solutions

Often times when someone complains about the government, the retort is what are your solutions, and I have some suggestions. If I were magically put in charge I would do the following:

Reverse the health care bill

Reverse the financial reform bill

Make the Bush tax cuts permanent

Eliminate capital gains tax

Reduce regulations on small business

These things could be done in short order and cost nothing.



Next I would set up a group of five venture capitalist experts and give them the 400 billion left in the stimulus and tell them to accept ideas from around the country for new business opportunities. There are some Steve Jobs and Bill Gates’ out there and we need to find them.



On a more long term basis like the two years I would take care of the social security short fall by:

Raising the retirement age to 72 reminding people that you can still retire at age 62 but at a lesser amount.

I would phase out benefits to single people whose other income exceeds $150,000 per year and $200,000 for couples.

I would deduct social security payroll tax from all income like is currently done with Medicare.

I would resolve the health care problem by:

Leave the 85% of people who have health care alone.

Of the 48 million that remain, about 25% are people, mostly young, who can afford insurance but don’t think they need it. Another 25% are people who are eligible for Medicaid but don’t buy it since is has a small cost and they can sign up after they get sick.

25% are illegal aliens and they will continue to use the emergency rooms until we resolve the problem of illegal immigration.

Finally 25% who need help? For those whose income is 4 times the poverty level the government will pay 25% of the cost, 3 times the level the government will pay 50% of the cost, 2 times the level 75% of cost and 1 times level 100%. This will cost about 60 billion per year.

This will be paid for by using medical savings accounts for everyone. This will eliminate 90% of all claims and thus most of the administrative cost (paper work) which will save over 500 billion per year.

The solution to the Medicare and Medicaid problems are to ration health care, something we have been doing for many years but not talking about it.

Before you get all upset with death panels ask some questions. For example should a 95 year old patient with a bad liver qualify for a heart transplant and then work your way down to less obvious situations and start making tough decisions.



The only thing getting in the way of these solutions is politics.

DC

I just returned from Washington DC where I attended the gathering at the National Mall sponsored by Glenn Beck. I need not comment on the crowed as you likely saw that on the news. By my count there were more women there than men and all age groups were covered with those in the 40’s most common. There were very few people of color, I would estimate less than one percent. The conversation was mostly about government run amok. More than half had religious leanings in their reasons for being there.

When everyone left I looked around and the place was clean with the only mess surrounding garbage cans that were overflowing. Everyone was civil and expressed their disappointment in the government in articulate ways describing specific thoughts. Much of what I heard was repeats of what Beck has said on his show. A large number feel that Obama is a socialist but when I questioned them they were not sure what is meant by socialist. I think what they mean is that he has socialist tendencies as exhibited by the take over of GM and his cry of the liberals to spread the wealth. Most of the attendees were further left from where I sit but most were well informed citizens. That was the thing that caught my attention, the knowledge that these people have. They obviously pay attention to what is going on and they don’t like what they see. If I had to describe in a nutshell their complaints it would be that the elected officials are not listening. They see the leadership as people who have their priorities mixed up. They see politicians whose first concern is getting re elected, second Party loyalty and third Country. What they want is to reverse these priorities and using the old real estate adage as a metaphor they want Country, Country, Country. That is what I also want so while I differ from them on the importance of many Issues I agree with the major premise of lets get our priorities straight.

I can tell you this that went a huge crowd begins to yell, USA, USA, USA it sounds like thunder and certainly gets your attention.