The Domestics - Part Three: Taxes

Taxes

It’s high time we simplified the tax code. We spend millions every year just paying people to try and make sense of it. Literally billions of dollars of money that should be returned to our citizens is lost because they don’t claim it. That’s money stolen from the hands of the people. Further, the difficult tax code stifles foreign investment. It might just be that America already is an inviting place for investment, but companies that have to spend thousands of dollars just to understand the ground rules before they even invest in America will look elsewhere for somewhere easier to break into. It also works against the small business owner. I think it’s time to experiment with, and possibly slowly phase in a national sales tax, and get rid of all payroll taxes and corporate taxes. Corporate taxes are an illusion anyway. Costs from corporate taxes are passed down to the consumer through price increases, which effectively leaves consumers paying twice, once out of their paychecks and once at the cash register. Cut those taxes and make American companies more competitive. At the same time this will bring in more income as all purchases made in the US will bring in tax money, which means a consumer driven economy can only enrich the coffers, and further, non-US citizens will be contributing as well with every purchase they make. It’s the ultimate way to make sure Americans have total control over what taxes they pay, with every purchase they make. If we simplify the tax code, we can make the country more efficient, give the people more control over their lives, and make America more competitive in the world economy. If it turns out it isn’t a good enough replacement for payroll taxes, then we lose nothing in trying, but the system as it stands is too convoluted and weighs down on our economy and our lives. We earn our money, we work our whole lives, work ourselves to death sometimes, and we should have more control of the money we make. Government spends too much, and it takes too much, and it’s time for a change. I fear that a sales tax would become a burden on the poor, who already pay next to nothing in taxes. This only makes sense if, like proponents of the national sales tax say, the price of all goods drops and the national sales taxes rises, equaling out to nearly the same price things currently stand at. Should this fail, I suggest just simplifying the tax code in general, and looking at other ways of coming up with a fair way to fund the government.

This one is short, but the next one, on Energy, will be the longest yet.

The Domestics - Part Two: American Personal Finance

And now part two of ten in my series on domestic issues:

American Personal Finance

Part of the problem with solving Social Security is that so many Americans look at it as their retirement income. It’s not. Americans should be saving literally hundreds of thousands of dollars over the decades of their adulthood to pay for their golden years. But Americans aren’t doing that. They aren’t saving for retirement, in fact, they aren’t saving at all. Americans spend 100.1% of the money they earn, and in case you are wondering, yes, they spend one hundred dollars and ten cents for every hundred dollars they earn. Not only are we not saving, we’re spending ourselves into debt that can never be gotten rid of. Clearly Americans do not know how to be responsible stewards of their own finances. Something must be done from the government to induce Americans to save early in their youth for retirement, and in general. A couple thousand dollars not put away at the age of 25 will cost tens of thousands to replace in your mid 30’s. Why? Because that couple thousand dollars builds on itself for that decade, and the interest it earns builds on that, and so on and so forth. Saving a lot and saving early on is the key to having a stable retirement fund.

I'll be perfectly honest here, I don't know how to fix this problem. The biggest part of the problem is what I already said above: Social Security. People expect the government to solve their problems for them. If they go bankrupt, they expect the government to help them out of it, if their home is foreclosed on, they expect help, or unemployment, or food stamps, or whatever. We're a society that over the last fifty years has slowly but surely removed personal responsibility from a people that champion themselves on being independent and self sufficient. And as bad as it might have been before, it's reaching a breaking point. Right now the only thing bolstering the economy is insane consumer spending, but it’s not going to last forever. Food is getting more expensive, as is gas, and other items. It’s draining away money from the American economy, and it leaves American people horribly vulnerable to economic swings. With no safety net in the bank, what will they do when the car breaks down, or when they lose their job? Chances are they will rely on a credit card with ridiculously high interest rates. My grandparents’ generation saved as much as half their paychecks away in the bank, which helped create unparalleled wealth in America. My generation is likely to have negative savings, in other words, huge debt, especially given the cost of an education. The government doesn’t do a very good job by having a nine trillion dollar debt, which sets a horrible example. Having money in the bank, having a secure retirement, and reducing the role of government as a safety net will make us a stronger, more stable nation. It comes down to this:

People should be responsible for their own financial well being. The government shouldn’t be there, be it through Social Security or anything else to support you when you are older. What the government should do, is spur you to do so yourself. We aren’t France, we won’t tax you 40% to secure your future, but it is clear the American people aren’t going to do it ourselves, we live too much in the moment. Social Security is a huge drain on the economy and the nation’s coffers. Let’s reduce it, and maybe some day get rid of it. People need to be given more options to grow their money. The thousands of dollars I give to Social Security over my life will have a much smaller rate of return than the money I save personally, because my investments will be diversified over the 30 some odd years of my adult work life, and they will get as much as eight to ten percent back, while Social Security might only get me half that. It’s time to put control of our future’s back in our hands, even if that control has to be forced down our throats.

So who gets to solve this problem? Maybe we need to hit rock bottom. Maybe we just need to crash and burn without the government there to be our safety net. This kind of change back to what we used to do is a major shift from the status quo, but it's necessary. Or maybe government needs to find a way to get young people to save for retirement, perhaps by offering matching funds for a certain amount of money put away, on the condition that that money absolutely cannot be touched until retirement and offering tax breaks and benefits as well. Personally I think this should be solved by regular people, but regular people aren't stepping up to the plate. Even business has a vested interest in championing savings. If people have more disposable income and savings, they will make better consumers over the long term, instead of spending themselves into oblivion to buoy an otherwise lackluster economy. The bottom line is we need to find a way to get Americans to save more money and spend less! This is a call to duty. I'd rather we all become responsible Americans and people and just fix our own problems, but if they aren't going to do that, there's no harm in looking at all options to fix this.

Take control of your own lives and be responsible, if you don't, you'll pay later in life.

Sphere of Domesticity

It's no secret that the main focus of American politics for the last few years has been foreign policy. But while the issues that concern our interest across the seas are important, equally so are the issues that face us here at home. This week and next, I'll be doing a 10 part feature on what I consider to be the biggest domestic issues facing America that do NOT deal with social policy. In other words, gay marriage, abortion, flag burning, and other such issues will not be included in this discussion. I don't see them being solved in the very near future, and when it really comes down to it, there is no pressing need to solve them. While I personally feel that gay rights are an issue of major importance, and the lack of equality is atrocious and deserves immediate remedy, the lack of such a result isn't going to cause the downfall of the nation at any point in the future. The issues I have in mind are of serious consequence to our country and our future. Many of them are of pressing need, and require attentions. Others are simply solid issues that I think should be addressed. The issues that will be discussed, are as follows:

• Healthcare
• American Personal Finance
• Taxes
• Energy
• Transportation
• Education
• Social Security
• The Military
• The Budget
• Compulsory Service

Every couple days I'll post a new issue until they are all done. Without further pause, I give you the first issue:

Healthcare

America spends more on healthcare than any other nation in the world, and for our money, we don’t have a better system in place than anyone else, in fact, it rates much lower than much of Europe. There needs to be a new focus on prevention, not treatment. Certainly treatment is a big issue, but billions can be saved in dollars, and thousands in lives if we don’t allow problems to crop up to begin with. That means making sure US citizens all have access to an affordable doctor, it means they have to get regular checkups, and it means they need to follow the advice given by those doctors. We can expect to see a major drop in diabetes and heart disease, two things that are the result of obesity, which is more and more becoming a major epidemic in this country. Once everyone is covered, the price will go down for everyone, as we slowly get this country healthy as a whole, we’ll have to spend less overall.

The problem is more deep seated than just a lack of prevention focus. With the way our healthcare system works, healthcare providers are more willing to pay $50,000 to amputate a diabetic’s foot than to pay a cheaper price to simple provide them with the testing supplies and insulin to maintain their disease and keep them healthy. Chronic diseases that shouldn’t be life threatening are costing us big time because, among other problems, healthcare providers are more willing to pay the costs derived from waiting too long rather than the cheaper cost of prevention. Hospitals too are getting in on the game. The hospitals make more money off that $50,000 amputation, but hospitals that attempt to run clinics that check up on and help diabetics’ manage their disease lose money. It makes more sense as a business for them to work this way, but healthcare providers should be trying to make and save the most money for themselves. And above all, no one seems to be concerned with the overall health of the patients themselves, which should be the primary focus of healthcare. We know that prevention centers like a diabetes management team works to reduce complications and help people lead healthier lives. It reduces costs across the whole system, and it should make employers happier by reducing their healthcare costs and keeping their workers healthier and more efficient. But for some reason we buy into this most odd system of taking care of our citizens. It’s time for a change.

We must also make strides to reduce the cost of prescription drugs. Any plan to make us healthier and to reduce the overall cost has to include drastically reduced prices on drugs. Seniors are buying unsafe drugs from Canada illegally in the thousands, and there are no checks and balances to ensure that those drugs aren't created in some basement in Argentina. They are unsafe, and seniors are dying because they can't afford the real stuff, and because they don't understand the risks involved. We must find a compromise that will protect the profits of Big Pharma and at the same time make their products affordable for the masses. Currently it costs billions for a pharmaceutical company to research and bring a new drug to market. If such a product ends up failing, those billions are lost, even worse if the whole line of drugs fails as has happened lately. And yet their parents last for such a relatively short period of time that they must charge outrageous sums of money for them in order to recoup their investment and profit, and still have money to keep other projects moving. While in the end this system may be profitable for the company, there must be a balance found between profits and the consumer.

There must also be reform of the legal process involved in malpractice cases. We cannot drive good doctors out of the industry through outrageous lawsuits. There needs to be a cap on pain and suffering, which I would arbitrarily set, at its highest, at $250,000. People need to realize that surgery is not 100% safe, and there are no guarantees. If we can’t come up with a way to protect against outrageous lawsuits, then soon there might not be any doctors to solve our health problems at all, and then we’ll be in serious trouble.

We also need to work on cutting administrative overhead. Billions of dollars are wasted on administrative costs, the paperwork, which should be used for treatment. We can help to do this by moving to a paperless system. Making all the information electronic, we can cut down on errors, easily and quickly transmit medical history, and reduce waste. In other words, we’ll save money, increase efficiency and save lives.

But there is much more to do than major policy issues. We need to get back to some basics and take a look at hospital safety measures. A high percentage of post operative infections, and of hospital infections in general are caused because patients get sick from other patients, and the main way this is done is from physicians who don’t wash their hands in between patients. If we exact stringent measures on the food industry to make sure that food is cooked to a certain temperature and sauces are heated and cooled in the correct amount of time, certainly we can expect doctors to wash their hands in between patients. We’ve spent a lot of time and money over the past couple decades to make sure there are sanitation stations all over hospitals, in every room even, but still 100,000 people die every year from infections they got in hospitals, and billions of dollars are lost, as hospitals aren’t reimbursed for extended stays and complications. It will save lives, it will reduce costs to hospitals, and it will get patients out of the hospital faster.

Employers need to take part in this as well, and for good reason. Right now employers are footing a decent part of the bill, and this is the reason why so many are cutting benefits to employees. By making their employees healthy, they can reduce their own costs, and they can increase their productivity through less sick days, maybe even awarding more vacation days, increasing the quality of life in this country by destressing the country. But all in all it will make them more competitive in the world market. They should be an equal partner in offering good health plans to employees, and should offer health club memberships and incentives to use them as well. They should also add incentives to employees who get yearly physicals. These efforts might sound altruistic, but really it all has to do with profit and efficiency. Healthy workers are happy workers, and healthy happy workers are productive workers. Productivity equals profit, and when companies are constantly pushing for increased production for lower costs, anything that can boost it at a lower cost is worthwhile.

In the end I think employers will find this model to be extremely business friendly. Already billions of their dollars are going to a health industry that isn't necessarily giving them a good return on their investment. Once the healthcare system is fully overhauled, and the nation is healthier, prices will go down for business as well. Their money will be much better spent on this system.

Democrats Running for President

Democrats a few days ago had their first debate of the presidential race. Now there were eight candidates at this event, one of which I'd never heard of before. It brought to mind the debate of four years ago, with a slew of candidates, some unknown, half of which had zero chance of making the White House and were seemingly there just to make the event look like a circus. But times change. Four years later, most every candidate on the stage was cool, collected, focused, and presidential. 99% of the time they refrained from attacking each other, and laid the grand majority of their ire on Bush's doorstep. It was nice to see them expressing their differences and at the same time not hunting each other down. It was also nice, considering Mitt Romney's comments a few weeks ago during that goofy media inspired "fight" between Obama and Clinton over something I can't even remember now because it never mattered to begin with. Romney said something like 'you'll never see Republicans act like this, and man it's great to watch them go at it like that, I love it." Of course the statement was ridiculous, as weeks later the Republicans were sniping at each other, and the Democrats were never really fighting to begin with.

Returning the focus to the debate, there were eight contenders at this debate: John Edwards, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson and the until now unknown Mike Gravel. Many of these candidates are more or less interchangeable with regards to their positions. But a few of them stand out for a variety of reasons.

Dennis Kucinich - I didn't really care much for him in 2004. He's idealistic, which I have no problem with, I even applaud it. But he's not realistic, which is utterly necessary for any leader. The big problem with President Bush is that he can't see reality, he acts in some sort of imaginary bubble, thinking that his military answers to every problem will pound his problems into submission. But Kucinich make the same mistake back in the other direction. He more or less pledges to never use force, ever. He wants to end the use of the military as an arm of foreign policy. The problem isn't that the military is an arm of foreign policy, it's that the military is the end result of failed foreign policy. Refusing to use the military isn't just irresponsible or unrealistic, it's stupid. Sometimes you just have to use force. You don't need to invade, but sometimes surgical strikes are necessary, sometimes blockades and no-fly zones are necessary. I wonder how Kucinich would have helped the Kurds in the early 90's when Saddam tried to wipe them out. Was he going to talk Saddam out of his genocidal aims? He isn't realistic, and his attitude on foreign policy makes his position on everything else irrelevant. Biden called him out on it, indirectly, at the end of the debate, more or less saying he lives in a fantasyland, and that you sometimes need force, and he's right. On a note of lesser importance, the guy is tiny. He's like a foot shorter than whoever that girl he was with, be it his wife or daughter, either way he's tiny. 75% of my criteria for a presidential candidate is their stance on issues. The other 25% is how much I trust them, a gut feeling, about how presidential they are, because when it comes to dealing with Congress and foreign powers, those things matter. He doesn't seem presidential at all.

Mike Gravel - As it stands, I won't be voting for him, and frankly I don't even know if he'll be on the ballot to vote for at all. But there's one thing I have been dying to hear in American politics, and that is candor. Gravel is oozing candor. The problem with that is compared to the canned scripted behavior of his opponents, he sounds a bit crazy in comparison. But he is bluntly honest. I don't necessarily agree with what I heard him say, and I think some of his hyperbole was over the top, but I want to hear more from him, regardless of what it is. He has my attention, and even if I don't want to vote for him as president, I want him talking, and I want someone to give him a platform to speak on. I look forward to hearing more about him, and now that I know who he is, I plan to seek out information on him myself. Gravel stands as one of a very tiny minority of Americans in government who call a spade a spade. I am sick of spin, I am sick of talking points, I am sick of catchphrases. I want to reward candor and honesty, and that means rewarding Gravel.

Bill Richardson - I've had my eye on him for sometime. I like his experience as a governor (the only one in the race on the Democratic side), and I like a lot of what he did there. I like what he has to say on taxes, I love what he has to say on health care, which falls most in line what what I personally believe we need as a solution. Focus on prevention, focus on efficiency, focus on cutting waste out of administrative costs. He has immense foreign policy experience and has numerously been nominated for a Nobel Prize. He's underrated in my opinion, and I'm glad he got a lot of screen time tonight. I think he held his own, and I think he came closest to matching Gravel's candor and honesty, though perhaps much more reserved and professionally. I hope he can find a way to get traction in this race and move into a top tier spot, and I hope we can hear more of his great ideas. I'm looking forward to seeing what he has to say on the environment, energy independence, and foreign policy.

Barack and Hillary both sounded presidential to me, and I perhaps I alone in the world find something very compelling about Hillary Clinton. She seems honest and smart, and I know many don't agree with that, I still can't help but feel a spark of hope whenever she speaks. Their policies are well known and I won't go into them. Chris Dodd and Joe Biden are the other two senators running for the office, and both are probably less well known. Biden I think came out stronger than the two. He seems more youthful and charismatic, and also I thought a lot of his answers came out more off the cuff and honest rather than canned and scripted. And that leaves John Edwards. Personally I think he had his shot and missed it, but that's not really how presidential elections work. I don't know if he has the experience or not, but he's young, and earnest, which earns him some points. And he's also fairly specific with his ideas, which I also like. All in all I have a more favorable opinion of him after this debate than I did before.

So there you have it, the eight men and woman who would be the Democratic party's leader have spoken. One wonders how the debate would have fared if Al Gore was in it, but that's something we might not see until October or November. The man has the name recognition power and the positioning to wait that long, and save both the time, money and stress of not being bashed on for the next six months. If he jumps in at the last moment, everything could change, but we'll see. Until then it's a long road, and I already like how it's going.

On Thursday, May 3rd we'll get to see ten Republican candidates square off in the same style of debate also on MSNBC at 8PM (and that's not including Newt Gingrich). Now it is going to be fascinating to see them attack both Democrats and Bush, and somehow distance themselves from both groups. This country by and large dislikes Bush, and Republicans are running from him like they are trying out for the Olympics (except for McCain, which has hurt him seriously), but they aren't running to the Democrats, they are running to, well, even they aren't sure. They're running scared, I think that much is clear. A perhaps scary sign of things to come, is that Democrats are raising serious money for the Congressional elections in 2008. When they won both houses in 2006, they raised million less than the Republicans, who by leaps and bounds have historically always out raised the Democrats. As of April 2007, Democrats have out raised Republicans by millions. Money matters, and it should scare the hell out of Republicans that their traditional advantage has eroded and disappeared. Now much of that money is because Democrats are in charge of Committee Chairs now, and they have a natural advantage to raise more money because of their powerful position, but money is pouring in from elsewhere, as best evidenced by Barack Obama's $50 million raised from tens of thousands of individual donors. Republicans are looking to lose the White House and even more ground in the Congress.

Part of me worries that if the Democrats take over the entire government, the Right will do something drastic and dangerous, but mostly I figure they will do what Democrats did for six years, which is complain a lot, but accept the consequences, because it is the Republicans who dug their own grave. They had six years to do more or less whatever they wanted, and they are paying for how they chose to use that power. We're only a few months away now from January 2008's de facto national primary, and by then we'll know the candidates for 2008. The road from here to there should be very, very interesting.