Friday, January 18, 2013

A Seven Point Plan to Jump-Start the Ailing American Economy

1) A national commitment toward safely being able to access the country's vast energy resources; natural gas, oil, coal, wind, etc.(we're the Saudi Arabia of natural gas and we need to find a safe way take advantage of that).............2) Massive regulatory reform. We just have way too much red-tape that disproportionately hampers small and mid-sized businesses and start-ups. Yes, some regulations are good/necessary, but currently we just have way too much in terms of duplication and frivolousness. Gotta clean it up.............3) Streamlining the VISA requirements for people who want to come to this country as tourists. We used to secure 17% of the world-wide tourism dollars (it's currently tickling 11%) and there has to be a way that we can return to that level that doesn't compromise national security.............4) Tax reform, especially corporate. Lower the rates but accompany that with an elimination of a major chunk of the loopholes. Done properly, we could potentially execute this in a manner that a) actually raises revenues and b) facilitates competitiveness.............5) Improve our infrastructure. We have way too many crumbling roads and bridges that make investment in America much less attractive. A commitment to infrastructure that incorporates private investment and lessens the possibility of future "bridges to nowhere" could really help us in terms of competitiveness.............6) Education reform. The public school monopoly just isn't working and a commitment to competition and innovation is an absolute must for the future.............7) Continue to open up trade (we currently have a 149 billion dollar trade SURPLUS in services and it's growing!).

6 comments:

Rusty Shackelford said...




Will,thats just stupid....stop being so damn moderate......no one is buying shit like this.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

It is an uphill struggle, I'll admit.

Unknown said...

I'm on board with 100% of this! What do you think of having school vouchers to facilitate the process of education reform? It seems to be an idea that has plenty of disadvantages and possibly constitutional issues. I would also stop all quantitative easing from The Federal Reserve if I were the chairman right now.

dmarks said...

I'm on board too. The NEA has to be broken up and destroyed, sorry. It has been very destructive to education; draining massive amounts of money out of the system and successfully blocking a lot of meaningful reform that would have helped the kids.

It really drivers hope the point that the teachers' union place low priority if any on education when you look at critical lists. Do they consider schools that are doing a bad job a critical problem? No, not at all. They are concerned with schools that haven't caved to the unions' demands that the school district divert $$$ from education into the union coffers.

The union also bullies, harasses, and threatens good teachers. Not only in situations where dedicated professionals cross union lines in order to teach kids (against the wishes of lazy strikers), but in other circumstances. One of my favorite teachers, an excellent one, was harassed on the job by thugs because he didn't like the union and didn't want to pay dues.

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Rob, if you were the chairman of the Fed, would you do anything like work to minimize its size and role, and open this agency to audit and accountability?

dmarks said...

Rob said: "What do you think of having school vouchers to facilitate the process of education reform?"

If there is a food stamp program which lets consumers make informed choices about products from a wide variety of private providers, what is wrong with this same general principle as applied to education?

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Yeah, I'm a big supporter of vouchers and parental choice. Those against it say, well, what about the children left behind? And that's a fair question but, as of now, everybody's being left behind and we really need to institute competition and accountability here.......And, yeah, I should have said something about the FED, too. If you look at history, most of the big panics and downturns in the country have come about at least in some measure due to central banking; the Panic of 1819, the Great Depression, and the current situation. Yeah, at the very least limit that sucker.