Debt ceiling compromise proposal

I have an idea for a debt ceiling compromise.

We should strive to help make every American healthier so that it will be possible to raise the retirement age for Medicare and Social Security. This would involve incubating and funding companies focused on helping people live a healthy lifestyle—like Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers, but truly effective. It also would involve incubating and funding companies that would make it easier to help people live healthy, such as healthy restaurants, healthy chefs, track meets, adult soccer and basketball teams, and preventive medicine clinics.

74 percent of American adults are overweight, and 42 percent are obese. This is a national emergency. If we ever had to go to war, it is arguable that a majority of our population would simply not be fit to serve in the military. And more importantly, being overweight cuts short people’s lives and lowers their quality of life. (I write this as someone who has struggled with my weight myself.)

We should also make it easier for people to take time off during the day, during work hours, to cook and exercise.

It is also important to fund and enable longevity research to find scientific breakthroughs that would reverse the biological aging process. Such breakthroughs would allow us to raise the retirement age even more, as people stay young and healthy and avoid diseases such as cancer.

Thank you for your consideration.

Longevity is a hidden key in the debt ceiling debate

 The biggest reason the national debt is on track to become unsustainable is the growth in unfunded spending on Medicare and Social Security.

The reason we have Medicare and Social Security in the first place is that people’s bodies age as they get older, to the point where they can no longer get a good job or affordable private health insurance, so they need Medicare and Social Security as a last resort to stay alive with dignity. Medicare is health insurance of last resort, because private health insurance companies expect that you’re going to need so much medical attention in old age that they would need to charge a massive monthly premium—more than most old people can afford. And Social Security is a payment to live of last resort, under the assumption that employers discriminate so much against old people, or old people become so incapable of working, that payments from the government are the only fair alternative. Achieving breakthroughs in longevity science is a hidden key to solving the debt ceiling debate. It has been proven that it is possible to reverse one’s biological age. If the U.S. government invests sufficiently in finding proven ways to reverse one’s biological age or stop the aging process, and if it reforms FDA regulations sufficiently so that it becomes easier to experiment to find ways to reverse aging, then there would be no issues with raising the retirement age for Medicare and Social Security, reducing their budget burden. It's awful that we let everyone die before age 120 without doing more to stop it. If the Biden administration and Congress make finding scientific breakthroughs in longevity a requirement for reducing the national debt, we will all be better off.

On Title 42

Here is an open letter to President Joe Biden on Title 42.

Dear President Biden,

I hope that you and your administration are doing well. I was wondering if you can please extend Title 42 past this Thursday and reinstitute the Trump administration’s successful Remain in Mexico policy. If illegal migrants stay in the U.S. while waiting for their asylum case to be heard, many of them may never show up to court and stay in the U.S. illegally indefinitely. There already are millions of illegal immigrants in the U.S., and the number will grow exponentially if Title 42 ends, since the U.S. economy has so much to offer.

It may seem empathetic to let just anyone into the U.S., but that’s not quite true. Eventually, we may end up like a third-world country if we let just anyone in, including potential terrorists. We need to maintain what makes the U.S. special and be selective about who we let in.

I hope that you can please extend Title 42 indefinitely, reinstitute the Remain in Mexico policy, and consider deploying the U.S. Army to protect our country from an onslaught of illegal immigration, which is almost indistinguishable from an invasion, which presidents are obligated in the U.S. Constitution to protect against. It is especially important to protect U.S. citizens from the deadly fentanyl that is being carried across the border. Also: Please finish the wall, or at minimum a strong border fence.

If you’re planning to share governance more closely with the government of Mexico, I believe that is something that both Congress and the courts have an obligation to have a say in and be able to veto, under the Constitution.

If there is any reason your hands are tied, such as pressure from foreign governments, I would like to know why. I am happy to listen in a way that is understanding, empathetic, and fair.

I also hope that you can negotiate in good faith with Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the other Republicans in the House and Senate on the debt limit. Our national debt is on an unsustainable trajectory, and I hope that you can listen more to economic advisers from the center-left and center-right.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Bonnie Kavoussi

Update (May 10): Here is an informative news conference from DHS Secretary Mayorkas, where he emphasized that the border is not open.

Update (May 11): A possible endgame for what may happen is that U.S. states might be forced to close their borders with each other if we are unable to close our border with Mexico. This is because illegal immigrants might flood into, say, California and then try to make their way to somewhere like Texas.

It is absolutely essential for us to extend Title 42 and re-implement the Remain in Mexico policy. This is an invasion, and under Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, the federal government has the obligation to protect states from invasion.

Update 2 (May 11): The Biden administration seems to be taking a level of appropriate action, as DHS Sec. Mayorkas is speaking about here.

A good word for Fox News

As Fox News faces a lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, I would like to put in a good word for Fox News.

I used to hate Fox News. When I was a kid, I was a devoted Democrat and thought that Fox was just a bunch of Republican propaganda, and that the U.S. government should force them to give equal weight to Democratic arguments.

I still believe that Fox should show more alternative points of view than it currently does and act less like the official Republican Party media organ, more like an independent news outlet like its sister organization The Wall Street Journal. It has been toxic for the Republican Party to depend so much on what the right-wing media thinks, where there is often herd behavior.

At the same time, Fox News does an excellent job on certain counts. Most importantly, it is an effective news outlet for the Resistance against the current establishment on the left and some of the establishment on the right. (If you can imagine TV in Star Wars. Have you ever noticed how Star Wars doesn't have any TVs? At least as far as I remember.)

Tucker Carlson had an excellent TV segment a month or two ago about how there has been consistent sabotage of trains and electricity and other infrastructure in the U.S. from abroad, and how this effectively amounts to a foreign invasion that no one is talking about. That is stuff you will not get almost ANYWHERE else because Tucker is uniquely insightful and honest, in spite of the slander that you often hear about him.

It's hard to find Fox ever criticize Donald Trump; they should be able to criticize him and any other reasonably important public figure. But overall, Fox is uniquely fair to Republicans and gives a megaphone to some of the best ones.

I recommend watching Fox News more, particularly their signature shows. You might be persuaded that it's better than you think.

[Caveat: I don't know the details of how Fox News is run or its secrets. So take this take with a grain of salt.]

The U.S. Congress needs to meet ASAP

The U.S. Congress currently is out on vacation. They were originally planning to come back on Monday, April 17, but now it’s unclear when they’re coming back. Congress needs to get back into session as soon as possible so that they can make important decisions as needed. These are not normal times.

It would be preferable if they stopped voting along party lines so often. Every member of Congress should be able to make their own decisions and vote their conscience.

Dear President Biden...

Dear President Biden,

I hope that you, your family, and your administration are doing well.

During your State of the Union address tonight, I was wondering if you could please send your well wishes to major world leaders, whether or not they consider themselves allies of the United States, in order to build good will with them. If you could just say that you're thinking of them, you hope they're healthy, happy, and prosperous, and you've been reading or watching some of their speeches recently, and you learned something from them, I think that could go a long way toward building more good will toward the U.S. from the rest of the world. All while standing firm in your own resolve to defend U.S. sovereignty, of course.

We're currently in a perilous time with the war in Ukraine, and with China and other countries feeling emboldened, it is crucial that we don't stumble into World War III. And showing some appreciation for political leaders like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei can go a long way. Let's be honest, all four of these leaders--despite their antagonistic posture toward the U.S.--are fundamentally rational and normal enough, and they have good qualities too. This is highly preferable to dealing with someone who's completely impossible to deal with, so we shouldn't take it for granted.

I also hope that you can help bring an end to partisan divides in Congress once and for all. Right now, it appears that most votes are split along party lines, rather than having each senator and representative vote their conscience and develop more of their own legislation. Can you help set things up so that each senator and representative can truly vote their conscience?

I also was wondering if you could please name a cure for aging as a good long-term solution to the national debt. If people could live youthful, healthy lives into their 70s, 80s, and beyond, then there would be less need for Medicare or Social Security, at least at younger ages.

Another thought on the debt ceiling drama right now is that you could impose a high value added tax, which is a form of consumption tax, which ultimately could replace the income tax if you were interested.

Thank you.

China's President Xi Jinping Called for "Win-Win Outcomes" in January 2022

Chinese president Xi Jinping struck a conciliatory tone at the World Economic Forum’s virtual Davos Agenda meeting on January 17, 2022, a little more than a year ago. You can watch his speech here and read his speech here. In one section of his speech that stood out, he advocated for countries around the world to seek “win-win outcomes.”

I thought that this was a noteworthy part of his speech. Here’s the transcript of what he said:

“Fourth, we need to discard Cold War mentality and seek peaceful coexistence and win-win outcomes. Our world today is far from being tranquil; rhetorics that stoke hatred and prejudice abound. Acts of containment, suppression, or confrontation arising thereof do all harm, not the least good, to world peace and security. History has proved time and again that confrontation does not solve problems; it only invites catastrophic consequences. Protectionism and unilateralism can protect no one; they ultimately hurt the interests of others as well as one's own. Even worse are the practices of hegemony and bullying, which run counter to the tide of history. Naturally, countries have divergences and disagreements between them. Yet a zero-sum approach that enlarges one's own gain at the expense of others will not help. Acts of single-mindedly building ‘exclusive yards with high walls’ or ‘parallel systems,’ of enthusiastically putting together exclusive small circles or blocs that polarize the world, of overstretching the concept of national security to hold back economic and technological advances of other countries, and of fanning ideological antagonism and politicizing or weaponizing economic, scientific and technological issues, will gravely undercut international efforts to tackle common challenges.

“The right way forward for humanity is peaceful development and win-win cooperation. Different countries and civilizations may prosper together on the basis of respect for each other, and seek common ground and win-win outcomes by setting aside differences.”

In these challenging times, I hope that world leaders can consider taking this to heart.