The lottery talk got me to thinking about how our government uses money. I think a non-corrupted education lottery would be a good thing. But I don't think it would be free of corruption. I'm guessing the money would be mishandled as usual.
So I started thinking about how we, as a nation, spend money.
Military, Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, unemployment, prison systems, education are the big ones.
So an idea came about. It doesn't solve everything but at least in my mind it pays for itself 50 times over and could have a huge impact on Medicare, Social Security, Welfare System and Prison System.
In the book Freakonomics the authors talks about how crime dropped in NYC years back. The local police were taking credit for this drop, but as the authors of the book studied data they realized that it was most likely attributable to the legalization of abortion 16-18 years prior. There were fewer at risk children in the population and crime decreased.
While there is huge debate about abortion, more people agree about pre-pregnancy birth control methods. What if the government offered to pay for vasectomies/tubals plus a $5,000(arbitrary number) tax-free check. It would have to be available to everyone (you could put an income limit on it, say $125,000). I WANT TO MAKE CLEAR NO ONE IS FORCED. Men of all ages, and women during child bearing years would be eligible.
The Pros:
1.The program would put money in the pockets of those who could use it most.
2.It would in turn eliminate potential pregnancies that individuals/families can't afford.
3.It would eventually take strain off the welfare/healthcare/social security systems.
4.The money saved long-term would be easily 10-fold, maybe 100-fold the cost of the program.
The Cons:
1. An individual or couple that were through having children that would have otherwise paid for their own procedure will now be paid by the government.
2. The same couple could game the system by both having the procedures when only one of them would have been sufficient.
3. It would increase costs in the short-term because it takes time for it to pay for itself. (I'm guessing it would take about 3-5 years to pay for itself and then would remain in the black)
4. Could more people being sterile lead to more more unprotected which leads to an STD outbreak?
If the program ultimately paid for itself Cons 1-3 are a non issue, but #4 would be bad.
Would like to fix our military spending but I don't know how. It's beyond corrupt. And I don't really understand it. I read somewhere that we spend as much as the next 24 countries, and 23 of those countries are our allies. Crazy. All I know is more of it needs to go to veterans and less to Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
Anyway, Feel free to rip it apart, it's just an idea. Would love to read other ideas too.
So I started thinking about how we, as a nation, spend money.
Military, Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, unemployment, prison systems, education are the big ones.
So an idea came about. It doesn't solve everything but at least in my mind it pays for itself 50 times over and could have a huge impact on Medicare, Social Security, Welfare System and Prison System.
In the book Freakonomics the authors talks about how crime dropped in NYC years back. The local police were taking credit for this drop, but as the authors of the book studied data they realized that it was most likely attributable to the legalization of abortion 16-18 years prior. There were fewer at risk children in the population and crime decreased.
While there is huge debate about abortion, more people agree about pre-pregnancy birth control methods. What if the government offered to pay for vasectomies/tubals plus a $5,000(arbitrary number) tax-free check. It would have to be available to everyone (you could put an income limit on it, say $125,000). I WANT TO MAKE CLEAR NO ONE IS FORCED. Men of all ages, and women during child bearing years would be eligible.
The Pros:
1.The program would put money in the pockets of those who could use it most.
2.It would in turn eliminate potential pregnancies that individuals/families can't afford.
3.It would eventually take strain off the welfare/healthcare/social security systems.
4.The money saved long-term would be easily 10-fold, maybe 100-fold the cost of the program.
The Cons:
1. An individual or couple that were through having children that would have otherwise paid for their own procedure will now be paid by the government.
2. The same couple could game the system by both having the procedures when only one of them would have been sufficient.
3. It would increase costs in the short-term because it takes time for it to pay for itself. (I'm guessing it would take about 3-5 years to pay for itself and then would remain in the black)
4. Could more people being sterile lead to more more unprotected which leads to an STD outbreak?
If the program ultimately paid for itself Cons 1-3 are a non issue, but #4 would be bad.
Would like to fix our military spending but I don't know how. It's beyond corrupt. And I don't really understand it. I read somewhere that we spend as much as the next 24 countries, and 23 of those countries are our allies. Crazy. All I know is more of it needs to go to veterans and less to Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
Anyway, Feel free to rip it apart, it's just an idea. Would love to read other ideas too.
