With Super Tuesday happening right now, I found myself reflecting on what I’d do if I were the President of the United States.
So with a minimum of thought, zero worries about conflicting goals, and far too little foresight, here would be my campaign goals:
- Balance the budget with no financial monkey business. Everything else is oriented toward balancing the budget on a monthly basis.
- Withdrawal of US forces from the entire planet except our own nation and the minimum required for our contribution to international peacekeeping forces. This would reduce the budget requirements of the US by approximately 25%.
- Spend the first year of my campaign, along with the Vice-President, attempting to visit every nation in the world to discuss treaties, and renegotiate them if necessary to support the first goal.
- Increase our space exploration budget with money saved elsewhere, with the goal of encouraging monetizing research to increase the US technology lead.
- Increase science grants, and provide incentives for more science and engineering curricula in elementary and secondary schools.
- Throw out the destructive, unfunded mandate “no child left behind” program.
- Break up the Exxon-Mobile oil monopoly in the US.
- Mandate the installation of real-time and over-time fuel-usage gauges in all new production automobiles to encourage people to save their own gasoline.
- Propose incentives for stronger nuclear and solar power programs. Vast stretches of uninhabited desert exist in the US which are suitable for solar power, and nuclear (not nukular) power has the smallest environmental footprint and largest power output of any currently-available technology.
- Dramatically increase the number of visas available for the H1B program from today’s 65,000 back to pre-2000 levels of over 200,000. We want the world’s best and brightest to come here to the USA. I would also seek to provide incentives for H1B visa holders to remain working in the USA as long as possible and become US citizens. Part of this package should include fast-track citizenship methods for foreigners who engage in military service.
- Seek closer ties with Canada and Mexico. We rely on one another too much to be building more walls, and have a vested interest in ensuring accountability for our goods shipped to one another.
- Solve the Social Security shortfall simply: remove the $90,000 per year wage cap on Social Security taxes. Currently, if you make $100,000 a year, the last $10,000 have no Social Security tax.
- Return capital gains tax to its historic level of 20%. The exemption for a homeowner’s private residence and other middle-class exemptions would be preserved. Temporarily devote 3% of that capital gains tax to Social Security in order to be able to handle the huge “bubble” of Baby Boom generation individuals currently retiring, with plans to sunset that tax by 2030 when many of them will be dying off.
- Use a portion of the budget freed up by not policing the planet to provide better veteran’s health care.
- Encourage corporations to buy and hire domestically through various economic incentives.
- Increase our participation and openness in the United Nations. With our decreased world military presence, UN coalitions are more necessary.
I am sure there are a million things I missed, and a dozen things that are self-contradictory, but I’d float this as my goals to start and then improve over time. I’d consider being willing to change my opinion a virtue, not a problem. As a matter of fact, one opinion of mine — that we needed to occupy Iraq for the next 50 years for it to be stable — changed while I was writing this. Balancing the budget and occupying multiple foreign countries are incompatible goals.
I realized after I wrote this, too, that I didn’t say anything about music and the arts. They are important, too, but I’m not sure I want the government deciding what is artistic.
What would you do if you were elected President?
I like the “no-thought” part of this…
Here’s what comes to mind for me.
Remember when we were the good guys? One would even say we used to be a genuine beacon of hope and liberty, a powerful positive influence in the world. There was a time when, with a few notable exceptions, we for the most part actually took the higher path, and our example encouraged others to do the same.
In the interest of getting America to stop obsessing over being a ‘Christian’ nation and start focusing more on actually loving its neighbor, I’d institute the “One Good Thing” program. Every so often, maybe every 1-4 years, we would put a fair amount of money (which we’d have available because we’d drastically reduced our military expenditure) into a large foreign humanitarian project. It would have these requirements: – It would need to be something so obviously beneficial that even the most wary cultural anthropologist would say that the pros would outweigh the cons. – It would provide no planned benefit to us other than knowing that we’d had a positive impact on our world. (‘Our reward is that justice has been done! Amigos, away!’) Or at the very least it would need to provide something that could benefit everyone besides us. (“Look! Cheap, efficient, and easily obtainable cold fusion!”)
An example would be bringing clean water to every last city, village, and hovel in a region, perhaps a country or dare I say a continent. (I’m pretty sure we could do this for a fraction of what Iraq is costing us). This would also provide jobs for those whose livelihoods suffered because of our military cuts. The Army Corps of Engineers would certainly be indispensible, for example, and it would even provide a venue for research and development. If a company like Lockheed could develop the SR-71, a plane so fast it could outrun freakin’ missiles, than surely for the same expenditure it could create the mother of all irrigation systems.
This would also, by its nature, be unfair… if we decided on one given year to do something huge to help South America, people who weren’t South American might be resentful. But a) life’s not fair, so the best you can do is make it unfair in a good way for whoever you can, and b) not being able to help everyone is no reason not to help some. If there were ten people trapped in a burning building and I knew I had time to get one out, I wouldn’t stand outside while it burned just because I wanted to be fair to the other nine.
Caring about people
I have not slept for fear I would wake to find all this a dream. Oh! Last night, I had a revelation. I used to think that if I cared about anything I’d have to care about everything and I’d go stark raving mad but now I’ve found my purpose, it’s a project actually inspired by you and I feel…the most wonderful freedom. — Prince Henry, “Ever After”
That’s one of my favorite quotes. “I used to think that if I cared about anything I’d have to care about everything and I’d go stark raving mad.” There is a lot to care about… we can only do a few things at a time.
I run into this with my budgeting for expenses. My budget allows me to afford perhaps one moderately expensive hobby at a time. If I try to have two, I run out of money quickly. I can have numerous cheaper hobbies, or have one expensive hobby and then go into “maintenance mode” and not buy anything new for that hobby for a while yet still participate… but ultimately, I don’t do a lot of things at the same time very well.
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Matthew P. Barnson
A few thoughts…
While I don’t have quite the idea base that Matt has, I do have a few ideas for how I would like to improve things.
1. Military – I think the U.S. Military is a war fighting force. We are not designed to be a nation building force. The U.S. is involved in too many “peace keeping” endeavors. The U.S. should consolidate their forces into some strategic command locations throughout the globe and return the mass majority of our troops to the home front to protect our borders. I don’t believe that it is our place to enter into other cultures and push the ‘This is the way it’s got to be’ kind of lifestyle.
2. Military Pay – The average troop makes less than $30K / year. This number does take into account that they are receiving all of their benefits ~ food, lodging, hazardous duty pay (if deployed), etc. This figure is outrageous. I know from experience that for a majority of the first couple of years that I was enlisted, I depended upon assistance (food stamps and such). At today’s rates, when I was at my first duty station I would have been making about 18K / year. That has to change. We have to pay our troops what they are worth and compensate for the risk that they take. There should be no reason to have our fighting forces on welfare assistance.
3. Humanitarian – Now I do believe that there is a place for the U.S. to do some good. Working off of Rowan’s comment, I think that there could be a group developed on a Federal / National level whose mission it is to work towards assisting foreign populations / countries who call for help. The key to their involvement would be that they are requested to come in and help. They would not be authorized to insert themselves and push unilateral agendas. The efforts would be partially funded through the federal budget (the remaining of which would be through donations and fund-raising).
4. Education – There was an effort that I read about recently – although I can’t remember where – about every child getting a laptop. I thought about that for a while and had an interesting idea. Taking the laptop idea to another level and having the required text books that the children would need being available electronically. A child would be able to access this text anytime. This would limit the need to purchase new text books every year. They only need to update the laptop image and push it out. A child could draft their report on their laptop and when they get to school it would synch with the network their in order to submit it (for comment or as a turn-in). This synch process would also allow a back-up copy of the child’s pc to be maintained on a daily basis. I feel this would be a great opportunity.
OLPC
According to the Population Clock, there are currently 303 million people in the USA. Taking figures from this morning, let’s assume we buy every single person in the USA a OLPC from One Laptop Per Child through their “give one, get one” program. This would also allow OLPC to send a laptop to a child in a third-world country for every purchase. Over 300 million laptops.
The expected Bush budget for the continued occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan is somewhere in the neighborhood of $700Bn. This isn’t included in the regular budget, but as an emergency appropriation.
To buy every man, woman, and child in the USA a laptop, and donate a matching one to over 300 million children around the world, would cost the USA $121Bn.
I know where I’d rather than money go if it has to be spent.
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Matthew P. Barnson
Not In A Down Market
Matt and JB, if we’ve learned anything about President Bush, it’s that he doesn’t believe in providing anything to educators unless they can prove that their students can spit out facts in the form of standardized tests. Only then will the federal government respond by trickling down funding. This is the carrot and stick approach to our education system. Meanwhile, NCLB is notorious for leaving absent a general tech litmus at the middle and high school levels.
Do you think that President Bush would actually spend money on schools in a down market? Spending money in schools doesn’t instantly gratify the market. Wartime spending is what shows our economy as growing, even though it’s at the expense of everything else, especially on such a waste of a military campaign currently waged.
Dive… dive… dive…
We are in a down market because of the poor leadership and the poor execution of our checks and balances system.
You are right, I do not believe that President Bush would spend the money on the much needed education reform. We need leadership who will.
While i don’t want to debate the need for reconstruction in Iraq, there is an interesting website that provides the trade-off’s for the cost of the Iraq war through 2007.
Using a reference that connects us all (the state of Maryland) the sites states that Taxpayers in Maryland will pay $8.8 billion for the cost of the Iraq War through 2007. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided: 1,611,923 People with Health Care OR 8,206,378 Homes with Renewable Electricity OR 190,457 Public Safety Officers OR 150,878 Music and Arts Teachers OR 1,130,237 Scholarships for University Students OR 786 New Elementary Schools OR 47,407 Affordable Housing Units OR 3,162,523 Children with Health Care OR 1,175,226 Head Start Places for Children OR 142,949 Elementary School Teachers OR 167,100 Port Container Inspectors
Going back to the laptop for every child idea – Matt stated that the current population is about 303 million. Purchase each of them a $200 laptop would come out to a cost of roughly 60.6B. This is roughly 8.7% of the expected Bush budget for the continued occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan (est at 700B).
I believe in the need for a military and i believe that we should play a role in assisting in global efforts (Nato type organizations). I disagree with the fact that our leaders see fit to allow our own people to suffer while they attempt to rebuild other countries. (stepping off soap box… sorry)
AFM
A*******men
Why We Fight
Has anybody see this film?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0436971/
My $.02 Weed
Another use of the same title
I haven’t seen that movie but ‘Why We Fight’ was also the title of the Band Of Brothers episode in which the American soldiers stumble into an abandoned concentration camp.
http://tinyurl.com/238axk
Not that an Iraqi life is worth more or less than a Jewish life, but at least after conquering Europe the American forces didn’t sit around for years and years as a solitary occupation force, trying to squeeze democracy down everyone’s throat at the expense of the homefront.
Uhm
Yeah, after we “conquered” Europe we set the Jews up in a state located in their historical homeland smack in the middle of their blood enemies. That’s worked out well, I’d say… 😉
My $.02 Weed
Set them up?
Not quite how it happened. Over time since 1200BCE, the Jewish population of Jerusalem waxed and waned, down to a minimum of around 1000 families in 135CE. The Russian purge of Jews prior to the Russion Revolution inspired a great deal of immigration, which was barely tolerated by the Ottoman Empire (Turks), and then encouraged by the later British colonial government. By World War I, Jews comprised approximately 15% of the inhabitants of Palestine, and had already formed a large number of socialist Jewish-only “conquest of labor” camps, which fostered a good deal of dissent among newly-unemployed Arabs in the area who used to work for Jewish landowners.
In 1914, approximately 500,000 Arabs lived in the area in and around Palestine, and despite relentless Jewish immigration kept a ratio of about 2:1 Arab:Jew for many years. Arab nationalism continued to grow through the early 1900’s, and from 1911 through today routine Jewish-Arab violence became the norm. Arab sentiments were not only fueled by economic and political issues, but also by the traditional view that Jews were second-class citizens in the Arab world, and being dispossessed by lower-class people was unthinkable.
I cannot help but see a carbon copy of this in US attitudes towards “Mexicans”. Anyway…
By the start of World War II, Jewish immigration was at an all-time high, resulting in an open Arab revolt. Britain’s support for Zionism had waned over the decades, and as a result of a whole year of basically open war with thousands of casualties, Britain proposed partitioning Palestine to separate the warring parties (Iraq, anybody?). Eventually the British yielded to Arab demands and prohibited further immigration, but by this time families in Israel with families in Europe organized massive campaigns of illegal immigration to get their families out of Nazi-occupied Europe.
Eventually, the Jews ended up fighting the British for their draconian immigration policies. The Arabs were fighting the Jews over control of the land. The British were fighting the Arabs and the Jews to try to keep sectarian violence down. The Jews were fighting the Arabs to defend the territory they’d gained.
Eventually, the Palestinian Arabs organized to attempt to exterminate the Jews, following their Mufti who had allied with the Nazi German government and Italians. The Palestinian Jews retaliated, resulting in occupation of many Arab villages, and the flight of over a half-million Arabs from Palestine.
So at this point, there existed a de-facto Jewish state, and a de-facto Arab state as a result of this conflict. Contrary to popular belief, the UN was simply recognizing the existing fact of a Zionist Israel composed mostly of immigrant Jews.
I dislike simplifications of the creation of the state of Israel, mainly because they seem to be partisan and favor Zionist or Anti-Zionist agendas. The reality is much more complex, and a history of over a thousand years of conflict.
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Matthew P. Barnson
I Stand Corrected
OK, I’m sitting while I type, but you get the point.
So the Western powers really weren’t responsible for the current situation in Israel/Palestine, huh. You learn something new every day.
My $.02 Weed
Britain
Insofar as Great Britain colonized the area and institutionalized Jewish immigration for several decades, yes, they are responsible. IMHO, though, the UN declaration for the recognition of the state of Israel was just a formality and peacekeeping measure.
We can see how well it all worked out, though.
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Matthew P. Barnson
easy AND fun
Nat’l Endowment for the Arts-gone Dept of Education – gone IRS – almost gone Bills with even a single earmark – vetoed NASA – gone BATF – gone FDA – gone DOT – gone Air Force Ones – sold Medicare/Medicaid – gone Military – properly funded Foregone tax revenue – returned to citizenry (or states) INS – whipped into shape
I’m being moved to tears by the beauty of it all…come on, don’t act surprised.
FDA…
My initial reaction is “Great, yeah, let’s return to the bad old days of outlandish claims from street salesmen for whitening toothpaste that actually removes all your teeth.” We need some oversight on corporate food and drug claims, or else they will kill, injure, and maim millions in the name of pursuing a profit.
I do wish the line-item veto had passed. That would be a step in the right direction.
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Matthew P. Barnson
Let’s Not Shave Off The Whole Head
Daniel, I like getting a hair cut but I’m not about to shave it all off, if you know what I mean.
With you on everything except the Dept of Ed and the NEA. I would actually boost the funding for NEA. As a general rule, the public shouldn’t be taxed to subsidize freako visual poets creating their wacked out art in the nude, but the NEA budget is small compared to the important it represents. I think the NEA budget is around $125M annual? I could be wrong about that, somebody call me on it if so.
Confirmation…
Confirmation: Between $120-$140M on average. It fluctuates regularly, and although that is not an insignificant amount of money, here’s a comparison with the debt incurred so far in Iraq:
A small road-killed cat weighs around 5 lbs. A huge road grader weighs between 30,000 and 50,000 lbs.
That’s the same proportional weight difference as between the NEA budget and how much we’ve blown occupying Iraq…
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Matthew P. Barnson
splat
Now THAT was a nice metaphorical visual for us, Matt! Bye, bye stupid cat!
I think some gov’t agencies may have served the public well at the point of their creation; however, times have changed. Look at the large number of independent rating bodies that exist across numerous industries: UL, FSC (in hardwood), etc. The gov’t isn’t required to keep those running. For example, the FDA could immediately become self-funded and optional. If a new drug comes out, consumers could choose to wait for FDA approval before purchasing it or go in early on the cheap. Risk-assessment in the hands of the individual, rather than Ted Kennedy. If people don’t value the approval, they’ll vote with their dollars. FDA would immediately cut costs. If they got too skimpy, people wouldn’t trust it and companies would bother with approval at all, so it would still have to do a good job to stay in business. Think, “Consumer Reports,” but with actual science instead of hokey stuff.
Andrew and Barney
Believe it or not, in many ways I’m with you on putting risk-assessment in the hands of the individual; the right to control your choices, forge your own destiny, if you will, is absolutely crucial. But in order to *truly* give the individual the power of choice, you have to give them the necessary tools to make those choices. Or, in the FDA example, if you’re going to give ‘the people’ the power to decide what’s safe and what’s not, you’ve got to make sure that ‘the people’ have been properly prepared to handle that kind of power. At the very least, if you’re going to get rid of a watchdog group for Food and Drugs, you’d better make damn sure that the people have been educated about how to be watchdogs themselves.
Telling someone that they have freedom of choice without educating them on as many choices as you can is ethically suspect at the very least.
Or, to get very abstract with this, if Andrew were presented with the option of either ‘having your eyes gouged out’ or ‘instant death’, by his own freedom of choice he’d probably choose having his eyes gouged out. But what if there was a *third* option – ‘you can have all the chocolate cake you want’ – that Andrew didn’t know about, but his next door neighbor Barney did. Naturally, Barney would go with ‘cake.’ At which point Andrew would be like “What the hell?! I had to go with ‘eye-gouging!’ You knew about this whole ‘cake’ option and didn’t tell me?!” And if Barney replied “If I had taken it upon myself to force that option on you, even the knowledge of that option on you… in doing so I would have assumed that I arrogantly knew best that cake was better for you than eye-gouging, and that would have interfered with your individual freedom of choice,” I’m pretty sure Andrew would have found something sharp and pointed and rammed it into Barney’s spleen (though he’d probably miss, cause… well, no eyes).
So getting rid of a lot of government oversight? Fine. Absolutely. But totally getting rid of the government’s oversight for educating its citizens? That would be just like Andrew and Barney.
Somehow. :-/
FDA
Needs revamping.. God help us if its gone. Seriously.. see the things I see.
Visit the Official Justin Timpane Website Music, Acting, and More! http://www.timpane.com
Surprised?! Are you
Surprised?! Are you kidding?! I knew there was no WAY you wouldn’t weigh in on this thread, and I was not disappointed. 🙂
30 Minutes In The Cold
Matt, this is a thoughtful list. What’s interesting to me was how many of these points were mentioned by my fellow neighbors in line last night, as we waited for 30 minutes in the MN cold, outside the school where the caucus was being held. Although the lines were long, the place overrun with more people than the building could handle, and the precinct staff was disorganized, those put out by the elements were at least keeping warm by chatting up these points. It was definitely an experience. It seemed like everyone was using the normally benign caucus as a personal referendum; to say, “I can’t believe we’ve had to live through the worst President in U.S. history.”
Thankfully, we live in a country with a democratic process that allows people to come together peacefully and vote.
My list
1) Tort and lawsuit reform: If you’re wronged, you should get your bills paid for, and a little for your pain and suffering. There needs to be a common-sense reform made, where there’s no chance of a person who’s injured in the act of committing a crime suing for damages. Lawyers who take cases which should never see the light of day should be punished. Sometimes bad luck happens. Sometimes mistakes happen. Unless you can prove that there was malicious intent, get on with your life and stop trying to make a million.
2) Legalize drugs. The crime in the inner city is mostly due to drugs. If they were freely or cheaply available, their value quickly drops and the crime associated with it will as well. Then start raising the prices and taxing the hell out of it so that no one can afford to do it anymore (see cigarettes). Make it illegal everywhere public.
3) Compulsory 2 years of civil service after high-school graduation, or from the moment you drop out until you’re 20. You can choose wither military or a peace-corp type organization. Serve your country either here or abroad. Instill the idea of giving back early.
4) Move any federal aid-type agencies to the local level. The federal government’s only duty is to protect us, not take care of us. If the local government wants to provide aid, that’s fine, but the federal government is too bulky to be effective. Redistribute taxes accordingly
5) Agree with pulling military out of the world.
6) Fund a drive to remove dependency on oil. Develop electric/hydrogen infrastructure to help facilitate the move to alternative energies. Fund nuclear power plants. Reduction in military will help this, as the military is the biggest user of oil. Make the military juggernaut lead the drive to cleaner energy.
7) Promote independent research in the sciences. Force all accredited studies to be double-blind (if they’re not already). Studies done by a company on its product ALWAYS show its product works best….hmm?
8) CEO pay reform. I hate government to interfere in business, but when CEOs are giving themselves massive bonuses for mediocre work and massive payouts when they get fired, something needs to be done.
9) Line-item veto. Push it through. Put it to referendum. Get rid of the pork.
10) Develop the national ID card to its logical extent. Yes, it’s can have negative privacy implications, but it also would allow great advances in democracy with technology where it is today.
11) The day after the Super Bowl is a national holiday. Move President’s Day to that Monday.
12) Term limits for any government office. No one should be king forever.
S
My $.02 Weed
Repeal the ‘No Right On Red’
I would get rid of that during the swearing in, that’s how much I hate the no right on red rule.
What state is that a law in?
No right on red? I know that’s not a law in Utah, is it in DC or something?
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Matthew P. Barnson
really?
I have seen the no right on red just about everywhere i have been. It isn’t typically a general law around here, but one where there are signs posted. I have seen it locally (Maryland, Virginia, DC, and WV).