He takes some positions that don’t match my political philosophy but I wouldn’t say are egregious, and sure, there’s some naive shit in there regarding the economics of the State:
-Lay out a process for state bankruptcies. (Aug 2012)
-End the Fed; they’ve devalued the dollar by printing money. (May 2011)
-On verge of financial collapse unless we balance budget. (May 2011)
-Zero corporate tax would create tens of millions of jobs. (Jun 2016)
But, there is no way this stuff would pass into legislation or necessity wouldn’t compel congress to override his veto.
Well, there is his complete ignorance of(and total lack of giving a shit about) world affairs, coupled with his(and his follower’s) total inability to tell the difference between a “President” and an “Emperor”. Like Trump, he gives no indication that he understands how government works, or even that there are other branches of the government at all.
That’s a theme with Libertarian Party positions: They position themselves as a wonky economic policy party, but their economic policy is founded on ignorance and proceeds to insanity.
They have no intelligent solutions, only dogma which sounds good if you’re ignorant because it purports to explain everything in a math-light fashion. The problem is that economics is a math-heavy discipline; taking the math out of it is inimical to actually understanding it. You end up BSing your way through the field, arriving at answers actual economists know are incorrect based on the evidence we have.
It isn’t just economics, of course; they apply that simple, dogmatic approach to everything, which is very appealing to people who don’t know how the world works. It’s a philosophy with all the answers and none of the ambiguity! The problem is that the answers are wrong, or simplistic, and the world is ambiguous, so anything which removes the ambiguity is immediately suspect.
Absolutely nothing, according to the idiots on the Chicago Tribune editorial board when they endorsed him. They couldn’t come up with a single weakness in his plan.
Utter ignorance (what’s Allepo)
Wants to abolish the Fed (utter ignorance of economics)
Thinks the US is on the verge of financial collapse (idiotic)
Would abolish social security and medicare (speaks for itself).
Abolish income taxes (so where does government revenue come from?)
Yeah, but he’d be paying down the national debt. That’s the only thing that matters. So what about all the social services and stuff that government provides?
–to paraphrase the Chicago Tribune editorial board
I really don’t want to defend him too much, since I agree that the libertarian economic policies are nonsense. But I thought I heard a few quotes from Johnson about how he realizes that, if elected, he’d be working with a Congress that’s split between Republicans and Democrats. I.e. he knows he can’t “abolish the fed”, or even constrain it very much, without the support of Congress.
He wants to eliminate income tax and business tax, and pay for everything with consumption tax. Which means the tax burden will be shifted to the poor.
And perusing through the list I saw this little gem: “Turn NSA satellites away from the US.” Specifically:
Which not only shows fear-mongering (or paranoia), but also shows he hasn’t the faintest idea how spy satellites work. (Spy satellites are in polar orbits and therefore overfly every country on earth.)
On this point at least, there are options that could be considered independently or in the aggregate.
The state of Washington has no income tax. It generates a fair bit of its revenue through a gross receipts tax on business income. In other words, instead of paying 10% income tax on profit, you pay 0.5% excise tax on revenue. (Just to be clear, profits = revenue - expenses, so lower tax on a higher dollar value, and it means even unprofitable companies pay some tax). We also have high sales tax rates (9.9% where I am) and moderately high property tax rates.
Value-added taxes are popular in many countries. (Though, again, I don’t think anyone has completely replaced income tax with a VAT).
Some countries even have a net assets tax on accumulated wealth.
The irony is that Johnson (and people of his ilk) don’t like any of the options either. They just want the problem to go away. You might as well put a leprechaun on the party ticket.
Privatize everything. Because, you know, business does everything more honestly and efficiently than government. Right? Once everything is run by business and governed by the magical invisible hand, taxes will be unnecessary. Hell, we could even privatize Congress, and the Whitehouse. (Oh, wait…)
Okay, let us imagine the alternative reality world in which Johnson heads a major party ticket and is to be considered as someone with a realistic chance.
Zero interest in let alone expertise or experience in or even basic knowledge of international affairs.
Desired domestic policies mostly are insane. (See multiple posts above.) Against minimum wage and vetoed going up from $4.25/hour to $5.65 when he was governor.
Record as governor demonstrated that his preferred means of dealing with the legislative branches was just going nuts with the veto as above: he claims 750 such vetoes.
Defending his fringe crazy as being so fringe crazy that Congress would link arms together and sing Kumbaya to override his many vetoes does not make his ideas any less finge crazy.
“What’s wrong with Gary Johnson?” Personally I blame too much pot.
That is sort of a chicken v. egg thing. Does Johnson smoke too much weed because he is stupid or is he stupid because he smokes too much weed? Or does it merely amplify his inherent mental/emotional deficiency? I read a piece not long ago about how the FBI was trying to hire some good hackers to help them fight cyber-terrorism, but all the really good hackers were stoners. Weed does not, in and of itself, make a person stupid. If one is already stupid, though…