Politics

Having watched the two national debates the last two nights (now that we are back home I am reestablishing my relationship with television) I am saddened at the prospect of having another Clinton in the white house. If I were a democrat I might vote for Obama just because I like him better as a person and if McCain wins the republican nomination I may vote for Obama anyway. Now that that's taken care I would like to express my views on two points brought up in every debate.

First of all this blip in the healthcare discussion concerning electronic medical records. I wonder how much time and money has been spent trying to determine how to best implement EMR into American medicine. Writing legislation to require EMR throughout the country is akin to requiring people to drive cars. Every family practice residency program that I know of is either already using EMR or has plans to implement on within the next year. All I know is EMR. Legislation for this stuff would have been smart 5 years ago, but now it's just a waste of time.

Second I'm tired of hearing about how Warren Buffett had a bad year last year with an income of $47 million and paid a lower percentage of that income to taxes than his secretary. The current tax changes that the democrats propose will not change that situation. Consider that Warren Buffet makes less than $200,000 annually in salary and like the rest of the top 0.5% of money earners in the country makes most of his money from investments. Raising the taxes in the highest tax bracket does very little to the tax burden for this subset of the population because dividends and capital gains are taxed at the same level whether one realizes a $6000 gain or a $60 million gain. My proposal is that anyone with a net worth over uh lets say $200 million be required to pay 50% of their net worth to taxes and the other 50% is to be given to the bottom 5% of wage earners in the country. Then make these people start over from scratch. Not only does this solution solve the budget deficit, but it also has the potential to wipe out the democrat party in 10 years when we see that current distribution of wealth returns, helping to prove the point that Robin Hood economics does not change socioeconomic status. One last point; at the end of this 10 year experiment I want to be king of America.