Federal and local entitlement programs: A long term approach
In a few years, years, the Federal budget will be all entitlements. They are now borrowing in order to fund operations and defense. Arizona is in similar shape. 2/3 of the federal budget is mandated and sunsets are nonexistent. Borrowing is rampant tying up revenue streams for years. The whole country is so tied up in debt, discretionary income is ????
Some new policies are needed:
Entitlements should be limited to X% of the total income, not income plus borrowing.
All new entitlements through legislation or initiative should have a sunset clause and an escape clause in case of a budget deficit. Flexibility is needed in budgeting.
To cut the growth of entitlements, slow population growth through tax incentives. Government subsidy of poor should not escalate with each mouth added, thus paying the poor to breed. The more well off also are breeding in record numbers, using the tax deduction to help finance it. The public schools also must accept unlimited numbers of children from any given source, which favors those with large families, while the others pay. A religious objection to population control is personal, but those who want large families should pay for it.
Suggested changes in policy:
After 1 child per person, no welfare payment raises for further children. This does not apply to food stamps, however.
After 1 child per person, no further deductions for income tax will be given by the state or federal governments and an overage must be paid for on a per capita basis.
After one child per person, any person having more than one child must pay a stipend per overage to the local school public district or arrange for private schooling subject to curriculum set by the state/federal and passage of state/federal tests.
Tax refunds to the childless.
These changes in policies would result in a slowing of population growth, which would slow the growth of other governmental costs. This would raise taxes for some, but it is those who are using the services.
Further policy changes linked:
Illegal immigration needs to be discouraged. Border security will succeed only when the economic climate does not favor hiring illegal aliens, who will work under the radar for less than the minimum wage. Perhaps the minimum wage needs to be revisited, but if population growth slows, fewer workers can demand higher wages, but only in the absence of illegal immigrant competition. Immigration policies in general need to be amended to force other countries to manage their population growth instead of relying on the USA as a population outlet.
Getting business owners out of the health insurance business and allowing them to pay what they can to workers would open opportunity. If a large business owner pays so little that their workers must apply for assistance, then possibly a stipend should be required of them, as a percentage of total profit. Reasonable compensation to the owners would be monitored in these cases.
Awareness that free enterprise will carry on under the blanket despite governments effort to control what people are paid and what these people have to buy with the money they earn. Enough already. Local trading economies will arise as will trading economies like smuggling, all of which operate without taxation or regulation. Filtering money through an administrative hierarchy in order to pay for health care makes me want to move towards cash payments that skip these people who are charging us to pay themselves to distribute this money for us. Reality check.
I still don’t get how AIG securities insurance failure milked the US government of $180,000,000,000. Did some of this $ that went to foreign banks make its way to Dubai? Prosecutors need to trail this milking and pinpoint the chain of command. What interesting news that would be. Is it true firearms permits are now more available in New York?
Like who instigated? Who set the stage? Pipeline information? Cleanup crew as recipient of riches?
We need new policy.
Suggested policy changes:
Outlaw securities, derivatives and hedging anywhere but under legalized gambling. The economy is not a toy and people depend on it.
Review economic needs within the USA before looking to export. Sell to each other and Canada and Mexico.
Free business owners from mandatory health insurance requirements
Do not force the purchase of insurance on the populace.
Link employee wages to their welfare needs to employer profits and required support payments to the state, with exemptions for subsistence business.
Ease zoning laws that discourage localized small businesses.
Ease up on taxes, regulation, licenses, fees, for all business except for public health/environmental concerns.
Fewer inspectors rather than fewer law enforcement personnel, when the government has budget shortfalls.
Policy can dictate change in oblique ways. The insistence that growth can be infinite is indicative of a lack of population curbs and the inability of production of food in the infinite is bound to coincide in a population crash, starvation of the species in the classic ecological boom and bust cycle defined by physical resources. Must we act so much like animals that we must do this to ourselves?
