Presidential Platform 2008
The Freakwenter hereby announces his candidacy for president of the United States. Unlike most candidates currently in the running, the Freakwenter has well-defined positions on every important issue. Therefore, the Freakwenter expects no difficulty in getting the job.
ABORTION: Leave it to the states to make anti-abortion proclaimations. If abortions are indeed heinous crimes that deserve strict consequences, the Freakwenter is deeply sorry. Practical considerations make enforcing anti-abortion laws difficult. Conveniently, ignoring the abortion issue allows natural selection to do its work by reducing the proliferation of people who don't like babies. More importantly (and a lot less crassly), unwanted-pregnancy prevention programs are more cost effective than anti-abortion programs in stopping abortion. The Freakwenter will include ample funding for free public birth control and education as part of the health care initiative, described below.
HEALTH CARE: The Freakwenter will phase out Medicaid and Medicare and simultaneously phase in medical clinics where people can walk in at any time and receive basic health care (excluding cosmetic surgery, heart transplants, certain other extremely expensive proceedures). The clinics will be located within 10 miles of most populated areas in the country. The clinics will be staffed using federal funds. Federal laws will protect doctors in these clinics from all but the most severe malpractice lawsuits. The government will subsidize tuition to medical school. This will increase the number of people going into the medical field and bring down the cost of hiring doctors for the clinics, by the law of supply and demand.
IMMIGRATION: The Freakwenter will increase funding for border security by about 30% and simultaneously increase funding to expedite the application process for entry into the US. Illegal immigrants currently in the US will be offered the opportunity to stay under the terms and conditions proposed by President Bush in his recent immigration proposal. The annual immigration cap will be 3% of the current US population, or about 9 million people. The first million will be accepted on the basis of value for the US economy. The rest will be chosen by lottery.
MILITARY and FOREIGN POLICY: The Freakwenter will pull all troops out of IRAQ within two months. The 200,000+ troops in other areas of the world will gradually pull out over a 5-year period. Most troops will be happy to go back to their normal lives and jobs in the US. Those who prefer to stay in the military for a career will be retrained to improve US border security, inspect cargo containers at major ports, and patrol high-profile terror targets within the US. The Freakwenter will discontinue the US nuclear weapons program, disarm all nuclear weapons and launch pads, and discontinue funding for most new weapons and weapons research. This will bring the annual military budget down to about $100 billion for a purely defensive force which train specifically for the purpose of coordinating a sophisticated insurgency in the event of an occupation by foreign forces. The Freakwenter will phase out all currently existing federal payments to overseas organizations (besides payments on loans) including Israel and Palestine. The general philosophy is that the US will attract fewer attacks on the homeland by not meddling in the affairs of other nations. Finally, the Freakwenter will establish a statehood application program that allows foreign nations to apply for statehood with the US.
MINIMUM WAGE: $1 per hour.
WELFARE: Cancel all existing welfare programs including social security. Everybody gets a non-taxable sum of $5,000 per year split into four quarterly payments. People who cannot make it (in combination with other income) on this are welcome to forfeit their free money and check themselves in at regional poor houses, which will be a humane dormitory-like environment that provides job training, drug rehab, and extremely basic living facilities for people who will never make it on their own.
BUDGET TAXES and SUBSIDIES: The Freakwenter will phase out all corporate taxes and agricultural subsidies. Most sales taxes will be eliminated. Exceptions include a 50% fossil fuel tax and harmful drug tax. Income taxes will rise as much as necessary to produce a 10% budget surplus to begin paying of the national debt. The income tax structure will be vastly simplified. "Exemptions" will no longer exist, even for parents (parents get paid the annual $5,000 welfare sum for each child under 18. However, the income tax will be progressive. For example, people who earn $1,000,000 per year will face perhaps a 60% tax rate; people earning $100,000 per year would pay about 35%; people who earn $20,000 year pay nothing; people who earn $2,000 or less per year (say they are working at the minimum wage of $1/hr) would be PAID a 300% subsidy on their earnings. The gaps would be filled in in such a way that earning more always results in having more to spend. Under this tax structure, the people with the greatest incentive to earn more would be those who aren't working at all and those who are making about $20,000 per year.
KATRINA and DISASTER RESPONSE: Areas ravaged by disaster of any kind will not receive special federal treatment. That's what the welfare program is for. Everybody who is poor has a perfectly valid excuse for it. People who lose their house to a flood deserve federal aid no more than people who were born incapable of taking care of themselves. FEMA will be redesigned to focus on immediate disaster relief, i.e., setting up tents for temporary shelter, providing food for short periods, and transporting people to poor houses if they have no other place to go.
AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION: The Freakwenter will end Democracy as we know it and initiate a version of pollacracy (see An Introduction to Pollacracy) in which voting will be like jury duty. People who are randomly selected to vote will be required to sit in court for three weeks at different periods of the campaign season to discuss and weed out potential candidates and eventually participate in an election as citizens well-educated on the issues.
STEM CELL RESEARCH: The Freakwenter will deregulate the stem cell industry so researchers can finally figure out what the heck stem cells are and explain it to us.
ABORTION: Leave it to the states to make anti-abortion proclaimations. If abortions are indeed heinous crimes that deserve strict consequences, the Freakwenter is deeply sorry. Practical considerations make enforcing anti-abortion laws difficult. Conveniently, ignoring the abortion issue allows natural selection to do its work by reducing the proliferation of people who don't like babies. More importantly (and a lot less crassly), unwanted-pregnancy prevention programs are more cost effective than anti-abortion programs in stopping abortion. The Freakwenter will include ample funding for free public birth control and education as part of the health care initiative, described below.
HEALTH CARE: The Freakwenter will phase out Medicaid and Medicare and simultaneously phase in medical clinics where people can walk in at any time and receive basic health care (excluding cosmetic surgery, heart transplants, certain other extremely expensive proceedures). The clinics will be located within 10 miles of most populated areas in the country. The clinics will be staffed using federal funds. Federal laws will protect doctors in these clinics from all but the most severe malpractice lawsuits. The government will subsidize tuition to medical school. This will increase the number of people going into the medical field and bring down the cost of hiring doctors for the clinics, by the law of supply and demand.
IMMIGRATION: The Freakwenter will increase funding for border security by about 30% and simultaneously increase funding to expedite the application process for entry into the US. Illegal immigrants currently in the US will be offered the opportunity to stay under the terms and conditions proposed by President Bush in his recent immigration proposal. The annual immigration cap will be 3% of the current US population, or about 9 million people. The first million will be accepted on the basis of value for the US economy. The rest will be chosen by lottery.
MILITARY and FOREIGN POLICY: The Freakwenter will pull all troops out of IRAQ within two months. The 200,000+ troops in other areas of the world will gradually pull out over a 5-year period. Most troops will be happy to go back to their normal lives and jobs in the US. Those who prefer to stay in the military for a career will be retrained to improve US border security, inspect cargo containers at major ports, and patrol high-profile terror targets within the US. The Freakwenter will discontinue the US nuclear weapons program, disarm all nuclear weapons and launch pads, and discontinue funding for most new weapons and weapons research. This will bring the annual military budget down to about $100 billion for a purely defensive force which train specifically for the purpose of coordinating a sophisticated insurgency in the event of an occupation by foreign forces. The Freakwenter will phase out all currently existing federal payments to overseas organizations (besides payments on loans) including Israel and Palestine. The general philosophy is that the US will attract fewer attacks on the homeland by not meddling in the affairs of other nations. Finally, the Freakwenter will establish a statehood application program that allows foreign nations to apply for statehood with the US.
MINIMUM WAGE: $1 per hour.
WELFARE: Cancel all existing welfare programs including social security. Everybody gets a non-taxable sum of $5,000 per year split into four quarterly payments. People who cannot make it (in combination with other income) on this are welcome to forfeit their free money and check themselves in at regional poor houses, which will be a humane dormitory-like environment that provides job training, drug rehab, and extremely basic living facilities for people who will never make it on their own.
BUDGET TAXES and SUBSIDIES: The Freakwenter will phase out all corporate taxes and agricultural subsidies. Most sales taxes will be eliminated. Exceptions include a 50% fossil fuel tax and harmful drug tax. Income taxes will rise as much as necessary to produce a 10% budget surplus to begin paying of the national debt. The income tax structure will be vastly simplified. "Exemptions" will no longer exist, even for parents (parents get paid the annual $5,000 welfare sum for each child under 18. However, the income tax will be progressive. For example, people who earn $1,000,000 per year will face perhaps a 60% tax rate; people earning $100,000 per year would pay about 35%; people who earn $20,000 year pay nothing; people who earn $2,000 or less per year (say they are working at the minimum wage of $1/hr) would be PAID a 300% subsidy on their earnings. The gaps would be filled in in such a way that earning more always results in having more to spend. Under this tax structure, the people with the greatest incentive to earn more would be those who aren't working at all and those who are making about $20,000 per year.
KATRINA and DISASTER RESPONSE: Areas ravaged by disaster of any kind will not receive special federal treatment. That's what the welfare program is for. Everybody who is poor has a perfectly valid excuse for it. People who lose their house to a flood deserve federal aid no more than people who were born incapable of taking care of themselves. FEMA will be redesigned to focus on immediate disaster relief, i.e., setting up tents for temporary shelter, providing food for short periods, and transporting people to poor houses if they have no other place to go.
AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION: The Freakwenter will end Democracy as we know it and initiate a version of pollacracy (see An Introduction to Pollacracy) in which voting will be like jury duty. People who are randomly selected to vote will be required to sit in court for three weeks at different periods of the campaign season to discuss and weed out potential candidates and eventually participate in an election as citizens well-educated on the issues.
STEM CELL RESEARCH: The Freakwenter will deregulate the stem cell industry so researchers can finally figure out what the heck stem cells are and explain it to us.
posted by My Freakwentness at 6:06 PM
3 Comments:
I'd consider voting for you, but don't you think that you'd be alienating the lower class portion of your consituancy with the $1 minimum wage? Is that good for them in some substantial, but indirect way? If so, how?
In defense of the freakwenter's proposal of a $1 minimum wage, notice two things. First, a worker earning $1/hr under the freakwenter's taxation scheme will get a 300% subsidy on his wages, effectively earning $4/hr (on top of the annual $5000 welfare payment). Second, most economists prefer low minimum wages because this make it easier for business create jobs. Businesses will be happy to hire practically anyone to sweep the sidewalk or do advertising if they can get it done for just $1 per hour.
I like the military withdrawal, but I think it would also be the issue that would alienate the freakwenter's constituency.
Post a Comment
<< Home