Forbes Youtube Trump proposes building new freedom cities, baby bonuses

Cliffs - typical puffery, that's Trump, I don't like it but it's who he is and I get it for campaign purposes; but most importantly a recipe for massive government spending through pipe dreams. We need long term thinking and a frontal assault on the bloat, dysfunction, and corruption within the federal government. No one cares about the pretty sky scraper across the street when their house is falling apart.

Here's a summary of the video, my comments are in bold.

1. Americans have always had big dreams and big projects.

2. Today we have lost our boldness.

3. Quantum leap in standard of living. This always happens through the free market, through innovation, not government intervention.

4. Almost 1/3 of landmass in US is owned by the govt. Hold contest for 0.5% of that land, to charter new cities. That's a no for me, dog. I fear this is a recipe for disaster about 10yrs down the road.

I am fearful that a guy like Trump will look at land in scenic areas, we all know it's gotta be "the most beautiful land" and no matter who wins the charter, that land will be bought by Gates, Hollywood etc, just like they do with farmland, with beautiful areas in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana etc. All the residential lots, commercial lots etc, they will fall into the wrong hands. 100% guarantee of this.

I don't want to lose more of nature, I'd like to get more of it back. Unintended consequences worry me.

Thomas Sowell has always said to not only look at what an initiative is designed to do, but what it incentivizes. Big companies and big money like Gates, Amazon et al will swoop into these places, making all sorts of promises and it will be a disaster for workers, and they will buy up these cities. Once a state wins a charter, they will be courted by these Big Money types.

We'll effectively end up with Amazon-City where they control everything with their own brand of automation. This will take the "surveillance" state to a whole new level. No thanks.

This idea briefs well but in reality it will be another partnership between government and Big Money, which is fascism.

5. These new cities: Give people new shot at home ownership, etc. They will create demand which creates price increases. If there's an exodus from nearby places, prices may drop there, but not in the new cities.

The only way this type of thing becomes cost effective for individuals is if the government subsidizes this. The federal government or state will either pay our tax dollars to subsidize or they will cut deals with Big Money to come in cheap but to get high ROI long term along with high amounts of control for BlackRock, Amazon and so forth, not for local govs and not for the People.

Also, I don't believe the People want this. People want what they currently have to get better - not some pipe dream, yet another pipe dream, orchestrated by government.

6. Transportation has opportunities. US not China should lead breakthroughs in VTOL vehicles for individuals. This is complete insanity. We barely have people that can drive on land, and autonomous vehicles are a complete non-starter at this time. There is no way I'm going to support people driving next to me and above me. No chance. Too many bad drivers, distracted drivers etc.

The last thing I want to do is go outside and try to look up at a clear blue sky on a nice day and stare at the opening scene from the Jetsons. To hell with this idea.

You want VTOL, find a better approach.

7. Manufacturing initiative. Turn forgotten communities into hives of industry. Produce things here that were transferred to china. I'm all for this. We desperately need to do this. INCENTIVIZE this activity and the free market will make it happen. I have many ideas along these lines. No pipe dreams. Free markets and incentives with minimal government input. Period.

8. Initiatives to reduce cost of new cars and homes, and they will be beautiful homes. This is code for spending more government money, aka our tax dollars. Take the brakes off the economy and prices will come down. Reduce the bloat in government and prices will come down. Keep it simple, as much as possible.

9. Ask Congress to support baby bonuses to get new baby boom. We don't need a baby boom, especially from a generation that has been indoctrinated in the worst educational system in the modern world, thanks to the teachers unions and people like Randi Weingarten or whatever her name is.

Make the country richer, stronger, and smarter. The population numbers will take care of themselves at that point.

10. Modernization and beautification. Get rid of old, ugly buildings. Make things more livable, a pristine environment, build towering monuments to our heroes. Also more for police to keep us safe. Good grief, can we stop with the gilded nonsense about building monuments and such? It's just fluff. We need substance.

This grandiose talk - More code for hundreds of billions, maybe trillions, of additional government spending. Also, what was the infrastructure bill for? If that wasn't going to fix this, then you better be investigating not pledging more money to the same issue.

I want the beautification part, but it must be budget-neutral at the federal level. Aside from that, make it easier for the People and the states to do this stuff on their own. Let states compete with each other for creating a more livable and enjoyable environment that people want to live in and move to. Keep the federal government away from almost every bit of this.

Support police, ok - but only if it comes with improving the police. And that really ought to be a local decision, except for federal prosecution of corrupt police work at all levels. Federal government needs to worry about ratcheting down its 'police' in terms of surveillance, corruption at FBI and DOJ etc. This is more code for more federal spending, so Trump can say 'look what I did'. It's myopic grandstanding with other people's money.

11. Talk about greatness again. Dramatically increase living standards. Sounds good, but none of what he mentioned captured the best way to do this, which is to reduce government and let the free market make it happen, and incentivize - not subsidize. Some subsidies will be fine and won't hurt us, but these plans will involve insane amounts of subsidies. If we learned anything from his first term, it's that Trump will certainly sign checks using your tax dollars.

This was fluff from Trump and it's mostly a recipe to spend more money with no ROI for that money and it's coupled to opportunities and incentives that are going to lead to unintended consequences. This is short term thinking and we desperately need long term thinking at this time.

Boldness is generally good. However, the boldness we need is in attacking a bloated, dysfunctional, and corrupt federal government. It can't get bolder than that. Unless and until that is done, all of these big plans will get corrupted by the system in place.