Dear Mr. President,
You’ve been in the Oval office for nearly four years now. You’ve dealt with one of the worst economic times in our history. But the time has turned the tide against you in this coming election.
In 2008, Americans elected you to bring change that our nation was awaiting for. We, the people, liked you as you vowed to cut deficit in half by the end of your first term. After four years, our national deficit has gone up by whopping $4 billion per day since 2007. Every American owes over $50,000 in national debt. With over 27 million people without job, it’s starting to feel like 1992 all over again.
Mitt Romney can steal the slogan from Bill Clinton to win the White House — It’s the economy, stupid.
I just read in the local newspaper that — close to where I live — Jackson county has attracted Carter’s, the largest branded marketer of baby and young children’s apparel in the United States, to build a multichannel distribution center. It will invest $50 million and create 600 new full-time jobs. Carter selected this site partly due to the property tax abatement offered by the county.
It’s clear to me that to grow our economy, we need thousands of stories like this that I just read about in the local newspaper.
I am not one of the brightest minds you’ve been surrounded with. I don’t have a degree from an Ivy League school, but I am an astute student of life with plethora of common sense.
I can help you win this election, if you can campaign on my four point plan to grow our economy.
1. Create more jobs.
While both parties have offered rhetoric to create more jobs for Americans, neither has a bold idea that can jump-start our economy. As you know, backbone of any leading economy is its growing manufacturing sector. America led the world during the industrial revolution, but we’ve lost our competitive advantage to the rest of the world due to over regulations and anti-capitalistic policies.
An American automaker selling cars in Germany, for instance, has to pay corporate income taxes to both governments of Germany and the United States. An automaker in Germany selling cars in America only pays corporate taxes to America. Government of Germany has VAT(value-added tax) applicable only to cars sold in Germany. Naturally, our automakers and other fortune companies have not only built plants overseas, but also moved their headquarters to other countries. Americans have lost millions of jobs due to our tax policies.
2. Enact the fair tax plan.
“Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield within a few years an increased – not a reduced – flow of revenues to the federal government.” — John F. Kennedy, Jan. 17, 1963, annual budget message to the Congress, fiscal year 1964
Our tax code has over complicated lives of hard-working Americans. The very reason that you’ve blamed big oil companies getting billions of dollars in tax breaks, reminds us that — for long time — politicians have used tax breaks to favor one or another industry at the cost of those who elected them into the office in the first place — we the people.
The fair tax plan can jump-start our economy by taking away billions of dollars giveaway to major corporations, and by allowing average American to keep all of his or her earnings. Entrepreneurs will invest and risk more capital in new businesses once you eradicate capital gains tax. Most of the jobs in America are created by these entrepreneurs who work hard and live by the very principles that our founders had envisioned. The fair tax plan can bring more revenue to the federal government with the national sales tax as more businesses will open doors in every corner of this great nation.
With no tax on capital and labor, most global companies will find good ole’ America to build their plants and hire millions of most productive workers in the world.
Your name will be immortalized in the pages of American history forever for the fastest job growth in the history of our nation, Mr. President!
3. Fix the housing problem.
What happened in 2008 was beyond any one leader to cope with. It was insurmountable economic disaster by any measure. The housing problem still is the biggest drag on our economy. With millions of unsold homes, financial plight to our economy is worst ever seen in the recent history.
I’ve a simple idea. Why not attract new breed of citizens who can occupy these homes and start moving the wheels of our economy again? People around the world crave to become citizen of this great nation called America. Why not offer conditional green card — to those skilled workers on H1-B or those foreigners with business visa — with the condition that they have to own one of those unsold homes valued at more than $100,000 with substantial down payment. Also, they will lose green card unless they can pay off the mortgage or own home at least for the life of the loan.
By the way, with the fair tax plan, every house will bring 22% sales tax revenue to the federal government coffers.
Mr. President, you can fix housing problem without intervening with federal help to this painful problem holding the growth of our economy.
4. Drill more oil onshore and offshore.
While I admire your bold ideas to promote alternate forms of energy to ease financial pain felt by my fellow Americans at the gas pump, let’s face it — most cars are still running on gasoline.
Our domestic oil industry can create 1.4 million new jobs, add over $800 billion tax revenue and — most importantly — help Americans save more on gasoline by adding 50% more supply. The key to fuel economy is to cut over regulations imposed on the oil industry. While environment is always important to all of us, threat to our national security and $4 per gallon gasoline price at the pump are more important factors on the minds of millions of Americans now.
I don’t have a silver bullet to fix the economic problem that has inflicted pain to so many of us for so long, but I am dumbfounded that we are trying to fix a problem of uncommon magnitude without thinking about common sense solutions.
My task over the last two years hasn’t just been to stop the bleeding. My task has also been to try to figure out how do we address some of the structural problems in the economy that have prevented more Googles from being created. — President Barack Obama
(Photo Courtesy: MyeyeSees)
Shilpan for President!!
(no need to thank me for my support. I’ll send you a list of countries from which to select in choosing my ambassadorship.)
As to #3, I seem to remember there is already in place a program that offers citizenship to immigrants who are willing and able to invest at least 500k of capital here in the US.
It should be easy to expand on this to lower the amount and focus on houses.
Jim, You can be the best secretary of state ever 🙂
I wish you could run for president Shilpan!
You might need to brush up on the foreign affairs and how to handle disputes/military stuff, but as far as the economy is concerned, I’d vote for you!
Jason – Thank you for the kind words. I am not qualified to run as I was not born here. And, I don’t think I am politically shrewd either as I tend to shoot straight. 🙂
At least the job market seems to be improving. The latest numbers that I have heard are very promising, and I know that local companies here in the midwest seem to be stepping up their hiring lately.
That said, the deficit problem is out of hand. It will be that way until somebody in Washington has the cajones to bite the bullet, sacrifice their political capital, and make dramatic cost-reductions to medicare, medicaid, social security, and defense. None of those programs are sustainable at their current spending levels.
Amen! I can’t agree with you more Jefferson about runaway spending and growing budget deficit( now over 1.2 trillion dollars)
As Jason stated, I’d vote for you too, Shilpan. Creating new jobs, repairing the housing market, and instituting The Fair Tax are great plans, and it disturbs me that Obama hasn’t focused on these issues a great deal.
He definitely should’ve started with addressing the job market of all things instead of putting so much emphasis on Obama Care.
Amen! I can’t agree with you more Anthony. He is very likable, yet if you go back and compare promises he made to Americans to the reality, he has not focused on what matters most to all of us — our economy!
Many people tend to forget the house and senate make up all the rules. People in America have an immigration problem, now way in heck any politician will run on bringing more immigrants in just like no politician will run on the eliminating non-profit status for religious organizations who make billions and tax them as corporations. Keep in mind that’s why it’s called politics, what makes the most sense or what is right will not get you re-elected. Maybe we should impose term limits on congress/senate and specify that no politician can accept any lobbying money. I bet things will clear up then.
I agree with you about politics. My intent is to show facts and common sense solutions that can work for America. Bringing young talented immigrants (those on H1B visa) can not only help the housing problem, but also social security as we need more high income, young earners to pay for the growing number of social security recipients. (In 1935 when the Social Security law was enacted, there were 17 workers contributing to every retiree; now only 1.75 workers contribute for every retiree).
He didn’t seem to keep a lot of those promises, did he? Very disappointing. Democrat or Republican, I think deep down inside we all were hoping for some of the change he promised, but we’re all still broke, we’re still at war, and we’re still a bipartisan country.
Michelle, you are correct. Our national deficit is growing at an alarming rate. He promised to cut that in half; instead, we have seen our government spending like a drunken sailor.
You should be a presidential advisor Shilpan! These are all excellent suggestions to which anyone could create a strong case study to support! We all blog and discuss what we’re doing to fix our own personal finances, but it would be great if our nation could also be moving in a direction of improvement rather than just damage control.
Thank you! Tax issue has been a moral predicament for all of us, but instead of favoring one group of people over another, our politicians should encourage everyone to work hard and be rich. It’s sad that tax issue has been a subject of demagoguery, and not on how we can improve as a nation.
Hi Shilpan, I just found your blog through the comment you made over at Seedebtrun.This is an outstanding article, and you gave a balanced and eloquent account of what needs to change to improve the economy of America. I too wish the government would get their act together!
Monica, common sense is not common in Washington. If we don’t wake up sooner than we will have to deal with rude awakening some day by dealing with runaway inflation and currency devaluation.
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