Musicmystery
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Joined: 3/14/2005
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http://www.collarchat.com/m_3682853/tm.htm
quote:
ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
Certainly everyone agrees we face financial challenges, even as people disagree about the specifics and the causes.
What are your solutions?
What's your plan?
OK...here's what we have so far.
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ORIGINAL: flcouple2009
How about we start with some of the high dollar defense projects that the Pentagon doesn't even want like the alternate engine for the fighter everyone was trying to kill.
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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
Well, how about giving the Pentagon authority to ax unnecessary projects?
Perhaps even encourage it by letting them keep a percentage of axed funds to spend on alternative projects.
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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania
I think we need to be investing in massive infrastructure projects that will generate jobs. I am thinking bullet trains that can connect our major cities with one another is a good place to start.
That is only one measure...
I also think we do need to cut spending, and the only feasible place to do so is with regard to military spending. It is our largest ticket item, after all.
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ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy
Financial discipline, creating a more favorable business environment, and a rational energy policy.
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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
Well, for me, fiscal discipline would include cutting the Pentagon excess as above, investing in infrastructure, adjusting social security and medicaid/medicare to help current cash flow. Those are the three largest budget items anyway. The business climate needs primarily to get credit moving. Sorting out the rest of the banking asset mess is probably the only real way in the long run. A rational energy policy would include conservation, as having oil assets long term serves us best, along with investing in alternative energies with an eye toward long term financial viability. We can build homes now that severely cut fuel and electric needs. Realistic alternative transportation would help too (that's harder in a large, spread out country, but still can be addressed, and serves business needs too).
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ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy
Defense waste, absolutely
Investing in infrastructure...no, thats the private sectors' job
Adjusting SS and Medicare...yes, but current cash flow of those systems isnt a problem. If you mean adjusting them so you can divert funding for them to other purposes, no, unless the sole purpose is paying down the debt.
Getting credit moving is simple, get the government out of the way of profitability
Conservation..absolutely
Investing in alternative energies...no, thats the private sectors' job
If specific Alternative transportation is realistic then the private sector will do it. Eg. boondoggles like high speed rail that wont be self supporting is not realistic.
quote:
ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy
Roads? Bridges?
[specifically maintaining/repairing]
Generally yes. There may be specific circumstances where STATE support for infrastructure makes sense, and less commonly, Federal support.
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ORIGINAL: NeedToUseYou
Bump medicare age up another 5 years. Remove or greatly restrict the prescription drug benefit.
Bump Social Security up another 5 years.
Remove all economic subsidies from Federal,State, and local governments authority. Amend the constitution if necessary. That would include a ban on special tax packages/grants/special "loans" etc...
Cut military spending by 1/2 to 3/4's, at present most military spending is entirely unnecessary.
Put a requirement on food stamps that they can only purchase generic boxed food, raw food, and a predefined list of meat products. The manufacturers can put a little icon on approved food.
Thoroughly review people drawing SSI for permanent disability, raise the standard.
Dismantle the Department of Education, return that function to the state. Make the playing field equal between private schools and public schools, with the goal of public school elimination. (People would get a voucher, and could select a school).
Legalize Pot, Prostitution, Gambling. It's pure waste policing these activities like we do now. These should be allowed, however, I've no problem with regulating them, such as aids tests, or age requirements, etc...
Welfare recipients no longer receive cash they receive a card, and that card can only be used to pay for certain items of necessity.
Remove these nanny state laws, seat belt laws, mandatory insurance laws.
No BAILOUTS EVER, if a financial mess happens again, the only option is seizure, or 100% failure with the preference towards the latter.
In the case of seizure, the government is obligated to do a full and thorough investigation, bringing responsible parties to justice, and to sell the assets,when possible.
Reform Patent and Copyright law, to bring it in line with modern reality, and that reality is copyright and patents should last for a shorter period of time, the idea being the creation and consumption cycle is much shorter than in the past. Remove all patrolling by the government for violations thereof, it is the owners responsibility to bring charges against the accused violator, and to sue. Ban all software "patents" this is an absurdity of the highest order.
Property taxes should not be based on the value of the structures, but rather the "Value" the city has added to the property via access to roads (based on traffic count), police, fire department response potential.
Make it explicitly illegal for any government to force any citizen to buy any product or service.
Restructure the IRS, all taxes collected by whatever means can not require a filing from citizens, nor automatic withholding, nor personally identifiable disclosure from an employer.
I think all "necessary taxation" should be anonymous, beyond the taxation for specific things, like property, and the best way to do that is via sales tax, and that would probably work out best being a state sales tax, since schools are everywhere.
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ORIGINAL: Phoenixpower
I heard on another thread that there is gold which could be exchanged to reduced debts.
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ORIGINAL: kdsub
I’ve always thought a nation…any nation… should strive for and promote self-sufficiency. If possible imports should be kept to a minimum and only necessities.
I would like to see our government promote and encourage through tax deductions industry in the United States.
I would also like to see tough tariffs on goods and services from companies that have laid off American workers and moved their companies out of the country.
I would pass tough laws that require annually increasing percentage of alternative energy sources be used by our energy companies.
I would promote through grants and tax deductions the development of new industry in the alternate energy source sector.
I would require foreign owned companies that sell over a particular amount of goods or services in the US to produce those goods in America using American employees.
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ORIGINAL: eihwaz
~ A constitutional amendment to end corporate personhood
~ An antitrust regime which restricts corporate size to a scale at which capitalism flourishes. "Too big to fail is too big to exist." Any company exceeding a certain size would be nationalized and liquidated (sold off) into smaller parts.
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ORIGINAL: mnottertail
Give corporations the same rights that free men in this country enjoy, and no more.
Taxed like free americans, jailed like free americans, no special subsidies or treatment not extended to all.
end the wars.
Start with the WR Grace report from Reagans days and the stuff we know now and do that forensic accounting, and get to one accounting system in the government, and slash military and then go down the line.
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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic
The age to collect Social Security needs to have a direct relationship to life expectancy. We can rewrite the disability rules to get more liberal as age increases, but it can't be a system where 10 years on a taxpayer allowance is an easy expectation for healthy, active, mentally sharp, people. (of course, realpolitik says political landmines don't get much bigger than that.)
We'd have to do something similar, with MediCare. We can certainly sit down and have a really good conversation about how to deal with national health care, but what we've got isn't working.
The best thing that can happen to get the deficit under control, is for the economy to be moving quickly back into the healthy range. More people working means more revenue coming in.
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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
Getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan would certainly save a few bucks.
Getting people back to work would help with food somewhat too, as speculators might start moving back to stocks.
Sooner or later, banks and business have to stop sitting on their cash and invest again.
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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
Better international copyright protection would help.
Or in some countries, any international copyright protection.
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ORIGINAL: Brain
• give Medicare to everyone regardless of age which will improve healthcare outcomes as well as REDUCE the deficit. In general, Medicare enrollees reported high satisfaction with both access to and quality of health care. Most members (96%) rated skill, experience, and training of physicians and the friendliness and courtesy of the staff favorably.
• Allow the Bush tax cuts for the top 2% to expire
• end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as bring the troops home worldwide including Europe and Asia (Japan)
• infrastructure stimulus – trains, roads, bridges, developing alternative energy to oil
• Social Security - Raise the cap to 90% of taxable earnings Approximately 39% reduction in shortfall, Raise taxes on benefits
10% reduction in shortfall
This amounts to a reduction in the benefit to high wage earners so the pros and cons are purely subjective.
• Preserve tax on estates over $3.5 million
PROs: Improves tax progressivity, affects only 1/2 of 1% of all estates.
• campaign finance reform - no corporate contributions and all political parties campaigns are taxpayer-funded in equal amounts
• remove the Senate filibuster as it inhibits progress
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ORIGINAL: SternSkipper
I agree that infrastructure projects are terrific since there is a double bang for your buck. You see an initial upward cost, but the benefit to the economy comes in at a larger rate than was paid out because the wages paid are spread across the economy and create opportunity everywhere.
Have some rules for how the cuts are determined. For instance if a project flows out into the economy and the material cost and corporate profits combined are not say, at least 10% below (60/40) the amount paid out in wages, simply cut the project altogether. And do it swiftly. Let these corporate assholes threaten us with increased unemployment all they want. The fact is, they can't as individuals threaten the overall economy that much. And we COULD start setting a precedent to corporate america that in order to be in on the spoils, they have to show a significant benefit to the overall economy.
Also, why not pass tax law (since they aren't going to throw it out for the time being), that exclude any company that has now or in the future significant portions of its labor force overseas. Corporations get plenty of tax credits, deductions and incentives such as subsidy, If during a given fiscal year they have maintained something like a foreign call center servicing the united states customers, then they lose any incentives that are meant for corporations operating within our borders (or perhaps, apply a formula based on the percentage of the company's overseas presence that actually penalizes them for off-shoring jobs). I think this would make perfect sense for the service economy. It might be a bit murky for the manufacturing economy, since US Corporations should have a legitimate right to set up in other countries to sell to those countries if the logistics to so so here are sufficiently difficult to warrant that. But the same plants should not be petted for selling products, goods, and services that could or worse yet HAD been made here. And a LOT of that is going on and it's taken a much larger chunk out of our economy that the federal deficit has in the last 20 years,
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ORIGINAL: popeye1250
spending limits and guidelines imposed by the court with feedback from the citizens.
And get out of the I.M.F. too. We shouldn't be subsidizing the lifestyles of foreign nationals.
And get rid of foreign aid which only underwrites failure! Some countries have been sucking money out of the U.S. for 20,30, even *40* years now! That's not a "hand up" that's *total dependance!*
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ORIGINAL: SternSkipper
cap the prices drug companies charge (who have targeted the projected illnesses of the elderly baby boomers for the past 20 or so years of development so an elderly blue collar worker who's company's pension got raided and destroyed to enhance the bottom line for shareholders and put a few Bush family members in office don't have to pay more than say $50 of the $1200 they get a month.
These people earned their benefits. And made a good faith agreement with the government.
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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
We need a single payer plan. The entire world knows it's more efficient. We're paying more (and will still in a few years) out of political posturing.
It will simply save us money in the long term.
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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
We need too to work out a method of fair global pricing [for drugs and health care].
We pay more domestically, yet can't purchase abroad. We need an effective international system.
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ORIGINAL: xssve
Tax the banks, tax their bonuses, pay down the debt: we bailed them out, they owe us, they made out like bandits,.
You can't just nationalize corporations for being too big, but you can require them to provide the same protections to their foreign workers that they're required to provide for domestic workers - who can compete with a 12 year old chained to an assembly line working for $.33 an hour?
Quit subsidizing nuclear and oil, including the Middle Eastern adventures, and see what happens in the energy market.
Rewind to 2000, and stick to it this time, pay down the debt, balance the budget, get back to funding basic research, especially in energy, boost the alternative energy market, because that's the market that's going to spawn jobs and export industries, quit fucking around with the Middle East - if BP wants their Oil back, let them go get it.
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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic
Now here is something else we can play with, Muse. I mentioned some radical entitlement reform earlier, and finding creative ways to knock down our credit card bills. How much more bang could we be getting for our infrastructure buck if we waived/minimized the agonizingly long and expensive regulatory and appeals processes? If we want to send a 200 mile an hour train through a charming small town, send them a damn eminent domain notice on their peace and quiet, and start turning dirt.
People have mentioned big infrastructure, and I can be down for that. Building something big that benefits everybody is one of those essential functions of government.
A pretty good list, folks!
< Message edited by Musicmystery -- 6/28/2011 8:02:33 PM >
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