What would your 5 Point Plan be?

We (appear to) sit at the precipice of a large economic chasm. Something needs to be done and that something cannot be tweaking at the margins.

Obama seems to suggest more of the same. But Mitt Romney has come out with his 5 point plan (note his 5 points are buried in a single paragraph halfway down that article). I personally do not feel it focuses on the right things nor is bold enough.

We all obviously have dozens of policy differences with our conservative/liberal counterparts and I recognize that many reject the entire edifice of govt and others advocate a complete govt takeover. But from a pragmatic viewpoint, if you were limited to just 5 specific issues to address with the knowledge that we may hit a huge economic crisis during the administration of the winner of this election, which 5 would you advocate to voters, which 5 do you believe are most important to accomplish to avoid an economic collapse and set things on track for improvement?

Here are my 5:

• Monetary Policy - I believe we cannot continue with our current monetary policy and it must be decoupled from the current monopoly cartel. The most politically viable, in my opinion, as well as probably the smoothest transition would be to legalize competing currencies in concurrence with a full audit of the Federal Reserve. I only hope it would be sufficiently effective in time.
• Foreign Non-Interventionism - I believe that we waste enormous resources, life, and liberty with our current approach. All while inciting the type of animosity that requires more "security", more resources, more loss of life and liberty to deal with. This cycle must stop.
  • While this may not have the direct economic impact of some of the other issues, I believe it is critically important to a free society.
• Corporate Protectionism - There is a great deal of agreement, on both sides of the aisle, that corporations do not need the level of govt protection, guarantees, promises and bailouts. Without govt to "socialize losses", corporations would have to be more conscious of risk.
• Taxation - Taxation in general is not only overly complex, but, in my opinion, the worst part is how unseen it is. So many hidden "sin" taxes, excise taxes, fee taxes, etc. The income tax (as hidden as it is since it's taken out before you ever get the money) is still one of the most visible and certainly most talked about. Taxes need to be simplified and reduced.
  • Govt spending is the other side of this coin, and while I obviously believe we need massive curtailments to spending, I think that putting a check against profligate abuse of our monetary policy may actually help in this regard (plus ending foreign interventionism and corporate protectionism will reduce spending a fair amount).
• Regulatory Reform - Regulations hamper virtually every industry now. What's worse is that the vast majority of these regulations are written by unelected bureaucrats. While I obviously think a free market (without govt bailouts/guarantees/protections) is the ideal, I think the most politically viable would be something like Write the Bills Act. Requiring all regulations be written and voted on by Congress itself would, I think, go a long way to reduce regulatory red tape (or at the very least, to put a speed limit on its growth).
  • Whenever one considers reducing regulations, concerns about protecting consumers arises. So part of regulatory reform should also look at strengthening private property protections for individuals.

Honorable Mentions:

• Ending Drug War - While I feel this is important for a free society, it didn't make my list because I am not educated about the economic impact of doing this.
• Ending Patents - This I cannot determine exactly how impactful this would be to the economy. While I think it is important, again, I cannot justify adding it to my top 5 without more knowledge of the impact.
• Ending minimum wage - Encouraging additional hiring as well as providing additional work experience for many low skilled workers.
• One Subject at a Time Act - just necessary for a responsible representative govt.
• Entitlement reform - Though this seems to be more of a mid/long term problem, I feel that putting this on a path to better sustainability could go a long way toward improving market confidence, currency stability and credit prospect.
• [others I'm sure I forgot]
So what would your 5 be?

Obama the fiscal miser

This image has been circulating the net as "proof" of Obama not being a big spender. 

Obama is downright stingy

Looking at actual spending numbers (as % of GDP) seems to actually support their case:

2009 - 42.63
2010 - 40.75
2011 - 40.09
2012 - 40.27 (projected)
2013 - 39.22 (projected)

Even looks like a downward trend until you take them in greater context:

2004 - 34.86
2005 - 34.83 (-0.03)
2006 - 35.12 (+0.29)
2007 - 35.09 (-0.03)
2008 - 37.14 (+2.05)
2009 - 42.63 (+5.49)
2010 - 40.75 (-1.88)
2011 - 40.09 (-0.66)
2012 - 40.27 (+0.18) (projected)
2013 - 39.22 (-1.05) (projected)

When you look at it in graph form you can see the misleading nature of this. Yes, they skyrocketed spending in 2008-2009 (Bush and Obama were both involved in that). But then, Obama basically maintains that high level of spending. Add in a slight reduction from the 2009 peak and, statistically, it appears that Obama is downright stingy.

It's interesting that when global warming skeptics were pointing at the % temp change over the last decade to 15 years by starting with 1998, the warming advocates were chastising them for "playing statistics" because 1998 was a spiked record high year. Now that people do basically the same thing with spending growth by starting with that spiked record year of 2009, it's lauded as "proof" of Obama being a responsible steward of taxpayer money.

Even if you look at absolute spending you can see where the spike of 2008-2009 and then the slight reduction after that would statistically make the spending growth seem small even though spending itself matches the 2000-2007 trend almost perfectly. 

BONUS: An even scarier trendline. 

Ron Paul Next Steps

With Santorum having dropped out, many are concluding that Romney has virtually won the nomination. Ron Paul, however, is not dropping out and will continue to try to push his delegate strategy. However, in my opinion, with the vacuum of good news about the primary, I'd like to see Paul do something bold to get the attention of people and let them know that not only is this thing not over, but he is a viable (and better) alternative to Romney.

Why I don't think Gingrich is a true, limited govt conservative

Newt Gingrich is toward the top of the pack again. I believe this is because Romney is really looking too moderate for many conservatives to swallow, so they are looking for someone that is a true conservative. They are willing to overlook his past indiscretions because they feel that Newt is not only a real conservative, but that his debating skills make him a perfect match against Obama (the real goal of many Republicans: Anyone, anything but Obama).

The problem is that his record and many of his statements in the past don't reflect a true, limited govt conservative. Though I don't blame conservatives for being misled, Gingrich knows exactly what conservatism is and how to sell it. So with this upswing in support for Newt, I wanted to put together my thoughts on him at the moment and why I think conservatives need to be real careful about what they think they will get in Newt.

Few thoughts on Election Reform

The last several elections have focused on "change". The people are unhappy with their leaders. Congress currently has about a 10% approval rating. Many have concentrated on trying to get better candidates elected into office. The hope being that these politicians will reform the system and make it better. However, the fact that polls show (page 19) that about 1/5th of voters would support a candidate, even if that candidate was not a Democrat or Republican, demonstrates that there is a significant percentage of Americans that are unhappy with both of the two major parties. According to other polls, a full 40% of voters do not view themselves as members of either major party. If nearly half of voters do not associate with one of the two major parties, why are there no 3rd parties rising to prominence? Many believe this problem comes from the nature of the way we vote.

I think the US needs to have a discussion about reforming our elections in order to provide a more representative govt and avoid having half of the population feeling disaffected by the two parties (not to mention those that don't even vote due to feeling that their vote doesn't matter). So in this article I talk about some of those approaches.

Foreign Policy vs National Security - Being Clear on Both

National security is a high priority on most people's list. Not all agree on how best to provide it, but most agree it's important - especially Republicans.

When Republicans are faced with a candidate (example, Romney) that they think has decent economic policies, tolerable fiscal policies, adequate social policies, and good security policies vs a guy (RP) that has good economic policies, great fiscal policies, tolerable social policies but HORRIBLE SCARY BAD security policies, it makes the first guy seem preferable.

This is why I keep saying, Ron Paul's campaign and supporters HAVE GOT to figure out how to get both his foreign policy and more importantly his national security policies accurately described to Republicans.

To me, foreign policy and national security are two different policies. There is a lot of overlap, but they are distinct. Most people understand his foreign policy, even if they disagree and believe that it would put us more at risk. I believe that Ron Paul's campaign and supporters need to do a better job of making the case for non-interventionism.

However, even more urgently, most Republicans do NOT understand Ron Paul's national security policies - that is, what would Ron Paul do in the event of a credible threat against the US? What would he do if intelligence learns of an eminent attack against the US? He has not made these points clear to Republicans and he needs to do a better job of it if he wishes to win the nomination.