Sunday, August 29, 2010

My Campaign Platform - Part 1 of ?

Inspired by my Facebook friend Alberto Pupo (hi Alberto) I have compiled a bulleted list of some of what would be my election platform if I were so silly as to run for national office.

  • Withdraw all troops from Afghanistan
  • Withdraw all troops from Iraq
  • Withdraw most troops from South Korea
  • Cut Defense Spending by 30%
  • Make university education free for all that can maintain a suitable GPA. Say 2.0 for undergrad, 3.0 for Masters level and 3.5 for PhD. Admission to a particular school would still be controlled by the school.
  • Make community college/vocational training free for all that can maintain some reasonable standard of progress
  • Universal single payer health care.
  • Drop corporate income tax to 30%
  • Change personal income tax brackets to be 10%, 20% and 30% at $50000, $100000 and $250000 respectively with anyone under $25000 paying no income tax
  • Phase out of mortgage interest deduction. Existing mortgages will still have the interest deduction honored but mortgages entered into after election day will have only 5 years of tax deduction at which point the deduction will end.
  • Elimination of most, if not all, tax deductions.
  • Payroll taxes to be paid on all earned income
  • Capital gains to be taxed as ordinary income with a lifetime $2000000 exemption.
  • Estate tax of 30% with an exemption of $2000000. This can be added to any of the capital gains exemption that has not been used.
  • End of software patents
  • End of Business Process patents
  • Immigration policies that encourage highly skilled people to come here without dealing with a multi-year process
  • Enforcement of laws against hiring people without proper immigration status
  • Pathway to citizenship for undocumented workers that have been here for 5 or more years.
  • "Unskilled" worker visa.
  • Elimination of TSA and DHS
  • $150Billion over 10 years for public transportation
  • $100Billion over 10 years for
  • $50Billion/year for k-12 education to be distributed using a strict per-student formula.
I am sure that I will come up with some more points but this is a start.

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