Scrap Davis-Bacon and all prevailing wage laws
Probably a good idea. Might solve the problem of employers hiring "off the books" illegals to save cash.
Enact national right-to-work laws
No-brainer, but, is it a Federal area or is this a states-rights issue?
Kill defined benefit plans for public workers
Why should they have anything but a 401k-like, private sector type plan, or even that if the entity can't afford it?
Scrap student loan programs entirely
I would agree generally, but perhaps put something in place that makes it easier for private student loans to be obtained, regulation and tax-wise. The reason costs increase so fast is the fact that with easy loans there is no downward pressure on tuition. Same would be true for trade schools if they saw a resurgence. This is not an easy fix, really. The idea behind loans is to prevent people being locked into a certain class, a reasonably smart kid with broke-ass parents needs some options (scholarships are another), but this does need changed from what we have now.
End all support for for-profit colleges
I'm not sure about this one...on one hand, the "University of Phoenix" type schools are thought of as lower-quality, but, in the right environment a for-profit school could be superior.
Revise corporate tax laws
No brainer.
Stop corporate tax repatriation holidays
Are they saying to TAX repatriation or NOT TAX them? Not taxing makes more sense - to bring the money back to our shores.
Slash military spending. The US can no longer afford to be the world's policeman.
Agreed with a caveat: We still need to beef up border control and anything directly related to terrorism, and I think we need to stay with Israel, but Germany doesn't need a US military base anymore...
It seems that basically, we have to make a choice...if we want good wages we have to educate ourselves properly, not get 4 year, $80,000 degrees in basket weaving or liberal arts. The only degrees really worth the money are in law (but we have too many in this field), sciences, medicine, and, business to some degree. Even these professions don't necessarily need 4 years in all the excess crap, focus instead on what they are planning to do.
Instead of this, there can be a higher focus on educating for specific trades and skills.
As far as being "well-rounded" - this stuff should really be established in high school and prior. Even some trades can be done at the high school level, IMHO.
I have an MBA, and while I think I did learn a lot from it, it so far hasn't been worth the student loan I'm paying off.
Perhaps one last tax-repatriation holiday to bring the money back and permanently slash the corporate tax rate to make us competitive. The biggest structural problem is long-term unemployment and the uncertainty this administration has caused makes it hard for businesses commit to hiring. One proposal that makes sense is to allow the repatriation with strings attached that the money will be used for hiring and capital expenditures. John Chambers of Cisco brought up the tax holiday a year ago in an Op-Ed but Washington isn’t listening. A Republican should bring forth this plan as a way to deal with unemployment while Obama continues to “lead from behind”.