Listed below are ideas I’ve had to improve America and they have become even more applicable with the coronavirus pandemic. There are tons of details below but they mainly boil down the following:
Improve Quality of Life with distributed tech and public utilities (water, energy, telecom), ebikes and transportation improvements
End poverty with EITC that is 1/5 to ¼ of poverty line
Make all credits fully refundable and cap deduction amounts to the median income
Reform Social Security so the minimum payment is 50% of poverty line and the maximum is 250%
Add a public medical option worth $6,000 / year and make Medicare worth an additional $6,000 / year
Ensure that critical goods and services have a domestic supply chain that can be scaled up or down as needed.
- Medical Public Option
- ~$6000 base insurance
- Focuses on prevention
- Pregnancy
- Disease
- Chronic Disease
- Mental Health
- If there is mitigation it forces corrective measures as well
- Especially important for chronic diseases
- Covers all infectious diseases and treatments as well as certain cancer treatments
- Typical 80/20 split for elective surgeries
- However takes into account corrective measures taken
- Typically doesn’t fully cover expensive elective surgeries related to age diseases or chronic diseases
- Focuses on prevention
- ~$6000 Medicare supplement
- Focuses on treatments common for the 65+ age group
- Long term care
- Heart diseases
- Blood pressure
- Hip replacements
- Etc.
- Separate room, food, and medical fees for long term hospital or nursing patients
- This allows for other services to be used for rent and food and Medicare to focus on treatment, nurse, and equipment costs
- Focuses on treatments common for the 65+ age group
- Social Security
- Pay poverty line of 1 elderly adult for single or 2 elderly adults for married
- Based on how you filed your tax returns for your working years
- Split married benefits if you divorce
- Further split between numerous divorcees
- Survivors benefits are a percentage of married benefits that are higher than single
- Have to work a minimum of 5 years to get poverty line (prorated)
- For every year worked above 5 years until payment you get a 2% increase in payment
- So if you worked from 15-65 you get a 90% increases
- Can take SS at 62 but pay a 5% decrease penalty for every year below 65
- Only get a benefit if you work above 65 the 2%
- Social Security will then be based on how many years contributed not how much money you made
- Pay poverty line of 1 elderly adult for single or 2 elderly adults for married
- ~$6000 base insurance
- Base income replacement programs not on income but give flat amount based on years or some other measure and then claw back that money with taxes
- Debt Relief
- Match payments towards debt (medical, school, etc.) up to $3,000
- No match needed for 1/5 poverty line of two or less
- 2 to 1 for poverty line
- 1 to 1 for median income
- 1 to 2 for double median income
- Match payments towards debt (medical, school, etc.) up to $3,000
- Buy Rural Hospitals
- 90/10 split between federal and state governments or whatever split makes it cheaper for states to fund the hospital than what they do now
- Overpay NP, PA, pharmists and give them responsibilities typically reserved for primary care doctors
- Overpay a few doctors and treat them as managers of the whole system rather than primary care doctors
- Have a rotating general surgeon and specialists
- Buy rural homes for expanding hospital beds and homeless options
- Make bus programs that bus homeless to these new shelters, offer to pay them in cash
- use expanded EITC and SNAP to pay for rent and food
- use base insurance and/or Medicare for mental health and regular health options
- Offer jobs cleaning, working in hospitals, and other sectors
- Have social services come by and work on improving their skills and access to services
- Create Public Utilities in Rural Areas (water, sewer, electricity, internet, waste management)
- Have the public own utilities in rural areas and focus on universal coverage
- These prices can set the upper bound for private utility providers
Utility Program Expansion of LIHEAP
- Have a plan that costs the maximum of $50 / month of 5% of income.
- Pays for 80% of average electricity usage in a
region maximum price $0.15 / kWh
- Example 1000 kwh/month average: max payment 1000 kWh * 0.80* $0.15/kWh = $120
- Up to 100% average water usage max at $5/ 1000
gallons (water and waste water)
- Example 9,000 gallons / month: 9 thousand gall * 5 = $45
- And $30 for internet with 25 mbps.
- Prorated down if that speed not available
- Any amounts over 100% the average regional water use or 80% average regioinal electricity use are charged to customer
- Year grace period where utility tries to reduce their use, weatherization, leaking pipes detection etc.
- Government charges show up as bill credits, they also waive connection fees
- 5 million subscribers average cost $1200 / year / subscriber $6 billion
- Cost of LIHEAP right now $3.6 billion
- Funding for The Federal Communication Commission’s Lifeline program:
Mandating Landlords pay for a reasonable amount of utilities (commercial and residential)
- Add this to cost of rent or a bill credit to utilities
- Encourages upgrades
- Can charge for excessive uses
- Also customers can upgrade internet as need be
- Have public supply chain for critical materials or goods (20% must come domestically)
- Make list of goods, materials, etc that are necessary for a functioning economy
- Business who use these goods must source 20% domestically
- Exceptions for industries that have undue burden to source these things
- Industries include:
- Pharmaceuticals
- Medical Equipment
- Steel
- Concrete
- Food
- Silicon Products (phones, computers)
- Rare earth metals and other battery components
- Oil and Gas
- Plastics
- Chemicals
- Household Essentials
- Make list of goods, materials, etc that are necessary for a functioning economy
- Restrict Oil and Gas Leases on Federal lands and waters to boost the oil prices for states with large amounts of production (Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota)
- Make a minimum well size in order to use federal lands
- Rent spaces for small and rural airfields for military and short electric commuter flights
- Makes connections to bigger airports
- Distributes military stuff
- Worker rights businesses with 50 or more employees or 5MM+ in revenue
- For all workers who work 1000 hours
- Can be collectively bargained up or down as needed
- $15/hr
- 1 hour paternity/sick/etc leave at $5 for every 4 hours worked, employers only have to save that money for 25% of the total hours worked for all employees
- 1 hour PTO per 20 hours worked
- $2 put to medical insurance for first 1000 hours and $1 for every hour after that
- $1.50 to retirement or student loan repayment fund for first 1000 hours and $0.50 for every hour after that
- Expand EITC to 1/5 poverty line of two
- Low phase in
- Slow phase out
- Complete phase out at median income
- Add CTC to difference between 1 adult poverty line and poverty line of 1 adult 1 child
- No phase in
- Phase out at 2x median income
- Expand SNAP to 1/5 poverty line of two, no minimum
- Slow phase out
- Complete phase out at median income
- Military
- Create large bases that share electricity, water, internet, waste management, road building, and more with other countries
- Create small bases that have air strips and utilities in decentralized areas that can be used to help develop
- Military creates a network for shipping cargo in disasters and for transporting American citizens in case global travel is shut down
- Also can do quick medical screening in case of pandemics or severe natural disasters
Schools
- Options for what courses needed to graduate high school
- Math Algebra 1 + Any other math (Algebra 2, Stat, Trig, etc.)
- Two Sciences (Physics, Bio, Chem, Geography, etc.)
- Make sure reading, writing, and arithmetic are covered
- Have standardized test, test improvement not just grade level.
- Have first test as baseline and test year by year improvement
- Teachers who improve students no matter where they start are rewarded
- Have a new home economics class that teaches real skills
- Utility
- Budgeting
- Scheduling
- How to keep a modern house
- Transportation Scheduling
- Fixing common problems
- How to eat
- How to exercise
- Self-care
- Have more civics class that are project based and teach about citizenry
- Free breakfast, lunch, and dinner for all students
- School nurse at each school at least one
- Yearly health checkup
- Rotating eye doctor or PA for other yearly check ups
- Cabinet of over the counter drugs
- School councilor at each school at least one
- Yearly mental health checkup
- Make sure students are fed, healthy, and hopefully with EITC credits not in extreme poverty
College
- Make the American Opportunity Tax Credit ($2500 for college) fully refundable so that lower income households can take advantage
- Allow it to be used for other types of school such as trade school
- Allow it to be used towards student loans
- Max of $10,000 in lifetime, allow a one-time $5,000 extension for those who used it before the new rules
- https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/257/create-the-american-opportunity-tax-credit-to-offs/
- https://www.urban.org/research/publication/strengthening-federal-student-aid-reforming-education-tax-credits-and-deductions
Data Capture and Investment System
- Make template to record medical transactions
annyomously to be processed with ML
- Record diagnosis and treatments and tests
- Baseline stats like BMI and sugar level and the preventative tests
- Record month and city (maybe even hospital), as well as age and race maybe even SES
- Images only if they are unidentifiable
- Have every federal building record:
- BIM data of the outside and inside of the building
- Thermal envelope
- Electricity, Water, and Telecommunications Usage
- Smart
Meters for what appliance uses what hourly
- AC, hot water, irrigation, computers, etc
- Where the power, water, and internet comes from
- What it costs
- What transformers, pumps, relays, and equipment does it go through
- Can check for security and American made issues
- Have every federal highway have sensors on every
sign
- BIM all the highways
- Identify
what types of vehicles use the highway
- Big rigs
- Buses
- Cars
- Utility Vehicles
- Electrics
- Fine
cities/counties for every hour the average speed is below 40 mph
- Will help encourage congestion pricing
- Hire a data and programs guy for every county
(share if county has < 10,000 people)
- Coordinates all of the data (medical, building, highway)
- Hires people preferably form local colleges to help with compliance
- Helps
implement county initiatives
- $10,000,000
/ county / year (~(3,200 county equivalents)
- For green measures, solar, water, clean transportation
- ~$30 billion / year, 10 years $300 billion
- $1,000,000
/ public high school / year (~16,000 high schools)
- New equipment for AM, solar, green infrastructure, smart infrastructure
- Teacher pay
- Neighborhood Amenities
- Park
- Library
- Stadium, etc
- $16 billion / year, 10 years $160 billion
- $10,000,000
/ county / year (~(3,200 county equivalents)
Military Equipment and Budget
- Determine the process flow of expensive equipment that is needed to keep industrial knowledge
- Complete any unfinished squadrons or battle groups
- Freeze all other expensive orders
- Buy equipment (planes, missile systems, boats) from all other adversaries big countries and small insurgencies
- Develop counters measures that are 50% or less
the cost of those equipment
- Manned or unmanned
- Under different operational conditions
- Air, land, and/ or sea superiority
- Contested airspace, land , or sea space
- Electromagnetic spectrum superiority
- View from satellite
- Work on Superiority in Space and in the Electromagnetic Spectrum
- GI Bill
- With free college give one time bonus of $10,000 or a business loan of $100,000 for 4 years
- VA Med
- Supplement to public option or private insurance that covers medical conditions common to vets, PTSD, amputees etc.
- Make Budget Percentage for
- Weapon systems
- Employee pay
- Base operations
- Base construction
- War operations
Data
- Medical
- Anything with federal funds must provide data
- Anonymize the data, but have info on BMI (weight/ height) and race,
- Images of things not the face
- General diagnosis (bacterial/viral infection, fatigue, etc)
- Confirmation tests if they have them
- Test performed
- And city possibly hospital if deemed confidential enough
- Buildings
- All federal buildings must have gauges that disaggregate their end uses
- Keep track of inverters, transformers etc.
- Save data of hourly use on database
- Same for water and telecommunications
- Transportation
- All federal highways now track average speed of cars
- Classify car by type passenger, bus, utility
- Charge for all hours average speed is less than 40 mph (interstates)
- Machine Learning and AI
- This data will allow lots of different models to be trained and to use AI for real insights in the medical, transportation, energy, and water worlds.