For this post, rather than diving deep I am going to go shallow and wide. I am just going to list the current policies I think should be enacted. I am not going to think about them much or offer any explanation for them. I am planning to do this about once a year to see how much my policy positions change over time.
These are honestly just off the top of my head. Some of them I have thought very little about and I suspect if pushed on them I might not be able to defend them. I might even decide some of these are really bad ideas if I think deeper about them but I think it is interesting to get a brain dump of my current thinking that can be referred to in the future.
Here are my current recommended policy positions:
- Tax consumption rather than income
- Universal Basic Income
- Simplify the tax code and remove deductions and loopholes (except actually do this rather than just saying it)
- Get rid of the mortgage interest rate deduction (this happens automatically if we tax consumption rather than income)
- Triple the amount we spend on infrastructure
- Cut military spending by 20%
- Create a commission that tries to reduce waste caused by senators/representatives trying to get military contracts for their districts
- Eliminate the Electoral College
- Switch to multi-winner districts for the House and use Instant Runoff voting to elect them (the FairVote plan)
- Require every state to have same-day voter registration.
- Increase tools for preventing voter fraud (ex. require IDs for voters but make it really easy for all residents to get IDs)
- Make election day a federal holiday
- End asset forfeiture
- Legalize marijuana at the federal and state levels
- Ban “assault weapons” (I know there isn’t a good definition for “assault weapon” but I say create some sort of reasonable group of guns that are usually used to kill lots of people and ban that group of guns)
- Double the numbers of visas and green cards we grant
- Do not deport illegal immigrants unless they have committed a crime (or another crime if you consider crossing the border or overstaying a visa a crime)
As you can see I am focused a lot on tax code stuff. I did write my previous article on it. I think the constant increase of income inequality is adding tension in our country but I also am a big fan of the free market. I am trying to find ways to change the tax code to fix income inequality without destroying the free market. I also have a lot about election reform in here. I think making people feel like the elections are more fair and representative will help reduce the anger in our politics (at least a little). One big problem I didn’t really address here is race relations, especially related to African Americans. I do think the treatment of African Americans in this country is a big problem but I don’t have a good solution. I put in ending asset forfeiture and legalizing marijuana since I think they will kind of help, but I know they won’t help much. I also think my tax reform proposals that help the poor will also help the African American community. I am not willing to go as far as advocating for reparations and I don’t know of any really strong ideas in criminal justice reform so I am left with very little. This is something I want to look into more in the future.
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