Astronuc said:
I would like to hear a candidate suggest that the best way to raise revenue (tax income) is to put people to work, i.e., employed people pay taxes instead of receiving unemployment.
Expenditures on Medicare/Medicaid have to be reduced as does overall health care costs. Health care is cost (economic detriment). However, to reduce cost requires a healthier population. People need to stop eating unhealthy food, and need to start exercising. The nation has to reduce the numbers of folks that develop cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
We need to increase domestic energy production, but without increasing pollution of air and water.
And we need to reverse the chronic trade deficit.
I think putting people to work was Obama's justification for the tax stimulus bill that increased the size of our deficit. Of course, that bill was padded with enough health care reforms that you really couldn't expect it to raise enough jobs to pay for itself (it was definitely a mixed bag vs being all good/all bad).
And I don't think it's possible for 'the nation' to make people healthier. Individuals generally have to do that for themselves. I guess reducing public health care and leaving the private health insurance industry alone could serve to discourage people from unhealthy lifestyles, since it could directly affect how much they pay for health insurance or whether they could get health insurance at all (waiting until they have pre-existing conditions could be very bad for them).
In other words, a more cold hearted approach to health care could also reduce health costs. Of course, it would have to be a much more cold hearted approach than I think Americans could accept. Part of the cost of health care is that losses due to unpaid medical bills wind up getting passed on to those who can pay. I don't think Americans could accept completely denying health care, including emergency services, to those that can't afford it.
Increasing energy production without increasing pollution requires some radical new technology, as these are generally contradictory goals. However, I guess the net pollution level could be decreased by placing stricter environmental controls on the entire energy industry. That would have the side effect of reducing how much energy people use since stricter environmental controls usually raise the price of energy.
The chronic trade deficit will eventually correct itself even if we do nothing, since accepting a lower standard of living is preferable to being chronically unemployed (i.e. - the cost of American labor will decrease).
Still, it would probably be preferable to encourage corporations to relocate within the US instead of overseas and our tax policies should reflect that. In other words, having corporations outsource to North Dakota is a better option for Americans than corporations outsourcing to India, China, etc.
Or, we can lower the cost of American labor by importing workers (legally or illegally) that will work for lower wages. I guess that wouldn't do much for getting American workers back to work, but it would at least lower prices for American goods.
