Energy that can be produced here, in the United States, renewable, nonpolluting, and not, like corn-based ethanol, requiring as much petroleum to produce it as it replaces. One-third of our balance of trade deficit is oil, year in and year out. If the United States can become the world leader in alternative energy and conservation technology, we will, at last, have something to export.
The No. 2 target is infrastructure.
By it's nature, infrastructure has to be largely produced here with local labor and it stays here.
Hard infrastructure, like roads and bridges, cleaning up New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, protecting our coasts from future storms, internet and phone service as good as Europe's, Japan's and Singapore's.
Soft infrastructure, like education, youth services, parks and recreation programs, public safety, and a saner criminal justice system. The United States has 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the incarcerated population. That's expensive. And wasteful. Unsafe streets and high crime are expensive and wasteful.
Infrastructure makes doing business easier, quicker and cheaper. It becomes an invisible subsidy for all businesses. Try to imagine, for example, Fed Ex, that entrepreneurial triumph, without a national web of airports, flight controllers and roads.
The No. 3 target is health care.
Health care in the United States costs at least 50 percent more than the next-highest spending country and double what it does in most other modernized countries. All of them have better health than we do. They live longer and in better condition.
The difference is that they have national health plans. Mostly single-payer, usually tax-supported. Our plans are based on a hodge-podge of a thousand private insurers.
A single-payer national health plan should cut the costs of our health care by at least 25 percent, possibly 50 percent. That's an astonishing number. That money could go to more productive things. Or to even more health care.
American businesses who supply health care to their employees claim they are noncompetitive with companies from countries that have national health. This will make them more competitive. This will make American labor more competitive.
The No. 4 four target is a balanced budget.
There are, in fact, times for deficit spending. Just as there are times in our personal lives to borrow and times for business to borrow.
This is probably not one of them.
There is an ocean of money sloshing all around the world, looking for a home. If there are real business opportunities in America (like taking the lead in alternative energy, bio tech, and whatever is next around the corner), it will come.
Especially if there is a sound business environment and dollar investments return to being the most reliable in the world. That means paying down our debt.
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