Royal Surgeon Dr. J. weighs in from the dispensary with his budget plans. The good Doctor recommends, in addition to a daily regimen of coffee colonics, the following:

Dr. J. knows that he’s not a Gormogon, but as Royal Surgeon, he felt that he would like to offer up his plan.

Before he proceeds, he would like to make the observation that it appears that Gen X’ers are the ones most willing to talk about entitlements. Dr. J suspects that the reason for this is that we (not the Royal We, but including Us) are on the hook for benefits for our beloved baby boomer predecessors, but an economic Malthusian crisis will insure that we will not be getting those benefit.

It is with that theme that the Dr. J. Austerity Budget is created.

First – The revenue problem. Dr. J would replace the income tax code with a 1% tax on the first $15,000 of all earnings and a 15% tax on all earnings above $15,000. Health Care PSAs, private unemployment insurance, disability insurance and retirement investments are take out of wage income pretax. There will be no deductions, no separate capital gains, no nothing, period. Corporate Taxes will be 5%.

Inheritances will not be taxed at the time of inherited, but are subject to taxation as capital gains if sold. Social Security and Medicare/medicaid taxes will continue to be deducted in a manner commensurate with the plan to phase them out as the baby boomers age out of the population. (That’s the progressive way to say die off…).

Dr. J paid 21% of what he made last year in Federal income tax with the help of deductions, and a smart accountant. He thinks that if everyone paid something, and no one paid more than 15% as Income —> infinity, the world will be a better place.

Second – Entitlements – In short they die with the Baby Boomers because they’ll cry like little school girls without them, and the Catholic Church would frown on a Logan’s Run approach to those born before 1964 as they hit the age of 65. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Bernie Madoff went to jail for running an alternative. Thus, it will be phased out with the Baby Boomers. It will be covered Social Security taxes which will decline along with the Baby Boomer population. It will be Gen X’s (and the subsequent generations’s) cross to bear, but our kids will be better for it not being there. Medicare – It needs to go with the baby boomers as well. It has resulted in a short circuiting of the free market which would result in more efficiently delivered, cost effective, personalized medicine where the Doctor/Patient Relationship is sacrosanct. It will be replaced with a deregulated health insurance industry that can offer plans can include folks over the age of 65. In addition PSA’s would be permitted to be rolled over such that a 22 year old entering the work force can accumulate a health care specific nest egg that can be used to cover pre deductible expenses that include long term care insurance after he gets older. Medicaid – there will always need to be a safety net for the poor. Dr. J. suspects that health insurance can be subsidized in a means specific manner. When Gen X is ready to retire (at the ripe old age of 75ish) it will have earned it’s retirement and its successive generations will be richer for it.

Third – Discretionary Spending

Government unions abolished. If it was good enough for FDR, it’s good enough for Dr. J. Dr. J. would have a strong Ombudsman’s office that is independent of the rest of the Executive Branch to ensure fair treatment of employees.

Departments of the Treasury and Justice – Dr. J. has no suggestions other than to fire the current bosses.

Department of Veterans Affairs – Dr. J would leave it as is, other than the health insurance plan as mentioned below.

Departments of Transportation – Maintain the Interstate System and the FAA, but that’s about all he can think of.

Department of Education – GoneDepartment of Energy – Gone

Department of Interior – The National Park Service will have to work towards becoming self sustaining within 15 years. They may have to lease some oil shale to pay for Mount Rushmore’s maintainance for example.

Department of Commerce – Probably need it for consumer protections.

Departments of Agriculture, Labor, Homeland Security – Gone Gone Gone

Department of HUD – Probably gone.

The EPA – Ratcheted back to enforce reasonable pollution standards, not crazy eco stuff.

Department of Health and Human Services – This will be controversial with the Gormogons – The National Institutes of Health and CDC become government agencies without being under this cabinet level thrall. Native Americans and Veterans (after a means test or with service connected conditions) who are receiving care from the federal government will be offered the same health insurance plans as Federal Employees. Any out of pocket expenses (medications costing more than $8 unless destitute or service connected conditions, clinic visits above $15 with the same caveats and all other deductibles) will be covered as well as these individuals are meeting a means test.

NASA – Stays and gets increased funding and a mandate – Colonize the moon and then Mars.

Defense – A variation of the Czar’s smart military plan with F-35’s for all.

Post Office –Stays – Dr. J. is a sentimental old coot with regard to the Post Office.

CIA – Stays, and increase the black ops budget and look the other way a little more.

Dr. J would cut PBS and NPR funds, but he has a soft spot for the idea of the government as patron of the arts. There would be a reasonable budget for the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, but it would fund great works of art (e.g. Adding Reagan to Mount Rushmore) and not controvertial garbage like Piss Christ.

A good start, all in all. The last time your Gormogons mentioned cutting something near Dr. J., he ended up assembling a liger out of spare large cat parts Mandy left behind as he departed for Myrtle Beach for the weekend. Your Gormogons all agreed that this plan is preferable to a liger in the Castle’s Turkish baths.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.