Lets take a logical look at politics in "Modern Times." Let me ask you in fairness how are things going in your life?' Are we better off emotionally, financially, more secure in our world than we were 7 years ago?The job of the government is to keep us safe and encourage growth and prosperity.
We live in the 24 hour news cycle and the world is one entity now like it or not.
How we act and how other countries act affect all parties greatly as each day all things are available via Internet and 24 hour world news.
So the paradigm has changed greatly and our traditional politicians have not changed with it.
We need a leader or leaders who think and act according to the modern world.
The game has changed and as the great Arthur Ashe once said."Change a losing game." When you are not doing well you have to change something. President Obama has been a very traditional Tax and Spend President.
We traditionally go from that to Reduce Taxes and stimulate growth.
The later works better but without other changes as I suggest below, it is at best a temporary fix.
Economically;
You cannot build the economy from the middle out as President Obama and recently reiterated by Hillary Clinton suggest. Sounds great but each action they have tried has only made the middle class suffer more and created more hardships for most Americans. You can not mandate behavior and rules that restrict growth.
You must stimulate the people with opportunity not hand outs.
Encourage them to take risk and spend money. Risk- reward is the answer not give a slight tax break and stimulate construction and infrastructure with contracts that are not generated by profits, but taken from the public coffers. It makes absolutely no sense. No new and different action is a losing strategy.
Example :
The probable Democratic nominee , Hillary Clinton is swearing to continue to increase taxes on the upper portion of the people in America because its fair for them to pay more. Increasing government function she is basically saying we are doing great, and all directions we are currently pointing in are stable and the truck of state is driving in the right direction.
Please!!!!!!!! Honestly ask your self if this is at all the case and do we really want to stay the current course. Our world is changing and we are failing to adjust to these times.
Do we want a true change of style and a path which reflects the new world order and condition?
The top income earners in America already pay over half of all taxes in the United States. So if we try to feed the middle class growth buy just taking from those who have more that is not changing the game. It is wealth redistribution and it leads to only one thing.
Socialism ! It doesn't work people, there are many many examples we can see around the world that let us understand that socialism fails to make people happy and breeds dissatisfaction and discontent.
The middle class has done worse in the last 7 years and the stimulus bills have just spent money not increased wealth or opportunity.
Just allocating already generated funds to infrastructure and awarding contracts for improvements without paying for them with growth and true revenue production only pretends to stimulate the economy.
True wealth growth comes from private investment and corporate growth. The companies in America have done a great job reducing staff and costs to make profits regardless of low growth .
They have cut and trimmed to create profits. Corporate America is not an enemy they are the very fabric of our country, especially small business which is being stifled by taxes and restrictions not encouraging us to grow and spend.
This will not last as we run out of things to cut and trim, profits will be affected.
True growth must be generated from the companies and people who have wealth.
When they don't have confidence to spend and invest, Instead they hold money in safe places and try to hold on to current wealth.
Banks don't lend as the criteria are very difficult and they were burnt by the housing policies that made them give 100 to 120% mortgages in a socialist fashion. The policy failed miserably as financial institutions found ways around it and to abuse it.
Greed will find a way so do we need controls and oversight ?
Absolutely! Yet less than the over reaction of extremely tight controls that cost companies large amounts of money and restrict growth as they tie up our cash reserves.
We need pro growth policies such as:
1.) Lowering corporate tax rates to around 20% . OK don't get your undies all in a knot, yes we need to remove all the write offs so all people and companies need to pay taxes. This would greatly help reduce the deficit and stimulate growth while generating revenue to pay off debt.
2.) Open competition up in health care and allow insurance companies to bid on all health care nationally.
This has been shown to reduce costs up to 40% making a national health care program (OBAMA CARE) unnecessary.
3.) Tort reform is also very important to reduce costs for Insurance companies.
This is a tough one as Washington is run by lawyers and accountants and they make there living off of law suits and tax code interpretation. Why would they change the current game unless we the people make them.
4.) Many other changes necessary but these would be a start.
Military needs revamping and re building(I have a 5 point plan that I will write about in my next blog entry) intelligently with smarter more efficient weapons and cyber capability,
Conclusion: I believe there are many billions or even trillions of dollars on the side line which are ready to create investment and or growth. The holders of this wealth will not invest it in businesses and new growth unless they are confident in the direction we are heading.
These seem like common sense things to me,but I understand there are many people who think the Government can answer and supply all the answers taking on a larger role.
Please take the time to read about The european countries and what has happened as they adopted more and more socialistic policies and tendencies.
It creates an environment of entitlement and slowly erodes the work ethic that made us great and created our republic and established it as the model for the rest of the world.
Let's change the way we run our country but not our principles and beliefs.
Happy New Year!
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