I'm actually agreeing with Cutlass(at least in principle). What the hell is this.
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1.
Tax reform. Americans hate taxes, and as a member of the monied interests, I certainly can understand why.
I'd push to make taxes overall more flat and simplified, mainly income. A national sales tax would be implemented, fairly low, with exemptions on basic goods, so as to diversify the tax base.
Taxes on the rich would be extremely high by default, but the wealthy would be able to claim about 10% more or so than what they invest in their tax forms: in effect, by spending money, they get more money(if you spend 50,000 dollars to employ a person, you can claim 55,000 off the taxes). This helps them profit and profits everyone else by creating more consumption, economic growth, and more jobs. Whether this would be a credit, exemption, deduction, etc. I do not know. The goal is just to increase investment by the wealthy, rather than hoarding of wealth.
Similarly, bank accounts after a point would be sharply taxed to prevent pooling of too much wealth, when it could be being invested. This would be VERY generous before harsh taxes are incurred, given that these stores of money finance the little guy's loans.
The inheritance tax would be sky high to prevent pooling of wealth, though the exemption would be rather generous - about 1-4 million per individual, to reflect average lifetime incomes. This would only apply to liquid assets; corproate infrastructure and goods would suffer far less.
Make small business taxes much lower than large business taxes, just as lower income taxes will have far less of a burden than higher income taxes.
Lefties are tax and spend, as the term goes. I'm tax OR spend.
Alternatively, spend or be taxed to hell.
Savings are important, however, so of course generous tax rates will still allow plenty of savings, but not so much they disrupt efficient economic activity.
2.
Reform the government's structure and duties, including regulation.
Trim the military budget(especially the nuclear department) and place more emphasis on strategic aid and development aid to influence foreign policy. Shift more of our security burden to our allies.
Demolish the current welfare state and replace it with a new one:
Make all federal prisons self-sufficient to cut costs. Loosen the laws on most drugs to decriminalisation, at least for users. Work on cutting the use of the death penalty to further depress costs; try to gain some sort of concession from Europe(i.e. a "non-European EU member") in exchange for the removal of capital punishment.
Destroy private health insurance in favor of a national insurance company(fear of the gub'mit should keep a private national insurance company in business) to cut the costs of healthcare; also mandate that companies give salaries to doctors so as to decrease the waste of the system. Work to abolish Medicaid and Medicare and integrate their functions into this new national insurance company.
Replace Social Security with individual mandated private accounts, as well as a public investment portfolio regularly injected with tax revenue to provide for those with less money to pump into private accounts. The overall goal is to create a welfare state built on the backs of the current generation and not the one after us.
Cut the salaries of government workers, if only slightly, to trim even more fat from the budget.
Work to limit most discretionary spending to long-term investments such as subsidies for beginning industries and works that benefit the entire public(better transportation and such).
Overall, seek to reform regulations to decrease costs and improve the efficiency of the economy for both growth and the public good.
Work to get the term limits repealed, using some rhetoric about how they are an arbitrary limit on the right of the people to choose their leader. Also work to have the Presidency be won only a person who can win both the popular vote and Electoral college; the electoral college will have three votes per state, and can decide how to apportion them. This means the President must win the appeal of both large and small states.
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If elected to a second term, I would pursue social reforms, such as legalising, regulating and taxing several drugs, placing ever more emphasis on reform of the justice system, and expanding legal gay marriage, prostitution, and gambling.
