How to Solve the Budget Deficit
Just a few ideas:
1) Tax rich people more. I agree with Warren Buffet: it's ridiculous that millionaires should be taxed at a lower rate than the middle class. If this means cutting traditional tax shelters, then so be it.
2) Provide fewer governmental services. Stop translating everything into Spanish; cut food stamps and replace them with soup kitchens; let the airlines look to their own security.
3) Decriminalize (and tax!) crimes that do not directly harm third parties. I recommend prostitution and marijuana for starters. Stopping enforcement of these crimes in and of itself would save a fortune nationwide. Legalizing and taxing them would generate another fortune.
4) Reduce the availability of student loans. Too many American youths spend 4+ potentially productive years in colleges, mostly learning how to build bongs. Let 'em get jobs and contribute to the economy instead. I'm all for education if you're going to use it, but many college graduates (I'm looking at you, liberal arts majors) wind up without marketable skills. They then start crappy, low-level jobs 4 years behind their non-college attending peers, not to mention the large amount of debt they carry.
5) Increase the retirement age. Medicare and Social Security were originally pegged so that only a tiny portion of the population would ever draw retirement benefits. As we've prolonged our lives, the retirement age hasn't changed. It would be surprising if this system wasn't under strain. We need to increase the age of retirement to approximately the average age of mortality, so that only 50% of the population draws those benefits. Think of it as a reward for taking care of yourself in your younger years.
1) Tax rich people more. I agree with Warren Buffet: it's ridiculous that millionaires should be taxed at a lower rate than the middle class. If this means cutting traditional tax shelters, then so be it.
2) Provide fewer governmental services. Stop translating everything into Spanish; cut food stamps and replace them with soup kitchens; let the airlines look to their own security.
3) Decriminalize (and tax!) crimes that do not directly harm third parties. I recommend prostitution and marijuana for starters. Stopping enforcement of these crimes in and of itself would save a fortune nationwide. Legalizing and taxing them would generate another fortune.
4) Reduce the availability of student loans. Too many American youths spend 4+ potentially productive years in colleges, mostly learning how to build bongs. Let 'em get jobs and contribute to the economy instead. I'm all for education if you're going to use it, but many college graduates (I'm looking at you, liberal arts majors) wind up without marketable skills. They then start crappy, low-level jobs 4 years behind their non-college attending peers, not to mention the large amount of debt they carry.
5) Increase the retirement age. Medicare and Social Security were originally pegged so that only a tiny portion of the population would ever draw retirement benefits. As we've prolonged our lives, the retirement age hasn't changed. It would be surprising if this system wasn't under strain. We need to increase the age of retirement to approximately the average age of mortality, so that only 50% of the population draws those benefits. Think of it as a reward for taking care of yourself in your younger years.
posted by Ted @ 07:50
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