{"id":2867,"date":"2010-10-03T11:28:02","date_gmt":"2010-10-03T15:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=2867"},"modified":"2010-10-04T09:48:23","modified_gmt":"2010-10-04T13:48:23","slug":"three-libertarian-ideas-that-would-jumpstart-the-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/10\/03\/three-libertarian-ideas-that-would-jumpstart-the-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"Three libertarian ideas that would jumpstart the economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States needs big long-term fixes to our economic system.<\/p>\n

We’re too dependent on government spending, not entrepreneurial enough, and our education and healthcare systems are 2nd rate.<\/p>\n

We also need to rethink trade policies that essentially encourage the outsourcing of jobs to countries that compete not through innovation and hard work but through medieval labor and environmental policies.<\/p>\n

But in the short term we also need some quick nudges that will shift our economy out of the low gear we’ve been stuck in since early in 2009.<\/p>\n

Here are three libertarian ideas — they don’t require huge infusions of government cash or equally unaffordable deep tax cuts — that would spark a new bout of private sector spending.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 Legalize and tax marijuana.\u00a0 According to the Drug Policy Alliance<\/a>, the US spends $40 billion a year trying to stop the flow of drugs into our country.\u00a0 A lot of that taxpayer money is wasted on marijuana, a recreational drug with harmful effects that are no worse than cigarettes and alcohol.\u00a0 The policy is an abject failure.\u00a0 By criminalizing pot, we’ve created an underground economy far more destructive than the rumrunner days of Prohibition.<\/p>\n

By legalizing and taxing marijuana, we’ll empty our prisons of non-violent offenders, generate billions of dollars in new revenue for social programs, and shift massive profits from drug dealers to legitimate farmers.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Open free trade with Cuba.\u00a0 Yes, Cuba’s regime is oppressive and repressive, but it is a far freer nation by almost any measure than China.\u00a0 By opening trade with that nation, we would foster a boom in investment, trade and development, while bringing many of the companies that now do business in Asia home to an island a few dozen miles off the US coast.\u00a0 Cuba has made some serious steps toward developing a market economy of late.<\/p>\n

For our own good, we should follow suit by ending the trade embargo.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Give green cards to all illegal or undocumented people working in the U.S.\u00a0 Yes, we need a serious debate about what to do with the roughly 11 million people living illegally in the US.\u00a0 But in the meantime, we need those workers out in the open, where they can participate fully in the economy.\u00a0 People living in the shadows make lousy consumers.\u00a0 They tend to foster black market and criminal economies, rather than the vibrant retail and entrepreneurial activity that we need. This would also eliminate the fear and uncertainty faced by many employers who desperately need these workers.<\/p>\n

So while we figure out how to secure our borders, offer everyone here illegally a 5-year green card, good for as long as the worker is employed and crime-free.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

All of these ideas make sense for other policy reasons.\u00a0 They are better from a crime-fighting, a civil liberties, a workers’ rights, and a foreign policy perspective.<\/p>\n

But they would also kick-start jobs and investment at a time when we need both desperately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United States needs big long-term fixes to our economic system. We’re too dependent on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[10,20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2867"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2868,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2867\/revisions\/2868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}