Paying your debt to society part 1

I could never understand how going to prison is called paying your debt to society.  How does costing society more paying a debt?  If I borrow money from a bank they wont give me a place to stay and three meals a day for five years then say it is clear so why do we do that for criminals?  Many people work two jobs in undesirable conditions to have a place to stay and three meals a day.  As of 2005, there are 2 million people locked up in federal, state, and county facilities. At a cost to tax payers of $32 billion each year.  Much of this is state and local money but if this expense was eliminated the states wouldn't need federal funds.  My solution is make criminals do like the rest of us work or die.  I will talk about the death side first.  Last year UFC made an estimated $200 million and it is an emerging sport.  This gave me an idea why not have criminals do what they are good at killing.  If each criminal was given the choice to fight in death matches and just 5% took it that is 100,000 fighters.  That 5% would save $1.6 billion plus at least $200 million in income.  That's not bad $1.8 billion by offering criminals a new option.  In my next post I will talk of how to run it.

The military a great asset

I have the greatest respect for the men and women who serve in the armed services.  Sadly the military is the second largest expence in this country.  As things are being cut we need to find the least painful way to cut the military.  The best way to start saving is to get rid of the recruiting costs of $7.7 billion as of 2008.  The next thing to do will help get more to join without the money.  The government gets with state and local governments near bases and rents out personel to work in the government jobs.  Make the military a stepping stone to get a good job in the police, fire department or other city jobs.  The benefit to the cities is they get to a work force of well diciplined people for half what they are now paying.  We would offer them to work for the cities and state for $12 to $15 an hour.  There are currently 1,445,000 men and women in the military.  If one third of them or about 448,000 were loaned to city and state at about $20,000 it would bring in $8.96 billion a year.  That $8.96 billion with the $7.7 billion is $16.66 billion in cuts and income.  That makes the grand total of all posts about $574 billion more work is needed.

I am very fat

When I got married I weighed nearly 300 lbs. and was on the fast track to need a crain to move me from my house.  Married life more appropriately the financial decisons married life had me make helped me loose nearly 100 lbs in the first year.  The reason I got so big was I have wonderful parents who worked hard so there kids didn't have to but also tryed to teach us good work ethic.  This lead to me having a job at 15 with no responsibilities to use the money on.  The other part of the equation is my love for fastfood.  I would go and see what the biggest burgers different places could make.  After I got married I has responsibilities like rent and insurance so fast food become a luxury.  I also at this sametime got a job that that was very physical so I think the weight loss was half of each.   Now I don't blame fast food places for making me fat that was my choice to eat there.  With that said I still would like to tax fast food so people have the the financial reason to stay away.  Last year the people of this great nation spent $100 billion on fast food if we taxed that at 10% and that dropped it to $90  billion spent it would bring in $9 billion. 

I hate taxes too.

Sadly my cuts only add up to about $318 billion with a deficit of $1.65 trillion so we need some taxes to make up the difference.  This made me think what tax would hurt the least and get the most.  I saw another big problem  the import deficit.  In April alone we imported $219.2 billion and only exported $175.6 billion leaving a gap of $43.6 billion.  Now my idea in to tax imports at there final sale by 10% and raise it 1% each month there is a deficit and lower it 1% each month we have a surplus.  If this lowers imports by 10% the first  month to $197.3 billion it that would still bring in $19.73 billion. With nearly $20 billion a month that would be about $240 billion a year.  In addition this could make us more competitive making more jobs here.  We need to reawaken  the industrial giant we are.  Though it looks like I have more research to do cause even with the new tax and my cuts it only adds to $558 billion leaving $1.092 trillion.

Divorce sucks

My brother is one of the nicest people in the world.  As I see what he has to go through to see his son it got  to thinking how much divorce sucks.  Though his new girlfriend is way awesome and his ex wife to be nice wasn't a good person.  She left when he got sick.  It turned out he has brain cancer.  To make things worse she served the papers on Fathers Day.  She wasn't very nice during the marriage to my brother but him being the amazing person he is was willing to put up with it for there son.  She wasn't willing to be married to an amazing guy because he was sick.  This made me think how could we help good people avoid the pain of divorce.  It is often said women care more about marriage but they file for divorce two thirds of the time.  This is not the smartest thing for women to do because there are a lot of stats that show women do worse after divorce and man do better.  Though this isn't enough to have women stick around.  I feel we need more reasons to stay.  Though I do feel bad for those who divorce for good reasons like abuse that is not a reason for people like my brother to be hurt.  So I think that the one who files needs to loose more.  First if you file you can not get more then 25% of the assets.  Second they receive less consideration for custody.  The third part is where the the money saving for everyone comes in the one who files looses access to all government entitlements.  Now to how much we save, last year 0.34% of the population got divorces.  Half if those filed or 0.17% and if this cut divorce in half again that in 0.085%.  Now using the 58% spent on entitlements and the 2012 budget of $3.818 trillion the savings would be $1,882,274,000.  Not as much as some of my plans but this doesn't count the other benefits of less divorce.

Children a blessing or a curse part 2

As I said in my last post I learned from going through most of the adoption process that everyone wants babies under 2 not kids.  The reason most said was cause so much of who you are is developed in those two years.  They make a good point so how do we get the children into good homes befor they end up inthe system costing everyone.  First we need to make having a baby mean more.  My wife and I have a friend who does foster care and the hardest thing about it is they try to reunite children with parents who have abused or neglected them.  She almost adopted a little girl and at the last minute they took her away because the grandmother who had shown no interest befor decided she wanted her.  It broke our friends heart.  This futher showed me what a blessing children are.  Sadly the blessing doesnt always come at the best time so those who recieve it dont relize what they have.  To help with this we need to work toward the strong families that made this country great. To do this we need to look at some stats.  In April 2009, the National Center for Health Statistics announced that nearly 40 percent of babies born in the United States in 2007 were delivered by unwed mothers.   The 1.7 million out-of-wedlock births, out of 4.3 million total births.  I think we foster this through the many programs we offer to single mothers.  For that reason we should set a standard that if you have a child out of wedlock and dont put the child up for addoption you loose eligability for all government programs and if you can prove parurnity and show you let the father know so does he.  Since there is a high number of teen births we would need to lower the marriage age to 14.  Though I dont agree with such a young marriage age it would give girls who got pregnant young an option.  With a hope that this leads a third of the girls to get married and another third to put their children up for adoption this still leaves a bit now on to the savings.  With 1.7 million mabey half can prove the father so that in another 850,000 for a total of 2.55 million.  Of that I guessed a third would get married about 850,000 and another third would put the children up for adoption 850,000 leaving 850,000.  Using the same numbers from other posts of population of 307,006,550 that is about 0.25% of the population with entitlements being 58% of the budget that is about 0.16% of the budget.  With the budget at $3.818 trillion that is about $6.13 billion.  That doesn't include the benifit of two parent homes and more abel families for the children put up for adoption.  This is a win win.  Thank for reading check in soon.

Children a blessing or a curse part 1

My two wonderful children are my life.  At times like any parent they frustrate me but I wouldn't trade them for the world.  I got married at 21 and my wife and I wanted to get some things in order before I had children.  While I was getting things in order I got crushed by a truck, I recovered and thought everything was fine.  A while later my wife and I decided we would try and after a year of trying we went to find out why.  We were told something was wrong with me and having children may not be possible and to have any chance we would need a very expensive procedure.  At that point we decided to go the adoption route.  The adoption process is intense and very competitive.  I learned the average wait time is between 9 months and a year.  In addition they have income requirements, finger printing,and back round checks.  This showed me the value of babies.  I found that there are plenty of children in the system cause everyone wants babies not young children.  Luckily for me my wife got pregnant with my son.  I was especially grateful because I don't know how long it would have taken for me with the stiff level of competition.  What does all this have to do with the government I will get to in my next post.  Thank you for reading check in soon.

Drunk driving sucks

As I have shown in my other posts entitlements take up such a large percent of the budget that taking them from the members of society who makes the worst choices is the best way to balance the budget.  The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated that in 1996 local law enforcement agencies made 1,467,300 arrests nationwide for driving under the influence of alcohol.  There is no excuse for this which is why drunk drivers are the next group I am going after.  Now if taking away entitlements cuts that number from 1996 in half to 732,650 to bad it is still high but a 50% drop is nice.  On to the savings using the population of 307,006,550 the 732,650 is about 0.2% of the population.  With entitlement at 58% of the budget  that means about 0.13% of the budget is spent on drunk drivers.  With a budget for 2012 at $3.818 trillion that is nearly $5.3 billion dollars and all the lives saved by less drunk driving cant beat it.  Sorry I post randomly so please check everyday incase I get a chance to post.  Thank you for reading. 

Freedom isn't free so why do we pay for abortions?

I grew up very pro life though not understanding why other then my faith saw life starting in the womb.  Now this post is about meeting in the middle with the pro choice.  The federal government spends about a billion dollars on abortions and funding for places that offer abortions each year.  This should have even pro choice groups up in arms.  What should make us all even more bothered is that the health care bill has even more funding for this.  If you feel making it illegal won't work as I do or feel that doing so is taking away women's rights then here is a better solution.  First stop the government funding that saves a billion.  Second add a tax for the privilege of doing something that many regard as murder or wrong in some way as they have for smoking and drinking.  I would suggest a $2000 per abortion.  With last years abortions at nearly a million if these new regulations cut that number in half the new tax would generate another billion in addition to the billion saved from not paying for abortions.  The third part is that anyone who has an abortion looses eligibility for entitlement programs.  As of 2009 the us population was at 307,006,550 a half million is about 0.0016% of the population.  Using the 58% spent on entitlement programs the half million get about 0.000928% of the budget or with the budget of $3.818 trillion that is about $3.5 billion.  That is a total of $5.5 billion in savings to help stop abortion.  Some may say this will lead to unwanted children I will address this in my next post.  Thanks for reading read again soon. 

Abstinence there's another billion

 I was a virgin till marriage,  I would like to tell you it was because I have high moral fortitude but that would be a lie.  I had all the outside help a person could ask for great parent, church and a program at school to push abstinence.  Though these things were nice I would have had sex had the opportunity arisen in spite of the consequences.  What kept me from having sex was i was so fat, ugly and annoying I was six times more likely to win the lottery then get laid.  So why share this on a political blog because I found out a few days ago that the government spends a billion dollars a year on abstinence programs.  If these programs worked to keep kids from having sex and by doing so keeping down teen pregnancy and abortion it may be worth it.  Sadly 50% of Americans have sex before marriage.  As some who falls into this category I bet another 45% don't have a chance so maybe 5% make a decision to abstain.  If that 5% all were caused by the abstinence programs would you spend a billion on anything that only worked 5% of the time.  I propose a better option is to save the billion dollars and have better ways to take care of these children born to teens and stop the abortions they have these I will talk about in my next post.  Thank you for reading check in soon to see new posts.