Republicans, unite, formulate a long term legislative plan, formulate bills to accomplish the plan, compromise, and pass the bills like Democrats.
The Republican Party, unlike the Democrat Party, appears to value egotistical arrogance and individualism over party. Republicans show little if any willingness for internal compromise to achieve purportedly common objectives. In my opinion, Republicans actually value individualism over the good of the nation and unity for the sake of governance. Consequently, unless Republicans adopt an attitude of unity, the Republican Party may not be able to govern effectively in the foreseeable future. In the US House of Representatives, Republicans may as well be three of four distinct parties because that is how they function. Republicans in the US Senate appear to have at least two factions, moderates and RHINOs and conservatives equally individualistic and unwilling to compromise. Finally, many Republicans in the legislative branch appear to be more allied with Democrats in opposition to President Trump.
My opinion is based on the absence of effective realistic action based on campaign rhetoric and failure to pass major promised legislation in a timely manner. The mere fact that Republicans promised to Repeal and Replace Obamacare for at least six years without ever agreeing among themselves to an actual piece of legislation to accomplish their promise to constituents is astoundingly incompetent. If an effective and meaningful replacement is not enacted before 2018, that failure should result in primary challenges to the whole congressional Republican delegation in the US House of Representatives and Senate. The same should be said about making personal tax reductions permanent, border control, meaningful immigration reform including a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals solution, and an end to local “Sanctuary” policies.
On the other hand, the Democrat Party is philosophically Marxist especially in relation to individualism. For Democrats, individuals submit to the good or will of the group as a whole. Consequently, individual Democrat legislators are more likely to compromise and follow the party line to pass legislation even when bills do not satisfy all of their requirements. Democrats are more willing than Republicans to take an incremental approach to accomplish their strategic long term goals. In addition, the divisions within the Democrat Party are primarily related to the pace of implementation of governance based on Marxist philosophy such as varying income redistribution plans related to taxation, environmentalism and climate change, healthcare, education, regulation, welfare, and other statist policies. The strategic objective of the Democrat Party is a US society where all citizens share equally in the benefits of society regardless of their ability or willingness to contribute to society. Democrats place no time constraints for accomplishment of this goal making an incremental approach and compromise quite acceptable. This is always true when the compromise leads toward the final goal.
Congressional Republicans must abandon their pride, arrogance, and egotistical individualism and start working together for the good We the People and the United State of America. Time for accomplishment is running out. Healthcare solutions, all immigration issues, permanent personal tax rates must be completed before the 2018 election. Congressional Republicans must remain strategically conservative while adopting the tactical attitude of cooperation employed by the Democrat Party in the US Congress.
Without healthcare and tax reform, Republicans will lose control of the US House and Senate.
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Income taxes are bad for families. No income tax codes truly reflect the importance of families and children to our future national success.
In my opinion, our nation’s future is vested in each successive generation, our children. Income taxes are bad for families since neither the United States nor most state income tax codes reflect the importance of families to the future success of our nation and our children. To put it another way, the most important business of our nation is raising our children, not business or corporate wealth. The home is the factory of the family, the family vehicles are the distribution fleet of the family, food is the fuel of the family, and washers, dryers, and refrigerators are the equipment needed to raise the next generation of United States citizens.
If my hypothesis is correct, the United States and state income tax codes should reflect the importance of the business of raising the next generation. The expenses accrued while raising the next generation should be treated in the same way that income tax codes treat business and corporate expenses. Family expenses are not deductible directly from gross income and structures and equipment used by families are not depreciable. Consequently, the United States and state tax codes are bad for families in comparison to the benefits provided by business and corporate income tax codes. The only way to correct this inequity in income tax codes would be to extend all tax benefits extended to businesses and corporations to family income taxes.
United States and state income tax codes are also great for criminals. Criminals take advantage of these tax codes to minimize their taxes on enterprises, including shell corporations, used to hide and launder income derived from criminal activities. All of the structures, equipment, salaries and benefits for criminal and legitimate employees, associated with a criminal entity can be deducted or depreciated under the business and corporate income tax codes. Obviously, most of the nefarious income derived from criminal activities is never taxed under any current tax code. Only a consumption tax would tax any significant amount of currently untaxed criminal income. Taxes would be collected when criminals purchase most of the luxury items they desire as a result of their criminal enterprises. The income tax code benefits criminals derive from their enterprises continue until the true nature of their enterprises is discovered by law enforcement and their front and shell businesses are closed.
Economists, politicians, and pundits have proposed numerous alternatives or replacements for the United States and state income tax codes. One potential solution to the unfair income tax code treatment of families raising future generations, is replacement of income taxes with consumption taxes.
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No true free market healthcare insurance market exists in the US today.
None of the existing or proposed healthcare plans are actually free market systems; and none of the healthcare insurance proposals are free market systems. Contrary to popular opinion, government is involved in employer paid healthcare plans both through regulation and through subsidies to both employers and employees. With Obamacare, government involvement in individual healthcare insurance became the law of the land. Medicare, Medicaid, and Veterans healthcare were already the law of the land. Currently, government controls every aspect of healthcare. Nothing remotely resembling a healthcare free market exists in the United State of America.
A brief history of insurance provides context for this discussion. Marine insurance covering ships and cargo, one of the first types of insurance, appeared in the early 13th century. Originally, groups of marine shippers cooperated to underwrite, or insure, the ship owners in the group. By 1712, a group of about 150 shippers met at Edward Lloyd’s Coffee House in London to underwrite the groups shipping efforts. The first fire insurance predates marine insurance by about 100 years. While the predecessors of life insurance were offered in 1588, it took about 100 years for the first life insurance company to start the industry. By the middle of the 19th century, life tables were the basis of premiums, life insurance was offered as an employment benefit by a few companies, and companies started selling individual policies available to all who could buy them.
Healthcare insurance started as a means for employers to cover the costs of on-the-job injuries to their employees by about 1875. In the United States, the first employer paid healthcare insurance was for Texas teachers. Initially, individuals established and funded prepaid hospital accounts to cover major healthcare costs negotiated for the teachers. By 1929 the idea evolved into the first Blue Cross plan. The healthcare insurance industry grew rapidly immediately before and during WWII when the National wage freeze was enacted. Employers were allowed to offer healthcare insurance as an employee benefit to attract and keep employees. The employers were allowed to deduct to cost of the programs as an expense, and the cost of the benefit was not added to employee taxable income. These tax benefits are a government healthcare insurance subsidy or entitlement. Both employers and employees continue to benefit from this government entitlement.
Before healthcare insurance was available to the majority of the U S population, healthcare was practiced in a basically free market environment. Patients negotiated the cost of care with the doctor providing care on a case by case basis. Hospital and clinic costs were established, but patients could negotiate costs and or payment plans when they were not able to pay the costs when treatment was completed. Patients could easily determine all the costs for the doctor care, medications, supplies, and hospital or clinic. Patients could also learn about the quality of care provided by their physician and the hospital or clinic they used. This is a simplified description of a true healthcare free market. Nothing like this has been the general healthcare experience in the United States for at least 100-150 years.
Establishment of a true free market patient based healthcare insurance system would require drastic changes. The first and most critical change would be to provide individuals and families complete control over the choice of their healthcare insurance plan. This would require elimination of employer provided healthcare insurance as part of employee benefit plans. Consequently, all healthcare insurance would consist of individual and family healthcare insurance plans. To accomplish this, legislation must require that employer contributions for employee healthcare costs be added to employee gross income at the start of the program. This change in the healthcare insurance system would be an important first step in establishing strong patient doctor healthcare relationships and patient centered healthcare.
The second, and equally critical change in our healthcare system, would be a means of ensuring that the young and healthy contribute to the financial stability of healthcare insurance pools without imposing œmandated healthcare insurance. One idea to accomplish this is “The Healthcare Responsibility Act.”The idea is that every individual or family would be responsible to ensure that they have the ability to pay for all of their healthcare costs either with their personal assets, appropriate insurance, or a combination of the two. Enactment of a healthcare responsibility law like this would make every individual, family, or their estate legally liable for payment of their entire healthcare costs without bankruptcy relief. With severe consequences like this, people would be far less likely to avoid securing adequate healthcare financing or insurance. Finally, the linked discussion of healthcare responsibility ends with this statement, Every good and effective economic plan should consider all the alternatives, including the wild and crazy idea that everybody should be financially responsible for their healthcare and the healthcare of their family.
A third requirement or change necessary to ensure viable free market healthcare insurance would be the requirement that each provider attract a group of young, healthy clients consistent with the proportion of these clients in the general population. This should ensure that insurance providers would have adequate financial stability to provide unlimited healthcare coverage for life. Under this concept pre-existing conditions would not be an issue since the individual and family carry their healthcare insurance for life. The same continued insurance provisions required for employer based coverage existing now would continue for people changing from plan to plan under the new individual based system. Pre-existing conditions would not be an issue. Under this concept each healthcare insurance provider would be required to provide a range of catastrophic healthcare insurance plans and healthcare saving and investment accounts for this critical group of clients. The saving and investment accounts should require a minimum balance in each savings account, a top rated bond account segment with a required minimum account principle, and allow an account for more aggressive investing. This idea would allow individuals to grow their personal healthcare savings account quickly to the required level. This group would also be eligible for traditional healthcare insurance plans.
The fourth change necessary to establish a truly free market healthcare system would be abolishment of pricing contracts between service providers and healthcare insurance providers. This change would allow each individual or family to shop for providers based on the price and quality of healthcare services. This change would also result in real provider patient based care. Providers would have to publish the costs of their services for patients to compare with other providers. In addition, information regarding the quality of care provided by each practitioner, hospital, and clinic would have to be easily available to the general public. This concept would result in open competition for healthcare services creating true free market competition among providers. The result would be an overall reduction in the costs of healthcare. Two healthcare segments currently operate with a system of this nature, Lasik and cosmetic surgery although they are not insurance financed.
Replacement of employer based healthcare insurance with individual and family system and required personal financial responsibility for the cost of personal healthcare are unlikely changes to the healthcare system in the United States. It is my opinion, however, that without these changes nothing resembling a true œfree market healthcare insurance system is possible. These changes would be rejected by those on the left seeking single payer government healthcare who would also consider the harshness of the proposed personal responsibility as extreme and heartless. The healthcare insurance industry, physician groups, and conglomerate owners of hospitals and clinics would also be opposed to these ideas. Fiscal conservatives and other capitalists would probably applaud these ideas.
On the other hand, these changes could be a catylist for creation of a true œfree market healthcare insurance system. Other suggestions by conservatives for creation of a œfree market system could follow quite logically. High risk healthcare insurance pools should be an option if catastrophic plans do not provide adequate overall financing. Allowing interstate healthcare insurance markets to exist would increase competition and reduce insurance costs and possibly preclude the need for individual healthcare insurance purchasing pools. Allowing localized individual purchasing pools or cooperatives could provide for greater purchasing power if interstate plans do not adequately reduce costs. Perhaps the best application for creating pools of individuals would be to increase the purchasing power of the groups for prescription medications. However, taking advantage of insurance provider’s experience to negotiate prescription medication prices for their clients would be appropriate due to the large number of prescription medications and producers.
Three additional groups of healthcare clients must be discussed in relation to a true œfree market healthcare insurance system. The first group is senior citizens like me covered by Medicare. In my opinion, we should be included in the individual and family healthcare system being proposed. To be viable, current Medicare participants should be guaranteed that their premiums, co-pays, and deductibles would not increase. Since this system would increase the number of participants paying premiums in the individual healthcare insurance pool, it should increase the funding of the pools. Although seniors have high rates of catastrophic and chronic health issues, around $500,000 in my case, most of my friends and associates are relatively healthy. The actual cost benefit analysis of including this group in the general pool rather than a high risk pool would determine the feasibility of this idea.
The second remaining group deserving special consideration regarding formation of the proposed individual healthcare insurance system is veterans who fall into three distinct groups. The first group is veterans like me who are eligible for veteran’s medical benefits but never registered with the Veterans Administration. In my case, I had employer provided healthcare insurance for most of my adult life until becoming eligible for Medicare. The second group of veterans worthy of consideration for the proposed individual and family healthcare insurance system is veterans not suffering from injuries, illnesses, or conditions directly related to military service currently receiving their healthcare through the Veterans Administration. Moving this group into the proposed individual system would reduce the burden on the Veterans Administration healthcare system and increase the number of participants in the proposed individual healthcare system adding to the financial strength of the system. As with Medicare, this change in veteran’s healthcare must ensure that veterans do not pay any costs that they do not pay under the current Veterans Administration system. This change would also increase funding and personal available to care for the third group of veterans. Veterans who have documented conditions related to their military service. This would allow the Veterans Administration to concentrate on veterans with significant injuries or conditions requiring specialized treatment and care unique to combat and military service. These veterans deserve the best specialized healthcare available in the United States.
The final group to consider is individuals and families who require financial assistance to secure healthcare insurance. Most of these individuals are currently uninsured or are in the Medicaid system and receive government subsidies that pay most or all or their healthcare costs. This group should also be part of the proposed individual healthcare insurance system. Their premiums, co-pays, and deductibles should be subsidized at the level of their financial need without any increases in their present costs. This group, in accordance with their ability, should be required to enroll in the healthcare system or be held accountable for the cost of their healthcare even though government pays most of their costs when enrolled. Including this group in the individual healthcare insurance would also increase the size of the overall insurance pool providing a stronger financial base which should reduce overall participant costs.
Currently, most insurance is licensed and regulated state by state. States should have the latitude to develop their healthcare insurance system in accordance with the overall health of their population, cost of living, and economy. However, the system developed by each state must be compatible with the minimum national healthcare system requirements. The proposed system must require state to state healthcare insurance portability including pre-existing condition coverage guarantees and adequate cost information for participants to make informed decisions regarding interstate moves or transfers. Given these considerations, most of the systems detailed development and administration should occur at the state level, and most of the national funding should also be distributed to the states. This would allow states to adapt their systems to the needs of the citizens of each state.
Realizing how audacious it is for a young geezer like me to suggest a complete overhaul of healthcare in the United States of America, this œfree market healthcare insurance proposal is made without apology. Major changes to one sixth of our economy, affecting all of our citizens should consider all the alternatives. This proposal is an alternative to the mess of government control currently offered in Washington DC.
We the People need Washington DC to fix the system. Just Geter Done Right.
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Capitalism’s globalism contradiction centers on cost savings in emerging markets.
Capitalism’s globalism contradiction centers on Executive’s and Board of Director’s obligation to maximize profits and their obligation to their employees, their communities, and the nations of their origin. Failure to consider the implications of this contradiction provides the left with a powerful criticism against capitalism. In the United States, this contradiction is exacerbated by our high labor costs and benefits, safety regulations, environmental regulations including environmental impact assessments that increase both the costs and time required to open a facility or project, financial system regulations, land use and zoning regulations, and past high corporate taxes. The relationship between profit and societal obligation is only one component of capitalism’s globalism contradiction.
Another aspect of capitalism’s globalism contradiction is the incredible economic success of western civilization, especially in the United States, since the start of the industrial revolution. Until the 1960’s or 1970’s, globalization was not a significant issue in relation to competition and market share for corporations in the western world. Consequently, costs associated with land, labor, and capital were comparatively inconsequential strategic considerations compared to today’s markets. Costs of doing business were evaluated only in relation to competition in the United States and other western industrial powers. For example, the big three US auto makers competed among themselves for US market share and labor. Labor union contracts for wages, benefits, and working conditions that often precluded effective discipline and quality control were virtually identical throughout the US auto industry. The result was high industry wide wages, benefits, and job security. As countries like China, South Korea, India, other Eastern Pacific rim countries, and parts of the old Soviet Union emerged as competing centers of industry, the cost of land, labor, and capital became a competitive liability for western industry.
Finally, North American and European capitalists are harnessed to strongly unionized labor forces unwilling to negotiate lower, more globally competitive wage, benefit, and work condition packages which could have slowed reductions in US manufacturing and plant closures. This issue is complicated by the success of western capitalism causing high costs of living and the expectation of high disposable income to finance the good life. These two factors make efforts to make our labor costs more competitive in the global market difficult. Western capitalism’s success also amplifies capitalism’s globalism contradiction when faced with emerging markets for our products and competition with our products throughout the world.
Capitalism’s globalism contradiction is profit versus support of the labor force that makes their products or provides their services and loyalty to the communities and countries of their origin. Interestingly, it is also the left’s globalism contradiction, maintaining wealth for our workers while redistributing wealth to developing country industries and workers.
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The progressive globalism contradiction is global wealth redistribution from US laborers to foreign laborers.
The goal of global wealth redistribution, globalism, is contradictory to the progressive goal of wealth redistribution within industrialized capitalistic countries. From the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, progressives struggled to increase the wages of the lower and middle classes, the primary work force. Activists on the left called themselves communists, socialists, progressives, and liberals depending on which term was more acceptable to society at large at the time and location involved in the world. These activists were essential to the success of the labor movement in Western Europe and North America. As a result, the wages and benefits of Western workers became the envy of the rest of the world. The contradiction, for progressives, is the fact that Western wages and benefits have resulted in comparatively high disposable income and standard of living in the industrialized Western world. For globalism, global wealth redistribution, to succeed, workers in industrialized countries must expect wage and benefit stagnation at best or decreases in their standard of living through reduced disposable income. In other words, the left gives and the left takes away, the left’s globalism contradiction.
As industrialization expanded to other regions of the world, specifically the Asian-Pacific rim countries and China, global competition also increased. Initially, lower wages and benefits in these regions allowed Asian automakers, consumer product producers, as well as Chinese steel and other consumer good producers to compete effectively in Western European and North American markets. Additionally, the fall of the old Soviet Union brought capitalistic enterprise and increased industrialization to Russia and Eastern Europe which allowed additional low-cost consumer goods to enter Western markets. The result was that Western manufacturers faced competition from newly industrialized areas where wages and benefits were lower than those in the United States and other Western countries. In the United States, our manufacturing plants, steel and special metal mills, textile mills, and consumer product manufacturing plants were old and outdated. The cost of updating these facilities as well as the time required for licensing and construction and the high cost of construction labor made new manufacturing plants even more time consuming and costly to bring on line. The time and expense of environmental impact and economic assessments adds significantly to the time required and the expense of constructing new modern manufacturing facilities.
Faced with low cost competition and the rapidly expanding global market, the globalism contradiction forced corporations to make decisions regarding manufacturing plant locations. The result was plant closures in the industrialized parts of the United States and new plant construction around the world to replace facilities closed in the US. These decisions have adversely affected the number of manufacturing jobs available, wages, and benefits in western countries like the United States. As a result, middle and lower working class wages and benefits have been at best stagnant or declining for at least two decades.
The final globalism contradiction is related to free trade agreements like NAFTA and TPP. When these agreements result in excessive trade deficits for the United States, they are effectively global wealth redistribution. This fact is contradictory to conservative ideology. Although US consumers purchase goods at a lower price, the value of the good paying jobs we lose in the exchange is roughly equivalent to the value of the trade deficit. The free trade competition results in lower cost consumer goods, but we lose good paying manufacturing jobs due to the high costs associated with US manufacturing. From the perspective of the left, opening factories in developing countries is great. Capital is redistributed from developed industrialized countries to underdeveloped Third World countries creating good paying jobs, more disposable income, and increased standard of living, global wealth redistribution. Of course, leaders and planners on the left do not discuss the sacrifices this global wealth redistribution inflicts on the middle and lower class workers of the more advanced industrialized countries. They stress that the top 1% are not paying their fair share of the costs they inflict on our workers. The question is, are workers in the United States satisfied with the answers provided by the Left?
On his last overseas trip, President Obama indicated that globalism has not leveled the world playing field as quickly as he had hoped. The 2016 election demonstrated that workers in the United States are not interested in sacrificing their standard of living to advance global income redistribution. It was the progressive globalism contradiction, stagnant or declining wages and employment in the United States, that cost progressives the Presidency in the 2016 election. This debate will be critical for the future of our country. This issue among others at this point in time and our history places us at America’s Crossroad.
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To understand progressive domestic policy it is necessary to understand that globalism is wealth redistribution. The critical concept of globalism is the statement by Marx, From each according to his ability to each according to his need wealth redistribution will occur on a global scale. To prepare people in successful, industrialized, capitalistic countries like the United States for a totally globalized economy, several precursors are necessary. Changing the minds of the citizenry to accept global wealth redistribution is probably the most difficult, but essential, step. To accomplish this goal, an educational dictatorship has been established by progressives. The second step is the left’s domestic policy. The third step is the lefts foreign and immigration policy. These three prerequisites are discussed in detail at the links provided. A great deal of progress must be made in these three areas before the final stages of global wealth redistribution can be accomplished. The left plans and thinks in evolutionary time frames. They have worked toward their goal of complete globalism, wealth redistribution, since at least the early 1800’s.
For progressive domestic policy and globalism to succeed, it is necessary to understand that both require wealth redistribution.
Some of the tactics of the left in this process are virtually invisible especially in the developed countries. From the perspective of individuals and families, the greatest difference between the people of advanced countries and Third World countries is disposable income. In my opinion, disposable income is income available beyond basic survival needs. Basic survival is simply food to maintain population vigor and vitality or a strong, healthy, and reproductive society. Safe water to drink and the ability to survive extreme heat or cold which requires adequate shelter are also basic survival necessities. The ability to stave off severe epidemics and diseases is also a basic necessity for life. Virtually everything beyond these survival necessities constitutes disposable income. Meeting these needs constitutes the fixed costs of life at the survival level. The more income a population has to secure amenities above these survival needs, the greater their disposable income.
The left has numerous resources and tools available for their closure of the disposable income gap between advanced capitalistic countries and Third World countries. Incremental increases affecting regulatory policies that increase production costs and higher taxes on fixed cost products and services like food, shelter, water, and healthcare are stealthy methods of reducing disposable income in advanced countries. In addition, taxes and regulations that increase costs of unnecessary necessities, such as advanced transportation systems, entertainment, recreation, and technology related to the basics of the good life decrease disposable income available for these necessities in industrialized Western cultures.
Similarly, excessively high business income and property taxes as well as business and financial institution regulations reduce available capital for business expansion. One of the most detrimental regulations has been Obamacare which mandates employee health insurance coverage for all businesses with 50 or more employees. This regulation stifles business growth and profitability. Small businesses either restrict growth to less than 50 employees or increase their prices to cover increased costs. Banking and financial regulations such as increased cash reserve requirements for banks reduce the supply of capital for business improvements or expansion. Financial regulations also cause a reduction in the number of local banks further reducing the supply of capital available to many small businesses. These actions result in lower product and service supplies resulting in increased costs. Until the current administration reduced regulations and taxes, these costs caused corporations to move their headquarters or factories overseas to reduce overhead costs. Loss of productive capacity also increased costs. When taxes and regulations increase, the resulting cost increases are added to fixed costs related to the real or perceived necessities for life, thus reducing disposable income in developed countries.
Possibly the most powerful tool in the progressive stealth toolbox is global environmentalism. In the United States, the environmental movement has been supported by both Democrat and Republican administrations. Republican support shows that they support reasonable efforts to maintain safe water, clean air, and stable ecosystems. Republicans, however, do not support regulations that have adverse effects on the quality of life of our citizens by increasing fixed costs of living. One of the strongest proponents of environmentalism has been the United States federal court system. Our federal courts usually side with environmentalists. Often, these court decisions have the effect of decreasing supplies of lumber products, agricultural production, other renewable natural resources, and nonrenewable natural resources, both petroleum and mineral extraction. Environmentalists also work actively to reduce planned, and in the not too distant future, eliminate existing hydroelectric and irrigation dam projects. Many existing Hydro projects are facing their fifty-year environmental impact reviews in the near future. In all these critical areas of our fixed consumer economy, the result is a decrease in disposable income as fixed costs of the basic necessities of life increase. Environmental regulations associated with global warming have the same impact. They increase the fixed costs of both real and perceived necessities for life. Costs of heating, cooling, energy production, manufacturing, and transportation and sales of consumer goods, constitute increases in fixed costs in industrialized societies.
From the left’s perspective, the stealthy beauty of the entire environmental toolbox is the fact that saving minnows, spotted owls, or rare lizards, sounds so progressively wonderful and feels so good to a large portion of the populace, the urban dwellers. The impact on their disposable income and quality of life is irrelevant to them. After all, they already have enough, until they start losing too much of what they currently have.
In the United States, middle class voters in the northeastern industrialized states who experienced stagnant wages and rising fixed costs for a decade voted for change. They voted against the status quo and declining disposable income because they started experiencing the reality of global wealth redistribution on their quality of life.
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