Economy

Embracing Hydro-Fracking -- A Key Step to Invigorating our Economy

It is time to put America back to work!  We must unleash America’s own energy resources and create a climate where entrepreneurs are eager to invest again knowing that no new regulation, rule, or tax lurks around the corner.  This will put the more than $2.9 trillion dollars of currently sidelined private capital "back in the game!"  The day after the 2013 Inaugural, we should:

  1. Revolutionize America’s energy sector by:
    1. Constructing grids to transmit green energies from localities where they are competitively produced to areas where they are not
    2. Installing energy-saving retrofits for government buildings
    3. Expanding natural gas extraction, use, and export
    4. Creating the Canada–Texas oil pipeline and establishing an oil drilling footprint on 1/9800th of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
    5. Modernizing and expanding the U.S. nuclear industry, using geologic repositories such as Yucca Mountain for power plant waste
    6.  Installing scrubbers in coal plants that don’t already have them – building new plants wherever such installations are not cost effective because the plants are so old
    7. Creating more efficient transportation infrastructure:  more low-speed rail, train tunnels that accommodate double-stacked cars, natural gas refueling networks, deeper commercial seaports, more roundabouts & overpasses
  2. Overhaul U.S. immigration policy by:
    1. Mandating employer use of E-Verify – deporting illegals who have no employer sponsor, and using 10% minimum payroll deductions to pay down $5,000 illegal entry fines on each remaining guest worker – whose income we will subsequently tax.  Note: Employers would have to offer their openings to Americans first and would be responsible for paying the $1,390 H-2B visa petition fee.  Any prior taxes paid by guest workers would apply to offset their entry fines.
    2. Removing the numerical cap on H-1B visas issued to high-skilled guest workers
    3. Liberalizing tourist visa requirements
  3. Reform government by:
    1. Reducing the corporate tax rate by 20% (to 28%) to make U.S. corporations more competitive in the global economy
    2. Implementing half of the deficit reduction recommendations contained in Senator Tom Coburn’s comprehensive report, “Back in Black” (July 2011)
    3. Phasing out subsidies for ethanol, oil companies, and hedge fund managers
    4. Limiting mortgage interest deductions to interest paid on the first $250K of a primary residence mortgage
    5. Passing a sensible balanced budged amendment
    6.  Instituting reasonable term limits, and nullifying all past pledges except those sworn to a spouse, the flag, and the Constitution
  4. Sustain our safety net by:
  1. Selling insurance (and treating patients) across state lines, while increasing the stake that consumers have in their purchase decisions with approaches such as percentage-based co-pays, the tax deductibility of policy purchases, portability between jobs, and high-deductible "catastrophic" policies that are coupled with tax-free Health Savings Accounts.  States or regions must establish subsidized high-risk pools, and we must nationalize Texas-style tort reform, i.e. plaintiff pays all costs if frivolous
  2. Providing 100% Medicare coverage for the poor and very sick, and means-adjusted premium support payments for everyone else
  3. Block granting federal Medicaid monies to states and incentivizing private long-term care insurance
  4. Gradually raising Social Security eligibility age to 70 by 2036, then adjusting cap on taxable income as needed
  5. Sustaining Supplementary Security Income (SSI) by fully funding Continuing Disability Reviews to reassess capabilities and determine where skills re-training might help recipients return to the workplace
  1. Leverage education and self-help by:
    1. Requiring those unemployed for more than 52 weeks enroll in community college or online education courses in order to continue receiving benefits
    2. Expanding public education to pre-K where practicable; providing vouchers where not
  2. Remove America’s patent application backlog.   The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office's 689,000 patent application backlog may get significantly smaller with the America Invents Act having become Public Law on September 16, 2011.  Now the USP&TO can keep the fees it charges for its own operations and reverse decades of under-funding.  I will monitor their progress when elected.  Clearing the backlog would create up to 2.25M jobs by 2014.
  3. Remove nonsensical government regulations

In 2011, the U.S. imported 4.1 billion barrels of petroleum costing $453.6 billion and accounting for 60% of the U.S. supply.  Today we're paying about $100 per barrel for foreign oil -- often times to nations that are hostile to our best interests.  We all benefit from the energy, but the need to import it is slowly killing us.  A country that imports more than it exports has to borrow money from its importers to keep going.  Our trade imbalance is primarily oil and manufactured goods from China.  OPEC nations and China buy our debt to give us our dollars back so we can buy more of their stuff.  Standing up to China for a glide path to proper valuation of their Yuan and embracing North American energy will revive American manufacturing, boost America's economy, and end our addiction to foreign creditors by fixing our trade imbalance.

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