I.)Tax reform:

 

a.) Personal income taxes:  Lowering rates accross the board, streamlining the rate system. 

 

b.) Corporate tax reform:  Right now we have the highest corporate tax of any country in the world.  That is one of the key drivers in our nearly 800 billion dollar (unsustainable) annual trade deficit.  Trump proposes lowering that rate from 35% to 15%.  This will make America vastly more competitive in the growing international race for industry. 

 

c.) Repatriation of funds: They estimate that there is some 2.5 Trillion dollars in profits being held overseas.  It stays there largely because it would be taxed at nearly 35% to be brought back to the country.  If you drop that rate to 5-10% you can have a massive influx of capital for private sector expansion and more revenue to the treasury. 

 

II.) Immigration reform.

 

a.) Finishing the physical border with Mexico:  Right now there is an unmetered flow of illegal migration and contraband across the southern border.  We are now seeing gang, cartel, and hard drug activity reaching the northeastern parts of the country.   It makes no sense for us not to finish the strategic border wall that congress has already authorized. 

 

b.) Enforcement of current immigration law:

 

     1.) Visa Overstays: 40% of illegal immigration happens when people enter the country illegally and then overstay their Visa.  Had we enforced Visa Laws properly, then there is a chance that we could have stopped or severely mitigated the 9-11 attacks. 

 

     2.) Deportation of criminal aliens:  The first priority is to remove those here illegally that pose a threat to society. 

 

c.) Criminalizing Defiance of Deportation: Trump rose to prominence based on the Kate Steinley shooting.  In that case you had a criminal alien who had been convicted of multiple aggravated felonies and had been deported from the country some 4 times.  Mandatory minimum sentencing for those who defy deportation along with the wall from above will drastically curtail this threat to our communities. 

 

d.) Path to normalization:  In reality, the angst from the right on this issue comes from the fallout of Simpson Mizoli.  We were promised a Wall and enforcement in exchange for amnesty for 3 million people.  We got the amnesty, we never got the enforcement or the Wall.  If we have real border security and real enforcement then we can have a conversation about a humane way to integrate non criminal aliens into society devoid of citizenship. 

 

III.) Trade reform

 

a.) renegotiating current agreements:  The general purpose of a Trade agreement is to provide a generally reciprocal environment for the flow of Goods and services between two sovereign nations.  As Trump pointed out, in far too many cases we sign agreements with countries that don't address key issues: 

 

     1.) Currency Manipulation:  Countries cannot be allowed to manipulate their currency to make their goods artificially cheaper than ours.

 

     2.) Administrative Barriers:  Far too often countries like China will impose burdensome regulations, quotas, etc. to hinder American products from having access to their markets

 

     3.) Subsidies:  In Some countries the central government pays for the healthcare for the workers, builds the factories, and even supplies some or all of the utilities free of charge.  When that much overhead is taken from a companies balance sheet its impossible for our companies to compete. 

 

     4.) Tariffs:  As Trump pointed out in the last debate, in Mexico they have a VAT TAX in China they have a TARRIFF WALL to keep our goods out of their country. 

 

b.) See section (I) on Tax reform

 

c.) Regulatory reform:  Right now the annual cost of compliance for our current regulatory structure runs in the trillions of dollars, and we keep writing roughly 70 regulations a day.  Those that make sense should be kept, those that don't (and just protect special interest) Should be scrapped and we should only adopt new regulations that pass the test of being more beneficial to the health and safety of consumers/workers than they are burdensome to industry. 

 

d.) Bilateral Trade Agreements: The current regime wants large scale multinational Trade agreements (TPP) that can't take into account the of idiosyncrasies of each nation and are notoriously hard to enforce.   It's more advantageous to deal with countries one on one with concrete mechanisms for enforcement and provisions specific to Trade with each country. 

 

IV.) Education reform:

 

a.) School Choice:  No child should be trapped in a failing school because of their address.

 

b.) Local Control: Each community should make their own decisions about how to educate their child.  Different regions of the country may have differences in expression, custom, values, and prospective industry for a student to matriculate to.  This also gives a means of escape to families and students that may want to choose a different educational experience for their child and it allows different educational systems to compare and contrast their results with different locals to advance the general pool of educational knowledge. 

 

V.) Subsidizing Maternity:

 

a.) Child Care Tax Credit:  Making it more affordable for low income families to work and care for their children at the same time boosts the labor force and allows them to maintain skills relevant to the evolving economy making it more likely for them to climb the social ladder. 

 

b.) Maternity leave (Through unemployment reform):  It's possible to use the existing unemployment system to provide Paid Maternity leave (6 weeks) to employees not currently covered through their employer. 

 

VI.) Budget Reform

 

a.) Eliminating baseline budgeting:  For most government programs, there are automatic annual increases generally around 8%.  Robust growth for the economy would be 4%.  This naturally lends itself to the kind of perpetual deficit spending that has plagued this country in the modern age.  Every year, every dollar of every program should be justified and debated by our elected representatives. 

 

b.) The Penny Plan:  If you cut 1% from every non defense department of government the budget comes to balance in 6 years...  6 YEARS!  Everyone on this board has had to make that kind of adjustment at one time or another. 

 

c.)  Common Sense:  You just can't tell me that the only hammer we could find cost $200

 

VII.) General

 

a.) The Federal Reserve: This is someone who has had to borrow and manage interest rates and lending policy in many countries across the globe.  I think that he would be uniquely qualified to pick the next Fed chair. 

 

b.) Financial regulation:  Most of the people that we elect as president or congressman have little to no experience in the financial arena.  Lindsey Graham famously admitted he had to be told what a derivative was before voting on TARP.  We need someone who actually knows the ins and outs of certain financial instruments and services to have an effective federal regulatory system. 

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