Over the past few years I've tried to distance myself from
politics. It makes me a happier person
to not become too invested into one candidate, party or ideology. I heard recently that people who don’t watch
the news are on average happier than people who do, and so while it may be
detrimental to my civic responsibility, I've tried to distance myself from the
whole “what’s going on in the world” thing.
That being said, I cannot just shake off my thoughts and opinions like
they don’t exist. So I've decided to
write this blog post conveying some of my thoughts on the recent election and
my hopes for the next four years.
I voted for Romney. I
certainly don’t dislike Obama -- I don’t think he’s a terrible president and in
fact I think in a lot of ways he would be a better president than Romney. However, on the issues I think are most
important, I think Romney would have been a better candidate.
But Obama won.
Now I’m not the type of person who is going to get all upset
and rage about how Americans are dumb, or uninformed, or ridiculous. They’re not.
Rational people can disagree and I think most people who voted for Obama
are rational. I would however like to
list a few of the things I hope Obama does and prioritizes.
#1 Fix Immigration.
Let’s be honest, if George Bush Jr didn't do this while he was in
office, no Republican president ever will, so Barack must. I've long believed that a more liberal legal
immigration system would greatly benefit this country. Streamline the process for people to come
here legally and allow a lot people in. The more the merrier. It contributes to our national diversity, benefits
our economy and creates a more healthy demographic mix (i.e. increased ratio of
younger people to older people) to just name a few of the benefits. It may sound like a logical narrative, but
economic research shows that immigrants don’t add additional strain on our
social insurance programs (in fact the opposite is true) and don’t reduce wages/job
opportunities for Americans (the opposite is true, except for the very bottom
5% of workers, who see a very minimal squeeze).
#2 Reinstate
Bernanke. I think he’s a good Fed
Chairman and I don’t understand why Romney said he wouldn’t reinstate him. (Side note:
Bernanke is a Republican and Romney isn't a macroeconomist).
#3 Ease up on China.
Blaming China for our economic problems is at best misplaced blame. Ensure trade agreements are met (on both
sides) and move on. China’s growth shouldn't be viewed as a threat to America, but as an opportunity. Economics is not a zero sum game!
#4 Do not let tax rates on dividends increase. My ideal tax plan would be as follows: broaden the tax base and lower the rates for
individual income tax and corporate income tax in revenue neutral way. I’d get rid of ALL tax deductions and credits
and with the savings lower rates. To
increase revenue I’d increase federal taxes on gasoline and energy consumption
and/or carbon emissions. Global climate
change is real! And we must be asked to sacrifice something to curb it. (Go Pigovian Taxation!). Unfortunately this isn’t going to happen (it wouldn't have with Romeny as president).
With Obama as president, my only hope is that he doesn't allow the tax rates
on dividend income to increase.
Increasing the income tax rate
for the wealthiest American’s isn't as optimal in my view as the plan described
above, but if I were a Republican in congress I’d give the president that in
return for keeping all dividend taxes low (for those who don’t know, under
George Bush’s tax cuts, qualified dividends started being taxed like long term
capital gains as opposed to ordinary income).
Dividend taxes are essentially a second round of corporate income taxes
and taxing them at such a high rate makes it so companies have an incentive to
not pay dividends (and instead buy back stock so that the returns from equities
are proportionality higher in the form of capital gains rather than dividend
payments). High dividend paying companies
(such as USPS, Verizon, AT&T etc.) shouldn't be put at a disadvantage, and
there shouldn't be a tax reason for a company to not pay dividends.
Other things that would be nice:
- Legalize marijuana (or at least decriminalize it) and decriminalize all other drugs
- Phase out tax breaks for employer provided health coverage---and promote policies that promote high deductible health insurance plans with HSAs (derp derp actuary nerd)
- Make Social Security Actuarially sound (index retirement age to life expectancy)
- Use behavioral economic strategies to get people to save for retirement and potentially use a (gasp!) savings mandate (we already have good retirement savings plans in place, we just need to figure out how to make people utilize them more)
- Bust up as many unions as possible (can’t I not be a moderate on at least one issue? :D)
Anyway, rant over. I
hope Obama has a successful second term and that the economy is doing so well
in 4 years that the Democrats can win another presidential election (this doesn’t
mean I want them to win).
-Andrew
