Fund raising- a partial solution to debt woes-2

Since the Federal government is not in a position to give us what it has promised to give in the future, a type of localization of fund raising for social security and Medicaid and Medicare should in put in place for each individual state and funds raised through them should be placed in a State owned bank and then those funds invested in whatever investment vehicles are available out there to earn money to pay the retirees. I know it sounds like a lot like privatization, but since the Federal government would not be involved, the unfunded deficit portion of the budget would likely be reduced or just taken out of the equation. Let the States handle the Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid exclusively by themselves and the Federal Government should get out of them completely.

I am saying completely because the Federal Government cannot pay all the unfunded obligations, as one article recently put it, if the government cannot agree to raising the debt limit by a couple of trillions, how will they agree upon dealing with almost a hundred trillion dollars in unfunded liability promised to the citizens in years and decades to come. We have not even reduced our principal and more debt means more taxes in the future, since we cannot control our expenditures. So the partial solution is to give each state to deal with its own Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid portion of the bill and they should in turn start fund raising drives constantly to raise those funds and put it in a surplus pool to pay the future recipients if the current generated funds falls short that particular year.

Fund raising- a partial solution to debt woes

I was just thinking about ways to reduce the national debt and the expenditures that we incur to pay for all of it. We are really good at raising funds for various occasion and charitable organizations from time to time and we have lot of billionaires who if persuaded can be really helpful in raising funds to reduce our national debt. We as a society are still stuck in the 1930s when all this welfare society came into being giving us Social Security and then later on Medicaid and Medicare. At the time it was fine since we were recovering from severe depression and everybody looked at the government to help them out. But now the situation has completely changed. We can no longer afford all these entitlements especially with borrowed money which we don’t have any clue to how to pay them back.

One of the solutions is to raise funds in different communities to fund your local community Medicaid and Medicare needs and also put social security in the hands of the states so that they can better handle the needs of their retirees. If we can only think outside of traditional methods of funding our retirement and senior population by localizing the whole idea of entitlement, we can at least put some dent into our national debt. Because everybody knows that Social Security and the entitlements are on shaky ground and they keep on increasing the age limit where you can collect Social Security. We really need to encourage people to find ways to put into retirement accounts and have a habit of saving.

Divergent between business and political goals-2

Accusations fly on both sides with the politicians and their supporters saying that the business want to hire cheap outside labor and the businesses claim that there are not enough U.S. citizens qualified enough to do the job. Another example is the environment which the politicians want to put more restrictions on harmful chemicals generated and the businesses crying foul saying that if they restrict it then their competitors in countries where the rules regarding environment are more relaxed will benefit. Thus there will always be divergence of views regarding what each side sees is beneficial to them. Businesses are more concerned about their profits and revenues and will thus oppose anything which reduce or hinder their profit making ability.

The politicians on the other hand want to protect the common workers and thus may or may not understand the implications their proposed law may do to the business environment. How to reconcile both of these divergent goals. Well first the businesses should be invited on all the important legislations impacting them and hearing their side of the story instead of just putting aside their concerns and favoring their voters. On the other hand, the business should do a better job in trying to convince the legislators their point of view. I can understand that sometimes the businesses and even the politicians have their self interests in heart but in order to create a more favorable and internationally competitive environment, both the parties will have to listen to each other more frequently.

Divergence between political and business goals

If you have read the newspapers any time of the year, there is most of the time divergence with what the government wants to regulate or tell what to do and the business battling it out with the government regarding how much they want to get regulated if any. It is rarely an instant that the government and businesses see eye to eye on issues affecting them. That is why if you happen to work in Washington, you would see lots of lobbyist working for businesses to blunt the effort of the legislators to bring anything on the house or senate floor which may harm the business industry. Politicians say that they have their constituents at heart when they put a bill to vote and thus want to protect them, while the business industry has issues with the cost of implementing them and how it will affect their bottom line.

You can take lots of example where the businesses and government clashed on issues which were wholly opposite to each other’s agenda. Take for example the hot topic of HI visas allocated to foreign nationals with high skill levels who are in short supply in the U.S. The businesses want to increase the quota of the HI visas so that they can bring in more foreign qualified candidates. Opposite to these are the legislatures and their constituents who cry foul to this as they say that since the U.S. has high unemployment we should be hiring our own and not importing from overseas.