Foreign and domestic. I'd ask that you try and keep it towards feasible and logical, however post what you like; how you'd do business in your little Utopia.

 

Oh this is gonna be good.

 

Let me start... 1st let's clamp down on legal and illegal immigration, which becomes even more relevant in war time. 2nd, let's get the heck out of the middle-east (wow... coming from helladumb?) because it IS and will ALWAYS be a quagmire if we are going to fight a PC, neudered war. I wish GW was as BOLD with his energy policy as with the Axis of Evil, and oil is a major cause of our conflict. So, 3rd, revolutionize our Energy use and policy...... unfortunately there is now way in hell our gov't wants anything but oil because 50 cents of every dollar we spend on gas lines the coffers, and the other 50 cents go to gazillionaires. 4th, let's motivate our existing American youth to finish college and be competitive... 4 year college and trade schools should be free under the same system as k-12. Sound crazy? State colleges used to be free in CA, and I'm guessing other states as well. Fix the budget and make it happen.

That'd be a good start.

 

Wow what happened to hella! After all this he is a closet liberal.

Here are my two cents;
I believe that since we are already in Iraq we should stop and try to fix what we have done. I think that a major flaw is that we have no real outside help in this. I say we start opening up that oil and try to get other countries involved with actual soldiers. Taking less stress off our soldiers and gaining popular support from the world. After this is done and if it works get the **** out dodge. If we need to influnce that area again don't make a major campagin out of it. Instead try to influence them with fanicial means. Also stop the support of Israel it only causes more hate towards us.

We also need to lower our national debt as soon as possible. http://news.ft.com/cms/s/9ef63678-6d...00e2511c8.html That is worth a read on one of the influence on the lack of power of the dollar. We really need to strength it again. How it will be done, I honestly don't know. Im no economist, but these tax breaks have not had a positive effect it seems. Whether they will in the long term is up for debate but presently things are looking grim.

The education system needs to be totally overhauled. We need to look outside our borders and see how others do it. From personal experience when I lived in Germany I can say that there k-12 education is way more advanced than ours. This shouldn't be at all. We also need to realise that more and more parents are both working and how this effects the children and that unmonitered time they now have. I think that these kids should be signed up for after school tutoring. The people that should do this are teachers in training (ie going to college for it.) giving kids more and more one on one time and finding out where they need attention. This would also keep them out of the streets and more focused at doing homework. Another thing is start them out a year earlier. My little brother started kinder at age 4 I believe. (He went to a german kinder.) The faster you get these kids in school and try to motivate them will improve their success over the long run. I have a lot more ideas concerning education but I'll leave that for later since I doubt anyone wants to hear more. Oh and one last thing, I went to private school for a while, it is not worth it, we need to take care of our public school system, no matter the cost.

About the immigration deal, we do use a lot of illegal immigrants for cheap labor. The only real way to stop this is to help Mexico's economy grow and prosper. Don't think that will work? How many illegal Canadian immigrants do you think we have? Not many would be my guess. By doing this if Mexico does better we grow better since our economys are so intertwined right now.

Shrug just my thoughts and idea.

 

One last thing about education. College is a buisness, no way you can make it for free anytime soon. What I think we can do though is lower the cost and give incentives for those that do well. Also the only way more kids will start going to college and doing well, will be if we fix k-12.

 

I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, so if I'm off base, let me know.

Helladumb:

Nationalistic as in he's fed up with the resources that non-Americans are absorbing. We should ONLY be concerned with the welfare of natural born and naturalized Americans.

Non-liberal but Pragmatic as in, just because someone's against the war doesn't make them a liberal but looking at the war from a common-sense approach, he feels it is unwinnable due to restriction put upon the military due to lack of help from the rest of the world=UN.

Socialistic in that someone has to pay for free education for everyone, meaning taxes would have to be raised in order to pay professor's wages (notice I didn't say salary, as professors would have to become civil servants.)

Seriously, let me know if I'm misunderstanding you. Also, I'm not trying to characterize you, only to ensure I follow your logic.

 

Unregistered, you write too much. Quit it.

First off, I am tremendously surprised at your 1st paragraph. I think you're right on except for one thing. You are absolutely right and your thoughts parallel every General over in theater, believe it or not. Unfortunately, we are unable to fully engage infrastructure rebuilding due to the lack of security that the Non-Governmental Organizations and non-combat arms military folks suffer. The only reason that the killing is still going on is because we don't have the confidence that if we were to send a MEDCAP into a village, it wouldn't get attacked.

A MEDCAP is a term that refers to a 'good will' type of group usually composed of medical and chaplain personnel (the group is normally military, but I'm loosely using it to refer to any group of folks who are earnestly going to villages trying to give them aid and build basic-needs structures like schools, hospitals....)

Right now, we are sending countless MEDCAPs out, but we HAVE to secure them with Infantry and in a lot of cases, these missions are what you are hearing about on the news because they get engaged and it turns into a huge melee.

It's also interesting that you say that we need to better engage the rest of the world in our quest to 'strengthen' the Coalition. I guarantee that that's exactly what every General over there would tell you.

Also, every General over there is working hard at defining what our 'exit strategy' is. That is a very hard nut to crack. As you know, it's not as simple as pulling pitch and exfiltrating all of our forces starting tomorrow. You're right that we are bound towards finishing what we started. We can't leave without building up their infrastucture and economy. That would globally tend to 'blackball' us. Anyhow, all the Generals would agree that we need to leave as soon as possible, but unfortunately if you were to ask them, I imagine that the answers would span anywhere from a hopeful "10 years" to a cynical "never" based on the current situation.

Pretty darn intuitive.

 

What would your agenda be? Are you the type of National Leader to state "WE NEED TO ERADICATE CRIME! SOMEONE FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO IT!!!!"

 

Actually, I'm thinking more in the context of wartime and also global competitiveness. There are a lot of things, such as immigrant low-wage labor (we need to tread carefully, because if they are "supposed to be here," they can organize and demand higher wages. It's hard for illegal immigrants to cry racism, too, when they aren't supposed to be here. More importantly, in a war against "The Axis of Evil," what prevents militants from coming accross our pourous borders? There could be 100s of thousands of foreign troops simply walking accross a border, and then getting arms once well inside the U.S. Immigration is hurting people who are born here. U.S. companies are filled with foreign workers, while new grads can't find a job. People are actually turning away from technical degrees because of it.. that is the worst thing that could happen. I work in CA in the networking industry, and I'd say 80% of my coworkers were not born in the U.S., and I'd guess 50% of them became U.S. citizens. How can we complain about our schools when we fill the demand with foreign workers? It is unfair to our own citizens. By the way, this is not a question of race. There are several immigrants of European descent, so I'm not going there.
Not quite. I think we are trying to fight a "civilized" war with complicated rules of engagement, against an invisible enemy that fights without rules. Our military is meant to fight and kill, not nation build. Our troops are risking their lives for our country, and they are fighting the war for all of us. I'm sick of seeing our troops put in jail for putting underwear on a prisoner's head while that same prisoner would slice an American's throat given the same position. I say American lives should not be sacrificed for non-American lives. Even if we succeed in Iraq, what's next? I have more tolerance than most Americans, and I've had it. I feel sorry for our troops.. I can't describe how grateful I am for what they have to endure.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we need to stay there long-term to Counter other countries, but I don't see it yet. I don't think Bush would sacrifice our troops 'just because."
Are K-12 schools socialistic? Somehow I've never seen it that way. Until recently, I didn't know that state colleges in CA used to be free. Sound crazy? Think about it. Private schools would still exist, but major budget revolutions would be required. Think of what it would do for kids? Even if it weren't free, it could be made more affordable. If schools were able to legally grab a portion of book profit margins, for example, this could help offset the cost of tuition.

 

-Cut federal spending >50%.
-Eliminate Social Security
-Cut taxes ~35%, increasing to 50% once deficit is paid off.
-Bring all troops home (from everywhere) in the next 24 months.
-End ALL federal foreign aid.
-UN OUT of USA.
-Decriminalize drug use and possession.
-Allow concealed carry for all citizens without criminal records.
-Militarize our borders.
-Allow businesses to freely hire whoever they want, including foreign workers who enter at an official border checkpoint and show sufficient proof of identity.
-Graded driving licenses. Cars with excellent grip and brakes, and whose drivers pass an advanced driving test, should be allowed a higher speed limit, and their own commute lanes. Likewise, higher BAC limits for drivers who have proven their ability to perform at elevated BAC levels.

 

I somewhat agree with the above, and 100% agree with the below:

 

On which? Who would pay, then?
What's the alternative?
How did you come up with 35%? Which taxes? Whose taxes get cut?
You understand the ramifications of just picking up and leaving? What is your exit strategy? How much will the exfil cost?
Do you understand that there are resources that we need that we don't produce on our soil? Once we cut ourselves off, those resources go away. We're not an island. We rely on other countries to ensure our way of life.
Say again, over!
I don't disagree with this a bit. So long as drugs are illegal, I support the law, but the law seems a little archaic.
[QUOTE]-Allow concealed carry for all citizens without criminal records.This is already legal.
Do you mean, form a perimeter of soldiers around our entire border area? What's the total miles around our perimeter? We'd have to double the size of the military.
That's a good idea.

 

Honestly I don't know economics that well to fix a situation like that. I don't think there is just one simple fix. I guess though that I would increase taxes on the upper 1% that can take the increase. I would lower the taxes on the lowest percent (since they usually drive the economy since they are the ones that spend all they have atleast I believe so I could be wrong.) and try to even out the loss of income through the middle percent. While the top percent would hate me, they can take the loss of income for the time period it would take to lower the deficit. By doing this though the strength of the dollar should go back up. And hopefully our economy would be moving again. After that I would try to lower the top percents taxes (as a reward for them.) and leave the rest alone. And adjust accordingly. Also I would try to lower government spending in certain areas or try to increases its revenue. The plans to cut would be hard to find. One thing I think I would do is unite all the intelligent agencies and throw homeland securiety out the door. Another thing is I would try to make it easier for people to start their own companies. Cut down on that red tape. (I believe I read some where that the less red tape the more companies come and become successful in areas.) Since I think small family owned buisness are the biggest hires in America. Also my last idea would be in getting mexico up our standards or as close as possible. We are no longer alone in how Canada and Mexico effect our economy. By helping theirs we help ours.

I guess thats part of what I would do. Its a hard subject to cover but I strongly disagree with the way this current administration has been doing things with the economy.

P.S. Good subject and good excution gpat.

 

It's just that I know that although administering a nation is difficult and can be tremendously in the weeds; shoot, running a small business is tough enough, but by breaking down problems to their most fundamental factors and then identifying options, no problem is too tough.

The more in-the-weeds a problem becomes, unfortunately the more advisors (experts) you need, which of course brings a whole new set of problems.

It's imperative to soundly identify the problem

Develop one or more courses of action - must be feasible, distinguishable, suitable, acceptable, and complete.

Analyze and compare the coarses of action.

Make a decision on which direction to go.

Execute.

 

GPATMAC:
On which? Who would pay, then?Nobody would pay - programs canceled. Which programs? We'd need to look at what tasks the Constitution explicitly delegates to the federal government. Pretty much everything beyond defense and law enforcement and operating the legislative and judicial branches is dead meat.

What's the alternative?
Citizens keep their own money and invest it for retirement at a much better rate of return than what they get from the existing ponzi scheme.

How did you come up with 35%? Which taxes? Whose taxes get cut?
~35% because it needs to be less than the spending cuts in order to fund deficit reduction. It would come from SSI elimination and income tax reduction. I'd do the income tax rate reduction across the board to prevent any whining.

You understand the ramifications of just picking up and leaving? What is your exit strategy? How much will the exfil cost? Yeah the ramifications are we use our military to defend ourselves instead of as a tool of agression, intimidation, and business negotiation. Exit strategy is pull the @#$@#$ out of all these worthless crapholes we are paying and dying to "protect".
It would cost a hell of a lot less than our current incredibly bloated military budget*. Our military spending - even before Iraq - is more than half of the world's total. We have troops in over 135 countries.

Do you understand that there are resources that we need that we don't produce on our soil? Once we cut ourselves off, those resources go away. We're not an island. We rely on other countries to ensure our way of life.
I said we discontinue foreign AID not foreign TRADE.

Say again, over!
Kick the UN out of NYC. They should clearly be located in France.

This is already legal.
Not in California. California denies 2nd amendment rights to all but the rich and politically powerful.

Do you mean, form a perimeter of soldiers around our entire border area? What's the total miles around our perimeter? We'd have to double the size of the military.
Compared to the current size of the military, I think it would take a lot less troops. We'd be defending one country instead of the 135+ we currently have troops in. We'd primarily be defending against Mexico and Canada - not exactly big threats that would require a large expenditure. By militarize I just mean that we use the military to guard the borders instead of glorified cops. It means we deal harshly with incursions by the mexican military or people who attempt to cross illegaly.

That's a good idea.
Thanks

*For reference, military budget data:
Annual Military Budgets:
($U.S. Billions)
United States 416.0
Russia 65.0
China 47.0
Japan 42.6
U.K. 38.4
France 29.5
Germany 24.9
Saudi Arabia 21.3
Italy 19.4
India 15.6
South Korea 14.1
Brazil 10.7
Taiwan 10.7
Israel 10.6
Spain 8.4
Australia 7.6
Canada 7.6
Netherlands 6.6
Turkey 5.8
Mexico 5.9
Kuwait 3.9
Ukraine 5.0
Iran 4.8
Singapore 4.8
Sweden 4.5
Egypt 4.4
Norway 3.8
Greece 3.5
Poland 3.5
Argentina* 3.3
U.A.E. 3.1
Colombia* 2.9
Belgium 2.7
Pakistan 2.6
Denmark 2.4
Vietnam 2.4
North Korea 2.1
Czech Republic 1.6
Iraq 1.4
Philippines 1.4
Portugal 1.3
Libya 1.2
Hungary 1.1
Syria 1.0
Cuba 0.8
Sudan 0.6
Yugoslavia 0.7
Luxembourg 0.2