Modest Suggestions about the Real Obama State of the Union Address

 

Last evening, President Obama spoke to a rather subdued congressional gathering about tax reform and budget freezes.

These are both laudable goals but he almost completely missed the point.

Put aside the GOP response, equally lacking in vision, and Michele Bachman’s grab for TV time, and what’s left is a ho-hum "do it as we’ve always done it" address.

What could America do to bring back its world class economy?

My list is short but requires a lot of difficult decisions.

1.   Re-write the corporate tax code so that American corporations can compete with developing country labor costs. This means that the federal government will have to bankroll American corporations’ payroll costs in the form of tax relief until the benefit kicks in with increasing worldwide sales. Any first-year accounting student could keep tabs on progress and decide when each corporation should start feeding into the federal coffers a part of the benefit it has received - a part but to all.  If we can subsidize tobacco growing, surely we can subsidize our market system, labor included.

2.   Get serious about technology and the educational system required to grow technical pre-eminence. Pay top high school graduates to go to university and pay their professors to include them in research projects. The government cost will be recouped many times over as we once again become the world’s technology leader and our products (think hardware, software, communications systems, disease control breakthroughs, energy source development (no ethanol ideas please, let farmers use their land for what it does best - feeding people), agricultural improvements, and 21^st century weapons systems.  

3.   Scrap antitrust laws that were meant to control the early 20^th century business model and actually encourage companies and entrepreneurs, with the government’s financial help, to work together to develop world class innovations.

4.   Roll back Obamacare and replace it with a private health care system that opens the interstate market for health insurance, caps what doctors and hospitals can do as tests and procedures without prior insurer approval, caps medical malpractice (both in what can be claimed as damages and what can be charged as insurance for the medical profession), and gets the government out of the active control of Medicare and Medicaid by funding a private mechanism that will then manage the systems and report to Congress and the American people annually.

5.   Reduce individual taxes in the framework of a new tax code that is actually understandable and that permits Americans to use their money to create businesses, add to their savings, fund innovation by investing in start-ups and research-based corporations, and creating retirement nest eggs for their later use.

All of the above could really be captured in one phrase - get the government out of the way so that Americans can go about what they do best - innovation and marketing.