Platform Part I Debt and Deficit, Social Security

Introduction:

This is turning out to be a bit more than I originally planned. My thoughts keep evolving and contracting each time I think about it. If you think this may be a bit much and you are the give me the bullet points type of person, read the last paragraph for each topic. This I guess will give you a quick read and then you can decide if you want to read more details. I am not promising each topic will be all inclusive in the last paragraph, but I hope I sum up the general theme or ideas in the last paragraph. I am not writing a professional essay, but it is in essay form so pick and choose how you read through it for your own benefit

I am always envious of people who can write and communicate well. And I think this is something that can be developed in many people and is one of the reasons I will have a large section devoted to education that will have some specific ideas of how we should change our education system. This will be the last section. I think it is sad that with all the resources we have at our disposal our public education system is so weak. Way too dependent on memorization and meeting test goals then truly educating our children. I don’t know if it was me not being inspired in school or I just missed the boat, but I regret not learning to write well when I was young. And if you read this blog regularly you know I believe strong education is important for the survival of our constitution and country.

This platform has some influences and I will acknowledge some of them at the end, but I am trying to keep the themes and philosophies of the original progressive conservative party. I am just trying to apply them to today’s world. Whether or not it follows consistently I will let you decide. Basically you can be conservative, support free enterprise and market capitalism without giving away the farm to big business and wall street. And as I said this is evolving so don’t hesitate to comment, write me an email etc,,, let me know if I am on target, but if you have a completely different philosophy, well then write your own blog.

I Deficit and Debt

The Deficit:

You cannot cure our deficit problems overnight. I think that is obvious. The current situation though will not solve the problem either. First though I do like the sequester, not in its current state, but as an idea to get started. I think we all know that our federal government has much potential for reduction in spending. And this is where you start, not as a long term plan, but one ( and yes it will buy a few political points) to buy time until you can put in a real long term plan.

Long term there are many factors to consider. Not every department can be cut equally so the first cuts are more general than substantive, yet you make them to get started while you put together a group of people to study all aspects of the government. There is much overlay, duplication, and general redundancy in the many programs of our government. For example did we really need to create a whole new bureaucracy when the Homeland security dept. started?. Could this not have been woven into current defense department programs and just added to their responsibilities? The creation of a whole new department only added to the overall blight of our government and to me is the perfect example of points I want to make here.

With effort, you can find many examples of the government creating new departments just to satisfy or “solve” a problem our country is facing. Over the decades this has built up what many of us have come to fear. A government so far out of control, not just by the size, but intruding into our lives ways no one comprehended. And all this growth only feeds upon itself as each department has to justify its existence come budget time each year. No one wants to admit that they are not needed or could reduce their efforts to save money.

The legislature needs to develop or appoint a group of people to study what each department’s mission actually is and then look for ways to combine efforts, reduce to eliminate redundancy, and make effective what we do need. This would have to be various groups of people and would include some partisan groups, some of the bureaucracy, people from non partisan think tanks, education, and business. The point being an assembled group to work for a year or more to truly study what is our government, what is truly needed based on legislative action. And the goal being to find a federal government that can serve the people without overburdening us with too many regulations, unrealistic taxes, laws that only complicate our lives, but do not add benefit. And yes there are some things we need from a government. Obvious answers are military to defend us, departments to manage needs of transportation, communication, education,safety (remember one of the stated roles of the government is to defend its people so having some departments survive to allow for protection of us from ourselves is not to untowards) and guide our future based on the political will of the people. Having said all that, it is not the responsibility of the government to run everything. For what it does, it should be a clearing house of managing what happens in our country, not the driving force to solve all problems. No government can, nor should try to do that, however, over the last few decades we are using ours too much. Later in this platform I am going to make suggestions on some public works projects, but with an idea that the government shouldn’t run them, but develop the guidelines to help a public private partnership develop to allow innovation to be the drive of success of these programs. Many depression era programs were great ideas, but we put them into the government instead of trying to help them develop as industries with guidance and oversight by the government. Not for government control, but to protect and benefit the people of this country. And also some of the guidance and oversight needs to be handed off to the local governments so it best benefits the people directly involved. And this is another way to reduce our federal government. The federal government should hand off projects or help local governments work together on projects, not be the major player in regional issues. This also creates too much redundancy.

The appointed commission I mentioned before is not to legislate, but to find ways to reduce current duplication, make suggestions on how to incorporate new legislation into existing departments, broaden the oversight of fewer departments, let attrition help to reduce the number of employees and redefine roles of various upper level cabinet positions to give them much greater flexibility to adapt to the changing needs of our country. What was good for us twenty years ago, will probably not be needed twenty years from now and our government needs to know how to make these transitions. Or if something doesn’t solve the problem, the legislators learn to recognize and create new solutions while removing what isn’t working. Our current state is we just add and add and never review effectiveness. This oversized government is now strangling our country.

The Debt:

Working on reducing to eliminate the deficit will start to work on the debt. This by no means will solve it. There are some economic theorists who believe some debt for a country is good. I think most theorists to general citizenry will agree the debt we have is something entirely different than “some debt”. There is much political chatter about our debt yet we don’t have a concrete plan to make it more manageable.

Of course one of the ways to reduce debt and deficit is to raise revenues. This is not something palatable to many people. The upper crust are fighting taxes at every turn, looking for loopholes and electing anyone that says we need to lower taxes, the middle class is overburdened by a whole range of taxes, many of which are imbedded into fees charged to so many services we need to survive. And the middle class is also over burdened with fees built into services corporations provide beyond just buying their products so there is no room to increase expenses on this group, and the lower middle class just doesn’t make enough, what is popularly known now as “living wage issues”.

So to help reduce the debt and deficit where do you find new revenue. And that is a challenge, our best bet till the economy picks up more steam is to reduce spending and unneeded costs. Some revenue will be increased by an improving economy. Simple example is if people make more they are stuck paying more taxes, maybe not a higher rate, but ten percent on 50,000 is greater than ten percent on 40,000. This is nice, but nowhere near enough to effectively solve our problems.

To be effective we need to totally revamp the tax code, look at what fees are actually providing effective and beneficial services to the people who pay for them, and once the government is overhauled review who needs to pay which revenues. An example is the highway system now. Obviously charging fees to large corporations that use highways to move their goods is a reasonable fee, but how much should the gasoline tax be to the average consumer. Or should local governments get some of the revenue from gasoline taxes to help lower their tax burden on the citizenry to maintain and build local roads. Also there is increased reliance on toll roads. People are basically double taxed in this situation, you pay for gasoline tax and you pay the toll, both revenues are suppose to be used to maintain the highway you are on. Some major decisions need to be made to determine who is responsible for use of revenue in this situation. And this example is found in many of our services we use in our lives. And this example also shows the difficulty of finding new revenue. This shows reduction of size of our government and scope of what it does is going to be the primary driver of reducing the debt and deficit.

Long term we have to rely on three competing philosophies to reduce our debt. They are managing the size and scope of our government, determining which provider of services receives the available fees for the service, and finding new sources of revenue without creating an excessive reliance on that source of income. If the fee is for one project, the fee ends at the completion of the project. This way new projects can be funded without adding any new expenses to the public. This means federal and local governments have to work together to define who has the specific responsibility for what service. And if it is continuous make only one entity responsible. By reducing overlap on fees you can squeeze in new projects or use the extra revenue to lower long term expenses. Either way you have created new revenue without people actually having to pay more. Or simply put the same money we spend now is used on more expenses to get more done to reduce the deficit or used to pay more towards the debt directly.

II Social Security:

I think this can be beneficial and useful. The way it is being run is an absolute disaster. Social Security needs to be completely separated from the overall government budget. This may take some doing and over a few years since from what I understand there is so much wrapped up into the budget that just pulling it out will cause major budget fiascos. Social Security needs to be treated like a pension plan and run better than any other.

This requires some changes and new revenue. I am against handing it over to Wall Street or any other private entity. There would be too much conflict of interest for that. You need to create its’ own oversight and management. You can use people from the private sector to be involved, but with heavy congressional and executive branch oversight. This is for our people and needs to be run with the most diligent management possible. And yes it will take additional revenue beyond payroll taxes to make it solvent for years to come. We need to create the additional revenue. 401ks, IRAs, and other private retirement vehicles are good, but we have invested so much into social security we need to make it work.

Where does the additional revenue come from? Well like most pensions there will need to be some investments. Yet they need to be of high quality and potentially beneficial to the larger community and not invested for private enterprise alone. Corporate and private investment still must come from the private sector. Some ideas are seed money for public/private partnerships that are created, then the money is paid back with earnings or interest once the project becomes self sufficient. This creates a short term investment to receive some return, but keeps social security away from the mutual fund concept. The money could be mainly invested in long term projects that benefit communities like municipal bonds, utility projects, and I have some ideas that I am going to present in a public/private project section later in this platform.

Overall the social security administration needs to become a truly stand alone entity with public oversight. The additional revenue needed for long term solvency needs to be reviewed to be of the highest quality. It does not need to offer the highest return on the dollar, but stability and consistency. Individuals now get a statement of potential earnings at retirement. This must continue. People need to know how it is being run since it will remain a public entity. Oversight must include the government and independent review, but not private enterprise influence.