely random. Only 33 jobs require licensing in all 50 states, but every state requires licenses for at least 41 different jobs. CA has 177 job categories that require a license to practice.

Requiring licenses places a major barrier to new workers. It restricts people's ability to change careers, and move across state lines. Since most licensing requirements are heavily supported and administered by that industry's workers, so in effect it's created medieval style guilds in many industries.

I'd go for all of that.

(06-24-2019 11:02 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  From an article at Wall Street Journal that I just posted another thread about (the other thread is about Trump's campaign slogan):
https://www.wsj.com/articles/make-americ...1561070058

Quote:There is no lack of big ideas among those most vested in a second Trump term....
Economically, they include stage 2 of tax reform. Mr. Trump can promise that a reconstituted Republican Congress will deliver permanence to the individual tax cuts and make the corporate income-tax rate, which dropped from 35% to 21%, more globally competitive. How about 15%? There’s also the economically potent promise to index capital gains for inflation—which would potentially unlock trillions in assets. The president can pitch all this as part of his plan to create more jobs.
Now’s the time for the Trump White House to release an updated list of potential Supreme Court nominees, to remind voters of the 2020 stakes. And speaking of the judiciary, it’s overdue for an overhaul. The Judicial Conference for years has flagged the many districts overwhelmed by cases. And congressional commissions have long advocated restructuring the insanely large Ninth Circuit, which has a staggering backlog. It’s time for new judgeships, and a split in that circuit.
This gets to Mr. Trump’s theme of government reform, and he can bolster it by renewing his campaign for term limits. And there’s even more to do in draining the swamp. How about a major overhaul of the federal civil service, reducing its size by attrition and changing rules that govern hiring, firing, seniority and unionization. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue recently announced he is relocating several units from Washington to Kansas City, to make them more responsive and to cut costs. The president could promise more—a complete revamp of the federal bureaucracy’s size, scope and mission.
Those changes would result in modest savings, but the president could also embrace former Speaker Paul Ryan’s antipoverty plan: block-grant federal money for food stamps, Medicaid, and housing aid to states, and let them innovate and lift people back to work (as Bill Clinton did with welfare). Mr. Trump doesn’t want to touch Medicare and Social Security, but reforming means-tested programs is a huge first step and could put a big dent in the deficit.
Mr. Trump’s holdover ideas can be amped up. Infrastructure? Double down on overhauling the permit process. School choice? Pair it with a new focus on the searing problems in higher education, as well as the administration’s existing plans for more technical and vocational training.
Mr. Trump even has further bipartisan issues to pitch. How about a second round of criminal-justice reform, one that attacks civil asset forfeiture and goes after “overcriminalization” (the hundreds of thousands of statutes and regulations that can land the unwary in prison)? Even Democrats acknowledge these problems.

(06-24-2019 09:06 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(06-24-2019 08:39 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(06-24-2019 08:00 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  Proposals: Things the Right Has for Its Vision for America
- 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.
Last time I checked these places are not in America. Do you think the US government should fund these projects?

Ideally, no. But they're not going to fund them themselves. And there are advantages to us of building them. Give some work to American companies. Slow the advancement of Chinese influence on the African continent. And I haven't run the numbers, but these things would seem to have the potential to do a lot more for global warming than all the stuff currently being proposed here in the US.

Not to be cruel but more infrastructure and reliable electricity = a larger African population and they all want to come here or to Europe. The Saharan desert is the size of the USA. Let those countries figure it out.
https://www.africanexponent.com/post/879...-in-africa
Here is a list, in no particular order, representing the largest solar farms in Africa.

Get their economies growing and that reduces the pressure to come here.