Rett, sorry, but you did not answer or even attempt to address the question.
I asked how you would pay for the establishment of American hegemony, which is part of the “big picture” plan you lay out in this thread.
You said, “We are overextended”, and that is an insightful observation, I agree. You say you would use “soft power”, but you do not explain how you would PAY for it. Would you raise taxes? Would you borrow more money? Would you run deficits? Would you print money?
I’m trying to point out that you, too, have an ideology, an ideology based on fantasy because you cannot possibly fund, or pay for, the things you want government to do (at least you haven’t explained how this can be done). You say that you would reduce the size of government, but that is fantasy, it’s naive, it simply won’t happen, in fact it’s going the other direction. The majority do NOT want their benefits cut, and that includes everyone from welfare recipients, to unemployment benefits, social security, medicare, nationalized healthcare, government subsidized industries, and defense. You see, none of it will ever be cut. It will only grow.
It comes down to this: For every government boondoggle, foreign or domestic, HOW DO YOU PAY FOR IT?
From your reply, I take it you don’t have an answer. You don’t know how you would pay for it. Your ideology of simultaneous “limited government” and worldwide American hegemony is contradictory. --chloe732
Yes, I see I did misunderstand the question.
I disagree that government is increasing, true we have seen an increase since the 1930’s and more recently another spike. However, the overall global trend including in the USA is decreasing government. Hence, how can you explain the dramatic increase in standards of living since 1776 while labor minutes to achieve these goods and services have decreased?
moreover, life expectancy has increased significantly since 1776 while infant mortality, poverty, starvation, et al have decreased.
also, free enterprise, free trade, private business, technological advancement et al have all increased in the last 250 years.
These incredibly beneficial changes have not occurred within a period of increasing government since they were all realized by increases in the size and scope of individual and market freedoms recent spikes downward in the USA notwithstanding.
with respect to your question on how to pay for defense, I would advocate a progressive tax system similar to what we have today, however I would set the capital gains rate significantly lower than 35%. I would also eliminate or significantly reduce the corporate tax rate that essentially taxes the consumer and costs jobs. In summary, I would reduce the government share of the GDP to less than 20% from the 45% it is today.
Note that history has shown that significantly reducing taxes and spending in this manner does not significantly reduce tax revenue, indeed in the 1920’s this regime raised tax revenues. More importantly, this regime would lead to long term growth that would dwarf the wealth creation in the high tax, high spend welfare state. Moreover, it would attract direct foreign investment and be a job creation machine. For example, we should make the USA the “mother of all tax havens” that would bury china, japan, the EU, et al for 100 years.
I could reduce taxes in this manner since I would cut most of the federal bureaucracy by eliminating the depts’ of education, environment, energy, et al.
I would also add an amendment to balance the budget (note that the republicans took power in 1994 on this tenet). This alone would be huge.
To fund unusually events like “wars on terror”, “wars on poverty”, wars on despots" et al the government would have to tax the citizenry to pay for these ventures, thus decreasing the likelihood of divisive wars like vietnam, iraq, et al ---- divisive social boondoggles like global warming, war of poverty, et al — and costly bailouts of corporate losers and nations like greece.
sorry for the late reply, I am multitasking right now.