Let’s jump right into politics! I saw something very disturbing in the last couple of days. Two items that really made me stop and scratch my head. One was a government program that was looking into infertility problems with same sex couples. Another was a government program to study how voice changes effect transgendered individuals’ self esteem. Now both of these items were given a LOT of money from the government (read “our tax money”). So I started looking around trying to verify this and I couldn’t do it. What I DID find was a list of government programs that, frankly, makes me sick at my stomach that I am having to pay for. I’m just going to list a few of them here with some quick comments on them.
- Protecting a Michigan insect collection from other insects ($187,632) <- Really? a collection? Not even live insects?
- Developing a program to develop “machine-generated humor” in Illinois ($712,883) <- You’ve got to be kidding me. Do we REALLY want our computers pulling pranks and cracking jokes?
- Studying why deleting a gene can create sex reversal in people, but not in mice in Minnesota ($190,000) <- ok… do we really have a lot of mice wanting to reverse their gender?
- New jumbo recycling bins with microchips embedded inside to track participation in Ohio ($500,000) <- Why don’t we have people who’ve learned “empty” from “full” to work collecting the recycling? Half a million dollars for “Smart Trash Cans”?
- 18 North Carolina teacher coaches to heighten math and reading performance ($4.4 million) <- If they can’t do the job, fire them and hire someone who can! Don’t spend millions on people that should have learned this BEFORE they got their degree!
- Retrofitting light switches with motion sensors for one company in Arizona ($800,000) <- I have no comment. That’s just stupid… and WE PAID FOR IT!
- Removing graffiti along 100 miles of flood-control ditches in California ($837,000) <- hey… save the money and put the people serving community service out doing it!
- Producing and transporting peanuts and peanut butter in North Carolina ($900,000) <- Ok… these are getting too stupid for comment… I’m just going to list the rest of them without comment.
- Elevating and relocating 3,000 feet of track for the Napa Valley Wine Train in California ($54 million)
- Professors and employees of Iowa state universities voluntarily taking early retirement ($43 million)
- Missouri bridge project that already was full-funded with state money ($8 million)
- University in Oklahoma sending 3 researchers to Alaska to study grandparents and how they pass on knowledge to younger generations ($1.5 million)
- Bridge built over railroad crossing so 168 Nebraska town residents don’t have to wait for the trains to pass ($7 million)
- Beautification of Los Angeles’ Sunset Boulevard ($1.1 million)
- New spring training facilities for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies ($30 million)
- Putting free WiFi, Internet kiosks and interactive history lessons in 2 Texas rest stops ($13.8 million)
- Road signs touting stimulus funds at work in Ohio ($1 million)
- Researching how paying attention improves performance of difficult tasks in Connecticut ($850,000)
- Fire station without firefighters in Nevada ($2 million)
Ok. That’s just from one list I found from the 2010 budget and this doesn’t even touch things like the national endowment for the arts. Listen… if you are an artist and you can’t sell your art… go get a REAL job and do your art as a hobby. I don’t see a “national endowment for the web developer” anywhere!
Now being serious, a lot of the things I found are not necessarily bad things. But they ARE bad when our tax money has to pay for them. And for Pete’s sake, get it right… welfare is NOT an “entitlement,” its a program for giving you something you’ve not earned. Social Security IS an entitlement because you paid into it your whole life and you are ENTITLED to it. These seem to be very small numbers compared to our debt, but this is just a short sampling. There are THOUSANDS of these stupid programs out there.
Don’t take my statements to mean I am cold or heartless, but there is a difference between giving a hand up and giving a hand out. PBS and NPR are another couple of things that need to be axed, in my opinion. They are always doing telethons to raise money for PBS, but still get money from the government. If they can’t pay their way, they should restructure, or close the door. I actually had a liberal friend tell me one time that it should be a crime for sports figures and entertainers to make more than $100,000 per year. She said that anything over that should be taken from them and given to the poor.
So all men are created equal? That might be so, but their situations are certainly not equal. Let’s not kid ourselves, some people have it easier than others. Some are even smarter than others! That’s not fair! Well, folks, no one ever said life was fair.
Now I don’t believe in ranting about stuff without giving a solution. It might not be perfect, but I won’t be one of those people that whines and complains without suggesting changes, so here goes…
Let’s throw out the whole tax code. Now bring in a new flat rate tax that only starts at a minimum yearly income. Let’s call that, for ease of computation, $20,000. So as long as you don’t make more than $20,000 you won’t pay a dime in taxes. At $20,001 a flat rate of 10% kicks in and there are no deductions. It’s pulled out and placed in an escrow account with every paycheck. Now comes the fun part… when you fill out your taxes you just put your income, and then you have the option of checking a box that says “[ ] Let the government disburse my taxes”, or a box that says “[ ] Use my taxes for the following” then list every program that receives government money. Those that don’t want their money going for “Studying why deleting a gene can create sex reversal in people, but not in mice in Minnesota” can leave that unchecked and not a penny of their money will go toward that program. TADA! A democratic way for everyone to “vote” on what government programs get money. Remember… I’m not talking about Social Security, that’s an entitlement, not a hand-out. I wouldn’t even mind a three or four tiered rate system… like 2.5% for incomes from $20,000 – $40,000 leading up to the 10% rate on anyone earning over $100,000. Anyway, explain to me why this wouldn’t be fair? Because it would put all those tax attorneys out of business?
Let the Counter-Point and Discussion Begin!
Ramblings From The Mountain Top 
So the first topic of discussion is something we agree upon? lol I’m a fiscal conservative so how am I supposed to do the counterpoint? Fortunately I’m a contrarian by nature (I know contrarian doesn’t apply precisely but I’m sure you get the point). 😉
We both agree that our Federal government misspends a large amount of our money – read that as our descendents money unless we finally get the balls to stop running deficits and pay off the debt of the Debtest Generation. Another topic, I know.
I might disagree with you about specific line items, but I don’t have all the details to vote yes/no. From your list above I might be OK with “Protecting a Michigan insect collection” (this could be protecting the genetic code of extinct species with the findings being broadly applicable), “Developing a program to develop “machine-generated humor”” (I’m a fan of AI and see this as a possible step forward, “Studying why deleting a gene can create sex reversal in people” (the information from the mice might help us to better understand gene expression is humans), “Recycling bins with microchips” (collection of social information to help program design), “sending 3 researchers to Alaska to study grandparents and how they pass on knowledge to younger generations” (possible broadly applicable findings), “Researching how paying attention improves performance” (possible broadly applicable findings). I’m not saying we should fund those items, but the details might sway me.
Speaking generally I support government funding of “pure research” because of possible benefits which are unknown and since they are unknown it is unlikely private funding would be available. Like every other government program my support is predicated upon our funding rather than our descendents’ funding.
So we agree and disagree about how some of this money is spent and the same can be said for our proposed solutions. I oppose your democratic funding solution on 2 grounds. The first is that we are not a Democracy, but rather a Representative Republic. Much as you oppose additional training for school teachers I’d say if our representatives aren’t doing their jobs then vote them out of office or change our form of government. My second ground for opposition is knowledge. Much funding will go to projects the layperson won’t have the knowledgebase to determine possible benefits. With some representative oversight we should leave some decisions to experts in the field.
Without discussing too many details I also support a simple progressive tax with zero deductions beyond 1 child per parent. My thoughts here are guided by fairness, administrative savings via simplicity and encouraging population stability.
What projects to fund and what not? Other than pure research I would say $0 from the Federal government unless funding for business development if future tax dollars have a reasonable chance to repay the taxpayers’ cost. Much of the funding you were complaining about is stuff I’d never want to see the federal government fund. I consider our system where money goes up to the Feds and then a small amount comes back down as inefficient and unfair. Our local governments shouldn’t have to “beg” for funds. We should minimally fund the federal government so we have more money to spend locally if we so choose.
In summary regarding federal spending: Fund pure research, fund business development, cut bureaucracy, keep stuff local and VOTE.
Sorry about the late reply. I’ve had some business issues that have taken up a LOT of time in the past few weeks. I figured this one would have us agreeing on a lot of things, but felt the need to get it out there. I’ve got a few drafts started and thought I’d just throw them out and see which you wanted to do first. (Or you might have a totally different idea you’d like to throw out.)
1: “…but I play one on TV…”
Why do you think being famous makes you any more qualified than the American public to have the answers to our political issues?
2: “You should reject those voices.” – Barack Obama
“Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.” Basically a discussion on why partisanship is a good thing and bipartisanship goes against the very root ideas that our founding fathers had in mind when they built our government.
3: Consequences
17 year old attacks soccer ref. Ref dies. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/05/06/soccer-ref-death-shines-light-on-violence-faced-by-sports-offic oes thereials/ On this one we’ll just have a discussion on perceived consequences in todays youth (and even young adults) is either out of touch with reality or non-existent.
Again, these might not be polarized enough, so we can go deeper and discuss things that are polarizing our nation (and world) in a more dramatic way, so I’ll add these general ideas into the list…
4: Immigration Reform
5: Welfare Reform
6: The myth of “separation of Church and State” <<– I'm guessing you'll like this one 🙂
Or, again, if you have other ideas, send them over.
By the way, yes, I'm always correcting people who think we live in a democracy, so that might be something we need to educate people on as well. 🙂 You had some great points about some of the items POSSIBLY having merit… but I stand by my premise that if I don't agree with items in the discretional budget, I should be able to specify that none of my money goes there.
Thanks, and I'll be awaiting your response!