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You have 180 days to fix our country. What would YOU do?

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Whitewing

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Saw this on another forum.

Best answer:

If I have *carte* blanche, I would:

Eliminate the Department of Agriculture ($24BB savings)
Eliminate the Department of Commerce ($9BB)
Eliminate the Department of Labor ($13BB)
Eliminate the Department of Housing and Urban Development ($50BB)
Eliminate the Department of Education ($77BB)
Eliminate the Department of Energy, except for whatever functions they have that regulate the use of uranium ($28BB)
Eliminate the Department of Veterans Affairs, and move their few necessary functions back to Defense ($2BB)
Eliminate the Department of Homeland Security, and move their few necessary function back where they came from ($2BB)
Reduce other Department budgets by 10%. ($90BB)

Eliminate the earned income tax credit ($40BB)

Means test Social Security and Medicare (WAG: $200BB)
Eliminate both programs for anyone born after 1980 (none immediately, but hundreds of trillions eventually)

Shutter military bases in Europe and Japan and any ally with the money to defend itself, withdraw from the U.N., and restrict future military involvement to wars declared by the U.S. Congress. (None immediately, $100's BB per year in the short term)

Eliminate the corporate and capital gains taxes (small cost in the very short term, trillions of added revenue in the long run)

I'm not going to try to estimate savings/increased revenue from these, but they would be enormous:

Remove all federal barriers to energy production (except nuclear, but then only for security purposes)
Close the Mexican border for real, and confiscate all assets of anyone found here illegally after that. Fine any employer found employing an illegal alien an amount equal to 100 times the cumulative wages paid to that employee. Conduct ALL federal business in English only.
Limit Senators to two terms, Representatives to four. Pay Senators and Representatives the national average wage. Provide office budgets for Senators and Representatives sufficient to communicate effectively with their constituents via mail and e-mail. Limit the number of days Congress could be in session to 100 per year unless called into session by the POTUS on a matter of national security.

Require a vote of 75% of both Houses of Congress to raise any tax, or to increase any expenditure beyond the growth of GDP for the prior year. Tax or spending reductions could occur with a simple majority.

Build an enormous "prison" (think Escape from New York) where we would deposit, forever, every person convicted of any crime in which another person was killed, raped or seriously injured or threatened with any of these, and the perpetrator knew this would occur, or should have foreseen that it was possible. What goes on inside that prison concerns me not even the slightest little bit. All other prisons would be torn down, and nonviolent criminals would be fined and required to make restitution to their victims. Repeat offenders would go to the prison. All laws dealing with crimes with no victim would be repealed.

I'm sure there's more, but that would shave $500BB or so off the year one budget, $800BB or so within a few years, and within a decade (probably much sooner) we'd have a surplus under virtually any scenario. At that point, I'd start reducing the personal income tax and payroll taxes as we began paying off debt principal, with an eye towards paying off the principal within 30 years. At the end of 30 years, the payroll tax would be gone, and the income tax would probably be about 15%. At that point I'd replace it with a national sales tax.

I, and I think nearly all conservatives, agree that we do not want to be a country where millions of people die in the streets. I would not, for example, eliminate Social Security and Medicare for people already receiving it (unless they clearly don't need it), and I would retain some kind of safety net for the truly poor.
 
Many great ideas there. There is one subsidy that's never mentioned though. Seems to me all Americans with a mortgage write off their mortgage interest. Many argue that this is not a subsidy, but to those of us that don't get that benefit, and to those paying rent, it's pretty hard to tell them it's not a subsidy. I wonder what that money amounts to?
 
while I might agree with most of what the article advocates for,..

to get out of the economic hole we are in requires stability, not complete anarchy within the federal government..

but for starters...


Conduct ALL federal business in English only.

"The number of persons in the United States over the age of five who speak English less than very well soared from 14 million in 1992 to 24.5 million in 2007,'

there are more than 300 single languages or "language families" used in the United States," as stated by Steven M Kahaner (2009, para 1). As a result, everything including, but not limited to, "the costs of hiring bilingual teachers, printing bilingual textbooks, translating every government website into multiple languages, requiring every agency and department throughout the entire United States to hire translators and/or print materials to ensure that any person, speaking any language, can receive government services in their language of choice" (English First, 2009a, para. 1) are costs that burden all the taxpayers in the nation.

Failure to declare the English language as the official language of the United States has had an enormous fiscal impact on the economy resulting from the financial drain that the same decision forces through the necessity of multilingual communication accommodations within all levels of government both locally and nationwide

"polls over the last 20 years [finding] overwhelming support for making English the official language of the United States."

"a new survey this week finds that 87 percent of Americans favor making English the official language of the United States. This is a 3 percent increase over a similar survey Rasmussen Reports conducted in May 2009."

I am not sure how much it would save, but I am sure it would add up over the generations...
 
Silver said:
Many great ideas there. There is one subsidy that's never mentioned though. Seems to me all Americans with a mortgage write off their mortgage interest. Many argue that this is not a subsidy, but to those of us that don't get that benefit, and to those paying rent, it's pretty hard to tell them it's not a subsidy. I wonder what that money amounts to?

we have a housing market in a mess... eliminating the mortgage interest deduction would just make it worse now..

but in time it is a good idea to curtail the deductions..

if the tax credit for second homes was eliminated over time.. and the interest on homes over a million was phased out, over time it would not create an excessive burden and would actually help stabilize home prices..

additionally phase in the elimination of secondary loans/home equity interest deductions to promote debt free home ownership...
 
You have 180 days to fix our country. What would YOU do?

deport all liberal democrats to North Korea for years of exile... or until they praised our great country and could recite our Constitution..

the love it or leave it law.... :lol:
 
Build an enormous "prison" (think Escape from New York) where we would deposit, forever, every person convicted of any crime in which another person was killed, raped or seriously injured or threatened with any of these, and the perpetrator knew this would occur, or should have foreseen that it was possible. What goes on inside that prison concerns me not even the slightest little bit. All other prisons would be torn down, and nonviolent criminals would be fined and required to make restitution to their victims. Repeat offenders would go to the prison.

the answer is easier then they make it..

simply let Texas run the prison system.. and let them outsource the worst to Haiti... or some other UN ran hell hole..
 
Pretty smart guy that posted this......maybe he should have added that he would respect his allies a little more and show more love to Canada...... :D


Excellent!
Which candidate, if any, best reflects the position(s) of this thread?
Probably Ron Paul, but if the question is which sane candidate reflects these positions, then the answer is "none".

I note, though, the state of affairs I would bring about is the state of affairs that existed for the first 125 years of this country, and absolutely nothing in it would have been objectionable to either the Republicans or the Democrats. Pretty much everyting that has been added to our government since Grover Cleveland left office was, is, and always will be a violation of the Constitution and of the basic principles of self-government.

icon_rubbingchin.gif
 
Silver said:
Many great ideas there. There is one subsidy that's never mentioned though. Seems to me all Americans with a mortgage write off their mortgage interest. Many argue that this is not a subsidy, but to those of us that don't get that benefit, and to those paying rent, it's pretty hard to tell them it's not a subsidy. I wonder what that money amounts to?

There is some misconception with this, I think. The total of interest
paid is not written directly off our taxes, but rather a percent.
For instance if you paid $10,000 in interest and were in the 30% tax
bracket, you could write $3,000 off your taxes. This is misunderstood
by many, but was explained to me by a CPA. But your point is
taken Silver, homeowners still realize a write off of some kind.
However, if you buy a house and lose money on it, if you sell it for
less than you paid, it's just your loss, no government subsidy with that.
(And that's as it should be...IMO...but surprising that hasn't come
up under Obama.)
 
Many argue that this is not a subsidy, but to those of us that don't get that benefit, and to those paying rent, it's pretty hard to tell them it's not a subsidy.

to those who rent should at least try to understand from an investment point of view what the landlord often has already invested... and that is paying for the property that they rent out...

most of us who have rental properties have also had a mortgage on them at one point or another...

when deciding to rent we factor in our cost to purchase, maintain and improve the property.. and the interest deduction or tax advantage/disadvantage is part of that equation..

They clearly get a benefit.. or subsidy of the rent because we do not incur additional taxes because of the interest deduction..


it is not our fault the tenant or author can not understand finance.
 
Can you imagine the impact on investors who buy all the property they can and leverage it to the hilt. It would sure change that.
 
Steve said:
Many argue that this is not a subsidy, but to those of us that don't get that benefit, and to those paying rent, it's pretty hard to tell them it's not a subsidy.

to those who rent should at least try to understand from an investment point of view what the landlord often has already invested... and that is paying for the property that they rent out...

most of us who have rental properties have also had a mortgage on them at one point or another...

when deciding to rent we factor in our cost to purchase, maintain and improve the property.. and the interest deduction or tax advantage/disadvantage is part of that equation..

They clearly get a benefit.. or subsidy of the rent because we do not incur additional taxes because of the interest deduction..


it is not our fault the tenant or author can not understand finance.

Well, regardless it is a subsidy. We don't get it up here and that's fine. Just seems like one of those things that should be on the table sometime in the future, but oh I bet bet there would be some folks pretty upset. As with most cutbacks etc. people will think it's a good idea until they get to see how it actually affects them.
 
Silver said:
Steve said:
Many argue that this is not a subsidy, but to those of us that don't get that benefit, and to those paying rent, it's pretty hard to tell them it's not a subsidy.

to those who rent should at least try to understand from an investment point of view what the landlord often has already invested... and that is paying for the property that they rent out...

most of us who have rental properties have also had a mortgage on them at one point or another...

when deciding to rent we factor in our cost to purchase, maintain and improve the property.. and the interest deduction or tax advantage/disadvantage is part of that equation..

They clearly get a benefit.. or subsidy of the rent because we do not incur additional taxes because of the interest deduction..


it is not our fault the tenant or author can not understand finance.

Well, regardless it is a subsidy. We don't get it up here and that's fine. Just seems like one of those things that should be on the table sometime in the future, but oh I bet bet there would be some folks pretty upset. As with most cutbacks etc. people will think it's a good idea until they get to see how it actually affects them.

I'm not against phasing it out, I was just pointing that not only do home-owners, investors get the benefit,... but renters benefit as well, they just don't see it directly... ..
 
I have a great idea: Sell Alaska to Canada for 1 trillion dollars amortized over 30 years.
 
Silver said:
I have a great idea: Sell Alaska to Canada for 1 trillion dollars amortized over 30 years.

nope...

how about we sell you DC and give you a trillion $ over thirty years..

heck we could even throw in Detroit.. just to sweeten the deal up a bit..
 
Steve said:
Silver said:
I have a great idea: Sell Alaska to Canada for 1 trillion dollars amortized over 30 years.

nope...

how about we sell you DC and give you a trillion $ over thirty years..

heck we could even throw in Detroit.. just to sweeten the deal up a bit..

I figured you'd say no, but I'm prepared to throw in a land mass of approx equal size in the province of Quebec.
 

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