A Conservative Response
The Conservative Response,
The democrats and democratic socialist believe “Medicare for All” is a solution to America's health care woes. This is projected to cost $32 trillion over 10 years or $3.2 trillion a year. Our federal budget is $4.5 trillion a year now and so we’d need to increase it to $7.7 trillion to pay for this solution. We, the people, will then get to spend less on insurance and use government provided / paid for services as health care solutions. It is not our intent to misrepresent their statements on the left; we don’t know the details of their plans as they are not really available. We insinuated from our conservative projections on what they mean. Here is the conservative answer:
Health Care
We propose we deregulate health insurance so that people can buy what they want from who they want. The government's role would be to police health insurance providers, report on the capacity of health insurers ability to pay and inform the public of what they are buying. It should not be the government's role to demand you purchase coverage for things you don’t want. Second we believe there needs to be a massive expansion in health care services because the greater the supply the lower the cost. We propose taking 1% of the Medicare Budget each year for 4 years and putting into block grants. The block grants would be used to build private non profit medical centers (hospitals) with schools to educate more people in the healthcare field. 1% of the Medicare budget is $8 billion. In 5 years this is $80 billion of no new taxes, but redirected healthcare spending. The block grants would be about $500 million. We can thus fund 160 new schools and medical centers across the country. In the following 5 years the sum $160 or possibly even $180 billion with growth. This would mean 320 to 360 more hospitals and schools. Eventually we’ll have enough institutions to manage the need and reduce costs for all.
The Green New Deal is another challenge the left has thrown down on that can cost $10 to $80 trillion over 10 years. It just depends on who in the left you listen too. The policies they want to impose will change lifestyles. For instance one democratic proposal is to end the construction of single family homes in favor of multi family condos or apartments. Some have suggested the end of the gasoline vehicle. The list of proposals goes on, and many are just policy changes without funding.
Clean Air and Lower Costs
The conservative response is a lot more reasoned and simple. We believe in lowering the cost of electricity to encourage people to use it. If electricity is more affordable people will charge up car batteries and use less fossil fuel. This means we can stop buying foreign oil which is another great side effect. The question might be how? Unfortunately we don’t have a budget for making this happen and it could be costly. There is a few ways to accomplish this goal. Here is our favorite:
The federal government will eliminate income taxes on energy production profits for a period of ten years with the following simple limits: First this has to be new energy production created in the next 5 years. The ten year period begins when the energy production / profits begin. Second we can promote investment into new energy supplies by allowing a faster depreciation for clean energy at a 4 to 1 ratio from current depreciation schedules and a 3 to 1 for all forms of energy investment. This means if a company invests $100 million in producing clean energy it gets to expense the investment over a faster period of time and reduce their tax burden faster thus making it's money back faster. These efforts do reduce government revenues, but they will increase energy production. More production will mean lower cost electricity for everyone. That is the key ingredient.
The last option and one that is least desirable but perhaps necessary is a utility user tax. If we all paid just 1 cent of federal tax on a kilowatt hour of electricity it would raise billions in new taxes. If private industry doesn’t take the incentive offered this may be necessary because we need to flood the market with low cost energy. A 5 year tax would produce upwards of $400 billion to invest in new energy production. It is reasonable to assume such an investment would in fact lower energy prices more than 1 cent for everyone.
Finally the third and last issue we differentiate from the left is over student loans. The left has members who suggest loan forgiveness. In other words the taxpayers flip the bill for the academic expenditures of the last 10 or so years. This will cost taxpayers an expected repayment of more than $2 trillion over the next 10 or 20 years. We have a better plan that involves our tenant of personal responsibility.
Student Loan
We propose the Department of Education receive repayments for loans as they come in, and use those repayments on future loans. Future loans will be dependent on repayment of past loans period. We also believe schools that receive the money from students who got the loans should be co signers of the loans, and if it's not repaid the school must in fact repay it themselves. This may sound harsh, but it's a means to protect taxpayers while making sure higher education is acting responsibly with federal funds. In order to insure this works we don’t have to cut out current expenditures immediately we can do that 1/10th at a time over 10 years after which repayments should be more than enough to continue funding higher education.
In comparison L or R:
L = Health Care = Medicare for All $32 Trillion
R = Health Care = Expand within Budget & Deregulate insurance to save money.
L = Environment - Green New Deal $80 Trillion
R = Expand electrical supplies to decrease cost and increase use; $400 billion possibly.
L = Student Loans - Waived cost $2 trillion
R = Student loan revolving fund and school responsibility no added cost to taxpayers.