Taking a Stand for America

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“When are you going to run for office?”

I often get this question—flattering, of course, and, perhaps, revealing. Is this where all this writing and podcasting is leading me? Maybe so.

While I’ve entertained the idea many times in life, thus far I’ve always said “No.”

I keep coming back to this question in my mind of whether politics is a sphere of action where I can be most effective and impactful. Given today’s landscape, I have serious doubts. I wonder whether I might be able to do more as a private citizen. What if my writing and podcasting could reach enough Americans to make a difference? That’s the dream anyway.

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Today, what I thought I’d do is try to answer a different kind of question: What do I think we actually need to do to improve America?

Since both parties are afraid to talk with Americans about the truth, I’m going to do everyone a favor and just tell it how it is. Here goes!

There are 3 main things we need to do:

1. Reduce the fiscal deficit

2. Position America for economic growth

3.  Improve the democracy itself

Now, I’m aware this is almost certainly not a winning Presidential platform but it is the truth. The fact that neither Presidential candidate is really talking about any of this should scare us all. 

Why is it so important to reduce the fiscal deficit? Because it is completely out of control:

And creating structural inflationary pressure that is existential to the standard of living for most American households. Plus, if we’ve learned anything from history it’s that deficit-induced currency debasement is ultimately what destroys all great nations and empires. 

Fixing the deficit problem is tricky. Not only is it incredibly politically unpalatable—who wants to stand up and tell the American people we have to stop spending?—but also, we just don’t have a lot of good options. Do we really want to raise taxes, increase the minimum age for Social Security benefits, or reduce Medicare benefits? How about cutting spending on things like on things like Section 8, food stamps, on-shoring, green energy…etc.? Even with the defense budget, which is a huge $800B line item, it’s hard to articulate an intelligent case for cutting given everything happening in the world. 

The truth is that we’ve gotten ourselves into such a financial conundrum that any path forward is going to be painful. If we do nothing, inflation will slowly eat away at our livelihoods. If we do something proactive, like raise taxes on the rich or pursue the efficiency reforms that people like Musk and Trump have been talking about, we will cause a bunch of short-term pain for people. I’m in favor of proactivity because at least we will be making important tradeoff choices in broad daylight instead of letting inflation wreak havoc behind closed doors. 

Now, I’m not at all in favor of the wealth tax and think that taxes are something we should, in general, seek to minimize. However, at this moment in time, a period of higher taxes for the ultra-wealthy is probably necessary. At the same time, we have to make sure that any spending we do is done as efficiently as possible. Given our budgetary constraints, this is our only real hope outside of some massive uptick in economic growth.

People on both sides of the aisle are probably going to hate my ideas on the economy, but I can tell you this: GDP growth doesn’t come from things like tariffs, restrictive immigration, or new regulations. Growth comes from innovation and population—that’s it—both things America can actually be pretty darn good at.

My platform for growth involves weaponizing our immigration system to brain drain the world. Not only can this address critical skills gaps in our labor force and improve our international competitiveness, but also, it will inevitably and arithmetically produce more GDP (and, as a bonus, some more tax revenue). Now, I’m not saying we should let in everyone or that we should only let in the highly educated and skilled. And I believe wholeheartedly in border security. I just know, because I’ve actually studied history, that walls don’t work. What will work are clear standards and rules and properly staffed government agencies. It’s a crime that we aren’t using the greatest natural advantage in history—the fact that people actually want to live here—in a more strategic way.

We should also do our best to incentivize Americans to have more kids. What we’ve seen in places like Japan, Russia, Korea, and China is that a declining population is existential to the social contract of the modern nation-state. These countries are facing massive deflationary pressure (the bad kind), bankrupt entitlement economics (where you have too many old dependents and not enough young workers), and rapidly rising debts. America can probably avoid this fate from immigration alone but we should also make it financially easier for families to have kids.

When it comes to innovation, government needs to just get out of the way. We already have the greatest innovation economy in world history and it’s working pretty well. There are a few areas where we should remain regulatorily vigilant—like protecting the environment, fighting against monopoly practices, AI safety, and keeping our kids safe from addictive stuff—but we would benefit from a large-scale dismantling of the regulatory state. This is especially true in older industries like housing and health care where things have gotten so bad that the underlying business models are broken in fundamental ways. 

Finally, we have some work to do on our democracy itself.  This is something we should embrace rather than fear. The Founders always knew that things would have to evolve over time and built mechanisms for change right into the Constitution. Plus, we’ve already made several rather consequential improvements (think, ending slavery and extending the right to vote to former slaves and then later to women) and a bunch of smaller ones (e.g. providing for the direct election of Senators), so change is something we can handle.

Now is definitely one of those moments where we need to get serious about change. The incentive structures of our elections are producing increasingly dysfunctional results. Instead of attracting the best and the brightest they are calling a decidedly different crop of characters. How many elected officials have to be indicted before we wake up?  

Anyway, I’m definitely in favor of the 3 voting process reforms that we’ve covered on the podcast: 

1. Open Primaries

2. Ranked Choice Voting

3. Proportional Representation

These reforms are all aimed at reducing political polarization, encouraging comprise, and making election outcomes more representative of the true will of the people. They are producing good results in places where they have been tried and have decent political momentum. We just need to finish the job and get them in place everywhere!

I’m also in favor of term limits for Congress (and anywhere else they don’t already exist) coupled with a massive increase in the salary for elected positions. The idea here is to try to attract better candidates to the table.

Also, something less consequential but important: I think all judges should be appointed rather than elected. Is anyone really qualified to vote on judges? Even my most diehard politico friends haven’t the slightest clue how to evaluate a slate of candidates for judge. 

Reducing the deficit with some slightly higher taxes on the wealthy and some efficiency gains. Improving economic growth through strategically intelligent immigration reform and mindful de-regulation. Tweaking our elections to entice better candidates and produce more representative outcomes.

Does this sound like a winning platform for America? I’d love to hear what you all think. Hit “reply” and let me know!

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