Three Trillion in Crack

In the nation's first-ever $3 trillion budget, President Bush seeks to seal his legacy of promoting a strong defense to fight terrorism and tax cuts to spur the economy. Democrats, who control Congress, are pledging fierce opposition to Bush's final spending plan - perhaps even until the next president takes office.

What the hell are they thinking? The republican party has lost its friggin soul. 3 trillion dollars, well lets try to be positive, its only about $150 billion in 1913 currency.

I hate to bring in politics, and political ideas, but politics, economics, markets...they often mix. So while everyone is out there offering to throw us all a bone ($600 I think it is) to "stimulate the economy", I thought I'd take a couple minutes and pretend I was running for office. If I was, what would I do?

This should offend plenty of people on both sides and give us plenty to talk about. I'd be curious to see what type of feedback I generate on these solutions though, and also see what you guys think could be done to fix any number of our problems.

1) Overall spending has to be cut. So called "earmarks" and "pork spending" should not be allowed to be put in as a rider on major legislation. If a senator or congressman wants a particular project and money for his district, it must be able to pass as a stand alone measure.

2)BRING OUR TROOPS HOME from nonessential places in Europe, Asia etc. They can get their own damn armies and fight their wars, should one occur. We have our own fight right now, and we can not afford to continue being the entire Western World's army.

3) Raise the retirement age to at least 68, preferably 70. People are living much longer and healthier lives than when SSI was introduced. I would not change Medicare benefits at all because older and sick people generally have a hard time finding affordable coverage , so this part of the system would remain as it is as far as payouts go.

4)Remove the maximum income cutoff on SSI taxes, currently you stop paying SSI tax around $105,000 in income. I would keep the current tax rate on all income under about $80,000 per year, and on income over $80,000 I would tax at half of the rate taxxed under $80K.

5) Cut corp. tax rates by at least 25%. American companies are cuttently amongst the most taxxed in the world, its no wonder good jobs are leaving America, the suprising part is that more have not.

6) Cut long term capital gains in half and have no taxation on dividends. I would also change the definition of a short term capital gain to anything held for less than 1 quarter (ie 3 months). I would, however, raise the short term capital gains tax by about 10%, with exemptions made to critical liquidity providers such as Market Makers, Floor Traders, Specialists and other market professionals (Ie those claiming trader status)

7) Combine many federal agencies. Why do we need an FBI, ATF and DEA who largely do the same things and then fued amongst each other about it. Combine these into one Federal Force under a single adminstrative and command structure. Similarly I would combine the various branches of our Milatary in a manner similar to what Isreal has with the IDF, Canada with its milatary etc. I would cut overall milatary spending very little, if at all, however the admininstrative and other expense savings would probably be substantial by doing this. With the savings from this move I would increase the number of soldiers in critical combat arms, intel and logistical jobs such as Infantry, Special Forces, Logistics, armour etc. I would also use parts of the savings to add more funding for better training of our soldiers and better technology. Any amount left over would be used to increase the pay and benefits available to members of the armed forces, who are overall terribly underpaid.

So, there you have it. I have more than enough things in here to piss off people on both sides of the isle I suspect. However, I do think that these ideas represent reasonable and practical solutions to very real problems. Of course our political parties seem more interested in their own agenda's, so its doubtful any type of program such as this would ever pass - but if this or something similar was done I think we would be in much better shape for it. Like I said, if any of you have additional ideas or thoughts on mine I'd like to see them. I am very proud to be an American and have always thought our country, people and system to be the best the world has- but this has been achieved over time by us working together to make the USA better. With the way politics are these days I sometimes find myself fearful of our future.

Probably an unelectable fool!

Brandon