How To Fix the US Economy in 5 Steps | QPOL Issue #19
A comprehensive strategy to turn America around Part 1.
How does America get out of its debt debacle? Can America balance it’s budget? It’s not going to be easy, and not ideal. Fortunately, it won’t leave anybody high and dry who needs help. Joseph Brown of Hersey Capital makes a compelling argument that America could clean up its act in 5 steps.
End Medicare
Eliminate Social Security
End All Federal Spending on Education
Bring Home the Military
End The Fed
This piece is will attempt to take a further and more in-depth analysis on the points Brown has made and comb through some of the nuance and uncertainty. Granted, given the incentives of politicians and despite any new turnover after the midterms, these steps will not be taken easily if taken at all. However, desperate times come for desperate measures. Any individual who considers themselves a public servant for the United States has an obligation to assert America’s robust economic resilience and independence through fiscal and monetary policy. This piece will be part 1 of 3 and will explain how the following steps can and will lead America to financial stability and economic prosperity.
1. End Medicare
Why would we end Medicare? Because we have Medicaid. Both Medicare and Medicaid are government programs that pay for your healthcare, but there are some simple differences.
Medicare is age based - it pays for your healthcare if you’re above 65
Medicaid pays for it if you need it (needs based)
So again, why end it? Don’t old people need money to be healthy? Yes, but here lies a couple problems.
1 - spending has ballooned over $900B in the past couple of years
2 - statistically the number one predictor of wealth is age - the older you are, the higher likelihood you have of being wealthy.
Meaning - a taxpayer funded program (Medicare) takes money from people who statistically has the least of it to pay for the people who have the most of it… a ponzi
This is because AGAIN…Medicare is not NEEDS BASED, it’s AGE BASED! THIS is why we don’t need to tax the rich, have an inheritance tax, increase the state tax, and take away everything from everybody when they die.
If you’re not FIRST ending Medicare, it makes no sense to be transferring wealth away from the entire population to pay for the healthcare of rich old people so they can have a larger inheritance.
They should have to pay for ALL their medical expenses and when they run out of money, there’s MEDICAID.
Some might retort and say, “But there’s not that many rich old people, so you’re just going to be replacing Medicare with Medicaid!”
Not exactly. As the video points out, the Minneapolis Fed found that eliminating Medicare results in a net savings of 46¢ on the dollar if everyone switched from Medicare to Medicaid.
This was framed as a negative arguing that we might as well just keep Medicare, but if we’re already spending $900B on Medicare a year, roughly cutting it in half still gives them ~ $400B (which ain’t nothing).
Replacing Medicare with Medicaid is fair because you stop transferring wealth from the young poor to the rich and old, just for the purpose of causing them not to have to spend their money (which the government is going to tax anyway).
Might as well stop the subsidy of Medicare, make the rich spend their money on health problems, and use Medicare when they need it (because there’ll be plenty of money left thanks to the savings) - nobody gets left behind
2. Eliminate Social Security
Social Security is a bankrupt program. Like Medicare, it subsidizes rich old people so they don’t have to burn through their assets and enables them to have a higher inheritance…a ponzi. We can eliminate social security entirely.
Sure, it might not be fair that the people who put all that money into Social Security from the start of their job won’t get it back. However, none of that matters because those dollars they originally put in won’t buy nearly as much when they retire thanks to inflation.
Ending social security would implement a well-needed forced austerity. It would stop irresponsible spending on social security and end the extraction of wealth from the young and middle class. and come out of this economic mess with some integrity left as a country.
Many might ask “but what about the people who rely on social security just to make ends meet?” Thankfully, there’s a plan for that too! It’s called Supplemental Security income (SSI). What exactly is SSI?
SSI provides monthly payments to meet basic needs for food, clothing, shelter.
Not everyone gets the same amount - you get more if your state adds money to federal SSI. You get less if you have other income from wages, or other pensions
Eligible to apply if you’re 65+, blind, disabled, have limited income, have limited resources
Remember, the entire point of building a large nest egg for retirement is to take care of expenses without having to work, and care for yourself when you’re old. Therefore, the elderly should be able to burn through their resources until they need SSI. We must stop subsidizing the inheritance of the wealthy. This scheme of neo-feudalism and socialism is bankrupting our country and funneling out the middle class.
In part 2, we will discuss the how-to of step 3, End All Federal Spending on Education, and step 4, Bring Home the Military.
~ Phil Gibson