Stalemate - The all American way

It's been several months since our president floated the balloons which he hoped would morph into an American health care system - and I'm very disappointed at the results. Not only do we have nothing we can be proud of, but we've shown that our political system is completely dysfunctional. Even the pundits on Sunday Morning talk shows are starting to talk about the need for a third party - to break the log jam and address many of the issues America needs to tackle now.

The so called "tea parties" are showing increased voter frustration at government. Right now, they tend to tag the Democrats with the responsibility for our mess. But once they put the Republicans in charge, they will find them just as impotent in getting an agenda passed. When will they learn that Washington itself is the problem? But even if they realize this, it will not be enough. Approximately 80% of Federal spending is mandated - Who wants to tell our seniors that they have to die earlier so that we don't spend as much paying for their health care? I certainly don't. Who wants to tell our seniors that they can't retire on time, because we've squandered the "investments" which were meant to pay for their retirements? I certainly don't. But who wants to pay more into a system to cover expenses which were inadequately funded that are now coming due with the Baby Boomer retirements? I certainly don't. And if the rest of America is like me, then we have problems. We are going to be forced into making some very hard and unpopular choices - and will have hell to pay for decades of inaction.

I propose some simple actions:

1. Immediately push forward the dates to collect social security at full benefit levels by three years. Early retirement would take place at 65 instead of 62.
2. For those who have already retired and are collecting Social Security before the enaction of proposal #1 above, a new Federal Estate tax of 10% (on all affected persons' estates) to bulk up the coffers of Social Security.
3. Increasing the quotas for new immigrants, so that they can bulk up the funding for Social Security. (If we aren't growing our population by native birth rate, we might as well import new immigrants to help pay for current expenses.)
4. Implementing an import tariff based on the balance of payments. When we are earning more money from exports than we are paying out for imports - there is no tariff change, or there will be a slight reduction to put the payments in balance. When we are not earning enough money from exports to pay for the goods and services we import, we raise the tariff enough to buy fewer enough foreign goods to being our payments into balance.
5. Replacing a significant portion of America's income taxes with equivalent consumption taxes to spur investment. We could use a floor, where everyone gets a consumption tax rebate, so that the net tax change to our poor would be nil - yet, we'd discourage the needless consumption of underpriced foreign goods that are putting American workers on the unemployment lines.
6. Implementing the "Pickens Plan" to shift America's energy use from expensive imported oil to renewable resources such as wind power.

One problem - do we trust our government NOT to hide net tax increases to fund their pet pork projects?

The disgruntled blogger.