What If They Get What They Want?

Suppose that Trump gets most of what he wants, just slower than he hoped, as SCOTUS takes time to overrule setbacks he faces in the lower courts, and as Congress enacts through legislation what he fails to achieve through Executive Orders.

* Massive cuts in federal government programs, even if a few of the initial cuts are rolled back as imprudent, will have a devastating effect on most red states, especially in the South and Appalachia. Federal aid is 50% of the government budget in West Virginia, for example. Local tax revenues won't be able to replace lost federal aid. 

* Special education will basically vanish there. Schools in low income communities will be deeply starved for resources. 

* More of the poor will start dying from preventable diseases in the tens of thousands a year.  Infant and maternal mortality will soar. Infectious diseases will become more common. Food poisoning will again be a concern in every day life. Increased pollution, especially in low income areas, will lead to diseases associated with dirty air and dirty water. 

* The elderly, the disabled, and military veterans won't be able to get by and will have to leave their homes to live with extended family, or will live far more meager lives of poverty and despair. Social security, realistically, won't vanish, but programs like social security disability will be much harder to access and benefits will probably be cut.

* Medical and scientific research will basically vanish. Federally supported financial aid (both grants and loans) with dry up, shutting working class and middle class students out of higher education to a great extent. International students will become much more scarce. The best professors and scientists, especially in fields not culturally tied to the U.S., like science and engineering and medicine, will emigrate. Their goal of making colleges and universities conservative will largely fail, notwithstanding witch hunts to try to root out liberals in academia. Red states will greatly reduce funding for their public colleges and universities and have few well-endowed private colleges and universities that will struggle to downsize as well. Blue states will pick up some of the loss of funding caused by lost federal support, but will nonetheless be seriously disrupted. And, even in blue states, all but a few of the most well-endowed colleges and universities will have a much larger share of upper middle class and rich students. Bright, academically capable, working class and middle class young adults, shut out of higher education, will turn to lower management and union leadership posts.

* Loyalty purges and cuts at the nation's military academies will within four or five years significantly reduce the quality of the U.S. military's officer corps in every single one of our military services. Impaired international trade and a declining domestic manufacturing sector and the loss of scientific and engineering talent will mean that the U.S. military pays more for less in military equipment procurement and produces less capable systems. But the U.S. retreat from a global military presence may mean that the new, less capable U.S. military won't be tested.

* Public schools across the nation will lay off teachers, and see their best and brightest and most caring teachers leave the profession.

* Mass deportations and trade friction and the loss of federal aid will cripple U.S. farmers, will probably cause more than half of U.S. farms to fail with abandoned farms dotting the landscape of every rural area in the country, and will greatly drive up the price of food while reducing its quality and variety. The same pressures will greatly shrink the construction industry. Working class men across the nation will see a dramatic surge in unemployment. Kids in high school and middle school will be pressured to work long hours in unskilled work to make up for the loss of immigrant labor, in the fields, at construction sites, and in the hospitality and food service industries.

* The U.S. manufacturing industry will crumble and the price of everything will surge.

* Reduced gun regulation and economic collapse will drive up crime rates. Drug dealing will rise as people try to cope with despair and that will also drive up crime rates because decriminalization will end and go backwards.

* Poverty rates will rise.

* LGBT folks will migrate away from red states to avoid active state sponsored persecution.

* New obstetrics and gynecology specialists will refuse to take positions in anti-abortion states, and a meaningful share of existing ones will also relocate, leading to greater maternal morality, more stillbirths, more unwanted pregnancies, and more congenital disorders in infants there. The loss of Medicaid funding will close down many rural hospitals and will hit labor and delivery wards especially hard.

* Financial and technology and manufacturing companies will relocate outside of the U.S., which will be a boon for places like the U.K., Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, but will hurt the American economy greatly.

* Once conquered, Greenland and the Panama Canal, will see local military insurgencies emerge. An invasion of Greenland will end NATO and result in all European and Canadian military bases closing.

* Emboldened by a weak U.S., China will conquer Taiwan and make the Philippines a subject state, because the U.S. won't have the means or the will to fight China and China will have little to lose having been alienated in international trade from the U.S. China will also start supplying military equipment, supplies, and even troops to Russia, turning the tide in Russia's favor in the Ukraine War, despite vigorous and costly military aid to Ukraine from the rest of Europe.

* A complete U.S. withdrawal from Africa will give ISIS affiliated forces in Africa a modest boost.

* Canada will realign its economy to trade far less with the U.S. and far more with everyplace else, and will see a medium term boost as it absorbs high quality immigrants from the U.S.

* A major global economic recession will tank oil prices which will cause most U.S. oil producers to shut down and cause the U.S. to import far more oil which will be costly because the dollar will be much weaker.

* Disinvestment from the U.S. will drive up interest rates. This will squeeze the federal budget as the cost of interest on the national debt goes up, taking away lots of the gains from spending cuts, and combined with the blow to the construction industry, will make housing less affordable and contribute to homelessness. Migration for red states that are economically collapsing with less federal spending to blue states that were not so reliant upon federal spending, will also drive up blue state housing costs and lead to a surge in homelessness in blue states.

* Many immigrant professionals in medicine and tech will either leave positions they have filled in red states for blue state posts, or return to their homelands, leaving a shortage of skilled medical personnel and weakening the competitive edge of U.S. tech companies.

* Red states will start ignoring the establishment clause and have governments that are overtly Christian, leading non-Christians to migrate to blue states and making them even less tolerant of religious minorities.

* Smart and talented young people will move away to blue states at an even greater rate than they already do, leaving a lower quality work force in red states and undermining red state economic prosperity even further.

* Increased government corruption will strengthen a class of American oligarchs.

* New high speed rail and transit programs will end, almost everywhere.

* Tesla, with less government support, will wither and may even go out of business, with remnants acquired by its competitors.

* Carrying a passport on your person will become necessary for almost everyone, especially Hispanics and Asians.

* Museums and monuments documenting the history of anyone who isn't a white man will be looted with that part of U.S. history permanently lost to some extent, and minority and women's related and LGBT related books will be removed from public libraries in red states and will find themselves limited to private collections.

* Unemployment rates of minorities and women will be higher relative to whites and men than they have been historically.

* Suicide rates will increase greatly.

* The U.S. life expectancy will fall.

* Red state birth rates will rise by an amount that will offset rising maternal and infant and childhood mortality there, even as the raw number of births fall, as the number of women of childbearing age will fall as those women disproportionately relocate to blue states and immigrant populations fall, making it harder for young men in red states to find wives and partners. Birth rates will fall in blue states, partially made up for in absolute numbers of births by an increased number of young women in those states, but overall, U.S. birth rates will fall despite pro-natalist government incentives.

* The U.S. will experience a recession of a magnitude and duration not seen since the Great Depression.

* Unfair election reforms, both nationally and especially in red states, and targeted persecution of dissenters, will mute the extent to which increasingly unpopular sentiment towards Republicans translates into electoral results.

* Tooth decay will surge, but it will be harder to afford dental care.

* Income inequality will rise, and taxes will fall on the rich, although in blue states, this will be offset by new taxes that fall most heavily on high earners.

* More generally, "state capacity" will fall greatly across the U.S., and U.S. infrastructure, nationally, but especially in red states, will decay.

* Global warming will slow at a lower rate than it would otherwise, resulting in more climate change impacts in the U.S., especially in the South and the Southwest (which is more red than blue).

* The U.S., in general, but red states, in particular, will slip significantly towards losing developed country status and becoming a merely developing nation, in a collapse of economic progress unrivaled outside post-Soviet Russia. 

* The U.S. will sink further and further down in all manner of international ratings from GDP per capita, to productivity, to democracy, to corruption, to economic growth, to human development, to life expectancy, to cost of living (which will go up), to obesity, to intergenerational economic mobility, to education, and so on. The U.S. incarceration rate and crime rate will rise again.

* Tourism to the U.S. will plummet and a U.S. passport will become less valuable as other countries impose new visa requirements on Americans.

Problems In Political Institution Design

1. How can you design a political system so that a thin majority coalition is weaker than a large majority coalition?

2. How can you assure that judges will interpret the laws faithfully and not with excessive partisan bias?

3. What is the best strategy to prevent a lawless person like Trump from gaining power or abusing it once it has been gained? Do courts need more remedies? Do laws and executive orders need to clear a pre-approval process? Does something need to be done to weaken the partisan grip on legislators so that they exercise more independent judgment? Should the President's personal power be weakened, for example, through independent agencies? Is it a matter of political culture? Is it a matter of insuring that no substantial coalition feels too neglected by the power that be?

4. What is the best way to encourage politicians to be truthful and to make clear lies or disregard for court orders fatal to any politician's career?

5. Isn't there a better way to get budgets approved than a process that involves playing chicken with government shutdowns, the frequent use of continuing resolutions, and omnibus budget bills?

6. What is the best way to discourage the circulation of routinely factually inaccurate news reporting of the kind exemplified by Fox News and Truth Social?

7. What are the best ways to reduce corruption and self-dealing in government?

8. How can a line be drawn between preventing gridlock on one hand and not giving too much power to coalitions with only narrow majorities?

9. What features of an electoral system are most important to making it resistant to systemic manipulation in favor of the party in power?

10. How can civil service and government contracting systems be improved?

11. How can abuses of the pardon and commutation power be limited?

12. How can the system be designed so that civil society and individuals and organizations are protected from tyranny and abuse, and have the power to reinforce the democratic process?

13. Is it important to enshrine substantive policies and not just processes?

14. What is the best balance to strike between ease of amendment and protection of minorities and stability?

15. How does one balance informed decision making and maintaining support from an mostly uninformed public?

16. What is the best way to design a public law system?

17. Is there a good way to systemically screen out dark triad personality persons from positions of power?

18. Can a well run government have less powerful top leaders?

19. How can the policy making process be made more deliberative and information driven?

20. What is the best way to protect the interests of people who can't vote?

21. What are good ways to balance intense special interests with low intensity broad based preferences?

22. What is the best way to distribute power within the judiciary that makes no one judge unduly powerful if atypical and allows workable delegation of authority while keeping the need to get decisions right on the merits at the forefront?

23. What is the best way to discourage abuses of discretion without taking away all discretion?

24. What role should political parties play in intermediating between the general public and institutions of power?

25. What is the best way to deal with public officials, either elected or appointed, who are incompetent, corrupt, criminal, ill-intentioned, lawless, or lazy?

Social Murder

Failing to protect the vulnerable in a manner that caused them to die avoidable deaths, such as leaving homeless people to freeze to death on freezing nights, is "social murder."

The concept of social murder has been adopted into British legal and sociological lexicons to conceptualize the State’s reckless sacrifices of its most vulnerable populations—people deemed socially undesirable, legally undeserving, and economically redundant—to avoidable and premature deaths. The State allows these populations to die a multitude of deaths by failing to protect them; notably, victims of social murder are relegated to society’s underclasses, if not completely excluded from the body politic, before they are physically eliminated. Social murder is neither genocide nor ethnic cleansing; instead, social murder captures the elimination of groups of people via atrocious events for which the State bears indirect or partial responsibility, through calculated abandonment instead of specific intent.

Social murder takes place in the United States, too, though it has yet to be recognized. This Article undertakes the task of introducing the concept of social murder into the American legal lexicon, explaining how the United States employs social murder as a necropolitical governance technology, and sounding an alarm concerning the likely increase in social murders as corporate authoritarianism threatens to overtake the democratic rule of law. The Article makes the claim that because instances of social murder in the United States necessarily involve breaches of enforceable agreements as well as the democratic social contract, social murder is best analyzed through social contracting theory. Social murder should be viewed not simply as catastrophe, but as either extreme breach of the social contract, or as the performance and enforcement of an antisocial contract governing the subjugation and elimination of social murder’s victims.

Marissa Jackson Sow, "Social Murder" Washington and Lee Law Review (Forthcoming) on SSRN.

The Baby Boom In A Nutshell

The Baby Boom was driven by: 

(1) a low cost of living, 

(2) low unemployment, 

(3) high union wages for many people, 

(4) people who had been postponing having children during the uncertainty and hardship of the Great Depression and World War II, 

(5) high poverty rates which makes people think that they'll need more kids to have enough of them live to support them in old age, and 

(6) limited educational and job opportunities for women.

Crashing the economy with tariffs and chaos and union busting, and low taxes on the rich that prevents us from investing in public infrastructure undermines the first three. We shouldn't want to replicate the last three of these factors.

The Baby Boom wasn't due to pro-natalist government policies, which have never worked anywhere for any sustained period of time.

The invisible hand of the economy, in every developed country on the planet, is gently telling us to shrink the population of the high consumption developed world to make it more sustainable, in response to modern conditions. We should come to terms with that reality instead of fighting it.

Fleeting Thoughts From The Brink

So far, the worst case scenario in Trump 2.0 is being held at bay by federal judges, state attorneys' general, attorneys for civic groups like the ACLU, attorneys for unions, the main stream media, a smattering of private lawyers, and the financial markets. Harvard University, the Atlantic magazine, anonymous leakers in the federal government, a handful of members of Congress, consumer boycotters, street protesters, social media social justice warriors, rebellious federal workers and former federal workers, foreign diplomats, foreign heads of state, and Tesla vandals are making good showings in supporting roles. 

Most of the relief that courts have granted so far is preliminary, and has come only after significant harm has been done from wrongful conduct by the Trump Administration. Conservative intermediate federal appellate courts and the ultraconservative U.S. Supreme Court have the potential to undo many of these temporary wins. 

Some of the damage that is being done can't be remedied. Our reputation as a reliable and predictable trade partner is irrevocably damaged. Some U.S. exporters have been permanently replaced with non-U.S. exporters. The credit rating of the U.S. and the strength of the dollar has been damaged in the long run. Our credibility as an ally on national security matters will suffer for decades. Our credibility as a provider of high quality higher education to international students will suffer for many years past this administration. Our desirability as a tourist destination is damaged in the long term. Our status on the democracy and corruption indexes will be downgraded for a long time. Many long running scientific and medical research projects have been derailed beyond repair. The extent to which businesses, foreign and domestic, and private citizens, can expert the predictable application of the rule of law and stability in the legal environment has been shattered for decades to come. U.S. soft power abroad has been destroyed and we no longer have a reputation as a guardian of human rights. The objectives of all of our foreign aid programs have been undermined permanently. Our political system is now a model for what to avoid and not one to be emulated. The reputations of Americans abroad has been undermined. We will not, for the foreseeable future, have a country where it is safe for everyone to travel and live in every U.S. state destroying sixty years or so when that was the case. A consensus that anti-racism and anti-sexism is good is gone. A consensus that Nazis and the KKK are bad is gone. A consensus that empathy is a good thing is gone. We have lost scientists and other great minds and consciences to expatriation, many for good. We are no longer a nation with any significant core of shared values on either matters of substance or the political process.

The U.S. is weaker in foreign policy and military affairs than at any time since before World War II, if not further back. This puts Taiwan and the Philippines at risk. This puts Ukraine at risk. This puts Poland and Lithuania and Latvia and Estonia at risk. Greenland (and by association Denmark and NATO) are in Trump's crosshairs undermining that alliance. Panama is now a target and all goodwill there has been lost. Our long standing relations with Canada and Mexico have been shattered. The risk of a stronger China-Russia alliance has been heightened. We don't have the united front necessary to have leverage over Iran.

Israel isn't really at risk, but we are doing nothing to improve the deteriorating situation in Gaza which genocide or not, could lead to a lot of deaths because Gaza doesn't have the means to support the people who are currently residing there and they have no way to leave.

The one foreign policy/military agenda item upon which the U.S. has held firm from Biden to Trump is that the Houthis and their Red Sea vicinity piracy are receiving a firm U.S. military response.

Trump is literally pulling out of Africa entirely, closing embassies, ending aid programs, and in general, just walking away. And, while this was never a focus of U.S. foreign policy, this turns the continent over to China and ISIS.

Tesla, and Elon Musk's reputation and business empire, have suffered immense, quite possibly irrevocable blows from the combination of his political actions at DOGE destroying their reputation at home and abroad, and from the gross defects in the design and manufacturing of the Cybertruck including systemic odometer fraud. Major clients of Starlink have cancelled their contract for political reasons too. And spectacular SpaceX failures haven't helped either. There may also be securities fraud and suspicious transactions like its Canadian tax credit fraud, its related party transaction with X and xAI, and questions about a huge amount of missing money on Tesla's balance sheet. Musk's distracted attention from his multiple businesses hasn't helped them either.

Lockheed is going to lose F-35 contracts. Boeing has lost sales to China. U.S. farmers who export their products are losing. U.S. oil and gas producers are losing. Private retirement accounts are losing. The U.S. dollar is dramatically weaker. U.S. manufacturing companies are laying people off and being crippled from Apple to Johnny Walker.

The interest rate on the national debt has gone up with costs taxpayers money without providing anything in return. Food safety has been interrupted. Weather reporting has been impaired. Disease control is crippled and multiple epidemics are surging due to the quack leading the Health and Human Services Department. The military academies have been irrevocably impaired.

The Republicans in Congress have caved to almost all of even the worst excesses of Trump 2.0. They even approved insane and grossly under-qualified RFK, Jr. to Health and Human Services, as well as a host of other grossly unqualified candidates to positions where their mission it to undermine everything their agencies are charged with doing rather than faithfully executing the law. They have not stopped tariffs which were probably not authorized by law in the first place and violated the WTO treaties and the NAFTA 2.0 treaty. There have been a few attempted rebellions by small numbers of Republicans who have considerable power if they want it because the GOP majority in both the House and Senate are thin, but basically every time, they have backed down.

The end game remains uncertain. Where Trump's wrong has been acting by executive order, Congress could ratify or adopt his policies properly and by law, although he hasn't done that, in part, because he doesn't think that he can get clean support from the entire Republican caucus for his extreme measures. SCOTUS could undermine the judges who have stepped in to stop him. There is still a constitutional crisis pending over Trump's disregard of court orders related to his illegal Alien Enemies Act deportations among others. Trump could get bolder and could continue to ignore court orders without consequences. For now, Trump won't invoke the Insurrection Act, but we could have martial law and cancelled elections before it is over and he's claiming he may unconstitutionally seek a third term.

If we make it to a reasonably free and fair midterm election in 2026, it is possible that Republicans will be dramatically swept out of power as the consequences of Trump's damaging and unpopular policies becomes apparent, and that could save us. But, the core MAGA base of 35-40% of voters is largely holding fast, even as independents start to slide towards the Democrats, and there is no guarantee that the 2026 elections will be free and fair. Worst case scenario for the GOP, it could go into the wilderness for 60 years like it did after Herbert Hoover's failed tariffs.

Some of the most frightening parts of Trump's early moves have been his ability to gain GOP support to appoint utterly incompetent people to destroy the federal government, Trump's anti-DEI campaign that is evolving into straight up state supported racism and sexism and discrimination applied not just to the federal government but also to state and local schools, private colleges and universities, and private businesses, as well as esteemed and irreplaceable federal cultural institutions. His acts of retaliation against law firms, individuals, and others (even countries). His seeming ability to circumvent the Administrative Procedure Act, civil service protections, union collective bargaining agreements, Congressionally enacted protections for independent agencies, inspector generals, NEPA, duly enacted Congressional appropriations, the Office of Legal Counsel, JAG Corps, and fair minded constitution protecting senior military officers. He's compromised the limited independence of immigration judges. Many more decent people are just washing their hands and resigning rather than being a part of Trump's illegal agenda. 

Trump could order invasions of Greenland or the Panama Canal without Congressional support and get away with it, possibly even triggering a war with NATO. 

SCOTUS has done us no favors in overruling *Roe* with *Dobbs*, with over ruling *Chevron* deference to federal regulations, with deciding that Trump has broad immunity from criminal prosecution, with deciding contrary to clear constitutional language and precedent that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment isn't self-executing, with mealy mouthed responses to Trump's defiance of the law even when it has taken action, with its pro-gun nut jurisprudence on the Second Amendment, and in this time of tyranny, perhaps more than anything, its "unitary executive" jurisprudence.

If democracy does survive, the long standing two party structure of Republicans and Democrats seems likely to fall apart. The minority of reasonable conservatives in the GOP are leaving the party in favor of being independents or flooding the Democratic party tent with principled conservatives and libertarians. The Democratic party tent is getting spread to thin to be cohesive but for its current common enemy. If Trump alienates enough big business and establishment Republicans, the GOP could find it has no money to back it up. Progressives are falling for nihilism, convinced that Democrats are against them and not just lacking the power to secure what they want. The Republican Party of 2025 is a populist, far-right, basically neo-Nazi party. Its major screw ups in Trump 2.0 and violent swing to the right could leave it as a permanent minority party with a mish mash of everyone else trying to form coalitions to keep it out of power (which our current single member district plurality system makes challenging).

Looking at the big picture: What is the solution? Is the problem that we need better institutions? Is the problem that we need a one time reset to purge or undermine bad SCOTUS judges? Does the political culture need to change? Do we just need better politicians to run for the good causes seeing that they are needed and for Trump to die? Is the U.S. constitution resilient enough to weather this crisis? Would it be better if the U.S. constitution failed forcing a new regime from scratch since the corrections that are necessary can't be made through the ordinary means? Do we need more street politics?

What if we make it through this crisis but badly damaged in a way that sets us on a path to inevitable long term decline and degradation even though we avoid the worst case scenarios this time around? We are already a flawed democracy. Maybe will fall further down that scale, become a mere semi-democracy and more corrupt than we have become, experiencing nationwide the kind of decline that the rust belt and coal belt have seen so far.

Should the U.S. split up? Do red states realize how dependent they are on money from blue states? I sense that if red states went it alone that they wouldn't replace much of what the federal government provided and would instead just treat its poor and sick and weak worse, and would become more hateful. The blue states would be weaker for smaller scale, but would allow their prosperity to overcome it and would adopt new and better policies unrestrained by red state backwardness.

How far will women's rights, gay rights, trans rights, non-Christian rights retreat? How far will our isolation from the globe grow? How many immigrants will be purged? How will our national character wither?

One of the deep institutional flaws of the U.S. government that doesn't get talked about enough is that we have an inferior system of public law (the law regulating government) and also have government institutions that aren't good at basic functions like making major military purchases, carrying out major public works programs, and managing large numbers of public servants. This is one major reason for the bias against having government rather than the private sector carry out tasks in U.S. politics compared to many other countries, even when government is really better suited to the tasks in question, and it is a major reason that the U.S. has started to increasing lag relative to its developed world counterparts.

When I first learned that many countries put the prosecutor's office in the judicial branch rather than the executive branch, I was skeptical, thinking that this would make judges biased in favor of prosecutors. And, in countries like South Korea and Japan, that does happen. But, seeing Trump try to use the criminal justice system to persecute his political opponents, I can see the potential benefits to insulating prosecutors from partisan elected officials outside the executive branch (something that almost largely removes the need to have an awkward and flawed special prosecutor system to address criminal acts within the executive branch).

Some Quick And Simple Immigration Reforms

1. Ease the path to citizenship for people eligible for green cards.

Grant everyone with lawful permanent residency (a.k.a. a "green card"), immediate U.S. citizenship without a citizenship exam, without an English language exam, and without a fee.

Short of that, allow green card holders to do that after the three or five year waiting period that must elapse to be eligible for citizenship under current law, a minimal check to confirm that you haven't had a criminal record or gone out of visa status since you had your green card issued, and a much more modest fee than under the current law (since the administrative process is much simpler).

We shouldn't have the second class citizenship status of lawful permanent residents, who can't vote, can't serve on juries, and are subject to having their green card revoked and being deported if they have a little misstep in life.

Keep in mind also that many green card holders got their green cards when they were children at the sponsorship of a parent, who may have, for whatever reason, not gotten their citizenship (maybe the parent immigrated at middle age or older when learning English fluently is much harder than when you are young, or they can't afford to hire an immigration lawyer to learn what to do).

This also supports that idea that people who permanently reside someplace should be part of the political community there.

New Zealand, while it doesn't go quite this far, does allow non-citizens who have lived there legally for a year or more to vote in its elections, and the E.U. does the same in local elections and in E.U. elections.

2. Create a ten year statute of limitations on deportations that can be converted to citizenship.

I would propose that there be a statute of limitations of ten years of presence in the U.S. after ceasing to be in legal immigration status, after which you cannot be deported. At any time when you cannot be deported, you are eligible to become a U.S. citizen if you can pass a criminal record check and pay a modest fee (but perhaps more than the usual immigration application fee) that functions as a civil penalty for failing to keep in valid immigration status.

As it is we have a complex web of exceptions and paths to citizenship for law abiding citizens who have lived in the U.S. for a long time and have strong ties to the U.S. This would also avoid the need for Congress to periodically pass amnesty legislation (as it did in the Reagan administration) or for the President to establish regulatory safe harbors like DACA.

In pre-modern Europe, there was a similar practice in independent self-governing democratic city-states. People who weren't citizens of the city-state could only be kicked out for not being a citizen for a year after entering it (most of them were centers for merchants, and trade and craftsmen, so lots of outsiders came in and out of the cities on a regular basis), and you became a citizen of the city-state at that point.

This also supports that idea that people who permanently reside someplace should be part of the political community there. We don't want to follow the model of the Arabian oil monarchies where a large part of the resident population (a majority in many cases) are "guest workers" without the full rights of citizens.

3. Issue automatic green cards for graduates of English language of instruction colleges and universities.

Graduates with four year degrees or graduate degrees from U.S. colleges and universities in which the language of instruction is English (or in Puerto Rico, Spanish), and a clean criminal record, should automatically be entitled to a green card (or, if green cards are abolished per the first proposal above, citizenship).

Brain drain is in the best interests of the U.S. Our colleges and universities (at least prior to Trump 2.0), attract more of the best and brightest and most promising foreign students in the world. These promising young people who have what it takes to function as productive members of our society shouldn't have to find a U.S. spouse to gain immigration status or a major tech firm for an H1-B visa to stay in the U.S.

Indeed, our borders should be open to any four year college or graduate school college graduate, who earned their degree at an institution where the primary language of instruction is English, and can pass a basic criminal record background check, even if they studied, for example, in Canada, or the U.K., or the Republic of Ireland, or New Zealand, or Australia.

4. Make most skilled work visas convertible to green cards.

People who complete the duration of their H1-B tech visas, or other work authorizing visas that require some high level of skill, should be able to convert their work visas to green cards at the end of the original term of those visas, if they have a clean criminal record, should automatically be entitled to a green card (or, if green cards are abolished per the first proposal above, citizenship).

In addition to H-1B (highly skilled workers mostly in tech), this should include people on L-1 visas (multinationals), O-1 visas (genius visas), P-1 visas (athletes and entertainers), TN visas (NAFTA professionals), EB-1 visas (extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics; outstanding professors or researchers; and certain multinational executives and managers), EB-2 visas (members of the professions holding advanced degrees or for persons with exceptional ability in the arts, sciences, or business), EB-3 visas (professionals, skilled workers, and other workers), EB-4 visas (“special immigrants,” which includes certain religious workers, employees of U.S. foreign service posts, retired employees of international organizations, alien minors who are wards of courts in the United States, and other classes of aliens), and EB-5 visas (business investors who invest $1,050,000 or $800,000 (if the investment is made in a targeted employment area) in a new commercial enterprise that employs at least 10 full-time U.S. workers).

Again, brain drain is in the interests of the U.S. and these individuals, if they are able to work at their work visa job for the duration of the visa, have proven that they are highly valuable and productive contributors to our society whom we want to keep.

5. Eliminate quotas for visas for highly skilled people and immediate family.

There should be no quotas (and not waiting for an annual quota period) for H-1B, L-1 visas, O-1 visas, P-1 visas, TN visas, EB visas, spousal visas, or visa for minor children of people who hold these visas. 

These individuals are an asset to our country and the more we have, the more prosperous and vital we will be.

6. Issue automatic green cards for graduates of English language of instruction high schools who came to the U.S. as children.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is a United States immigration policy that allows some individuals who, on June 15, 2012, were physically present in the United States with no lawful immigration status after having entered the country as children at least five years earlier, to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and to be eligible for an employment authorization document (work permit). . . .

To qualify for DACA, applicants must meet the following major requirements, although meeting them does not guarantee approval:

• Have unlawful presence in United States after entering the country before their 16th birthday
• Have lived continuously in the United States since June 15, 2007
• Were under age 31 on as of June 15, 2012 (born on June 16, 1981, or after)
• Were physically present in the United States on June 15, 2012, and at the time of making their request for consideration of deferred action with USCIS
• Had no lawful status on June 15, 2012
• Have completed high school or a GED, have been honorably discharged from the armed forces, or are enrolled in school
• Have not been convicted of a felony or serious misdemeanors, or three or more other misdemeanors, and do not otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety.

From Wikipedia. 

If you come to the U.S. before age 16 (usually something that is not fully your decision) and you graduate from high school in the U.S. from a high school where English is the primary language of instruction (or Spanish in Puerto Rico),  or have been honorably discharged from the military, or have a GED, and don't have a serious felony (see below) on your criminal record, you should be automatically entitled to a green card (or, if green cards are abolished per the first proposal above, citizenship).

You are functionally just as assimilated into U.S. society as people born in the U.S. in immigrant households.

7. Grant U.S. citizenship more promptly and automatically to people in U.S. military service.

If they are good enough to fight for the U.S. in the military, they should be granted citizenship. Perhaps allow for a probationary period to make sure that non-citizens enlisting in the U.S. military make it through basic training and training in their military occupational specialty, without being discharged. But once they have started actually serving in the military, and not just training, they should be granted U.S. citizenship.

8. Limit relevant criminal offenses for immigration purposes to felonies.

Criminal offenses that have a potential for changing your immigration status should be limited to crimes punishable by more than two years in prison (which reflects the fact that in some states, misdemeanors are punishable by up to two years in jail or prison, even though the usual sentences are typically much shorter).

Traffic offenses, or fishing ordinance violations, or public order offenses, for example, should not be grounds for denying someone immigration status. People permanently in the U.S. should not be one misdemeanor, ordinance violation, or petty offense away from being deported.

9. Decriminalize merely being undocumented.

The lowest level immigration offense, of unlawful entry or overstaying your visa, which is a low level misdemeanor, makes up a surprising large share of the criminal docket of the federal courts, especially in states along the Mexican border, during Presidential administration that choose to prosecute this as a crime. The single most commonly charged federal crime is illegal reentry by an alien which accounts for 27.5% of all federal criminal defendants.

Unlawful entry (even repeatedly) or overstaying your visa (even repeatedly) should simply be a non-criminal grounds for deporting someone until they attain legal immigration status or have remained in the U.S. for ten years.

Criminalization in unnecessarily punitive and stigmatizing, for not very culpable conduct that is victimless, and costs money spent incarcerating and processing someone as a criminal who will just be deported again anyway once the sentence is served.

Criminalization also gets in the way of the efficient functioning of the immigration system. A criminal prosecution involves proof beyond a reasonable doubt, a right to trial by jury, a right to counsel, a necessity of a criminal case before an Article III judge or a magistrate in an Article III court, in person presence in the courtroom, etc. A civil action would require only proof by a preponderance of the evidence, no right to trial by jury, no right to counsel, and not even necessarily involvement of an Article III court or in person presence in the courtroom.

10. Eliminate family based visas for remote family.

Family based visas are subject to quotas and typically have long waiting lists. Those waiting lists are particularly long for more distant relatives who may have to be on waiting lists for many, many years to finally receive them.

A limited number (480,000) of green cards are given out to other relatives of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. The wait tends to range from three to twenty four years. Brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens wait the longest.

The wait is longer for family members from some countries than it is from others in this category. People from Mexico and the Philippines, for example, face very long wait times in this categories of preferred family members.

The following are the preferences in order of preference:

Unlimited

• spouses and recent widows and widowers of U.S. citizens
• children (unmarried under age 21), stepchildren, and stepparents as long as the marriage occurred before the child was age 18, and
• adopted children as long as the adoption takes place before the age of 16.

Limited by a 480,000 person a year quota with additional country quotas:

• Unmarried children of a U.S. citizen who are age 21 or older
• Spouses and unmarried children of a Green Card Holder (this includes two subcategories, 2A and 2B; children over age 21 are in category 2B, and wait longer than those in 2A)
• Married children of at least one U.S. citizen parent
• Sisters and brothers of U.S. citizens, where the citizen is at least age 21

Rather than encouraging so many people to apply for visas that they will have to wait many years for and may never receive, we should just eliminate the lower priority family visas entirely, probably at least the last two categories, while upgrading spouses and unmarried children under age 21 of green card holders. 

This would leave only unmarried children over age 21 of U.S. citizens and green card holders in the extended family category with quotas.

A Major New Misdemeanor Database

While there is fairly good publicly available data on the felony offenses for which people are in prison, the parallel data on people who are in jail pursuant to misdemeanor convictions has been hard to find. 

A new data set addresses that shortcoming.

An Act To Prevent Tyranny

I would suggest that Congress pass a "Prevent Tyranny Act". This would:

1. Repeal the Insurrection Act of 1807 (now codified at 10 U.S.C. §§ 251-255).

2. Repeal the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 (now codified at 50 U.S.C. § 21).

3. Repeal 8 U.S.C. § 1251(a)(4)(C)(i) (i.e. Section 241(a)(4)(C)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA") which provides that the U.S. may cancel the visa of and deport:

An alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.

4. Repeal 8 U.S.C. § 1451 (authorizing the revocation of a grant of citizenship by naturalization in certain exceptional circumstances).

5. Pass legislation invoking Section 5 of the 14th Amendment to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, by authorizing a civil action to disqualify any person from holding public office on account of their involvement in an insurrection against the government of the United States in any federal district court, and also in any state court or tribunal granted jurisdiction to make such determinations by state law, if the disqualifying conduct is shown by a preponderance of the evidence.

6. Pass a statute authorizing a habeas corpus action related to any person detained by the United States government, and any other civil action related to such a detention, to be filed in the U.S. District Court with territorial jurisdiction over the place where that person was detained, or if outside the territorial jurisdiction of any U.S. District Court, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in addition to continuing to authorizing the filing of such a civil action in any other U.S. District Court that has jurisdiction under existing U.S. law. Further, provide that a plaintiff in such an action shall have an absolute right, to compel the United States government to, at the expense of the United States government, as soon as logistically possible, return any person detained by the United States government to a place in the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S. District Court with with territorial jurisdiction over the place where that person was detained, or if outside the territorial jurisdiction of any U.S. District Court, to the District of Columbia.

7. Pass a statute prohibiting the United States government (or any other person acting under the color of state or federal law), from involuntarily removing a civilian United States citizen from the United States for any reason (other than a request to extradite that person, to another country with whom the United States has diplomatic relations, for prosecution for a suspected felony committed in that country, pursuant to existing extradition laws).

8. Amend 42 U.S.C. § 1983 which creates a private civil action against persons who deprive someone of fedreal rights under color of state law, to codify Bivens actions (named after the case of  Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), by making it also apply to anyone who deprives someone of a federal right under color of federal law.

9. Repeal the doctrine of qualified immunity to liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

10. Authorize the additional discretionary remedy under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, of imposing a disqualification from holding public office similar to that of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, under the authority of Section 5 of the 14th Amendment, to persons held liable under that statute, for good cause shown.

11. Prohibit the invocation of the State Secrets Privilege in any habeas corpus case, any proceeding related to immigration, and any criminal prosecution.

12. Prohibit deportation of a non-citizen from the United States, without their free and voluntary consent in open court while represented by counsel, to any country where that person is not a national or citizen.

Marriage Has Grown Less Popular In England And Wales

Seeking Out Good Ideas

One of the things that made Japan great was its intentional effort in the late Meiji era to scour the world for good ideas and to bring them back and incorporate those ideas in a culturally appropriate way into their own society. 

This is something that the U.S. should do as well if it really wants to be great. Some minor gadgets and ideas are no big deal, but countless little ideas add up to big quality of life improvements. And, while private enterprises can do some of that, some ideas are specific to governments and government policies.

For example, Japan has stickers for the vehicles of older drivers, and labels for some kinds of food that change color when the contents are spoiled. New Zealand has "no fault" insurance for all accidents, not just car accidents or work related accidents. Finland sends newborns home from the hospital with a package of useful items for the baby and has regular home nurse visits when the baby is an infant.

Impeachable Offenses

Many grounds already exist for impeachment or a post-term prosecution.

Pre-election high crimes and misdemeanors:

1. His 34 state court felony convictions.

2. His election interference in Georgia in 2020.

3. His classified documents hoarding and refusal to turn over.

4. His January 6 infractions.

5. His role in having fake electors appointed.

6. His running for office when he participated in an insurrection.

7. Multiple rapes.

8. Trump University fraud.

Second term high crimes and misdemeanors:

1. His violation of the Impoundment Act with executive orders.

2. His violation of privacy laws by sharing Social Security data with Musk.

3. His violation of privacy laws by sharing tax data with immigration enforcement.

4. His violation of civil rights including free speech by deporting legal immigrants for expressing their opinions.

5. His violation of civil rights in his anti-DEI campaign including destruction of minority and LGBT and female websites, censoring books, and threatening colleges and schools that fail to follow suit.

6. Extortion of law firms, colleges, and businesses in a campaign of vengeance for acts that weren't legal wrongs.

7. Violation of civil rights to individuals targeted for vengeance.

8. Disregard for court orders constituting contempt of court and creating a constitutional crisis.

9. The war crime of aggression for threatening invasions of Greenland and the Panama Canal for no legally cognizable reason.

10. Violation of civil rights for wrongfully invoking the Alien Enemies Act and not providing the due process to which people are entitled even then.

11. Violation of civil rights by sending people to a torture prison without due process.

12. Violation of civil rights by detaining people who were lawful tourists for no legitimate reason.

13. Conspiracy to commit insider trading.

14. Violation of federal law by marketing Tesla.

15. Inducing his doctor to give false reports to the public about his health.

Not high crimes and misdemeanors but troubling:

1. Starting a trade war when neither statutes nor the constitution nor treaties authorized it (although possibly extortion).

2. Attempting to create and remove regulations without Administrative Procedural Act approval.

3.  J6 pardons.

4. NATO treaty violation in threatening Denmark-Greenland.

5.  Improperly turning tables on Ukraine.

6. Incessant fraud on the American people with a constant stream of lies.

7. Breaching union-labor agreements with federal civil servants.

8. Violating federal law re firing inspector generals and JAG officers with an intent to facilitate more violations of the law.

9. Violation of government contracting laws related to Musk benefits.

10. Receiving illegal emoluments in private vacations.

11. Threatening federal judges without a basis for doing so.

12. Threatening to unconstitutionally run for a third term. 

13. Attempting to abolish birthright citizenship.

14. Threatening to deport U.S. citizens.

15. Endorsing and praising dictators and fascists.

16. Threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act without good cause.

17. Eliminating the Office of Legal Counsel to screen legislation for legality.

18. In general, breaching his duty to faithfully execute the laws.

Bingo Cards

What unusual or exceptional events could happen in this administration (i.e. "what's on my Bingo Card")?

1. The Trump Administration could decide to deliberately default on the federal debt (perhaps only if owed to selective perceived enemies).

2. The U.S. Supreme Court could adopt the President's fringe unitary executive theory.

3. The U.S. Supreme Court could affirm the validity of the President's Alien Enemy Act declaration, perhaps by holding that it is non-justiciable.

4. The U.S. Supreme Court could affirm a contemplated Insurrection Act declaration, perhaps by holding that it is non-justiciable.

5. The U.S. Supreme Court could hold that the impoundment act in unconstitutional.

6. Congress could repeal Trump's authority to impose tariffs.

7. Trump could die of natural causes.

8. Trump could be assassinated.

9. Other leading Trump administration officials could be assassinated.

10. The U.S. Supreme Court could declare Trump's tariffs to be illegal or invalid under a variety of legal theories.

11. The Republican Party could suffer a crushing defeat in the 2026 elections.

12. The 2026 elections could be cancelled or postponed.

13. Elon Musk could lose his billionaire status after having been the richest man in the world this year.

14. China could invade Taiwan.

15. China could start providing arms to Russia (it already seems to have provided 150 mercenaries).

16. Volcanos and earthquakes could enter a sustained period of high activity.

17. Martial law could be declared.

18. There could be a military coup attempt in the U.S.

19. There could be an unprecedented wave of farm bankruptcies.

20. A trade war with China and/or an invasion of Taiwan could bankrupt Apple.

21. A serious Ebola-class foreign pathogen could lead to a U.S. outbreak.

22. There is a Kent State-like incident of anti-Trump protesters being killed.

23. The U.S. Supreme Court upholds state laws making it illegal to be transgender.

24. Southern Florida experiences Hurricane Katrina-class flooding that leads to permanent large population reductions in some areas.

25. The U.S. invades Mexico militarily over Mexican objections leading to military clashes with Mexico.

26. The U.S. invades Greenland triggering a NATO response.

27. There is a terrorist attack on Trump's proposed military parade in D.C.

28. Marsupial tigers are revived.

29. Insider trading in Trump's inner circle is definitively established and not prosecuted.

30. Trump gets divorced again.

31. Trump declares (falsely) on national TV that aliens are real and that the U.S. government has been in contact with them.

32. The Smithsonian Museum is mostly shut down and its collections are destroyed.

33. Trump sponsors new Confederate monuments in Washington D.C.

34. The U.S. leaves NATO.

35. The 2028 election is cancelled.

Neither The Space Force Nor The Air Force Should Exist

Military space resources are necessary. A separate Space Force bureaucracy is just a very expensive and wasteful PR stunt. The Space Force shouldn't exist, and honestly, we'd be better off if the Air Force were merged back into the Army again as well.

If the Air Force weren't separate from the Army, the Army wouldn't be trying to build helicopters to do jobs that fixed wing aircraft jobs would do better, and the Air Force fighter mafia wouldn't be neglecting CAS and logistics, and joint air-land cooperation would be handled in the same lower level command and control unit in the same way that this is done in the U.S. Marine Corps. 

The Space Force just adds insult to injury and makes coordination between troops on the ground and space resources, and supporting Air Force resources, even more poor. And, it also creates stupid unnecessary bureaucratic empires that cost money and don't add value.

Simple Solutions To Big Problems

I'm a "Fox" and not a "Hedgehog". I know many things and focus on details rather than "one big thing" that solves every problem. 

But, I'm going to try to put on my hedgehog hat and come up with ways to address some of the biggest problems facing the U.S. today if forced to suggest just three solutions to each of them. The point of this exercise is partially to force prioritization of lists of proposals that can get bogged down with good ideas to solve small problems or to make lower priority reforms to big problems.

Affordable Housing and Homelessness

Housing prices in major metropolitan areas are high. What is the single biggest thing we can do to address that?

Eliminate virtually all zoning regulations of residential density, parking requirements,  minimum lot sizes, and regulation of the purposes for which buildings can be used. This primarily reduces the land value part of housing costs which is the main factor that makes housing in big cities so much more expensive. 

What is another big thing that we can do to address that?

End all property tax funding of public schools and replace the lost revenue, dollar for dollar, with increased state income taxes. This will typically reduce property taxes by more than 50% freeing up income for making principal and interest payments. It would also reduce inequities in school funding and would be more progressive as a tax source.

What is a third big thing we can do to address that?

Spend whatever it takes to provide basic housing first, immediately, to every single homeless person in the United States. Housing first is cheaper than letting people live on the street and paying the costs of that. This is less burdensome on the health care system, reduces crime, and improves quality of life for both the people who would be homeless and the people that their being homeless in their neighborhoods would impact.

Health Care

The U.S. pays far more per person for healthcare than any other country on the planet and gets poor results for its money, while inflicting great financial hardship on people. What is the single biggest thing we can do to address that?

Adopt "Medicare for All" financed with a higher Medicare payroll tax and a higher Obamacare tax on investment income. Roll in long term care coverage currently paid for, for many people, with the Medicaid long term care program. 

End Medicaid. End the Medicaid Estate Recovery System (i.e. the poor man's death tax). End private health insurance. End worker's compensation coverage of medical expenses. End the separate veteran's healthcare programs. End Obamacare insurance premium subsidies. End health insurance tax deductions and employer health insurance mandates and private health insurance mandates. End lawsuits by private individuals to pay for medical expenses. End casualty insurance policies designed to cover liability for medical expenses in lawsuits. This would greatly reduce administrative cost waste, bad debt, denial of care, linkage of health care to employment, would reduce health insurance and worker's compensation and CGL insurance expenses for businesses, would simplify tax returns for individuals, and would facilitate more effective cost control on provider payments. It would also increase use of preventative care thereby reducing more expensive acute care and would shift expensive ER care for the currently uninsured to more appropriate lower cost providers. This would especially help working class people who are mostly likely to have inadequate health insurance and to struggle with paying medical bills.

In round numbers, the U.S. federal and state governments spend about $2 trillion a year on Medicare, Medicaid, and VA health care, private health insurance policy premiums are about $1.5 trillion a year, and out of pocket health care expenses are about $0.5 trillion a year, for a total of $4 trillion a year of spending on health care, which still leaves about 27 million people without health insurance (in a country with about 336 million people). Cutting administrative costs, profits, marketing, provider level health insurance claim processing, bad debt expenses for providers, shifting ER care for the uninsured as a last resort to primary care and urgent care, price negotiation with providers from drug providers to hospitals to physicians and nurses, since the U.S. pays higher prices for everything than anyplace else in the world, substitution of preventative care that is foregone for cost reasons for later acute care, reduced worker's compensation, car insurance, homeowner's insurance, and other casualty liability insurance premium rates since they don't have to cover health care expenses, state and local public hospital funding, public employee health care funding, and reduced personal injury litigation costs associated with shifting payment obligations for medical expenses, could cut that $4 trillion to $3 trillion (about 25%). So, public expenditures for health care at all levels of government combined would increase by about 50% over current levels (some of which would be covered by eliminating tax exclusions, tax deductions and credits for health care under existing tax law) while largely eliminating household level and business level health care expenses, ending medical expense driven bankruptcies and collect litigation costs, and lower other household and business insurance premiums, and covering all 27 million of the uninsured. Tax bills for households and businesses would go up, but a lot of wasted time in households and businesses dealing with health insurance and medical bill related issues would disappear.

What is another big thing we can do to address that?

Legalize "recreational" drugs in a highly regulated and controlled manner similar to Colorado's marijuana legalization to reduce harm, while providing strong support for substance abuse treatment including drug based therapies and inpatient treatment funded with Medicaid for All resources. This would dramatically reduce the overdose epidemic, and would improve recovery rates for alcoholics and drug addicts, something that takes a particular toll on the poor and working class. This would also dramatically reduce gang crime and organized crime and would cripple cartels, and would reduce crime by addicts and would reduce incarceration costs associated with controlled substance users and jail deaths from drug withdrawal. The reduced demand would also dramatically reduce crime abroad from Columbia to Mexico, which would reduce the flow of refugees and migrants to the U.S. and would reduce corruption in the affected governments.

What is a third big thing we can do to address that?

Double the number of medical student slots for educating physicians by expanding medical school capacity and building new medical schools. We shouldn't have the same number of MD education slots as we did fifty years ago, with twice the population, and there is no shortage of highly qualified premed graduates to fill those slots. Limited supply also drives ups provider costs. Ending student loans for medical students and Medicaid for All ending bad debt issues and administrative costs for self-employed doctors and lowering malpractice insurance coverage due to not having to pay for malpractice related medical bill compensation would also allow reduced MD charges without undue hardship for MDs.

Higher Education

It is very expensive to go to college and many people leave college with large student loans that can't be discharged in bankruptcy. Many kids who are ready for college don't go, but many kids who aren't ready for college go at great expense in public funds and for themselves. What is the single biggest thing we can do to address that?

Provide 100% grant based funding for tuition, room, board, and books to students pursuing higher education whose grades and test scores and other factors show that they have at least a 50% chance of completing the higher educational program that they are enrolled in. Do not fund higher education for people who have a low chance of completing the higher educational program that they are enrolled in. End government sponsored or guaranteed student loans. This would much better utilize our nation's supply of academically competent students while reducing dropouts and failures by people who aren't currently ready for college at great expense and undermining personal self-worth. The status quo of indiscriminate state subsidies to in state students and very low admission thresholds that insure that huge percentages of students admitted at public and for profit colleges drop out without degrees is wasteful while still excluding poor and working class students at high levels from the system. Some of the political alienation towards higher education also comes from people who tried and had bad experiences since they weren't ready and dropped out and from people who were shut out of the system when they were prepared and take a sour grapes attitude towards it.

What is another thing we can do to address that?

Improve apprenticeship systems and vocational education programs, both for high school aged students whose academic performance indicates that traditional liberal education programs in a four year program don't make sense for them, and through community colleges. Adopt occupational specialty identification and training approaches used by the U.S. military for enlisted recruits for civilians. This would provide a path to missing middle occupations and recognize that not going to college doesn't have to mean that there is no path to the American dream.

What is a third big thing we can do to address that?

Forgive all existing federally guaranteed or federally provided student loans, and end the prohibition on discharging student loans in bankruptcy for all other student loans ten years after the repayment period begins if a degree is earned and professional certification is obtained in a pre-professional program, and after five years in all other cases. This would provide intergenerational justice to struggling Millenials and Gen Xers and Gen Z. These students could then better afford the American dream and could better afford to get married and have kids.

Poverty

Lots of people, especially children and single parents, but also many older adults with little education or skills, are poor and struggling. What is the single biggest thing we can do to address that?

Make the large, per child tax credit, that was available during the pandemic, permanent, and replace the complicated and audit prone earned income tax credit with a simple income tax credit equal to Social Security taxes (for both employers and employees) up to the minimum wage times thirty hours a week (or an equivalent amount of credit against self-employment taxes - reflected in not having those taxes withheld. The usefulness of the child tax credit in reducing child poverty in a simple way was demonstrated in the pandemic, and the EITC is far too complicated and has bad incentives for people trying to climb out of low income jobs and is too expensive to administer. This would make it more affordable for Millennials and Gen Z to marry, have kids, and achieve the American Dream.

What is another big thing that we can do to address that?

Reduce the regular Social Security retirement age to 55 years to people who do not have college degrees, without a reduction in benefits, and pay for any shortfalls in social security from existing obligations or new coverage, by increasing the payroll tax cap by however much is necessary to pay for it. Consider this payback for not imposing higher education costs on the public, and well as a rough justice categorical recognition that jobs that require less education are frequently more physically demanding and harder to continue to perform in late middle age. This would particularly help the Trump demographic. Many people in this demographic are already voting with their feet by leaving the work force and often applying for disability benefits which wouldn't be necessary with this categorical benefit that is much cheaper to administer and has better incentives.

What is a third big thing we can do to address that?

Provide paid maternity leave, at public expense, from six months of pregnancy to fifteen months after birth, as a short form, temporary, Social Security disability benefit. Add an additional six months to this time period for twins. Pay for this as well with an increased payroll tax cap. This greatly reduces the need for infant daycare, and increase the health of mothers and babies especially for working class families without unduly burdening employers. The pandemic proved that not being at work in late pregnancy out of economic necessity increases maternal and infant health. This would make it more affordable for Millennials and Gen Z to marry, have kids, and achieve the American Dream.

Transportation

Internal combustion engines are polluting and make up dependent upon oil. What is the single biggest thing we can do to address that?

Reduce trade barriers to importing foreign EVs and batteries, and subsidize high speed charging networks. There are lots of good EVs out there that aren't being exported to the U.S. due to trade barriers, especially from China. EVs reduce pollution and reduce fossil fuel dependency with petroleum dependency creating national security issues.

What is the second biggest thing we can do to address that?

Build dedicated high speed rail in interstate highway corridors where there is high traffic volume on medium distance routes (and upgrade medium speed rail corridors that already exist like the one in the Northeast Corridor), and use that high speed rail not only for passengers but for mail and package delivery by the USPS. Pay for this, in part, by shutting down low speed AMTRAK routes with the heaviest subsidies per passenger-mile. This could reduce pressure to expand highways, is environmentally sound, reduces highway maintenance costs, and provides mutual support between the rail system and the postal system. It would improve speed on these routes relative to both cars and to commercial flights. But it only makes sense where it makes some sort of economic sense based upon cost and demand. Medium distance, high volume routes are the sweet spot for high speed rail. Reducing petroleum dependency in addition to being environmentally and climate sound would increase national security and economic stability by reducing exposure to global oil production shocks.

What is a third big thing we can do to address that?

Convert short haul government fleet vehicles like garbage trucks, intracity and school buses, and urban postal delivery vehicles to EVs. This is a perfect niche for EVs even before charging networks are built out, reducing pollution and reducing oil demand with the benefits described above.