The Best of U.S. Tax Act and Stimulus Program

Last year our government spent $150 billion on a Stimulus Program in an effort to increase consumer spending and hopefully bring our economy back into a growth mode. In fact consumer spending did increase by 5% in May 2008 but most of that can be attributed to escalating fuel and food prices. Those Stimulus dollars that didn’t go to fuel and food went towards flat screen TV’s or other foreign made merchandise resulting in more of our American dollars leaving our shores.

In late 2008 we that tax payers agreed to give the financial industry $700 billion to clear up their bad debt and put them in a position where they could get back into the lending business thus stimulating the economy. We now know that the $700 billion was a drop in an ocean of bad loans and the banks are still in trouble, thus unable to extend credit to others because of their own financial problems. The talk is that possibly the banks need to be nationalized which means that we the taxpayers will assume all of their self manufactured bad loans and our children and grand children will be faced with bring the U.S. banking system back to solvency.

In the past week we the taxpayers stepped forward again to fund a new recovery program with a price tag of $1 trillion. This time we are told that these funds will not go to the banks, they will go to create jobs. This is certainly something that our country needs, as jobs have been leaving our shores for decades only to be accelerated as industry, retail, sales and construction have come to a stop in the United States over the past quarter.

Over the past six months we have recognized that the financial structure of the best capitalistic system know to mankind is failing. It’s hard to understand because of its size and scope, but if you think of the problem relative to your household it’s simple. You’ve been spending more then you’ve been bringing in, you’ve been using credit like you’ve been using water; as if there was no end to the supply. Now the tap has been turned off, you lay off the gardener, the maid, and the cook. The bank is at the door and your cars have been repossessed. What do you do? You get a second job and mom goes to work. Simply put you cut your expenses and you maximize your income.

This is exactly what our government has to do. Cut all the pork out of the federal budget and raise taxes. The budget is being addressed and President Obama says he is going to raise taxes on anyone making over $250,000 per year. This is a start but will not get us out of debt; but there is a way. The Best of the U.S. Tax and Stimulus Program will increase the federal tax on gasoline by $3.00 per gallon, put a $2.00 per pack tax on cigarettes and a $1.00 per six-pack of beer and fifth of whisky. In addition we will shut down the illegal drug trade and the underground economy.

We consume 390 million gallons of gasoline per day, 50 million packs of cigarettes per day, and 21 million gallons of beer per day. In one year a $3.00 gas tax would generate $427 billion a year ($.4.7 trillion in 10 years), a $2.00 cigarette tax will generate $36 billion a year ($3.6 trillion in 10 years) and a $1.00 six-pack beer tax will generate $7.4 billion per year (7.4 trillion in 10 years). This is a total annual increase in income of $447 billion. These funds should be allocated to payoff our debt, and get our nation back on its feet. We could address, national health insurance, we could have the best schools in the world, fund renewable energy research and we could fund cancer, Parkinson’s, and stem cell research.

In conjunction with the increase in these taxes we need fund The Best of the U.S. Tax and Stimulus Program. A $150 billion program offering consumers a free U.S. made automobile that gets 36 MPG or better when they turn in their gas guzzler for destruction. This program would take 7.5 million gas guzzlers off the road reducing fuel consumption by up to 833 gallons per year per auto or 6.25 billion gallons total. This would eliminate our need for 320,512,800 barrels of oil resulting in $45 billion not leaving our country each year; thus the program investment would be recouped in just over three years. The auto replacement program represents 6% of the U.S.’s passenger cars and would reduce our nations overall fuel consumption by 4%, each year the program is in place. The Best of U.S. Tax and Stimulus Program, over 10 years, would reduce our oil consumption by 40%; we currently produce 25% of our need. With the added drilling in Anwar and the Gulf we could be producing 50% of our need within 10 years leaving less 10% needed from offshore; which we could get from Canada and Mexico. These figures do not account for the millions of Americans who would switch to more fuel efficient vehicles outside of The Best of U.S. Tax and Stimulus Program as a result of purposely pushing the price of gas up above $5.50 per gallon.

U.S. auto makers sold 17 million cars in 2007 and sold 11 million cars in 2008 resulting in the probability of bankruptcy for one or more of the three. Under The Best of U.S. Tax and Stimulus Program each manufacture would be challenged to produce a four passenger auto and a six passenger mini van that achieved 36 MPG or better. The winner of the challenge would be guaranteed the sale of 7.5 million vehicles each year of the program. With gasoline selling for over $5.50 per gallon it will be only a matter of time before we are powering our automobiles with natural gas or electricity generated by natural gas rather than coal.

The Best of the U.S. Tax and Stimulus Program will also address national health care. Today only 60% of U.S. citizens are covered by health insurance and yet our hospitals are over crowed. The current health care industry employs 14 million of us and accounts for $2.6 trillion of our gross national product. With national health care, which would provide health care for the other 40% of us, we could easily create another 5 million jobs. National health care is estimated to cost $36 million a year which could be paid for with our cigarette and beer tax. If this falls short we can put a tax on obesity by putting a federal tax on fast food.

The Best of the U.S. Tax and Stimulus Program will also address the U.S. Black Market in illegal drugs and the Underground Economy which results in over $2 trillion leaving our country each year and over $400 million in evaded taxes. By introducing a program that regularly and unannounced changes the color of U.S. currency the incentive to accumulate illegal U.S. dollars will be thwarted; the drug trade will come to a halt and the flow of human traffic across our boarders will reverse directions.

Join me in encouraging President Obama and your Senators and Representatives to adopt The Best of the U.S. Tax and Stimulus Program. Email them this post today!

Let’s take control of our economy, our energy needs and our health care; it’s easy if we have the will power to take control of our lives.

A Continuing Fight with Cancer

Today my wife and I spent the day at Emory’s Crawford Long Hospital in Atlanta. This is the third time in the past six years that we have sat and waited for doctors to remove cancer from our daughter’s body. The first time in 2002 resulted in the amputation of her left foot. The last two times it’s been to remove cancer cells from her left lung. We have come to accept that we will be back in Crawford Long again, we just don’t know how soon and how often.

On one hand we feel lucky that she is getting such quality care that the cancer is being extracted before it has an opportunity to take a strong hold and take her life. I tell her that she’s lucky that she knows what’s going on in her body; most of us don’t. On the other hand we question how often and for how long can she endure major surgery and recovery.

I hear of people who say “stop with the treatment and let what is to happen to happen.” I can’t imagine they have much to live for making such a decision, but I’m not in their shoes. I ask myself, how much pain and suffering would I be willing to endure to keep living?

This ordeal has taught us a lot of lessons and opened our eyes to many inequities. The main lesson that we’ve learned over the past six years is to be proactive and to seek out and find the best of doctors and the best care. This doesn’t mean just going to any doctor, it means doing research and finding the best doctor available for the care that you or your family needs. With the internet this is a doable task. Neither best doctors nor best care would have been available if we had not had good health insurance. I read that 40% of Americans are without health insurance. I know in my heart if we had not had health insurance our daughter would be dead today, we wouldn’t know our grandson and we wouldn’t have had the past six years with them.

I don’t think that what my family has experienced is all that uncommon. The hospital is so crowded that our daughter will be spending the night in the ICU even though she is recovering well and should be moved onto the main floor, but there are no rooms available on the main floor. But only 60% of us have medical insurance, what are the other 40% doing or are they here at Crawford Long and not paying? Are they getting the preventive care that we are getting or are they merely fending off disasters?

Yet there are those among us that feel that to have a national insurance program would be wrong because it would result in a reduction in the quality of our medical care. Are we Ok with treating them for heart attackes, gun shoot wounds, and injuries; but not the progression of cancer or diabetes?

Is that to say that they are Ok with 40% of American families having to allow their daughters bodies be overrun with cancer? Can we be so selfish?

A Day at the Hospital

Nita and I got Aidan up and took him to school this morning, he asked where Mommy and Daddy were and Nita told him the his Mommy and Daddy were at the hospital for Mommy's operation. Shay and Justin had been preparing him for this and it appears that to Aidan it's just another day at the office.

We met Justin in the Emory waiting room about 9:15. We got word from Dr. Miller at 10:00 AM that the operation went well and that she was in Intensive Care. “You should be able to see her is 40 minutes.” Luckily Emory has a guest wireless service so I can pass the time on the computer while Nita and Justin read.

The three of us sit in the same waiting room that we sat in eighteen months ago and ask each other. “What happened last time?” I hope this never becomes so regular that we have the procedure fresh in mind.

We were able to go into the ICU at 10:45 AM and Shannon was much better off then she was when we went through this 18 months ago. She was in less pain, or I should say she was feeling less pain. The nurse told us the there were no beds on the floor so she would be staying in the ICU for a while maybe until tomorrow.

All in all the operation went well and the recovery is progressing. Our job will become one of looking after Aidan, he’s in pre-school this morning, and keeping the house together while Justin focuses on Shannon.

It’s interesting the turns that life takes and how we adapt and how we support each other. Six months from now this will be just another memory.

Is It Important to Have a High IQ to be a Good President?

The term good president is up for interpretation, so for the purpose of this article I’m going to allow the historians and presidential scholars determine what a good President is C-Span released it’s list on Presidents Day of the most popular presidents as compiled by 46 historians, placing Abraham Lincoln in first place and George W. Bush in 36th place out of our 42 past presidents. Here is a list of the top ten along with our more recent presidents and their IQ scores as reported in recent study in the Journal: Political Psychology.

1. Abraham Lincoln -145
2. George Washington – 130
3. FDR -141
4. Teddy Roosevelt -144
5. Harry Truman – 125
6. JFK -156
7. Thomas Jefferson -160
8. Dwight Eisenhower -131
9. Woodrow Wilson -148
10. Ronald Reagan – 128
11. Lyndon Johnson – 125
15. Bill Clinton – 154
18. George H. Bush – 128
22. Gerald Ford – 124
25. Jimmy Carter -149
27. Richard Nixon – 129
36. George W. Bush – 121

It appears that there is little correlation between popularity and intelligence even though the lowest IQ score and lowest in popularity is held by the same president on this list. What we do know is that the popularity numbers will change. Harry Truman, for example had a lower approval rating when he left office then George W. Bush but Harry is now ranked at number 5 in current popularity.

The numbers that I would like to see change on this list is the IQ numbers. The world has become far to complicated to have a person with an average IQ (100 to 125) running the show. There are important decisions being made that are effecting far to many people to have anyone less then a skilled chess player (IQ of 150 to 180) in the position of President of the United States.

Over the past eight years decisions about invading countries, the reductions of qualifications to purchase homes, the structures of financial instruments, and the monitoring of our financial systems have had disastrous global consequences.
We scrutinize our prospective presidents religious beliefs, prior use of drugs, marital status, sexual orientation, prior affiliations and prior experience. We dig into every aspect or their past lives but we don’t investigate their ability to make good decisions; their intelligence. For our own survival let’s make an IQ test a part of the application process for future Presidents of the United States.

Where Do You Rank Among The Smartest?

Intelligence is the mental capability to reason, solve problems, think abstractly, learn and understand new material, and profit from past experience.

Intelligence tests date back to the late 19th century; the works of Sir Frances Galton explored the difference in the accomplishments of generations of the English aristocracy. Alfred Binet expanded on Galton’s work to develop a test to be administered to French children to assist in predicting their academic success. American psychologist, Lewis Terman modified Binet’s test in the early 1900’s to make it applicable for adults and establishing standards for performance relative to age. He also developed a scoring system which he called the intelligence quotient or IQ.

Today’s IQ tests no longer compute scores using the IQ formula. Today’s tests give a score that measures the participant’s performance relative to the average performance of others of the same age who have taken the test. The average score is arbitrarily set at 100, thus those scoring above the average of 100 are considered more intelligent up to genius and those who score below 100 are considered less intelligent.

The Best of the U.S., a company that recognizes professionals who have excelled in their fields of endeavor, has launched a new website SmartestofUS.com in an effort to bring focus on the importance of individual intelligence to the future of the United States economy.

“The U.S. will never again be a manufacturing nation so in order to maintain our position as a world leader we must harvest our most valuable asset, individual intelligence. We need to make an effort to recognize and promote people who are suited to make decisions that affect us all in our corporations and in our government.”

The Smartest of the U.S. IQ test is designed as a test of the participant’s ability to solve problems, make logical decisions, understand how things relate to each other, and how to come to sound conclusions. The test is not designed to measure logic skills, advanced mathematical skills, verbal skills, visualization skills and pattern recognition skills.

Each participant is then ranked against all other test participants with a SUS score. (Smartest of U.S. score) “It is our goal to get everyone in the United States to have a SUS score, just imagine how much easer it would be to choose our government leaders and corporate CEO’s.”

All Doctors, Lawyers and Financial Advisors are Not Equal

All too often when we find ourselves in need of a doctor, a lawyer, a dentist, or a financial advisor we turn to the least qualified people for guidance; our family, friends and our other advisors. The fact is that in today’s world the playing field of medicine, law, and finance is changing so fast that the professional who has the good old boy reputation is not the most qualified provider of advice.

In many cases the best is not the guy with the big office and the large staffs with years experience but instead the hard worker with the most current education and information.

Having spent my career in the world of finance it became evident to me that continuing education was as important as years of experience. As we have seen in the past year investment derivatives has drastically changed the world of investments. If your broker was not well schooled and well read you sat with him or her and saw your portfolio shrink on a daily basis while being advised that our banking system is strong and this down turn will not last.

Yet if your advisor had read The Trillion Dollar Meltdown by Charles R. Morris published February, 2008, he could have given you a day by day description of what was going to happen to the investment markets over the following months. Since then the S&P 500 has lost over 35% of it value, City Group has gone from $29.00 to $4.00 per share and AIG has gone from $56.00 per share to $1.00 per share. You and your investment advisor would have understood Credit Default Swaps and how they compounded the problems of the Sub-Prime mess. You could have chosen not to participate in the past years crises.

Thankfully I did read Charles Morris’s book but got caught by a series of unqualified and uneducated doctor’s years earlier resulting in the amputation of my daughters left foot because for fifteen years her doctors misdiagnosed a cancerous tumor in her foot.

The lesson to be learned is to research your professional advice providers. Do they have professional designations, are they in good standing with their professional organizations, do they teach within their profession? In short are they current with the latest information within their field?

I was motivated by my daughter’s question: “Dad why did this happen to me, I’m a good person?” Since my retirement in June 2004 I have worked to find reason for what happened to her. I designed and built a website BestofUS in an effort to help other people avoid the mistake that we made and give some level of guidance on where to look for the best professional in the United States.

We as consumers have to take on some level responsibility for our health, our wealth, and our wellbeing. If we don’t we will continue to be victims.