It's All About Efficiency!

U.S. Government policy needs to focus on efficiency for the most rapid recovery from our current crisis. I'm talking about the stuff that should be happening no matter what you think of the bailout.

Here are my top contenders:

Reduce the U.S. military expenditures by 50% within the next president's first term, saving hundreds of billions per year. But we should have generous separation pay and retraining for those forced to leave their military career.

Adopt single-payer national health insurance (private providers), again saving hundreds of billions per year, while maintaining free choice of providers.

Adopt a value-added tax (VAT)j to replace income tax. VAT is based on industrial and commercial value added, and income taxes and most of the tax industry could be eliminated. Again, hundreds of billions would be saved due to the elimination of tax lawyers, CPAs, tax services, bookkeepers, secretaries, etc.

In combination, these cost-effective policies would save a huge amount of energy and money, and free it up for more productive endeavors. In all cases, we should strive to make sure that those who are displaced are given generous separation arrangements. Aside from the moral correctness of doing so, this is not the time to embrace a policy that would drop overall demand and make the economy dive even further. Generosity is mandatory.

Some of the more productive endeavors include:

Huge investment in American infrastructure, including bridges, freight and passenger rail, including new tracks, street cars and high speed commuter service, permanent school buildings to replace energy inefficient portable classrooms, universal and free wide band service to the entire country. We also would benefit greatly from a large increase in subsidies for sustainable energy use, including wind and solar and increased efficiency of localized business systems.

All of these things seem to me to be no-brainers. It's not all about left and right, but about efficiency and common sense.

Okay, it's not all about efficiency, but it was a good title. Also, to help get out of this financial crisis we're in, we need to look seriously at how we are screwing ourselves with NAFTA and WTO. There needs to be equity, at the very least, when it comes to OSHA type work place requirements, product and food safety, including fish farms, pharmaceutical purity and truth, environmental requirements, and such things. Our production costs are greatly handicapped by international competition that has much weaker requirements in many cases. Of course, the US is also able to legally skate in some instances in relation to more stringent requirements outside our borders. We need to face the music, and I'm sure we'll be okay on this account. The benefits and costs of our participation in the WTO should be seriously reviewed.