Dylan Mathews makes an attempt at answering. The question is probably stupid, because the answers do not seem so smart. I think that the biggest problems for millenials are the high fixed cost of hiring workers and the big generational imbalance embedded in government budgets. However, millenials are likely to benefit at some point from very rapid technological progress.
Some policies that might help:
1. Decouple health insurance from employment.
2. Legalize catastrophic health insurance coverage, as opposed to mandating comprehensive coverage. In other words, undo Obamacare.
3. Eliminate the corporate income tax, taxes on saving and employer payroll taxes. Millenials are going to need all the saving and all the work they can get. What that leaves you with is a consumption tax.
4. We also have to cut spending. Carefully means-test Social Security, Medicare, and get rid of the millionaires on Medicaid. Get rid of all Federal grant programs except for those from the NIH and NSF. No export-import bank, no energy subsidies, no education grants, etc.
5. No agriculture subsidies, no housing subsidies of any kind.
Hey, I didn’t say that any of this was going to be feasible politically.
Re; #1. Agreed. Tradition is powerful, but in this case counter-productive.
Re; #2. Agreed. And this will become more and more likely as comprehensive health plans become less and less “affordable” for the middle class.
Re; #3. I recommend eliminating the employee share of the payroll taxes as well. The idea that lower and lower-middle income workers must “contribute”, and that they do not “contribute” unless they pay taxes, is absurd. The managers, entrepreneurs, and politicians get all the honors and high incomes, but it all grinds to a halt without these workers.
Re; #4. Agreed. Eventual means testing of Social Security and Medicare was built into the design (whether the designers realized it or not). Its time. And most existing grants assist most those who are least in need of assistance.
Re; #5. Yes, what’s the point of politics if the ability to hand out subsidies to friends is eliminated? It will take a cultural awakening on the order of the Reformation for this to change. But that could happen. Political organizations tend to overreach, and the one we live under is no exception.
eliminating the employee share of the payroll taxes
It seems to me that the employee pays all of the payroll tax so eliminating the employee portion would be to keep the part hidden from most voters and get rid of the visible part of the tax. I think that it would be better to roll the entire payroll tax into he income tax, or better yet, a progressive consumption tax. After all we are trying to divert some private consumption (not savings, not investment) to Government.
I would be quite happy with the elimination of corporate and payroll taxes, the repudiation of the debt and the prohibition of government borrowing, the cutting of government spending, the firesale or homesteading of government claimed land and such, and the end of government licensing, zoning, standards, quotas and such.
This article by Ezra Klein adds some important context to the Mathews Piece (apart from being an interesting article in itself): http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/10/the-depressing-psychological-theory-that-explains-washington/
The relevant bit from Klein’s article is as follows:
A bit of background. On Jan. 3, Jesse Myerson published an article in Rolling Stone with the innocuous title “Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For.” Myerson frames his agenda as an effort to do away with unemployment, jobs, landlords, private capital ownership and Wall Street. Those last four, as you might expect, made conservatives’ heads explode. …
But the policies Myerson advocates are rather less radical. His agenda, at its core, calls for a work guarantee, a basic minimum income, a land-value tax, a sovereign wealth fund and a public banking option. As Dylan Matthews noticed, all these policies that Republicans were labeling as socialism have been endorsed by major conservatives. So he rewrote Myerson’s piece from the conservative point of view, advocating all the same policies but changing those cited as authorities and those blamed for the state of the economy.
All of a sudden, conservatives liked the article, and liberals — well, liberals didn’t really like Dylan anymore.
This post defines you as a libertarian along the lines of Robert Wenzel, MIke Mish Shedlock, and Lew Rockwell.
Those are people, not lines.
If the corporate income tax were eliminated, wouldn’t that also have the effect of decoupling health insurance from employment; as there wouldn’t be a tax advantage to corporations providing health insurance plans?
1 We are moving in that direction but very slowly
2 Already enshrined in Obamacare
3 If you believe millionaires are overtaxed, but it is impossible to raise sufficient revenue from consumption for even minimal government
4 While 3 would necessitate this, it would be impossible to cut them enough. These would not even come close.
5 More focus on irrelevancies
The problem isn’t political feasibility, but arithmetic feasibility.
Cut them enough for what?
For reigning in spending in a couple of decades? And for allowing a reallocation of labor and capital to more productive venues?
A positive financial balance sheet can be achieved by going back to the spending levels of around 2004,that should give pause to many an argument out there. Of course this might mean a shift in occupation and a loss of money for some people.
How about stripping them of their franchise for their own good (and ours) , as long as we’re dreaming here? Or some sort of Hunger Games type competition to instill much-needed mental toughness and resiliency?
An interesting thought experiment would be to imagine what someone with progressive scruples would say to this question.
It’d probably be a lot different.
I’d venture:
1). Additional loan subsidies to make college more affordable. Perhaps programs for loan forgiveness as well.
2). Guaranteed minimum income until the age of 28 or something like that.
3). A creditor’s Bill of Rights to protect young unsavvy borrowers from financial predation.
4). Right to work laws that require businesses to have a certain portion of their payrolls consisting of people under 30.
I think you get the idea.
An interesting post would be to go into detail about why these sorts of policies are a bad idea.
Corporate profits have clearly decoupled from hiring decisions. I don’t see why allowing corporates to earn more would create jobs. They’d be hiring aggressively right now if that were the case.
Means testing social security and Medicare will severely undercut those programs. I only support them because I expect to get something back. When I no longer have that expectation I will see those programs as just more welfare. So will a lot of other people.