My name is David Robins: Christian, lead developer (resume), writer, photographer, runner, libertarian (voluntaryist), and student.

This is also my son David Geoffrey Robins' site.

Seven steps to fix the country

1. Control immigration.
   1. Seal the borders (finish the wall, technical monitoring, minefield, armed border agents/national guard; with a mandate it wouldn't take long.
   2. Require employers to use employee verification, with harsh fines for non-compliance (e.g. 1% of gross yearly income for a first offense, increasing for each offense), and spot checks (concentrated in areas where hiring of illegals is high e.g. southern California).
   3. Deny any and all benefits (welfare, hospital care, food stamps, access to public education at all levels) to people not here legally, and require legal aliens that aren't lawful permanent residents to pay in advance for all benefits.
   4. Deny federal funds to any city that does not verify immigration status for all arrests and inform DHS for deportation.
   5. Abolish EOIR and BIA. The only appeal against deportation is being here legally and being able to prove it; deportees will be held until 30 days are up or they can be proven to be here legally, at which point they will be released.
   6. No more self-deportation: deported aliens are escorted to the border, ejected, and forbidden to return for any reason for 10 years (25, permanent on subsequent convictions). Biometrics are taken and/or chip implanted.
   7. All entrants to the country are biometrically identified (fingerprints or whatever technology is appropriate), and GPS-enabled tracking devices required to be kept on the person at all times (except LPRs). Spot checks will be made to ensure visa holders keep their device with them. If the device fails, they have 24 hours to report to a federal office (post office?) to get it replaced. Being away from the tracking device (except if legally abroad which requires DHS notification) = deportation as above.
   8. Any state-issued identification will expire no later than the expiration of the person's visa/permanent residency. No state may issue identification without proof of legal residence. Expired identification may not be accepted by any entity accepting federal funds (with the bailouts, this presumably now includes most banks and auto companies).
2. No taxation without benefit (no wealth redistribution).
   1. No level of government may levy a tax on anyone that either (1) will not benefit directly from the use of the tax money or (2) does not opt in.
      1. This isn't as strong as I'd like (I'd like an exact commensurate pay-as-you-go requirement), but we can't change too dramatically in one step, e.g. we can't immediately sell off all the roads and charge drivers by use, but we can say that people that don't drive (don't own a currently-registered car) shouldn't have to pay the part of their property taxes that go to local roads, people without children shouldn't pay for schools, or people with their own well and septic shouldn't need to contribute to local water and sewage treatment.
   2. No person will receive benefit from tax-supported plans into which they have not elected to pay.
   3. Rather than passing a bill that appropriates money for a project, lawmakers need to propose a plan and get people to voluntarily subscribe to support and pay for it. People may opt out of the costs and benefits of a plan yearly on the anniversary of the execution (if they opt out earlier, their participation and contribution end at that point).
      1. Want a welfare plan? Design it, and convince people to voluntarily participate.
      2. What about free riders? E.g. government builds a new bridge or provides 'flu vaccinations. Ideally non-participants are denied use (no vaccine, no bridge access) but in practice that's hard; really we'd just have to do our best, and infrastructure upgrades and 'flu vaccines aren't among the highest costs. Perhaps an infrastructure subscription is a requirement for living in an area (comes under "will benefit directly" since if it's a footbridge, everyone walks).
      3. Note this fixes bailouts and entitlement programs completely, by elimination. It will also pare down all other departments as people elect not to fund them.
3. No foreign intervention without American benefit.
   1. No foreign wars unless it directly benefits the economic (or possibly strategic) interests of the United States (no rescues, no policing the world): that is, the war must literally pay for itself.
   2. United States citizens may act as mercenaries provided they do not go against the interest of the United States (no fighting for enemies or against allies); this will be done via private companies.
   3. The United States military forces not currently at war or in rotation to go to war will be employed part-time at reduced pay (or perhaps moved to National Guard status, or let go). We don't pay for people to stand around.
4. Reduce and re-organize the department of education.
   1. The department of education will only provide standard requirements for high school graduation and accreditation of colleges and universities, with input from representatives of the several states.
   2. Taxes may not be used to support extracurricular activities (or facilities only useful for such activities), or any costs not associated with a minimal level of elementary schooling (literacy, knowledge, shared values). Highschool and above must be user financed.
   3. Schools may pay and retain teachers at their discretion.
   4. States may organize and legislate schools at all levels at their discretion.
   5. Only citizens, lawful permanent residents, and students on study visas may attend state schools; students on visas require the consent of the state and particular school to attend a school and may be charged more than American students.
   6. Government schools will be sold to private concerns. The government will only certify schools at or below the elementary level so that vouchers may be used to direct tax monies to the school a parent chooses.
5. English will be the official language of government.
   1. No government will pay for printing or translation services to or from any other language.
6. Fair and simple taxation.
   1. Income tax will move to a single-rate system (or, if people prefer, instead a flat sales tax will be instituted and the federal income tax revoked).
   2. Tax credits and deductions will be revisited and as many removed as possible (e.g. child tax credit, mortgage deduction, etc.).
   3. Marriage is a religious matter. Marriage will not confer tax benefits or penalties, and the state will not become involved.
7. Licensure.
   1. The government will decriminalize the performance of any profession without license.
   2. Licensing boards will now only offer certification. Buyers have the option to use practitioners that are certified by the board of their choice, or, at their own risk, ones that are not certified. Claiming certification not actually possessed is fraud.
   3. The Second Amendment is an individual right. The federal government may not add registration, fees, or taxation to firearms or ammunition. Individual states may impose limitations only by age (but not to those not over 18) or criminal record (only for violent felonies, with a five-year limit from the last crime or parole, whichever comes last). People may, if their means allow, purchase any unclassified weapon available.

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"The Second Amendment is not about duck hunting"

• these types of weapons are very rarely used to commit crimes
• if they were illegal, criminals would still have them
• if they weren't available, the crimes would still be committed
• guns of any kind in the hands of lawful owners reduce crime (see e.g. John Lott's More Guns, Less Crime).

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$10,000 a year for everyone and universal healthcare

• The amount a person gets is adjusted downward by 20% of their income over $25,000 (capped at $5,000, i.e. everyone gets at least $5,000).
• The $10k yearly grant kicks in at age 21.
• Murray suggests some reforms that will make health insurance affordable (he calculates it at $3,000/person/year, taken out of the $10k they get):
  • Legally obligate insurers to treat the population (all ages) as a single pool.
    • But to counterbalance this, he requires everyone to use part of their $10k grant to buy healthcare (on the free market).
  • Treat medical insurance provided to employees as taxable income. (Isn't it already?)
    • Decouples insurance from employment; gives some people incentive to choose more competitive insurance.
  • Repeal medical licensing laws and alter tort law to make it easy to write legally binding waivers.
    • The desired result here is to make it possible to run (profitable) clinics for "minor repairs" that won't be sued out of existence for unforeseeable problems.
    • Compares current system to requiring anyone opening a diner to be required to hire a cook that can pass a master chef exam.
    • Pretty sure he's not saying doctors should no longer be licensed, just that it should be possible to get "minor repairs" done by qualified people that aren't licensed doctors.
• This Plan makes no changes to current tax structure (you still pay the same amount, same deductions, etc.).
• Income transfer programs that will be eliminated (from Appendix A of the book):
  • Retirement and disability payments
  • Medicare/veterans care/SCHIP
  • Unemployment compensation
  • TANF/EITC/child tax credit
  • Food stamps/school lunch/WIC
  • Housing assistance
  • Pell grants/head start/Stafford loans/work-study programs
  • Community development block grants
  • Transportation subsidies/Amtrak
  • Farming subsidies/corporate welfare/ARPA/energy conservation
  • Doesn't apply a strict libertarian definition of "transfer" here. For example, state-funded education stays.
  • He provides calculations to show that in most if not all cases, the grant easily replaces these transfers.
• The Plan provides for a universal passport (issued to citizens at birth) that establishes eligibility.
• The Plan requires recipients have a bank account for funds to be deposited into.

• While it's not libertarianism by a long shot (Murray says if he could wave a wand and eliminate transfer payments altogether he'd do it—as would I), it gets rid of a lot of government bureaucracy and entitlement programs and in many ways stops rewarding bad behavior and incentivizes good behavior.
• Guaranteed income; guaranteed retirement if you invest a portion (he suggests $2k and provides projections showing retirement income based on conservative returns), but also control over your investments (higher risk, higher reward).
• Universal healthcare, yay (for socialists)! But also, free market healthcare, yay (for libertarians)!
• It will cost less than the current system starting in 2011 ($549B less in 2020).
• Provides only for citizens, not aliens (legal or illegal).
• It disincentivizes:
  • Births to single women (correlated with high crime), whether living at home or on their own.
    • But increases the likelihood of collecting child support: the father has known income.
    • And makes it easier for low-income couples to have children.
  • "Sponging" off others: known income source means it's harder to live rent-free and claim penury.
  • Not working: a $1k/month job gives $1k/month more income without reducing the grant.
• Does it also disincentivize work?
  • Sure, some people will band together, rent a house at the beach, and surf all day. But that gets old fast.
  • For someone earning $25k (and thus getting the full $10k grant), not working reduces their wages by $25k.
    • Plan "lures people into working until they cannot afford to quit".
• Makes it easier for one parent to stay home with children if desired.
• Returns some former government functions to community, which:
  • Reduces moral hazard (government has to be morally indifferent; private charities do not)
  • Bureaucracy has its own welfare as its highest interest, and incentives to get more clients and funding, but private philanthropy has to attract volunteers by providing satisfying work and donors by assuring them money goes to the organization's clients

Molehills: preparing for battle

Books finished: Red Planet.

In which I start using Facebook

DVDs finished: M*A*S*H: Season Five, Stargate: Continuum, Dead Poets Society.

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