combjelly, the biggest budget issue this country faces isn't mentioned on the thread's header: medicare/health insurance.
Here's what I propose: medicare coverage for only those people that are accountable for their behavior by exercising 1 hour per day, maintain a healthy weight range for 75% of the time (not too thin, not too overwt, but allowing for exclusions due to medical reasons such as thyroid or metabolism medical issues), and do not smoke.
Mexico has something like this, I had read. They pay people coverage for doing the right things. For example, they give families $36/mo if your children do not drop out of school.
If we are going to use taxpayer's money, we need to do so in a responsible fashion. This country is going downhill, so we need policies that reward responsible behavior - the budget has no room for irresponsible behavior. People still have the freedom to be irresponsible - they just will pay for it themselves rather than penalizing the hard-working people.
On a completely different note, one thing this thread's header is missing is govt policy to address the following statistic: the ratio of white and asian people having children in this country to other races is 1/3. Basically, this statistic suggests that an economic force may be preventing white and asian people from having as many children - you probably are already familiar with the statistics that show a country will have less children when economic hardship is harder. You'll note how Europe's birth rate has declined and so has Japan, as economic times become harder. Possibly they are working longer hours in order to pay taxes for others to have children under welfare.
I do believe the birth ratio disparity figure should be addressed in govt policy. Just because these people are white or asian, doesn't mean their ratio doesn't matter. If they weren't white, but were on aggregate poor minorities instead, we'd have all the news networks all over this issue. Just because they are white or asian, doesn't mean they should be ignored.
On a different note, compare our child-promoting policies in the USA to other countries such as Singapore and Australia - where they actually pay all people to have children, of all demographics and of all intelligence levels, not just the person on welfare that is encouraged to breed more (which definitely isn't to say a person on welfare isn't smart, but it is to say the govt policies aren't exclusionary to any one group of people like the USA is). Their policies are inclusive of all demographics, not just the unfortunate folks or the irresponsible individuals. They pay approximately $5k or $3.5k.
On a different issue, the reason why the USA govt is loose on illegal immigration is because they increase the population which in turn is basically the govt's plan to help solve the social security problem, i.e. by more fica revenue from the illegal immigrants. So possibly the cure to reducing illegal immigration (and some drug trafficking by some portion of them), is to encourage a population increase in a different way. One that should also include smart people of any demographic, not just those on welfare and not just those that are illegal immigrants.
Additionally, while other countries are attracting away our 50,000 immigrant PhD students (namely Australia and Canada) because of our recently tight immigration policies after 9/11, we are allowing a couple million of uneducated illegal immigrants into the USA because of the soc sec problem. Instead, we should find a creative way to fix the soc sec problem, and be more restrictive of who we let in. As an investor in the USA, I'd rather see us immigrate PhD students, than force PhD students to go to other countries. I know of yet another PhD student in Silicon Valley whose visa is caught up after working in the USA for 7 years - he will be moving to Canada as a result of our immigration slowdown of the smart people. Canada is gleefully taking our smart engineers away from us. I'd also prefer to see us with policies that inclusively encourage all people of all intelligence levels and all demographics to grow the population, rather than focusing policy exclusively to allow just irresponsible people on welfare, or unfortunate folks on welfare, or illegal immigrants (that may or may not be smart).
Regarding the cap on fica - I think the cap should be eliminated on people with more than $200k/yr. No reason to attack the middle class in metropolitan areas. Anyone making over $200k isn't going to notice this tax (trust me on this).
Additionally, why are single people paying more in fica but get one half as a widow? For example, a single teacher would only get $100k in soc security but a widow that never worked in their life could get more than $200k in soc security. Reread that figure again. That's discriminatory policy against hard-working single people. Additionally, they give married couples less if they each work and earn $15k/year, comparied to a married couple where only one spouse works and earns $30k/year. Even though both couples earn the same net, the couple where one person works will get $100k more in social security over a lifetime. Pray tell, why the "we hate women that work" discriminatory policy in social security? That's just plain nutty, in this day and age.
Regards,
Amy J |
