Tornado Alley (PROG)

[n4807g]

Solutions:

1) Flat tax no deductions. If it's easier for people to accept phase the tax in at anyone earning above X, and if you prefer have a two tier flat tax system. Easy to implement impossible to circumvent.

2) VAT tax. I originally disliked this tax until I came to realize it was the least objectionable of all the point of sale tax options.

3) Gas tax to provide for infrastructure maintenance and improvement.

4) Remove the cap on Social Security taxes and adjust benefits to balance the program annually....eliminate COLAS.

5) Medicare is a failed system. It's obvious that the health care crisis wasn't solved with the passage of the latest legislation. There needs to be a "clean slate" approach to the problem. I don't have a reasonable solution because until we accept the fact that cost control is the most important component of any reasonable health care system I doubt we can design a system that won't fail.

These would be good starting points.