Monday, January 25, 2016

The Great GOP Platform to Gain POTUS

I would like to think I am a true GOP card carrying member.

But over the last 20 years I have found less and less of what I think are true GOP principles as part of the  GOP election platforms.

This gap started with two new streams of thought which sought power in the GOP tent.  The first stream was the likes of Peterson Institute, Newt Gingrich and other fellow travelers introduced the  idea that the US federal budget must be balanced and the country could not "live beyond its means" or take money from "future generations" and that US federal debt was an undeniable evil.  I wont get into this in depth, but not only was this wrong in terms of economic understanding or could not find empirical support,  but was for the most a cynical power grab by the uber wealthy to eliminate the inflation tax.  This crew, I will call them "Swabians" after Merkel's "Swabian Housewife", replaced the "supply side of Laffer and Jack Kemp and Ronald Reagan.  Under this supply side ethos, which use to be the GOP central economic thesis was in reality classical Keynesian economics on the macro federal level.

The second crew that has elbowed into the GOP big tent is the Christian Right movement.  They have taken it upon themselves to define the GOP platform for societal and moral planks from abortion to homosexuality and gun control.  Claiming to be God's representatives with the Big Man's direct word that empowers their views and policy proposals, they are therefore by definition anti-constitutional as they challenge the First Amendment.  They sell their votes to anyone  as long as they will in any proposed coalition adopt their moral social planks and in turn support their partners planks.

This has made what is the GOP platform now - the Christian Right - Swabian coalition.

The current platform of tax policy, immigration, healthcare, basic safety net, and military hard power will not only fail to gain the White House but will likely end in the destruction of the GOP.

The extreme thoughtless opposition to the crisis in US healthcare is also this coalition product. Before this coalition the GOP was  thoughtful and provided  leadership in establishing the vital safety net for the people.  Nixon was the first to introduce the concept on universal health care with his proposal to provide catastrophic (ie "major medical") health insurance to all, expanding on LBJ's  "Great Society"   Medicare policy.  But Nixon was shot down by the then "Blue Dog" Democrat Senate.  Obamacare is really a much smaller version of Nixon's ideas. The idea of a safety net and social welfare is not a liberal idea but originated with Bismarck's ideas so as to forestall the communists and socialists.  Bismarck recognized the legitimate right of all citizens to basic necessities of life and livelihood.  Bismarck stated: ". . .those who are disabled from work by age and invalidity have a well-grounded claim to care from the state." 

This coalition that now represents itself as the GOP does not have in the slightest the ideals I perceive the GOP stands for and is making the GOP unelectable for POTUS though the GOP does sway in and out controlling congress from jerrymandering and special interests.  They generate intense partisanship and cause the functionality of Congress to cease.  Compromise is impossible as this crowd speaks with God's knowledge and empowerment.

They are a terrible boil on the fabric of the US political fabric.

And the Swabian fiscal thoughts have never worked in the USA as it is at odds with the size and majesty of the USA.  No future generation has ever been harmed and the USA "means and treasure" is a size so vast it defies almost all's political imagination, which might be a good thing.

Now this is what I propose as the true GOP platform:

1.  A scheduled elimination of the national border and allow anyone in the world the ability to immigrate to the USA near immediately as long as they are people of good character, healthy, and without criminal records or record of acts that are anti-American.  The border would be replaced with a bio-metric census, good policing insisting on "rule of law" and medical examination.  The USA would thrive and could easily double in size in a prosperous fashion under such a schedule.  All those who are now graduating from US colleges could stay if they wish as well as all those who will wait by a Home Depot in cold rain seeking work on a bleak Saturday morning or who have  served the nation via  military service.  This policy would eliminate the entire immigrant, both recent and past, from the Democrats roll call, and by definition such immigrants respect for the USA tend to be grateful and very aware of any advantages they acquire for themselves and their family.  They are "true" conservatives.

2.  Enforcement of the First Amendment.  The GOP needs to get with the age, embrace the freedom of people to express love and union in anyway they wish as long as it does not "frighten the horses."  The difficult question of abortion must rest within the constitution and the government must support the Roe versus Wade.  Great advancements could be made with women's health and equality not by the right to abortion - which must be a right - but more importantly eliminate a separate standard for expression of sexuality and the contract of marriage for men and women.  The all important issue of  child bearing and raising must be equal for both men and women with enforced required paternity leave for both sexes of equal time.  The male CEO and the female secretary have the right and the required absence of at least 10 weeks per child.  Parents can meet this obligation in series with the man or the woman taking the first watch and then the other the last watch providing 20 weeks of initial childcare.  And day care has to become universal.  The rules and regulations that are applied to gender must have gender eliminated as the defining factor.

3.  The GOP must provide universal health care for the nation.  Bismarck did not have the great strides of medicine when he "invented" social security but if he had he would have invented universal health care.  The GOP must completely knock the Democrats ideas of universal health care showing they are feeble, not "rights" based,  but mercurial and lacking any imagination.  The GOP must table health care so the state can provide the equal "pursuit of happiness", and it is on this basis the GOP health care is designed.  I propose a two tier system, extending Nixon's ideas on state funded catastrophic health insurance by extending Obamacare to market based insurance that covers the first $40,000  lifetime costs of health insurance and the fine for not doing so equal to the $5,000 or so annual premium.  So there is no advantage in gaming the system.  After the lifetime $40,000 spend the state would pay for all healthcare costs.  Health care would be reformed with health car becoming universal and egalitarian with no difference in rooms care procedures and drugs if a citizen is worth billions or in poverty.  This would raise health care to the Mayo Clinic billionaire standards.  Fraud in medicine becomes  a capital crime and federal and full RICO standards applied.  Medical malpractice would be limited to $500,000 for mortality cases and $100,000 for damage.

4.  Corporate tax.  Corporate tax must be cut to the effective average of all OECD countries.  That would result with about a 12% corporate tax rate.  Offshore tax havens would be be eliminated and after a suitable time if taxes not paid would result in 100% seizure of such accounts.

5.  Personal taxes.  The USA must adopt a flat tax of 15% of all income no matter how provided over the poverty level.  Any income of any type that is below the poverty level would receive 100% of the deficit.  All welfare federal state city and local would be repaced with this "negative income" taxes.  No exemptions would be applicable, especially home mortgages.  For example a hedge manager who received a $2 million dollar payout offshore onshore bonus or salary in any form cash  or PIK would pay $300,000 in income tax.  A janitor working part time  in the hedge fund shop who made $15,000 in a a year the poverty level was deemed to be $30,000 would receive $15,000 from the federal government.  All option payments would be valuated annually and taxed 15% of the appreciation.  Anything purchased with after tax dollars - homes, durables, art, equity - anything would be tax exempt from any capital appreciation.

6.  Estate tax.  Use it or lose it. $10 million would be exempt from estate tax but 90% of any amount over $10 million would be taxed.  No exceptions.  Of course any charitable donations are not aprt of the estate.

7.  Embracing the tried and true Keynesian economics and apply them to the US federal budget, perhaps tempered by non societal ambitious Minskian guidelines.  The US government would not work under a cash flow annual basis but on a typical future valuation of  the country's balance sheet with the cash flow of annual flow of funds.  The current "valuation" of the USA is well over 100 trillion, to make a point, yet the USA debt is about 15 trillion. Debt service concerns should only be based upon the ability to keep current with debt service and not at all with the FV of debt, the principal.  Severe differentiation should be made on the investment that the US government makes and the consumption of investment and transfer payments made.

8.  Greatly increasing the size of the US military and project actively hard power to serve US interests and to protect the ever increasing original homeland of the US diaspora(s).  The USA simply cannot afford to allow Chinese power grabs in the islands off the Philippines.   Nor cant the USA afford the Islamist likes of ISIS.  A true Pax Americana must be imposed.  Constant innovation of the military capability of the USA must be made.  Different approaches or additions to naval air and ground hard power must be made.  It must be clear that while the USA is ready to discuss everything and anything, any use of violence and harm against the USA is no longer an option as it will bring near immediate total response.  Yet, to avoid bad leaders taking advantage of this response - the USA will remove bad actors.  The Bush Doctrine of liberal democratic governance will be applied and such democracies will be based on "universal values" with no allowances for "cultural sensitivities" such as misogyny that is central to not only Islamist but almost all of Islam. And this applies to the intense homophobia of much of African Christians, and so on.

9.  Rule of law fiercely imposed in the USA and around the world where all areas of the earth must at least have civil institutions that apply and police law at all sectors, legislative, judicial and enforcement.  This applies to Mexican cartels and Nigerian kleptocracy.  Fraud and corruption become capital crimes.

10.  The severe restriction of the power and governance of NGOs and the supra-national institutions.

If the above was tabled it would end with the GOP party providing not only worthy POTUS candidates as well as gain POTUS for the foreseeable future.  It would end with much greater prosperity and ability to pursue happiness for the USA people.  And if the USA gains such advancement, it would lift the next 500 billion of the world's poor out of poverty just as the USA following much of the above has provided for 500 billion over the last 20 years.

All my "ten points" are all tried and true conservative public policy.  If applied it would easily double the security, the worth, and the prosperity of the USA and would affirm that the USA is a beacon for the world and re-affirm the eventual, if not immediately, the Hegelian "End of History".