As David Walker states, we're in a fiscal hole and it is now essential that we stop digging, which I suggest should include the following:
1. Cap spending by the federal government at its present level. Come hell or high water, the federal budget should remain level for the next five years
2. Stop spending money that we do not have, starting with the annual borrowing to pay for the war in Iraq. That virtually the entire cost of the war is being financed by borrowing that will have to be repaid by our children and grandchidren is unconscionable. So give the Iraquis a date certain when they must start picking up the tab for our presence there. According to recent reports of their annual oil revenues, they can well afford to do so.
3. Put in place the universal health care program that is most affordable. According to Jane Bryant Quinn, it is the single payer plan, which she stated in a recent article would cost no more than is now spent on health care in this country. If the new administration or the Congress can come up with a more economical and equally comprehensive plan, fine.
4.Instead of continuing to kick the can down the road, the next President, in concert with the Congress, should create a bipartisan commission to provide us the best possible approach to addressing the future costs of Social Security and Medicare. Unfortuantely, it will no doubt result in the commission prescribing some bitter pills. But better to take our medicine now than later (and even risk the possibility of a complete financial collapse along the way).
5. The next President should, by executive order, create a commission similar to the Hoover Commission of some 60 years ago to go through the federal bureaucracy with a fine tooth comb to identify waste and inefficiency, of which I am sure there is plenty. It should be bipatisan in makeup and be staffed by competent professional administrators from the public and private sectors. All of its staff reports should be immediately made public to assure their complete consideration.
In summary, let's start running the federal government in a bussinesslike way, from its broadest perspective right down to the most minute detail.
Rod Terry
Savannah, Georgia
Rod Terry
of GA
@
Apr 21, 2008 13:32:25 PM
Big Gov. Solves Problems?
If big government solves problems, why has every experiment in big government always met failure? (Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Roman Empire), now the United States is doomed to failure as well if you look at the statistics every program run by the government is currently failing----Social Security is broke, Medicare is broke, the military is being broken with it being spread out so thinly, our currency is worthless compared with the currency when it was backed by gold, gasoline is up to over 3.50 per gallon and going ever higher due to inflation which is caused by the Federal Reserve printing more money and expecting the same value with the old currency. What we need is for government to get out of the way and get back to following the constitution like they swear to do when they take office and then let private industry come in and solve the problems that big government has created. If we do this now maybe we can salvage what little value that is left of the American ideal that our fore fathers gave us. Of course if everyone still expects government to solve the problems, then everyone will still be trying to live off everyone else with taxes being taken from all and given to a very few.
I was hoping in the 90's for the United States to wake up as I did and hopefully start cutting government, but so far it hasn't happened, if government keeps growing like it is now, it will consume everything the private sector has to offer by 2020, and after taxes are 100% then where do we go for more revenue? I know create more worthless money with the printing presses so everyone will be poor.
This is what we have to look forward to with either Hillary, Obama, or McCain in, too bad Paul isn't the nominee, at least he had a plan to get rid of the IRS, the Federal Reserve, and get government back on a balanced budget with much less taxes, I guess we Americans will remain stupid and keep voting for ever bigger government. What is the definition of ignorance? (Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result because we just didn't do it big enough yet!!!!)
William H. Russell
of CT
@
Apr 21, 2008 08:50:44 AM
The Return of Big Government
So the editors at US News got together with their buddies in the rest of the media and declared Big Government is back. Not yet! Maybe they need to talk to us bitter Middle Americans who have turned to religion and guns. Big Government will come back only if the Democrats get control the House, Senate, and the Presidency. God knows, Pelosi and Reid are peddling hard as they can. Raising taxes and spending, as both Hillary and Barak want to do, is no way to grow the economy.
Jobs are created in the private sector; growing Government is not the answer. Pass the Fair Tax to grow the economy (with jobs returning to America) and Government revenues will take care of themselves. Cut spending, not my paycheck.
Don K
of OH
@
Apr 16, 2008 18:31:54 PM
Mandy Cat
For the past two decades Americans have been lectured about the miraculous ability of the free market to solve all life's problems. We were going to trade health care, consumer rights and environmental protections (oh, only in the short run of course; it would all come out right in the end) so that the U.S. economy could flourish unhampered by any pesky oversight.
Well, here we are in 2008. Where do we begin: health insurance more difficult to get than ever, polluted water supplies, dirtier air, a compromised food chain, lead tainted toys, financial institutions run like casinos with rigged roulette tables, credit card operations run like Mafia extortion schemes, highways and bridges crumbling, unsafe airplanes whose maintenance has been outsourced to third world countries flying overhead ... Oh, and the economy itself is headed for the dumpster.
One of the key tenets of the free market system is supposed to be the connection between risk and reward. What we have here is a system where 90% of the rewards go to 2% of the populace and 100% of the risk is being assumed by everyone else.
Mandy Cat
of CO
@
Apr 15, 2008 15:00:34 PM
Collapsed Social Security System.
Unfortunately two extremisied thought is going on. As health system ;It could be possible to ensure a free more qualified health service for everyone by the new type of private sector. As housing system; The real ownerships of the house could be possible under the new system and alsohas no individual risk.--Under the present conditions the global capital can not finance the terrible system- As pension system;The problem is not whether public nor private initiatives. The problem is that the technical continual funding which has to be tolerated in the general system,becouse the pension funding has spesific technics. We are ready for these solutions. It is easy.
Rod Terry of GA @ Apr 21, 2008 13:32:25 PM
William H. Russell of CT @ Apr 21, 2008 08:50:44 AM
Don K of OH @ Apr 16, 2008 18:31:54 PM
Mandy Cat of CO @ Apr 15, 2008 15:00:34 PM
Hal DİLEK of NY @ Apr 14, 2008 15:46:06 PM
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