Creativity is good even in public policy

 

As you know I complain much about the fact Republicans and Democrats never really have any answers and no longer solve our nation’s problems. And if you read this blog regularly you know occasionally I make stabs at trying to come up with new ideas for public policy.

And today I read an article that is a letter to the Editor of the Los Angeles Times that is an idea to help Social Security long term.

This to me shows that people do care and are thinking more than our Congress. And improving Social Security should be a priority for our Congress. Social Security is a monstrosity when it comes to projecting out numbers, yet the idea in the article is creative and looks implementable. It is not a stretch to understand. The real trick would be to apply it going forward in some mock ups and if viable it should be considered by Congress.

And if it doesn’t completely address the revenue problem but is close we should then look at other options to enhance.  All in all there are answers out there, it is just a shame the people who are paid to represent us, cannot even begin to solve the problems facing our country.

And for your benefit here is a quick recap. The author of the letter called it a regressive tax, personally I am not sure the verbiage works, but here goes.

The author suggests instead of eliminating the cap on taxing wages for social security, create the regressive tax where the first $200,000 is taxed at 6% (currently at 6.2 for first 184,000) then drop to 5% for 200k to 300k, 4 for the next hundred thousand until you get to $600,000 and is one percent for everyone above this threshold. Again this is a quick recap so I hope I spelled it out correctly. The author states this could be palatable politically and I tend to agree and I guess obviously since I am posting it. 😊

I always say center right ideas work the best and probably are the best answers politically. I hope this spurs some creativity or an open mind on your part to think of bettering this idea if needed or for other issues facing our country.

And let’s thank the author for thinking of rational solutions to our country’s issues. Unfortunately our current government isn’t doing it.

So again I say we need new parties and new leadership and answers like this show why.

 

Cheers

The reflecting pool is now the mirror of how bad things are to come

 

I have posted previously on this topic, yet as time marches on the disaster waiting is getting worse.

We all know it, it is staring even his supporters in the face, yet what happens after Trump passes away is potentially getting uglier by the day. Months ago I suggested the Republicans start planning for a Trump world. Then later on I was a bit more direct of what the Republicans will be facing once Trump is gone. Now it is beyond the planning phase time frame and what is looming for this country is flat out insane.

The power play after Trump will wreck havoc on this country. We have all heard the phrase power does not exist in a vacuum or something to that nature. Also today I was overhearing a podcast from a historian named Heather Richardson I think talking about there is a power shuffle or loose power structure going on in the administration right now. Not exactly sure since I was overhearing and not paying complete attention. Yet her point seemed to be that behind the scenes people are starting to position themselves for what happens after Trump. Some names she mentioned that might be jockeying around were JD Vance and maybe Tucker Carlson, but she also mentioned Carlson may be backing Vance.

The real issue is most of his cabinet and sycophants rely on Trump for power. They need him more for their future than their own careers will allow them to be successful. And there isn’t much cohesiveness amongst the group either. If and when Vance becomes President, how much of Trump’s cabinet and staff will he keep. And what happens when the infighting begins as they desperately cling to power.

Also Trump’s supporters will allow people to tell them it isn’t Trump that was a failure, but all these cabinet and staff members that let him down which will include Vance. People like Andrew Vought and Steven Miller may be the first to go, but also the most dangerous as the go out. Especially Vought because he probably has the most cohesive plan working, yet needs Trump to continue it. Well, honestly I am going to leave that sentence out there, but I do not know if Vance and Vought are on the same page. Vance may keep him since he does have a working plan. Miller not so much and offers no real advantage to Vance and whatever he may want to do once he becomes President. Personally though I would love to see both go since for different reasons, they are both dangerous to our democracy.

There are a plethora of cabinet members though that need to go and how attached to any of them is Vance. I don’t think much, yet they may do some crazy things (not that they aren’t already) on the way out the door. Most of Trump’s cabinet since there for loyalty reasons to Trump won’t offer much for Vance and easily are a hindrance if not an outright disaster ongoing for him.

Vance becomes President by default if Trump passes away before 2028. Yet every problem that Trump created will fall onto Vance’s lap. It could end up being the worst thing that could happen to any one person. And the problems are only getting worse even if oil and gas prices come down a bit in the short term. Iran already thinks he is a joke and will probably shut the Strait of Hormuz down or slap ridiculously high tolls on certain countries daring him to do something about it. Trump’s tariffs still cause headaches for our trade partners and they won’t want to jump on board to save him. He will have to repair NATO and trade alliances with people who will not trust him one bit, nor respect him.

So Vance will become impotent from day one, he will have cabinet members trying to hold onto their jobs either with outlandish actions or accusations, and a country that never wanted him in the first place. Why this isn’t major fodder for the talking heads world astounds me.

The post Trump world is going to be a nightmare and now that there are temporarily some Senators acting tough may not be enough to settle the power structure down in D. C.

Add the rise of socialist democrats in very democratic cities, you can see major jockeying of partisan madness as both sides get dirtier and dirtier with their hate and finger pointing. I know these same socialist democrats think they have tons of momentum going their way, but it will hit a major wall outside their specific regions. They think their ideas will take hold because of how bad Trump has been, yet to this day they do not see the fact that people wanted Trump to succeed because of what he says were his policies. Those policy wishes do not change just because Trump passes away. And of course there is the far right that is more emboldened and just hates everybody (including themselves) so they aren’t going away. The possibility of political outbreaks throughout the country exists if someone doesn’t grab the national attention quickly and offers some policy that tampers down inflation and more importantly the political rhetoric. It won’t all go away, but if we get lucky and someone can grab the middle’s attention and support, it might be less of a rocky ride.

Yet there is no one currently in any spotlight that offers us a chance to settle down the partisan hate without the ugly happening first. Our country as a whole can look much worse than a green reflecting pool very fast. The good news is and I think Ms. Richardson also brought this up is that most people in this country still like our country and what we represent. What we need is for a very dynamic person to rise to the top with practical ideas that people see as possible. Sounds fairy tale like, but we are almost to that point. Most people ignore the far right so they very rarely gain much traction with the body politic of this country, yet the far left does garner some waves of momentum occasionally and that is more dangerous than the middle realizes. Right now too much socialism is not the answer even though to rebuild our way of life some socialistic type ideas will need some attention. A delicate balance to say the least but yo yoing from one extreme (Trump’s right wing bigotry and authoritarianism) to the other extreme is not the answer no matter how often the left is going to cheer it on since people like Mamdani are capturing some major attention with some success in New York. Yet what works for New York isn’t going to fly in quite a few other cities and states. Just the nature of the political beast in a large and diverse, in more ways than one, country.

This large and beautiful country with the infamous melting pot we so love to tout works best when there is local politicians having some control over their respective areas, along with a national government that tries to create basic baselines of federal oversight and balance that gives equal benefit throughout the country. With the rise of the one percent, that hasn’t been the case in decades and people do feel it. We just hope that the center line is strengthened going forward and the wealth divide crumbles in a positive way so the majority have the opportunity we always say we have.

Yet to even get there we will face the ugly algae of Trump’ reflecting pool running rampant throughout D. C. for possibly years. A sad and true reality we face.

I was going to stop, yet I remembered one hope is that we get a new Speaker of the House that people respect asap and is open to busting open some of Trump’s political wins to bring back some leverage for the middle class.

It is way past time the Republicans ditched Mike Johnson as Speaker (and some other observations)

 

He has failed in so many ways. He fails as the Speaker in general. He fails as the Republican Speaker. He fails the Republican Party. He fails the people of this country. He fails Donald Trump and what is weird Trump and the people have completely different interests that are diametrically opposed yet he has managed to fail both of them. He fails himself. He fails his constituents specifically.

It is pathetic to watch this man on the news. He fails at lying. He fails at even trying to explain the madness he is wanting us to believe.

Time for the Republicans to realize surviving the midterms or not, Mike Johnson needs to be removed in any aspect of leadership in the House of Representatives. The sooner the better.

 

And I do not take credit for this observation, but I wish I said it. Scott Bessent looks like the ventriloquist dummy in a grade b horror movie about a ventriloquist. And Kevin Hassett could either be the dummy or the ventriloquist. Both those guys scare the crap out of me and not because they look dangerous. They just look creepy. Them being Trump sycophants is another reason they scare me because they throw some much BS out there it is maddening to realize they will say anything to make Trump look good. They go on talk shows, interviews etc and sit there with a straight face and bold face tell you not to believe what is going on in your life. And worse Mr. Hasset just smiles at you while doing it.

 

And finally I wish the media quits talking about the price of gas as it is the one and only problem average Americans are facing. The price of gas is eventually going to drive up costs across the board. Some economists debate the different types of inflation measures we should use. Well they are all about to climb into the danger zone for us. To say we need to exclude volatile items out of the measure, is just a shell game in the current situation. If truly there was an accident in the Strait of Hormuz or something similar then I could agree the price of oil and gas could be discounted in inflation measures because those prices would fall once things were cleared up. This war though is an insult to all of us. Mr. Trump cannot negotiate away the problem Netanyahu and he created and Iran is emboldened to make lives hell for half the world just to spite Trump and Netanyahu. The people of Iran are suffering immensely. The leadership is loving this moment.

Some tariffs are still around in some shape form or another which is another behind the scene problem right now. And on top of everything beef is about to get way more expensive if this screw worm situation grows. Sure beef is only one item, but once it gets expensive then chicken and pork will see more demand which will drive up their prices. The price of groceries before now is not talked about enough, next month between higher prices, tariffs and now beef, people aren’t going to want to celebrate the Fourth of July. This should have been a wonderful moment in our country’s history, instead our current leadership at all levels of government have destroyed any idea of celebrating or even reflecting positively on our country.

So going back to the original part of the post, Mike Johnson needs to go so we can get a Speaker that starts thinking about how to help Americans deal with the real inflation facing us, not to mention the ongoing healthcare debacle, arresting the corrupt leaders and more. And I am not holding my breath for Democrats to actually do something except lecture MAGA, which goes over so well.

People are still ignoring a post Trump world

 

A few months ago I wrote a post about what happens after Trump passes away. Since then the economic, political and geopolitical landscape began to fall off a cliff.

There needs to be some kind of come to reckoning about what we do as a country once mother nature takes over. He is not young and contrary to White House nonsense, he is not healthy.

And once he passes here is the short list of problems, if things stand as they do, Vance faces:

Iran war: Trump has put us in a precarious situation as it is and once he passes we have no real strategy. Not an iota of one to start negotiating. Vance has different viewpoints than Trump also. And then there is Hegseth, what might he do in the immediate aftermath. Will anyone in the Pentagon step and in and try to manage the war? Iran may be just sitting back and waiting for this moment because they could come out of this real strong due to Trump’s lack of vision and Vance’s ideology of no foreign wars. The Strait of Hormuz will be under their control for decades possibly. The whole war is a disaster to begin with and Trump passing will force , to even have a chance of salvaging anything, into a very forceful stance. And yes what does that exactly mean? The repercussions of this war are an immediate and long term disaster.

Economy: First the war has driven up the price of oil, gas and food worldwide. Vance may do something stupid to try and resolve the war to get shipping through the Strait of Hormuz so he can hold on to any inkling of a presidential bid. We are about to lose on three or four fronts economically on the world stage and only very stringent matters will let us hold on to some semblance of respectability. China is loving this and my bets are on they loved having Trump over to gauge his health to see how fast they can move on Taiwan, world trade and more.

Putin and Europe: Putin is getting desperate and in a bid to save his Presidency he may take even more action in Europe while we are dealing with Trump’s death. No one in Trump’s administration has the cajones to do something about him or will care. Europe will be hung out to dry and either get mired in a slow moving WWI scenario or come out with a quick victory and manages to save their identity. Unfortunately not their economy unless their victory is complete and they can open their doors to a new Russia so new trade with Russian oil and gets off the Middle East pipeline. If Europe survives Putin and a more open Russia emerges then that is good for Europe, yet all countries not named Iran in the middle east will suffer a setback as they lose customers for their oil.  Iran will still be the main supplier of oil to China and will be openly competing for other Asian markets. This can only embolden Iran and with us out of the picture some of the other Middle Eastern countries are in trouble.

Israel: Just saying the name almost says enough. Once Trump is gone, what is Netanyahu’s fate? What is Israel’s fate? Does Iran rebound enough to repress their surrogates attacking Israel? Will we even respond? Could we respond?

Japan and Korea: Not as dramatic as Israel, yet they are both facing what will be a very emboldened North Korea.

Domestic political turmoil: Who survives Trump? Are there real Trump allies willing to create violence in America for their benefit?  Who fights them? Then there is the duopoly’s lack of vision for a post Trump world. Neither side is ready with a plan going forward to address the above listed issues or even the most basic of issues like restoring law and order, punishing the grift and fraud, actually passing a domestic budget and whatever else may come up. We still need healthcare costs addressed, social security improved, better education, the infamous infrastructure addressed, homelessness, food security, small and mid size businesses helped, tax reform, campaign finance reform and imagine the financial markets in the immediate aftermath. Who does what? Does the market crash?

In my original post I just talked about the very basics. Since then, I have only seen one or two articles maybe talking about a post Trump world. We were unprepared then and Trump has only made things worse. The possibility is there for complete domestic upheaval and no one in this country has the political clout to pull together enough of a coalition to maintain some stability.

And this could happen at any moment. Am I doom speaking? Yes a bit. Could more practical heads manage to salvage the aftermath? Yes, but we need to start planning now to help that become a reality.

And the duopoly is not ready. Too many Republicans have succumbed to Trump’s influence over the party to even begin to think, much less act productively. Their desire for power has rendered them incapable of governing responsibly. The Democrats are clueless. Sure they talk pretty words, have wonderful platitudes, shout to high heaven about the evils facing us, without even knowing the true depth of those evils and then more down to earth, have no real plan. They think they do, they talk like it, but really pull back the curtain and again it is high minded words and platitudes. And the current Youtube and other blogs from the ideological spectrum only add to the partisan madness. They are not independent. They are noise. They complain about the other side or just make stuff up for an audience. So many pro and con to Trump are so tied to him that what do they do afterwards? 

I have tried throwing out ideas to take better paths historically in this blog. Yet some of them are very grandiose. Yet who knows maybe some large projects may help bring us together as a country. If we all started working on the same goals instead of pointing fingers at each other we may live on. For now though, natural disasters and more are going to test us each and every time. And slowly due to Trump’s rot on our infrastructure, it will catch up to us.

Hopefully my pessimism is misguided and we drudge our way through and come out on the other side with some semblance of our country. It looks bleak to me, yet though I still have hope. If saner heads on either or both parties or my dream of more independents and third parties come to fruition then we can rebuild this great country because more often than not, if a people survive a calamity they usually build something better. Or let’s hope so.

Cheers