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To: MonroeDNA
I have no problem wityh your stand as stated but here is my proposal fr fixing much of what ails the US economy and it is package worked out to attrct teh maximum support to get all the measures passed except maybe the irrelevancy.

In no particular order of importance.

1. Get rid of government subsidies for offshore investment of US companies. OPIC is the first such program which should go but support of World Bank programs that subsidize the outflow of Capital would be another.

2. Use tariffs on those nations which are engaged in unfair trade practices such as currency manipulation (China and India for example), those nations which refuse to open their markets to US products (China for example with its 50% tariffs on US consumer goods and non tariff barriers), those nations that subsidize competition to American Industry (airbus for example) and those nations which have slave conditions for their workers.

3. Use tariffs and other means to prevent the relocation of jobs offshore that are essential to the national defense. If necessary take control of the company seeking to export vital technology or industry by means of eminent domain (No I do not like this last option and I will only defend its use as an absolute last resort like say in the case of rare earth magnets essential to smart bomb technology). Provide a hardened, widely distributed infrastructure to supply all that is needed for our military units and civil defense that can be continued to be deployed in the event of any military attack.

4. An immediate end to guest worker programs. If people wish to come to the USA to work and make a life let them immigrate according to the rules.

5 Provide economic development zones where the corporate income tax is zero for operations within these zones. In order to operate in this zone a company must agree to only purchase American components if available and employ only American citizens or legal immigrants in these operations. These economic development zones shall be eventually be expanded to include every bit of every state once the benefits are shown I would like them to be totally implemented immediately but I realize4 that may be overreaching.

6. Scale back unnecessary regulation including the tort system. Institute a cap on punitive damages, limits on class action suits, and limits on liability to the actual percentage of liability with no plaintiff able to collect if said plaintiff was involved in the commission of a felony at the time of the alleged tort or was more than 49% negligent in the alleged tort. Note that the loser in a frivolous lawsuit shall pay the attorney fees of the winner. There are many other regulatory structures that also need to be included that need to be included such as repealing the Family leave mandate, getting rid of OSHA etc.

7. Increase the domestic content in purchases by the Department of defense and give absolute preference in non-domestic content to proven allies of the USA over say the French or Germans. The only reason any content for DOD purchase may come from non US allies is that content is not available elsewhere and is essential.

8. Do not allow expense involved in moving operations overseas to be included in business expenses under the IRS code.

9. Prosecute for perjury anyone who has made a false statement in order to employ an H1B or L1 visa worker. I will be lenient on the actual perjurer if he/she was ordered to make this false statement and he/she provides testimony to aid in the conviction of the person ordering the perjury. Just because a person is a CEO does not give them a pass on criminal behavior.

10. Prosecute anyone who orders the transfer of vital defense technology or funds a R&D project that could be of use to our military overseas except to strong allies of the USA. Make the necessary enhancements to our espionage laws so that continued support or funding of any R&D in a nation whose government has threatened the USA is guilty of espionage. The UK and Australia come to mind as meeting these criteria for being eligible for transfer of technology first. There will be other nations and a gradation of what can be transferred to which specific nation. Under no circumstances may technology be transferred to any nation whose government has threatened the USA within five years without a complete change of government or specific exemption from Congress and the administration.

11. Deport all illegal aliens immediately and take measures that prevent the entry of any more illegal aliens. Fine all companies knowingly employing illegal aliens Criminal sanctions should be imposed on anyone helping an illegal alien stay in the USA in violation of our laws.

12. Decrease the punishing levels of taxation on companies and eliminate the double taxation on corporate dividends. See effects of item 5 for how minimal this will be if item 5 covers the entire USA. Eliminate all IRS provisions that inhibit free use of independent contractors by businesses for example section 1706.

13. Eliminate the minimum wage so that the worker can be paid based on productivity. Overtime compensation will remain the same but instead of 150% of the "wage" the worker would receive 150% of the production pay. If one through 13 are enacted # 14 becomes an irrelevancy as no one will be working for that low a wage

You will note absolutely every point is very conservative. They all seek to improve the overall business climate within the USA so the Free Market will prevail. Now there are two points that have tariffs involved. I did not use all of adam Smith's justifications for tariffs as it is designed as a compromise to garner maximum support. The first is point 2 which is under the retaliation hjustification for tariffs although it might also qualify under the break markets open justification. You will note that my propoasl is at worst revenue neutral at best an overall tax cut.

The idea is to minimize welfare so that even some of the long term hard coreunemployed will be able to take those jobs nobody wants.

Minimum wage will become an orrelevancy because quite honestly if one improves teh business climate in the USA we may need increased immigration to satisfy the needs for labor but I will always prefer landed immigrants who have a desire to become citizens over guest workers.

If I must be classified as something I guess libertarian might fit the bill but I guess just old fashioned American who wants minimal governemnt is fine with me. I do not support totalitarian nations engaging in predatory trade practices having free entry into the American market. I do not support government subsidized business competeing with companies who do not have the government giving them money to enter the market and stay in the market and I think if a foreign government wishes to do that it should be balanced by a carge on their subsized products being sold in the American Market.

When I first started discussing Free trade I thought I would have to do huge quantities of research but I saw a problem threatening the very survival of the USA. I think I have pretty much held my own in these discussions and I have had many people contact me to say they support my plan and they have been very complimentary.

However, one thing I have noticed there are a great many "Free Trade" or as I refer to it "unfree trade" advocates who will use the same tactics as gun grabboids, misleading or false statistics, only presentring one side of an argument when both sides would lead one to the opposite conclusion etc.

Thank you for your kind words. I hope you can support my plan enough to send a letter to every politician you can find. If enough letters get out maybe it will outweigh the bribes campaign contributions from those who have a vesteed interest in suckling on the public teat.

30 posted on 08/19/2003 7:22:56 PM PDT by harpseal (Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown)
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To: harpseal
1. Get rid of government subsidies for business. Period.

2. No tariffs, especially with your example. Our imports and exports are distinctly separate economic events. We want to buy their crap, they don't want to buy our crap. The proprietary magic of laundry detergent, shampoo, paper towels and disposable diapers is a genie who's left the bottle, we have no value add to provide the Chinese. If they don't want to buy our top products: Department 56 Snowbunny Collectable Porcelain Figureines, Class Action Tobacco Lawsuits and Ron Popiel Spray on Hair products, that doesn't mean we can't buy Clay Aiken oven mitts, air sickness bags and plastic stuff we expect will break from them. We buy cheap stuff from countries so poor that their population can only afford the cheap stuff they're selling to us. I would hope we have a negative balance of trade with these countries.

3. The military knows how to run a logistics operation. Our firmware and software is an ongoing artistic work in progress, and it is that capability of innovation and adaptation that ensures we have an invulnerable grip on our hardware systems. No foreign adversary can ever reverse engineer USMC Lt. General Jim Conway or the guy perched over a tube in a J-STAR or any of the other superprofessionals who work our soldiering defense.

4. The Colorado Avalache make their organization better, their competition better and the league better when they bring Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg and Milan Hejduk onto their team. We want the best and brightest in the U.S.A., we intend to win and we want the world's alpha males and supermodels plying their trade here, for our firms.

5. See Number One.

6. Amen Brother.

7. I want the best of class materials available at the best price, regardless of original country of manufacture, in any weapon, tool or physical asset we provide our military.

8. Moving expenses are a legitimate cost of business, impacting profitablility and ROI to shareholders. If the expenses are AARP legitimate domestically, they're legitimate internationally. The income derived from overseas operations remains taxable domestically, the expenses derived to produce that taxable income should be allowed as well.

9. Perjury is a false statement under the auspicies of a legally binding oath or obligation. Hiring an H-1B to leverage a labor opportunity shouldn't rise to that level of unique import. Nobody should have to lie to want to hire the best individual for the job.

10. Our Federal Government needs to BUY the ownership of proprietary technologies and processes developed by Privately owned corporations under contract. Our government needs to own ALL the patents, copyrights and intellectual property we fund Loral, Honeywell, Boeing, GM and Bell to invent and design. American taxpayers should get a little residual from every autofoucus-based camera the Japanese sell, Honeywell designed that technology for our warplanes for mucho $billions.

11. The identification, arrest, processing and deportation of 5 million entrenched illegals is fantasy. Let's address the reasons people leave their families and homes, swim across the Rio Grande as criminals to reach a place where they don't speak the language or know who is who and where to go.

12. Amen brother.

13. Let's let compensation issues be a contractual agreement between each unique employer and his individual or collective providers of labor service.


35 posted on 08/20/2003 4:54:19 AM PDT by ArneFufkin
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