Two Good Ideas... One Mine... One Borrowed

Submitted for your approval

Idea #1) Expand VISAs to create jobs. I've talked before about the "myth" that foreign workers steal jobs. This idea is a way to avoid that myth and accomplish a very targeted goal. How, might you ask, does letting MORE people into the country help create jobs? An excellent question. Well, if you create a new class of VISAs called "Startup" VISAs and give them to people who intend to start a new business, then, by defintiion, you will be creating jobs. Many of these will be tech startups because those tend to be less capital intensive. This has the added benefit of not actually increasing competition tremendously as most tech startups do something NEW (think Twitter and MySpace). Obviously, not every startup will succeed, but if even a few of them do, the gain for the US is big while the loss is practically zero. I think this is a win, win.

Idea #2) There's an equality issue that people struggle with as part of class warfare. We are generally okay with rich people eating more expensive food and driving more expensive cars. Where it gets fuzzy, is when we start talking about health care and eductation. Is it fair that a rich family can afford the best health care? Is it fair that a rich family can painlessly send their children to the best schools and then the best colleges? This issue isn't black and white to me but I see the moral quandary. The solution that democrats have largely advocated is greater state interest (not necessarily control but certainly influence and/or regulation and subsidization). The solution that the right pushes is free markets (think school vouchers and increased inter state competition for insurance). Let's combine those two. Let's establish a separate pool of money that goes equally to every child in the US. This money goes to buy health insurance and pay for school. This creates a de facto voucher system for all educations. Schools and insurance companies can trade in these special dollars for real dollars (on a 1:1) basis to get funds to pay expenses. Schools and insurance companies set their own prices. Parents are still free to pay for medical expenses out of pocket (and tutoring, etc.) but these are considered supplemental. This doesn't fully eliminate the fairness issues but it establishes a baseline of what is the minimum. It's also targeted toward children without providing incentives to parents to skim money from said children.

The first idea is from paulgraham.com

The second idea is mine...