America is known as a land of prosperity worldwide, being one of the richest countries in the world and being known to use their riches to attempt to end conflicts in foreign nations. However, America’s riches are not shared by every US resident. Therefore, in order to support the more vulnerable, the United States should cut back on the overzealous policies. Congress can balance the federal budget by regulating the price of drugs and treatments, increasing the minimum wage to $15, and changing to a more passive military policy.
Healthcare is the area of highest spending in the federal budget, of around 1.2 Trillion dollars. Around 86% of the healthcare budget, is spent on the treatment of chronic diseases, the top six being cancer, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, arthritis, and alzheimer’s disease(“National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP).”, 2018). Many of these illnesses have viable methods of treatment. However, many of these treatments are unreasonably overpriced. Diabetes, for instance, can be controlled using insulin, a drug costing around $300 per vial on the market. Despite this, the actual cost of manufacturing insulin was $1 in 1967, which would be $7.49 today However, control by an oligopoly over the patent for the modern method of insulin production has allowed prices to skyrocket (Trigdell, 2017). Although the Medicare does not provide insulin, the availability of insulin would dramatically decrease the number of diabetes-related emergencies and illnesses that would be paid for by the federal government. Thus, if the price of insulin were to be regulated to be more affordable to the general public, Medicare spending on the treatment of diabetes would significantly lower. Overpricing also occurs in the cancer treatment industry in America. Estimated cumulative spending on cancer drugs in United States was $32 billion, while in the UK it was $14.5 billion (Dolgin, 2018). If cancer drugs in America were priced like they are in the UK, the federal government would for one, have to pay less per cancer patient, and secondly, have less cancer patients to pay for, since more would be able to afford cancer treatment without Medicare or Medicaid help. At minimum, the United States could save $17 billion in cancer treatment (Dolgin, 2018). United States spends around 192% as much as the average of eleven high income countries(Papanicolas, 2018). If United States passed laws that regulated pricing of pharmaceuticals to even that of Switzerland, only second to United States in pharmaceutical spending, the US could save around at least $113 billion dollars , given that they spent 325 billion on pharmaceuticals in 2015 (Olson, 2018). Therefore, if United States were to regulate pricing of drugs and medical treatment, $130 billion could be deducted from the healthcare budget. This would not only decrease deficit, but also save many lives by making medication more accessible. It would however, decrease the salaries of many with healthcare-related jobs.
A large portion of federal spending goes into food stamps, housing support, and other forms of economic security. Despite this, with the current federal minimum wage of $7.50 per hour, even with the addition of government support, low wage workers find it difficult to survive. Thus, increasing the national minimum wage to $15 would benefit Americans and the Federal government alike. Increasing the minimum wage would decrease the number of people needing economic support from the government. Some studies have estimated that increase to a $12 minimum wage could save $17 billion in Economic Security funds (“Bernie Sanders Says Minimum Wage Hike to $15 Would Reduce Federal Assistance by $7.6 Billion a Year.” , 2016). Therefore, it is reasonable to estimate that a $15 minimum wage could save at least $20 billion. Furthermore, an increase in minimum wage would lead to more being able to afford healthier, fresh foods. A $15 minimum wage increase is expected to decrease American food insecurity by 6.5 % (Anzilotti, 2016). Lack of fresh foods is one of the leading causes for chronic diseases in America. While the effect wage increase would have on healthcare budget is incalculable, if the increase in food security saved even 1% funds used for chronic disease, the government would save $10 billion. Some argue that minimum wage increase would only increase unemployment rate. This could be compensated for by decreasing corporate tax by 1%, lightening economic pressure put on businesses, and allowing them to employ more. Loss from this could be generated back by increasing taxes for the top 1% bracket by .2% and for the Upper-Middle and Middle brackets by .1%, in total giving a net tax revenue increase of $2 billion. This change however, has the danger of leading some companies outsource jobs for cheaper work.
The US military is the third largest in the world (Dillinger, 2018). It takes on the role of a “global fire brigade”, and most of its involvement currently is outside of the US and generally not directly threatening America. However, military’s self-assigned role is unnecessary, costing $603.2 billion dollars, and significant environmental damage. Hence, it would be best for United States to assume a more defensive military strategy that remains largely neutral on wars that don’t concern it. Given a more passive military, military personnel and weapons could be halved. Weapon budget cuts would include seizing or slowing the production of machinery such as tanks and jet planes, which are used for far more offensive attacks and often require more maintenance. Thus, the maintenance budget could be cut to ⅜ of its original size. Furthermore, $6.3 billion could be deducted from research funding, and, due to a more neutral stance, foreign military aid and nuclear spending could be cut entirely. Some may argue that this more passive role would only make United States more open to nuclear and terrorist attacks. However, United States would still have funds for military to monitor and prevent domestic terrorist attacks, just a downsized one. Furthermore, it is extremely unlikely that any country would ever fire nuclear missiles on any country, especially the US, which already has stocked up a large arsenal, due to the great risk of nuclear war. A neutral stance on foreign wars could also be seen as the US turning their back on countries in need. However, the US can lend aid to foreign nations through other means besides military. Furthermore, effects of military actions in Middle East, such as the severe environmental damage in Iraq possibly caused by American weaponry waste(Mathiesen, 2014), and the US worsening the war in Yemen(Niarchos, 2018), suggest that military involvement has actually done more harm than good.
This plan will definitely lessen the world’s perception as a global peacekeeping superpower. However, focus on the more vulnerable of America rather than possible threats from the outside will make America a more prosperous place. A country is only flourishes as much as its poorest citizens, and in rising their living conditions, the federal government rises the wealth of America as a whole.