Entitlement and Mandatory Service After last night's State of the Union address by George W, I was reflecting on some of the items suggested in my previous post What Would You Do As President?

I want to think about entitlement and mandatory service. The talking points from that post follow:

• Social Security and Medicare stop. You can stay on, but if you are under 40... you can forget ever using them. They are entitlement and bankrupting the government
• Mandatory civil service. We can talk about giving you college tuition, but you serve. It can be military, or it can be civil (be a meter maid, that's fine with me). You will do something to give back to your country for a little while.
• Require all able-bodied citizens between ages 18 and 35 (male and female) to undergo military bootcamp. This is NOT a draft however; after going through bootcamp, you are not required to serve in the military.

It is very obvious that the entitlement programs are bankrupting the government and something, somewhere is gonna have to give at some point.

Bush has one plan: privatize social security savings. The first bullet point simply decides to drop it. It doesn't really provide any details, but I'm sure a complete removal of social security while allowing grandfathered recipients to stay on would cause quite an uproar. Perhaps he means more of a phased diminishing of what we currently know as social security until it gets to a point where it no longer exists as we currently know it.

Medicare/Medicaid is another entitlement program that costs bazillions of dollars. I mean, I guess we don't want all of our nation's seniors to be forgotten and left to die because their medical expenses are too expensive (yes, I know seniors are not the only users of those programs...).

What are the alternatives? Nationalized health care? Privatized Medicare programs? Letting people get sick and die long before they would if health care was provided for them?

I don't even want to get into other entitlement programs like welfare, but let's just say that lots of money gets spent by the government on citizens that put far less into the system than they are now receiving. It's a small case of take from the rich and give to the needy.

How can the government pay for all of it?

It reminds me of JFK when he said "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country". When everything is boiled down the government can only do things that it has the resources to do. Those resources come from the people. We usually think of resources as dollars, so that translates to various taxes. However, it could also mean "free" service to the country.

Israel requires all of it's citizens to participate in mandatory military service. That applies to both males AND females. This is addressed by the last two bullet points. Mandatory civil service is a much more realistic concept than mandatory military service so more diverse opportunities would be made available to those required to serve. Mandatory boot camp is a separate but interesting concept. This would actually cost the government more money than it would possibly raise. However, I can immediately see a handful of benefits:

• Many boot camp graduates would continue on into the military as inertia would simply make that an obvious choice
• All U.S. citizens would have a very basic level of military training. This is important as our borders do not provide an impenetrable barrier to war and terrorism. An attacker that makes it to domestic territory would meet a more ready force if boot camp was mandatory
• Fringe benefits of increased structure, respect, and healthy habits

The other option is to have greatly increased taxation levels - much more than today. We are talking at least an extra $1000/person every year. Minimum.

Which choice sounds the best? Eliminating or drastically changing entitlement programs, creating mandatory civil service, or dramatically increasing taxes? Probably some combination, but how would it look?

Labels: entitlement, government, military, politics, president, taxes, welfare

  ¶ 2:14 PM 0 Comments

  What Would You Do As President? A bunch of people responded to the question What would you do as president of the United States of America?

I compiled a list of some of the interesting responses here (I'll be talking about a few of these in detail in a future post). I don't necessarily agree with all of these, but they are interesting to think about -- even if many are not feasible.

• Social Security and Medicare stop. You can stay on, but if you are under 40... you can forget ever using them. They are entitlement and bankrupting the government
• Congress now has a term limit. Lets say... 15 years.
• Cable lines are nationalized. Comcast et al can lease them from the government. Heck, you can use them for free. We need competition.
• Net neutrality is mandatory. If you degrade someone else's service because it competes with your own, you get fined BIG.
• Drivers licenses get harder to get and keep. Too many morons on cell phones that need to learn it's not a right.
• If you get caught in the country illegally, you get thrown out. Today. No questions... you're on the plane. Each time you sneek in, we send you farther away. If you've been here over 5 years and can speak English, you can stay. You're not a citizen. You're on a permanent visa. No voting. If you want citizenship, you can go back to your country and apply like everyone else.
• English is the national language. You want a government document in something else? Too bad, go to a country that speaks that language.
• Mandatory civil service. We can talk about giving you college tuition, but you serve. It can be military, or it can be civil (be a meter maid, that's fine with me). You will do something to give back to your country for a little while.
• Voting districts are now drawn by computer based on population and area. No more rigging that. You can't do it by race. You can't do it by party affiliation. If the seat isn't competitive, then we change the district to make it more competitive.
• Voting tests. They may have a really bad rap, but that's OK with me. Nothing complex, just some simple stuff. You have to be able to read at a 6th grade level. This discriminated against blacks because it was illegal to teach them to read. These days if you can't read, you can't participate effectively in politics. You also have to pass a ludicrously simple geography test. They will always change so you can't easily be taught to the test. If you can't find Canada on a map, you can't vote in the US.
• Able-bodied welfare recipients using benefits for greater than 12 months of the previous 4 years lose the right to vote.
• You can't get divorced without 6 months of good marriage counseling, preferable faith-based (you choose the faith, obviously). The one exception is abuse. If there is abuse, you can leave today. We'll help. But if you accuse abuse and it is proven that you lied, you're locked up.
• Also on the marriage front, you can't get married without at least a few sessions of marriage counseling. Talk about kids, values, in-laws, sex, where you want to live, religion, and everything else. The divorce rate is too high, and I see it as causing too many problems. These last two are designed to help lower that and improve things.
• There is a lot I don't like about the education system. We can try many different things to fix that. But if you cause too many problems schools should be able to kick you out. If you are that problematic your parents can educate you (or find someone else to). Stop ruining it for everyone else.
• Speaking of schools, let's partially privatize them. Similar to vouchers, the parents of the students can decide semester by semester where to send their kids. Schools get reimbursement based on their popularity and testing rates. Some privatization needs to occur to make education more efficiently run.
• If you don't like high school, that's OK, you can quit. As soon as you hit... let's say 10th grade... you can choose. You can continue on college prep (which is what most high schools are at this point) or you can go to a trade school. It's your choice. If you change your mind you can always get your GED later.
• File all the lawsuits you want. But if they are proven frivolous, you're paying for court costs (capped to keep things reasonable). You can't sue everyone, hope something sticks, and get away paying nothing anymore.
• Reverse laws that punish victimless crimes.
• Pardon and release non-violent drug offenders to help with prison overcrowding - stick 'em with a fine instead.
• Revise the tax code to bring fairness and relief to the working/middle classes
• Legalize ALL drugs (this includes regulation and taxation. Want to end the illegal drug trade? This is the fastest way.)
• Require all able-bodied citizens between ages 18 and 35 (male and female) to undergo military bootcamp. This is NOT a draft however; after going through bootcamp, you are not required to serve in the military.
• Abolish the two-party system
• Erase all censorship from all media...This includes: Internet, Television, print, video games, music, etc.
• Build a border-spanning fence. Every 75 miles, have a reinforced entry way in which people are allowed through.
• Require that any immigrants that enter the US to be able to speak English prior to being granted citizenship.
• Create a program that would be known as "If you can't feed em, don't breed em". Welfare drastically reduces for each additional child, hitting zero additional benefit after the third child.
• I would legalize hemp for industrial uses. There are so many great industrial uses for hemp that it is absolutely stupid not to be using it.
• Create a new government department who's purpose is to remove, regulate, or severly limit government programs and departments that are unnecessary, outdated, or are full of too much glut. Every government program gets increasingly bloated and expensive as time goes on, and it will continue to do so if there is not revolution or an active force combating it.
• Remove all religious persecution on the law books. The separation of church and state means faith-based institutions and leaders do not have direct political power. It has nothing to do with christmas trees, prayer in schools, putting a picture of Ghandi in a walkway, Halloween, or singing songs that may or may not have originated within a specific faith. It comes down to individuals and their beliefs, not institutions regulating these activities.

You can read more at slashdot

Labels: drugs, education, government, law, politics, rants, taxes, welfare

  ¶ 12:43 PM 3 Comments

  Cutting Out The Excess So, I don't understand why we have less money every month than the month before. A year ago I had $10K in the bank, 5 months ago I had $3K in the bank, this month I have $17.00 in the bank. If this trend continues I will have a lot of debt collectors bugging me starting next month.

I figured it out.

I create a real budget-- using actual bank / credit card statements to determine what we really spend month to month. Now it all makes sense, here is why we are losing out money:

We spend more per month than we make.

It doesn't feel like we are living lavishly, and we used to have money -- so what changed? My wife stopped working, but we kept on living at the exact same lifestyle.

A cup of Starbucks here and there or a night out for dinner and drinks a few times a week had been adding up to a considerable amount of money. Somehow, without buying cars, HDTVs, or really anything we have found a way to spend more than I earn.

Now it's a big game of cutting out the excess in our lives, making everything efficient, staying home more, going out for coffee less, and figuring out how not to go into debt. Where's Dave Ramsey when you need him?

FUN FUN FUN.

Labels: budget, debt, money

  ¶ 3:16 PM 7 Comments