Look, the way the budget is put together, there are only three things that matter. In order, they are:
- The Military
- Medicare
- Pensions
If you eliminated, completely eliminated, everything else we would still be over budget. Any politician who says they will balance the budget with modest cuts is lying and an idiot.
If you want to balance the budget, your only option is something like this:
- End all wars and cut the remaining military budget by 50%.
- Reform medicine by shutting down HMOs and health insurance companies and rebuilding something more like the vastly more efficient European systems. OR simply stop providing any state-sponsored medicine and let the Baby Boomers die of obesity, diabetes, and pneumonia. I'm cool with either. Point is, we need to spend 50% less on medicine and take care of at least as many people as we do now.
- Reform pensions and salaries. It is heartbreaking to do this, but the numbers don't lie. The amount paid in salaries to no-longer-working federal workers is staggering.
- Quadruple the NASA budget. This is a meaningless increase- if I recall correctly, it's less than 1% of the military budget- and the explosion in R&D would be amazing.
- Raise taxes on the wealthy. Fix the capital gains exploit. Basic stuff.
Moving on to economic issues:
- Overhaul regulation. Small businesses are in a hopeless position; they are often expected to pay thousands of dollars merely to operate, and often the legislation that creates these limitations is more-or-less designed by the larger companies that dominate that field to act as a barrier to entry- effectively using the government to force a monopoly. While regulation to protect employees and avoid externalities is essential, so too is allowing new businesses to enter the market to compete with the cartels and monopolies that dominate the current economy.
- Replace oil in five years. Natural gas is the best bet- the US can mine it itself. The earthquake fears are quackery and the more serious concerns are universal to all oil mining, and foolish to foist off on others.
-Refresh the nuclear industry. Our current plants are decades old. We need more capacity and more safety. We will open a permanent nuclear waste repository somewhere like Nevada, and I don't care if there's three people there who don't like it. We need to get the waste away from its current storage places, concrete pools at maximum capacity on plant property. We will rebuild every existing power plant to be totally modern and we will build new plants as well.
The war on drugs, and other 'vice' enforcement, is a trivial amount of money. It's probably only a few times larger than the NASA budget. While it must be stopped immediately, it is not for economic reasons.
Reconstruct the justice department, from the top down. There is obvious, deep-seated corruption- that is the only real explanation for the total lack of prosecution over the massive economic crimes committed in the last few years.
Execute the supreme court for this whole "citizens united" treason business.
So yeah, and politician that does not subscribe to at least those beliefs is a lying scumbag that should be shot, drowned, poisoned and shot again.
Oh, and that's not touching on moral issues (stop drug war and go aggressive on the culture war, pro-civil-rights).
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Topic: American Election Megathread - It's Over (Read 768830 times)