Posted by
Playful Walrus on Sunday, May 04, 2008 2:12:15 PM
Howard Hurlbut of Redlands wrote to the Los Angeles Times with the following questions for the POTUS candidates:
What would you do to end the widening chasm between rich and poor in America?
How would you restore U.S. credibility abroad?
Social Security has for years generated surpluses. What specific modifications would you propose to ensure its continued success?
I will answer them one by one.
What would you do to end the widening chasm between rich and poor in America?
I reject the premise of the question. Hopefully, there is an increasing spectrum between the richest person and the poorest person, and hopefully, it is because the richest person continues to be as productive as he or she has been until now. A rich person has more resources with which to acquire more resources, and we want them to put those resources to work, because that helps everyone else down the line, including the poor. Because the rich person has more resources, that person can accumulate wealth at a faster rate than the poor person.
In our system, the rich need not get richer by making the poor poorer. Ideally, the poor will also get richer.
That is because the pie is getting bigger. It isn’t a matter of taking up more of the same size pie.
It is not the President's place to get involved. I would do my best to ensure that the most people have the most opportunity go generate wealth. I would do that by eliminating programs that encourage dependence on taxpayer money. I would let more people keep more of their own earnings. In turn, they will save, invest and spend, thereby providing opportunities to others.
Just as I would stop redistribution of wealth to individuals, I would also stop the government from redistributing wealth to businesses by subsidies.
Envy and jealousy can be very ugly things. Instead of resenting your neighbor for doing well, why not strive to do well yourself?
How would you restore U.S. credibility abroad?
Credibility involves having people believe you mean what you say, and that you know what you are talking about. Shall I assume you refer to intelligence showing WMDs in Iraq? In that case, I would reiterate exactly why our intelligence operations reported such a thing, and show exactly what the Iraqi’s genocidal tyrant was and was not doing.
One way of maintaining credibility is to back up our demands. We did just that when we went into Iraq. If you make demands and then don't back them up, you lose credibility. The tyrant was in violation of the cease-fire agreement.
I do not care if there are some people in other countries that resent our successes and power. That is unavoidable. The best and most powerful are always resented by someone.
Social Security has for years generated surpluses. What specific modifications would you propose to ensure its continued success?
Social Security is a ponzi scheme sham, and is only a “success” if you think it is a good thing to take money from hard working people and be a lot less productive with it than they could have been themselves. We should fulfill our promises to the existing generations and let the generation about to enter the workforce know that we will be discontinuing this disastrous program and remind them that they should be saving and investing and insuring through their own actions and choices.
Hey Howard – if you are related to Bud, I give you props for that. But I clearly disagree with your thinking.