And the Beat Goes On

I watched the Arizona GOP Debate last night.  Actually, I watched about the first 20 min. The GOP is still engaged in the circular firing squad.  If the GOP wants their candidate to win in November, they need to come up with some serious solutions to the problems that Americans are concerned about.

I currently do not have a horse in the presidential race. The candidate I would like to support would be pushing answers for:

1.    Unemployment.  We need some out of the box thinking on how to bring good jobs back to this country. 

2.    Energy.  Our current energy policy stinks.  We need a policy that promotes energy independence with as small an environmental footprint as possible.

3.    Immigration.  We need to come up with a comprehensive reform of our immigration laws.  This should be coupled with rigid enforcement and effective border security.

4.    Foreign Policy.  We need to stop interfering in the domestic affairs of other countries.  We should only take action when their actions affect Americans directly.  Otherwise, it is their business.

5.    Education.  The cost of education is out of control.  The Federal Governments role in education should be to ensure that the states are providing good K-12 education.  Funding should be collected and distributed at the state and local level. 

6.    Federal Spending.  Federal spending is out of control.  A massive overhaul of federal spending is needed.  No department or agency should be immune.  This includes defense.  Our military is way too big for the job of defending this country.  It is an invitation to politicians to engage in foreign wars that we should have no stake in.

This gives the next administration a full slate of things to do, if they choose.  Right now, I don’t hear any candidate offering ideas on addressing these issues.  This does not bode well for the future.

A Solution to the Public Pension Problem

The finances of the public pension systems in California (and other states) are a problem.  There is a way to clean up the mess.

Discontinue the public pension systems and move all public employees to a 401k plan.

It would work like this: at a specified date (I’ll use January 1, 2013 as an example) all public employees would stop participating in the public pension plans.  The expected benefits would be frozen at that point.  The assets would remain in the plan and the participants would be able to draw on them as scheduled. 

On January 1 2013, all public employees would be able to participate in a 401k plan.  Under that plan they could contribute up to 10% of their before tax pay to the plan.  If they leave public service, they can roll the assets of their plan over to another employer’s 401k or into and Individual Retirement Account (IRA)

Those employees that choose to not participate do not have to. The can setup their own IRAs separately.

This is the path that the private sector has been following for a couple of decades.

The state employees would begin to pay Social Security taxes as CALPERS participants do not currently participate in SS.

As the public workforce ages, the number of participants will decline through attrition until CALPERS is no more.

This would clear up the problem and put the public sector more in line with the private sector.

Prop 8 Still Unconstitutional

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204136404577209183209519256.html

A three judge panel from the Ninth circuit has ruled that Proposition 8 violates the equal protection clause and is unconstitutional.

The proponents of Prop 8 must now decide if they will appeal to the full ninth circuit or directly to the US Supreme Court.

The ruling should be no surprise as the liberal leaning 9^th circuit  was fully expected to rule against the measure.  The question now, is which path will the proponents of Prop 8 follow? 

Will they ask for review by the full 9^th circuit, or petition directly to the US Supreme Court?

My own personal advice, go for the Supreme Court.  The odds are the full 9^th circuit will not overturn the ruling.

Teen sues Family

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/13/us/texas-pregnant-teen/index.html?hpt=us_c2

According to the article a 14 year old girl in Texas is suing her family to prevent them from forcing her to have an abortion. 

According to her lawyer Steve Casey the girl was physically and verbally abused during an attempt to force her to have an abortion.  Her wish is to carry the child to term.  A temporary Restraining order has been issued and the family is due back in court on January 19.

Casey said. "If a woman has a constitutional right to an abortion under Roe v Wade, then she has a constitutional right to keep her child."

This is definitely a case of the law being equally applied

Buy American

Do you want to help create jobs in the US?  Refuse to purchase products not made in the USA.

The next time you go shopping, check the made in label on each item you consider.  If it does not say USA, don’t buy it. Find and purchase an item that is made in the USA.  If you cannot find one, complain to the store management.

Only through consistent consumer action will retailers get the message.  As retailers start demanding US made products from their suppliers, US manufacturers will start ramping up production to meet the demand.

Now there will be a cost. US made products will cost more in most cases.  However, the increase in US employment will help with all of those pesky government costs like unemployment insurance, the deficit, food stamps, and Medi-Cal (Medicaid).  As more are employed, the use of these programs will go down and so will the cost.

Also, how many of you have called a customer service line and been connected to a call center in India, China, The Philippines, Mexico, etc?  Demand that the companies you deal with connect you to a representative in the United States.

Only when consumers start demanding it will the corporations start providing it.

What would minimum Federal Government Look like?

In his blog on Huffington post Robert Reich pointed out that Rick Perry’s desire to minimize the Federal Government would save the Blue States from the Red states.  As most Blue states are donor states.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/post_2351_b_943232.html

I thought what a minimum Federal Government would look like. Here are some possible outcomes:

1.    No Department of Education

2.    No Department of Transportation

3.    No Department of Health and Human Services (including Social Security and Medicare)

4.    No Labor Department

5.    No Agriculture Department (no Farm Subsidies)

6.    No Energy Department

7.    A scaled back Justice Department

8.    A scaled back Commerce Department

The functions performed by these departments would have to be picked up by the states.  This would be difficult in all states.  State taxes would have to be raised to cover the losses of Federal funds.  This would most likely in a net tax reduction in donor states like California but result in huge state tax increases in recipient states. 

I wonder how that would go over with the right wing supporters of Mr. Perry?

It’s Time to reorganize our Military

The United States needs to change the mission of the US Military from world policemen to defense of the United States. 

Since World War II the United States has maintained a Military capability to fight wars anywhere in the world.  Why?  The Defense Department should only be concerned with defending our country.  We have no need to for thousands of troops in Europe, Korea, and Japan.

NATO was created to oppose the threat from the Soviet Union.  The Soviet Union dissolved years ago.  Why is NATO still around?  They are there to stop an enemy that no longer exists.  Why has NATO not been disbanded?  We could save Billions annually by returning those troops home.

The US has maintained operations in Okinawa since the end of World War II.  Why? Japan has the resources to defend itself and could do so without our military. 

The US has maintained a force in Korea since the end of that war. Again, the South Koreans have the resources and resolve to defend themselves.  US Troops are not needed there.

Redeploying the US military to defend our own borders would allow us to control the violence along our southern border, while scaling down the military and saving billions of dollars annually.

Also, a scaled down military would serve as a deterrent to a future president that may want to go on another war adventure in some country for oil, glory or political advantage.

Add to that the ending of US occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan.  We can then pursue a policy of not interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.  Think of how much attention we could then give to solving our problems here at home.