Alter legislative and executive budgeting authority to just a percentage allocation for items; have OMB/GAO/IRS and the Fed set the dollar amounts beforehand.
There is no competitive advantage for poor people working in foreign sweat shops. There is a competitive advantage for the wealthy owners of the corporations that are mistreating the workers and taking advantage of their situation. The poor people have no advantage at all from that situation.
Does this mean that if I decided to run for President in 2012, the government should give me the same amount of money it gives the nominees from the major political parties? What's to stop thousands of people from entering the race as a joke and getting free government money out of it?
Balanced Budget Amendment: all of us have to live within our means, why not the government. It works in Texas. Term Limits AND limits on campaign spending, like 50,000 for local, 100,000 for state, and 1,000,000 for national. Spending has gotten completely out of hand. Political positions are bought and sold; the average person can't run. There should be a National Election Web Site, Candidates can post their appeals there. A National Poll site where every registered can vote on a variety of issues, all year, every year. Stop all wars, return all military from around the world, protect the borders. STRICT immigration laws just like those in almost every country in the world. This is not racism, this is survival. Europe has learned this the hard way. Stop all forms of foreign aid, they don't appreciate it anyway. Billions are wasted. Create a citizens watch dog commission to monitor all government waste and fraud. Publish the ongoing results. Submit annual recommendations for reform. Stop the war on the middle class. Give tax breaks to small businesses. Reduce paperwork and regulations for small business. Close the tax loopholes on the large corporations. Give tax breaks to companies who produce products here. Put tariffs on products that come from everywhere else.
Everything you said was solid. I especially like the idea of being able to vote online and vote on a variety of issues. I mean if I can do my banking online, why can't I vote as well. I do have a quandry on tariffs. Are tariffs long term effective or just a crutch for our companies to survive when they shouldn't? I understand that some countries can produce goods cheaper then us due to labor being ridiculously cheap there, but as long as their labor laws in not abusing their workers are as stringent as ours, wouldn't it be better to consider those sectors of our country dead weight? I think I would rather see selective tariffs for countries based on labor laws and FDA type rules and regulations ie evil Chinese paint/dog food and Nike sweat shops should give us red flags to impose heavy tariffs for say a 6 month to 1 year period which extends until the issues are resolved for all products being imported into the US. Of course, crazy lobbyists would make it much more difficult to impose regulations fairly.
Balanced budget amendment. The only time you can go over the budget is when we are in recession or near recession. - Only when people realize how much government goods and service costs will they vote to cut them. Universal health care where people have the option to buy into the medicare program at true cost. Get rid of social security. If you are physically able to work, you should. If you are too old to work, they it should be based of physical ability like how disability works. Free college tuition for our top students. We need to nurture and better utilize the young talent in this country. Force the government to buy American as part of national security. Get rid of all lobbying as we know it. The only interaction with government officials is report submission or testimony in control environments. No trips, no lunches, no meetings at ball games.
All ideas have to be refined and that is what you did with one of mine. I see your point and like your suggestion.
I always find it interesting when Right Wing, small government people cite Singapore as good place considering it is one of the most highly regulated places in the World and is run internally as practically a socialist authoritarian state.
I used to think that way but having spent time in developing countries I am now going to disagree. Sweat shops are bad but without trade things would be even worse. Like it or not the only way for poor countries to develop is through trade and seeking to exploit their advantages in the cost of labor. None of the developed world is just going to invest in poor countries for the sake of lifting them out of poverty. Even taking all of the problems trade is the only way to possibly lift third world countries out of poverty.
