Low Hanging Fruit to Make America Better
There a variety of laws and regulations that people have recognized are bad have created feasible alternatives and they still persist in America, these are the low hanging fruit of America that if changed will immediately improve the American Way of Life.
Top 10
- Do not require monetary bail except for egregious felonies use alternative methods.
- Allow insurance companies to negotiate prices with health care providers alongside Medicare and Medicaid.
- Tax capital gains as normal income for amounts higher than $100,000 a year.
- Make open market stock buybacks illegal.
- Have medical professions give an estimate before giving a procedure like a car mechanic.
- Raise the EITC to $2500 for all single filers.
- Let judges determine all sentences and fines with only maximums as guidelines.
- Expand the child credit to $1500 per kid up to 3 kids and make it refundable.
- Cut corporate taxes to a top rate of 25%.
- Allow drugs to be distributed and prescribed across state and international lines.
Healthcare
- Allow anyone to buy into Medicaid or another public option a little above cost.
- Basically, selling Medicaid as private insurance to anyone who wants it and giving employers the ability to offer it as well.
- Allow the new buy in Medicaid to have the same income tax deductibility for employers.
- This just makes the new public option as competitive to employers as traditional insurance who already have this tax deductibility.
- Allow insurance companies to negotiate prices with health care providers alongside Medicare and Medicaid.
- Allows all insurance companies power to negotiate lower prices for their clients as if they were the size of Medicare and Medicaid it also allows them to be informally regulated by holding them to prices close to that of Medicare and Medicaid.
- Allow drugs to be distributed and prescribed across state and international lines.
- Puts downward pressure on prices of drugs in the US by allowing people to purchase cheaper alternatives anywhere
- Allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices.
- In conjunction with allowing drugs from everywhere this will give Medicare more power to lower their payments for drugs by having access to the competition.
- Have medical professions give an estimate BEFORE giving a procedure like a car mechanic.
- e. Before you see the doctor be advised it costs $100 for him to see you. Then the doctor sees you have problems with your knee and recommend an MRI which including the machine and staff hours would cost about $1500. Otherwise you could do this physical therapy here are a list of physical therapists and exercise you can do at home. This would greatly reduce the sticker shocker of finding out how much a procedure costs after you’ve had it and allow you to shop around.
Taxes
- Raise the EITC to $2500 for all single filers.
- Currently single filers can only get $550 max raising it to an appropriate level would encourage single people to work and receive a decent credit to lift away from poverty.
- Expand the child credit to $1500 per kid up to 3 kids.
- Gives working families more support for child care and helps reduce child poverty.
- Make the child care credit fully refundable up to the median income.
- Expanding the refundability of the child credit to the median income won’t cost much if anything but does show the middle class that you support them and gives them a nice safety net to fall on if anything happens to their earning potential.
- Tax capital gains as normal income for amounts higher than $100,000 a year.
- Capital gains in general and especially above $100,000 a year is the very definition of rent seeking. Financial Professionals and Executives receive most of their pay this way and as a result don’t pay not only income tax, but also don’t pay payroll tax as a result. It is unfair and is a major contributor to income inequality. There is no reason to pay less taxes on investment income than on income you put time and labor into.
- Add a new 45% tax bracket for income above $500,000 a year.
- About 0.5% of tax returns and about 0.2% of Americans make this amount of money a year. Even most of the upper middle class which includes lawyers, doctors, and medium size business owners will never have an income this high. Taxing the special few at a very modestly higher rate would help fund the expansion of EITC and child care credits for the majority of Americans who make 10% of less than this income per year, would be unlikely to draw the ire of the upper middle class who make a lot but not quite half a million, and would go a long way to balancing the budget.
- Remove the Limit for the Social Security Tax
- The current social security tax is limited at $127,000 removing that limit would increase solvency of the Social Security system and allow the relative tax rate of both income and payroll taxes to be completely progressive. Critics argue that would discourage savings, but making over $127,000 puts you in the top 10% of incomes automatically and savings in America is simply not a problem and the historically low interest rates reflect that.
- Cut corporate taxes to a top rate of 25%.
- Cutting the corporate tax will allow companies to have more cash on hand to invest in other ventures and more importantly their employees. The corporate tax used to fund most of the federal government, but now income tax funds most of the government outlays. By allowing corporations to increase employee pay the government can tax the same money and at a generally higher effective rate while still allowing employees to have greater take home pay. However, other laws would have to be enacted to ensure that all that extra cash simply doesn’t go to the shareholders and actually goes to workers and worthwhile investments.
- Make open market stock buybacks illegal.
- Open market stock buybacks have been sucking up the cash assets and have even been debt financed to keep up stock prices that in turn boost executive pay. Tender offer stock buybacks are more efficient at what buybacks are supposed to do and less likely to be abused. There is no need for open market buybacks other than to distort the stock market to increase executive pay. If the tax savings from cutting the corporate rate are to be used properly than open market stock buybacks, the biggest waste of corporate investment, must be eliminated
- Do not allow executive pay to be tied to stock that is redeemable in less than 2 years.
- Stock buybacks are so popular because most executive pay is in stock and they can redeem it at any time. This allows executives to be paid in stock, manipulate it legally by open market buybacks, wait for the maximum price increase and then sell it before the inflationary effects of the buybacks wear off. This is clear stock manipulation for personal gain and not in the best interest of the company and should be made illegal.
Criminal Justice
- Remove all fine and prison minimums for all crimes save rape and murder only set maximums.
- Minimum fines and sentences are a tool that give the prosecutor an extraordinary amount of power and severely reduce the power of the judge. They also hamstring supposedly innocent until proven guilty defenders. Due to harsh minimums defendants have been taking a record amount of plea deals so they aren’t betting long years of their life that they can defend themselves adequately.
- Let judges determine all sentences and fines with only maximums as guidelines.
- On the same vein as eliminating minimums judges should be the only ones to determine sentence length and fine costs using only maximum penalties as a guide. A judge’s whole job is to judge the situation and circumstances and come up with an appropriate punishment. Mandatory minimums basically make the prosecutor the judge and the judge simply has to follow the law and sentence people perhaps at the wrong place at the wrong time to draconian prison terms for first time offenses. This needs to stop, and judges must take back their traditional role of well judge.
- Do not require monetary bail for any crime except egregious felonies instead encourage alternate methods or collateral like unsecured bonds.
- Another reason for the vast amount of plea deals is that people simply can’t make bail and must get out of jail to work or take care of a family member. The vast majority of misdemeanor charged defendants are not flight risks and will show up for their trial. Alternatives like pre-trial follow up (a phone call), GPS monitoring, and unsecured bond (don’t have to pay any upfront money, but do have to pay money if you don’t show up) are all methods that have been used and have proven successful. Switching our current fixed money bail system to a system that relies on alternate methods saves government money by not having to provide food and housing to people who simply can’t afford to get out.
Higher Fruit
Once the low hanging fruit is taken care of there are many slightly more controversial and not as easy policies that could also greatly improve the American Way of Life these matters will be discussed more fully later.
- Expand the EITC to phase out at the median income.
- Offer a grant redeemable only 2 years anytime in life for the average cost of a State University (~$10,000/yr.) for those enrolled in any technical or community college, trade school, or university. Need only prove enrollment for the first year. The second year requires proof of the equivalent of 2 semesters worth of passing grades and enrollment.
- Train officers in with non-lethal weapons use except in extreme situations.
- Require a city and/or state permit for the ownership of more than 3 guns.
- Require civics classes in school.
- Require standardized test only at the end of 3rd 6th, and 9th grade that only tests over extremely basic concepts in math, science, history and civics. and standardize so at least 95% of students pass. Make those results publicly available and allow schools to use that information to improve
- Decriminalize Marijuana on the Federal and State Levels.
- Set a maximum sentence of 3 years for non-violent possession of any drug.
- First offense of possession of any drug requires a mandatory class and a small fine.
- Allow bail to be met with phone calls or a device that transmits a semi regular signal instead of money for all misdemeanors.
- Eliminate excessive fees and fines for misdemeanors
- Allow prisoners to be eligible for the EITC even with no income.
- Allow felons to be able to vote once they serve their prison sentence even if they are on probation.
- Reduce a prosecutor’s power by removing mandatory minimums.
- Let judges set sentence time and/or probations terms.
- Invest in a decentralized energy system
- Allow public utilities to override monopoly rights for private utility providers for underserved or inadequate telecommunications including internet, power or water services
- Eliminate tax advantages for debt financing.
- Tax all income at So
