How I would fix the economy

Believe it or not, there are some things the government can do to grow the economy: mostly they boiled down to getting out of the way.

1. Decrease the minimum wage. Yep, make it lower. To about the level illegals and waitresses are paid, lets say $4/hr. This would mean that workers are cheaper, and therefore you can hire more of them! Having a sucky job with poor pay is better than no job with no pay, especially these days.

2. Decouple health care from jobs. No other country on earth has health care determined by their employer, its a stupid holdover from 1950's union policies. Scrap it, and suddenly competition skyrockets, because everyone is in the same 'pool'. Also means employers have one less hassle and should make it cheaper to hire more people.

3. Deregulate small businesses. We need jobs desperately, and we need them now. Regulations are stifling job growth, so we nix most of them. Notice a pattern here?

4. Scrap income tax, and replace with a Value Added (think Sales) Tax. Income taxes are insane, arbitrary, and demeaning. Punishing people who earn (i.e. work) more is blatant classism, and subject to political whims and strategy (like now, for instance). Eliminate the system and replace with two 10% sales taxes, one for 'normal' government, and the other for Medicare/Medicaid/social security (and this time put the funds in SEPARATE accounts). This way, everyone puts in their fair share by definition, and saving is actually encouraged! And, by separating out the social programs (and labeling them as such) we have a real reminder of how atrociously large a percentage it is of federal spending on ever receipt. Of course, that brings us to....

5. Slash federal spending to 2000 levels, at least. Remember when we had balanced budgets, you know, under our last democratic president? Would it really be so cruel to do now what we did then?

Well, that's the gist of it. You know the rest, bring home the troops from everywhere overseas, end subsidies, that sort of thing. Boils down to shrink the public sector, grow the private sector.


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