That's what I'm proposing by having the states each try their own plan.
And what I am stating is that the States ought not have their own plan.
What if I told you the only way to balance the budget without cutting the social services you want would be to make you pay 35% of your income? 40%? 50%?
I disagree. Cut our defense budget, significantly.Take for-profit insurance out of the private sector. Just those two things alone would save a significant amount of money. Shut down private hospitals, have all doctors working for the Federal Government, but all of the medical decisions are by the doctors, not law-makers; law-makers ought not be in the business of deciding what doctors can and cannot do, medically. Revamp our end-of-life care where the focus is on the dignity of the dying patient over keeping them alive for an extra week in pain, and/or misery when there is no hope for survival. Death is a natural part of life, and ought to be culturally treated as such.
Example: A couple of years ago a friend of mine attempted suicide. My wife had found our friend, still breathing, but basically brain dead. So, she is rushed to the emergency room, they place her on a bunch of machines, three weeks later her father pulls the plug, withdrawls food, and she dies three days later. My friend had put me down as a family memeber on her medical information, and I receive a call from the hospital about two weeks after she died, asking if I knew what her number was, and that she has a medical bill for 110,000 dollars. I told the lady on the phone that she had passed away, and the lady apologized for calling. My point is, there was no hope for recovery, and the last three weeks of her life were not dignifying, there was nothing but money wasted on someone that was dead before they even got to the hospital.
The funny thing is we keep hearing that there isn't enough money to help the poor, there is enough money for education, so we have to cut cut cut; but we can raise the defense budget, we can go into wars that aren't necessary, we can give the wealthy tax breaks, we can bail-out banks, etc. America doesn't have a debt problem as much as we put our money in places that we ought not be putting our money.
We pull our military out of every State, bring them home, and if somewhere comes here looking for trouble, then we go out there and kill them, period. All of this so-called pre-emptive crap is not worth the time, treasure, nor blood. Say we have a policy: for every American you kill we will kill fifty of you...for starters.